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Bruce B. Lawrence

Autor von The Qur'an: A Biography

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Bruce B. Lawrence is the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor Emeritus of Religion at Duke University. His many books include Who Is Allah?; New Faiths, Old Fears: Muslims and Other Asian Immigrants in American Religious Life; and Shattering the Myth: Islam beyond Violence (Princeton).

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There is undoubtedly some worthwhile reasons to read this book, especially the sections dealing with the earliest translators of the Quran, but overall I came away from it feeling like I read a collection of very short reviews of various translations and nothing more. Lawrence did address more theoretical issues involved with scriptural translation, as well as the very interesting – and high stakes – issue of political involvement in Quranic publishing, but only very briefly. Overall the book felt much more focused on cataloging reviews than contributing anything original or thought-provoking to the study of English translations of the Quran. One could argue that this is in keeping with the book's subtitle to produce a "biography" (as opposed to an analysis?) and I can accept that; but I can't go so far as to say that it scratched an intellectual itch, so to speak.

Two other points merit attention. The first is the overly exhaustive examination of Sandow Birk's "American Qur'an" and other Islamic-themed works of his. All told, I'd estimate that mentions of Birk constitute at least a quarter of the total content of the book. In fact, the focus on Birk is foreshadowed from the first moment one encounters Lawrence's book: the cover design prominently features artwork taken from Birk's "American Qur'an." I understand Lawrence's argument that Birk did something sui generis in the history of English translations of the Quran, and Lawrence clearly has a personal affection for Birk's ecumenicism, charming Americanness, and skepticism of the ugly sides of American foreign policy and society vis à vis Islam, but I remain unconvinced that Birk should have been given so prominent a place in this book. His work may end up being more ephemeral than trailblazing; the emphasis on Birk just felt unbalanced.

The second thing I'd like to mention was the at times borderline painfully detailed examination of Quran websites. One finds such passages as "[translations] can be downloaded one by one or examined in comparison verse by verse: placing the mouse over the Arabic verse, one then indicates which of the several translations one wants to see"; "translations [...] can only be compared by a set of consecutive clicks for each verse on the same page; they cannot be viewed on one page"; "Its translations in English, however, are limited to ten: Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, Arberry, and Asad, but also Martin Lings (partial), Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Muhammad Tahir al-Qadri, Sahih International, Laleh Bakhtiar, as well as its own Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute translation." This level of detailed documentation of website features (that will very likely be outdated and thus useless by the time most readers come to this book, given how quickly and often websites are edited) is the type of thing that should at best be put in this book's appendix, and at worst not included at all, relegated instead to magazine and blog reviews.

All of this and more made this book feel like a disappointing effort, especially since it is the product of many years of labor from a renowned scholar.
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zinama | Sep 22, 2022 |
I abandoned this book after the introduction. Based on the introduction, which treats the divine revelation of the Qur'an as fact, it seemed that this was a historical look at the Qur'an through a a non-critical lens rather than a textual analysis lens. By this, I mean that it is treated as a sacred text rather than as a text that people treat as sacred. If the former is what you are looking for, this could be a worthwhile read. If the latter is what you are looking for, this is not the book you want.

(I'm intentionally leaving this unrated since it is unfair to rate a book badly for not being what I hoped it would be.)
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eri_kars | Jul 10, 2022 |
I remember reading about this book while in Amman, Jordan in 2006. Bruce Lawrence mentions that he was assisted by Dr Ibrahim Abu Nab of Amman in the beginnings of this book. I have had it on my "reading now" shelf for years, and despite being half-way though, I started from the beginning yesterday and finished it today. I think the problem with my earlier attempt at reading the work was my lack of historical, geopolitical, and theological knowledge at the time. So this reading I found rather gripping. The book is a chronological biography of the Qur'an, and is part of a series of "Books that Shook the World". If this book is the standard for the series, then I will invest in some of the other books. What I like about Lawrence's work is that it is scholarly, contemporary, and pragmatic all at once. The fifteen chapters each present a different story about the Qur'an, in chronological order, and from various cultures and geographical locations. It might have been useful to read this book before I read Pioneers of Islamic Scholarship by Adil Salahi, and I may now revisit this work to pick up on many of the names and chronologies that I struggled with on my first reading. I do not think this is a book for beginners, although it is easy enough to read, but much would be lost without a basic understanding or a willingness to undertake background study while reading the book. While it took me a long time to read, I am glad I had put it off for so long, otherwise I would have missed a good deal from my lack of background knowledge.… (mehr)
 
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madepercy | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Jan 23, 2019 |
This may be the first time I've aborted a book primarily for pomoposity. It is simply more work to read than it is worth, especially since he hadn't really gotten to his thesis yet by the end of the third chapter, though he kept promising he would. Maybe he does; maybe not. I'm not sure it would have been valuable anyway. I got the feeling from the things he did get to that his was a strictly scholarly approach, and that he hadn't spent any time actually, you know, like meeting any fundamentalists and getting to know them.… (mehr)
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Devil_llama | Jul 7, 2014 |

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