Scholarly interest in the Koran is growing. 
By Peter Monaghan
With scholarly studies of the Koran intensifying, it's time for the formation of an association that represents the increasingly diverse field.
So say the organizers of an effort to form, over the next three years, the Society for Qur'anic Studies, which its organizers call the first independent, global organization of its kind.
The initiative comes from a perhaps surprising quarter, the Society of Biblical Literature. With a $140,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, the society's officials say they want to start an independent Koranic-studies counterpart to support scholarship and teaching about the Koran in its historical, religious, and cultural contexts. The new group aims to foster collaboration among scholars, hold conferences, publish a journal, and offer career development and other forms of professional support.
For a biblical-studies group to lead the effort may seem like an unlikely gesture of ecumenism, but its executive director, John F. Kutsko, thinks it makes sense for his association to take the lead. Founded in 1880, the society holds its annual meeting jointly with the American Academy of Religion, typically attracting 11,000 attendees.
The society has "the expertise to help nurture and provide operational support" for a Koranic-studies association, says Mr. Kutsko. "That is all we're trying to do, and to headquarter that here at the Luce Center, which really is a foundation for the study of religions." The society "will play no role in setting an agenda for these scholars," he adds.
"More than ever today, the Koran is as important in terms of culture and history as the Bible," says Mr. Kutsko. "We can't be global, informed citizens without understanding its traditions, and without making the Koran more and more a part of a liberal-arts education."
The new Society for Qur'anic Studies will "speed up some of the growing new methodologies of studying the Koran—archaeological, textual, historical, critical," he says. "There is already a rich tradition that goes back to medieval Koranic studies of discussion and debate. So we are just building on that, and we're welcoming all these voices to come to the table to enrich this study. This is a very capacious, inclusive effort."
Mr. Kutsko and his fellow organizers are eager to avoid being seen as presumptuous or as exhibiting a colonialist attitude. "We have no preconceived and presumed ways of reading," he reiterates. "We are all enriched by many voices coming to the table for research and writing, and for teaching."
According to Gabriel Said Reynolds, an associate professor of Islamic studies and theology at the University of Notre Dame, the Society for Qur'anic Studies intends to support emerging methods of studying the Koran that complement the devotional approaches that have long been a hallmark of Islam.
"Our initiative is meant to add something to that, not be in conflict in any way," says Mr. Reynolds, who is one of three directors of the committee forming the new group.

'Judeo-Christian-Muslim'

Interest in Islamic studies is growing. Over the past decade, job postings for scholars of the Koran have soared. In 2010, the Society of Biblical Literature listed 34 positions in Islamic studies, compared with eight in social sciences and religion, and 12 in Christian studies.
Two book series on the Koran, one from the Dutch publisher Brill, called Texts and Studies on the Quran, and another from Routledge, Studies in the Quran, have been publishing well-received titles.
As more scholars of Islam grow up, train, or settle in the West, their views have become increasingly well known, Mr. Reynolds says. "We have seen a remarkable rise of scholarship in the academy, manifested in a whole wave of new publications, series of academic conferences, and an explosion of Web sites."
That marks a significant change, he notes: "There has historically been a focus in the West on the Bible as the principal scripture of academic interest. Scholars increasingly are interested in text from non-Christian, non-Jewish religious traditions. People have discovered that the Koran is a book that is related to the Bible. They share common protagonists, common stories. And historically, the way that Islamic religious thought has developed has been in conversation with Jewish and Christian religious thought."
That was another impetus for the Society of Biblical Literature, says Mr. Kutsko: "Biblical scholars certainly have been developing an interest in the Koran, as scripture relating to the biblical tradition. Biblical scholars have long seen the importance of the study of the Koran in the study of Western-world religions. It's something of a misnomer and even bias to speak of the Judeo-Christian tradition; it's really a Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition."
"But biblical scholars are not Koranic scholars," he adds, "and they are completely aware of that."
Mr. Kutsko and his colleagues see their role as one of collaboration, not treading on the toes of scholars of the Koran. "Biblical scholars are somewhat well suited to help as conversation partners," he says. "Central to the intellectual tool kit of biblical scholarship are various methodological approaches that are very transferable—textual criticism, historiographic analysis, comparative linguistics, redaction theory, source criticism.
"On top of that, you have the growing interest in the history of interpretation, the reception theory of texts.
"SBL sees this absolute need for an independent society," says Mr. Kutsko, "so they find their own mission."
He and his fellow organizers on the committee are "prepared for the fact that there will be many questions, curiosities, even criticism," he says. "So we're trying to walk into this carefully, so that when it launches we will have built bridges internationally, to help to respond to any concerns."
Even so, "some people will look askance," says another member of the planning committee, Shawkat Toorawa, an associate professor of Arabic literature and Islamic studies at Cornell University. For many Islamic clerics, he explains, "the fact that the Koran is regarded as divine trumps everything else. But if you look at the classical tradition of commentary that existed in the eighth to 10th centuries, there was a lot of critical study even by pious Muslims."
Among academics, the reception for the new group has been positive, if guarded. Bruce B. Lawrence, an emeritus professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, says the Society for Qur'anic Studies represents "an overdue recognition of the importance of comparative scripture." He adds: "I am especially impressed that it is younger scholars—the latest generation of those to embark on Islamic studies within the field of religious studies—who are spearheading this welcome endeavor."
The initiative is one "I most enthusiastically welcome," says Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, a professor of law at Emory who is an expert on Islamic law. But practitioners of traditional modes of Islamic thought—the Koranic sciences, or ulum al-Qur'an—will worry about Western academe's approaches and methods, he says, and about how a society of Koranic studies will "interact with both traditional scholars in the field and modern scholarship in Islamic societies."
He elaborates in an e-mail: "In particular, I am concerned whether such initiatives in the West will simply replicate 'biblical studies' approaches to the Qur'an, or strive to identify and develop ways of conceptualizing issues and developing methodologies that are more appropriate to the nature of the Qur'an, which is radically different from the Bible as a religious text.
"I of course prefer the latter, but would not expect this outcome to emerge without deliberate planning and strategies."
Walid Saleh, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Toronto, already sees cause for concern. The initial news release, he says, "makes it look as if there are no academic forums for the study of the Koran." That slights the School of Oriental and African Studies, in London, its major conferences, and its journal, "now in its 12th year, with hundreds of articles on the Koran of the highest quality," he says.
It also gives short shrift to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a leading Koranic authority in Germany, and its significant project, Corpus Coranicum, a repository of commentary, imagery, and analysis of the Koran. Still, he says, "it would be very interesting to see what this consultative group will manage to do that we do not already do."
Emory's Mr. An-Na'im also expresses anxiety. Slip-ups will leave some scholars of Islam disgruntled—they will want to see judicious approaches from both Islamic and Western scholars, he says. "In this regard, good intentions are not good enough."

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