This talk will argue that the Qur’an taken as a whole is best understood as a text offering first and foremost a rehearsal of God’s many signs given freely for the purpose of instruction and guidance of human beings in their behavior in this world.  In other words, the qur’anic notion of ‘ibrah (instructive example or lesson), âyah (sign), and other concepts such as bayyinah, mathal, or burhân, when considered together form a web of didactic and paranetic material that dominates the qur’anic text.  In considering the prominence of these categories, God’s message clearly emerges as a call above all to note and consider His signs in nature, in human history, and in His Word itself and then to live and order one’s life accordingly.

William A. Graham is the Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Emeritus, and University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He taught in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 2018, serving also as Dean of Harvard Divinity School from 2002-12. His scholarly work has focused on early Islamic religious history and textual traditions and problems in the history of world religion.