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Reading the Qur’an – part 3 – Translations and Secondary Sources [updated][2x]

[I’ve jumped a head to part 3 since several commentors have asked about translations and secondary material.] I’ve done one post already on the vagaries of Qur’anic Arabic. Learning Arabic does not really help in learning to read the Qur’an in the sense of its interpretive history, but it does help you appreciate the large semantic range of each word in the Qur’an. (A really good secondary source for this discussion, although somewhat technical, is The Qur’an’s Self-Image.) As a result, when I look up passages, I don’t rely on just one translation, but rather several. I also use languages…

Multiplicity and Diversity Are the Future of Islam in America

Multiplicity and Diversity Are the Future of Islam in America. The idea of writing about the future of Islam in America is more than daunting. At nearly 2 percent of the U.S. population, covering all fifty states, with histories stretching back hundreds of years, and representing nearly every Muslim community in the world, there does not seem to be a unified future. And that there is no one future is in fact a blessing and a potential, which perhaps should be the future to be celebrated.

Eid Milad Mubarak, 2011

It was this Muhammad — the cosmic Muhammad who served as the cause of creation, the Muhammad that God so loved that were it not for him creation would not have been (according to the Sacred Hadith “Wa law laaka…” )— that was the object of Muslim devotion. … The above Mevlud poem continues to be recited in Turkish homes down to today as it was in Ottoman times, a remarkable longevity in devotional life of Muslims.