Summary
Title: The Qur'an: A User's Guide
Author: Farid Esack
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 1851683542
Pro:
• Clear language and explanations making the believer’s case
Con:
• More critical of skeptical scholars than of orthodox scholars
Description:
• Introduction to the Qur’an and Muslim beliefs
• Offers a critical approach written from a believer’s perspective
Book Review
Is the Qur’an an inspiration for peace or terrorism? Is it a source of hope or of evil? Most debates about this tend to take place on the basis of a few quotes taken out of context — not merely the context of the overall text, but also the context of Muslim scholarship on the Qur’an. This undermines the validity of arguments on both sides because so few participants really understand what they are talking about.
Farid Esack’s The Qur'an: A User's Guide may help some people in this. Esack is a Muslim from South Africa who has extensive experience applying a progressive vision of Islam to the racial and social problems in his native country. He adopts a critical position on the Qur’an and Islamic scholarship which is skeptical of both traditionalists and revisionists — I’m not sure, though, that he is equally skeptical of everyone.
Critical, non-Muslim scholars in the West who cast serious doubt on some of the most fundamental tenets of Islam are described in very unappealing terms.
They are “deluded” about being “objective.” The theories of critical scholarship are “tenuous” and its standards are dismissed for their “arbitrariness” and for being “peculiar” to these scholars’ assumptions. Such language and attitude is repeated every time critical scholarship comes up, but we don’t read similar criticisms of traditionalists. We don’t even read serious refutations of what the critics argue — understandable in such a short book, but not in light of the accusations he makes.
Now, Esack doesn’t agree with traditionalists on everything, but the great difference in language and attitude leaves the definite impression that the traditionalists, even if mistaken, are much more respectable than the critics. Whatever their errors, the traditionalists aren’t deluded, don’t advance tenuous theories, and don’t rely on arbitrary standards. This is to be expected since, as a devout Muslim, Esack shares basic theological premises with the traditionalists, not the critics (premises which might be undermined by the critics’ arguments). The unevenness of his criticisms, though, prevents him from adopting an independent position and undermines any presumption of an evenhanded assessment of current scholarship.
Esack’s book thus has to be read with a grain of salt, but this doesn’t mean that there isn’t any value to reading it. He writes for a general audience rather than for specialists and doesn’t assume any great background knowledge about Islam or the Qur’an. He makes very clear some incredibly important things, like how Muslims approach the Qur’an in a manner that is closer to how Christians approach Jesus than how they approach the Bible. The Qur’an isn’t just holy scripture, it’s also the Word of God made physical, not completely unlike how Jesus is perceived as the Word of God made flesh.
It’s also important to recognize that this book is a “user’s guide,” not simply an “introduction.” It does serve as an introduction to Islam and the Qur’an, but more significantly it explains how the Qur’an is and can be used. Esack describes, for example, how Muslims tend to approach the Qur’an like a lover and how this informs their understanding of its message. Missing, though, is a “guide” for non-Muslims in approaching problematic passages. There is little about current debates on terrorism, democracy, or liberalism, for example, which would make the book much more useful.
