Todd Lawson

Primordial Covenant & The Súrih of Joseph

The Tafsír súrat Yúsuf, also known as the Qayyúmu ’l-Asmáʾ, revealed by the Báb, inaugurates a new cycle of fulfillment and maturation in human history. One the reasons for choosing the Súrih of Joseph as the subject of this remarkable, proclamatory Composition—a work Baháʾuʾlláh called “the first, the greatest and mightiest of all books” (avval va aʿẓam va akbar jamíʿ kutub ast)—is that the Covenant and its renewal is the central theme of this most beautiful of all stories (Q 12:3), which the Báb explains and comments upon. In this presentation the focus is on Joseph’s “imitation” (viz, manifestation) of God, especially the conversation between “thy Lord” and all humanity on the primordial Day of the Covenant described at Q 7:172.

Todd Lawson is Associate Professor Emeritus of Islamic Thought (University of Toronto) where he taught from 1986 to 2014. He began studying Islam and Arabic language at the University of British Columbia in 1972 with Hanna Kassis. He then studied at the Institute of Islamic Studies (McGill University) where he completed an MA under Wadi’ Haddad and Charles J. Adams, followed by a PhD with Hermann Landolt. Todd was the first research director of the Association for Bahai Studies (1986-88).

His specialty is the Quran, the variety of its interpretation over the centuries and its distinctive literary features on which has published numerous books and learned articles ranging from a discussion of Shi’i quranic culture (1991), the problem of the Quran’s treatment of the crucifixion of Jesus, The Quran and the Crucifixion (Oneworld 2009), two studies of The Báb’s Writings on the Quran, Gnostic Apocalypse (Routledge 2012) and Tafsir as Mystical Experience (Brill 2018); a two-volume reference work on Islamic eschatology (with S. Günther) Roads to Paradise (Brill 2017); a pioneering work on the Quran’s literary structure, The Quran, Epic and Apocalypse (Oneworld 2018). In addition, he has published a work on the generative relation between Islam and the Baha’i religion: Being Human: Baha’i Perspectives on Islam, Modernity and Peace (Kalimat 2020). His most recent publication is on the writings of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsá‘í: “Metaphorical Literalism and the Poetics of Reality” in Post-Eurocentric Poetics, ed. H. Rashwan et al., Proceedings of the British Academy (Oxford University Press, 2024).