The Qur'an: A Neo-Structuralist Analysis

The central goal of this dissertation is the exploration and elaboration of the structure of the Qur’an. Whilst others have attempted analyses of the structure of the Qur’anic narrative (Neurwith 2006a, 2006b, El-Awa 2006), this, I believe, is the first time the anthropological structuralist method pioneered by Lévi-Strauss (1973, 1974, 1978,1982, 1994 ) – which seeks to discover the logical categories beneath the narrative - will be applied to the text. Further to Lévi-Strauss' foundational work, I draw on the Biblical structuralism of Kunin (1995, 1998, 2003), Leach (1969,) and Leach and Aycock (1983) as well as further scholarship refining structuralist method by Kunin (2009), Miles-Watson (2009), and Dumont (1980).