The Quʾran as text

This book contains the updated papers of the international symposium 'The Quran as Text' which was held at the University of Bonn in November 1993. This collection intends to break away from the nineteenth-century paradigm of 'influence', which seems largely exhausted but still dominates Quranic studies. Instead, this collection focusses on the literary, the intertextual and the receptional aspects of the Quranic text. A new approach to the holy book of Islam in the light of modern hermeneutics which is based on modern methods of literary history, text-linguistics, and aesthetics can open more adequate understanding of the Quran, its role for Islamic religion, and its unique place in the history of world religions today.