A mystical interpretation of the Quran and the nature of Islam.
The author, who practices the mystical Sufi tradition of Islam, leads the reader through his complex metaphysical interpretation of religion as described in the Quran, or as he writes, “Because I believe the book is not so much a ‘Book of God’s Commandments’ as it is a ‘Book of Secrets,’ which, if not READ properly, can leave one in severe deprivation.” This interpretation relies on a special understanding of the use of the letter B in the Quran’s text, based on the position of that letter in the original Arabic. The author encourages the reader to “read” (generally in all capital letters) the Quran in order to gain the same understanding. Grasping the author’s message requires familiarity with the Quran and related concepts—many of the terms the author uses, such as “rasul,” are untranslated or unexplained. His interpretation appears to be that God, as explained in the Quran, is less a deity than a concept that humans can incorporate, and those who treat God as a separate being are missing the point of the religion. The details of this interpretation are explained in part through metaphor, as when the author contrasts the open-platform aspect of the Linux operating system to the closed nature of Windows; in part through advances in neuroscience and other forms of research; and via the author’s own analysis of verses from the Quran, from which he concludes that “Man (not humanoid) has been created as the vicegerent of earth. The only way he can actualize this and attain the level of ‘the most dignified of all creation’ is if he becomes worthy of the principle of ‘vicegerency.’ ” Exclamation points appear frequently throughout the book’s pages, as does bold text. Many of the footnotes direct the reader to the author’s other works. Each chapter ends with a date and location, suggesting that the book is a collection of essays written between 2002 and 2005. The text has been translated into English. This guide looks to be most useful for those who already have a solid grounding in the Quran and Sufi beliefs and want to expand their understanding.
A confusing, advanced guide for those interested in an esoteric interpretation of Islam.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615725246
Page Count: 284
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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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
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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
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