There's no shame in putting off reading the Qur'an - it's a genuinely difficult text with lots of allusions to events happening in Mecca and Medina during the period of revelation that Westerners aren't familiar with. Oh, and it's not a prosaic narrative like the Bible but a poetic compilation that switches topics without warning. Not to mention reading it in translation isn't nearly as compelling as hearing the original Arabic (the poetry of the Qur'an is one of the proofs of its divine origins). Like I said: tough stuff (no extra f for fun here), but it is beautiful.
For translations of the Qur'an, I recommend Ahmed Ali's which has the translation side by side with the Arabic, and I also recommend reading the short chapters first - they're the ones in the back and are less legally/historically oriented, more mystical and cosmological. The chapters (suras) of the Qur'an are traditionally ordered by length rather than chronologically, a fact that Westerners find endlessly infuriating, but which means that if you start at the beginning you're dropped into the most complicated chapter (al-Baqqarah, "The Cow") almost immediately and I find students tend to get lost there. It would also be helpful to have a biography of Muhammad to refer to while reading: Watt's The Prophet Muhammad is the old Orientalist standby (he recounts it with a skeptical eye that isn't exactly respectful of sacred history), but there's also Tariq Ramadan's In the Footsteps of the Prophet which is written for Westerners by a pious Muslim and can give you some insight into modern (liberal) Islamic beliefs. (I'd recommend a reading guide, but all the ones I know are targeted at people who've already read it, which makes no sense but there you go.)
Yeah, it's a little intimidating. You might want to start with the intro texts first. I have a number of introductory texts from courses I've taken and courses I've TA'd. There's no intro to Islam text that's perfect, but if you read both Murata & Chittick's Vision of Islam (#ISBN-13: 978-1557785169) and Frederick Denny's An Introduction to Islam (ISBN-13: 978-0138144777) you'll be starting on good solid ground. Denny emphasizes the historical context while M&C go deeper into the cosmology. Both are truly introductory texts so they're very accessible.
They'll also introduce you to the Traditionalist(or Ashari) vs. Rationalist (Mu'tazali) debate that occurred between the 8th and 13th century among Sunnis, which pretty much ended with al-Ghazali winning it for the Traditionalists. Although ibn Rushd made an excellent defense for the Rationalists, he was never widely accepted in the Arab world (many of his works are no longer extant in the original Arabic) and was much more influential in Europe, where his commentaries on Aristotle brought neo-Platonism back into vogue, and eventually his influence on Spinoza and others would help to spark the Enlightenment.
Got it? ;^)
(Oh, and you'll notice I haven't even mentioned Shi'is: they're way more complicated than the Sunnis: there are dozens of different flavors of Shi'i.)
I do complain about people in the West not understanding Islam, but looking back on how much time I've invested in the task, I can maybe understand why most people can't be bothered.
no subject
For translations of the Qur'an, I recommend Ahmed Ali's which has the translation side by side with the Arabic, and I also recommend reading the short chapters first - they're the ones in the back and are less legally/historically oriented, more mystical and cosmological. The chapters (suras) of the Qur'an are traditionally ordered by length rather than chronologically, a fact that Westerners find endlessly infuriating, but which means that if you start at the beginning you're dropped into the most complicated chapter (al-Baqqarah, "The Cow") almost immediately and I find students tend to get lost there. It would also be helpful to have a biography of Muhammad to refer to while reading: Watt's The Prophet Muhammad is the old Orientalist standby (he recounts it with a skeptical eye that isn't exactly respectful of sacred history), but there's also Tariq Ramadan's In the Footsteps of the Prophet which is written for Westerners by a pious Muslim and can give you some insight into modern (liberal) Islamic beliefs. (I'd recommend a reading guide, but all the ones I know are targeted at people who've already read it, which makes no sense but there you go.)
Yeah, it's a little intimidating. You might want to start with the intro texts first. I have a number of introductory texts from courses I've taken and courses I've TA'd. There's no intro to Islam text that's perfect, but if you read both Murata & Chittick's Vision of Islam (#ISBN-13: 978-1557785169) and Frederick Denny's An Introduction to Islam (ISBN-13: 978-0138144777) you'll be starting on good solid ground. Denny emphasizes the historical context while M&C go deeper into the cosmology. Both are truly introductory texts so they're very accessible.
They'll also introduce you to the Traditionalist(or Ashari) vs. Rationalist (Mu'tazali) debate that occurred between the 8th and 13th century among Sunnis, which pretty much ended with al-Ghazali winning it for the Traditionalists. Although ibn Rushd made an excellent defense for the Rationalists, he was never widely accepted in the Arab world (many of his works are no longer extant in the original Arabic) and was much more influential in Europe, where his commentaries on Aristotle brought neo-Platonism back into vogue, and eventually his influence on Spinoza and others would help to spark the Enlightenment.
Got it? ;^)
(Oh, and you'll notice I haven't even mentioned Shi'is: they're way more complicated than the Sunnis: there are dozens of different flavors of Shi'i.)
I do complain about people in the West not understanding Islam, but looking back on how much time I've invested in the task, I can maybe understand why most people can't be bothered.