Book Review: Mustansir Mir: Understanding the Islamic Scripture: A Study of Selected Passages from the Qurʾan

Understanding the Islamic Scripture: A Study of Selected Passages from the Qu'ran "seeks to make the Islamic Scripture, the Qu'ran, accessible to general English-speaking readers." The author tells us in his short preface that

   these readers, Muslim or non-Muslim, presumably wish to
   know-in an intellectually respectable way, yet in readable
   idiom--the following: What kind of a book is the Qu'ran? What
   does it have to say, and how does it say it? Are there--many
   readers in the West might ask--any correspondences or points
   of contact between the Qu'ran and the Bible? Questions like
   these have guided my writing of this book. 

The book consists of thirty-seven translated "representative passages" of the Qu'ran "in readable, jargon-free language" , a short "General Introduction", "Concluding Remarks", copious "Notes", a glossary, and a bibliography consisting of twelve works consulted by the author. In most, but not all, of its thirty-seven sections containing translations of the passages of the Qu'ran (or of short surahs), the book follows a uniform pattern. Each part begins with an introduction, which contextualizes the selected passage or surah; a verse-by-verse commentary, which forms the second major aspect of this work (the first being the translation itself); literary notes, which highlight the literary qualities of the text; and a comparison of the passage (or surah) with the Bible, using Biblical data and/or interpretation of events or persons as found in the Bible.

Journal of Islam & Science, Vol. 6 (Summer 2008) No. 1​

Muzaffar Iqbal

Muzaffar Iqbal is the President of the Center for Islamic Sciences and the General Editor of the Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qurʾan.