are listed below in order of increasing hermeneutical complexity: Lexical: What is the meaning of a particular word? Intra-Versal/Sentential: Who or what is the referent of a particular pronoun? Inter-Versal/Pericopal: What is the relation between verses? Do they constitute a single meaning/unit of thought, or are they distinct? Narratological ("Qissaic"): What is the story being told? Why do the characters in it react in the way they do? Historical/Ethnological: What events or personages are being described? What cultural practices are being reported and how do they relate the jāhilī scene? Legal ("Hukmic"): What are the legal implications of a particular verse and how do these relate to the remaining corpus of Islamic holy law? Is the ruling limited in scope to the circumstances or even unique instant in which it was revealed, or does it define a general principle with broad applicability? A detailed examination of the function of asbāb at several of these levels follows. Unless otherwise noted examples all come from Rippin's The function of asbāb al-nuzūl in Qur'ānic exegesis (BSOAS 51). Quotations from the Qur'an are taken from the Abdullah Yusuf `Ali translation. Lexical/sentential A demonstration of the two lowest-level functions of the sabab may be seen in the exegesis of verse 2:44 : A sabab put forward by both al-Wāhidī (Kitāb 22) and al-Suyūtī (Lubāb 19) claim this verse was revealed about those Jews of Medina who urged their converted relations to obey Muhammed's example even while they hypocritically refused to do so themselves (such Jewish hypocrisy being a common Qur'ānic polemical motif). The sabab thus fixes the meaning of the pronoun "ye", and also provides a gloss for the word "right conduct" (birr) as the Sunnah of Muhammed. Pericopal One theory of Qur'anic verse arrangement proposes a thematic/topical ordering of the verses (ayat). This, combined with the Qur'an's allusive literary style (e.g. "the Qur'ānic 'they' which is frequently left ambiguous in the text") makes establishing pericopal boundaries difficult, however. Does one verse continue the unit of meaning begun by preceding verses, or does it initiate a new one? Sabab-material was used to both erect and pull down such boundaries, as their use with respect to verses 2:114-2:115 illustrate: One report "suggests this verse [Q.2:115] is a continuation of Q.2:114 which concerns the destruction of mosques and thus that this verse, 115, intends that the destruction of mosques does not mean that one can no longer