Qisas al-Anbiya

Common card · No. 355570

The Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ (Arabic: قِصَص الْأَنـۢبِيَاء, lit. 'Stories of the Prophets') 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...

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