Reconstruction Intertextuality of the Qur'an towards Tradition Evangelicalism : Kristeva–Bakhtin Model in QS Āli ' Imrān [3]:39 and Luke 1:13

Abstract

Intertextual studies of the Qur'an and the Bible often stop at thematic narrative comparison or at mapping Kristevan transpositions, without asking why a textual shift occurs and to whom it is addressed. This article analyzes the annunciation of Yaḥyā (John the Baptist) in Q 3:39 and Luke 1:13, read together with their co-texts (Q 3:37–41 and 19:2–15; Luke 1:5–25 and 1:76), through a two-layered framework: Kristeva's transposition for mapping textual shifts and Bakhtin's hidden polemic for testing whether those shifts are oriented toward other discourses. Using qualitative library research, with data collected through documentation and analyzed in four steps (juxtaposition of the texts, reading of the ideology, identification of the target discourse, and testing of the suspected polemic against co-texts and rival hypotheses), the study finds five transpositions: substitution of setting (naos with priestly incense to miḥrāb with personal prayer); omission and anonymisation of Zechariah's wife; compression and relocation of Luke's attributes into the titles sayyid, ḥaṣūr, and nabī; modification of John's function from forerunner of the Lord to confirmer of a word from God (muṣaddiq); and a shift in the valence of Zechariah's silence from punishment to sign. Of three suspected hidden polemics, only the redefinition of kalimah against Logos Christology is strongly supported by co-textual evidence; the polemic against monasticism and priestly genealogy remains open. The findings are consistent with, although they do not prove, the Qur'an's self-description as muṣaddiq and muhaymin (Q 5:48). The article offers a reconstructed Kristeva–Bakhtin model that can be tested on other pairs of scriptural texts.