Finally...

al-Hamdu liLlah, this Fajr I finally finished The Koran for Dummies book!!! al-Hamdu liLlah... I feel like it took me forever! I started the book 5 months ago.

subHan Allah, I'm really glad I finished it though. I took a class at the University called Reading the Qur'an, and this book was a nice review of what was learned in there. At the very end the author had a list of books in which he recommended, and I read some of those books, and there were books listed that I was not very fond of.

For example:
I read Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells, and honestly there were a lot of things in that book that really gave me a weird feeling. Let me show you, I have the book right here, okay, it says, on page 136 that in a third version of interpretation of the surah Ikhlas is:

Say he is God, one
God the rock,
Not begetting, unbegotten,
and having as an equal none

I have never heard, until i read this book God described as a rock. It was just weird, and lots of other things in there were "weird". Perhaps there is a source that describes God that way, but the book gave me a weird feeling. Even the CD it came with, it had Qur'anic reciters and there were famous Indonesian women reciting Qur'an, it was odd. I mean, it's not wrong for women to recite the Qur'an, but it was odd. -smiles-

I remember reading the beginning of The Koran: A Very Short Introduction, by Michael Cook, and I just realized I never finished it. Some things in that book are odd, for example, he has surah al-Fatiha next to music notes, and stuff like that, is just again, "weird". Aside from that, I think I enjoyed the book. subHan Allah, I took the book out of my cabinet just now to realize I only have notes on random chapters skipping other chapters, I should go back and just finish reading it. al-hamdu liLlah another thing to put on my "to do" list.

Aside from the books that I have already read, there was a book on there that I wouldn't read. Qur'an and Women, by Amina Wadud.... just the author of the book makes me uninterested.

... al-Hamdu liLlah, I enjoyed The Koran for Dummies book. Although it took me a while to finish, I loved how clearly controversial topics in Islam were discussed. For instance; democracy, woman's rights, inheritance laws, relation with other faiths... etc.

al-Hamdu liLlah, but of course my favorite chapters in that book were the one's that dealt with Islam and spirituality. For example: Chapter 9 "Divining Nature, the Universe, and the Unseen" -smiles-

I thought I wouldn't like the chapter on Qur'an and modernity, but al-hamdu liLlah it proved to be very good, just like the whole book. Let me quote something I liked from page 296, "Modernity, meaning social and political progress that benefits humanity, differs from modern culture, which reflects lifestyles not necessarily built around the notion of public benefit." I really enjoyed the way the author analyzed each chapter topic, I felt everything was put together clearly, al-hamdu liLlah.