A Review of the Book "The Quran in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Quranic Milieu

The research on the relationship between the Quran and the biblical and post-biblical traditions is a long-standing tradition in the Islamic studies of orientalists. There have long been two distinct approaches in this field. Some researchers such as Geiger, Noldeke,  Wansbrough and others have sought to prove a Jewish origin for the Qur'an, and others such as Arthur Jeffery, Richard Bell, Lüling and others have come to the position of drawing a Christian Milieu for the Qur'an. Due to the separation of Quranic studies from rabbinical and priestly studies after the Second World War, along with the increase in expertise in these closely related fields, there are no longer scientists who have the skills and knowledge of historical linguistics necessary to understand the Quran as a multicultural text from Late Antiquity (between 250 and 750 AD). The Quran in Context: Historical and Literary Investigations into the Quranic Milieu containing 39 articles by researchers specializing in various fields such as the political, economic, linguistic, and cultural context at the time of the Qur'an's descent is, on the one hand, an attempt to answer this question that whether the detailed literary analysis of the Qur'an text itself can contain hints to determine the environment and place of its origin. On the other hand, the different approaches of the authors of the articles in using classical Islamic sources, non-Arabic Jewish and Christian writings, as well as classical Latin and Greek sources are an incentive for this type of interdisciplinary dialogue about the Qur'an.