The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān (IEQ) is a reference work based on fourteen centuries of Islamic scholarship on the Qur’ān. It brings to the English-speaking world a unique blend of classical and contemporary scholarship in an accessible and reader-friendly format. Its potential readers include academic scholars, whether specializing in the field of Qur’ānic studies or working more generally in other disciplines, and Muslims and non-Muslims looking for an authentic source of in-depth and scholarly knowledge on the Qur’ān and its message.

IEQ draws its entries from the thematic structure of the Qur’ān itself. All concepts, places, and persons mentioned in the Qur’ān have been covered in over 625 entries. It employs English-language lemmata with certain modifications and its intensive cross-referencing makes article location easy.

Once completed, IEQ will represent a breadth of knowledge on the Qur’ān seldom found in any single work in a Western language. It draws its scholarly acumen from fourteen centuries of Qur’ānic scholarship. It embraces a variety of perspectives present in the Islamic exegetical literature and provides a much-needed alternative to works on the Qur’ān by Orientalists as well as by most contemporary academic scholars. Muslim and non-Muslim specialists focusing on Qur’ānic studies, scholars and students in all disciplines in academic institutions, and general readers will discover an illuminating breadth of knowledge in The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān.

Muslims and IEQ

Today only about 20 percent of all Muslims understand the language of the Qur’ān. This inability to directly access the multi-layered linguistic richness of the original text of the Qur’ān is often combined with a lack of sufficient training in reading the Qur’ān—even in translation—for those who are schooled through a modern Western-style educational system. Since the Qur’ān remains a fundamental part of their lives at so many levels of existence, millions of Muslims look for different translations, exegeses, dictionaries, and translations of classical texts on the Qur’ān in order to engage with it at a deeper level. These sources are useful to some extent, but since classical texts were not intended to be used without guidance, those readers who lack training in reading these texts are more likely to be confused than enlightened. For instance, when one encounters thirteen different (and sometimes mutually contradictory) opinions on one verse in Jami` al-bayan `an ta’wil ay al-Qur’ān, al-Tabari’s (d. 310/923) monumental tafsir, or when one finds seven different sayings of the Prophet in reference to one verse in Ibn Kathir’s (d. 774/1373) Tafsir al-Qur’ān al-`azim, one needs to have the requisite training in tafsir and hadith methodology and scholarship to understand this wealth of material. Thus, as a concise and authentic reference work which presents this vast repository of classical Islamic literature on the Qur’ān in a language and manner that is accessible to modern readers, The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān will be an invaluable source to such readers.

The Qur’ān, Non-Muslims and IEQ

If the paths to the Qur’ān have become restricted for Muslims due to barriers of language and education, they are almost completely blocked for a vast majority of non-Muslims. This exclusion is a dual calamity: not only are countless men and women never really able to come into contact with the Words of the Creator, but also, as a result, a fundamental divide separates those who believe in the Qur’ān and those who do not. In a way, this divide has always existed ever since the Qur’ān was first revealed some fourteen centuries ago, but the contemporary situation is unlike the past; the rapid shrinking of the globe in so many realms of human existence—geographical, intellectual, political, social, economic—has made it impossible for any community to live in isolation. Thus those who believe in the final revelation of the Creator and those who do not now live in close proximity to one another in so many dimensions of space and time. This has generated a great deal of friction and simultaneously a rapid growth of interest in the Qur’ān by non-Muslims. As a result, the number of non-Muslims who have actually opened one of the many available translations of the Qur’ān has increased exponentially in recent years. After reading the first few pages, however, a vast majority of these readers find it impossible to continue, for they encounter a text unlike any they have ever read. They find neither coherence nor logical connections of the kind most familiar to them. Moreover, the imagery of the Qur’ān remains utterly foreign to them in even in the best of translations, not to speak of its miraculous totum simul—the simultaneous totality (al-wahdat al-mawdu`iyyah)—that creates the whole in every part. In the multi-layered coherence of the Qur’ān, all its themes emerge in short passages, creating an inimitable interplay between its imagery, oaths, parables, chronicles, warnings, and glad tidings. With so many elements of text coalescing, separating, reuniting, and reemphasizing each other at numerous levels, the result can be total incomprehensibility and confusion.

Often all that a sincere non-Muslim reader gains out of his or her first encounter with the Qur’ān is an overall sense of alienation. Those who attempt to understand its message through other books find few representative works in Western languages. Books by non-Muslim scholars are rarely of help, for they often serve only to enlarge the canon of Orientalist writing. Neither has the burgeoning field of contemporary academic studies made a significant positive contribution in this regard. Most Muslim scholarship on the Qur’ān, on the other hand, remains inaccessible to non-Muslims as well as to Westernized Muslims for reasons of language, style, basic premises, format, and content. The paucity of genuine resources available to such seekers looking for an authentic source to understand the message of the Qur’ān will be somewhat alleviated by The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān, which will provide scholarly material in a manner and format familiar to them.

The Qur'ān, The Academy, and IEQ

Non-Muslim academic scholars have yet another dilemma when approaching the Qur’ān. They cannot commit themselves to any position about the Divine origin of the Qur’ān; their professional obligation is to maintain a certain detachment from the object of their study. Yet, in this case, the object itself makes it impossible to maintain such neutrality, for the Qur’ān demands that one must settle the fundamental issue of its authorship before any further interaction can occur: one must either accept or reject the Qur’ānic claim that it is a Divine Revelation.

A corollary of whatever choice they make is their position regarding the Prophet. Acceptance of the Qur’ān as a Divine Revelation simultaneously entails the acceptance of the Prophet Muhammad as the final Messenger of Allah and the seal of prophecy. If they reject the Qur’ānic claim, they simultaneously reject his prophethood and thereby find themselves in the difficult position of questioning his honesty and truthfulness—something that polemical writers have done for centuries. Such scholars, thus, find themselves in an irresolvable dilemma: if they commit to a position on the Qur’ān, they sacrifice their ‘impartiality’; if they do not, they cannot legitimately interact with the text they are studying. This dilemma has been recognized by a number of academic scholars, who further admit that no solutions are available.

Against this historical background, IEQ brings to the academic world a unique reference work, sharing with its sources the premise that the Qur’ān is a revealed text while simultaneously maintaining scholarly norms and standards. Academic scholars will, therefore, welcome a reference work on the Qur’ān that presents, in concise form, fourteen centuries of Islamic scholarship, even though they might not fully agree with its basic premises. Those who work in the specialized field of Qur’ānic studies and have the linguistic ability to directly access the vast corpus of Muslim scholarship produced over the last fourteen hundred years will also find IEQ appealing, for it makes available in one work materials and resources that are scattered over a vast body of sometimes inaccessible texts. It will serve as a useful starting point for new dimensions of intensive research, for it brings to attention well-referenced paths to a large reservoir of Islamic scholarship on the Qur’ān. Researchers in disciplines other than Qur’ānic studies, especially those without the linguistic skills to directly access the formidable corpus of Qur’ānic sciences in the original, will appreciate IEQ because it fulfills one of their essential needs by presenting Qur’ānic scholarship in a familiar style and language.

Key Features of IEQ

• IEQ assumes serious engagement, but no prior knowledge of Arabic or of the Qur'ān. It employs English-language lemmata with certain modifications and its intensive cross-referencing makes article location easy.
• IEQ integrates a large body of classical scholarship on the Qur’ān and makes it available to the contemporary readers. This integration takes place at several levels—from the conception of the overall framework to the individual entries—and results in a scholarly work that is simultaneously contemporary and classical.
• IEQ draws its entries from the thematic structure of the Qur’ān itself. The editors have striven to cover all themes of the Qur’ān and have assigned proportionate space to articles in relation to their relative importance in the Qur’ān. This feature of IEQ becomes apparent from the “Thematic List of Articles” (to be included in Volume 7), which presents an index of articles under Qur’ānic themes such as Faith (al-Iman) and its various dimensions; Deeds (al-a`mal); Calling toward Allah (al-da`wah il’aLlah); Jihad (al-Jihad); Economic Relations (al-`alaqat al-maliyyah); Juridical Relations (al-`alaqat al-qad’aiyyah); Chronicles and History (al-qasas wa’l-ta’rikh); the Qur’ān itself as a theme of the Qur’ān (al-Qur’ān); Other Religions (al-diyanat al-ukhra); Sciences and Arts (al-`ulum wa’l-funun); and the like. Muslim scholars have built a tradition of exacting scholarship over the past fourteen centuries which explicates each theme in detail, keeping in view its precise relationship with the overall message of the Qur’ān. This internal thematic unity of the Qur’ān, often overlooked in works produced by non-Muslim scholars, also provides a coherent schema for cross-references; it thereby facilitates a broader understanding of the message of the Qur’ān.
• The editors have identified approximately 600 entries and several hundred cross-references to the concepts, places, and persons mentioned in the Qur’ān. Entries have been divided into five categories: special, major, medium, minor, and short. These are being assigned to Muslim scholars who are specialists in the field of Qur’ānic studies.
• IEQ will bring to the English-speaking world a breadth of knowledge on the Qur’ān seldom found in any single work in a Western language. It draws its scholarly acumen from fourteen centuries of Qur’ānic scholarship. It embraces a variety of perspectives present in the Islamic exegetical literature, and provides a much-needed alternative to works on the Qur’ān by Orientalists as well as by most contemporary academic scholars. Muslim and non-Muslim specialists focusing on Qur’ānic studies, scholars and students in all disciplines in academic institutions, and general readers will discover an illuminating breadth of knowledge in The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān.
• Potential readership includes academic specialists in the field of Qur’ānic studies, faculty in religious studies departments, researchers engaged in research on any aspect of Islam, graduate students, Muslims interested in an in-depth study of the Qur’ān, non-Muslims seeking specialized knowledge on concepts, places, and person mentioned in the Qur’ān.
• First authentic reference work on the Qur’ān by Muslims in any Western language, presenting a wealth of classical and contemporary scholarship on the Qur’ān from an Islamic perspective.
• Brings together concise, representative summation of fourteen hundred years of Islamic scholarship on the Qur’ān.
• Covers all concepts, terms, personalities, and place names mentioned in the Qur’ān.
• Provides in-depth and well researched articles on all major themes of the Qur’ān.
• Serves both as a lexicon of Qur’ānic terms and a reference work.
• Over 600 alphabetically arranged entries, approximately 3500 pages in seven volumes.
• Fulfills an important need of specialists in a wide range of academic disciplines, including those working in Islamic studies, religious studies, Biblical studies, and history, and social sciences.
• Provides bibliographic references to several hundred classical works on the Qur’ān.