Abstract
The Quran is, unfortunately, in some ways our most reliable source for discussing the emergence of Islam. When it comes to academic debate about its origins and its social and religious context, the Quranic verses referring to Christians and Jews are often examined in detail, especially nowadays that the mutual influence of all the Abrahamic religions in that time period is being reemphasized.
There is, however, another group of verses that has been rather neglected in this light - the verses that have traditionally been interpreted as relating to the indigenous pre-Islamic religion of Arabia. This paper will therefore focus, firstly, on examining what kinds of verses tend to be interpreted as referencing jahiliyyah cultural practices by later Muslim commentators, whether they have anything in common and whether the text of the Quran itself suggests that they refer to a particular cultural practice that is neither Christian nor Jewish.
In such cases where I believe there are at least some intratextual reasons to consider the verses relevant for the actual milieu of the composition of the Quran, I will secondly focus on the way the supposed surrounding culture is referenced in the holy book - the context in which those references, or supposed references, are used and the way they are made. I will attempt to analyze the rhetoric purpose they serve, and decide if it changes in different parts of the Quran.
The paper will also try to answer the question of whether the picture of pre-Islamic Arabia we are presented with is consistent or whether it changes depending on the context or the supposed time period of origin, and how important at different points in the assumed chronology such references are. Some estimates will be made about how such references could have been received by the first audience of the Quran, based on the text itself and on the commentaries on these references we find in later Muslim sources.