However, to assemble the textual background that may shed light on a given Qur'anic passage is not identical with the interpretation of that passage itself; it is an indispensable preparatory step, yet by no means a sufficient one. Indeed, intratextual contextualization of this kind does not provide the only relevant background to a Qur'anic passage; it is perhaps just as important to situate a given text at a particular position within the diachronically extended sequence of Qur'anic discourses, which frequently also generate their specific literary formats.
Nicolai Sinai and Angelika Neuwirth, "Introduction" in The Qurʼān in context: historical and literary investigations into the Qurʼānic milieu / edited by Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, Michael Marx (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 13.
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