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The Koran

E.H. Palmer (Translator),

Anonymous (Type)

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Mar 10, 2008 Werner rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: other-nonfiction

Note, May 22, 2013: Some of the discussion below convinced me that I should add a couple of clarifying sentences, which I've just done.

With the current controversies over the projected "Ground Zero" mosque and the threatened Koran burning, a review of the Koran (also spelled Quran; there isn't always a one-on-one correspondence of Arabic and Latin letters) seemed topical. That might seem ground that angels fear to tread, fraught as it is with controversy, deeply-felt sensibilities for some, and Note, May 22, 2013: Some of the discussion below convinced me that I should add a couple of clarifying sentences, which I've just done.

With the current controversies over the projected "Ground Zero" mosque and the threatened Koran burning, a review of the Koran (also spelled Quran; there isn't always a one-on-one correspondence of Arabic and Latin letters) seemed topical. That might seem ground that angels fear to tread, fraught as it is with controversy, deeply-felt sensibilities for some, and the potential for verbal abuse and even physical violence in response. (It's also a challenge to distinguish between a review of the Koran per se and a full-blown discussion of Islam and its role in the world; the two subjects inevitably impinge on each other, but they aren't identical.) But Goodreads exists to provide book discussion --especially discussion of books with ideas that greatly impact the modern world; and by any definition, this one fits that description. Reviews so far tend to fall into three camps: those by Moslems lauding the book to the skies, those by Christian and Jewish believers angrily attacking it, and those by skeptics who see it as a prime example of the ludicrous nature of any and all religions. My own perspective is that of a committed Christian believer convinced of the truth claims of Jesus Christ. That stance is not only compatible with an effort to be fair in describing and evaluating others' beliefs in an attitude of respect for fellow human beings, but positively mandates it.

Unlike the Bible, which contains the writings of many authors spread over millenia, the Koran preserves the oral discourses of just one man, Mohammed, during his lifetime in seventh-century Arabia. (So it has a single basic historical-cultural context, and reflects the theology and style of just one author.) Moslems regard Mohammed as the last and ultimate prophet of God ("Allah" is simply the Arabic word for God, cognate with the Hebrew "El") --and by "God," they mean the God of the ancient Near Eastern religious tradition that also underlies the Bible, the God who revealed Himself to Noah and Abraham. (This in itself doesn't mean that their beliefs perfectly comprehend Him --arguably, nobody perfectly comprehends Him-- but it does mean that "Allah" should not be viewed by Christians as some alien deity comparable to Baal or Molech.) Mohammed's words were dictated to scribes; he was himself illiterate (not a disgrace, in that time and place). Raised in a polytheistic environment, he had some personal contact with Jews, and mostly second-hand information about Christian beliefs, and he connected Jewish and Christian conceptions of God with the primitive monotheistic tradition of his Arab ancestors, but he obviously never read either the Old or New Testaments. He viewed himself as a prophet called to uphold God's cause, and claimed Divine authority for his words.

The content of the Koran itself is sermonic material; it lays down some laws, which reflect a fairly primitive tribal society, and touches incidentally on theology in places, but the overwhelming majority of the content is a pounding reinteration of the twin themes of demand for absolute loyalty and obedience to God and threats of judgment against the disobedient, expressed over and over with a high degree of repetitive language (useful for memorization in a mainly oral culture) and in what I found to be a turgid style. (For me, it was a chore to read, and I think it would be for most Occidental readers.) Naturally, for Christian readers the obvious question here is the legitimacy of Mohammed's claim that this represents divinely inspired teaching. That this is not a claim to be rejected a priori is indicated by the fact that there are an increasing number of Moslems who accept Jesus as the Savior, and who see this as compatible with various views of Mohammed's prophetic role as legitimate. (See "Moslem Followers of Jesus?" by Joseph Cumming, Christianity Today, Dec. 2009, p. 32-5.) There is no hint here of the gospel of grace through faith on the basis of Christ's sacrifice, and not much hint of Divine compassion (beyond pro forma statements that God is "compassionate and merciful" --though here He doesn't sound like it); and the legislation allows things like slavery, polygamy and the subordination of women, and prescribes the death penalty much more liberally than we would. The same, however, can be said of parts of the Old Testament (though the Koranic command to cut off the hands of thieves and its encouragement of wife-beating goes beyond anything found in the Mosaic law). Those parts are set in a total context of Divine revelation that modifies or qualifies them; we accept them as Scripture, but if our sole understanding of God came from, say, the book of Obadiah, we'd have a severely mutilated picture. Much of the content of the Koran, on the most charitable assessment, could be seen as primitive and incomplete, in the same sense as some of the Old Testament that we can now view through the lens of progressive revelation and of Divine accommodation to limited human understanding on the part of the people He had to work with; a parent, as Calvin pointed out, speaks baby talk to an infant. (Though Mohammed lived in a time long after Christ, for all practical purposes his part of the world was a pre-Christian culture, and neither he nor his people had heard the gospel in anything like a coherent or understandable sense.)

IMO, though, there are aspects of the Koran that resist such a charitable view. To be sure, the stress on God's oneness is an Old Testament theme that no New Testament believer would deny, either; and even the insistence that God does not beget can be taken as a refutation of a misunderstanding of Christian doctrine, much as James in his epistle rebuts a misunderstanding of Pauline theology, not the genuine article. (God did not literally beget Jesus by sexual intercourse with Mary, in the manner of pagan gods siring children on human women, and no Christian believer would argue that He did.) But from a Christian standpoint, the Koranic insistence that Jesus was not really killed by his enemies, but was rescued by God, is incompatible with Divine revelation (not to mention history). It stems from the conviction that God must always necessarily rescue and vindicate the righteous, in this world --which, experientially, is NOT true-- and from (understandable) ignorance of the vicarious role of Jesus' death. Here again, Mohammed's lack of acquaintance with the New Testament was a serious liability --much as a lack of acquaintance with the Koran would be a liability to anyone making claims about Islam. (That isn't, obviously, anything that he could have helped; he had the information that could realistically be available to him in his time and place. By all accounts, he was actively interested in obtaining verbal information about both Judaism and Christianity; he can't be faulted for inevitable gaps in what he could acquire that way.) Also, while the Old Testament applies the Mosaic Law only to Israel, and the New Testament supersedes the letter of it with the spirit/Spirit, the Koran suggests no such limits for its laws --which is seen by strict Moslems today as a mandate to impose them on the entire world! Finally (and related to the latter) the Koran in places clearly commands a Moslem theocracy as the form of human government, and calls for its forcible imposition on the world. To be sure, not all Moslems are inclined to follow this to the letter. But this kind of Koranic teaching (coupled with its death penalty provisions for blasphemy and apostasy) certainly creates a built-in ratchet towards intolerance and religious violence, and provides religious justification for social policies which, no matter how constructive or mitigating they might have been in 7th-century tribal society, today more often create and perpetuate horrible injustice rather than mitigate it. To be wisely aware of this is not the same thing as calling for persecution of peaceful Moslems.

So in conclusion, my recommendation regarding the Koran is to read it, not burn it --but read it with a discerning critical faculty. :-) ...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Alandra rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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