Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Today’s episode I hope will be the first part of a new season entitled "The Inimitable and Immutable Quran between Sceptics and Apologists" in which we examine the genealogies for arguments about the Quran being a revelation of the Abrahamic God.
The early followers of the Prophet Muhammad claimed civilisational leadership based upon their conviction that they were the final and true heirs of the Abrahamic legacy. To that end, scholars from the community developed arguments to support that claim. From them was the argument that the Quran was a linguistic and literary miracle that had no compelling explanation for its appearance but as a revelation from the Abrahamic God.
I want to assert that no offence to anyone is intended by these discussions. They aim to be rooted in good faith as a collegial and friendly examination of ideas. We welcome respondents to come onto the show.
In this episode, Dr. Errki Kojonen at the University of Helsinki gives a presentation based upon his article "On Literary Miracles and Social Credibility: The Epistemology of an Islamic Argument” published in Religions
2025, 16(10), 1319; doi.org/10.3390/rel16101319. It’s freely available here: mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/10/1319
Today’s episode I hope will be the first part of a new season entitled "The Inimitable and Immutable Quran between Sceptics and Apologists" in which we examine the genealogies for arguments about the Quran being a revelation of the Abrahamic God.
The early followers of the Prophet Muhammad claimed civilisational leadership based upon their conviction that they were the final and true heirs of the Abrahamic legacy. To that end, scholars from the community developed arguments to support that claim. From them was the argument that the Quran was a linguistic and literary miracle that had no compelling explanation for its appearance but as a revelation from the Abrahamic God.
I want to assert that no offence to anyone is intended by these discussions. They aim to be rooted in good faith as a collegial and friendly examination of ideas. We welcome respondents to come onto the show.
In this episode, Dr. Errki Kojonen at the University of Helsinki gives a presentation based upon his article "On Literary Miracles and Social Credibility: The Epistemology of an Islamic Argument” published in Religions
2025, 16(10), 1319; doi.org/10.3390/rel16101319. It’s freely available here: mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/10/1319
![💧EP048 GUEST EPISODE (2/8) Mesopotamia: Taming the Euphrates [AUDIO ONLY]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Rl7GTcTXFBE/mqdefault.jpg "💧EP048 GUEST EPISODE (2/8) Mesopotamia: Taming the Euphrates [AUDIO ONLY]
Part of the “Source of Life: Water Management in the Premodern Middle East” project (Radboud Institute for Culture and History).
Ep2. Mesopotamia: Taming the Euphrates
Mesopotamia means “the land between the rivers.” The fertile silt and life-giving waters from the rivers Tigris and Euphrates allowed the region to develop into a key area of human settlement and culture in the late Holocene around 12000 years ago. In this episode we discuss the earliest settlements in Mesopotamia and how humans have managed their rela.tionship to the rivers in Iraq up until today.
Speaker: Jaafar Jotheri. Interviewer: Edmund Hayes.
Dr. Jaafar Jotheri is Assistant Professor in Geo-Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Al-Qadisiyah
https://csm-qadiss.academia.edu/JaafarJotheri
This episode was produced by Edmund Hayes and Jouke Heringa.
Further Reading
“Tigris-Euphrates River System”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/Tigris-Euphrates-river-system
T Wilkinson, L Rayne, J Jotheri, “Hydraulic landscapes in Mesopotamia: the role of human niche construction” Water History 7 (4), 397-418
TJ Wilkinson, J Jotheri “The Origins of Levee and Levee-Based Irrigation in the Nippur Area–Southern Mesopotamia” From Sherds to Landscapes: Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of McGuire Gibson, SAOC 71, edited by Mark Altaweel and Carrie Hritz (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2021).
Edmund Hayes
twitter.com/Hedhayes20
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edmund-hayes-490913211/
https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/EdmundHayes
https://hcommons.org/members/ephayes/
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