Author

Gabriel Said Reynolds did his doctoral work at Yale University in Islamic Studies. Currently he researches the Qur’ān and Muslim/Christian relations and is Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology in the Department of Theology at Notre Dame. He is the author of The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext (Routledge 2010) and The Emergence of Islam (Fortress, 2012), the translator of ʿAbd al-Jabbar’s Critique of Christian Origins (BYU 2008), and editor of The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context (Routledge 2008) and New Perspectives on the Qur’ān: The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context 2 (Routledge 2011). In 2012-13 Prof. Reynolds directed, along with Mehdi Azaiez, “The Qurʾān Seminar,” a year-long collaborative project dedicated to encouraging dialogue among scholars of the Qurʾān, the acts of which appeared as The Qurʾān Seminar Commentary (De Gruyter, 2016). In June 2018 he published The Qurʾan and the Bible with Yale University Press. In 2020 his latest book, Allah: God in the Qur’an, will also be published with Yale. At Notre Dame he teaches courses on theology, Muslim/Christian Relations, and Islamic Origins.

Presentation

The central figure of the Qur’an is not Muhammad but Allah. The Qur’an, Islam’s sacred scripture, is marked above all by its call to worship Allah, and Allah alone. Yet who is the God of the Qur’an? What distinguishes the qur’anic presentation of God from that of the Bible?

In this illuminating study, Gabriel Reynolds depicts a god of both mercy and vengeance, one who transcends simple classification. He is personal and mysterious; no limits can be placed on his mercy. Remarkably, the Qur’an is open to God’s salvation of both sinners and unbelievers. At the same time, Allah can lead humans astray, so all are called to a disposition of piety and fear. Allah, in other words, is a dynamic and personal God. This eye-opening book provides a unique portrait of the God of the Qur’an.