The Rhetorical Qur’an

Abstract

This chapter examines the notion that the Qur’an is a document of an “age of rhetoric,” showing the ways in which the Qur’an uses rhetorical means to present a convincing and novel statement in relation to previous texts and credos. This includes a view to the early reception of the Qur’an in terms of the concept of its “incapacitating” rhetoric, which was highlighted in the early reception history, and also shows the ways in which the rhetorical structures of earlier creeds are incorporated and “overcome” in particular ways in the Qur’an. This shows how the Qur’an and the community around it developed within a Late Antique milieu.