The Qur’an is probably the most self-referential text in the history of world religions. It often describes its own textuality, it reflects on Arabic as its linguistic medium, it distances itself from other genres of mantic speech such as poetry or soothsaying, it justifies itself vis-a-vis other revelations, and finally it contains important elements of exegesis. Muslim scripture is a message and at the same time often a message about the message. The self-reflexive mood of the Qur’an has only recently become a focus of Qur’anic studies. This collection of papers by a number of experts in the field outlines the role of selfreferentiality for the inner history of Qur’anic recitation, for the canonization of the Qur’anic text and for a better understanding of Qur’anic revelation in its historical embedding.
