‘‘What Israel Forbade to Himself’’: A Case of Biblical Exegesis in the Qur’an?

The derivation of legal norms from narrative texts is a familiar, indeed pervasive feature of Qur’an exegesis. It is striking that in at least one passage, the text of the Qur’an appears to engage in its own internal process of interpreting biblical narrative as having normative legal consequences. The passage arises in the third sura of the Qur’an, The House of Imran, in the course of a lengthy excursus on the people of the book. It reads as follows: ‘‘All food was permitted to the children of Israel (banu isra’il) save what Israel forbade (harrama) for himself before the Torah was sent down. Say: Bring the Torah now, and recite it, if you are truth-tellers’’ (Q 3:93). To what does this verse refer? The verse begins with the claim that the Israelites were permitted by God to eat any food they liked before the Torah was revealed. To this is added the caveat that before the Mosaic revelation, the Israelites had forbidden themselves certain foods. Subsequently, the Mosaic revelation prohibited still more foods, as divine punishment for Israelite misdeeds. The first problem raised by the verse lies in its allusion to some prerevelatory prohibitions on food. Muhammad knew of the existence of Mosaic prohibitions on food. But what pre-Mosaic, or at least prerevelatory prohibitions might he mean to mention? Unfortunately, the verse provides no indication of what these might have been. One traditional interpretation makes the prohibition refer to ‘‘the flesh and milk of camels.’’ The Qur’an itself specifies that God prohibited to the