Question for Muslims

[Mudhammam]

What's the best English translation of the Quran WITH commentary available?

[mralstoner]

An Abridged Koran by Dr Bill Warner is a good introduction to the main themes of the Koran.

The Koran is not arranged chronologically, and the context/background to the verses is often lacking. So, Dr Warner arranged the important verses chronologically, and used the Sira (biography of Mohammed) to explain the context of the verses. But I don't think Warner covers every verse, just the important ones.

http://www.amazon.com/Abridged-Koran-The...0978552849
http://www.politicalislam.com/store/cate...ine-books/

And here's a simple book (online) about the life of Mohammed, based on Dr Warner's books, for more context:
http://thestoryofmohammed.blogspot.com.a...ation.html

Dr Bill Warner - A Taste of Islam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjBDDC4wVxk

[vorlon13]

It occurs to me there might possibly be a fatwa about being too lazy to learn Arabic to read the Quran in it's original (blood of the infidel soaked) pages.

Hard to imagine they wouldn't also have their beards in a knot over sacrilegious translations too, everything else in their world is worth blowing up a school bus full of children to illustrate their rage, why not this too ???

[mralstoner]

Robert Spencer has some Koran commentary here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/quran-commentary

Some of his links are broken, but here's one that still works. You can select multiple Koran authors on the left of screen, per each chapter:

http://quran.com/

[Hegel]

What's the best English translation of the Quran WITH commentary available?

Considering the commentary, it all depends, whose Islam you are interested in.

Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation with commentary represents, as far as I know, at least pretty well the way majority of Sunni Muslims themselves think about their book and the way it should be interpreted.
I guess it's a kind of standard "moderate" traditionalist/conservative way of reading it, not from the more fundamentalist side of mainstream -- it might be a little too liberal for the Saudi Wahhabists... -- and certainly not "extremist", which does not mean it would not say some perhaps little troublesome things. It also has an excellent index of topics. But it is a boring reading, even for someone who has enough religious sentiments to grasp that some genuine spiritual experience is going on in there. Only, if you believe that "God is speaking to me in this book", it might become exhilarating if you want to become a Muslim... And if you don't, the book tells you many, many times, where you're going!

And yes, that http://quran.com/ is really excellent for comparative study: if all translations say the same, then, very likely that's more or less also what the original says.

[Mudhammam]

What's the best English translation of the Quran WITH commentary available?

Considering the commentary, it all depends, whose Islam you are interested in.

Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation with commentary represents, as far as I know, at least pretty well the way majority of Sunni Muslims themselves think about their book and the way it should be interpreted.
I guess it's a kind of standard "moderate" traditionalist/conservative way of reading it, not from the more fundamentalist side of mainstream -- it might be a little too liberal for the Saudi Wahhabists... -- and certainly not "extremist", which does not mean it would not say some perhaps little troublesome things. It also has an excellent index of topics. But it is a boring reading, even for someone who has enough religious sentiments to grasp that some genuine spiritual experience is going on in there. Only, if you believe that "God is speaking to me in this book", it might become exhilarating if you want to become a Muslim... And if you don't, the book tells you many, many times, where you're going!

And yes, that http://quran.com/ is really excellent for comparative study: if all translations say the same, then, very likely that's more or less also what the original says.

Basically, I'm going to order Islamophilia by Douglas Murray but before I read the con arguments I like to get the pro side, particularly from the source of the controversy so that I can see what's being referred to myself. So for example, I recently read The Missionary Position by Hitchens but first I read No Greater Love by Mother Theresa to give her character, in her words, some context.

I put An Abridged Koran by Bill Warner on my reading list. Is that the best one for a mainstream, "moderate" commentary?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It's important to remember that Islam is not a monolithic religion. It has a lot of branches and schools of thought. One version could be completely different than others although they use the same source materials. Always remember, all gods are imaginary and people create them in their own images.

[mralstoner]

It's important to remember that Islam is not a monolithic religion. It has a lot of branches and schools of thought. One version could be completely different than others although they use the same source materials. Always remember, all gods are imaginary and people create them in their own images.

Sure, but who cares about peaceful interpretations of Islam? It's the violent interpretations that we need to worry about, particular if that's what mainstream/traditional Islam is.

Sam Harris: "One problem is that we have this one word religion which names this truly diverse spectrum of fascinations and ideological commitments. And religion is a nearly useless term. It's a term like sports. Now there are sports like badminton and sports like Thai boxing and they have almost nothing in common apart from breathing. There are sports that are just synonymous with the risk of physical injury or even death ... but if you get injured playing badminton you're just embarrassed...

There is, I'm happy to say, a religion of peace in this world, but it's not Islam. The call Islam is a religion of peace that we hear ceaselessly reiterated is completely delusional. Now Jainism actually is a religion of peace. The core principle of Jainism is non-violence. Gandhi got his non-violence from the Jains. The crazier you get as a Jain, the less we have to worry about you. Jain extremists are paralysed by their pacifism. Jain extremists can't take their eyes off the ground when they walk lest they step on an ant...

So the problem is not religious extremism, because extremism is not a problem if your core beliefs are truly non-violent. The problem isn't fundamentalism ... the only problem with Islamic fundamentalism are the fundamentals of Islam ...

Osama bin Laden ... is giving a truly straightforward version of Islam, and you really have to be an acrobat to figure out how he is distorting the faith.

Now if these guys were Jains, or Buddhists, or Amish, or Quakers, it would be patently obvious how they were distorting their religion. In fact their behaviour would be unintelligible, but it is not obvious by the light of Islam, and this is just a fact we have to speak honestly about."

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Is there any real difference between extreme muslims and Old Testament Israelites/Hebrews/Jews as far as religious matters go? I think they are twins but the Islamic doctrine is less racist.

[mralstoner]

Is there any real difference between extreme muslims and Old Testament Israelites/Hebrews/Jews as far as religious matters go? I think they are twins but the Islamic doctrine is less racist.

Christians follow the example of Christ. Christ was not a violent man.
Muslims follow the example of Mohammed. Mohammed was extremely violent.
Actions speak much louder than words.

But if you want a scholarly answer ...

Robert Spencer -- Bible and Qur'an: equally violent?
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/03/bible-...olent.html

God mandates ethnic cleansing?

Besides passages apparently celebrating warfare and ethnic cleansing as sanctioned by almighty God, the books of Moses also contain other passages jarring to modern sensibilities. God commands, for example, that Sabbath-breakers be put to death ...

But is the Bible really enjoining violence, both against nonbelievers and believers who commit sins deemed worthy of capital punishment? This question cannot be answered by an evaluation of the text alone, for that text does now and has never in history stood apart from the way believers have understood it and acted upon it. From that perspective, the arguments of Peters and D’Souza, and the many others who have said essentially the same thing, founder primarily upon one central fact: there are no armed Jewish or Christian groups anywhere in the world today who are committing acts of violence and justifying them by referring to these texts. Indeed, throughout history, these texts have never been taken as divine commands that either must be or may be put into practice by believers in a new age. All these passages, after all, are descriptive, not prescriptive. They nowhere command believers to imitate this behavior, or to believe under any circumstances that God wishes them to act as his instruments of judgment in any situation today...

In short, the consensus view among Jews and Christians for many centuries is that unless you happen to be a Hittite, Girgashite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, or Jebusite, these Biblical passages simply do not apply to you. The Scriptures records God’s commands to the Israelites to make war against particular people only. However this may be understood, and however jarring it may be to modern sensibilities, it does not amount to any kind of marching orders for believers. That’s one principal reason why Jews and Christians haven’t formed terror groups around the world that quote these Scriptures to justify killing civilian non-combatants...

But the Bible has made people commit violent acts – hasn’t it?

... certainly Christians have committed violent acts in the name of Christianity. But have they done so in obedience to Christian Scripture and the teachings of the various Christian sects, or in defiance of those Scriptures and teachings? During the Crusades, it became customary for those who joined the effort to be referred to as “taking up their cross,” echoing Jesus’ statement: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

But on its face, of course, this says nothing about war or violence of any kind, and has been understood throughout history as referring primarily to the Christian’s struggle to conform his life to the demands of the Gospel...

The fact that he must instead resort to the physicalization of passages about spiritual warfare only makes more obvious the fact that can have no recourse to any Christian martial tradition, or doctrine of warfare against and conquest of unbelievers.

In Islam, however, the situation is quite different.

... in contrast to the Bible, the Qur’an exhorts believers to fight unbelievers without specifying anywhere in the text that only certain unbelievers are to be fought, or only for a certain period of time, or some other distinction. Taking the texts at face value, the command to make war against unbelievers is open-ended and universal.

So, Islam has very direct, open-ended and universal calls to fight unbelievers until they submit to Islamic rule. Christianity and Judaism have nothing like that. You really have to warp Christian doctrine to interpret marching orders from it.

But, once again, go back to my first point. Actions speak louder than words. Read the biography of Mohammed (Sira), he was a terrorist, pure and simple. And Islam commands Muslims to follow his example (in over 90 verses). Comparisons with Christ are utterly ridiculous. (No, I'm not a Christian).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirat_Rasul_Allah
"In the first two centuries of Islamic history, sīra was more commonly known as maghāzī (literally, stories of military expeditions) ..."