Abstract This article analyses three literary features that have a pedagogical purpose, and which appear in both the gospels and Qurʾān: vocative exhortations, allusions to para-biblical material, and rhetorical questions. It does so in order to understand how they are used as didactic tools, and how their use differs, or remains the same in each text corpus. It also examines how the figures of Jesus and Muhammad are presented as teachers by the respective texts. It concludes that although there is some divergence in how each of these literary methods are employed, the similarities are more striking than the differences. On this basis, it argues that this is further evidence for viewing the Qurʾān as a product of late antiquity, and for reading it within this broader context.
