Before the Qur’an | A Conversation with Dr. Süleyman Dost

In this episode, we’re looking into one of the central questions in the study of early Islam: where does the Qur’an come from? 📖 This can be approached in a number of ways. Some scholars focus on the later Muslim literary tradition 📝, while others situate the Qur’an within the broader religious and linguistic context of Late Antiquity 🏛️, often drawing on Syriac and biblical parallels ✝️📚. But another approach is to begin with the material evidence—inscriptions 🪨, archaeology 🏺, and linguistic data 🔤 that can be securely dated to the pre-Islamic period—and ask what that evidence can tell us about the Qur’an’s historical setting. On the Real Talk Podcast 🎙️ we’re joined by Dr. Süleyman Dost to discuss his book, Before the Qur’an: Material Sources at the Advent of Muslim Scripture, which takes this approach seriously and examines what can (and cannot) be said about the Qur’an’s origins when we prioritise pre-Islamic material sources. We discuss how this method relates to previous scholarship 🎓, the limitations of relying exclusively on epigraphic and archaeological evidence ⚖️, and what it might reveal about the linguistic and religious landscape of Arabia on the eve of Islam 🌍. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏳ Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction 01:44 – What Does It Mean to Ask “Where Does the Qur’an Come From?” 03:40 – How the Field of Islamic Origins Has Changed in the Last Decade 09:22 – Why South Arabia Has Been Neglected in Qur’anic Studies 13:30 – Can Islamic Origins Be Studied Without Muslim Sources? 17:55 – Written, Oral and Linguistic Culture in Pre-Islamic Arabia 27:00 – Did Paganism Still Exist in the Qur’an’s World? 33:36 – What the Qur’an’s Arabian Deities Reveal About Its Origins 39:33 – The Qur’an’s Inner Chronology and the Names of God 42:18 – Can Mean Verse Length and Interpolations Really Date the Qur’an? 52:34 – Al-Rahman, the Basmalah and the Development of the Qur’an 1:00:30 – Understanding the “Syriacist Trend” in Qur’anic Studies 1:06:28 – Geʿez, Aramaic and the Origins of Qur’anic Vocabulary 1:15:34 – Can Philology Oversimplify the Language of the Qur’an? 1:18:20 – Why the Stories of Abraha and Ethiopia Still Matter 1:22:08 – How Biblical and Syriac Traditions Reached the Qur’an 1:31:15 – The Qur’an, Geʿez Christianity and an Underexplored Field 1:34:31 – Arabian Prophets and the Geography of the Qur’an 1:42:05 – Were the Qur’an’s Arabian Prophets Historical Memories or Literary Figures? 1:46:49 – Do the Qur’an’s Geographic References Challenge Its Hijazi Origins? 1:53:19 – Do the Qur’an’s Agricultural References Challenge a Hijazi Origin? 1:57:09 – Does the Book Overstate South Arabia’s Influence on the Qur’an? 2:08:27 – What Does the Qur’an Mean by Calling Itself “Arabic”? 2:10:17 – Has Epigraphic Evidence Vindicated the Traditional Origins of the Qur’an? 2:15:39 – Has Islamic Studies Entered an “Epigraphic Turn”? 2:19:19 – Closing Thoughts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 For those interested, we strongly recommend our audience check out the book for themselves: 🔗 https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/... 📖 For those interested in exploring more of his research, we also encourage our audience to check out Dr. Süleyman Dost’s Academia.edu page, where you can find a range of his additional publications and ongoing work: 🔗 https://utoronto.academia.edu/Suleyma... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎓 This episode is brought to you by Meleteon — a platform offering live, interactive humanities courses taught by PhD-level scholars across history, philosophy, theology, and more. 📚 No prerequisites, no degrees required — just curiosity. 🔗 Explore courses at: https://meleteon.com 🐦 Follow on X: @Meleteon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👍 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe ❤️ and let us know your thoughts in the comments below! 👇 🎧 Real Talk Podcast 📺 Hosted by Terron Poole & Roxanna Irani Subscribe:    / @skepsislamica   📱Follow us on X (Twitter): 🐦 https://x.com/Terodotus 🐦 https://x.com/IraniRoxanna ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❤️ If you enjoy what we do, you can also support us by becoming a member via Patreon or donating to our Buy Me a Coffee page. Your support helps us continue bringing these conversations to a wider audience. ❤️   / u41443806   ☕ https://buymeacoffee.com/skepsislamica ✌🏾 Peace!