The Critical Qur’an: The most comprehensive critical edition of the holy book of the Muslims ever published

 A Review of Robert Spencer, The Critical Qur’an. Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research.

Introduction, 114 Suras, Appendix: Two Apocryphal Shi ‘ite Suras, Endnotes, Index. Pp. 548. Bombardier Books, 2022.

In his lucid introduction, Robert Spencer makes an important point that must be borne in mind: his book is a compilation of how mainstream Islamic commentators understand the often opaque and incoherent text; such Muslim commentators as al Bukhari (810-870), Ibn Kathir (1301-1372), Jalal ad-Din al-Mahalli (1389-1459), Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti (1445-1505), Syed Abul Ala Maududi (1903-1979), and Muhammad Ashiq Llahi Madani (1924/25- 2002). Furthermore, he does not leave out, but explains the frequent exhortations to jihad in the military sense, or the Sharia (Islamic law) provisions that call for the denial of various rights to women, in what all Muslims consider are the very words of God — elements often mistranslated or obscured with apologetic intent. As the subtitle of the book indicates, Spencer does not stop there, but also draws upon modern, critical, historical research, works of such scholars as Christoph Luxenberg, Robert Kerr, and Daniel Brubaker, and others, especially of the German group, Inarah, based in Saarbrucken.

Each of the 114 Qur’anic chapters (suras) begins with an introduction and is followed by a verse-by-verse English translation. The translations in the whole book are in flowing, contemporary English, eschewing the pseudo-biblical language used, for example, by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall in his easily available translation, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (an example, from the Fatiha: ”The path of those whom Thou hast favoured: Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” Spencer puts it similarly, but much more clearly: “The path of those whom you have favored, not of those who have earned your anger, or of those who have gone astray.”). The Critical Qur’an also avoids the dishonesty of various politically-correct translations that add words that are not present in the original Arabic (as for example, the translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali, who adds the word “lightly“ in the verse giving men the right to beat women, a word which is not present in the original Arabic of 4:34).

Then ensue extensive explanatory footnotes. For example, the first chapter, The Opening (al-Fatiha), has seven verses, to which Spencer supplies four footnotes. The second sura, the Cow (al-Baqara), the longest in the Qur’an, consists of 286 verses of various lengths, and Spencer provides an introduction of just over two pages, and 88 explanatory footnotes. Spencer continues in this way through to the end of the Qur’an and its 114 chapters, making his book the most comprehensive critical edition of the Holy Book of the Muslims ever published.

Let me take two examples. First, sura 9, at-Tawba, Repentance. In his footnote to verse 5, Spencer gives us a no-nonsense interpretation, which is worth quoting in full (I have left out the references to works from which Spencer quotes; he includes them in the endnotes):

This is the notorious Verse of the Sword. In a 2003 sermon, Osama bin Laden rejoiced over this verse: “Praise be to Allah who revealed the verse of the Sword to his servant and messenger, in order to establish truth and abolish falsehood.” That is ultimately the goal of jihad warfare: the establishment of Islamic law, which brings about a just society. The fourteenth-century Islamic scholar Ibn Juzayy declares that this verse abrogates “every peace treaty in the Qur’an,” and specifically abrogates the Qur’an’s directive to “set free or ransom” captive unbelievers (47:4). According to as-Suyuti, “This is an Ayat of the Sword which abrogates pardon, truce and overlooking,” that is, the overlooking of the pagans’ offenses. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that the Muslims must “kill the idolaters wherever you find them” and “seize them by capture and besiege them in citadels and fortresses until they either fight or become Muslim.” Ibn Kathir echoes this, directing that Muslims should “not wait until you find them. Rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them. This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam.” Muhammad Asad, however, says that 9:5 “certainly does not imply an alternative of ‘conversion or death,’ as some unfriendly critics of Islam choose to assume.” He says that “war is permissible only in self-defence,” in accord with 2:190, and that “the enemy’s conversion to Islam…is no more than one, and by no means the only, way of their ‘desisting from hostility.’” However, none of the mainstream Islamic commentators on the Qur’an attach any conditions to this verse; unlike 2:191 and 4:89, one is not to “kill them wherever you find them” only when the unbelievers have committed some offense, but at any time, simply by virtue of their being unbelievers. Another common claim today is that this verse applies only to the pagans of Arabia in Muhammad’s time and has no further application. Ibn Kathir asserts, on the contrary, that the unbelievers must be killed “on the earth in general, except for the Sacred Area”—that is, the sacred mosque, which is traditionally identified as being in Mecca. This implies an endless conflict. The killing, however, is not indiscriminate and unlimited. The unbelievers can stop the carnage by converting to Islam. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn: “If they repent of their unbelief, and establish the prayer and pay the zakat, let them go on their way and do not interfere with them.” Ibn Kathir: “These Ayat [verses] allowed fighting people unless, and until, they embrace Islam and implement its rulings and obligations.”Qutb says that the termination of the treaties with a four-month grace period, combined with the call to kill the unbelievers, “was not meant as a campaign of vengeance or extermination, but rather as a warning which provided a motive for them to accept Islam.” The ninth-century Islamic jurist Ash-Shafi’i took this as a proof for killing anyone who abandons the prayer and fighting anyone who refuses to pay zakat: “Some use it as a proof that they are kafirun [unbelievers].” Likewise Ibn Kathir: “Abu Bakr As-Siddiq [according to Islamic tradition, the first caliph of the Muslims after Muhammad’s death] used this and other honorable Ayat as proof for fighting those who refrained from paying the Zakah.”

The second example introduces us to work of Christoph Luxenberg: at the beginning of sura 2, the Cow, al-Baqara has the following mysterious letters: Alif. Lam. Mim. Luxenberg has given the first plausible explanation of these letters, as Spencer notes in detail:

Many suras of the Qur’an begin with Arabic letters in this way; usually, but not always, there are three such letters. While there has been considerable speculation about what they might mean, Islamic tradition offers no definitive answer. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn sums up the prevailing view: “God knows best what is meant by this.” “These letters are one of the miracles of the Qur’an and none but Allah (Alone) knows their meanings,” say the modern-day Saudi Islamic scholars Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali. This is the mainstream Islamic perspective, although how exactly a series of Arabic letters constitutes a miracle is not explained. Speculation abounds. Modern critical researchers generally agree, however, with a statement of one of the foremost among them, the twentieth-century Qur’an scholar Richard Bell; he states, “of these groups of letters placed at the head of certain suras no explanation can be given.” The groundbreaking philologist Christoph Luxenberg has extensively examined the Qur’an’s Aramaic substratum (see 12:2) and notes that the Psalms are mentioned several times in the Qur’an (3:184, 17:55, 21:105, 35:25, 54:43, 54:52). He suggests that the mysterious letters may be vestiges of the Qur’an’s source text having been a Christian lectionary. The Qur’anic scholar Erwin Gräf declares that the Qur’an, “according to the etymological meaning of the word, is originally and really a liturgical text designed for cultic recitation and also actually used in the private and public service. This suggests that the liturgy or liturgical poetry, and indeed the Christian liturgy, which comprises the Judaic liturgy, decisively stimulated and influenced Mohammed,”or whoever was responsible for the compilation of the Qur’an. Luxenberg explains that the Syriac Christian liturgy “typically begins with a psalm,” and that “up to three letters can indicate the number of the psalm in question in the Psalter.”The Qur’an’s mysterious letters, then, could be indications in the Syriac lectionary of which psalm was to be recited. When that Syriac lectionary was transmuted into the Qur’an, the letters, no longer intelligible, became mysterious utterances of Allah.

I hope these examples have whetted your appetite for the rich fare that is offered by Robert Spencer in this splendid critical edition of the Qu’ran.