What I'm reading

Today I came home from the Asian grocery down the block and found that my copy of the Qur'an had arrived in the mail.

A Jew sits down for some kimchee and gunpowder green tea, then cracks open an English translation of a Muslim holy text. Only in America.

Central to Islam is the belief in the miraculous beauty of the Qur'an; I must admit, however, that I approach the text, as I do with all religious texts, with skepticism. I'm sure beauty exists within it, but there are parts that will inevitably be less beautiful than others.

The book was sent free of charge by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). This particular translation, by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, has come under fire by some as being anti-Semitic. They support this assertion by referring to a 2002 article in the LA Times, which reported that copies of this very translation were removed from school libraries because of anti-Semitic content. This is actually only a partial truth. The fact of the matter is that the schools initially accepted the donated Qur'ans without review. After it came to light that some of the footnotes might be interpreted as anti-Semitic, school district officials thought it might be good to do a content review; books were removed from the libraries until the review was complete. I was unable to find any reference to the outcome.

The truth is, the Qur'an I was sent, which is one of the most widely read English translations, is a dense tome of more than 1600 pages. In its index, there are perhaps two dozen references to passages that cast Jews in a negative light. Most of those references are clearly historical in nature, describing disputes between Jewish and early Muslim tribal units. Yes, you can find a passage referring to Jews as apes and swine, and this is indeed an ugly charge. But if that's what is written in the Qur'an, don't blame the translation. Furthermore, I think it is unfair to characterize the entire volume based on a small number of offensive passages; one can find equally offensive verses in the Bible, but I don't hear any calls to ban that book.

I have also heard some criticisms of CAIR, and there is even a whole anti-CAIR website. The basic charge is that CAIR sponsors terrorist organizations. There are numerous links on the anti-CAIR site to off-site content, but most of these are opinion pieces that seem to have materialized on the web out of the ether. The few articles I could find from respected news organizations have actually run corrections clearing CAIR's name. There's a Wikipedia entry on CAIR that fails to settle the question.

Sigh... I think the thing to do is to just read the book. Take a peek at the comments section for an excerpt...