{"id":18752,"date":"2010-09-29T21:15:15","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T03:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=18752"},"modified":"2010-09-29T21:15:15","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T03:15:15","slug":"musings-on-the-quran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/29\/musings-on-the-quran.html","title":{"rendered":"Musings on the Qur’an"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Commentary on a holy book that isn’t of my faith tradition is sort of like walking into someone’s house and criticizing their decor. \u00a0It’s not only rude, it presupposes one’s own taste is better than theirs, or what they like and enjoy and find comfortable is somehow suspect because it doesn’t work for me.<\/p>\n

That said, I’ve made a stab at reading the Qur’an (in a translation to English by John Medows Rodwell). \u00a0It was … not successful.<\/p>\n

Part of it was the language. \u00a0In shopping through the several translations at the local Buns & Noodle, I was driven by (a) wanting a mass market paperback so as to keep the cost down, and (b) looking for a translation that was more clear and less poetical in its language. \u00a0I succeeded in (a), not so much in (b). \u00a0Rodwell did his translation in the late 19th Century, it turns out, and it takes the KJV as its literary model.<\/p>\n

A greater part is probably as much because of what I expect Scripture to be. \u00a0The Christian Bible is a series of stories, for the most part. The Chosen People encounter X. \u00a0Person Y has this happen to him. He does Z. The Lord responds with W. Conclusions are drawn, faith is rewarded, violation of the Lord’s commands is punished, and on to the next book. \u00a0Even Gospels are narratives, telling the story of Jesus from (in some cases) childhood through ministry through execution through (in some cases) his return.<\/p>\n

The Qur’an, on the other hand, is essentially a series of speeches \/ sermons by Mohammed to the folks in Mecca during his struggle to establish Islam through Arabia. Nor are they sequential (in many translations; Rodwell’s translation supposedly is). \u00a0I really need to do some meta-reading about the Qur’an specifically, but what it boils down to is much closer (from a Christian perspective) to Paul’s Epistles, John’s Revelations, and some of the Old Testament Prophets (Jeremiah comes to mind) than the story-telling I’m useful.<\/p>\n

The result is sort of a fire hose of theology to drink from. \u00a0After plowing through the first four Suras (chapters), and doing some spot reading, I can’t say that I understand Islam much better than I did before, nor that I read much that struck me as particularly outre or evil or menacing. \u00a0While there are some differences in a few particulars, bottom line Mohammed’s preaching would not sound wildly out of context if someone slipped it into the readings in most Christian churches some Sunday. \u00a0(In fact, in some areas — treatment of women in marriage — I’d stack Sura 4 against the virginity- \/ menstruation-obsessed Deuteronomy and Leviticus.)<\/p>\n

(There are some stories told — retellings, for the most part, of Jewish and Christian tales, coming across as third- or fourth-hand renditions. Mohammed is not imposing something utterly new, nor is he dealing with a completely blank slate before his audience.)<\/p>\n

So …<\/p>\n

I have more reading to do, but it will likely be more meta (“The Idiot’s Guide to the Koran”) than the book itself. \u00a0I’m still interested in getting some basic description of the tenets of Islam, and the Qur’an. \u00a0Regardless of what one thinks about the role of Islam in the world, or this country, knowing about it is of great value. Knowledge is, after all, power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary on a holy book that isn’t of my faith tradition is sort of like walking into someone’s house and criticizing their decor. \u00a0It’s not only rude, it presupposes one’s own taste is better than theirs, or what they like and enjoy and find comfortable is somehow suspect because it doesn’t work for me. That … Continue reading “Musings on the Qur’an”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-books","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/koran.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5431,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/11\/friends_romans.html","url_meta":{"origin":18752,"position":0},"title":"Friends, Romans, countrymen, give me your attention …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Mar-04 9:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I know that Shakespearean language and syntax can be kind of difficult. But I'm more than little leery of teaching him in translation to contemporary English. On the one...","rel":"","context":"In "School Daze"","block_context":{"text":"School Daze","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/school-daze"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135586,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/08\/temptation-tweak-lords-prayer.html","url_meta":{"origin":18752,"position":1},"title":"The Temptation to Tweak the Lord’s Prayer","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 8-Dec-17 11:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"Pope Francis has suggested the Catholic Church consider a change in how it renders the Lord's Prayer (the \"Our Father\"), when it comes down to that whole \"temptation\" thing. The line in the Catholic translation in English is \"Lead us not into temptation.\" A similar translation is used in Italy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Pope-Francis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/20\/chinese-characters-in-translation.html","url_meta":{"origin":18752,"position":2},"title":"Chinese characters in translation","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 20-Nov-12 6:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So my #NanNoWriMo \u00a0novel \u00a0is set in San Francisco in 1952, and involves a number of Chinese characters.While this is over-simplifying things, the Romanization of Chinese characters has gone through a variety of evolutions (complicated by the various dialects of Chinese -- Cantonese vs. Mandarin, for example). \u00a0Traditionally, the Wade-Giles\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13650,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/10\/31\/out_of_office_signage.html","url_meta":{"origin":18752,"position":3},"title":"Out of Office Signage","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 31-Oct-08 2:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Call this the governmental version of Anglos who get Japanese or Chinese symbols as tattoos without really knowing what they mean. Or Japanese who wear oddly phrased English t-shirts...","rel":"","context":"In "Writing and Language"","block_context":{"text":"Writing and Language","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/writing-and-language"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/welsh-sign.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11975,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/12\/19\/gtalk_as_a_pocket_transla.html","url_meta":{"origin":18752,"position":4},"title":"GTalk as a pocket translater","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Dec-07 8:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool beans.\u00a0 Google has created some automated translation bots that work through Google Talk \/ Chat.\u00a0 Send them a message, and they'll send back the appropriate translation (subject to normal...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11735,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/13\/a_fun_turn_of_phrase.html","url_meta":{"origin":18752,"position":5},"title":"A fun turn of phrase","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-Feb-08 2:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"From one of my colleagues in the Netherlands: someone who tells a good story but who may be boasting a bit more than warranted: \"All mouth, no trousers.\"\u00a0 It might...","rel":"","context":"In "Writing and Language"","block_context":{"text":"Writing and Language","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/writing-and-language"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}