Category: Books

Books Religion

Reading the Qur’an – Part 2 – Interpreting and Translating

islamoyankee

Finally, I’m getting around to writing the second part of my three part post on Reading the Qur’an. (Parts 1 and 3) The catalyst for this event was this post by Abu Dilbert (yes, that Scott Adams). Part one of the series talked about the Arabic of the Qur’an and scholarly apparatus of the Sunni community that developed to deal with interpreting the word of God. The idea that God’s word is not necessarily clear to humans should come as no surprise, and when you introduce translations, the problem is further compounded. Most Muslims view any translation as actually an…

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Books Current Affairs Reading Lists

Reading Iran

islamoyankee

Via MoorishGirl (have you bought her book yet?) I found this wonderful list from Azar Nafisi (of Reading Lolita in Tehran fame) on books on Iran. Her list: (asterisks are ones I’ve read) Encyclopedia Iranica (*as much as one reads an encyclopedia) The Blindfold Horse: Memories of a Persian Childhood Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope www.TehranAvenue.com www.fis-iran.org www.abfiran.org My Uncle Napoleon (*I just saw the new edition of the English translation. I’ve read the original Persian, and it’s a hoot.) Persepolis [vol. 1 and vol. 2] (*love it) Strange Times My Dear The Secret of Laughter Rubaiyat…

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Books

No God But God

Ghostdog

I just finished reading Reza Aslan’s recently published book entitled “No God But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam” I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others. Aslan makes the argument that Islam is, and continues to be, in a constant state of evolution and has been for 1400 years. He shows from that from the earliest revelations, the Prophet was a social reformer and that the ideologies of egalitarianism, human rights and popular sanction of governing bodies is not outside the values of Islam. Aslan goes on to make the case that Islamic terrorism for the…

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Books

CS Lewis is Muslim

islamoyankee

I’ve been sitting on this idea for a little bit; when I work with Muslim kids I often explain to them that The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is not a Christian allegory, so much as it is a Muslim one, specifically a Shi’ah Muslim allegory. Let me walk you through my ill-thought thinking. First, we know Lewis was opposed to a live-action version of the Chronicles, calling the representation of Aslan “blasphemy,” strong words from a religious person. The presence of an anti-iconic can be felt in such a statement. Second, we know that the lion is named…

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Books

Kid’s Books

islamoyankee

‘Tis the holiday season and one Eid is past, and another approaches. One of the things that happens around this time of year is that Muslim parents are asked to speak about Islam and (pick one: Jesus, Christmas, Eid, holidays, etc.), and/or recommend some books for various elementary levels. This year, since I have my own munchkin, I’ve been storming through books. Below are some of my favorites of Islamicate kids books (because they are not all about the religion of Islam, but about Muslims and Muslim societies). I have to say, one of the disappointing things about reading these…

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Books Inter-faith

Interfaith reading

islamoyankee

Inspired by this post at MoorishGirl, I thought I would suggest a couple of good books about matters of faith and the inter. Unlike Daughters of Abraham, which talks about commonalities, I’m recommending two novels that show commonality of the lived experience, not always pleasant though. The first is Granada by Radwan Ashur It’s a wonderful story of Granada in the year 1499, and while it focuses mostly on Muslims, you can see the impact the reconquista had on Jews and Christians as well. The other book is Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz. This book is a wonderful…

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Books Inter-faith Intra-faith Reading Lists

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

islamoyankee

[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…

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Books Inter-faith Intra-faith Religion

Reading the Qur’an – part 1 – Interpretation

islamoyankee

The Qur’an (also Quran, Koran) is the Muslim holy book, believed to have been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) – through the angel Jibra’il (Gabriel) – over the span of 23 years. The Arabic language of the time was a nascent language of literature, used mostly as a mnemonic guide in its written form; because of the close association of Semitic Languages (including Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac) the turn of Arabic into a literary language was not unprecedented. The script did not (and still does not) mark short vowels, punctuation, differentiate amongst different letters, and depending on the scribe,…

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Books Inter-faith Intra-faith

Muslims and the Book (of the comic and graphic variety)

islamoyankee

Oh so many moons ago, I read a post on Dove’s Eye View on a new series of comic books coming out Egypt. There are more details on her site, but the salient point is that the author/illustrator has Muslims fighting for the City of All Faiths; religious harmony is still an aspiration in the Arab Middle East. He grew up reading DC comics, and my personal take is that Marvel was always better at allegory and moral ambiguity (see, for example, these descriptions of the X-Men graphic novel, “God Love, Man Kills”), and DC better at black/white, right/wrong stories.…

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