To get this out of the way: I like sura 81. I like its pro-life message, particularly as aimed at would-be sex-selectors. I like its style, with its allusive and staccato stanzas. It does get a little selfdefensive toward the end but we've learnt to accept that.
It gives me no pleasure to offer up "Remembering the Reminder" here.
Those bits which look parallel to suwar 53, 69, and 74... are derivative, I now think. And I've already argued that sura 74 is late - which kicks the door wide to other possible borrowings. Here, to suwar 3, 6, 10, 15, 17 and maybe even 37 and (if Jakob Barth is right) 52.
As a knock-on, I have removed the sura 81 references from "Blasting the Caliph" (on sura 69) and "Fire from the Mountain" (52).
Over the past three months I've also been working on "The Booty From God’s War". I think sura 8 belongs to 'Uthman's last year or the aftermath thereto.
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