Nationalizing a Universal Text: The Quran in Arafat's Rhetoric

Analyses Yasser Arafat's attempts to transform the text of the Quran into a nationalist story in order to mobilise the Palestinian people. It is argued that Arafat focuses primarily on the story of the Children of Israel in the Quran and succeeds, through major emendations of the story as it appears in the text, to evoke a vivid nationalist epic of liberation. The story, while emotional and mobilising, deliberately avoids any normative content that could constrain Arafat and play into the hands of his significant Islamic opposition.