Qisas al-Anbiya

The Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ () is any of various collections of stories about figures recognised as prophets and messengers in Islam, closely related to tafsīr (exegesis of the Qur'an).

Since the Quran refers only parabolically to the stories of the prophets, assuming the audience is able to complete the rest from their own knowledge, it became necessary to store the version the original audience had in mind to keep the purpose of the message, when Islam met other cultures during its expansion.

Authors of these texts drew on many traditions available to medieval Islamic civilization, such as those of Asia, Africa, China, and Europe. Many of these scholars were also authors of commentaries on the Qurʾān; unlike Qurʾān commentaries, however, which follow the order and structure of the Qurʾān itself, the qiṣaṣ told its stories of the prophets in chronological order, which makes them similar to the Jewish and Christian versions of the Bible. The narrations within the Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ frequently emphasise wisdom and moral teachings rather than limiting themselves to historical-style narratives.

Islamic scholars and theologians have consistently regarded the writings in Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ as unreliable for studying the lives of prophets and messengers in Islam or for historical research, and disapprove of them. Abdul Wahhab Najjar's (1862–1941) qaṣaṣ () explained the stories of the prophets solely based on Quranic sources, and is diametrically opposed to earlier ones. However, they share the chronological structure of earlier Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ and a summary of the prophetic moral lessons.Andrew Rippin The Qur'an: Formative Interpretation The Qur'an: Formative Interpretation p. 322

Content The Qiṣaṣ usually begin with the creation of the world and its various creatures, including angels, and culminate in Adam. Following the stories of Adam and his family come the tales of Idris; Nuh and Shem; Hud and Salih; Abraham, Ishmail and his mother Hagar; Lot; Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph; Shuaib; Moses and his brother Aaron; Khidr; Joshua, Eleazar, and Elijah; the kings Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon; Jonah; Dhu al-Kifl, and Dhu al-Qarnayn; all the way up to and including John the Baptist and Jesus, son of Mary. Sometimes the author incorporated related local folklore or oral traditions, and many of the Qiṣaṣ al-'Anbiyāʾs tales echo medieval Christian and Jewish stories.

History

The Qurʾān frequently mentions and uses stories of biblical figures, but only in the case of Joseph son of Jacob does it narrate a prophet's story in a linear, complete form. Implicitly the original audiences of the Qurʾān had enough knowledge of these biblical figures to understand the allusions, but subsequent early Muslims felt the need for more information about these figures, who came in Islam to be known as prophets (, anbiyāʾ). Particularly influential sources of biblical knowledge, whose information was transmitted by later Muslim scholars, were ʿAbdullāh ibn Salām (d. 663), Kaʿb al-Aḥbār (d. c. 652), and Wahb ibn Munabbih (d. c. 730); their information underpinned the first written expositions of the Qurʾān's allusions to biblical figures, tafsir (exegetical commentaries). These commentaries inspired a tradition of historical writing that began to present biblical figures in a more linear, narrative form; the principal work of this kind was the Tarikh al-rusul wa-l-muluk by al-Tabari (839–923).De Nicola, Bruno, Sara Nur Yıldız, and A. C. S. Peacock, eds. Islam and Christianity in medieval Anatolia. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2015.

Alongside written commentaries in the early Islamic period, under the Umayyad Caliphate, people paid storytellers (quṣṣāṣ) to preach about religion; they communicated legends about biblical figures that circulated both orally and in writing among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities. Along with preachers during Friday prayers, they were the first paid functionaries of Islam. From the eighth century, they were increasingly disparaged as folkloric preachers, and were disregarded by institutional scholars (ʿulamāʾ).Lutz Berger "Islamische Theologie", Facultas Verlags- und Buchhandels AG 2010 p. 19

By the early ninth century CE the tradition of both written commentaries and oral storytelling inspired collections of fully narrated biographies of the prophets, and these Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ became a distinct genre of Islamic literature:Andrew Rippin The Qur'an: Formative Interpretation The Qur'an: Formative Interpretation p. 316 the earliest to survive are Mubtadaʾ al-dunyā wa-qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ by Abū Ḥudhayfa Isḥāq ibn Bishr Qurashī (d. 821) and the Kitāb badʾ al-khalq wa-qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of ʿUmāra ibn Wathīma (died 902).Roberto Tottoli, 'The Qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of Ibn Muṭarrif al-Ṭarafī (d. 454/1062): Stories of the Prophets from al-Andalus', Al-Qantara, 19.1 (1998), 131–60. Perhaps the most important work, characterised by Roberto Tottoli as "probably the most comprehensive collection of stories of the prophets, and [...] the most widely known in the Arab world", was Abū Isḥāq al-Thaʿlabī ʿArāʾis al-majālis fī qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, from around the early eleventh century.

Like the Qurʾānic commentaries or Jewish haggadic texts, however, the Qaṣaṣ are often didactic rather than simply narrative. Unlike the Qurʾān, the Qiṣaṣ were never considered as binding or authoritative by theologians. Instead, the purpose of the Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ was to offer Muslims complementary material based on the Qurʾān, to explain the signs of God, and the reasons for the advent of the prophets.Andrew Rippin The Qur'an: Formative Interpretation The Qur'an: Formative Interpretation p. 319 Themselves derived from Jewish and Christian texts, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ went on to influence Jewish writing within the majority-Muslim world: for example, the fourteenth-century Jewish scholar Shāhin-i Shirāzi drew on such sources.

During the mid-sixteenth century, several illuminated versions of the Qiṣaṣ — such as Zubdat al-Tawarikh and Siyer-i Nebi — were created by Ottoman authors and miniature painters. According to Milstein et al., "iconographical study [of the texts] reveals ideological programs and clichés typical of the Ottoman polemical discourse with its Shi'ite rival in Iran, and its Christian neighbours in the West."Stories of the Prophets

Major works +authortitledate (CE)languagemodern translationsAbū Ḥudhayfa Isḥāq ibn Bishr QurashīMubtadaʾ al-dunyā wa-qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾc. 800ArabicʿUmāra ibn WathīmaKitāb badʾ al-khalq wa-qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾninth centuryArabicFrench al-ṬabarīTārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūkearly tenth centuryArabicEnglishHistory of Tabari (The History of the Prophets and Kings) - Complete 40 Volumes by Umair Mirza Baḷʿamī Tarikhnamatenth centuryPersianAbū Isḥāq al-ThaʿlabīʿArāʾis al-majālis fī qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾearly eleventh centuryArabicEnglish,Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Thaʻlabī, Lives of the Prophets, trans. by W. M. Brinner, Studies in Arabic Literature, 23 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), . GermanBusse, Heribert, ed. Islamische Erzählungen von Propheten und Gottesmännern: Qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʼ oder ʻArāʼis al-maǧālis. Vol. 9. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006.Ibn Muṭarrif al-ṬarafīQaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾearlier eleventh centuryArabicItalianRoberto Tottoli, "Le Qaṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ di Ṭarafi" (PhD thesis, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, 1996).Abū Naṣr Aḥmad al-BukhārīTāj al-qaṣaṣc. 1081PersianMuḥammad al-KisāʾīQaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾc. 1100ArabicEnglish, HebrewAbū Ishāq Ibrāhīm ibn Mansūr ibn Khalaftwelfth centuryNāṣir al-Dīn ibn Burhān al-Dīn RabghūzīQaṣaṣ-i Rabghūzī1310/1311Khwārazm TurkishEnglishAl-Rabghūzī, Stories of the Prophets. Qaṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ: An Eastern Turkish Version, ed. by H. E. Boeschoten and J. O'Kane, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2015), .Mustafa of ErzurumSiyer-i Nebifourtheenth centuryOttoman TurkishIbn KathirQaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾfourteenth centuryArabicMuḥammad RabadánDiscurso de la luz de Muhamad1603Spanish

Qisas al-Anbiya

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