Books for/about - koran

The Meaning Of The Holy Quran (Meaning of the Holy Quran)

Publisher: Amana Publications
Authors: Abdullah Yusuf Ali

ISBN: 1590080254
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Summary: American Liars and Killers!!!!!
The problem is not with Islam. The problem is in your decadent american hearts. Your culture is filthy and your minds are closed. Allah closes the hearts of those who refuse to see the Truth:

"As for the disbelievers, whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is one for them; they believe not.

Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom."

Sura 2:6-7

You say we are violent but you murder children every day in Iraq, Afganistan, and in Palistine. This blood is on your head.

hasbilmilah

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Summary: Excellent, and no mistakes
This is a well-attempted translation of the Holy Qur'an. Though some people have issues with 18:86, this is due to their ignorance. the setting of the sun can be used to denote a physical location, ie when i was travelling, the sun set when i reached Anaheim. Also, the arabic word used is 'Wajada' which means "appeared", so it appeared to Zul-Qarnain that it set in a murky marsh. It 'appears' that the sun sets under the hills, but me saying that doesn't take away from my scientific integrity.

If you are going to try to knock the scientific integrity of the Qur'an, why dont you look at what it said regarding embryology, astrology, biology, oceanology, and other theories that we just discovered in the last century which the Quran got right on 1400 years ago? I think everyone owes it to themselves to look into this and find out

Summary: Mistake in the Koran - Read it Here!!!!!!
One of the questions which puzzled the ancient Arabs was, "Where did the sun go when night time came?" The Qur'an gave them Allah's answer.

He [i.e. Zul-qarnain] followed, until he reached the setting of the sun. He found it set in a spring of murky water.
(Surah XVIII ( Kahf) vs. 85-86)

We agree with Muslim scholars that Zul-qarnain refers to Alexander the Great (see Yusuf Ali's appendix on this subject in his translation of the Qur'an). According to this surah, Alexander the Great traveled west until he found out what happened to the sun. It went down into and under the murky waters of a pond. When it was completely covered by the water, darkness fell upon the earth.

To the early Muslims, this surah gave the divine answer as to why darkness fell when the sun set in the West. They assumed that the sun, like the moon, was the size perceived by the human eye, about the size of a basketball. Darkness came when with a mighty hissing roar it went down under the dark waters of a pond. They boldly and proudly proclaimed that this marvelous answer proved that the Qur'an was indeed the Word of God.

Today, modern Muslims are quite embarrassed by this passage and try to ignore it or to quickly dismiss it as poetry. But the passage is not part of a poem. Thus it cannot be dismissed as figurative language or poetic license. In the context, it is part of a historical narrative which relates several historical incidences in the life of Alexander the Great.

The mistake was based on the erroneous assumption that the earth was flat. The authors of the Qur'an did not know that the earth was a sphere which revolved around the sun.

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Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women

Publisher: Anchor
Authors: Geraldine Brooks

ISBN: 0385475772
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Summary: Disappointing rehash
I guess it is a good market now for anything about Islam. This is all old news, looks like reworked columns. Not insightful, not fresh, just tired old stuff mainly about middle to upper class women. Save your money.

Summary: Slightly dated but still very informative book
Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks details, as the subtitle says, the HIdden World of Islamic Women. Brooks is an Australian reporter who spent the late 80s and early 90s doing a lot of Middle East reporting, and spent a lot of time with Muslim women in various Middle Eastern countries at a time when fundamentalism was on the rise and had already triumphed in a few countries. She spoke with women who embraced a return to traditional women's roles (often symbolized by taking on the veil or chador or otherwise covering oneself and turning away from Western fashion and styles) and those who resisted it in countries like Egypt and Lebanon, which had had a more liberated tradition, and those trying to negotiate for greater liberalism for the first time in areas like Saudi Arabia and the gulf states.

Ms. Brooks never takes her own personal reactions and opinions out of picture but examines Islamic beliefs carefully, bringing Islamic history of the first Muslim women, the wives and children of Muhammad himself, and the writings of the Koran and hadiths to bear on the modern day issues. She finds at times surprising amounts of liberation in the thoroughly fundamentalist nation of Iran as well as hidden hypocrisies in supposedly more "forward thinking" countries. She does differentiate between Koranic customs and tribal customs (particularly the practice of female genital mutilations)but does not let Islam off the hook entirely, pointing out that 20% of Muslim women live in areas that practice some form of genital mutilation and yet it is rarely spoken out against and most people who practice it believe it is officially sanctioned by the Koran.

The bulk of Ms. Brooks stories were researched in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a period of great upheaval and change but only the start of another decade and a half of continuing change in the Middle East and the Islamic world in general. I found myself continually wondering what had become of the women she had interviewed, a decade and a half later, and how their opinions had changed or not changed. Alas, Ms. Brooks seems to have left reporting behind for the life of the novelist so the follow up remains for someone else to carry out, but this book still stands as an excellent overview of the varied worlds of Muslim women, even if it is a bit out of date. It's easy to see why it is frequently assigned as a text in college courses and it's well worth a read for any interested layperson curious about Islam and the role of women within it, as well as in a part of the world that remains a central focus of current events and politics.

Summary: A Peek Under The Veil
What a wonderful read! I love all of Brooks' book, but I think this is the best by far! She takes the reader into a forbidden world. What a journey!

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	The Message of The Qur'an Publisher: The Book Foundation Authors: Muhammad Asad
ISBN: 1904510000 List Price: $55.00 Amazon Price: $41.66 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: A non-Muslim review I recently received this copy of the Qur'an as a gift. And while not a Muslim, I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to study Islam. With verses in English, Arabic, and transliterated; along with notes and references galore, this copy of the Qur'an gives a solid background on Islam and Islamic culture. Summary: A Muslim One of the user "Al-Qaradawi" has written a review about a book called "The True Furqan (TTF)". It has nothing to do with Quran. Quran is the wod of Allah, the creator of all the wolds. But this book (TTF) is nothing but joke! Don't waste your precious time in reading it. There is a contradiction on the very first page i.e. Blessing, ayat 4 contradicts ayat 6. Similarly, Surat Al-Mahabbah, ayat 10 contradicts Surat Al-Thalooth, ayat 2. There is a spelling mistake in Surat Al-Emaan, ayat 6! There are grammatical errors in Surat Al-Tuhr, ayat 10 & Surat Al-Gharaneq, ayat 13! Zero stars for that book! To get the full picture & real truth regarding this book, visit: http://forum.quranacademy.com/viewtopic.php?t=271 Summary: Absolutely the best! Wow!! I just finished reading The Message of The Qur'an and am blown away by the amazing quality of this translation. It took Muhammad Asad 17 years to produce this work, and it shows in the depth of the translation, notes and appendices. He has an incredible talent for taking any obscure passage and explaining its meaning and significance in a plausible, logical, and moderate way. This edition contains extensive footnotes, with liberal alternative explanations of key passages from other leading Islamic scholars. Every surah also has a brief introduction into the historical context and/or the significance of the revelation. This is BY FAR the best translation I've read, and has given me a greater depth and understanding of the Qur'an than I've ever had. If you want to learn more about the Qur'an, I'd highly recommend this edition to anyone. Summary:

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The Qur'an Translation

Publisher: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an
Authors: Sayed A. A. Razwy Abdullah Yusufali

ISBN: 1879402297
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Summary: American Liars and Killers!!!
The problem is not with Islam. The problem is in your decadent american hearts. Your culture is filthy and your minds are closed. Allah closes the hearts of those who refuse to see the Truth:

"As for the disbelievers, whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is one for them; they believe not.

Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom."

Sura 2:6-7

You say we are violent but you murder children every day in Iraq, Afganistan, and in Palistine. This blood is on your head.

hasbilmilah

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Summary: He is devout
To all Amazon.com Moderators:

The madrassa programed person below is a very devout Muslim. He loves to blow up infidels. If you touch his koran he will blow up your family. If you mock islam he will behead you all. He is a very religious zealot. May allah bless him when he burns, kills, and riots.

amen

Summary: Too many hatemongering reviews on here.
TO AMAZON.COM moderators!

I look through the reviews of the Qurans available on amazon and I see many hatemongering diatribes. I want to read reviews that tell me the quality of the book, not to read peoples religious fanaticism and political viewpoints. I see waaaay too much hatemongering in these reviews. Please clean it up or I will take my business elsewhere. Please people, don't take the bait and respond to them, instead complain to Amazon customer service.

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An English Interpretation of the Holy Quran With Full Arabic Text

Publisher: Lushena Books
Authors: A. Ali Yusuf

ISBN: 9694320003
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Summary: Good translation
I am no authority on Quran translations, but was told by a Christian who has spent his life ministering to Muslims and studying Islam that this is the best English translation out there. Many translations put the Quran into Western-acceptable terms; this version does not. If you want to read what Arabs read, this is probably the closest you will get.

Summary: He is sooooo devout..
To all Amazon.com Moderators:

The madrassa programed person below is a very devout Muslim. He loves to blow up infidels. If you touch his koran he will blow up your family. If you mock islam he will behead you all. He is a very religious zealot. May allah bless him when he burns, kills, and riots.

amen

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	What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary Publisher: Prometheus Books Authors: Ibn Warraq
ISBN: 157392945X List Price: $36.00 Amazon Price: $22.68 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 4 Reviews: Summary: A Difficult But Informative Book This book is the most difficult I have as yet attempted to read on the topic of Islam. The introduction by Warraq suggests it will be an exposition about the history and structure of the Koran, like those available for general readers about the Bible. What we get instead from Warraq is the unvarnished conversation of scholars with one another. Only Warraq himself attempts to address the general reader. The book is organized as an anthology, with many entries that read like scholarly papers written for The Society of Biblical Literature. Some of the material requires an acquaintance with classical Arabic, and makes references to loan words from Hebrew, Syriac, and other aancient Semetic languages. I would recommend that the general reader approach the book by reading Warraq's "Introduction," first, and then skip over to the critical concluding essay by Ibn Rawandi (Section 8.3). (Ibn Rawandi is the pseudonym of another Islamic dissenter like Ibn Warraq. Both these names are derived from 8th and 9th Century Islamic dissenters described in Chapter 10 of Warraq's "Why I Am Not A Muslim.") After reading Rawandi's critical essay, one should then go back and read (or re-read) the materials to which Rawandi refers. Only then should the naive reader attempt to follow the arguments concerning loan-words found in the Koran from Syriac, Ebionite-Christianity, and other ancient sources. Why is this all so hard to unravel? It appears to me that the state of critical scholarship about the Koran is much less well developed than is scholarship about the Bible. The attempt to explain the redundancies and contradictions in the Koran is about as well developed today as was Biblical scholarship in the last quarter of the 19th Century. Why is scholarship about the Koran so much less well developed? One reason may be that Western scholars have simply been more interested in the sources of their own religious canon. But another salient factor is the resistance within Islam itself toward any such critical examination of the Koran. Warraq tells us the Encyclopedia of Islam says the Koran plays a role within Islam, like that played by Christ in Christianity. So Muslims are even more allergic to critical examinations of their canon than Christian fundamentalists are of theirs. As Barry Rubin explains in his "The Long War For Freedom," merely proposing to examine the Koran with the tools of critical scholarship can get one imprisoned or even executed in an Islamic country today. I can understand, in retrospect, why this book was so difficult to read. Warraq simply could not present his case for the Koran being a document with a history of construction from multiple sources, without first leading us through such a dense thicket of evidence and analysis. Summary: Serious academic exploration... of an important topic. Warraq begins with an in-depth introduction of over 100 pages of his own analysis that draws on both Islamic and western scholarship. His is a genuine attempt to provide balance to the quest for the genesis (NPI) of the Koran. He begins with a critical analysis of the vagaries of the Arabic(s), Semitic, Aramaic and other languages that pose so many difficulties in the attempt to understand the passages of the Koran. Naturally, this requires that he pose the question of whether or not it developed directly and immediately as the "modern traditionalists" would have us believe, or whether it came about in some other way. The evidence for the traditionalist view is looked for, but absent. On the other hand, first Warraq and then the other contributing authors, present several hundred pages of analysis of the historic record and a tremendous source list to illuminate both the complexities and contradictions of the Koran and its history. I recommend this book for those interested in learning the historical facts surrounding the evolution of Arabic, the contradictions and abrogations of Koranic passages and the late-appearing evidence for the life of Mohammed. However, I would suggest that the modern traditionalist - who simply accepts the theory of the Koran as the direct word of God through a single man - will find the lack of evidence for this puzzling and the evidence to the contrary, perhaps, disturbing. Any serious Muslim interested in learning the history of their faith should be prepared for a scientific discussion, lots of sources and evidence, and the likelihood that they may either reject it all or face some troubling questions. Summary: People should do research and analysis this way instead of abusive Cartoons So such books exists otherwise I was thinking free thinkers only know how to draw Cartoons, burqa (veil) and 4 wives. In the name of Freedom some folks draw childish and abusive cartoons. They should try to do similar work if they think they have guts. I liked the book considering its little decent and logical approach. Remember don't attack or abuse community as a person, you can not generalize. Do research work and then compete. Summary:

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The Qur'an: Text, Translation & Commentary

Publisher: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an
Authors: Abdullah Yusuf Ali

ISBN: 0940368323
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Summary: Mistake in the Koran - READ IT HERE!!!!
One of the questions which puzzled the ancient Arabs was, "Where did the sun go when night time came?" The Qur'an gave them Allah's answer.

He [i.e. Zul-qarnain] followed, until he reached the setting of the sun. He found it set in a spring of murky water.
(Surah XVIII ( Kahf) vs. 85-86)

We agree with Muslim scholars that Zul-qarnain refers to Alexander the Great (see Yusuf Ali's appendix on this subject in his translation of the Qur'an). According to this surah, Alexander the Great traveled west until he found out what happened to the sun. It went down into and under the murky waters of a pond. When it was completely covered by the water, darkness fell upon the earth.

To the early Muslims, this surah gave the divine answer as to why darkness fell when the sun set in the West. They assumed that the sun, like the moon, was the size perceived by the human eye, about the size of a basketball. Darkness came when with a mighty hissing roar it went down under the dark waters of a pond. They boldly and proudly proclaimed that this marvelous answer proved that the Qur'an was indeed the Word of God.

Today, modern Muslims are quite embarrassed by this passage and try to ignore it or to quickly dismiss it as poetry. But the passage is not part of a poem. Thus it cannot be dismissed as figurative language or poetic license. In the context, it is part of a historical narrative which relates several historical incidences in the life of Alexander the Great.

The mistake was based on the erroneous assumption that the earth was flat. The authors of the Qur'an did not know that the earth was a sphere which revolved around the sun.

Summary: a decent, though non-scholarly text; marred by careless editing
[For the sake of clarity: this review refers to the Tahrike Tarsile hardcover edition of Abdullah Yusuf Ali's "The Qur'an - Text, Translation and Commentary", ISBN 0-940368-32-3.]

Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1872-1953), a Bombay-born Muslim of wide and eclectic learning, was born under the Raj to a prosperous merchant family, and studied English literature. Travelling widely through Europe, he ended his days in England, where he was buried close to Marmaduke Pickthall, his great rival in translating the Qur'an.

As I have no Arabic, I cannot comment on the accuracy of his attempt to catch both letter and spirit of the Qur'an in his translation. Those who do read Arabic will find the text itself side by side with the translation in this edition. I am somewhat puzzled by the decision to include bracketed words or phrases in the translation, which I suppose to be clarifying expansions on the text; this disrupts the flow of the text and might also be considered objectionable as a translation practice. But the translation reads well enough otherwise, and is commonly regarded as one of the best.

As for the commentary, this is something of a mixed bag. The reader will find many interesting historical notes, ample comparison with Jewish and Christian scripture, and occasional glances at English poetry (Shakespeare, Coleridge, Tennyson). Throughout, Ali stresses the equity and humanity of the Qur'an in its approach to women, to one's enemies and to other faiths.

Less felicitous are in my opinion Ali's rather vague comments on the spiritual value of individual verses. They do little to enlighten the text and often border on the sentimental.

Instead of such personal effusions, I for one would have much prefered to hear more on how the Qur'an has been taken up in the history of Islamic religious thought.

Another curious feature are the introductions in blank verse which Ali has interspersed between Suras. They give little insight to how one should read the text itself, and are all too often flat-footed as poetry.

Clearly then this is a personal, rather than a scholarly, approach to the Qur'an. As a Muslim, Ali naturally holds the truth of the Qur'an to be unquestionable. This is, of course,
a perfectly legitimate position to take; but then it will not do to call on historical-philological criticism to argue that the Bible, as Jews and Christians today have it, has been transmitted incompletely and corruptly, *without* employing that same historical-critical method in approaching the Qur'an.

But these are minor complaints against a very decent and serviceable edition of a work of fundamental importance to the history of mankind.

As a last word I must mention that unfortunately, this edition is full of typographical errors, both in the translation and the commentary. Not a page goes by without boo-boos like "Muhamm<[e" rather than "Muhammad", or "gflood" rather than "blood". The publisher's, Tahrike Tarsile, is as far as I can tell a small publisher of devotional material, and has not guarded over the condition of the text with the amount of care and precision one would expect from a less parochial publishing house.

Summary: The deception OF The Qur'an
The Qua'ran is a false book with demonic teachings it does not depict the true nature of god almighty. It is unlike the holy bible and does not compare to the truth of the bible. It deceives people into false doctrines is sad . If you want to read a book to help your life and people rather than destroy it or people,read the bible there is no comparison. This is the same book muslims read then they are told to sacrifice their life for their religion and kill innocent poeple. dont buy this book.

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Understanding the Koran: A Quick Christian Guide to the Muslim Holy Book

Publisher: Zondervan
Authors: Mr. Mateen Elass

ISBN: 0310248124
List Price: $12.99
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Summary: Understanding the Koran
I bought this book along with a copy of the Koran. I found the book extreamly helpful in getting an understanding of the Moslem religion. The author does and excellant job on comparing Christanity and Islam. The text is easy to read and very understandable. In these times anyone wanting to have a better understanding of Islam should read this book.

Summary: For Christians Only
I am a Muslim from Somalia and so I wanted to see what Christians say about our Holy Book. This book pretends to be an examination of the Koran but the author tries to show that Christianity is better. In many ways the author's discussion of the Koran is fair to make Westerners more sympathetic to our people and in that his heart is in the right place. But ultimately this is a book by an infidel for infidels. It is not for Muslims.

Summary: not good at all..read an honest book
Preaching to the converted. Pun intended.

This book is not worth the paper it's been printed on. Full of distortion, it relies heavily on marginal and controversial studies. Similar book have been written throughout the Islamic history to try and refute Islam and show that Christianity hold the truth.

Perhaps the reader would be suited to read a book written by someone who is not biased against Islam,
Mateen Elass, an Arabic name but a christian Arabic name, very popular in Syria and Iraq,( ask any Arab) had presented a slanted picture on early Islamic text collection repeating the old orienalist charge against the Quran and the followers of Muhammad.

To answer a previous reviewer, the reason Muslims resort sometimes the suicide bombing, is because they don't have the luxury of smart bomb that aren't so smart. They don't possess cluster or napalm bombs that are been used daily against their children by the very peace loving Christians and Jews. I hope that answers your question.

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