Reddit reply in r/AcademicQuran: what sort of genre was the quran meant to fit — September 12, 2024 | Ali Shukri Amin

Thanks will definitely take a look. It seems to me that there's a unique intersection between epic poetry, founding mythology, legal code, theological/philosophical discourse, history, and song in the Quran. I haven't seen that discussed but some of Neuwirth's lectures on Jahili poetry were really interesting to me.

The Bible which has several books, some of which are law, others founding myth, others performative music (Hebrew psalms), some theological discourse, etc. But it's much more segmented. Western tradition also doesn't identify the Bible as an epic poem, use it as the basis of legal code, or have it as a central shared piece of music.

The genre issue of the Quran extends beyond academic Quranic studies I feel. If we are just looking at it like apocrypha or a homily we are missing the artistic value of the Quran.

It's also a geopolitical, cultural, and civilizational issue. The Quran still holds supreme importance for billions of people, holding the roles that spiritual music, shared history, constitutional law, origin myths, poetry, basis of philosophical outlook, and day-to-day morals.

Muslims see the Quran like: the Odyssey, Biblical Genesis, the US Constitution, Herodotus' Histories, their greatest opera, Confucian practical wisdom, Nichomachaen ethics, and spiritual catchecisms/koans. Where a student of Western classics and literature would access 10 texts, or listen to a poem, or attend an opera, to draw from their tradition - religious Muslims invariably first return to the Quran.

I don't know of any other one text that currently features so prominently in the mind of so many people in such a way.