Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.
If you prefer just to read a translation of the Quranic text alone, without a commentary, you can find it below.
As you read this chapter, pay particular attention to the
character traits of Joseph and Jacob that the Quranic narrative focuses
on. What parts of the story make the biggest impression on you? If you
are familiar with other versions of the story, are there any
similarities or differences that strike you?
You may also wish to listen to the recitation of Surat Yusuf by Abdul-Basit. The link here is to the first of eleven parts; the rest are on YouTube, as well.
The Story of Prophet Joseph, Surah Yusuf, Audio Video, Part 1 of 11
https://youtu.be/5VSmtE4jg7w
The Chapter of Joseph (12)
1. Alif-Lam-Ra. [These letters are one of the miracles of the Qur'an, and none but Allah (Alone) knows their meanings].
THESE ARE MESSAGES of a revelation clear in itself and clearly showing the truth:
2. behold, We have bestowed it
from on high as a discourse in the Arabic tongue, so that you might
encompass it with your reason.
3. In the measure that We
reveal this Qur'an unto thee, [O Prophet,] We explain it to thee in the
best possible way, seeing that ere this thou wert indeed among those who
are unaware [of what revelation is].
4. LO! Thus spoke Joseph unto
his father: "O my father! Behold, I saw [in a dream] eleven stars, as
well as the sun and the moon: I saw them prostrate themselves before
me!"
5. [Jacob] replied: "O my dear
son! Do not relate thy dream to thy brothers lest [out of envy] they
devise an evil scheme against thee; verily, Satan is man's open foe!
6. For, [as thou hast been
shown in thy dream,] even thus will thy Sustainer elect thee, and will
impart unto thee some understanding of the inner meaning of happenings,
and will bestow the full measure of His blessings upon thee and upon the
House of Jacob - even as, aforetime, He bestowed it in full measure
upon thy forefathers Abraham and Isaac. Verily, thy Sustainer is
all-knowing, wise!"
7. Indeed, in [the story of] Joseph and his brothers there are messages for all who search [after truth].
8. NOW [Joseph's brothers]
spoke [thus to one another:] "Truly, Joseph and his brother [Benjamin]
are dearer to our father than we, even though we are so many. Behold,
our father is surely suffering from an aberration!"
9. [Said one of them:] "Slay
Joseph, or else drive him away to some [faraway] land, so that your
father's regard may be for you alone: and after this is done, you will
be [free to repent and to live once again as] righteous people!"
10. Another of them said: "Do
not slay Joseph, but - rather - if you must do something - cast him into
the dark depths of this well, [whence] some caravan may pick him up."
11. [On this they agreed; and
thereupon] they spoke [thus to their father]: "O our father! Wherefore
wilt thou not trust us with Joseph, seeing that we are indeed his
well-wishers?
12. Let him go out with us tomorrow, that he may enjoy himself and play: and, verily, we shall guard him well!"
13. [Jacob] answered: "Behold,
it grieves me indeed [to think] that you might take him with you, for I
dread lest the wolf devour him at a moment when you are heedless of
him!"
14. Said they: "Surely, if the
wolf were to devour him notwithstanding that we are so many - then,
behold, we ought ourselves to perish!"
15. And so, when they went away with him, they decided to cast him into the dark depths of the well.
And We revealed [this] unto
him: "Thou wilt yet remind them of this their deed at a time when they
shall not perceive [who thou art]!"
16. And at nightfall they came to their father, weeping,
17. [and] said: "O our father!
Behold, we went off racing with one another, and left Joseph behind
with our things; and thereupon the wolf devoured him! But [we know that]
thou wouldst not believe us even though we speak the truth -
18. and they produced his tunic with false blood upon it.
[But Jacob] exclaimed: "Nay,
but it is your [own] minds that have made [so terrible] a happening seem
a matter of little account to you!" But [as for myself,] patience in
adversity is most goodly [in the sight of God]; and it is to God [alone]
that I pray to give me strength to bear the misfortune which you have
described to me."
19. AND THERE CAME a caravan;
and they sent forth their drawer of water, and he let down his bucket
into the well - [and when he saw Joseph] he exclaimed: "Oh, what a lucky
find, this boy!"
And they hid him with a view to selling him: but God had full knowledge of all that they were doing.
20. And they sold him for a paltry price - a mere few silver coins: thus low did they value him.
21. And the man from Egypt who
bought him said to his wife: "Make his stay [with us] honourable; he
may well be of use to us, or we may adopt him as a son.
And thus We gave unto Joseph a
firm place on earth; and [We did this] so that We might impart unto him
some understanding of the inner meaning of happenings. For, God always
prevails in whatever be His purpose: but most people know it not.
22. And when he reached full
manhood, We bestowed upon him the ability to judge [between right and
wrong], as well as [innate] knowledge: for thus do We reward the doers
of good.
23. And [it so happened that]
she in whose house he was living [conceived a passion for him and]
sought to make him yield himself unto her; and she bolted the doors and
said, "Come thou unto me!"
[But Joseph] answered: "May
God preserve me! Behold, goodly has my master made my stay [in this
house]! Verily, to no good end come they that do [such] wrong!"
24. And, indeed, she desired
him, and he desired her; [and he would have succumbed] had he not seen
[in this temptation] an evidence of his Sustainer's truth: thus [We
willed it to be] in order that We might avert from him all evil and all
deeds of abomination - for, behold, he was truly one of Our servants.
25. And they both rushed to
the door; and she [grasped and] rent his tunic from behind - and [lo!]
they met her lord at the door!
Said she: "What ought to be
the punishment of one who had evil designs on [the virtue of] thy wife -
[what] but imprisonment or a [yet more] grievous chastisement?"
26. [Joseph] exclaimed: "It was she who sought to make me yield myself unto her!"
Now one of those present, a
member of her own household, suggested this: "If his tunic has been torn
from the front, then she is telling the truth, and he is a liar;
27. but if his tunic has been torn from behind, then she is lying, and he is speaking the truth."
28. And when (her husband] saw
that his tunic was torn from behind, he said: "Behold, this is [an
instance] of your guile, O womankind! Verily, awesome is your guile!
29. [But,] Joseph, let this
pass! And thou, [O wife,] ask forgiveness for thy sin - for, verily,
thou hast been greatly at fault!"
30. NOW the women of the city
spoke [thus to one another]: "The wife of this nobleman is trying to
induce her slave-boy to yield himself unto her! Her love for him has
pierced her heart; verily, we see that she is undoubtedly suffering from
an aberration!"
31. Thereupon, when she heard
of their malicious talk, she sent for them, and prepared for them a
sumptuous repast, and handed each of them a knife and said [to Joseph]:
"Come out and show thyself to them!"
And when the women saw him,
they were greatly amazed at his beauty, and [so flustered were they
that] they cut their hands [with their knives], exclaiming, "God save
us! This is no mortal man! This is nought but a noble angel!"
32. Said she: "This, then, is
he about whom you have been blaming me! And, indeed, I did try to make
him yield himself unto me, but he remained chaste. Now, however, if he
does not do what I bid him, he shall most certainly be imprisoned, and
shall most certainly find himself among the despised!"
33. Said he: "O my Sustainer!
Prison is more desirable to me than [compliance with] what these women
invite me to: for, unless Thou turn away their guile from me, I might
yet yield to their allure and become one of those who are unaware [of
right and wrong]."
34. And his Sustainer
responded to his prayer, and freed him from the threat of their guile:
verily, He alone is all-hearing, all-knowing.
35. For, presently it occurred
to the nobleman and his household [even] after they had seen all the
signs [of Joseph's innocence] - that they might as well imprison him for
a time.
36. NOW two young men happened
to go to prison at the same time as Joseph. One of them said: "Behold, I
saw myself [in a dream] pressing wine."
And the other said: "Behold, I
saw myself [in a dream] carrying bread on my head, and birds were
eating thereof." [And both entreated Joseph:] "Let us know the real
meaning of this! Verily, we see that thou art one of those who know well
[how to interpret dreams]."
37. [Joseph] answered: "Ere
there comes unto you the meal which you are [daily] fed, I shall have
informed you of the real meaning of your dreams, [so that you might know
what is to come] before it comes unto you: for this is [part] of the
knowledge which my Sustainer has imparted to me.
"Behold, I have left behind me
the ways of people who do not believe in God, and who persistently
refuse to acknowledge the truth of the life to come;
38. and I follow the creed of
my forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is not conceivable that we
should [be allowed to] ascribe divinity to aught beside God: this is [an
outcome] of God's bounty unto us and unto all mankind - but most people
are ungrateful.
39. "O my companions in
imprisonment! Which is more reasonable:40 [belief in the existence of
numerous divine] lords, each of them different from the other41 - or
[in] the One God, who holds absolute sway over all that exists?
40. "All that you worship
instead of God is nothing but [empty] names which you have invented -
you and your forefathers - [and] for which God has bestowed no warrant
from on high. Judgment [as to what is right and what is wrong] rests
with God alone - [and] He has ordained that you should worship nought
but Him: this is the [one] ever-true faith; but most people know it not.
41. "[And now,] O my
companions in imprisonment, [I shall tell you the meaning of your
dreams:] as for one of you two, he will [again] give his lord [the King]
wine to drink; but as for the other, he will be crucified, and birds
will eat off his head. [But whatever be your future,] the matter on
which you have asked me to enlighten you has been decided [by God]."
42. And [thereupon Joseph]
said unto the one of the two whom he considered saved: "Mention me unto
thy lord [when thou art free]!" But Satan caused him to forget to
mention [Joseph] to his lord, and so he remained in prison a few [more]
years.
43. AND [one day] the King
said: "Behold, I saw [in a dream] seven fat cows being devoured by seven
emaciated ones, and seven green ears [of wheat] next to [seven] others
that were withered. O you nobles! Enlighten me about [the meaning of] my
dream, if you are able to interpret dreams!"
44. They answered: "[This is
one of] the most involved and confusing of dreams, and we have no deep
knowledge of the real meaning of dreams."
45. At that, the one of the
two [erstwhile prisoners] who had been saved, and [who suddenly]
remembered [Joseph] after all that time, spoke [thus]: "It is I who can
inform you of the real meaning of this [dream]; so let me go [in search
of it]."
46. [And he went to see Joseph
in the prison and said to him:] "Joseph, O thou truthful one! Enlighten
us about [the meaning of a dream in which] seven fat cows were being
devoured by seven emaciated ones, and seven green ears [of wheat
appeared] next to [seven] others that were withered - so that I may
return [with thy explanation] unto the people [of the court, and] that
they may come to know [what manner of man thou art]!"
47. [Joseph] replied: "You
shall sow for seven years as usual; but let all [the grain] that you
harvest remain [untouched] in its ear, excepting only a little, whereof
you may eat:
48. for, after that [period of
seven good years] there will come seven hard [years] which will devour
all that you shall have laid up for them, excepting only a little of
that which you shall have kept in store.
49. And after that there will
come a year in which the people will be delivered from all distress, and
in which they will press [oil and wine as before]."
50. And [as soon as Joseph's interpretation was conveyed to him,] the King said: "Bring him before me!"
But when the [King's]
messenger came unto him, [Joseph] said: "Go back to thy lord and ask him
[first to find out the truth] about those women who cut their hands -
for, behold, [until now it is] my Sustainer [alone who] has full
knowledge of their guile!"
51. [Thereupon the King sent
for those women; and when they came,] he asked: "What was it that you
hoped to achieve when you sought to make Joseph yield himself unto you?"
The women asnwered: "God save us! We did not perceive the least evil
[intention] on his part!" [And] the wife of Joseph's former master
exclaimed: "Now has the truth come to light! It was I who sought to make
him yield himself unto me - whereas he, behold, was indeed speaking the
truth!"
52. [When Joseph learned what
had happened, he said:' "I asked for] this, so that [my former master]
might know that I did not betray him behind his back,[ and that God does
not bless with His guidance the artful schemes of those who betray
their trust.
53. And yet, I am not trying
to absolve myself: for, verily, man's inner self does incite [him] to
evil, and saved are only they upon whom my Sustainer bestows His grace.
Behold, my Sustainer is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace!"
54. And the King said: "Bring him unto me, so that I may attach him to my own person."
And when he had spoken with
him, [the King] said: "Behold, [from] this day thou shalt be of high
standing with us, invested with all trust!"
55. [Joseph] replied: "Place in my charge the store-houses of the land; behold, I shall be a good and knowing keeper.
56. And thus We established Joseph securely in the land [of Egypt]: he had full mastery over it, [doing] whatever he willed.
[Thus do] We cause Our grace to alight upon whomever We will; and We do not fail to requite the doers of good.
57. But in the eyes of those
who have attained to faith and have always been conscious of Us, a
reward in the life to come is a far greater good [than any reward in
this world].
58. AND [after some years,]
Joseph's brothers came [to Egypt] and presented themselves before him:
and he knew them [at once], whereas they did not recognize him.
59. And when he had provided
them with their provisions, he said: "[When you come here next,] bring
unto me that brother of yours from your father's side. Do you not see
that I have given [you] full measure and have been the best of hosts?
60. But if you do not bring
him unto me, you shall never again receive a single measure [of grain]
from me, nor shall you [be allowed to] come near me!"
61. They answered: "We shall try to persuade his father to part with him, and, verily, we shall do [our utmost]!"
62. And [Joseph] said to his
servants: "Place their merchandise in their camel-packs, so that they
may find it there when they come home, and hence be the more eager to
return.
63. And so, when they returned
to their father, [Joseph's brothers] said: "O our father! All grain is
[to be] withheld from us [in the future unless we bring Benjamin with
us]: send, therefore, our brother with us, so that we may obtain our
measure (of grain]; and, verily, we shall guard him well!"
64. [Jacob] replied: "Shall I
trust you with him in the same way as I trusted you with his brother
(Joseph] aforetime? [Nay,] but God's guardianship is better [than
yours], for He is the most merciful of the merciful!"
65. Thereupon, when they
opened their packs, they discovered that their merchandise had been
returned to them; [and] they said: "O our father! What more could we
desire? Here is our merchandise: it has been returned to us! [If thou
send Benjamin with us,] we shall (again] be able to bring food for our
family, and shall guard our brother [well], and receive in addition
another camel-load of grain. That [which we have brought the first time]
was but a scanty measure."
66. Said [Jacob]: "I will not
send him with you until you give me a solemn pledge, before God, that
you will indeed bring him back unto me, unless you yourselves be
encompassed [by death]!"
And when they had given him their solemn pledge, [Jacob] said: "God is witness to all that we say!"
67. And he added: "O my sons!
Do not enter [the city all] by one gate, but enter by different gates.
Yet [even so,] I can be of no avail whatever to you against [anything
that may be willed by] God: judgment [as to what is to happen] rests
with none but God. In Him have I placed my trust: for, all who have
trust [in His existence] must place their trust in Him alone."
68. But although they entered
[Joseph's city] in the way their father had bidden them, this proved of
no avail whatever to them against [the plan of] God. [His request] had
served only to satisfy Jacob's heartfelt desire [to protect them]: for,
behold, thanks to what We had imparted unto him, he was indeed endowed
with the knowledge [that God's will must always prevail]; but most
people know it not.
69. AND WHEN [the sons of
Jacob] presented themselves before Joseph, he drew his brother
[Benjamin] unto himself, saying [to him in secret]: "Behold, I am thy
brother! So grieve thou not over their past doings!"
70. And [later,] when he had
provided them with their provisions, he placed the [King's] drinking-cup
in his brother's camel-pack. And [as they were leaving the city,] a
herald called out: "O you people of the caravan! Verily, you are
thieves!"
71. Turning towards the herald and his companions, the brothers asked: "What is it that you miss?"
72. They answered: "We miss
the King's goblet; and he who produces it shall receive a camel-load [of
grain as reward]!" And [the herald added:] "I pledge myself to this
[promise]!"
73. Said [the brothers]: "By
God! Well do you know that we have not come to commit deeds of
corruption in this land, and that we have not been thieving!"
74. [The Egyptians] said: "But what shall be the requital of this [deed] if you are [proved to be] liars?"
75. [The brothers] replied:
"Its requital? He in whose camel-pack [the cup] is found - he shall be
[enslaved as] a requital thereof! Thus do we [ourselves] requite the
doers of [such] wrong.
76. Thereupon [they were
brought before Joseph to be searched; and] he began with the bags of his
half-brothers before the bag of his brother [Benjamin]: and in the end
he brought forth the drinking cup out of his brother's bag.
In this way did We contrive
for Joseph [the attainment of his heart's desire]: under the King's law,
he would [otherwise] not have been able to detain his brother, had not
God so willed. We do raise to [high] degrees [of knowledge] whomever We
will - but above everyone who is endowed with knowledge there is One who
knows all.
77. [As soon as the cup came
to light out of Benjamin's bag, the brothers] exclaimed: "If he has
stolen-well, a brother of his used to steal aforetime!"
Thereupon Joseph said to
himself, without revealing his thought to them: "You are far worse in
this respect, and God is fully aware of what you are saying."
78. They said: "O thou great
one! Behold, he has a father, a very old man: detain, therefore, one of
us in his stead. Verily, we see that thou art a doer of good!"
79. He answered: "May God
preserve us from [the sin of] detaining any other than him with whom we
have found our property - for then, behold, we would indeed be
evildoers!"
80. And so, when they lost all hope of [moving] him, they withdrew to take counsel [among themselves].
The eldest of them said: "Do
you not remember that your father has bound you by a solemn pledge
before God - and how, before that, you had failed with regard to Joseph?
Hence, I shall not depart from this land till my father gives me leave
or God passes judgment in my favour: for He is the best of all judges.
81. [And as for you others,]
return to your father and say: 'O our father! Behold, thy son has stolen
- but we [can] bear witness to no more than what has become known to
us; and [although we gave you our pledge,] we could not guard against
something that [lay hidden in the future and, hence,] was beyond the
reach of our perception.
82. And ask thou in the town
in which we were [at the time], and of the people of the caravan with
whom we travelled hither, and [thou wilt find that] we, are indeed
telling the truth!'"
83. [AND WHEN they returned to
their father and told him what had happened,] he exclaimed: "Nay, but
it is your [own] minds that have made [so terrible] a happening seem a
matter of little account to you! But [as for myself,] patience in
adversity is most goodly; God may well bring them all [back] unto me:
verily, He alone is all-knowing, truly wise!"
84. But he turned away from
them and said: "O woe is me for Joseph!" - and his eyes became dim from
the grief with which he was filled.
85. Said [his sons]: "By God! Thou wilt never cease to remember Joseph till thou art broken in body and spirit or art dead!"
86. He answered: "It is only
to God that I complain of my deep grief and my sorrow: for I know, from
God, something that you do not know.
87. [Hence,] O my sons, go
forth and try to obtain some tidings of Joseph and his brother; and do
not lose hope of God's life-giving mercy: verily, none but people who
deny the truth can ever lose hope of God's life-giving mercy."
88. [AND THE SONS of Jacob
went back to Egypt and to Joseph;] and when they presented themselves
before him, they said: "O thou great one! Hardship has visited us and
our folk, and so we have brought but scanty merchandise; but give us a
full measure [of grain], and be charitable to us: behold, God rewards
those who give in charity!"
89. Replied he: "Do you remember what you did to Joseph and his brother when you were still unaware [of right and wrong]?"
90. They exclaimed: "Why - is it indeed thou who art Joseph?"
He answered: "I am Joseph, and
this is my brother. God has indeed been gracious unto us. Verily, if
one is conscious of Him and patient in adversity - behold, God does not
fail to requite the doers of good!"
91. [The brothers] said: "By God! Most certainly has God raised thee high above us, and we were indeed but sinners!"
92. Said he: "No reproach
shall be uttered today against you. May God forgive you your sins: for
He is the most merciful of the merciful!
93. [And now] go and take this
tunic of mine and lay it over my father's face, and he will recover his
sight. And thereupon come [back] to me with all your family."
94. AND AS SOON as the caravan
[with which Jacob's sons were travelling] was on its way, their father
said [to the people around him]: "Behold, were it not that you might
consider me a dotard, [I would say that] I truly feel the breath of
Joseph [in the air]!"
95. They answered: "By God! Thou art indeed still lost in thy old aberration!"
96. But when the bearer of
good tidings came [with Joseph's tunic], he laid it over his face; and
he regained his sight, [and] exclaimed: "Did I not tell you, 'Verily, I
know, from God, something that you do not know'?"
97. [His sons] answered: "O our father! Ask God to forgive us our sins, for, verily, we were sinners."
98. He said: "I shall ask my Sustainer to forgive you: He alone is truly forgiving, a true dispenser of grace!"
99. AND WHEN they [all arrived
in Egypt and] presented themselves before Joseph, he drew his parents
unto himself, saying, "Enter Egypt! If God so wills, you shall be secure
[from all evil]!"
100. And he raised his parents
to the highest place of honour; and they [all] fell down before Him,
prostrating themselves in adoration.
Thereupon [Joseph] said: "O my
father! This is the real meaning of my dream of long ago, which my
Sustainer has made come true. And He was indeed good to me when He freed
me from the prison, and [when] He brought you [all unto me] from the
desert after Satan had sown discord between me and my brothers. Verily,
my Sustainer is unfathomable in [the way He brings about] whatever He
wills: verily, He alone is all-knowing, truly wise!
101. "O my Sustainer! Thou
hast indeed bestowed upon me something of power, and hast imparted unto
me some knowledge of the inner meaning of happenings. Originator of the
heavens and the earth! Thou art near unto me in this world and in the
life to come: let me die as one who has surrendered himself unto Thee,
and make me one with the righteous!"
102. THIS ACCOUNT of something
that was beyond the reach of thy perception We [now] reveal unto thee,
[O Prophet:] for thou wert not with Joseph's brothers when they resolved
upon what they were going to do and wove their schemes [against him].
103. Yet - however strongly thou mayest desire it - most people will not believe [in this revelation],
104. although thou dost not ask of them any reward for it: it is but [God's] reminder unto all mankind.
105. But [then] - how many a
sign is there in the heavens and on earth which they pass by
[unthinkingly], and on which they turn their backs!
106. And most of them do not even believe in God without [also] ascribing divine powers to other beings beside Him.
107. Do they, then, feel free
from the fear that there might fall upon them the overwhelming terror of
God's chastisement, or that the Last Hour might come upon them of a
sudden, without their being aware [of its approach]?
108. Say [O Prophet]: "This is
my way: Resting upon conscious insight accessible to reason, I am
calling [you all] unto God - and they who follow me."
And [say:] "Limitless is God in His glory; and I am not one of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside Him!"
109. And [even] before thy
time, We never sent [as Our apostles] any but [mortal] men, whom We
inspired, [and whom We always chose] from among the people of the [very]
communities [to whom the message was to be brought].
Have, then, they [who reject
this divine writ] never journeyed about the earth and beheld what
happened in the end to those [deniers of the truth] who lived before
them? - and [do they not know that] to those who are conscious of God
the life in the hereafter is indeed better [than this world]? Will they
not, then, use their reason?
110. [All the earlier apostles
had to suffer persecution for a long time;] but at last - when those
apostles had lost all hope and saw themselves branded as liars - Our
succour attained to them: whereupon everyone whom We willed [to be
saved] was saved [and the deniers of the truth were destroyed]: for,
never can Our punishment be averted from people who are lost in sin.
111. Indeed, in the stories of these men there is a lesson for those who are endowed with insight.
[As for this revelation,] it
could not possibly be a discourse invented [by man]: nay indeed, it is
[a divine writ] confirming the truth of whatever there still remains [of
earlier revelations], clearly spelling out everything, and [offering]
guidance and grace unto people who will believe.
DISCUSSION: APPROACHES TO THE QURAN
1. How does Esack’s own position shape his depictions of the six
approaches to the Quran that he lists? Can you think of any other
approaches that he has missed?
2. Do you fit into or nearly fit into one of this categories? Why and why not?
The introductory chapter of Farid Esack's The Quran: A User's Guide (pp
1-12) suggests that there are 6 different types of readers of the Quran
in today's world: ordinary Muslims, confessional Muslim scholars,
critical Muslim scholars, participant observers, revisionists, and
polemicists. He explains each of these using a metaphor of Lover and
Beloved. As you read this article, try to discern Esack's own approach
and how this influences his characterization. Are there any possible
approaches he has left out? Do you fit into one of these approaches?
Compile 3 lists of Names, attributes
or descriptions of God from the verses in Reading 1, using the
categories Beauty, Majesty, Perfection, and post them on the discussion
board. The entries in your lists may be single words or phrases. There
is no single correct classification, so feel free to make the
classification as makes most sense to you. You may also add Names and
Attributes from the song by Sami Yusuf if you wish.
Are there any Names, attributes or descriptions that you think do not fit into any of these three groups, and why?
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page on Aug. 8, 2016. Page questioned whether Trump would become president. Strzok replied: “No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.” On Comey: “by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.” "It also called into question
Strzok’s failure in October 2016 to follow up on the Midyear-related investigative
lead discovered on the Weiner laptop. The damage caused by these employees’
actions extends far beyond the scope of the Midyear investigation and goes to the
heart of the FBI’s reputation for neutral factfinding and political independence.
Second, in key moments, then Director Comey chose to deviate from the
FBI’s and the Department’s established procedures and norms and instead engaged
in his own subjective, ad hoc decisionmaking." An FBI attorney who worked on the special counsel’s Russia investigation until earlier this year sent anti-Trump text messages to a colleague, including one exclaiming: “Viva le Resistance.” Full Report of Horowitz
As Verse 24
of the Chapter of the Gathering states: "To Him belong the Most
Beautiful Names." The Quran contains diverse descriptions of the Names
and Attributes of God, some of which we will read today.
Indeed, lists
of 99 Most Beautiful Names have been compiled and memorized by Muslims
in response to the hadith (saying) of the Prophet Muhammad:
Abu Huraira
reported Prophet Muhammad as saying: Verily, there are ninety-nine names
for Allah. He who enumerates them would get into Paradise. (Sahih
Muslim – Book 35 Hadith 6476) (A full list of 99 Names can be found here.)
The
multiplicity of Names shows that God is one and yet has multiple
aspects, or relates to us in multiple ways. These Names are sometimes
categorized into Names of Beauty, Names of Majesty, and Names of
Perfection.
For our first readings from
the Quran, we will look at selections of verses that provide teachings
on the nature of God. We will then ask you to make 3 lists of Names or
descriptions of God, categorizing them by into Names or descriptions of
Beauty, Names or descriptions of Majesty, and Names or descriptions of
Perfection. There is no single correct classification, so feel free to
make the classification as makes most sense to you.
As you familiarize yourself with the concept of the Names and Attributes of God, this contemporary music rendition by Sami Yusuf of the Asma ul-Husna,
or the Beautiful Names of God, provides a glimpse into the manner in
which these Names can be invoked by Muslims in a devotional context.
The Chapter of Sincerity (112)
1. SAY: "He is the One God:
2. "God the Eternal, the Uncaused Cause of All Being. (Allah-us-Samad)
3. "He begets not, and neither is He begotten;
4. "and there is nothing that could be compared with Him.
The Chapter of Light (24), Verse 35 (Known as 'the Verse of Light')
35. God
is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His light is,
as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is [enclosed]
in glass, the glass [shining] like a radiant star; [a lamp] lit from a
blessed tree - an olive-tree that is neither of the east nor of the west-
the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of
itself] even though fire had not touched it: light upon light!
God guides unto His light him that wills [to be guided];and [to this end] God propounds parables unto men, since God [alone] has full knowledge of all things.
The Chapter of the Cow (2), Verse 255 (Known as 'the Throne Verse')
255. GOD - there is no deity save
Him, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsistent Fount of All Being. Neither
slumber overtakes Him, nor sleep. His is all that is in the heavens and
all that is on earth. Who is there that could intercede with Him, unless
it be by His leave?
He knows all that lies open before men and all that is hidden from them,whereas they cannot attain to aught of His knowledge save that which He wills [them to attain].
His eternal power overspreads
the heavens and the earth, and their upholding wearies Him not. And he
alone is truly exalted, tremendous.
The Chapter of the Gathering (59), Verses 21-24
21. HAD WE bestowed this Qur'an
from on high upon a mountain, thou wouldst indeed see it humbling
itself, breaking asunder for awe of God...And [all] such parables We
propound unto men, so that they might [learn to] think.
22. GOD
IS HE save whom there is no deity: the One who knows all that is beyond
the reach of a created being's perception, as well as all that can be
witnessed by a creature's senses or mind:~ He, the Most Gracious, the
Dispenser of Grace.
23. God is He save whom there is no deity: the Sovereign Supreme, the Holy, the One with whom all salvation rests,the Giver of Faith, the One who determines what is true and false,the Almighty, the One who subdues wrong and restores right,the One to whom all greatness belongs!
Utterly remote is God, in His limitless glory, from anything to which men may ascribe a share in His divinity!
24. He is God, the Creator, the Maker who shapes all forms and appearances!
His [alone] are the attributes of perfection.All that is in the heavens and on earth extols His limitless glory: for He alone is almighty, truly wise!
The Chapter of The Iron (57), Verses 1-3
1. ALL THAT IS in the heavens and on earth extols God's limitless glory: for He alone is almighty, truly wise!
2. His is the dominion over the heavens and the earth; He grants life and deals death; and He has the power to will anything.
3. He is the First and the Last, and the Outward as well as the Inward: and He has full knowledge of everything.
The following article by Ingrid Mattson
will help you understand how the Quran functions as a text and shape
your expectations as you come to this text, helping you to be as
effective a reader of the Quran as possible.
The reading of scripture can be
intimidating. At the very least, we know that the sacred texts of each
of the world’s major religions are revered by millions of people.
Authored books—novels, poetry, and plays—might also have coteries of
passionate readers, but scriptural communities are invested more deeply
and comprehensively in the meaning they ascribe to their texts than the
most devoted readers of any secular book. When we open scripture, we
realize we are entering a universe of meaning fraught with spiritual,
emotional, historical, and even political dimensions. Knowing this, some
might be tempted to stay away from such contested territory. But we
also know that those who have not as yet delved into sacred texts will
encounter new and challenging experiences through which they will grow,
that travel and adventure beyond familiar territory are enriching, and
that knowledge is the best antidote to fear and uncertainty.
All those who embark upon reading the
Quran—Muslims and non-Muslims, religious and secular people—can learn
something about the world and about themselves through engagement with
it. Those who will learn the most are those who are prepared to explore
three contexts that will allow them to go beyond a “naive” reading. The
first is the context in which the Quran was revealed and has been
transmitted, interpreted, and read over the centuries. The second is the
reader’s own personal context—that is, one’s own background,
assumptions, and prejudices, which will inevitably affect the “lens”
through which one reads the text. What are you, the reader, bringing to
the Quran as you open it now, perhaps for the first time or perhaps
after many years of reading? And the third context is an understanding
of the inner meaning of revealed terms.
Those who are new to the Quran surely
realize that they cannot without preparation encounter this text
“objectively,” even if they intend to adopt a laudable openness to
learning about it. Moreover, today Islam and Muslims are too much in the
news of the contemporary world and too enmeshed in world history for
literate non-Muslims, even in the West, to be without at least a vague
opinion about this religion and its followers. Before you approach the
Quran, then, review what you “know” about Islam and Muslims and what the
source of this knowledge is. Consider that your information might have
originated with a prejudicial or deficient source. At least considering
this possibility might help you identify potential cognitive and
emotional barriers to having an authentic encounter with the Quran.
It is not only non-Muslims influenced by
negative news about Islam and Muslims who will have to overcome
assumptions and acquired biases about the Quran in order to be able to
read it with an open mind. If you are a Muslim, you too have a cultural
context and formative experiences that have shaped your understanding of
the Quran. Indeed, some born into Muslim families and communities might
have a more difficult time opening their hearts fully to the Quranic
message than new readers, because they have been taught to understand
verses in a particular narrow, sectarian way. This is not to say that
this is the experience of most Muslims. Certainly, many Muslim parents,
teachers, and religious leaders preach and teach a love for the Quran
that allows for a continuing, engaged, and dynamic reading throughout
one’s life. But this is not true for everyone.
It is important for all readers to examine their assumptions about the way the Quran should be
read and understand the ways it is interpreted by those who believe it
is God’s Word. It is true that Muslims believe that the original
Arabic-language Quran is a record of the precise words enunciated by the
Prophet Muhammad as he received them from God through the Archangel
Gabriel. Many people express this Islamic theological belief by saying,
“Muslims believe the Quran is the verbatim Word of God.” This is true.
At the same time, this does not mean that the Quran is supposed to be
read literally, if that means denying the historical meaning of terms
and expressions, ignoring the social context of particular rulings, or
neglecting its symbolic and inner meanings. To research the linguistic
and historical dimensions of the Quran or to seek its inner meaning is
not a modern innovation; rather, these kinds of interpretation began
with the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions and continue today. Readers
of the Quran must shed the notion that a literalist reading of the
Quran is somehow more authentic or pious than an informed
interpretation. Ironically, the minority of Muslims who apply a narrow
“fundamentalist” hermeneutic to the Quran find as their allies a small
group of anti-Muslim bigots who similarly take verses out of context to
prove their hateful assertions.
Believers in scriptures other than the
Quran will need to be careful not to automatically apply their
hermeneutical traditions to the Quran, but some Muslim readers also need
to explore the possibility that what they have been taught about the
way the Quran should be interpreted might not be in accord with the
understanding of many other Muslims. When you read other essays in this Study Quran about
traditional exegesis or various approaches to deriving law, spiritual
practices, or spiritual understandings from the Quran, you might be
surprised by what you read. You may have been taught to relate to the
Quran in a particular manner, for example, by using it as a proof text,
that is, proving a particular legal judgment by citing a singular verse.
Alternately, you may have been taught to minimize the import of verses
with detailed legal content while prioritizing verses articulating
general spiritual principles, such as There is no coercion in religion (2:256). Are these approaches to the Quran contradictory? If not, how have they been reconciled?
Take seriously your responsibility to
identify the method you currently use for reading the Quran and evaluate
this approach in light of the new knowledge you gain from the rich
scholarly, spiritual, and juridical traditions of exegesis. Mature
believers take upon themselves the responsibility for evaluating to the
best of their ability what they have learned and accept those scholars’
opinions that are the most convincing, not simply the most expedient or
convenient. Nonbelievers can also learn much by being open to the
diverse traditional interpretations of the sacred scripture of Islam.
WHAT KIND OF BOOK IS THE QURAN?
In the world of modern publishing, books
can look deceptively uniform. Most books are designed to be portable and
manageable and to fit on a standard bookshelf. They are hardcover or
paperback and mostly in rectangular form. The front cover displays the
author and title; the back cover usually gives some information about
the book’s contents. If a book deviates from these norms, for example,
by having an octagonal shape or being excessively large or small, it is
probably an art book or a children’s story; in any case, the appearance
of a book can send a useful message about the unusual or challenging
contents of the book. We might be better prepared to tackle the
difficult style of James Joyce’s Ulysses or Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo if
their contents did not lie behind deceptively banal dime-store covers,
but, rather, were edged in molting felt or encrusted with broken glass.
Today, publications of scripture often
display some gilding on the title or on the edges of the pages. In a
bookstore filled with dramatic cover art and design, this fact does not
do much in itself to prepare us for an encounter with a radically
different kind of text. We need to prepare ourselves, then, as we embark
upon a reading of scripture, to engage with a different kind of book;
we must open ourselves to being surprised, inspired, disturbed, and
sometimes confused by the words and ideas we encounter. All scriptures,
including the Quran, draw on themes, images, symbols, language, and
literary styles that were not wholly unfamiliar to their initial
audiences—that is, to the historical peoples who initially received and
then transmitted the sacred words. But we are far away in time from
those people who first heard or read the various books of the Bible or
the Quran, and we need to understand something about those people and
their societies, language, and worldview if we are to avoid
misinterpreting much of the language and style of these holy texts. Even
the category of “scripture” implies a uniformity of style among the
world’s sacred texts that is far from being the case. As we approach the
Quran, then, we need to take this book on its own terms and embrace its
unique style and arrangement.
A distinctive aspect of the Quran is its
assertion of its own identity as both an oral revelation and a written
text. The Quran calls itself al-Qurʾān (“The Recitation”), a term that signifies an oral revelation, as well as a “book” (kitāb),
a term that signifies a written revealed text. The verses most scholars
believe to be the earliest revealed to the Prophet Muhammad include
commands to recite (iqraʾ) in the Name of thy Lordand describe God as having taught humanity by the Pen (96:1–4). Other early verses tell believers to “chant” (rattil)
the Quran at a measured pace and to “recite” as much of the Quran at a
time as is easy and practical. The Quran itself, therefore, indicates
that it is a book that should be recited as well as read.
What we see when we open a copy of the Quran is that it is divided into 114 sūrahs. The best translation of the word sūrah is
probably “division” or “section,” although it is usually translated
“chapter.” The latter can be especially misleading, because it sets up
in the minds of some the expectation that the sūrahs of the Quran
are organized systematically according to certain thematic or
expository principles, which is not outwardly the case. Rather, with the
exception of al-Fātiḥah (“The Opening”), the sūrahs are
organized roughly according to length, with the longest at the beginning
of the book and the shortest at the end. The second sūrah, “The Cow,” has 286 verses (āyāt), while the last sūrah,“Mankind,”
has 6 verses. The verses themselves vary significantly in length; the
shortest verses consist of only two words, while the longest verses are
more than a hundred words.
The Quran is arranged in this distinctive
manner because the Prophet Muhammad did not “compose” the Quran and
then teach it to his community. Rather, the Quran is a collection of the
revelations the Prophet Muhammad received from God from the inception
of his call to prophethood at age forty until his death at age
sixty-three. It is as though the Prophet Muhammad had a mental notebook
whose blank pages he filled in with the revelations he received over the
twenty-three years of his prophetic calling. As long as the Prophet was
alive, new verses were revealed and inserted before, after, or in
between existing verses within any sūrah according to the
instructions the Prophet received from the Source of the revelation. For
this reason, the Quran cannot be arranged chronologically, because
some sūrahs contain verses revealed later than other verses.
It was only the death of the Prophet that
cut off any possibility of further revelations to be added to the
Quran. At this point it was the responsibility of his Companions to
preserve the revealed text. Muslims believe that the order of the verses
within each sūrah was fixed by the revelation itself, while the order of the sūrahs relative to one another in the written Quran (known as the muṣḥaf)
was determined by the Companions on the basis of the instructions the
Prophet Muhammad received from the Archangel Gabriel. The arrangement
according to length was also in accordance with the order given by the
Prophet and reflected in the way in which the Prophet himself generally
recited the sūrahs as well as his practice of beginning the canonical prayer with al-Fātiḥah and then reciting longer sūrahs before the shorter ones. Muslims believe that the order of the sūrahs
of the Quran is Divinely revealed and that any written Quran must
retain this original ordering. There are in fact no variations in the
order of the sūrahs in any text of the Quran throughout the
Islamic world. At the same time, Muslims are permitted to read or recite
from any place in the Quran for worship or learning.
STYLISTIC HARMONY IN THE QURAN
The content of the Quranic revelations is
as varied as the diversity of the worldly and transcendent concerns of
humanity. Just as individuals are rarely concerned with only one aspect
of their life at any time, but are constantly shifting their attention
from one concern to another—from marital relations, to finances, to
anxiety about a child’s defiance, to, on another level, spiritual pain
or difficulty in making a moral decision—the Quran rarely focuses for an
extended period on only one concern. Further, the Quran addresses both
individuals and communities, and these communities changed internally
and in relation to each other even over the course of the more than two
decades during which the Quran was revealed. This multiplicity of
audiences and topics that the Quran addresses, sometimes in quick
succession with little “filler” to separate the units of meaning, can be
disorienting to someone expecting a straightforward, linear narrative.
Readers of the Quran, therefore, need to
be mentally and emotionally agile, ready to be moved quickly in a new
direction. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, a class of Muslim
scholars arose who combed through the Quran collecting and organizing
verses that pertained to specific subjects, such as legal issues,
theological matters, stories about the prophets, descriptions of how to
pray, and directly spiritual and metaphysical teachings. Each of their
books was carefully composed to allow readers to learn about the Quranic
perspective on a particular topic. But the Quran itself, the source of
these books, resists such a rigid imposition of external structure.
Readers of the Quran, like each one of us in our daily lives, must be
prepared to quickly shift attention to a new concern at any moment.
This is not to say that the Quran lacks
overall unity or coherence. In fact, it possesses a remarkable inner
unity and coherence. Unlike the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, whose
various books were composed or collected by many people at different
times, the Quran is the collection of revelations to only one man, the
Prophet Muhammad, over a relatively short period of time. Thus, although
the Quran addresses different topics in the various styles most fitting
to convey the knowledge being imparted—parables woven through stories
of the prophets, straight prose for legal injunctions, lyrical passages
for praising God—it is all expressed in the same eloquent Arabic
language.
In this respect, the Quran assumes great importance as recitation.
The beauty of the language of the Quran has always deeply moved Arabs
and even non-Arab Muslims from the time of its revelation and has been a
topic of extensive study by scholars over the centuries. That the Quran
employs apropos vocabulary and concise but powerful turns of phrase is
something that necessarily escapes readers not familiar with Arabic, but
the power of its recitation resulting from the spiritual presence
contained in it transcends the world of those who know Arabic. The
Quran’s use of rhyme and rhythm and other techniques to create aural
harmony can be evident to anyone listening to its recitation.
It is probably easiest for new readers of the Quran to identify these techniques by first listening to the shorter sūrahs near the end of the Quran; or a number of well-known passages from the longer sūrahs, such as the Pedestal Verse (āyat al-kursī; 2:255) or the Light Verse (āyat al-nūr; 24:35); or the sūrahs al-Raḥmān, “The Compassionate” (55), Yā Sīn, “Yā Sīn” (36), or al-Wāqiʿah, “The Event” (56). Here we find successive verses ending in various kinds of rhymes. For example, in al-Māʿūn, “Small Kindnesses” (107), the verses follow two imperfect rhyming patterns in which the first four verses end in -īn (dīn, yatīm, miskīn, muṣallīn) and the final three verses end in -ūn (sāhūn, yurāʾūn, māʿūn; here the rhyming is even more sophisticated, as we note the consistent ā followed
by a glottal sound before the final rhyming syllable). Similar blocks
of various kinds of rhymes are also found in some of the longer sūrahs, where, in addition to creating aural harmony, they often signify a shift in semantic focus or emphasis.
Readers of the Quran need to pay
attention not only to the way verses end, but to their beginnings as
well. In recitation, rhythm and continuity in sūrahs is
frequently established by the sentence connectors that begin the verses:
interjections, interrogatories, conjunctions, or other short words that
often rhyme. For example, in al-Balad, “The Land” (90), the first five verses begin with words sharing a similar sound: lā (“verily”), wa (“and”), wa (“and”), laqad (“indeed”), and a (an interrogatory); the rest of the sūrah continues
in a similar fashion. Readers who do not know Arabic will probably need
to listen to the recitation a few times in order to notice the pleasing
rhythm created by these connectors, as they are less obvious than the
effect created by the rhymed endings of verses.
All sūrahs of the Quran (except one) are preceded by the invocation In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful (bi’smi’Llāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm). Many sūrahs also conclude with a verse that includes a supplication, doxology, or exhortation such as Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, or Glory be to God, or Truly God is with the virtuous (e.g., 1:2; 23:91; 29:69). The sacred Attributes or Names of God often serve an epitomizing function at the end of sūrahs or at the end of a group of related verses in longer sūrahs. Examples of the way these Names of God are referenced include: Truly God is the Forgiving, the Merciful (al-Ghafūr, al-Raḥīm; 42:5); He is the Hearing, the Knowing(al-Samīʿ, al-ʿAlīm; 2:137); and He is the Wise, the Aware (al-Ḥakīm, al-Khabīr; 6:18).
The Divine Names create both semantic and aural harmony, as many of the
Names rhyme or are assonant. It is recommended that those new to the
Quran read the last three verses of al-Ḥashr,“The Gathering”
(59), which list a number of the Divine Names; this will make it easier
to identify the Names later when they appear in other sūrahs.
Beginners are also advised to read short sections at each sitting, not
great numbers of pages at a time as if they were reading a novel or an
ordinary nonfiction book.
UNIFYING THEMES OF THE QURAN
It is perhaps helpful, before beginning a
reading of the Quran, to be familiar with some of its major themes,
many of which are addressed from multiple perspectives throughout the
scripture. Although the Quran addresses many diverse topics, it most
commonly describes itself as a book of guidance (hidāyah). In fact, one of the traditional names of the Quran is al-Hudā, “The
Guide.” All topics addressed in the Quran are ultimately linked to this
goal of guiding people toward God. Spiritually, the Quran addresses our
need for knowledge about God—to know that He is One, the Creator and
Ruler of the universe—as well as our need to learn how to show our
gratitude and obedience to God through prayer, other acts of worship,
and other human actions that are to be carried out according to Divine
injunctions.
With a few exceptions, most of the
Prophet Muhammad’s contemporaries did not believe in life after death.
Belief in the immortality of the soul, Resurrection, and an ultimate
accounting of each soul before God is therefore identified and
emphasized throughout the Quran, along with belief in God, as a
necessary component of faith for all true religions. For example, after
mentioning Christians, Jews, and Sabeans, the Quran says, Whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and works righteousness, no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve (5:69).
In order to guide humanity to do what is right and prepare for this
accounting, the Quran entices human beings with descriptions of Paradise
and the ultimate bliss of being in the Divine Presence, while warning
them about the consequences of evil acts by describing in very vivid
terms the pain and despair of those whose actions lead to Hellfire.
The Quran does not teach that people
should be detached from worldly affairs in order to attain this
spiritual state. Rather, it is opposed to otherworldliness. It is by
struggling to do what is right and good in our lives on this earth that
we develop our spiritual depth and awareness. It is for this reason that
the Quran addresses our closest and sometimes most contentious
relationships—with family, neighbors, and business partners—emphasizing
the need for integrity and honesty. The Quran also addresses the
stresses that can emerge within the faith community. Al-Ḥujarāt, “The Private Apartments” (Sūrah 49),
for example, discusses the corrosive effects of gossip, backbiting, and
social marginalizing and emphasizes the need for a sense of community
among Muslims.
The Quran stresses both the individual moral responsibility of adults (e.g., None shall bear the burden of another; 6:164;
17:15; 35:18; 39:7; 53:38) and the need for individuals to work
collectively to establish communities and cultures where such morality
is nurtured. The Quran calls upon people to work together to implement
the teachings of the prophets throughout the ages that foster ethical
and righteous living.
Those acquainted with the Hebrew Bible
and the Christian Gospels will meet many familiar figures in the Quran.
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Isaac, Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus,
and many other prophets and righteous guides appear throughout the
Quran. Christians and Jews think of these men and women as “Biblical”
figures, and it can be jarring to them to read their stories, which
sometimes differ from those in the Bible, in the Quran.
What is important to understand is that
the Biblical stories themselves drew upon a much older oral tradition
that did not disappear when the various books of the Bible were written.
The pre-Islamic Arabs, for example, were well aware that they were
descendants of Abraham through his son Ismāʿīl
(Ishmael) and his mother, Hājar (Hagar). Further, the history of the
prophets was known not just through written and oral literature, but
through the existence of holy sites throughout the Arabian Peninsula and
the Near East. The burial place of Abraham, the baptism site of Jesus,
Mt. Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Kaʿbah
in Makkah—all these sites and many others served as epicenters of
religious education and formation, often across parochial boundaries.
Readers of the Quran who realize that the Biblical figures had a much
richer and wider presence among Near Eastern monotheists outside the
Bible will perhaps be better prepared to encounter new perspectives and
previously unknown stories about them. But such readers must also
remember that, for Muslims, accounts of earlier prophets are not based
on stories that were prevalent in Arabia, but on Divine Revelation about
these prophets and are therefore completely independent of historical
sources.
MUHAMMAD: MESSENGER OF GOD AND BRINGER OF THE QURAN
The Quran stresses the important role of Muhammad as Messenger—the
one who transmitted the message from God to humanity. The Prophet was a
perfect receptor of the Word of God, which he transmitted faithfully
without adding or subtracting anything of his own. Moreover, he was also
the person most familiar with the Quran and interpreted it according to
the needs of his community as well as for later generations of Muslims.
In fact, he can be said to be the first commentator on the Quran.
After the Prophet died, his sayings (aḥādīth)
were assembled in various collections, which differ in some matters,
but are in agreement concerning the authenticity of the vast majority of
the sayings. This body of literature, the Ḥadīth, traditionally
accepted as canonical by both the Sunni and Shiite communities, has been
revered over the ages as a key for the elucidation of the meaning of
the Quran, sources of Law after the Quran, and along with the Quran the
source of everything Islamic. Over the ages scholars of Ḥadīth have
discussed and sometimes disputed the meaning of certain sayings and
actions of the Prophet; some distinguish between those of enduring
religious and spiritual significance to Muslims and those that were
related to passing social or political situations. In any case, the
study of Ḥadīth became a major Islamic science, and this body of literature plays a very important role in the understanding of the Quran.
All Muslims agree that the context of the
initial revelation to the Prophet Muhammad is of great significance.
Much traditional Quranic interpretation in fact involves an examination
of the linguistic, social, moral, and political context of the initial
conditions of the revelation of a particular verse or set of verses of
the Quran, or what is called shaʾn (or asbāb) al-nuzūl of
the Quran, in addition to an analysis of the relationship of various
Quranic verses to each other. The primary teachings of Islam found in
the Quran—witnessing to the reality that is God, the dependence of
creation upon Him, and belief that human beings will answer to God for
their actions on the Day of Judgment—are clear and need little
explanation. But to ignore the conditions of the Prophet’s community
when verses treating such topics as gender relations, religious
diversity, and political authority were revealed is to risk
misunderstanding the Quran. For this reason, one must not be hasty in
drawing conclusions about legal judgments and other norms on the basis
of a surface reading of a few verses from the Quran. As is explained in
the essay “The Quran as Source of Islamic Law,” the Quran is a source of
law; it is not a book of law. Even apparently unambiguous declarations
might, in fact, be limited in application or scope.
HOW THE QURAN IS READ IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES
Quranic literacy varies widely in Muslim
societies and does not necessarily correlate with general literacy and
educational achievement. Quranic education formed the foundation of
literacy in traditional Muslim societies, but modernity has severed that
connection in many places, although this is not true everywhere.
Muslims should acquire four skills in order to employ the Quran
themselves in religious and moral life and derive benefit from it as a
source of guidance. The first skill is the ability to read the Arabic
script, since the original language of the Quran is Arabic. The
beginning of religious education for most Muslim children and for
non-Arab converts has always been to learn the Arabic alphabet and then
how to string the letters together to sound out words and sentences.
The second skill is learning Quranic
Arabic well enough to be able to understand the meaning of the words and
sentences. For Arabic-speaking children, an understanding of the
meaning of the words comes at first as a consequence of their general
knowledge of the Arabic language, which is then supplemented by their
teachers. The majority of Muslims throughout history, however, have not
been Arabs, although most Muslim peoples, like the Persians, the Turks,
the Indian Muslims, and the Malays, adopted the Arabic script for their
various languages. To understand the Quran, non-Arab Muslims need extra
preparatory education consisting of either learning basic Arabic
vocabulary and grammar or having access to translations in their native
language. For both Arabs and non-Arabs, a scholarly grasp of the Quran
requires years of advanced study—and non-Arabs have excelled in this
alongside Arabs since the early days of Islamic civilization. In fact,
most classical works of Arabic grammar were written by Persians.
The third skill, which helps a great deal
in grasping the spiritual presence of the text, is the ability to
recite the Quran in a proper manner. Parts of the Quran are recited
orally in the daily ritual prayers that all Muslims are required to
perform; so every Muslim needs some basic recitation skills. The art of tajwīd (“good”
or “beautiful” recitation) includes pronouncing the letters correctly,
knowing which sounds should be elided, emphasized, or elongated, and
using the proper tone. Proper recitation should be melodic, so that it
is pleasant to hear, but not musical in the usual sense of the word,
lest the recitation turn into a performance of personal artistry. Apart
from their own recitation, most Muslims experience the Quran through
hearing its recitation by accomplished reciters, who can be found
throughout the Islamic world in non-Arab countries as well as in Arab
ones. In fact, many of the best reciters are not Arabs, and some
reciters are men and others women. Also, accomplished scholars of the
Quran, not all of whom are reciters, can be found in every Islamic
country.
The fourth skill, which makes a person intimate with the Quran, is memorization of at least a few verses and sūrahs. In each ritual prayer, the sūrah al-Fātiḥah must be recited, followed by a sūrah or
group of verses chosen by the worshipper. These portions of the Quran
are not recited from the text; so they need to be memorized. Someone who
memorizes the complete Quran is known as a ḥāfiẓ, a “memorizer” or “preserver” of the Quran. Implicit in this title is the understanding that the ḥāfiẓ not
only acquires personal spiritual benefits by knowing by heart the Word
of God, but also benefits society by serving as a vessel for the
preservation and propagation of the Sacred Text.
Muslims have taught these skills for
experiencing the Quran through a variety of ways, according to the means
and abilities of each community. Institutions for religious education
in which Quranic studies are pursued run the gamut from one-room
neighborhood schools for small children (maktabs) to enormous seminaries (usually known as madrasahs)
serving an often cosmopolitan student body. For most of Islamic
civilization, learning to read and recite the Quran was the beginning of
education and an incentive to literacy.
The Quran is also widely read and recited
outside of ritual prayers by ordinary Muslims across the world. Some
try to read a small portion of the Quran each day, while others might
devote time to reading particular sūrahs on Fridays, the holiest
day of the week, but also on special occasions such as religious
holidays, weddings, and funerals. Quranic recitation is especially
intense during the month of Ramadan, the time when the Quran was first
revealed. It was probably to facilitate the reading of the whole Quran
during this month that scribes first inserted marks in the text to make
clear the division of the Quran into thirty parts (ajzāʾ). In this way, someone wanting to complete a reading of the Quran in one month can read one part, or juzʾ, each day.
The Quran describes itself as a blessed Book (6:92),
and even gatherings with an apparently nonreligious purpose are often
opened with Quranic recitation in order to bless the event. Muslims
believe that the Quran is the Word of God, and God is always present,
saying of the human being in one verse, We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (50:16).
Bringing the Quran into a space or occasion is a way to be reminded of
that Divine Presence. The Arabic word for a “verse” of the Quran (āyah)
literally means “sign” or “portent,” a term often also used in the
Quran to refer to phenomena in the world of creation and also within
human beings that function as signs pointing to the Creator. This is one
of the reasons Islamic ritual spaces, such as mosques, are embellished
with Quranic calligraphy along with decorative patterns derived from
those found in nature. Both the “beautiful script” (the literal meaning
of “calligraphy”) and the beautiful recitation (tajwīd) of the Quran remind those gathered for happy or mournful occasions of God’s Mercy, Beauty, Power, and Presence.
WHERE TO BEGIN IF THE QURAN IS NEW TO YOU
Probably the biggest mistake new readers
of the Quran make is to try to read it from “beginning to end.” As
explained previously, there is no need to read the Quran this way,
because in their totality the sūrahs are ordered neither topically nor chronologically. More problematically, those who first encounter the Quran by way of the sūrahs at the beginning (except for al-Fātiḥah) are likely to become quickly overwhelmed by their length and difficult legal and historical content.
It is perhaps a better strategy to first
encounter the Quran the same way the Prophet Muhammad’s community
received the revelations, that is, with the first sūrahs revealed in Makkah. These sūrahs
are short, comprising anywhere from a few to a few dozen verses. By
reading (and perhaps listening to) a small selection of these sūrahs,
one can become accustomed to the style and rhythm of the language and
the overwhelming content of their message. Just as important, these sūrahs
focus for the most part on the fundamental, universal, and enduring
spiritual message of the Quran: the affirmation that there is only one
God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who holds human beings
accountable for their actions.
One might begin, then, by reading the last two sections of the Quran (i.e., parts 29 and 30, beginning with Sūrah 67)
and reflecting on the themes and lessons found there. In an age of
speed-reading and skimming, in which we are taught to quickly “find the
basic point” in a text, it is necessary to consciously slow down when
reading the Quran. One needs to take time to reflect upon every word and
phrase and also upon one’s own reactions and instincts as one
encounters verses that address the deepest existential concerns of
humanity.
After spending some time with the early
revelations and other passages mentioned above, new readers can move on
to other sections of the Quran. As one encounters legal content,
references to particular historical individuals or communities,
and relationships between various social groups (e.g., men and women, or
nomads and the Madinans), it becomes more important to consult the
commentaries, scholarly notes, and essays explaining their context and
implications.
Aside from having diverse religious
orientations or worldviews, readers of the Quran differ in their mental
makeup, spiritual and intellectual aptitudes, interests, and passions.
The person who is passionate about environmental protection will
naturally pay close attention to Quranic verses related to the value of
creation, nature as a locus of God’s Wisdom and Mercy, and the rights of
animal communities, while the ardent advocate of women’s rights will
hone in on verses related to gender relations. Muslims believe that one
of the basic features of the Quran is its multiplicity of messages
addressing the whole gamut of human conditions and circumstances. There
is certainly nothing wrong with using an index or search engine to find
verses related to one topic or another. Indeed, in trying to understand
the meaning of any particular verse, scholars of the Quran usually first
look within the Quran itself to see if there are other verses related
to the same topic (referred to as “tafsīr of the Quran by the
Quran,” for which see the essay “Quranic Commentaries”). Nevertheless,
there are a few precautions to be noted in this regard.
First, we should never reduce the Quran
to its articulations about particular issues or aspects of human life.
The Quran is more than a sum of its parts. As discussed, the total
“linguistic field” created by the Quran is an essential part of its
message; an index of topics the Quran addresses misses this point. Just
as an anatomy book lists and describes all the individual parts and
systems that comprise a human body but tells us nothing about the
experience of being human, a list of issues the Quran addresses tells us
nothing about what it means for believers to have the living Word of
God present in the world.
Second, readers must always keep in mind
that the Quran is concerned with all the aspects of human life and
humanity’s relationship with the Divine; therefore, it does not separate
temporal and eternal concerns. The purpose of the revelation is to show
how we should live in the world of created things in a way that ensures
an enduring and at the same time positive connection with God in this
life and the next. The Quran’s passionate call for justice in human
relationships combined with mercy is intimately related to its generous
invitation to every person to enjoy eternity in the presence of the
Divine.
This message presents a particular
challenge for readers of the Quran who deny a Transcendent Reality or a
Divine Creator. Certainly some of the ethical pronouncements in the
Quran might still have some resonance for these readers. Nonbelievers,
however, often see the notion of giving up certain activities, being
generous to the needy, or disciplining oneself through worship for the
sake of a deeper relationship with God through reductionist eyes as
being devoid of spiritual significance. An example of reductionist
thinking is when one, upon encountering Quranic verses instructing men
and women to restrict their sexual activity to marriage, concludes
that religious language is being “used” here as a mechanism of social
control. One of the many points this kind of reader misses in this case
is how intimacy itself can be enhanced and made even more fulfilling
when it has a spiritual dimension. If nonbelievers cannot relate to the
transcendental aspect of apparently worldly concerns of the Quran, they
might at least be able to analogize other spheres of human experience
where individuals exercise discipline and make sacrifices for what they
consider a higher good.
RESPECTING THE QURAN
It is appropriate, perhaps, to close this
introduction to reading the Quran by discussing briefly the respect
Muslims accord to the physical text of the Quran, the muṣḥaf, as
well as the sound of its recitation, which often moves believers to
tears. We should recall that in premodern societies, books of scripture
were not as easily available as they are today, and they were not
treated like other books. Whether it was the Bible, the Torah, or the
Quran, scriptures were approached with awe. The ontological distinctness
of scriptures from other books (i.e., the fact that they are a
different kind of book in their very being) was signaled by their
being placed on high lecterns, lovingly guarded in special locked
cabinets, or wrapped in distinctive coverings.
Muslims today continue to demonstrate
their respect for the contents of the Quran by treating any written
manifestation of it with deference. Symbolic acts of respect, such as
handling papers with Quranic verses written upon them with special care
and refraining from placing the muṣḥaf on the floor, are widespread. Islamic Law directs Muslims to touch the muṣḥaf only
when in a state of ritual purity (56:77–79). This is achieved by
performing ablutions before handling the Quran in accordance with
Quranic directives and the practice of the Prophet Muhammad. Sufis add
that one must be also inwardly pure in order to be able to “touch” the
inner meaning of the Sacred Text. Although these rules do not strictly
apply to translations of the Quran or to nontextual copies of the muṣḥaf, such
as electronic books, a general attitude of respect for any reproduction
of the contents of the Quran is recommended and widely practiced
throughout the Islamic world.
Today, anyone can own a copy of the
Quran, in its original language or in translation. In most respects,
this is a positive development, for it allows more widespread knowledge
of the Quran and communication about its message among diverse peoples
across the world. Indeed, the Quran directs its message mostly to
“humanity” and to “believers”—not only to Muslims—so it is fitting that
it is accessible to all who wish to hear or read it.
Yet Muslims sometimes have ambivalent
feelings about this easy availability of the Quran today. On the one
hand, most Muslims want what they consider to be the Word of the living
God available to all people. On the other hand, the painful reality is
that some hateful people now have a greater ability to deliberately
desecrate the Quran to hurt and vilify Muslims. It is to prevent the
desecration of the Quran, in fact, that premodern scholars generally
advised Muslims not to carry the Quran into hostile territory.
The hard division between “Muslim” and
“non-Muslim” lands does not reflect the religious diversity found in
most nation-states today (if it ever did), so this medieval legal
opinion is now moot. Instead, Muslims usually collaborate with other
peoples of faith to cultivate an ethic of mutual respect for religious
symbols, artifacts, and sacred texts. Although some nations have laws
restricting “hate speech” toward religious communities or grant special
protection to religious books and symbols, the need for robust laws
protecting freedom of speech in many countries, especially in the West,
prevents such restrictions from being widely adopted especially as far
as Islam is concerned, and in any case no law is effective without an
underlying ethic that is broadly supported. Inculcating values of
kindness, mutual respect, and neighborliness in our diverse communities
is the best way to prevent religious differences from being used to harm
one another, and this begins and ends with respect for the sacred
scriptures and religious beliefs and practices of others.
The Study Quran, released in November 2015, is one of the
most useful reference works to have been produced on the Quran. Edited
by a team led by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and published by HarperOne, this
work includes a new translation of the Quran and a series of scholarly
essays, in addition to a commentary on the entire Quran that is compiled
from works across the entire tradition of Quranic exegesis, from the
early centuries of Islam until the 20th century. This commentary
provides access to diverse perspectives on each verse, drawn from Sunni,
Shii, and Sufi interpretive traditions.
Since we will be using The Study Quran at several points in
this course, beginning today with the essay by Ingrid Mattson, 'How to
Read the Quran', we have included the following guide to this work.
A substantial sample of the book, covering the introduction and the first two chapters of the Quran, is also available.
Approaching The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary
According to most western and Muslim scholarly accounts, although
sections of the Quran were written down during the Prophet's lifetime,
it was not until some years later that the whole text was compiled into a
single 'book' as we understand the term today. In the following
article, Gregor Schoeler gives a concise overview of the process by
which the Quran came to be codified. His description accords with the
account most commonly accepted by Muslims, but he draws on Western
scholarship to document his potion.
Read the section entitled 'The Koran' located on pp. 200-201 of
Gregor Schoeler's "The Constitution of the Koran as a Codified Work:
Paradigm for Codifying Hadīth and the Islamic Sciences," Oral Tradition 25, no. 1 (2010): Oral Tradition, 2010, Vol.25(1).
INTRODUCTION TO DAY 3
Welcome to Day 3 of our course!
You have now had the chance to become familiar with the oral Quran
and the significance of sound as a medium of experiencing this
scripture. Today we turn to the Quran as written text.
We begin our studies today by reading about how the Quran came to be compiled into a single 'book' "between two covers".
After this we will read an article by Ingrid Mattson from The StudyQuran; this will help us to shape our expectations of this text. We then move on to read passages from
the Quran itself, looking at short segments of the Quran and
considering the perspectives they offer us concerning the nature of God. We will then read a chapter by Farid
Esack, which will inform us of the range of approaches that one can take
to this text, helping us to become more aware of the particular
perspectives we bring to our readings. Finally, we will look at the longest continuous narrative in the Quran: the story of the Prophet Joseph.
Sells, Michael Anthony. Approaching the Qurʼán : The Early Revelations. 2nd ed. Ashland, Or.: White Cloud, 2007.
This is a must-read for those interested in the poetic and oral power
of the early revelations of the so-called Meccan period. Sells offers
his own translations and analysis of the orality and form of these
early sūras.
Graham, William A. Beyond the Written Word : Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York: Cambridge UP, 1987. In
this book, Graham argues for expanding the category of "scripture" from
merely a literary one (and, therefore, a textual one), to a
religio-historical one (thereby including oral and aural aspects of
scripture). He turns to various case studies from the Christian, Jewish,
and South Asian traditions before examining his own area of speciality:
the Islamic religious tradition. From his analysis, it becomes clear
that scripture was primarily performative and thus experienced rather
than merely declarative and static. In fact, it would be safe to say
that our own horizon of understanding, that is, how we "moderns"
encounter texts in print (papers, books, and now digitally) is
historically an exception and rather anomalous to the larger history of
encountering texts, and especially sacred texts such as scriptures
Esack, Farid. The Qurʼan : A User's Guide : A Guide to Its Key Themes, History and Interpretation. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.
In this book, Esack does an excellent job of introducing the key themes
of the Quran, explaining its historical and cultural context while also
examining controversial aspects. We will be reading chapters of this
book later in this course.
Kermani, Navid. God is Beautiful: The Aesthetic Experience of theQuran, Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2014.
Robinson, Neal. Discovering the Qurʼan : A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown UP, 2003. Another fine introduction to the study of the Quran.
McAuliffe, Jane Dammen. The Cambridge Companion to the Qurʼān. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge UP, 2006.
This is a solid volume that offers a series of essays about the Quran,
from the formation of the Quranic text to modern, contemporary
interpretations.
McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, and Graham, William A. Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān. Leiden: Brill, 2001. This is one of the best reference works for the study of the Quran.
READING: A NOTE ON SOURCES OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROPHET'S LIFE AND EARLY ISLAMIC HISTORY
When we consider the context of the Quran, it is important to
reflect on the sources of our knowledge. In order to answer this
question, we need to gain a sense of how both Muslims and Western
scholars have thought about the authenticity of historical information
regarding early Islam. This is one of the most complex topics in Islamic
studies, but we will endeavor to introduce it here, returning to some
of these topics later in the course.
The question of the validity of sources received greatest
attention from Muslim scholars when it came to hadith, or narrations of
what the Prophet said, did and tacitly approved of. As the recipient of
Revelation, Muslims have always seen the Prophet as a moral exemplar and
guide for correct belief and action, and his sayings, actions and tacit
approvals were deemed to be sources of law for the Sunni and Shii legal
traditions, both of which coalesced in the 9th and 10th centuries.
But
the problem was that large numbers of hadith had been forged by this
time, often to suit political, sectarian or personal motives. As a
response to this difficulty, Muslim scholars developed a complex system
of hadith criticism, which required not only that there be an unbroken
chain of transmitters (isnād)
going back to the Prophet, before it could be taken seriously, but also
that these transmitters (male and female) be considered morally upright
and possessed of a sound memory. This chain of transmitters (isnād)
usually preceded the text of the hadith (matn), It would be no
exaggeration to state that the sciences of critically investigating,
corroborating and categorizing the hadith and their isnāds
has occupied a significant proportion of Muslim scholarly attention
over the centuries. Moreover, there are significant differences as well
as overlaps in the hadiths considered reliable between Sunni and Shia
Islam (in addition to the fact that the Shia include the hadith of their
Imams), as well as differences of opinion among scholars within these
traditions.
Western scholarship in the 19th and early 20th centuries, of
which the most important scholars were Ignaz Goldziher (d.1921) and
Joseph Schacht (d.1969) tended to be critical of the Islamic hadith
sciences, sometimes almost discarding it wholesale. However, more
recently, as Western scholars have gained greater knowledge of the
complexity of Islamic scholarship and have carried out more penetrating
research, of which that of Harald Motzki stands out, appreciation of the
hadith as sources of knowledge about early Islam has grown. Although
there are naturally significant differences in approaches to hadith
between most Western academics and most Muslim scholars (we could call
these epistemological differences), it is clear that Muslims have been
engaged in source-critical analysis from very early in their history. We
will discuss hadith more on Day 4 of this course.
Understanding early Islamic history, particularly the period of
the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, is closely related to
understanding hadith, as Muslim historians would often critically
appraise historical narrations using similar methods to the appraisal of
hadith, and in many cases there is no definite line between historical
narrations and the hadith themselves. The first Muslim historians that
we know of were writing about 50 or 60 years after the Prophet passed
away, and the earliest extant texts date from the late 2nd century of
the Hijra, although many of these text contain extensive citations from
earlier sources. From the earliest times these historical accounts were
subject to critical investigation and debate. Furthermore, there often
numerous accounts that do not agree with each other in all their
details, which is a result of the oral nature of transmission.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the lifetime of the Prophet himself there
is a high level of agreement in the general series of events, though
there is significant disagreement on the events that unfolded after he
passed away.
Among Western scholars there have been diverse approaches to
early Islamic history. Although most scholars also accept the general
outlines of the Islamic account, there have also been ‘revisionists’ in
recent decades, who have attempted to create pictures of early Islamic
history without considering Muslim accounts. However, the accounts of
these scholars differ widely and no coherent revisionist account that is
widely accepted among scholars who take this approach.
When
it comes to early Islamic history, as with so many other topics in this
course, there are a wide variety of approaches available. What is
particularly important for us here is to understand the reasons for this
diversity, which generally derive from differing methods of weighing up
the validity of the various historical sources.
When it comes to the Quran in its oral form, there are a limited number of recensions (qira’āt),
usually numbered at 7 or 10, that are agreed upon as authentic by all
Muslim schools today, and which differ only in minor vowel changes,
adding minor nuances of meaning, but which can be all read from a single
Arabic text in its simplest form (for in this form many of the vowels
are not written). In Day 3, we will consider how the Quran came to be
written down in codified form, as well as the earliest extant
manuscripts, including the recently discovered Birmingham codex.
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Rodgers, Nigel, A Military History of Ancient Greece: An Authoritative Account of the Politics, Armies and Wars During the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, shown in over 200 color photographs, diagrams, maps and plans;
Rodoreda, Merce, Death in Spring: A Novel;
Romerstein, Herbert and Breindel, Eric,The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors;
Ross, Dennis, Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World;
Roth, Jonathan P., Roman Warfare (Cambridge Introduction to Roman Civilization);
SC Magazine: For IT Security Professionals;
Scahill, Jeremy, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated];
Schama, Simon, A History of Britain, At the Edge of the World 3500 B.C. - 1603 A.D.;
Scheuer, Michael, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War On Terror;
Scheuer, Michael, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq;
Scheuer, Michael, Osama Bin Laden;
Scheuer, Michael, Through Our Enemies Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America;
Scholastic Instructor
Scholastic Parent & Child: The Joy of Family Living and Learning;
Schopenhauer, Arthur, The World As Will And Idea (Sony eReader);
Schug-Wille, Art of the Byzantine World;
Schulze, Hagen, Germany: A New History;
Schweizer, Peter, Architects of Ruin: How Big Government Liberals Wrecked the Global Economy---and How They Will Do It Again If No One Stops Them;
Scott, Sir Walter, Ivanhoe;
Seagren, Eric, Secure Your Network for Free: Using Nmap, Wireshark, Snort, Nessus, and MRTG;
Security Technology & Design: The Security Executive's Resource for Systems Integration and Convergence;
Seibel, Peter, Coders at Work;
Sekunda N., & S. Northwood, Early Roman Armies;
Seneca: Naturales Quaestiones, Books II (Loeb Classical Library No. 450);
Sewall, Sarah, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual;
Sheppard, Ruth, Alexander the Great at War: His Army - His Battles - His Enemies;
Shinder, Jason, ed., The Poem That Changed America: "Howl" Fifty Years Later;
Sidebottom, Harry, Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction;
Sides, Hampton, Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West;
Simkins, Michael, The Roman Army from Caesar to Trajan;
Sinchak, Steve, Hacking Windows Vista;
Smith, RJ, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown;
Software Development Times: The Industry Newspaper for Software Development Managers;
Software Test Performance;
Solomon, Norman, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death;
Song, Lolan, Innovation Together: Microsoft Research Asia Academic Research Collaboration;
Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, tr. Robert Fagles;
Sound & Vision: The Consumer Electronics Authority;
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Sri, Edward, A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do In The Liturgy;
Sri, Edward, Men, Women and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights from John Paul II's Love and Responsibility;
Stair, John Bettridge, Old Samoa; Or, Flotsam and Jetsam From the Pacific Ocean;
Starr, Chester G., The Roman Empire, 27 B.C.-A.D. 476: A Study in Survival;
Starr, John Bryan, Understanding China: A Guide to China's Economy, History, and Political Culture;
Stauffer, John, Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln;
Steyn, Mark, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It;
Strassler, Robert B., The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories;
Strassler, Robert B., The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War;
Strassler, Robert B., The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika;
Strategy + Business;
Streete, Gail, Redeemed Bodies: Women Martyrs in Early Christianity;
Sullivan, James, The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America;
Sumner, Graham, Roman Military Clothing (1) 100 BC-AD 200;
Sumner, Graham, Roman Military Clothing (2) AD 200-400;
Suskind, Ron, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11:
Swanston, Malcolm, Mapping History Battles and Campaigns;
Swiderski, Richard M., Quicksilver: A History of the Use, Lore, and Effects of Mercury;
Swiderski, Richard M., Quicksilver: A History of the Use, Lore, and Effects of Mercury;
Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver's Travels;
Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution;
Talley, Colin L., A History of Multiple Sclerosis;
Tawil, Camille, Brothers In Arms: The Story of al-Qa'ida and the Arab Jihadists;
Tech Briefs: Engineering Solutions for Design & Manufacturing;
Tech Net: The Microsoft Journal for IT Professionals;
Tech Partner: Gain a Competitive Edge Through Solutions Providers;
Technology & Learning: Ideas and Tools for Ed Tech Leaders;
Tenet, George, At the Center of the Storm: The CIA During America's Time of Crisis;
Thackeray, W. M., Vanity Fair;
Thompson, Derrick & William Martin, Have Guitars ... Will Travel: A Journey Through the Beat Music Scene in Northampton 1957-66;
Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina;
Trento, Joseph J., The Secret History of the CIA;
Twain, Mark, The Gilded Age: a Tale of Today;
Ungar, Craig, House of Bush House of Saud;
Unterberger, Richie, The Unreleased Beatles Music & Film;
VAR Business: Strategic Insight for Technology Integrators:
Virgil, The Aeneid
Virtualization Review: Powering the New IT Generation;
Visual Studio: Enterprise Solutions for .Net Development;
VON Magazine: Voice, Video & Vision;
Wall Street Technology: Business Innovation Powered by Technology;
Wallace, Robert, Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to al-Qaeda;
Wang, Wallace, Steal This Computer Book 4.0: What They Won’t Tell You About the Internet;
Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization;
Warren, Robert Penn, All the King's Men;
Wasik, John F., Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream;
Weber, Karl, Editor, Lincoln: A President for the Ages;
Website Magazine: The Magazine for Website Success;
Weiner, Tim, Enemies: A History of the FBI;
Weiner, Tim, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA;
West, Bing, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq;
Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence;
Wilcox, Peter, Rome's Enemies (1) Germanics and Dacians;
Wise, Terence, Armies of the Carthaginian Wars 265 - 146 BC;
Wissner-Gross, What Colleges Don't Tell You (And Other Parents Don't Want You To Know) 272 Secrets For Getting Your Kid Into the Top Schools;
Wissner-Gross, What High Schools Don't Tell You;
Wolf, Naomi, Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries;
Wolf, Naomi, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot;
Woodward, Bob, Plan of Attack;
Woodward, Bob, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House;
Wright, Lawrence, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11;
Wright-Porto, Heather, Beginning Google Blogger;
Xenophon, The Anabasis of Cyrus;
Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power;
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A tax on toilet paper; I kid you not. According to the sponsor, "the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act will be financed broadly by small fees on such things as . . . products disposed of in waste water." Congress wants to tax what you do in the privacy of your bathroom.