New Perspectives and Contexts in the Study of Islamic Origins

Monday 12 June 2017

08:00-15:00 Arrivals and Lunch
17:00 Welcome
14:45-19:30 Session 1: Bible and Qur’ān
  • Gabriel Reynolds, “Biblical Turns of Phrases in the Qur’ān”
  • Respondent – Isaac Oliver

20:00 Dinner

Tuesday 13 June 2017

09:00 – 10:15. Short Papers: Piety and Society in Early Islam
  • Mette Bjerregaard Mortensen, “The Concept of Muhājirūn – and Its Potential Significance for the Piety of the Seventh Century Qur’ānic Movement”
  • Philip Wood, “Communalism and social boundaries in the canons of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre and his predecessors”
  • Christian C. Saehner, “What can Zoroastrian Sources Tell us about Early Islamic History?”

10:45–12:30 Session 2: Origins of Qur’anic Militancy

  • Tommaso Tesei, “Heraclius’ War Propaganda and the Origins of the Qur’ānic Concept of Fighting Martyrdom”
  • Respondent: Christian Sahner
13:00 Lunch
14:30-16:15 Session 3
  • Boaz Shoshan, “The Sāsānian Conquest of Ḥimyar Reconsidered”
  • Respondent: Michael Bonner
16:45 – 18:00. Reading Sessions
  • a) David S. Powers, “The raid of Usāma b. Ziyad (Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, 3:1117-1128)”
  • b) Tommaso Tesei & Guillaume Dye, “The Qur’anic She-Camel”

Wednesday 14 June 2017

8:00 Meeting at the Hotel and transfer by bus to the Synagogue of Florence
9:00 – 10:15 Short Papers: The Qur’ān as a Literary-Polemical Document
  • Guillaume Dye, “Mapping the Sources of the Qur’anic Jesus”
  • Paul Neuenkirchen, “Eschatology and Creeds – Reading the Qur’ān as Homily”
  • Thomas Hoffmann
10:30 – 12:15 Session 4: Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins
  • Aaron Hughes, The Current Status and Problems of Islamic Origins”
  • Respondent: Guillaume Dye
12:15-13:15 Visit of the Synagogue and Jewish Museum
13:15 Lunch
15:00 – 17:00 (optional) Meeting on Women in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Syracuse University, Florence, organized by COREIS: Main speakers: Debora Spini (NY University of Florence), Sherazade Housman (Università Gregoriana) e Marisa Trythall (Georgetown University).
17:00 Meeting at Syracuse University, City Tour in bus and transfer to the Faculty of Theology
18:00 (optional): Lecture by Michael Bonner at the Faculty of Theology
19:45 Reception for our group at the Faculty of Theology
21:00 Dinner – Transfer by bus to the hotel

Thursday 15 June 2017

09:00 – 10:15 Short Papers: Early Islam and Jewish Traditions
  • Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Enoch between Late Antiquity and Islam”
  • Isaac Oliver, “Hanging by a Rabbinic Thread: The Qur’anic Construction of the Ideal Jew in Surat Al-Baqarah”
  • Julian Stinchcomb, “The Queen of Shebah in the Qur’ān and Late Antique Midrash”
10:45 – 12:30 Session 5
  • Marcus Milwright, “Shock of the New? Writing and the Propagation of Religious Ideology in the First Century of Islam”
  • Respondent: Manfred Kropp
13:00 Lunch
14:30 – 16:15 Short Papers: Living in a Material World
  • Gilles Courtieu, “Why Hārūt, why Mārūt, why Hārūt and Mārūt?”
  • Alba Fedeli
  • Robert Kerr, “التحريف الإسلامي. Forging ahead into the Islamic Past”
  • Arianna D’Ottone, “Arabic Glasses (coin weights, jetons and vessels stamps) from Umayyad Syria”
18:00: Transfer by bus to Bivigliano – Dinner

Friday 16 June 2017

09:00 – 10:45 Session 6: Eschatology and Empire
  • Stephen Shoemaker, The Portents of the Hour: Eschatology and Empire in the Early Islamic Tradition”
  • Respondent: Tommaso Tesei
11:15 – 12:00 Closing Plenary Session