Related Posts
God in a 100 Words
Patheos asked to describe God in 100 words. They compiled all the responses they received to this “theoblogger” challenge, and the results are interesting. Check out the site. I am one of two Muslims, the other being Svend White from Akram’s Razor, and without speaking to each other about the challenge, we focused on God’s immanence and transcendence. Nice complement. How would you describe God in a 100 words?
I Look Jewish, and other interesting facts [updated]
Neither an Ashkenazim nor Sephardim be. Here’s an interesting article about the first South Asian to head a US synagogue. A short introduction to South Asian Jews as well. The Revealer has a good post called “Who’s a Jew?” It’s about a Muslim. My wife is a big fan of Ali and Nino and has been trying to get me to read it for a while. The question of authenticity is hard enough within a religious tradition, especially as different interpretations of the same faith come into contact. Then you throw in inter-faith issues and have people from outside any…
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…