An Oral-Formulaic Study of the Qur'an

The Qur’an makes extensive use of older religious material, stories, and traditions that predate the origins of Islam, and there has long been a fierce debate about how this material found its way into the Qur’an. This unique book argues that this debate has largely been characterized by a failure to fully appreciate the Qur’an as a predominately oral product.

Using innovative computerized linguistic analysis, this study demonstrates that the Qur’an displays many of the signs of oral composi...