The Liturgical Qur’an

This chapter lays out a detailed discussion of the liturgical usage of the Qur’an texts that is evident in the texts and the changes in ritual and liturgical function evident through a reading of the Qur’an texts. A picture emerges of the gradually increasing adoption of the sura as a liturgical form through the early, middle, and late Meccan phases, followed by its expansion into the “long form” sura in the Medinan phase. This development is related also to discernible changes in the early cult practices, in which the suras came to serve more as sermons than as psalmic prayers.