CSI Monday Majlis: Gabriel Said Reynolds
A Faithful Dog and a Clay Bird: The Qur'an in its Christian World
Register please on this link: https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/3uYLlGdRRcGlh0sgg2JnOw
| An Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies seminar | |
|---|---|
| Date | 19 January 2026 |
| Time | 17:00 to 18:30 |
| Place | Online Only |
| Organizer | IAIS |
Event details
Abstract
Abstract:
The Qur’an’s engagement with Christian stories, including the story of young men and their miraculous “sleep” in a cave, and the story of a clay bird brought to life by the breath of Jesus, points to its emergence in a late antique Christian world. In this talk I will argue that the Qur’an competes with Christian claims by reshaping these stories for its own theological program, thereby undermining their Christian apologetic uses. The clay-bird miracle, for example, was popular among Christians for its presentation of Christ’s divine nature (even as a child). In the Qur’an it becomes simply one of the signs that God works through prophets. These case studies reveal a scripture at once deeply conversant with and strategically resistant to its Christian world.
Bio:
Gabriel Said Reynolds the Crowley Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext (Routledge 2010), The Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective (Fortress, 2012; 2nd ed. 2023), The Qur’ān and the Bible: Text and Commentary (Yale 2018), Allah: God in the Qur’an (Yale 2020) and Christianity and the Qur’an: The Rise of Islam in Christian Arabia (Yale 2025), translator of ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Critique of Christian Origins (BYU 2010), editor of The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context (Routledge 2007), New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context 2 (Routledge 2011), and co-editor of The Qurʾān Seminar Commentary (De Gruyter, 2016).
