Even though the name of Moses appears so many times in the Qur'an, it is interesting to note that his name does not appear at all in surahs 41 through 114. Remembering that the textual order of the Qur'an is virtually the reverse order in which the surahs were revealed, this suggests that the story of Moses only becomes important once the basic message of the Qur'an is known. There is a logical explanation for this. The early surahs tend to focus on the fundamental tenets of the Oneness of God and the Day of Judgment. By contrast, the content of the later surahs is much more complex and multifaceted, often containing responses to both theoretical and practical questions about Islam, some of which are likely to have arisen through dialogue with the Jews. (pp. 82-83)My discussion of Moses compares the way that he is depicted in the Torah, the New Testament and the Qur'an, with an emphasis on surahs 26 (The Poets), 27 (The Ants), and 28 (The Story).
Showing posts with label Qur'an. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Qur'an. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Moses in the Qur'an
The following is a brief excerpt from my book Reading the Qur'an in English (Cape Breton University Press, 2009). People who are unfamiliar with Islam and the Qur'an are often surprised to learn that Moses figures far more prominently than any other individual, aside from Muhammad, in Islam's holy book.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Publicity, Faith, Reza, and Me
Reza Aslan's new book on the historical Jesus, Zealot (Random House, 2013), is climbing the bestseller charts and provoking a bounty of positive and negative reviews. In what is rapidly becoming a viral video clip, Aslan is interviewed by Lauren Green on Fox News. If you haven't seen it, watch it. Green shows no interest in listening to anything Aslan has to say. Her singular mission appears to be dismissing the book on the basis that Aslan's faith compromises his objectivity.
I have written two books on the Qur'an: Reading the Qur'an in English (Cape Breton University Press, 2009) and Women, War & Hypocrites (Cape Breton University Press, 2010). While neither of my books has enjoyed even a small fraction of the sales of Zealot or Aslan's previous book, No God but God (Random House, 2006, 2011), there are similarities with respect to the responses we receive. The most common question I get about my books from both Muslims and non-Muslims is, "Are you Muslim?" When I respond by asking why that would matter, some non-Muslims give me a puzzled look and say something like, "If you're not Muslim, why would you bother?" It distresses me to think that this is a thinly-veiled articulation of the opinion that I'm crazy to waste my time on what they believe to be a nonsensical and dangerous superstition. Similarly, some Muslims openly state that if I am not Muslim, then my opinion either does not matter, or I must be attacking their faith. As with Aslan's treatment on Fox, too often, the merits of the book, whatever those may be, are viewed as secondary, or irrelevant, compared to the merits of the man.
Like Aslan, I was raised a Christian, I spent several years at university studying Christianity, and I have a PhD in sociology. One big difference comes with respect to our declarations of faith. I taught introductory courses on the religious traditions of the East and West, as well as more advanced courses on sacred texts, including a course on the Qur'an. In all of these classes I did my best to be objective about the subject matter and neutral with respect to my own religious views. Students always wanted to know what religion I followed, and I continually refused to answer. Aslan is openly Muslim, and I am openly noncommittal.
In the Fox interview, Aslan continually tries to make the point that he is an academic, and that writing books such as Zealot is his job. Sociologists studying criminals do not have to be criminals. Why should a sociologist writing about Christianity or Islam have to be a Christian or a Muslim? Big subject for another day, perhaps, but there is no question that scholars of religion are often subjected to a particularly mean-spirited version of anti-intellectualism.
Of course, one truism that gets reinforced by Aslan's appearance on Fox is that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I hope that significant numbers of people who buy Aslan's book actually read it. Similarly, even though I have not sold many books, I hope that the copies that are out there have been read. At the same time, as Oscar Wilde said: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." Hey Fox News, give me a call.
I have written two books on the Qur'an: Reading the Qur'an in English (Cape Breton University Press, 2009) and Women, War & Hypocrites (Cape Breton University Press, 2010). While neither of my books has enjoyed even a small fraction of the sales of Zealot or Aslan's previous book, No God but God (Random House, 2006, 2011), there are similarities with respect to the responses we receive. The most common question I get about my books from both Muslims and non-Muslims is, "Are you Muslim?" When I respond by asking why that would matter, some non-Muslims give me a puzzled look and say something like, "If you're not Muslim, why would you bother?" It distresses me to think that this is a thinly-veiled articulation of the opinion that I'm crazy to waste my time on what they believe to be a nonsensical and dangerous superstition. Similarly, some Muslims openly state that if I am not Muslim, then my opinion either does not matter, or I must be attacking their faith. As with Aslan's treatment on Fox, too often, the merits of the book, whatever those may be, are viewed as secondary, or irrelevant, compared to the merits of the man.
Like Aslan, I was raised a Christian, I spent several years at university studying Christianity, and I have a PhD in sociology. One big difference comes with respect to our declarations of faith. I taught introductory courses on the religious traditions of the East and West, as well as more advanced courses on sacred texts, including a course on the Qur'an. In all of these classes I did my best to be objective about the subject matter and neutral with respect to my own religious views. Students always wanted to know what religion I followed, and I continually refused to answer. Aslan is openly Muslim, and I am openly noncommittal.
In the Fox interview, Aslan continually tries to make the point that he is an academic, and that writing books such as Zealot is his job. Sociologists studying criminals do not have to be criminals. Why should a sociologist writing about Christianity or Islam have to be a Christian or a Muslim? Big subject for another day, perhaps, but there is no question that scholars of religion are often subjected to a particularly mean-spirited version of anti-intellectualism.
Of course, one truism that gets reinforced by Aslan's appearance on Fox is that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I hope that significant numbers of people who buy Aslan's book actually read it. Similarly, even though I have not sold many books, I hope that the copies that are out there have been read. At the same time, as Oscar Wilde said: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." Hey Fox News, give me a call.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
The Three Apples
I finished reading Kingdom of Strangers by Zoe Ferraris several weeks ago, but I was uncertain about how exactly to follow up on my previous post (July 7). When I had only just started reading the book, I was immediately drawn to the author's use of a well-known, yet little understood, verse from the Qur'an (74:30), in which the number nineteen plays a key role.
At the risk of providing too many spoilers, let me just say that the serial killer, who is the central villain in the novel, arranges the many murders he commits in the form of a trilogy designated by three apples.
The 'Story of the Three Apples' can be found in the anthology we generally refer to as the Arabian Nights, but is more correctly called the Thousand and One Nights (alf laylah wa-laylah). The framing narrative for this collection concerns the fate of Scheherazade, who tells a series of nightly stories to her new husband, the Persian king Sharyar, as a means of avoiding being put to death. Sharyar, it seems, is paranoid about the potential for any of his wives to commit adultery. Consequently, he kills them off once their marriage has been consummated. This leaves him in perpetual need of a new virgin to marry, and, from our perspective, probably qualifies him for the title of fiction's first serial killer.
The content of the Arabian Nights, like the content of the Qur'an, is well known by the majority of Muslim Arabs. However, while reading the latter text can be considered an obligation in Islam, reading the former text is largely forbidden.
Kingdom of Strangers is a laudable piece of contemporary crime fiction, albeit one that relies more heavily than most on its context. Ferraris does a commendable job of portraying the sociocultural complexity of Saudi Arabia, and is particularly adept at using the stark, arid geography of the region to accentuate her story. I do have a couple of small criticisms, and a caution for readers.
First, from a readability perspective, the book does get bogged down about two-thirds of the way through, as what are perhaps a few too many sub-plots wrestle their way towards resolution. Second, as a service to her readers, Ferraris provides a brief glossary of the Arabic terms she uses throughout her novel, but there is an interesting omission. On page 317, she has Katya say to herself, "Ya majnoun," just as she has her big aha moment about the three apples. This expression, which means something like, "Oh, you retard," does not appear in the glossary.
For those readers whose knowledge and experience of Islam and the Middle East are somewhat limited, one should be cautious about equating the culture of Saudi Arabia with the culture of all Islamic societies. And, perhaps even more importantly, one should be cautious about equating the official Saudi interpretation of Islam with the broader and highly variable interpretations of Islam that exist across cultural and ethnic divides, in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.
At the risk of providing too many spoilers, let me just say that the serial killer, who is the central villain in the novel, arranges the many murders he commits in the form of a trilogy designated by three apples.
The 'Story of the Three Apples' can be found in the anthology we generally refer to as the Arabian Nights, but is more correctly called the Thousand and One Nights (alf laylah wa-laylah). The framing narrative for this collection concerns the fate of Scheherazade, who tells a series of nightly stories to her new husband, the Persian king Sharyar, as a means of avoiding being put to death. Sharyar, it seems, is paranoid about the potential for any of his wives to commit adultery. Consequently, he kills them off once their marriage has been consummated. This leaves him in perpetual need of a new virgin to marry, and, from our perspective, probably qualifies him for the title of fiction's first serial killer.
The content of the Arabian Nights, like the content of the Qur'an, is well known by the majority of Muslim Arabs. However, while reading the latter text can be considered an obligation in Islam, reading the former text is largely forbidden.
Kingdom of Strangers is a laudable piece of contemporary crime fiction, albeit one that relies more heavily than most on its context. Ferraris does a commendable job of portraying the sociocultural complexity of Saudi Arabia, and is particularly adept at using the stark, arid geography of the region to accentuate her story. I do have a couple of small criticisms, and a caution for readers.
First, from a readability perspective, the book does get bogged down about two-thirds of the way through, as what are perhaps a few too many sub-plots wrestle their way towards resolution. Second, as a service to her readers, Ferraris provides a brief glossary of the Arabic terms she uses throughout her novel, but there is an interesting omission. On page 317, she has Katya say to herself, "Ya majnoun," just as she has her big aha moment about the three apples. This expression, which means something like, "Oh, you retard," does not appear in the glossary.
For those readers whose knowledge and experience of Islam and the Middle East are somewhat limited, one should be cautious about equating the culture of Saudi Arabia with the culture of all Islamic societies. And, perhaps even more importantly, one should be cautious about equating the official Saudi interpretation of Islam with the broader and highly variable interpretations of Islam that exist across cultural and ethnic divides, in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Q 74:30 - Nineteen Guardians of Hell
I just started reading Kingdom of Strangers, by Zoe Ferraris, which opens with the discovery of the bodies of nineteen females, who had been murdered, mutilated, and buried in a sand dune. Reflecting on the number of victims, one of the police officers refers to a verse in the Qur'an (74:30) which states that there are nineteen guardians of Hell. This verse, because of its use of this particular number, has always been one of my favorites. I do not think for a moment that the appearance of the number nineteen in this verse is in any way random or trivial. Rather, I am confident that it is a highly deliberate, extremely sophisticated, complex trope, designed to humble even the most erudite Qur'an scholars of any era.
The number nineteen displays a variety of interesting mathematical properties, including the fact that it is a prime number (a number divisible only by itself and one). It is also the number of constituent hexagons in the only non-trivial normal magic hexagon, but for those of us who don't engage in number theory or visual recreational mathematics, it might be difficult to see how any of this would be significant to our understanding of Hell, or the Qur'an for that matter.
The number nineteen also possesses a long history of associations and interpretations in the mystical systems of several ancient civilizations. For example, from a cosmological perspective, nineteen defines the Metonic cycle, which was used by the Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Chinese to predict the occurrence of solar eclipses. However, within numerology, and more specifically within gematria (the assignment of numerical values to letters of the alphabet and their subsequent interpretation), nineteen has remarkable significance.
Within Islam, nineteen is the number of letters in the basmalah, the invocation that appears at the beginning of all but one of the chapters (surahs) of the Qur'an. When the letters of the basmalah are converted into their numerical equivalents, the total is 786, which some Muslims use as a numerical shorthand for the invocation.
The number nineteen is also highly significant in Baha'i, a religious tradition that emerged in Persia in the 1840s, with deep roots in Islam, where it symbolizes, among other things, the dynamic tension between the one and the many, unity and plurality. This association is based on the observation that the numerical equivalent of the word for one (wahid) is nineteen. The centrality of the number to the Baha'i faith can be seen in the fact that its calendar consists of nineteen months of nineteen days.
The most extensive, and by far the most controversial, effort to establish a mystical relationship between the number nineteen and the text of the Qur'an, was proposed by the Egyptian-born, American biochemist Rashad Khalifa, who carried out a complete numerical analysis of the Qur'an, and set out to establish his own school of thought with Islam. He was assassinated in Tucson, Arizona, in 1990, after a fatwa was issued against him by the Islamic Legal Council of Saudi Arabia, for his heretical ideas.
I have not progressed far enough yet to know just exactly how Ferraris develops her use of this number or the related verse in her novel, but I'm sure I'll have something to say about it when the time comes.
The number nineteen displays a variety of interesting mathematical properties, including the fact that it is a prime number (a number divisible only by itself and one). It is also the number of constituent hexagons in the only non-trivial normal magic hexagon, but for those of us who don't engage in number theory or visual recreational mathematics, it might be difficult to see how any of this would be significant to our understanding of Hell, or the Qur'an for that matter.
The number nineteen also possesses a long history of associations and interpretations in the mystical systems of several ancient civilizations. For example, from a cosmological perspective, nineteen defines the Metonic cycle, which was used by the Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Chinese to predict the occurrence of solar eclipses. However, within numerology, and more specifically within gematria (the assignment of numerical values to letters of the alphabet and their subsequent interpretation), nineteen has remarkable significance.
Within Islam, nineteen is the number of letters in the basmalah, the invocation that appears at the beginning of all but one of the chapters (surahs) of the Qur'an. When the letters of the basmalah are converted into their numerical equivalents, the total is 786, which some Muslims use as a numerical shorthand for the invocation.
The number nineteen is also highly significant in Baha'i, a religious tradition that emerged in Persia in the 1840s, with deep roots in Islam, where it symbolizes, among other things, the dynamic tension between the one and the many, unity and plurality. This association is based on the observation that the numerical equivalent of the word for one (wahid) is nineteen. The centrality of the number to the Baha'i faith can be seen in the fact that its calendar consists of nineteen months of nineteen days.
The most extensive, and by far the most controversial, effort to establish a mystical relationship between the number nineteen and the text of the Qur'an, was proposed by the Egyptian-born, American biochemist Rashad Khalifa, who carried out a complete numerical analysis of the Qur'an, and set out to establish his own school of thought with Islam. He was assassinated in Tucson, Arizona, in 1990, after a fatwa was issued against him by the Islamic Legal Council of Saudi Arabia, for his heretical ideas.
I have not progressed far enough yet to know just exactly how Ferraris develops her use of this number or the related verse in her novel, but I'm sure I'll have something to say about it when the time comes.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Things Take Time
Among the many differences between academic and trade publishing, the market lifespan of a work is one of the most intriguing. A new novel, or even a piece of trendy non-fiction, that does not sell well within a few months following its release date can be quickly relegated to the remainder bin, as new releases compete for shelf space, promotional funds and the attention span of a media saturated public. In contrast, academic books slowly find their way into libraries and into the personal collections of faculty members and graduate students working in similar areas of interest. The slow pace is due in part to the fact that the key to dissemination is getting a book reviewed in relevant academic journals, which are relatively few in number and which rely on the willingness of subject experts to volunteer their time to critique new materials released in their fields.
In the most recent issue of the Journal of Religious History (2011, Vol. 35, No. 2), Edward Tyler said, "Robert Campbell’s Reading the Qur’an in English is a most useful tool and to be recommended to the interested newcomer. There are careful comparisons made with the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and in general, his book is eminently clear, systematic, and successful. It is a book to be read, and could be used in study groups and tutorials on the Qur’an. This reviewer is very glad to have the book in his possession."
This book was released in March 2009. So, more than two years later, my book is getting the sort of endorsement that a trade publication would have needed within weeks of its release, or preferably prior to its release. According to OCLC, copies of my book can be found in about 250 academic libraries around the globe, the vast majority of which are in the USA, but Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, the UAE and the Netherlands are also represented. With this new review, I am hopeful that scholarly uptake of my book will increase, but perhaps the greater potential lies in my ability to use the review as a means to further promote my book to a wider audience through social media.
In the most recent issue of the Journal of Religious History (2011, Vol. 35, No. 2), Edward Tyler said, "Robert Campbell’s Reading the Qur’an in English is a most useful tool and to be recommended to the interested newcomer. There are careful comparisons made with the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, and in general, his book is eminently clear, systematic, and successful. It is a book to be read, and could be used in study groups and tutorials on the Qur’an. This reviewer is very glad to have the book in his possession."
This book was released in March 2009. So, more than two years later, my book is getting the sort of endorsement that a trade publication would have needed within weeks of its release, or preferably prior to its release. According to OCLC, copies of my book can be found in about 250 academic libraries around the globe, the vast majority of which are in the USA, but Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, the UAE and the Netherlands are also represented. With this new review, I am hopeful that scholarly uptake of my book will increase, but perhaps the greater potential lies in my ability to use the review as a means to further promote my book to a wider audience through social media.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Can I Read Arabic?
As I discussed in an earlier post, when people learn that I have written books about the Qur'an, their first question is usually to ask me if I am Muslim. Once that issue has been dealt with, they are curious about whether I can read Arabic. I assume that the motivation for asking is to determine by what authority I presume to write about Islam's sacred book - one that is deemed to be a sacred book only in the original Arabic. As with the previous question, however, the answer does not come down to a simple yes or no.
I first point out that I do not speak or read modern Arabic, emphasizing that knowing how to ask directions to the subway, or being able to order eggs and coffee for breakfast, are not really matters that get discussed in the Qur'an. I then go on to point out that while those who are proficient in modern Arabic will be able to read the literal text of the Qur'an, that is not the same as saying that they will then understand what they are reading. The Arabic of the Qur'an represents a stage of linguistic and cultural development in the Arabian peninsula 1400 years ago, and much has changed linguistically, culturally, politically and religiously since then. Even for those modern readers whose first language is Arabic, reading the Qur'an in Arabic means reading the Qur'an in translation.
I then indicate that while I have some ability to read the Arabic of the Qur'an, I do not claim any special expertise as a linguist, nor do I think I will ever reach a point where I consider myself to have mastered the subject. Rather, I see myself as a perpetual student of Classical Arabic, of the Qur'an, and of Islam more generally. I have to read translations of the Qur'an in order to think and write about it, and so does everyone else.
I first point out that I do not speak or read modern Arabic, emphasizing that knowing how to ask directions to the subway, or being able to order eggs and coffee for breakfast, are not really matters that get discussed in the Qur'an. I then go on to point out that while those who are proficient in modern Arabic will be able to read the literal text of the Qur'an, that is not the same as saying that they will then understand what they are reading. The Arabic of the Qur'an represents a stage of linguistic and cultural development in the Arabian peninsula 1400 years ago, and much has changed linguistically, culturally, politically and religiously since then. Even for those modern readers whose first language is Arabic, reading the Qur'an in Arabic means reading the Qur'an in translation.
I then indicate that while I have some ability to read the Arabic of the Qur'an, I do not claim any special expertise as a linguist, nor do I think I will ever reach a point where I consider myself to have mastered the subject. Rather, I see myself as a perpetual student of Classical Arabic, of the Qur'an, and of Islam more generally. I have to read translations of the Qur'an in order to think and write about it, and so does everyone else.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Are You A Muslim?
A co-worker passed me in the hall this week and said, "I see you have a new Qur'an book out. Are you a Muslim?" I hesitated, smiled and said, "You wouldn't believe how many times I get asked that question." Not wishing to pursue the matter any further at that point, I quickly moved on.
Looking back over the past several years, the question usually arises when I am teaching courses on Islam or the Qur'an, when I am giving public lectures on these topics, and when I am being interviewed about my books. Both Muslims and non-Muslims have asked. My answer is always the same: "I don't answer that question, because I do not want to introduce any sort of bias into the reception of me or my ideas." I do however wonder at the motivation for asking.
While I'm sure that some people are merely curious, as if to say, "Robert Campbell doesn't sound like a Muslim name," I also suspect that others are looking to determine by what authority I speak about the Qur'an, thereby establishing how much credence they should place in what I have to say and to some extent allowing them to slot me into one of the convenient categories of apologist, detractor, heretic or zealot. After all, if I can be pigeonholed, the individual avoids the work of having to listen/read and think about the views that I am expressing.
One young Muslim woman told me that she and her husband had read through my first book (Reading the Qur'an in English) twice, and had spent a good amount of time discussing its content, all the while looking for clues that would help them determine my religious identity. They concluded that, while I certainly had an impressive understanding of the Qur'an, because I left some questions unanswered and appeared to advocate the questioning of some generally accepted precepts, I was not a Muslim. From my perspective, I was ecstatic. I had managed to get two people to carefully read through what I had to say, discuss it at length and draw some conclusions about their understanding of what it meant to be a Muslim. What more could I want?
Looking back over the past several years, the question usually arises when I am teaching courses on Islam or the Qur'an, when I am giving public lectures on these topics, and when I am being interviewed about my books. Both Muslims and non-Muslims have asked. My answer is always the same: "I don't answer that question, because I do not want to introduce any sort of bias into the reception of me or my ideas." I do however wonder at the motivation for asking.
While I'm sure that some people are merely curious, as if to say, "Robert Campbell doesn't sound like a Muslim name," I also suspect that others are looking to determine by what authority I speak about the Qur'an, thereby establishing how much credence they should place in what I have to say and to some extent allowing them to slot me into one of the convenient categories of apologist, detractor, heretic or zealot. After all, if I can be pigeonholed, the individual avoids the work of having to listen/read and think about the views that I am expressing.
One young Muslim woman told me that she and her husband had read through my first book (Reading the Qur'an in English) twice, and had spent a good amount of time discussing its content, all the while looking for clues that would help them determine my religious identity. They concluded that, while I certainly had an impressive understanding of the Qur'an, because I left some questions unanswered and appeared to advocate the questioning of some generally accepted precepts, I was not a Muslim. From my perspective, I was ecstatic. I had managed to get two people to carefully read through what I had to say, discuss it at length and draw some conclusions about their understanding of what it meant to be a Muslim. What more could I want?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Call to Prayer
Check out this video that I posted a few days ago on YouTube. The audio portion is a recording of me reciting the Islamic call to prayer (adhan), and the video is a slide show of recent and historic photos of Cape Breton Island, where I live. At the end of the video, I provide a shot of the covers of my two books on the Qur'an, as well as the url for my home page, so that you can get more information about me and my work.
My new book Women, War & Hypocrites is now available from Amazon.com (USA), .ca (Canada), .co.uk (United Kingdom) and .de (Germany). Basically, the book describes how to approach reading the English text of the Qur'an to gain insight into the way in which matters pertaining to women (e.g., marriage, inheritance, hijab and wife beating), war (e.g., killing, battle, jihad and terrorism) and hypocrites (e.g., People of the Book, intoxication and the crucifixion of Jesus) are covered, especially in the fourth surah (chapter) of the Qur'an, known as The Women. Rather than attempt to tell you what the Qur'an says about these matters, I try to help you to develop your own understanding of the text.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Available Soon
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