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This chapter continues the discussion of case begun in Chapter 3, looking in detail at one significant source of early data, the qiraa’aat, or Qur’anic reading traditions. These are essential to the Qur’aan, since it is only in the reading traditions that a fully-voweled text is specified. Final versions of these were spelled out in the early 10th century by Ibn Mujahid, who sanctioned seven versions. It is suggested that one of the traditions, that of Abu ’Amr ibn ’Alaa (d. 154/770), was based on a caseless variety of Arabic. The crucial interpretive discussion revolves around the practice of al-’idghaam al-kabiyr as described in a work by 15th-century Damascene scholar al-Jazariy. This involves the elision of short vowels, including presumed case vowels, between various consonants which assimilate to each other. It is argued that in this tradition short vowels were inserted in non-elidable contexts, and that these vowels had phonetic, not morphemic value.

This chapter examines the strategies and tropes used by the Arab and Persian chroniclers in the medieval Muslim narratives of the battle of Manzikert, and the didactic purposes for which these narratives are used. Qur'anic resonances, such as presenting the arrogant Byzantine emperor Romanus as a latter-day Pharaoh, and other Muslim elements in these accounts, such as the importance of positioning the battle on a Friday, are discussed. Narrative techniques, including theatrical features, are analysed. The influence of the Mirrors for Princes advice literature is also examined. This chapter emphasises in its conclusion that these accounts can hardly be described as providing concrete details about the actual battle of Manzikert; instead, they are vehicles through which Arabic and Persian writers can praise their Turkish overlords, can vaunt the military prowess traditionally associated with the Turks, and – through the triumphal symbol of none other than the captured Byzantine emperor himself – can proclaim the triumph of Islam over Christianity. Thus Manzikert provides not only a spur but also an examplar for subsequent Muslim victories over the Christian foe.

This chapter introduces the corpus of aḥādīth al-ṣifāt and its role in shaping the traditionalistic definition of anthropomorphism through the case-study of an anthropomorphic tradition attributed to Mujahid, one of the earliest Quran exegetes. According to this tradition, the ‘honourable station’ (maqām maḥmūd) which is mentioned in Quran 17:79, denotes that the Prophet Muhammad will sit on the heavenly throne with God. This marginal tradition which was rejected by the majority of the traditionalists became an iconic text due the relentless efforts of the Baghdadian Hanbalites of the ninth and tenth centuries. The Hanbalites toiled to prove the antiquity and the authenticity of the text, while using an array of rhetorical devices to promote this text and sanctify it. Thus, Abu Bakr al-Marwazi (d. 888), who was Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s (d. 855) foremost disciple, used to illustrate Muhammad’s sitting on the throne by standing up and sitting down. This gesture conveyed the Hanbalite creed that Muhammad’s sitting on the throne was actual rather than metaphoric. The political events that accompanied this anthropomorphic text are also surveyed in this chapter.

Discusses the conversion of Qur’anic writing from ambiguously majestic Kufic scripts to the elegantly legible scripts developed by Ibn Muqla (d. 940) and Ibn al-Bawwab (d. 1022), focusing on a substantial group of Qur’an manuscripts made between the 10^th and 11^th centuries. The article argues that this two-phase transformation of Qur’anic writing reflected a specifically exoteric/zahir view of the scriptures, in conformity with contemporary Abbasid theology and as a challenge to its divergent Fatimid counterpart.

This chapter deals with the Qur’anic concepts of jihād and ṣabr by selectively looking at verses which refer to the non-combative meanings of these terms between the middle Meccan to the early Medinan period. Several key exegetical works from the Umayyad to the Mamlūk periods are consulted. They include the commentaries of Mujāhid b. Jabr (d. ca. 104/722); Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150/767), al-Tabarī (d. 310/ 923); al-Wāhidī (d. 468/1076); al-Zamakhsharī (d. ca. 538/1144) Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), and al-Qurtubī (d. 671/1273) in order to obtain representative samplings of views from various historical periods. The focus in this chapter, as is true of subsequent chapters, is on the retrieval of multiple and contested understandings of jihād and ṣabr through a comparison of early and later works of exegesis.

Poetry has long been a central pillar of Afghan Literature and the Taliban have used it extensively in their IO campaign. Poetry is important to the Taliban and Afghans in general because it is essentially a spoken, not written art, so it accessible to the illiterate, especially rural Afghan population. The chapter examines a wide variety of Taliban poetry and also poetry written by those sympathetic to the Taliban. Each poem also includes an explanation of the story associated with it. An analysis of Taliban poetry to those of moderate Afghan poets. The chapter also focuses on 8 or poetic chants that have traditionally played an important role in the communication of local afghans. Numerous chants and their associated stories are examined that often reflect the manipulation by the Taliban of Afghan traditions, narratives, collective memory of events, and culture. These chants focus on themes such as: Taliban victory is inevitable, Islam can never be defeated, the Taliban are national heroes, Afghans have a long history in defeating invading foreign “infidels”, and all Afghans have an obligation to join the jihad to defeat invaders and apostates.