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Scholars in the Islamic world and the West alike have long debated the Quran’s relationship to the Bible. While some Muslim scholars have consulted the Bible to add details to Quranic accounts, others have deemed such borrowing from the Jewish and Christian traditions forbidden. 

A lecture by scholar Gabriel Said Reynolds at the ����ֱ�� Tangier Global Forum will explore the idea that the Quran depends on its audience’s Biblical knowledge to advance its own message. By citing examples like the Quran’s references to the killing of prophets, its account of Abraham’s guests, and its description of paradise as a garden in heaven, Reynolds will argue that the Quran presupposes a certain knowledge Jewish and Christian traditions even as it shapes them in ways that conforms to its own theological message. 

The lecture will take place on Thursday, April 20 at 7 p.m. local time (2 p.m. EST) in the auditorium at ����ֱ��’s Tangier Campus. The lecture will be live-streamed to students and faculty on ����ֱ��’s two Maine campuses and to viewers around the world.

Reynolds researches the Quran and Muslim/Christian relations and is Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology in the Department of Theology at Notre Dame. He is the author of  The Quran and Its Biblical Subtext and The Emergence of Islam, the translator of ʿAbd al-Jabbar’s Critique of Christian Origins, and editor of The Quran in Its Historical Context and New Perspectives on the Quran: The Quran in Its Historical Context 2. He is currently chair of the executive board of the International Quranic Studies Association and completing a book on the Quran in light of Biblical tradition. At Notre Dame, he teaches courses on theology, Christian-Muslim Relations and Islamic Origins.

Learn more about the event

This will be the seventh lecture of the academic year for the Tangier Global Forum. It follows lectures that have addressed such issues as the challenges facing the Arab world, the birth of monotheism, and the applicability of the lessons of the Enlightenment to our challenges today. This year’s series will conclude in May with a lecture from former U.S. Senator George Mitchell titled “Is Peace Possible in the Middle East?”