Subproject 1:

Based on the synergistic theoretical foundation of EQaB (see theoretical framework), the first subproject is entitled “The Qur’anic Pedagogues: Theoretical Perspectives on the Educational Strategies of the Qur’an”.

 

Recite, for your Lord is the most generous/who taught by the pen/who taught man what he did not know (Q 96:3–5). This passage encapsulates a teaching situation: God is the Qur’anic teacher who educates humankind. However, the Qur’an also features the ideal human teacher: the Prophet. While the Islamic configuration of this teacher is fully elaborated in post-Qur’anic traditions, the EQaB subproject 1 (SP1) argues that a notion of Muhammad as the final and imitable role model is much more present in the Qur’an than hitherto acknowledged: Muhammad aspires to set that human example which every Muslim throughout history will attempt to emulate. With the theoretical frame of EQaB, combining Durkheim, Hadot, Sloterdijk, and Bellah, SP1 therefore takes Christiansen’s work, “The Educational Qur’an” (2019), one step further by systematically considering the teachers, their functions, and developments in and throughout the Qur’an, as well as the text’s educational normativity, particularly its systemic durability. The individual outcome of SP1 is a monograph.

SP1 constitutes the EQaB’s dimension of depth and is managed by PI Johanne Louise Christiansen.

Christiansen, Johanne Louise. 2019. “The Educational Qurʾān: ‛Maybe Youp Will Understand’ (laʿallakum taʿqilūn)”. Numen 66 (5–6): 550–79.