Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 328 pages
- Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press August 10, 2007
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0812240189
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0812240184
-
Book Dimensions:
8.8 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
- Weighs: 1.5 pounds
Product Review
"Superbly documented and highly convincing"--
TLS"Singularly original both in the kinds of sources it uses and in its analyses and conclusions. . . . A major contribution that will change the way medieval and Renaissance history of Muslim-Christian relations is written."--Dimitri Gutas, Yale University
Product Description
Most of what we know about attitudes toward Islam in the medieval and early modern West has been based on polemical treatises against Islam written by Christian scholars preoccupied with defending their own faith and attacking the doctrines of Islam. Christian Qur'an reading has in consequence typically been depicted as a tedious and one-dimensional exercise in anti-Islamic hostility.
In
Reading the Qur'an in Latin Christendom, 1140-1560, Thomas E. Burman looks instead to a different set of sources: the Latin translations of the Qur'an made by European scholars and the manuscripts and early printed books in which these translations circulated. Using these largely unexplored materials, Burman argues that the reading of the Qur'an in Western Europe was much more complex. While their reading was certainly often focused on attacking Islam, scholars of the period turned out to be equally interested in a whole range of grammatical, lexical, and interpretive problems presented by the text. Indeed, these two approaches were interconnected: attacking the Qur'an often required sophisticated explorations of difficult Arabic grammatical problems.
Furthermore, while most readers explicitly denounced the Qur'an as a fraud, translations of the book are sometimes inserted into the standard manuscript format of Christian Bibles and other prestigious Latin texts (small, centered blocks of text surrounded by commentary) or in manuscripts embellished with gorgeous decorated initials and elegant calligraphy for the pleasure of wealthy collectors.
Addressing Christian-Muslim relations generally, as well as the histories of reading and the book, Burman offers a much more balanced and hands-on picture of how Europeans read the sacred text of Islam than we have previously had.
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