Discovering the Qur'an, Second Edition: Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text [Paperback]

Neal Robinson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1589010248 | ISBN-13: 978-1589010246 | Publication Date: February 12, 2004 | Edition: Second Edition

This latest edition of Discovering the Qur'an includes a new preface by the author. Used by students around the world as a reliable guide to reading a translation of the Qur'an, it shows how the Qur'an is experienced by Muslims, describing the rhythmic and rhyme scheme structures, the context in which it is heard, the part played by learning by heart, and the importance of calligraphy. It is also about the Qur'an and its relationship to Muhammed, as well as helping to divine the ordering of the surahs or chapters. In an English-speaking world newly sensitized to Islam and its believers, Discovering the Qur'an will be an invaluable tool to greater understanding.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[B]ased on a magisterial command of Arabic, English, French, and German sources [ Discovering the Qur'an is] a major analysis of the internal coherence of the Qur'an, taking into account the interrelationship of structure, intertextuality, meaning, and sound." -- Muslim World Book Review

"[A]n intelligent, sophisticated, and provocative book on a perplexing subject." -- International Journal of Middle East Studies

"Clearly written, this is a very useful, important, and interesting book that will provide scholars with much to talk about concerning the way one is to read the Qur'an. [Robinson] does a great deal with topics that need much more discussion than they usually receive." -- John Kelsay, Richard L. Rubenstein Professor of Religion, Florida State University

"If anyone asked me to recommend a clear and comprehensive introduction to the nature and role of the Qur'an, I would look no further than Neal Robinson's Discovering the Qur'an." -- Oliver Leaman, professor of philosophy, University of Kentucky, and author of An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy

"I have no doubt that this book is a major publication in its field." -- Martin Forward, executive director of Aurora University's Center for Faith and Action, Illinois, and Helena Wackerlin Professor of Religious Studies

About the Author

Neal Robinson is a senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Leeds. He is also the author of Islam: A Concise Introduction (Georgetown University Press, 1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press; Second Edition edition (February 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589010248
• ISBN-13: 978-1589010246
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #293,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A major advance on the state of Quranic studies in the West., October 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text (Paperback)

The book contains thorough considerations of remarkable features of the text (the sophistication and precision of its use of language) that have been recognised by Muslim scholars for centuries, but to which Western Islamicists have usually been blind. I was disappointed by the discussion of the Prophet's miracles -- every Western author assumes that the Quran expilictly denies that the Prophet could work any visible miracles, on the basis of certain verses, but nobody bothers to examine, even casually, the way in which the great Muslim scholars and exegetes of the past have understood those verses. For example, when the unbelievers are quoted as demanding a sign, this has usually been understood to mean that they were demanding signs *in addition to* those that had already come to them (and which they dismissed, according to the Quran, as "evident sorcery" -- 37:14)-- so that the fact that those demands were not met does not mean that no miracles were performed by the Prophet, nor that God did not bless him in any miraculous ways during the course of his mission. Again, Robinson is wrong to argue that because the Quran doesn't give any detail about the splitting of the moon, or the night journey, that all the traditional accounts of those two miracles are to be dismissed as fabrication -- the Quran very often doesn't go into any detail about contemporary events, and uses a concise , elliptical style to allude to them, presumably because people at that time were familiar with all the details. The theories of Crone and Crook, which are so implausible that it's hard to state them without seeming to caricature them, are clearly debunked, as are the speculations of M. Watt on the Quran's use of "We" (here, Robinson could have pointed out that if many statements of the form "We do such-and-such" were meant to be understood as spoken by the angels rather than God, then they would almost certainly be followed by a phrase like "by God's leave" -- the Quran is jealous of God's unity and absolute power, and attributing actions to angels without referring to God in a pagan environment runs the risk of encouraging popular beliefs about the angels being deities, whereas the Quran stresses that they are servants and nothing more). Well worth reading.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent guide to discovering the Quran!, March 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Discovering the Qur'an: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text (Paperback)

Neal Robinson has provided an exceptional addition to the field of Quranic studies that is helpful to a reader of any background on a journey to discovering the Quran.

Robinson's book provides thoughtful direction to many of the intricacies of the Quran that are absent in English renderings of interpretations of Quranic meaning.

Though I may disagree with the author on a small number of points, if there is any fault in the book it is that its well developed consideration of very important topics only increases your desire for more of it!