The Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an.

• Author: Bauer, Karen
• Position: Book review

The Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an. Edited by ANDREW RIPPIN. Blackwell Companions to Religion. Oxford: BLACKWELL, 2006. Pp. xiii + 560. $179.95.

The Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an appeared at almost the same time as the Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an. This volume has a more comprehensive approach than the Cambridge Companion: it comprises thirty-two essays and is over five hundred pages long. When viewed as a whole, the most striking element about this volume is the diverse styles, methods, and approaches taken by the contributing authors. This presents a picture of the vibrant field of Qur'anic studies as it is, and almost all aspects of that field are covered here, from the study of the text of the Qur'an and its content to its interpretation and application in different fields of scholarship.

The main critique of the volume as a whole is that, while nearly all approaches to the study of the Qur'an are represented, the merits and drawbacks of these approaches are little discussed. In reading a work designed to introduce the newcomer to a field, one wishes for engagement with the relevant secondary literature along with an accurate description of the primary source, so that the student has a grasp not only of what the text says, but what has been said about it. Of course, achieving this delicate balance is difficult; but the difficulty is compounded by the seeming lack of ground rules in this field, in which engagement with current debates can be neglected in favor of promoting one specific view. Nevertheless, some of the essays in this volume are true gems, and they contribute much to the scholarly Meld in terms of their methods, style, and content. In this review, I will briefly analyze each essay, particularly with an eye towards their leaching potential.

The lack of engagement with current debates mentioned above is exemplified in the introductory section. All three essays in the section entitled "Orientation" purport to introduce the reader to some aspect of the field of Qur'anic studies, but none of them actually introduces the reader to the state of the field in the scholarly literature. In "Contextualizing." Abdullah Saeed states that he wishes to outline the traditional Muslim view of the text, the features of which are "still generally accepted in Muslim communities across the world who share a common view (even if frequently unenunciated) on the context within which the Qur'an must be understood" (p. 36). Saeed is right to want to enunciate this broad view to the layperson, and his clearly written essay is a useful and accessible introduction to that view.

The other two essays in this section complement but do not add much to Saeed's introduction to the common Sunni Muslim viewpoint. Tamara Sonn's article "Introducing" does not engage, or even mention, any of the challenges that face scholars of the Qur'an's history. She instead asserts that "the history of the Qur'an is well known. The Qur'an was delivered by Muhammad to his community in Arabia in various contexts over a period of twenty-two years, 610-632 CE" (p. 5). Christopher Buck's article "Discovering" is intended to introduce the reader to the problems facing the academic study of the Qur'an. yet the scholarly discourse is hardly engaged, Drawing on Cantwell Smith, Buck claims that, unless the scholar enters into the world of the believer, unhelpful polarities will arise between the "Western" and "Muslim" perspectives (p. 21). In his advice on how to avoid such unhelpful polarities, Buck informs the reader that for Muslims the Qur'an is the word of God, "and one learns not to debate this point with Muslims if friendship is a priority" (p. 28). This statement, perhaps unintentionally, places Muslims outside the realm of rational scholarly discourse, and encourages non-Muslims to treat them with kid gloves. To act on this advice would be to reinforce polarities rather than to erase them. Reading Buck, one wonders if the introductory section's silence on the issue of the basic methods and viewpoints that currently inform the field of Qur'anic studies is intentional, a tacit acceptance of a status quo in which the possibility of causing offense is taken more seriously than the desire to engage with all methods of scholarship in the field.

The second section, "Text," addresses issues relating to the text of the Qur'an, including its linguistic structure, its collection, its written transmission, and its recitation. Several of these essays are worth reading for...