I remember reading about this book while in Amman, Jordan in 2006. Bruce Lawrence mentions that he was assisted by Dr Ibrahim Abu Nab of Amman in the beginnings of this book. I have had it on my "reading now" shelf for years, and despite being half-way though, I started from the beginning yesterday and finished it today. I think the problem with my earlier attempt at reading the work was my lack of historical, geopolitical, and theological knowledge at the time. So this reading I found rather gripping. The book is a chronological biography of the Qur'an, and is part of a series of "Books that Shook the World". If this book is the standard for the series, then I will invest in some of the other books. What I like about Lawrence's work is that it is scholarly, contemporary, and pragmatic all at once. The fifteen chapters each present a different story about the Qur'an, in chronological order, and from various cultures and geographical locations. It might have been useful to read this book before I read Pioneers of Islamic Scholarship by Adil Salahi, and I may now revisit this work to pick up on many of the names and chronologies that I struggled with on my first reading. I do not think this is a book for beginners, although it is easy enough to read, but much would be lost without a basic understanding or a willingness to undertake background study while reading the book. While it took me a long time to read, I am glad I had put it off for so long, otherwise I would have missed a good deal from my lack of background knowledge. ( )

Maybe I was expecting too much but I felt this was a let down. Instead of engaging the Quran on a scholarly level or with any depth besides quoting the Quran to justify itself. It felt like an Islamic Max Lucado book. ( )

An installment in the "Books that Changed the World" series published Atlantic Monthly Press, Bruce Lawrence's The Qur'an: A Biography (2006) didn't quite do what I'd hoped it would. Rather than a history of the text's historical development, translations, influences, &c. (i.e. what I would have thought of as a "biography", and what other titles in this series generally focus on), Lawrence offers up a very abstract Introduction touching on the Qur'an's importance to Muslims, followed by a series of short profiles of people connected in one way or another with the Qur'an (from Muhammad to Osama bin Laden to early translator Robert Ketton).

While I was generally underwhelmed by Lawrence's work (when I wasn't just plain confused, since he alternates sharply between over-explanation and none at all), considering recent events a paragraph from his epilogue rang true: "There will be more headline stories about the Qur'an. Though they will likely concern its abuse rather than its use, it is its use that will finally matter most in the decades and centuries ahead. Scholars will continue to debate its style and content, its medieval and modern interpretations, and also its application in law and politics as well as interfaith dialogue."

There have got to be better books out there that will offer more of what I was looking for than this one did. I'll be on the lookout.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/09/book-review-quran-biography.html ( )

This is not a biography of the history of the Quran, but rather a rambling account of Islam. I had a bit of trouble understanding it, especially the earlier chapters. I don't think I would recommend this as a basic primer on the Quran. Perhaps a more knowledgeable student of Islam would get much more out of it. ( )

I read this book to give myself some background in the history of the Koran (Qur’an) before reading it. I would never read the Koran (Qur’an) on my own, but a book discussion group I belong to selected it for reading. This book, (The Qur'an: A Biography) kept using terms and expressions that were unfamiliar to me. I was expecting a biography to explain things better and not create needless additional questions.

To start off: - Who came up with the spelling of Qur’an? I thought the correct spelling was Koran, which is phonetically correct for the way it is pronounced on the audio recordings of the book. I suspect that maybe Qur’an is closer to the way it may be pronounced in Arabic. It seems to me that the English Language has enough unphonetic spellings. Why add one more?

Another thing: – The book kept using the term, “A Book of Signs.” Is that a term translated from Arabic? It is not a term I’m familiar with. I thought for a while that it was an alternative way of referring to the Koran (Qur’an). But it may be an expression that can be applied to other books such as the books of Moses and the Christian Gospels. This book offers no explanation. Below are two quotations from the books showing how the expression is used.

First Excerpt:
Whether one hears or reads it, in Arabic or some other language, it is A Book of Signs because each of its many verses, like delicate filigree, is more than words: the Arabic word for the smallest unit of Qur'anic text means "verse", but "verse" also means "sign" or "miracle". As tangible signs, Qur'anic verses are expressive of an inexhaustible truth. They signify meaning layered within meaning, light upon light, miracle after miracle.
Second Excerpt:
However, not all Christians or Jews accepted the Qur'an as true or Muhammad as God's Prophet. Among the doubters was Robert of Ketton, a Christian monk, who first translated the Qur'an into Latin. His role as a hostile but engaged student of A Book of Signs deserves mention along with the parallel role of major Muslim interpreters who elaborated Qur'anic themes in new and imaginative directions. (end of quotations)

Another Question I have: -- The book says that in 934 CE the seven different ways of reciting were fixed. Does this mean different text versions? Or does it mean different styles? Different languages? How are they different? This deserves further explanation. If this is referring to seven different texts, that’s a big deal for a canonical scripture. When I pick up an English translation, which of these seven versions am I getting?

One thing I found interesting was that the Prophet’s sayings were not immediately recorded in written form. I had previously thought that he had dictated directly to a scribe. The timeline is as follows. The sayings came to the Prophet Muhammad via a divine mediary (the Archangel Gabriel) between 610 and 632 CE. Different people close to the Prophet Muhammad heard these revelations as he uttered them. They remembered the words and repeated them orally. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, 'Ali, his close relative and supporter, worked with others to compile them into a written text. Then 20 years later all extant versions were arranged into one "standard" version. This version persists substantially unchanged to the present day. As mentioned earlier, in 934 CE there is an indication of “seven different ways of reciting.” So there must have been some remaining variation in the texts.

The author’s words sound very respectful of the Koran (Qur’an). The following are some excerpts that show this respect:

…. it is an oral book that sounds better spoken than read silently …..

To hear the Qur'an recited is for Muslims unlike anything else. It is to experience the power of divine revelation as a shattering voice from the Unseen. It moves, it glides, it soars, it sings. It is in this world, yet not of it.

The Qur'an is a multilayered Arabic text. Even those who hear it understand it in numerous, sometimes divergent ways, and those who cannot hear it in Arabic grasp no more than a fraction of its intended message. ( )