Bruce Lawrence (1) (1941–)

I remember reading about this book while in Amman, Jordan in 2006. Bruce Lawrence mentions that he was assisted by Dr Ibrahim Abu Nab of Amman in the beginnings of this book. I have had it on my "reading now" shelf for years, and despite being half-way though, I started from the beginning yesterday and finished it today. I think the problem with my earlier attempt at reading the work was my lack of historical, geopolitical, and theological knowledge at the time. So this reading I found rather gripping. The book is a chronological biography of the Qur'an, and is part of a series of "Books that Shook the World". If this book is the standard for the series, then I will invest in some of the other books. What I like about Lawrence's work is that it is scholarly, contemporary, and pragmatic all at once. The fifteen chapters each present a different story about the Qur'an, in chronological order, and from various cultures and geographical locations. It might have been useful to read this book before I read Pioneers of Islamic Scholarship by Adil Salahi, and I may now revisit this work to pick up on many of the names and chronologies that I struggled with on my first reading. I do not think this is a book for beginners, although it is easy enough to read, but much would be lost without a basic understanding or a willingness to undertake background study while reading the book. While it took me a long time to read, I am glad I had put it off for so long, otherwise I would have missed a good deal from my lack of background knowledge.… (mer)

An installment in the "Books that Changed the World" series published Atlantic Monthly Press, Bruce Lawrence's The Qur'an: A Biography (2006) didn't quite do what I'd hoped it would. Rather than a history of the text's historical development, translations, influences, &c. (i.e. what I would have thought of as a "biography", and what other titles in this series generally focus on), Lawrence offers up a very abstract Introduction touching on the Qur'an's importance to Muslims, followed by a series of short profiles of people connected in one way or another with the Qur'an (from Muhammad to Osama bin Laden to early translator Robert Ketton).

While I was generally underwhelmed by Lawrence's work (when I wasn't just plain confused, since he alternates sharply between over-explanation and none at all), considering recent events a paragraph from his epilogue rang true: "There will be more headline stories about the Qur'an. Though they will likely concern its abuse rather than its use, it is its use that will finally matter most in the decades and centuries ahead. Scholars will continue to debate its style and content, its medieval and modern interpretations, and also its application in law and politics as well as interfaith dialogue."

There have got to be better books out there that will offer more of what I was looking for than this one did. I'll be on the lookout.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/09/book-review-quran-biography.html… (mer)