The Koran in English : a biography

278 Pages·2017·4.35 MB·English

by  Lawrence

Lives of Great Religious Books
The Koran in English
Lives of Great Religious Books
The Dead Sea Scrolls, John J. Collins
The Bhagavad Gita, Richard H. Davis
John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bruce Gordon
The Book of Mormon, Paul C. Gutjahr
The Book of Genesis, Ronald Hendel
The Book of Common Prayer, Alan Jacobs
The Book of Job, Mark Larrimore
The Koran in English, Bruce B. Lawrence
The Lotus Sūtra, Donald S. Lopez Jr.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Donald S. Lopez Jr.
C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, George M. Marsden
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, Martin E. Marty
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, Bernard McGinn
The I Ching, Richard J. Smith
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, David Gordon White
Augustine’s Confessions, Garry Wills
Forthcoming
The Book of Exodus, Joel Baden
The Book of Revelation, Timothy Beal
Confucius’s Analects, Annping Chin and Jonathan D. Spence
The Autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila, Carlos Eire
Josephus’s The Jewish War, Martin Goodman
Dante’s Divine Comedy, Joseph Luzzi
The Greatest Translations of All Time: The Septuagint and the Vulgate,
Jack Miles
The Passover Haggadah, Vanessa Ochs
The Song of Songs, Ilana Pardes
The Daode Jing, James Robson
Rumi’s Masnavi, Omid Safi
The Talmud, Barry Wimpfheimer
The Koran in English
A Biography
Bruce B. Lawrence
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press .princeton .edu
Jacket art: Initial panel from American Quran (Sandow Birk). Courtesy
of the Catherine Clark Gallery of San Francisco and Sandow Birk
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Lawrence, Bruce B., author.
Title: The Koran in English : a biography / Bruce B. Lawrence.
Description: Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2017] |
Series: Lives of great religious books | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016045969
ISBN 9780691155586 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Quran— Translations into English— History and
criticism.
Classification: LCC BP131.15.E54 L39 2017 | DDC 297.1/225— dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2016045969
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Garamond Premier Pro
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To James Kritzeck (1930– 1986)

Contents
Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Chapter 1 Muhammad and Revelation 1
Chapter 2 The Orientalist Koran 29
Chapter 3 The South Asian Koran 50
Chapter 4 The Virtual Koran and Beyond 81
Chapter 5 The Koran Up Close 104
Chapter 6 The Politics of Koran Translation 122
Chapter 7 The Graphic Koran 135
Conclusion 165
Acknowledgments 173
Appendix: The Koran in English
by Author and Date 177
Notes 191
Index 233

Illustrations
Figure 1 Cover for the first edition of George Sale’s
translation of The Koran. Courtesy of the
Rubenstein Library, Duke University 39
Figure 2 Chapter 1, Surat al-Fatiha Makkiya (the
Opening chapter, Mecca) in Muhammad
Asad, The Message of the Quran. Courtesy
of The Book Foundation, United
Kingdom 71
Figure 3 Chapter 1 (the Opening) in Muhammad
Ali, The Holy Quran. Courtesy of the
Ahmaidyyah Anjuman Ishaat Islam,
Lahore, Pakistan 74
Figure 4 Sura 1 Al-Fatiha (the Opening) in
Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the
Glorious Koran. Courtesy of Cagri
Publications 75
Figure 5 Yusuf Ali (portrait). Courtesy of Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License 76
Figure 6 Cover for the Amana Publications reprint,
The Meaning of the Holy Quran. Courtesy
of Amana Publications 77
ix