59 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It ain't the Bible...and that's okay., May 3, 2004
This review is from: The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)
I really appreciated this (very) short introduction to the Koran. As a Christian who is fairly familiar with my own tradition's sacred book, the Bible, I found it helpful in explaining how the Koran and Bible are different. The books that make up the Bible were written over many centuries, the Koran was written and compiled in less than a century (and five centuries after the latest book in the New Testament). Most Jews and Christians read their Bibles in a translation (leaving it to their biblical scholars to learn the original languages); the Koran is read and recited exclusively in its original Arabic, even in countries where Arabic is not a native language (Iran, Malaysia). The Bible contains many types of literature--poetry, wisdom sayings, compelling narratives, prophetic utterances; the Koran refers to events and stories (including some, like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures) but has no narratives of its own (not even the story of its primary prophet, Muhammad) and consists only of prophetic utterances. The Bible is quite long; the Koran is relatively short and some Muslims have memorized it in its entirety. The Bible plays a significant role in the liturgy of Jews and Christians; public reading of the Koran is not part of Islamic public worship.
However, like the Hebrew Bible with its Midrashim and Talmud, and New Testament with the writings of the church fathers, the Koran has gathered around itself a enormous body of commentaries to help explain its difficult and contradicory texts. Many Islamic beliefs that are attributed to the Koran are actually based on the commentaries of its interpreters.
I liked this book because it focused solely on the Koran itself. Most books I've picked up on Islam don't give this much attention to the Koran, or only refer to it intermittently. For a "very short introduction" there's a lot here to digest.
The photos and illustrations are interesting and instructive. The book also includes a short chapter on reading Arabic transliteration, an annotated bibliography, and an index.
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62 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Islam and religious toleration, March 23, 2002
This review is from: The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)
Let's face it: most of us who've lately been reading books on Islam and the Qur'an are doing so to understand a religion we for the most part ignored prior to 9/11. We're putting ourselves through a crash course on Islam and Islamic culture in the hopes that we can figure out what Islam's basic tenets are, and how it is that the Taliban and al-Qaida can claim the religion as their justification for repression and terror.
Obviously one of the first places to start is with the Qur'an itself. But to Westerners who've never opened it, the book can be intimidating and arcane. Michael Cook's little volume on the Qur'an is a decent introduction to its structure, basic principles, interpretation, and history.
Some points in Cook's book are of more immediate service to the beginner than others. Cook's discussion of the difficulties encountered in translating the Qur'an's Arabic into other languages may not be of great interest to the beginner. But his overview of the various Muslim schools of exegesis or interpretation certainly will be, for this discussion begins to reveal to the reader that there's no more of a uniform way of reading the Qur'an than there is of reading the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. As a consequence, Qur'anic verses can mean different things to Muslims coming from different exegetical traditions. Cook illustrates this point in Chapter 4 by discussing the "sword verse" (Sura 9:5) and the "tribute verse" (Sura 9:29). These two verses are frequently appealed to by commentators on Islam's attitude to "infidels." Cook does a fine job of showing that the verses can be read either as harshly intolerant or as live-and-let-live, depending on how one parses the text.
One of the many merits of this short book is that Cook encourages us to think about the meaning of "sacred scripture" in general. Whatever else scripture is, regardless of the religious tradition we're talking about, it's fluid and living and multi-layered. To condemn a sacred text on the basis of a cursory reading and a literal interpretation of a few ambiguous verses is a rush to judgment.
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a frequently funny and occasionally illuminating romp, October 25, 2004
This review is from: The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)
The Koran (in the OUP "Very Short Introductions" series,) Oxford 2000.
Pious Muslims may feel that in the presence of the text and its commentaries, they do not need Professor Michael Cook's "very short introduction" to the Koran. The pious may also wish to stay away because Professor Cook was once associated with the notorious "Hagarene hypothesis" (put forth in the 1977 book: Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook) though he has since backed away from some of the more extreme claims of that book. But "The Koran, a very short introduction" turns out to be a very witty and interesting book, full of insights that the most pious Muslim will find informative and stimulating.
There is a tendency to avoid difficult issues at a time when Likudniks, oil barons and Christian fundamentalists are trying to permanently colonize huge chunks of the Middle East, but it is unlikely that the Binladens of the Islamic world will be able to provide an intellectual framework adequate to the task at hand. Un-nerving as it may be, Muslims have no choice but to re-examine and reconstruct their faith. Professor Cook's "short introduction" may lead on to better and bigger things.
Professor Cook starts by discussing what constitutes a sacred scripture and the forms such scriptures have taken in different civilizations. He then outlines the role the Koran plays in Muslims culture and how this is similar and how it differs from the role played by the Bible or the Vedas in their cultures. A few short selections from the Quran (the Fatiha, surah alfeel, the "throne verse", the "sword verse", among others) are presented in standard translations and used to illustrate the Quranic message and how it is perceived. The treatment is fair and balanced, though with a touch of levity that some Muslims may find initially disconcerting. One can get an idea of professor Cook's tone from his own description of his latest work:
"Recently I have published a monograph on a very Islamic value: al-amr bi`l-ma'ruf - roughly, the duty of each and every Muslim to tell people off for violating God's law".
The sentence is accurate enough, though the tone is one that a pious Muslim may find out of place in a discussion of religion. But professor Cook is not a pious Muslim and may perhaps be excused as long as he is not unfair (and in this book at least, he is generally fair). After discussing the status of the Koran in the Muslim world today, He goes on to discuss its origins, its content, organization, translation, pronunciation, commentaries, and dissemination. As is to be expected in such a small book, he cannot cover any topic in great detail, but he manages to touch on a very large number of issues and manages to convey a sense of the subject surprisingly well. The text is packed with fascinating little nuggets, like a picture of the Quran with Spanish translation in Arabic script! In every chapter, he says enough to spark a desire to learn more. At every step, he also interjects comparisons with other culture and other scriptures; comparisons that are illuminating and enlightening and, generally, even-handed. Currently "hot" topics like "tolerance" and "women's rights" get highlighted, as expected, but he does point out that prior generations did not necessarily look at them through contemporary lenses. What bothered older commenatators about the quranic reference to wife beating may turn out to be very different from what bothers a "modern liberal". On the other hand, at times the older commentators (and the text itself) turn out to have been much more "modern" than we expected.
Professor Cook's little book works very well as an introduction for someone unfamiliar with the Quran, but if anything, it is even more interesting for someone already familiar with Muslim culture and history. He notes the extraordinary hold of "fundamentalist" interpretations in the Muslim world today, but ends by pointing out that this was not always the case and may not be the case in the future. As an example of how things may change, he points to the work of Abdul Karim Surush in Iran, whose book "siraat-haay mustaqeem" (straight paths) raises the possibility that there is more than one straight path and all may co-exist.
In short, almost anyone wanting to learn more about the Qur'an, will find this a wonderful place to start. It may be a very short introduction, but it touches on many important issues and does so with great erudition and unexpected wittiness. Worth a read.
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