This project explores the interpretations and uses of the Qur’ān in poverty-related discourses in medieval Muslim societies, covering the period from the 8th to the 13th centuries CE. Poverty in the medieval Islamic world, both as a socio-economic phenomenon and a complex set of ideas, remains an understudied subject. While historical study of the conditions and experiences of the poor is hindered by the paucity of sources from which one can retrieve the voices of the poor, Islamic religious literature offers a rich source for examining medieval Islamic perceptions of poverty. However, only a small part of this copious literature has been studied. This empirically oriented project furthers scholarship in this direction by examining the uses of the Qur’ānic text in poverty-related discourses in a corpus of medieval Arabo-Islamic religious sources.
The project particularly focuses on the ‘poverty versus wealth’ debates, traced in the literary sources since the late 8th – early 9th centuries, and the uses of the Qur’ān therein. The debates display a spectrum of views on the relationship between poverty, wealth, and religious merit, ranging from exalting poverty and highlighting the vanity of all worldly possessions to endorsement of material riches, considered as a reward or a gift from God. Significantly, they range across the boundaries of various Islamic intellectual traditions and literary genres. In the course of these debates, the proponents of the opposing views employed proofs (ḥujaj) from the Qur’ān. Their appropriation, adaptation, and interpretation of the text in line with their respective positions, highlights a dynamic and context-dependant process of the reception of the Qur’ān in Muslim societies.
