You are on page 1of 5

104

Book Reviews

The simply titled The Study Quran represents the culmination


of almost nine years of scholarship. As explained in the general introduction, Nasr and his editorial team of four Muslim
North American Islamic Studies scholars took up the project of developing a volume to stand as a complement to the
HarperCollins Study Bible (2006), which was edited by Harold
W. Attridge, and produced in conjunction with the Society of
Biblical Literature.
Prospective readers may wonder to what extent The Study
Quran parallels the structure and layout of the HarperCollins
Study Bible. They might wonder, as well, if The Study Quran
bears the indelible yet delicate stamp of Nasrs approach to the
Islamic tradition. In the introduction to the Study Bible, Attridge
clearly states that the Translation Committee aimed to make
the translation as literal as possible. Among the guiding concerns of the Study Bible was bringing sacred texts into English
translation (as Attridge states, It is, after all, an ancient book),
in a manner intelligible to modern audiences.6 Attention was
also paid to facilitating careful reading through underscoring
throughout the work the recurrence of certain key words.7
In the case of The Study Quran, Nasr and his team of editors
outlined one of the main objectives as follows: Inasmuch as
the Quran is the central, sacred, revealed reality for Muslims,
The Study Quran addresses it as such and does not limit it to a
work of merely historical, social, or linguistic interest divorced
from its sacred and revealed character (p.
xxiv). Nasr also
explains the works focus on traditional Islamic views; that
is, the incorporation of commentaries and the use of Quranic
commentaries (tafsr) to form an interlineal text in the foot6. HarperCollins Study Bible, p.xii.
7. HarperCollins Study Bible, p.xiii.

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 59, 2016

The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary.


Editor-in-chief, Seyyed Hossein Nasr. General editors, Caner
K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake and Joseph E. B. Lumbard.
Assistant editor, Mohammed Rustom. HarperOne: New
York, 2015. lx + 1,988 pages.

105

notes (p.xi). As he states, it was to be universal and at the same


time traditional, that is, expressing traditional Islamic views
and therefore excluding modernistic or fundamentalist interpretations that have appeared in parts of the Islamic world during the past two centuries (p.xi). For readers, these words will
lead to many questions. In earlier works, Nasr, following in the
footsteps of Rene Guenon (d.1951 ce), responded to the loss
of tradition, and the secularism(s) of modernity, in a way that
often displaced the religious texts under consideration from
their historical contexts. It often seemed that the Perennialists, with their own definitions of tradition, did not strongly
question the limitations of their terminology regarding the
universals of phenomenological truths. Both admirers and
critics of Nasrs many works on Islamic Studies and Perennial
Philosophy, published throughout the course of his long and
distinguished scholarly career, will want to come to their own
conclusions on their own terms, and from their own perspectives as to the tone and pitch of these lines of enquiry in The
Study Quran, which focuses on the universal and the traditional with respect to reading, interpreting and understanding
the Quran.
In the general introduction, Nasr also clarifies how he carefully selected the editorial team working with him on The Study
Quran, as well as the fifteen essay contributors. The team of editors, that is, Caner Dagli (Holy Cross College), Maria Dakake
(George Mason University), Joseph Lumbard (American University of Sharjah), and Mohammed Rustom (Carleton University),
translated the Quran into English, wrote commentaries on the
Quran and worked as editors on the translations and commentaries. It is explained in several parts of the book that Dagli
wrote commentaries for Quran 23, 89 and 218, and translated Quran 23, 89 and 228. He also authored one essay.
Dakake produced commentaries on Quran 47 and 1619. She
was the primary translator for Quran 47, 1012 and 1421,
and contributed one essay. Lombard wrote commentaries on
Quran 47, 1619, translated Quran 1, 13, 29114 and contributed two essays. Rustom wrote commentaries for Quran
1015 and 20. The general editors and assistant editor have

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 59, 2016

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

made significant contributions to re-thinking Islamic Studies,


as is most evident in the enormous amount of work they have
accomplished in The Study Quran, as well as in the other scholarly works they have produced in recent years, which include
translations and extensive studies of primary sources, as well as
monographs and articles on different aspects of the intellectual
traditions of Islam. They have all worked towards re-framing
the study of Islam for multiple audiences, within academic circles and beyond academia.
In terms of format and organization, The Study Quran is
divided into two main sections: (1) Translation and Commentary and (2) Essays. The first section provides a new English
translation, in conjunction with which the editors make accessible to English-speaking audiences a select body of classical
and modern commentaries. These are explained as such: One
function of the commentary is to explain the text or to point
readers to a different section of the commentary that addresses
more fully the particular subject. Another function is to direct
readers to similar or related passages in the Quran (p.li). The
number of commentaries selected, forty-one in total, aimed to
be as comprehensive as possible, but is not, in fact, inclusive of
all the approaches for interpreting the Quran, as is mentioned
in the general introduction.
In the second section, essays by Saleh, Mayer, Iqbal, al-Tayyib
and Dmd in part work towards questioning and considering
from different perspectives what has historically constituted
commentary traditions on the Quran. Saleh, for example,
poses the question of how tafsr studies have been constrained
in terms of the availability of sources, i.e. what is in print, and
how this has further delineated the contours and ellipses of the
historical understanding of the development of Quranic commentaries (p.1,646).
In terms of the introductions to each Quranic srah and the
commentator key, this review will focus on one example: Srah
36, Y Sn, often understood as the heart of the Quran. The
commentary first provides an explanation of the Arabic letters,
y and sn, which are the disjoined letters or al-muqat,
and supports this with references to Quran 2:1. The interlin-

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 59, 2016

106

107

eal commentary also makes reference to the tafsr of Qushayr,


abbreviated as (Q), as follows: In this context, the diminutive
O little human being is a term of endearment interpreted as
Gods address to the Prophet Muhammad. Others say that Y
Sn is a name given to the Prophet by God whose exact meaning is unknown (Q). The next part of the commentary also
briefly explains how commentators take Y Sn to be a name of
the Quran itself (p.1,070).
The fifteen essays, which are written in an approachable and
accessible style, determine the lines of discourse and discussion of the Quran historically and thematically in particular.
These essays will engage readers who are reading the Quran
for the first time, as well as those who have acquired a depth
of experience in terms of studying the Quran. The essays
are as follows: Matteson, How to Read the Quran; Lumbard,
The Quran in Translation; al-Azami, The Islamic View of
the Quran; Abdel Haleem, Quranic Arabic; Saleh, Quranic
Commentaries; Mayer, Traditions of Esoteric and Sapiential
Quranic Commentary; Iqbal, Scientific Commentary on the
Quran; al-Tayyib, The Quran as a Source of Islamic Law;
Dmd, The Quran and Schools of Islamic Theology and
Philosophy; Chittick, The Quran and Sufism; Michon, The
Quran and Islamic Art; Lumbard, The Quranic View of Sacred
History and other Religions; Dakake, Quranic Ethics, Human
Rights, and Society; Dagli, Conquest and Conversion, War
and Peace in the Quran; and Yusuf, Death, Dying, and the
Afterlife in the Quran.
The Study Quran also includes biographies of the essay
authors; three appendices: adth citations, time-lines of events
related to the Quran and commentator biographies; an index
for the work as a whole (which is organized with four types of
locator numbers); and maps.
Finally, prospective readers may be interested in situating
The Study Quran in terms of other available scholarly works
and compendiums on the Quran, such as The Cambridge
Companion to the Quran (2007), edited by McAuliffe; The
Blackwell Companion to the Quran (2008); and a forthcoming
co-edited volume by Dakake and Madigan, Routledge Compan-

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 59, 2016

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

ion to the Quran. These collective works undoubtedly have


their strengths and limitations in approaching the Quran.
Nonetheless, they point to the vibrancy of the field of Quranic
Studies as well as the number of intellectual discourses currently in place for thinking across disciplines and fields of
academic study, and beyond. So does The Study Quran. These
projects shed a very different light on the study of the Quran
than earlier academic studies. Furthermore, they employ different perspectives than suggested in recent debates in Religious
Studies specific to the academic study of Islam and the Quran.
For example, in the wake of many recent publications on the
Quran, scholars such as Aaron Hughes, Andrew Rippin and
Herbert Berg have argued for the need to locate methodological and theoretical approaches vis-a-vis commitments to the
academic study of religion and its values of objectivity, raising questions about the academic study of religious texts and
scriptures. In particular, in the North American context, in
terms of the study of Islam and the Quran, the values of objectivity that are underscored in approaching the Quran often
echo a set of unvoiced questions and concerns about scholarly
commitments. The Study Quran, on the other hand, belongs to
a series of works that places value on Islamic intellectual history as a tradition.
In sum, one of the most valuable contributions of The Study
Quran is its plurality of viewpoints and perspectives, which
work towards introducing students to the study of the Quran,
and providing multiple audiences, Muslim, and non-Muslim,
with frameworks for reading, and engaging in, the Quran.
Elizabeth R. Alexandrin
Department of Religion
University of Manitoba

Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 59, 2016

108

You might also like