Book
What the Qurʼan meant and why it matters / Garry Wills.
Record details
- ISBN: 1101981024
- ISBN: 9781101981023
- Physical Description: 226 pages
- Publisher: New York : Viking, [2017]
- Copyright: ©2017
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Includes index. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | My Qurʼan Problem -- Iraq: The Cost of Ignorance -- Secular Ignorance -- Religious Ignorance -- Fearful Ignorance -- The Qurʼan: searching for knowledge: A desert book -- Conversing with the cosmos -- The perpetual stream of prophets -- Peace to believers -- Zeal (Jihad) --The right path (shariʻah) -- Commerce -- Women: plural marriage -- Women: fighting back -- Women: the veil. |
| Immediate Source of Acquisition Note: | LSC 34.00 |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Qurʼan > Criticism, interpretation, etc. Islam > Doctrines. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | 297.1226 Wil | 31681020069803 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and religious scholar redirects his lifelong focus on Christianity and takes open-minded look at the Qurâan, finding the original meaning of the sacred text and showing numerous parallels between it and the Old and New Testaments. - Baker & Taylor
Offers a consideration of the Qur'an, rigorously exploring what the sacred work really says independent of the subsequent traditions that have grown up around it and pointing out parallels between it and Christian sacred works. - Penguin Putnam
America's leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur'an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient text
Garry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur'an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur'an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur'an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war?
   There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam'claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur'an.
   In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur'an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims'such as Pope Francis'find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur'an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration'and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur'an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world's most practiced religions.
