Luxenberg reviewed

August 20, 2003 1:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Here is a favorable review of Christoph Luxenberg's work of Qur'anic exegesis. I'm still reading it, but it seems interesting. Thanks to Dr. Michael Tinkler, a.k.a. the Cranky Professor, and Kevin P. Edgecomb for pointing it out.

Luxenberg, by the way, is the European scholar operating under an assumed name who is applying philological techniques to the Qur'an, mentioned most recently on Ideofact here.

4 Comments

Zack said:

I have read this review and Luxenberg's work makes much more sense here than in the various popular media mentions. I still don't get why we should think that his explanation is better. So I am looking forward to a scholarly yet accessible to layman critical analysis of his work.

I am also interested in finding out about Luxenber's publications in scholarly journals. Those are usually of better quality (because of peer review, except when it fails) than a book.

August 20, 2003 5:05 PM

Bill said:

Zack,

Agreed. As I said, Luxenberg's work should be read with a certain amount of skepticism; I also suspect it may be possible to test it using contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous texts for purposes of comparison.

But I think Luxenberg's analysis can only be evaluated on its own terms, through philological analysis. Relying on comparisons to the Hitler diaries, or citing the traditions, won't be sufficient.

August 20, 2003 5:18 PM

Zack said:

Bill: I agree.

August 20, 2003 9:57 PM

Mubin Shaikh said:

Greetings.

Here are two other reviews, not positive at all, but scholarly reviews.

Looks like this book is already a dud.

See:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/luxreview1.html

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/luxreview2.html

Cheers!