THE PROPHETIC VOCATION IN THE QUR’AN: KERYGMATIC AND

THEONOMIC VISIONS OF PROPHETOLOGY

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate School

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of the University of Notre Dame

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

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Doctor of Philosophy
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by

Andrew J. O’Connor

Gabriel Said Reynolds, Director

Graduate Program in Theology

Notre Dame, Indiana

April 2019




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Andrew J. O’Connor
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 THE PROPHETIC VOCATION IN THE QUR’AN: KERYGMATIC AND

THEONOMIC VISIONS OF PROPHETOLOGY

Abstract

by

Andrew J. O’Connor

This dissertation examines the Qur’an’s presentation of the function and authority

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of prophets; that is, its construction of definitions of prophethood, which I refer to as its
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prophetology. The dissertation’s core thesis is that the Qur’an does not have just one

vision of prophetology—rather it evinces two primary paradigms of the prophetic

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vocation. I refer to these as the Qur’an’s “kerygmatic” and “theonomic” paradigms of

prophethood. First I situate the Qur’an’s broader presentation of prophethood within the

history of prophetic activity as a whole and demonstrate its connection to developments

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within the context of Late Antiquity. Second I outline the contours of these two

paradigms. I argue that its sequential recollection of earlier prophetic figures (what I call

“messenger-reports”)—the building blocks of much of the kerygmatic paradigm—

suggest a typological reading of prophets as preachers of an eschatological message, but

also demonstrate a certain adaptability in its understanding of prophethood. The

kerygmatic paradigm itself is also constructed through a set of recurrent motifs that limit

the role of prophets to proclaiming this eschatological message. The theonomic vision,

however, emphasizes the authority of a prophet over his community, delineating

 Andrew J. O’Connor

communal and legal norms, directing his community in armed struggles, and

emphasizing the centrality of his person and status.

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For Sarah, for never hesitating to tag along for the adventure.
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 CONTENTS

Figures................................................................................................................................ vi

Tables ................................................................................................................................ vii

Acknowledgments............................................................................................................ viii

A Note on Transliterations and Scriptural Citations .......................................................... xi

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Chapter 1: Introduction and Methodology...........................................................................1
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................1
1.1.1 Overview of the Dissertation ..............................................................9
1.2 Literature Review.............................................................................................12
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1.3 Methodology ....................................................................................................41
1.3.1 The Qur’an and the Sīrah ..................................................................43
1.3.2 Chronology and the Qur’an ..............................................................57
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1.3.3 The Literary and Structural Unity of Surahs.....................................74
1.3.4 The Qur’an, the Bible, and Late Antiquity .......................................78
1.3.5 Etic versus Emic Approaches ...........................................................88

Chapter 2: A Brief History of Prophets .............................................................................91

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2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................91

2.2 Defining a Prophet ...........................................................................................92
2.3 The Ancient Near East ...................................................................................100
2.3.1 Amorite (Old Babylonian) Prophets in Mari ..................................102
2.3.2 Prophets in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.............................................112
2.3.3 Prophets in West Semitic/Aramaic Sources ...................................121
2.4 Prophets in Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible ..........................................124
2.4.1 Prophets in the Lachish Ostraca ......................................................125
2.4.2 Prophets in the Hebrew Bible .........................................................128
2.4.2.1 The Prophetic Lexicon of the Hebrew Bible .................. 130
2.4.2.2 Prophets and Narrative in the Hebrew Bible .................. 135
2.4.2.3 The Written Prophets, Prophecy, and Canon .................. 147
2.5 Prophets in Early Judaism and Christianity ...................................................153
2.5.1 The Cessation of Prophecy?............................................................153
2.5.2 Prophets in Early Judaism and Christianity ....................................163
2.6 Prophets in Late Antiquity .............................................................................171
2.6.1 Prophets and Typology ...................................................................171

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 2.6.2 The Rise of “Holy Men” in Antiquity.............................................174
2.6.3 Mani and Manichaeism ...................................................................175
2.6.4 Arabian Prophets? ...........................................................................178
2.7 Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................181

Chapter 3: Messengers, Prophets, and Prophecy in the Qur’an .......................................183

3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................183
3.2 The Qur’an’s Prophetic Lexicon ....................................................................184
3.2.1 Rasūl ...............................................................................................184
3.2.2 Nabī .................................................................................................196
3.2.3 Messenger versus Prophet...............................................................203
3.2.4 The Prophet is Not a Soothsayer or Sorcerer ..................................215
3.3 The Process of Revelation .............................................................................221
3.4 The Dramatis Personae of Qur’anic Prophethood ........................................225

Chapter 4: The Kerygmatic Paradigm, Part I: Messenger-Reports .................................252

4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................252

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4.2 “Punishment-Stories”.....................................................................................254
4.3 In Imago Prophetae: Scholarship on Messenger-Reports .............................261
4.4 Brief Allusions to Judgment and Destruction ................................................272
4.5 Sequential Messenger-Reports.......................................................................278
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4.5.1 Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt (Q 37) ......................................................................280
4.5.2 Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ (Q 26)..................................................................288
4.5.3 Sūrat al-Qamar (Q 54) ....................................................................302
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4.5.4 Sūrat Ṣād (Q 38)..............................................................................307
4.5.5 Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ (Q 21) ..................................................................311
4.5.6 Sūrat Hūd (Q 11) .............................................................................319
4.5.7 Sūrat al-Aʿrāf (Q 7) .........................................................................328
4.6 Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................332
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Chapter 5: The Kerygmatic Paradigm, Part II: Recurrent Motifs ....................................336

5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................336
5.2 Implicit Eschatological Prophetology ............................................................337
5.3 The Prophet as Warner...................................................................................341
5.3.1 Prophet as Warner (1): Its Eschatological Focus ............................342
5.3.2 Prophet as Warner (2): Prophetic Continuity..................................348
5.3.3 Prophet as Warner (3): Limitations.................................................353
5.3.4 Warning in Earlier Prophetic Discourse .........................................357
5.4 The Prophet as Herald of Good News ...........................................................360
5.4.1 Good News in Earlier Prophetic Discourse ....................................365
5.5 The Prophet as Clear Communicator .............................................................367
5.6 ‘The Prophet Asks for No Reward.................................................................372
5.6.1 Prophets and Payments in Earlier Literature ..................................375
5.7 The Parameters of Prophetic Responsibilities ...............................................377
5.8 The Parameters of Prophetic Powers .............................................................387
5.9 Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................396
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Chapter 6: The Theonomic Paradigm ..............................................................................398
6.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................398
6.2 “God and His Messenger” .............................................................................400
6.2.1 The Eschatological Importance of Believing in the Messenger .....403
6.3 The Elevation of the Messenger’s Person, Status, and Authority..................405
6.4 The Prophet as Legal Authority .....................................................................422
6.5 The Prophet as Military Leader .....................................................................428
6.5.1 Militant Prophecy in Comparative Perspective ..............................440
6.6 Messenger-Reports in the Theonomic Paradigm ...........................................443
6.7 Kerygmatic Elements in the Theonomic Paradigm? .....................................453
6.8 Concluding Remarks ......................................................................................458

Chapter 7: Conclusion......................................................................................................460
7.1 Summary ........................................................................................................460
7.2 Why Two Paradigms? ....................................................................................465

Appendix A: Surahs by Paradigm....................................................................................473

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A.1 The Theonomic Surahs .................................................................................473
A.2 Surahs with Little Prophetology: Prayers, Invocations, and Creeds .............474
A.3 Anomalous or Composite Surahs ..................................................................478
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Appendix B: Doctrines of Prophethood in Early Islam ...................................................485
B.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................485
B.2 Sunnah and the Question of Prophetic Fallibility in the Qur’an ...................486
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B.3 The Emergence of Prophetic Sunnah ............................................................491

Bibliography ....................................................................................................................506
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 FIGURES

Figure 3.1: Occurrences of rasūl/mursal in order of increasing MVL. ..........................250

Figure 3.2: Occurrences of nabī in order of increasing MVL. .......................................250

Figure 3.3: Occurrences of rasūl/mursal in order the chronology of Nöldeke-

Schwally. ..............................................................................................................251

Figure 3.4: Occurrences of nabī in order the chronology of Nöldeke-Schwally. ...........251

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 TABLES

Table 3.1 Prophets vs Messengers ...................................................................................204

Table 4.1 Characters of the Messenger-Report Sequences ..............................................280

Table 4.2 Intra-Textuality and Doublets from Q 7 ..........................................................332

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Table A. 1 Surahs of the Theonomic Paradigm ...............................................................474

Table A. 2 Surahs with Little to No Prophetology ..........................................................475

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Table A. 3 Anomalous or Composite Surahs...................................................................478
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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I still remember reading the proverb Es fällt kein Gelehrter vom Himmel, “no

scholar falls from the sky,” in German class during my first summer of the Ph.D. program

at Notre Dame. This expression stuck with me, and my experience has proven it to be an

accurate piece of wisdom. I continually find myself indebted to the advisors, colleagues,

and friends who have guided me as I developed as an academic. I am especially grateful

to my advisor, Gabriel Reynolds, for his unfailing support and guidance. Gabriel is a

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model of humility and hard work, and I was continually impressed with his ability to

return my sloppy, fifty-page rough drafts with his judicious comments in a matter of
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days. This dissertation also grew out of a paper I wrote for one of his Ph.D. seminars, and

I am grateful that he encouraged me to pursue it further. Thanks are also due to the rest of
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my dissertation committee members: Mun’im Sirry, Abraham Winitzer, and Nicolai

Sinai. Mun’im has been a constant source of encouragement throughout my doctoral

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program, and his seminars on qur’anic exegesis have had a profound impact in my

understanding of the field. He also helped make sure that my arguments were made with

greater clarity and precision. Avi was an invaluable resource for Chapter 2 and helped me

navigate more than one relatively unknown field. I also owe him gratitude for everything

I learned from his Hebrew and Aramaic courses, which not only included the languages

themselves but also guidance on responsible readings of texts. Finally, Nicolai offered

thought-provoking commentary on some of the most important chapters and saved me

from making hasty claims. The “Unlocking the Medinan Qur’an” seminar, which he

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hosted at Oxford in March 2017, provided the first forum in which I could test out some

of my ideas.

Though not involved directly in the dissertation, other faculty at Notre Dame, and

from my education elsewhere, deserve mention as well: Bradley Malkovsky, Paul

Kollman, and Peter Casarella of the World Religions and World Church area at Notre

Dame; Mark Noll and Deborah Tor of the History Department; the late Gary Knoppers of

the Theology Department; Fred Donner at the University of Chicago (who first instilled

in me an interest in the Qur’an), and Michael Chamberlain at the University of

Wisconsin-Madison (who first encouraged me to study Arabic). Alan Krieger, the

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Theology Librarian, ordered any book that I asked without hesitation. Finally, Cheron
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Price, the Graduate Studies Coordinator, remains a superhero in my mind.

Of all the fellow graduate students who served as dialogue partners and—more
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importantly—sources of merriment, laughter, and leisure, there are too many to name. I

will, however, single out Mourad Takawi in particular. Mourad and I entered the WRWC

program together, and with his companionship at every stage I have been especially
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blessed. Regarding this dissertation I also owe thanks to Justin Buol for answering any

questions I had about Greek, and to Josh McManaway for answering questions about

Syriac.

During my years at Notre Dame I was the recipient of a Fulbright Research

Fellowship to work in Amman, Jordan. Without this support the completion of the

dissertation would have been much harder, or at least would have dragged on for much

longer. The Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies proved to be gracious hosts. I also

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benefited from a Presidential Fellowship throughout my doctoral studies, for which I am

very grateful.

My family has always been supportive of my goals, even when my studies

seemed esoteric to them. I would like to thank my parents, Tom and Joan O’Connor, who

instilled in me a love of reading. My brothers, Erik, Marty, and Michael have all provided

boosts in morale (and much-needed distractions) throughout the years. Finally, I owe the

biggest debt of gratitude to my wife, Sarah. She has never wavered in supporting me and

never hesitated to make sacrifices to assist me along the way. Her patience and

understanding know no bounds. It is to her that this work is dedicated.

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 A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATIONS AND SCRIPTURAL CITATIONS

Arabic

All transliterations of Arabic into Latin script follow the system of the Journal of

the International Qur’anic Studies Association (JIQSA), which can be found here:

https://iqsaweb.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/jiqsa-guidelines-and-style-sheet-29-july-

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2018.pdf. For words or proper names common in English (namely Qur’an, surah, hadith,

and Muhammad) I have forgone the use of diacritics. I transliterate the feminine ending
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marker (tāʾ marbūṭah) as “-ah.” Individual words, paired nouns/adjectives (ism wa-

ṣifah), or nouns in an iḍāfah construction from the Qur’an are transliterated without
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declension. Otherwise prepositional phrases or longer clauses are transliterated with full

declension (iʿrāb).
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Other Languages

Romanizations of Greek and Hebrew follow the transliteration standards of The

SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2014). My

transliteration of Aramaic and Syriac is generally modelled on the romanization of

Hebrew.

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Citations of Scriptures

All quotations from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament, and

Apocrypha are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Quotations from the Qur’an are taken, with some modifications, from the

translation of Alan Jones, trans. The Qur’ān: Translated into English. Cambridge: Gibb

Memorial Trust, 2007. All Arabic from the Qur’an is taken from the 1924 Cairo edition

(the reading of Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim).

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 CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

1.1 Introduction

The Qur’an is a text about prophets. Just as it speaks continuously of God,

paradise, hell, proper beliefs, practice, and ethics, it is profoundly concerned with

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imparting to its audience a proper understanding of prophets, prophecy, and the veracity

of its prophetic claims. Readers encounter—alongside declarations of God’s oneness and

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the reality of Judgment Day—frequent clarifications, elaborations, and exhortations about

the authority and responsibilities of the messengers of God. It presents a continuous

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apologia for its messenger, whom it unceasingly defends against the skepticism,

dismissal, and critiques of his contemporaries, and to which it responds in kind with its
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own polemics. 1 The acceptance of its prophetic vision is almost as important as its

theological message, and it frequently clarifies the function and task with which its

prophet has been charged. In a sense, therefore, the Qur’an is a book as much about its

prophet as it is about God. Indeed as nascent Islam expanded and evolved, literature on

prophets and prophethood emerged as important genres in which Muslims continued to

1
Note that throughout this study I use the words “prophet” and “messenger” (or “messenger of
God”) as synonymous. The first reflects the Arabic word nabī (also transliterated nabiyy), and the second
the Arabic rasūl (and rasūl allāh). See the beginning of Chapter 3 for my justification for treating them as
synonyms.

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refine and develop their identities, understandings of history, and theological

understandings of the role of God’s prophetic messengers. 2

Certainly, as Chapter 2 will make clear, peoples, cultures, and religions have not

always meant precisely the same thing with the concept of a prophet. 3 In the ancient Near

East, prophets served in the temples of deities and advised monarchs on important

matters of state. With the Hebrew Bible, the words of prophets became codified into a

scriptural canon to be read and remembered by a religious community, and in the advent

and early years of the Common Era, many communities viewed prophets as the founders

or instigators of religious reform movements or inspired interpreters of earlier histories or

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texts. The Qur’an, for its part, has its own discourse about prophets.
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Accordingly, this dissertation is an investigation into the “prophetology” of the

Qur’an. Prophetology is any discourse about prophets (from Greek prophētēs, “prophet,”
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and logos, “discourse”). The Qur’an’s prophetology therefore refers to how the Qur’an

understands, defines, and develops the mission and purpose of a prophet or messenger of

God. Therefore, I use prophetology as a shorthand for the Qur’an’s “doctrine of

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prophethood,” though here it might be more accurate to think of the Qur’an’s

2
One prominent example is the “proofs of prophecy” or “signs of prophecy” literature, such as
Kitāb ḥujaj al-nubuwwah by al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 868–9), Tathbīt dalāʾil al-nubuwwah by ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 1025)
and Aʿlām al-nubuwwah by al-Māwardī (d. 1058). These works typically served apologetic purposes in
dialogue with Christians. See Sarah Stroumsa, “The Signs of Prophecy: The Emergence and Early
Development of a Theme in Arabic Theological Literature,” Harvard Theological Review 78 (1985): 101–
114. See also Gabriel Said Reynolds and Samir Khalil Samir, eds., The Critique of Christian Origins: Qāḍī
ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s (d. 415/1025) Islamic Essay on Christianity (Provo, UT: BYU Press, 2010), xlii–xlvi.
Another is the “stories of the prophets” genre, including the Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of al-Kisāʾī (d. 805) and Ibn
Kathīr (d. 1372) or al-Thaʿlabī’s (d. 1035) ʿArāʾis al-majālis fī qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ. On the latter, see Marianna
Klar, Interpreting al-Thaʿlabī’s Tales of the Prophets: temptation, responsibility and loss (New York, NY:
Routledge, 2009).
3
However, see the beginning of that chapter for my umbrella definition of a “prophet.”

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“construction of prophethood.” I am interested in how a text, the Qur’an, or even

different surahs or segments of that text, construct a definition of prophethood. 4 What

does a prophet do? What is the place of a prophet within a society or community? What

is the extent of a prophet’s authority? This what I mean by the Qur’an’s prophetology. In

employing the term “prophetology,” I am particularly indebted to its use by Josef

Horovitz (who writes of “die koranische Prophetologie” 5) and Sidney Griffith. In a recent

work Griffith remarks that scholarship on the Qur’an’s prophetology has hitherto focused

on the relationship between the Qur’an’s conception of prophecy and earlier biblical,

Jewish, and/or Christian notions of the same. Considerably less attention, he notes, has

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been paid to “the Qur’ān’s own presentation of the distinctive ‘sunna of the messengers
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and prophets’ whose stories it so often recalls as the paradigm within which Muhammad

is encouraged to consider his own vocation.” 6 He therefore formulates a “typology of

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Qurʾānic Prophetology.” 7 Griffith goes on to demonstrate that the Qur’an’s own

distinctive paradigm of prophetology determines the contours of the Qur’an’s portrayal of

previous prophets:
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4
I here follow the words of Marti Nissinen in his study of ancient prophecy: “Therefore, our
principal inquiry should concern the constructs of prophecy in these texts, since it is only through the dark
glass of these multiple and often deconstructable constructs that we have access to the eventual historical
factualities that may be dimly visible as the building material of these constructs.” Ancient Prophecy: Near
Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 148.
5
Josef Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1926), 44–
77.
6
Sidney H. Griffith, “The ‘Sunna of Our Messengers’: The Qur’ān’s Paradigm for Messengers
and Prophets; a Reading of Sūrat Ash-Shuʻarā’,” in Qur’ānic Studies Today, ed. Angelika Neuwirth and
Michael A. Sells (London and New York: Routledge, 2016). 207. See also idem, The Bible in Arabic: the
Scriptures of the “People of the Book” in the Language of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2013), 62–89.
7
Griffith, The Bible in Arabic, 64.

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 Simply put, the Qurʾān evokes the memory of the biblical patriarchs and prophets
within the parameters of its own distinctive paradigm for messengers and
prophets. For the Qurʾān, the historical series of God’s prophets…is the history of
God’s renewed summons, in God’s own words, to people to return to their
neglected, but original state of awareness of the one God, the creator of all that is,
and to the God-given rule of life. For the Qurʾān, the sequence of prophets
envisions the end time, the resurrection of the dead, and the consequent reward of
the garden for the just and for the sinner…Not only is there a different accent in
the two conceptions of basically the same prophetic history, but the prophetic role
is significantly different. 8

In short, earlier Jewish and Christian understandings of prophetic figures do not

determine the Qur’an’s prophetology, but “the [Qur’an’s] prophetology structures the

biblical reminiscences; memories of biblical prophets are folded into a sequence that

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extends beyond the Bible’s reach.” 9 Furthermore this distinctive paradigm factors

prominently in the text’s critique of Christians and Jews. He in particular showcases this
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through a treatment of Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ (Q 26), a surah which features a distinctive

“pattern of recall” of previous prophets. Moses, Abraham, Noah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Lot, and
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Shuʻayb are all recollected in such a way as to make them all conform to the same

typological model. Each reiterates the same message: “Surely I am a trustworthy

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messenger for you, so fear God and obey me!” (e.g., Q 26:107–8, 125–6, 144, 162-63,

178–9) and faces the same obstinacy from their people. Griffith thus concludes that the

Qur’an’s prophetology is as follows:

1) Catholic (messengers come to both biblical and non-biblical peoples)

2) Recurrent (the patterns of prophethood recurs in a sequence)
3) Dialogical (messengers interact in admonitory dialogue with the people to whom
they are sent)

8
Griffith, “The Sunna of Our Messengers,’” 208.
9
Griffith, The Bible in Arabic, 70.

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 4) Singular in its message (i.e., the one God, who rewards good and punishes evil on
the Day of Judgment; no divinization of creatures; no talk of God having
offspring)
5) Vindicated (God vindicates his messengers and prophets in their struggles, as
witnesses in the “punishment stories”) 10
I will return to this list, and Griffith’s observations in general, in my conclusion. My own

analysis follows a similar path as Griffiths, but I not only look to the Qur’an’s stories of

earlier prophets but also the numerous proclamations about its own Messenger directed at

his contemporaries. Accordingly, in the present study I undertake a question similar to

that posed by Griffith (“what is the Qur’an’s distinctive prophetology?”), but do so on a

more comprehensive scale, allowing for variations in the text: thus, “what are the

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Qur’an’s distinctive prophetologies?”

My basic contention in this dissertation is that the Qur’an contains two paradigms
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of prophecy, and while Griffith’s delineation of the Qur’an’s prophetology often serves
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as the bedrock of both, each of these paradigms—which I term the kerygmatic paradigm

and the theonomic paradigm—contain distinctive elements. I argue that the Qur’an’s

prophetology or doctrine of prophethood is fluid, dynamic, and adaptable to different

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circumstances or developments. In the conclusion I speculate as to why the text contains

these two paradigms, positing that it is likely related to developments within the early

community’s understanding of eschatology. Note that it is not my intention to

chronologically trace the development of these prophetologies (I say more about

chronological readings of the Qur’an below), but in the conclusion I raise some

possibilities about developments.

10
Griffith, “The Sunna of Our Messengers,’” 215–216.

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 In other words, rather than striving to discern a single prophetic paradigm, I

examine the entire corpus of the Qur’an to discern if its paradigms are ever developed,

modified, or discarded. The Qur’an’s prophetology is not always uniform in its concerns

or vision; it undergoes a certain development, and scholars ought not to assume a

continuity that is not always self-evident. Like a similar survey of prophecy in the

Hebrew Bible, we should not be surprised to find a diversity of models or perspectives.

Many surahs of the text—like the different prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible—share

overarching themes, but they also make distinctive contributions. Of course, the prophetic

books of the Hebrew Bible were composed and edited over the course of centuries,

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whereas the Qur’an—according to the traditional account of Muhammad’s career—came
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into being over a period of about twenty-three years. But this should not deter us from an

appreciation of diversity in the Qur’an’s construction of prophethood. A subsequent

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quandary is why we observe such diversity.

For example, in Q 53:56 the Qur’an says of its prophet “this is a warner (nadhīr),

of the warners of old.” 11 He is likewise labeled as a “bearer of good news” (bashīr or

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mubashshir), such as in Q 7:188: “I myself have no power over benefit or harm, save as

God wills; had I knowledge of the Invisible, I would have acquired much good, and evil

would not have touched me. I am simply a warner and a bearer of good tidings for a

people who believe.” Such verses imply that the Prophet’s primary function is to remind

his audience of God’s judgment, which is a warning to those astray, but good news for

11
N.b. on my use of Jones’s translation: I typically note when I have amended his translations, but
this is not always the case. Sometimes I retain the superscript letters that Jones incorporates to designate
when the second-person pronouns in Arabic are singular (yous) or plural (youp), but in other instances I
have removed them.

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those following the right path. He has no further authority or power over his interlocutors

whether they accept or refuse his message. Only incumbent on the Prophet is the clear

delivery of his divine message (e.g., Q 13:40), whereas the reckoning (al-ḥisāb) lay with

God. This is a prophetology that is primarily kerygmatic: the function of the Prophet is to

communicate his eschatological message, while simultaneously laying claim to no

authority other than the veracity of his claims (see Chapters 4 and 5).

However, a different paradigm emerges elsewhere in the text. In some instances

the Prophet is given a role in stipulating (Q 4:13–14), arbitrating (Q 4:59), and enforcing

(Q 2:278–79) legal injunctions. Likewise, pledging one’s support to the Messenger is

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equated with pledging support to God (Q 48:10). This suggests that the Prophet is not
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simply a deliverer of messages, but a figure worthy of reverence, whose authority is

divinely sanctioned. Unlike Q 7:188, which states that the Messenger has no power to
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benefit or harm, Q 2:278–79 warns those who will not give up usury that they ought to

“be on notice of war from God and His Messenger.” Q 59:6 mentions the Prophet’s

special right to the spoils of battle, and states that “God gives authority to His messengers
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over whomsoever He wishes.” In other cases (such as in Sūrat al-Aḥzāb [Q 33]), elevated

prophetology is extended over the Prophet’s domestic matters, entailing his authority in

the affairs of his household, including over his wives and outlining proper conduct when

in his presence. Furthermore there is even a verse, Q 9:128, which seems to apply two

adjectives or attributes usually reserved for God, raʾūf and raḥīm, to the Prophet. All of

this might be summarized in Q 4:80: “Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed God.”

These and other passages suggest a prophetology that is less kerygmatic and more geared

toward establishing a theonomy with the Prophet at its head. Here the Prophet appears to

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 be more than “just a warner”: he is a religious authority, a holy man, and even a military

leader. The kerygmatic paradigm is therefore subsumed into another that has theological

and political dimensions—a paradigm that suggests that the Prophet has a theonomic

function—in which he becomes more of a theocratic chief than an eschatological

preacher. Instead of simply warning of divine punishment, he and his community have a

role in dispensing this judgment.

Of course, the Qur’an’s prophetic visions were then, in turn, further elevated over

the course of early Islamic history. With the emergence of the hadith and the

development of the notion of prophetic sunnah, the Prophet becomes not only a preacher

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or a leader of a single community: he is transformed into the exemplar for all peoples in
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all places for all ages (see Appendix B, wherein I argue that this is represents a distinct

paradigm). Al-Shāfiʻī (d. 820) argues extensively that this is the case: “God has made
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clear that He imposed in His Book the obligation to obey His Emissary, did not allow

anyone in His creation an excuse to go against a commandment which that person knows

to be a commandment of the Emissary’s, and caused all people to have need of him in
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their religion.” 12 The Prophet’s directives become no longer relevant only for his

immediate followers, but to all.

It would seem, therefore, that there are developments or even tensions in the

Qur’an’s prophetology or prophetologies, let alone between the Qur’an and its later

interpretations. The careful reader is presented two—or possibly more—distinct portraits

Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, al-Risālah (The Epistle on Legal Theory), ed. and trans. Joseph
12

E. Lowry (New York and London: New York University Press, 2013), 78 (English 79).

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