From Poetic Vision to Religious Witness: The Qurʾānic Transformation of Poetic Travel

This article explores the Qurʾānic transformation of poetic travel, situating it within the broader cultural and religious context of Late Antiquity. By examining the Qurʾān’s repeated injunctions to travel and observe the landscape, the study reveals how travel is reconfigured from a poetic act of nostalgic vision into a religious epistemic practice of witnessing divine truth. It compares pre-Islamic Arabic poetic traditions, particularly the qasīda, with Late Antique Christian pilgrimage practices to demonstrate how the Qurʾān synthesizes and reshapes these modes of journeying into a vision-centered theology of travel.