Reddit Reddit reviews The Koran: A Very Short Introduction

We found 3 Reddit comments about The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Religion & Spirituality
Books
Islam
Quran
The Koran: A Very Short Introduction
Oxford University Press, USA
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3 Reddit comments about The Koran: A Very Short Introduction:

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/StLouis

As a former grad student in Near Eastern Studies, I'd suggest you don't go into reading the Qur'an cold turkey, if you're just doing it to be more well rounded (and not for religious purposes).

This (http://www.amazon.com/Koran-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192853449/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407422812&sr=1-12&keywords=introduction+to+the+qur%27an) might be a worthwhile endeavor, and understanding it's compositional process sheds light on the content of the suras.


u/Irish_Whiskey · 2 pointsr/religion

The Case for God and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong are both good. The God Delusion is a simple breakdown and explanation of most major religious claims. Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by the Dalai Llama is an interesting book on ethics. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook is 150 funny and insightful pages on Islam. Under the Banner of Heaven is a shocking and fascinating account of fundamentalist Mormonism. The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan discusses religion, and Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot are my secular versions of holy books. And of course given the occasion, I can't leave out God is Not Great.

I recommend avoiding authors like Lee Strobel and Deepak Chopra. Both are essentially liars for their causes, either inventing evidence, or deliberately being incredibly misleading in how they use terms. Popularity in those cases definitely doesn't indicate quality.

u/jackbuddhist · 1 pointr/exmormon

This is one of the ones I read as I was transitioning out: https://www.amazon.com/Koran-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192853449/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=G5TSXXJ8093SQXPF1RX2


(It's one of those 'a very short introduction' books, if you've seen them? They have a ton of 'em at the USU library; really great intros to all sorts of topics.)


Anyway, it not only covers the basics of what the Koran is, but also how it's been interpreted, the disagreements over what different parts of it mean, translations, all of that stuff -- if it's literal, if it's metaphorical, if it's a historical record, if it's .... etc. etc.


It was truly helpful in 'deprogramming' -- not because I was interested in finding another religion to join, but because in reading all the different debates over the theology and interpretation and everything about this book -- it was all so familiar. The same debates and arguments and reasoning and logical fallacies and apologetics that I saw in Mormonism, I saw in the discussion of this other religious text.


It helped me gain some much-needed distance from "The Church", and to begin to see it objectively, which I never really could do before even though I didn't believe. It helped me to start to see TSCC as just another religion, and to start to gain some healthy emotional distance.


Maybe it could do the same for you, even if it's not this book or this religion that you look at.