The Qur’an: Surah Studies (IQSA)

Call For Papers: The Surah Studies Unit of IQSA invites proposals for individual papers on any aspect of Surat al-Waqi‘ah (Q 56). Proposers may, for example, wish to explore: the surah’s liturgical and devotional importance for Muslims (it appears in almost all lists of the suwar al-munjiyat, the “surahs that save”); the surah’s division of the judged into three groups (companions of the left, companions of the right, and frontrunners), rather than the more usual pairing into those in paradise and those in hell; Shiite interpretations of the surah, notably the frontrunners (al-sabiqun v. 10, al-muqarrabun v. 11); the surah’s structure and composition, notably the shift that takes place after v. 75; the rhyme scheme and the reasons for the departures from it; the surah’s eschatological and polemical themes; and much else besides. The Surah Studies Unit encourages and welcomes diverse methods and approaches. Indeed, the raison d’être of the panel is to bring different perspectives on a given surah—especially surahs receiving little scholarly attention otherwise—into dialogue with one another.

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