The Aḥmad Enigma: Unveiling Qur’anic and Matthean Scriptural Engagements
Through meticulous philological analysis of Arabic, Syriac and Greek lexica, this study posits that Qur’an 61.6–9 manifests a purposeful literary, contextual and etymological engagement with Matthew 12.16–31, proposing a novel interpretation of the qur’anic reference to aḥmad. Surmounting the hither...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
Year: 2025, Volume: 36, Issue: 3, Pages: 269-293 |
| Further subjects: | B
Islam
B Aḥmad B Dīn B Matthew B Paraclete B Qur’an |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Through meticulous philological analysis of Arabic, Syriac and Greek lexica, this study posits that Qur’an 61.6–9 manifests a purposeful literary, contextual and etymological engagement with Matthew 12.16–31, proposing a novel interpretation of the qur’anic reference to aḥmad. Surmounting the hitherto common association of aḥmad in Q 61.6 with the Johannine Paraclete discourse, the research contends that the term aḥmad functions not merely as a proper noun or superlative adjective, but as a verbal construction – ‘I [God] praise’ – functioning as a citational echo of the divine declaration in Matthew 12.18: ‘whom I desire, in whom my soul delights’. This specific connection intimates that the qur’anic islām (‘self-surrender to God’) actualizes the Matthean malkūteh da-llāhā (‘the Kingdom of God’), positioning divine sovereignty within the human heart. A salient insight of this Isaianic-Matthean-qur’anic parallelism resides in underscoring the core concept of dīn as ‘divine judgement’, rather than merely ‘religion’, powerfully evoking the semantic domain of dīn in the frequent qur’anic phrase yawm al-dīn (‘the Day of Judgement’). The study furthermore asserts that Sūrat al-Ṣaff’s thematic nexus centres on the ultimate manifestation of ‘the light of God’ and ‘the judgement of truth’, superseding earlier interpretations that prioritized martial exhortation. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9311 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/09596410.2025.2592172 |
