A short introduction to the author’s interpretation of the Muslim holy book, the Quran.
The author has written a number of other books on “decoding” the Quran’s meaning. Here he presents a brief overview of his theory, centered on his understanding of the meaning of the letter “B” as used in the Quran’s text. In his interpretation, Allah is seen not as a distinct entity but rather part of everything—an idea drawn from the Muslim mystic tradition of Sufism, which the author practices. Hulusi emphasizes the Quran’s metaphorical nature, and he blames the proliferation of sects within Islam on the tendency of some scholars to read those metaphors literally—as rules rather than frameworks for understanding esoteric concepts. For example, he writes that a verse commonly interpreted as permitting multiple wives in fact refers not to spouses but to “connected souls.” All the Quranic verses here are rendered in English, but the author asserts that the text can only be correctly interpreted in the original Arabic, where it is free from misunderstandings and inaccuracies contributed by translators. After several introductory essays, he includes a list of all the Quranic names for God, with explanations of the meanings of each, and a selection of verses from the Quran. The author’s passion for his subject is evident, and not only because of his frequent use of exclamation points. He tries hard to render a complex topic understandable to laypeople, and largely succeeds, although it may still be difficult for readers to make sense of some of the interpretations. Overall, the book is likely to appeal to those interested in ideas about the Quran and Islam that fall outside of the mainstream.
An intriguing overview of a unique approach to reading the Quran.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615728971
Page Count: 116
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
Did you like this book?
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
Did you like this book?
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
