Alwan for the Arts Presents
The Quran in an Historical Context by Nasr Hamid Abu Zayed
Friday, April 24, 2009 6:30 P.M.
Free and Open to the Public
Religious texts are understandably ubiquitous and take on a life of their own, above and beyond the quotidian, above and beyond history, and are endowed with a sacred halo of omnipotence and omnipresence. However subjecting sacred texts to innovative forms of historical, hermeneutical or allegorical readings can be an immensely rich exercise in bringing out the multidimensional view inherent in the text and in our reception of its meaning. In this lecture, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayed will offer a survey of the most recent theories, controversies and discoveries in the field of Quranic studies as well as address by way of a historical and comparative reading the circumstances in which the Quran was formed and its relationship to the Bible.
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayed is the Ibn Rushd Chair for Islam and Humanism at the University of Ultrecht as well as professor of Islamic Studies at Leiden University. Graduate of Cairo University, with a PhD in Qur’anic Studies, he is one of the pioneers of Islamic thought and author of more than a dozen books.
For an example of Abu Zayed’s writing, see: http://www.wrr.nl/english/content.jsp?objectid=3672