Introduction: Listening to the text -- The crisis of quranic studies -- The scholarly conflict over the Qur'an -- The method and goal of the present work -- Excursus: Regarding the dates of Jewish and Christian texts -- Quranic case studies -- The prostration of the angels -- Al-Shayan al-Rajim -- Adam and feathers -- Abraham the gentile monotheist -- The laughter of Abraham's wife -- Haman and the tower to heaven -- The transformation of Jews -- Jonah and his people -- The nativity of Mary -- Our hearts are uncircumcised -- Do not think those who were killed in the path of God dead -- The companions of the cave -- Muhammad -- Qur'an and Tafsir -- Exegetical devices -- Historicization -- Occasion of revelation -- Variae lectiones (Qiraat) -- Takhir al-Muqaddam -- Judaeo-Christian traditions -- The mufassirun -- Tafsir and Qur'an -- Reading the Qur'an as homily -- The problem of translating the Qur'an -- Homiletic features of the Qur'an -- The Qur'an and Christian homily -- The Qur'an and its biblical subtext.