What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters

by Garry Wills

America’s leading religious scholar and public intellectual introduces lay readers to the Qur’an with a measured, powerful reading of the ancient textGarry Wills has spent a lifetime thinking and writing about Christianity. In What the Qur’an Meant, Wills invites readers to join him as he embarks on a timely and necessary reconsideration of the Qur’an, leading us through perplexing passages with insight and erudition. What does the Qur’an actually say about veiling women? Does it justify religious war?      There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam—claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an.      In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur’an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims—such as Pope Francis—find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning. He compares the Qur’an with other sacred books, the Old Testament and the New Testament, to show many parallels between them. There are also parallel difficulties of interpretation, which call for patient exploration—and which offer some thrills of discovery. What the Qur’an Meant is the opening of a conversation on one of the world’s most practiced religions.

Genres: Religion, Islam, Nonfiction, History, Theology, Spirituality, Middle East

237 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2017

About the author

Garry Wills is an American author, journalist, political philosopher, and historian, specializing in American history, politics, and religion, especially the history of the Catholic Church. He won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1993.
Wills has written over fifty books and, since 1973, has been a frequent reviewer for The New York Review of Books. He became a faculty member of the history department at Northwestern University in 1980, where he is an Emeritus Professor of History.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't think you'll get a chance to read Garry Wills' What the Qur'an Meant and you're in a bookstore, grab a copy and sit down in an easy chair to read the introduction at least. It's only 13 pages, and you learn a lot. Yeah, you miss all the elaborations that come with reading the book, but still.

What will you learn? For one, Wills says for non-Muslims to learn about the Qur'an might have been, at one time, a luxury, but now it's more a requirement. "To help the majority of believers in Islam," he writes, "and to be helped by them, we must see how far terrorists have departed from the book they say they believe in."

Then he gets into the ignoramuses who would have it banned, especially after 9/11. This "despite the mountains of evidence that the religion of Islam favors peace over violence..." Wills, in a rhetorical flourish, continues: "...there is a large and lucrative business for telling Americans what horrible things are in the Qur'an (they aren't). Dozens of states have passed or proposed bans on Shari'ah law, as if that were an evil product of the Qur'an (it isn't). Women with hijabs are considered dangerous, since they are clothing themselves according to the Qur'an (they are not). Men wearing turbans are shunned as Muslims (they are Sikhs). Mosques are being banned or defaced for teaching the Qur'an. This is a dangerous way to alienate the vast numbers of Muslims in the world."

As is typically the case, a little education goes a long way. In the introduction we learn that Muhammad is not the only prophet in the Qur'an. It also includes "Abraham, Aaron, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Lot, Jonah, Solomon, David, John (called the Baptist in the New Testament), Jesus, and others." The fact is, Muslims "believe that Jesus was a great prophet who worked miracles, was led by a holy spirit, and taken up to heaven. The Qur'an, like the Catholic catechism, proclaims belief in angels and devils, in heaven and hell, and in a Last Judgment that assigns people to their permanent place in eternity."

Also interesting is what's not there and what's there in very small amounts. No seventy-two virgins to greet jihadists in heaven are ever mentioned in this book. The word shari'ah is "used only once in the Qur'an, and not as a legal term."

The three ignorances that Wills goes after in this book are secular ignorance, religious ignorance, and fearful ignorance. These are all covered in Part I of the book, called "Iraq: The Cost of Ignorance." Part II is called "The Qur'an: Searching for Knowledge," and its chapters are broken down into these categories: A Desert Book, Conversing with the Cosmos, The Perpetual Stream of Prophets, Peace to Believers, Zeal (Jihad), The Right Path (Shari'ah), Commerce, Women: Plural Marriage, Women: Fighting Back, and Women: The Veil.

All said, a fair treatment exploring all three of the major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with fair criticism and praise where each is due. Wills does not run away from it. Why? As a devout Christian himself, he says, "We recognize ourselves in the true image of other believers, in the Qur'an and in the Torah. We believers encourage each other over the barriers raised by people who do not wish any of us well."

[Michael Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read the Qur’an twice, both times in English translation. The first time, about 20 years ago, I was a brand-new Ph.D. assigned to teach World Literature, which included a generous selection from the Qur’an. I read the Penguin Classics Edition translated by N.J. Dawood. All I remember from reading this translation are my interactions with the language. Dawood captured (I suspect) something important about the grandeur and grace of the original. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the bigness and magnificence of the God that I met in its ayas and surahs. And then I remember the peace that I felt when this God spoke words of love. For years, I kept it by my bedside to read when I felt anxious or frenetic. It spoke peace to my soul.

The second time was about three years ago, when I read the monumental Study Qur’an, with translation and extensive commentary by Hossein Nasr, Joseph Lumbard, Caner Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Mohammed Rustom. This was a reading event for me. I pre-ordeed it months before it was published and dedicated about two months to reading it and studying its extensive footnotes. It didn’t produce the same emotions that Dawood’s translation produced, but it opened, ever so slightly, the doors of understanding.

And yet, after all of this, I still don’t understand very much about the Qur’an.

This is why I was excited to read Garry Wills’ new-ish book What the Qur’an Meant and Why It Matters. I know Wills’ work fairly well. I loved his book on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and I more or less enjoyed his books on Jesus and Paul. At times, I find him pedantic as hell, but I also think that he has earned a certain amount of arrogance. He knows a lot. And he thinks about stuff.

I was more than a little bit disappointed with this book, though, for several reasons that I will try to explain here.

In the first place, Wills doesn’t really start talking about the Qur’an until about a third of the way through the book. The first three chapters are basically an argument for why Americans need to understand something about Islam--or, at least, stop being bigoted idiots when it comes to one of the world’s great religions. The first chapter deals with the way that neoconservative secularists screwed up by invading Iraq. The second chapter gives a brief overview of the idea that religious fundamentalism is a response to colonialism, not an inherent part of any religion. And the third chapter argues that Americans lost their collective mind after the September 11 attacks and gave in to fear and a demonization of the other.

I couldn’t agree more with every one of these arguments. But they have almost nothing to do with what the Qur’an means. And they don’t even have that much to do with why it matters what the Qur’an means. They have to do with the undoubtedly true premise that Americans have been unforgivably intolerant towards people who do believe in the divinity of the Qur’an and that, in doing so, we have betrayed our own principles. This is all true no matter what the Qur’an means.

My greater problem with What the Qur’an Means, though, is that , even when it does talk about the Qur'an, it doesn’t have very much to say about what the Qur’an means. What he does is try to describe at some length what the Qur’an does NOT mean. He picks everything about the Qur’an that bigoted American yahoos like to harp on and shows that it doesn’t really mean what the yahoos say it means: “jihad” does not mean Holy War; “sharia” does not mean cutting off the heads of unbelievers; calling Muhammad a prophet does not mean that Abraham, Moses, Job, and Jesus aren’t prophets, and et cetera.

I see why Wills wants to do this. He is trying to beat back some of the ignorance that has become a standard part of our public discourse. But the way he frames hiis argument is a huge opportunity lost. What Wills ends up showing us is why people like him (and, to be fair, like me) don’t need to be afraid of the Qur’an. He quotes Augustine and Chesterton as much as Muhammad because he wants to show us that what the Qur’an says is just like what we already believe.

He does not show us (or at least I do not see him showing us) what is beautiful and magnificent about the Qur’an: the bigness of God, the peace of submission to that bigness, the compassion and confidence of the divine nature, the need to care for the most vulnerable people of a society. These are the things that resonated with me the first time I read the Qur’an. And they are the reasons that reasons that one and a half billion love and revere it.

Ultimately, it is not enough to show that the Qur’an is not objectionable. “Not objectionable” is too low a bar. He needs to show that it is beautiful, and that it means something unique and important in its own right. And this simply doesn’t come through in his learned, but ultimately defensive, analysis.

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We recognize ourselves in the true image of other believers, in the Qur'an or Torah. We believers encourage each other over the barriers raised by people who do not wish any of us well."
- Garry Wills, What the Qur'an Meant



Garry Wills' What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters follows his format used previously in:
1. What the Gospels Meant
2. What Paul Meant
3. What Jesus Meant

It is one of the first books (I've read) that uses heavily The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. As other have noted, the title is a bit misleading. Part I of the book actually looks at Why It Matters; Part II looks at What the Qur'an means.

This is not a complete exegesis of the Qur'an and isn't meant to be. It is a look at a book that is viewed as scipture by about 1/4 of the world, by a believer from another faith tradition (Catholic). Wills is trying to be fair and generous. He looks at the Qur'an using the same skills he uses with the Bible. He looks at what others have written, academic resources, and the text. He tries to distill the text from both how the faith is practiced in History and how it is practiced by extremists now and puts into context some of the most tortured verses, showing parallels from the Torah and the New Testament.

I liked his approach, his tone, and his agenda. While I'm skeptical of most faiths (often even of my own) I am drawn often to writers who can talk about religion without condesencion or without being too hot (zealous, biased) or cold (abstract, clinical). Faith and belief are powerful aspects of our humanity. We need to view others (both belivers and nonbelivers) with respect. Often, we need to use care to insure that we aren't spreading rumors and false narratives about other traditions or people. We need to follow the Golden Rule in how we define others. Define them with the same charity we would like to be defined by. I don't want my faith tradition defined by polygamists who marry underage children, and I'm certain 95 percent of Muslims would prefer to no have their traditions defined by their most extreme elements. I'm certain many Christians would prefer that their faith wasn't defined by the Duggers or Westboro baptists either.

[Quo · Rating 4 out of 5]

For starters, it is refreshing when a scholar & Pulitzer Prize winning author begins a new exploration by faulting himself for being so slow to come to grips with the Qur'an, a book that is central to perhaps 20% of the world's population, a religious segment of humanity expected to grow to nearly 30% by 2050 according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Garry Wills' recent book, What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters attempts to confront many examples of what might be called western illiteracy as well as western hostility about the book Muslims revere. For:

We have already paid a terrible price for our ignorance about the people whose lives we blundered into a "preemptive war", the longest in our history. We simply cannot afford to be so blind in a world as interdependent as our world has become. There are three kinds of ignorance that cripple or undermine our ability to act intelligently when dealing with Islam as a religion, to identify distortions of that religion & to strengthen our bonds with peaceful Muslims.

These are: 1) Secular ignorance, which caused Americans to blunder into Iraq thinking that we could turn it into a democratic Disneyland; 2) Religious ignorance, which pits our crusaders against their jihadists; and 3) Fearful ignorance, which makes us think that Muslims are infiltrating our government & national life.

The author proceeds to carefully examine the Qur'an, highlighting the areas of commonality with Christian & Hebrew texts that are central to each religion. For example, how many realize that Muslims honor Mary, the mother of Jesus, believing in her perpetual virginity & sinlessness? As with Christianity, there is a belief in angels & devils, in heaven & hell and a Last Judgment in the Qur'an. And like biblical passages, the Qur'an contains some sections that are peaceful & others that are bellicose, with Wills explaining that Allah, like Yahweh is "a jealous God."



With his study of the Qur'an Garry Wills begins to see how people draw spiritual sustenance from the Qur'an, something that Pope Francis praised as well. However, the author did not find things he had expected to find in the Qur'an, including any mention of the 72 virgins some believe were promised to the 9/11 terrorists and an absence of commentary on the duty of Muslims to kill "infidels". Neither is there any definition of Shari'ah Law in the Qur'an.

The point made is that any religious text can be misappropriated and Wills mentions that the 4 accounts of the life of Jesus have nothing to do with the Crusades, the Inquisition, with Christians killing infidels or with Christians killing other Christians. And for that matter, when one speaks of Christians, does he or she mean Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostals, Mormons, Quakers, Amish, Christian Scientists or some amalgam of them?

Similarly, when we speak of Muslims, do we mean Shia, Sunni, Salafis, Sufis, Alawis or some mix of them. "How are we to sort out all of the labyrinthine twistings of the 2 religions' separate/parallel histories?" Wills indicates that this is particularly true since the oral traditions about Jesus & Muhammad did not take the forms we know for several decades after their death.

One comment within What the Qur'an Meant that seemed very telling involved the mention of Samuel Huntington's 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations, with Prof Huntington of Harvard indicating that American hegemony is receding and that this hegemony should be considered "neither benign nor final, for what is universalism to the West is imperialism to the rest." Thus, "the time has come for the West to abandon the illusion of universalism." This pronouncement by Prof. Huntington has caused a backlash by some historians & others as well.



The thrust of Garry Wills' book is essentially that nothing good comes from ignorance of the religion & culture of others along with a realization that universalism can seem an invasive threat to many societies bent on preserving religious & cultural elements that would seem to define them.

What the author finds in much of American culture is something he describes as a "holy ignorance", where not knowing about something becomes a duty and what matters is not the evidence on an individual matter but a grand rejection of the whole ethos & method of "godless science", as well as the religion & culture of those who are different. Thus, the words "I am not a scientist" and also "I am obliged not to know" become a mantra for many.

There is a mention of Thomas Jefferson's explanation of his Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, that it was "meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew, the Gentile, The Christian, the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination". For his efforts to bridge cultures & to avoid religious exclusivity, Jefferson's opponents suggested that he was a Muslim, something that caused President Barack Obama to remark, "so I was not the first!"

According to the monotheistic values of the Qur'an, Jesus was not divine & those who worship him as such "are departing from authentic revelation". For Muslims, Jesus was "a messenger for all believers", just as Moses & Muhammad were. For that matter, Mr. Jefferson was a Deist & not a Theist, believing in deductive reasoning rather than divine revelation and his own edited version of the bible featured "Christ without the miracles." No wonder he incited a venomous reaction from his many political opponents.

The Qur'an declares that "People of the book have no true basis (for their religion) unless you uphold the Torah, the Gospel & that which has been sent down to you (by Muhammad) from your Lord." And also, it is declared that "We make no distinction between any of His messengers."

Wills indicates that "the Quranic covenant is thus a continuation of sacred history presented as a reaffirmation & an extension of the covenant that God made through the Torah & the Gospels." In the Qur'an, Allah protects equally the synagogue, the church & the mosque--the people of Moses, of Jesus, of Muhammad.

In What the Qur'an Meant the author attempts to examine misogyny within Islam, finding that all 3 Abrahamic religions can be said to evidence misogyny in one way or another. And Wills finds that according to the Qur'an, the only just war is a defensive one. Also, the author finds that the fear of modernity by some within Islam is not so very dissimilar to the Christian fight against Galileo & Darwin. For many Muslims, the reading of the Qur'an & its oral recitation provides a feeling of mindfulness, a kind of meditation akin to listening to Gregorian Chant.



One criticism is that I'd have liked Wills to have been broader in his overview, less focused on America's reaction to Muslims & their holy book, especially since 9/11. However, this likely would likely have entailed a much longer book.

There are Muslims who would suggest that anyone who doesn't read the Qur'an in its original Arabic is unable to comprehend the totality of the book but Garry Wills offers some excellent introductory insight into the Qur'an and with an approach that highlights its importance for those who until now, much like the author, have not been exposed to it. I found the book fascinating & recommend What the Qur'an Meant very highly.

*Among the images includes within review are: a father & son reading from the Qur'an; open Qur'an with Arabic script; Prof. Garry Wills & a Muslim woman who shared a platform on the Qur'an just after What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters was published.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Reading this book right after "Why I Am Not A Muslim" was a serious case of whiplash. It got 2.5 stars from me, not because I disagree with it, but because I don't think Garry Wills made a very convincing argument. The first chapter, which talks about the lack of understanding of Islam and the Islamic world and the various bone-headed decisions made in the wake of 9/11 I pretty much agree with. I had a few minor quibbles, but overall, yes, like Gary Wills I agree that Americans as a whole aren't very familiar with the Qur'an and Islamic culture. I agree that we should make an effort to understand the cultures and motivations of people who are different.

However, the rest of the book kind of falls apart as he tries to make the case that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Qur'an teaches peace because he ignores all of the horrific *modern* results in favor of the rose-colored glasses of Good Intentions.

I do agree that the Qur'an, like the Old and New Testaments of Christianity and the Torah of Judaism has violent, horrible passages within its pages. I agree that Christianity has done a lot of terrible things to others in the name of the religion using those passages. But Gary Wills glosses over the atrocities committed in the name of Islam over the centuries and does some fancy footwork with translations in order to justify or at least lessen the sting of various Qur'anic passages, especially when talking about the treatment of women. He doesn't talk about its avocation of slavery and barely mentions Sharia law or the Hadith or any of the other Muslim traditions and writings being taught because "they aren't in the Qur'an."

Okay. I get that. In any religious text, people can pick and choose whatever verses they want to support whatever their cause might be. Christianity used the Bible to justify slavery, the second-class status of women, and it still being used against homosexuals. Granted, Christians as a whole have outgrown that. Most of the Biblical traditions aren't followed anymore and the good, loving passages are what are focused on (although one is still threatened with hellfire or considered amoral if you aren't religious.)

But unfortunately, in Muslim countries, that setting aside of beliefs or traditions that don't mesh with modern society hasn't happened. Even if the Qur'an says nothing about what the Sharia laws espouse, those laws have still become part and parcel of Muslim culture. It doesn't really matter what the Qur'an teaches if those messages of peace aren't followed. The Qur'an may say that women have the right to their own property but that hasn't helped many Muslim women become financially independent. There are still honor killings of women, death sentences are still called down upon people who criticize (or even appear to criticize) Islam, and apostates still must flee for their lives, often going into hiding or traveling with heavy security to keep themselves alive. The worst that modern, extremist Christian or Jewish sects do is social exile from the group, cut off from friends and family. That's bad, but not nearly as bad as fearing for your life if you decide you don't want to follow that religion anymore or object to certain traditions.

I understand that not all Muslims or Muslim countries support Sharia law or the violence done by terrorists. But books like this one I think overstate what a religion SAYS it stands for and how people who follow it actually live and what they do. Maybe Islam the religion isn't to blame, but then we need to take a good long look at Islam the culture and see if it's actually as benign as Gary Wills seems to think it is.

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am thankful for this work. I have struggled with reading interpretations ("translations") of the Qur'an since 1967. I still struggle with it even though I have read a library of books about Islam and the Qur'an with commentaries. People used to ask why I bothered with Islam. Well, a billion or more people are Muslims. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are relatives and remain important shapers of our lives.

My current reading of Dr. Wills book is a first reading. The first half of the book is easy but important reading. The second half if lucid, clear, and informed reading but still more difficult for me than the first half.

The Qur'an is not the misunderstood and misread cartoon too often proclaimed by ignorant ideologues and opponents of Islam. It is actually a humane adventure in religious enlightenment. I am again in debt to Gary Wills for this short but fine corrective.

[Carol Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garry Wills, a Catholic writer whose work I have respected for a long time, has taken on the task of learning and explaining the Qur'an.

I learned a great deal from this book. I already knew that many westerners' perceptions of the Qur'an were distorted, that it says nothing, for instance, about rewarding men with virgins in the afterlife. But this book goes much deeper. I was surprised to discover that the Qur'an not only urges respect for Jews and Christians, but suggests that Muslims should not try to convert them. Allah gave these religions to different peoples, and they should stick to their own traditions.

However, the Qur'an says that no respect is due to Christians or Jews who do not follow their religions carefully. It says that Christians who believe in a trinity have departed from the one God.

He shows that the Qur'an does not encourage warlike behavior, but only what amounts to self-defense. He says Islam that follows the Qur'an (which groups like al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State distort) is no more warlike than other major religions. However, he says that to call Islam a religion of peace is as misleading as calling Christianity a religion of peace because both have often been distorted to justify war.

I was struck by those parts of the book. I was less satisfied with Wills' discussion of women in Islam. He points out that in Qur'an, the first woman was created in the same way as the first man, rather than being taken from his rib, and that both are equally to blame for disobeying God. But I do think it is striking that Mary is the only woman mentioned in the Qur'an, compared with the many women mentioned in Jewish and Christian biblical texts. It is true that the Qur'an uniquely provided that women should own property, but it does justify a husband hitting his wife to "correct" her if all else fails.

This review is just a glimpse of what is in this book. Wills makes the Qur'an understandable for non-Muslims, and that is a great service.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've tried to read the Quran itself but found it impenetrable. Wills' lively and well-documented presentation is an excellent introduction and dispels many myths Westerners have about Quranic teaching.

[Wally Muchow · Rating 4 out of 5]

There appears to be a lot of misinformation and confusion over what the Qur’an actually says and recommends. Fortunately Gary Wills is an excellent historian and explainer. I have read a number of his books and have both enjoyed those books and learned a great deal.
There is an amazing amount of fear and anger over what the Qur’an represents and what it says but Wills interpretation indicates that most of that is mistaken both by conservatives in the U.S who fear encroaching Sharia law and from radical Muslims who get their radicalism from a misreading of the book.
As Wills points out much is attributed to the Qur'an that is not actually in the book, trying to keep people from studying it does a disservice and allows radicals to interpret it as they want.
For instance Sharia means path and is not a set of laws or even principles that must be followed. But represents the way, the path to righteousness. This concept; followers of the path is used both in the bible and in the Qur’an.
The Qur’an condemns Christians and Jews if they turn off the path of their religion. They are not condemned or punished if they hold true to their religions precepts. Islam is a monotheistic religion they faulted Christians after the council of Nicea declared that God , Jesus and the Holy Ghost were all co-equal in God. At that time they thought Christians had left the path.
The Qur’an is very misogynistic - Woman count as half a man or less. But there are some advantages an important one is called Bride Right - The groom gives money to his bride that is hers to keep and control it cannot be taken away even in a divorce only if she commits adultery This is enlightened by the standards of other religions at the time. My issue is to wonder how well woman could maintain this position if they were not respected by society n I do not know but I suspect lots of woman were and are bullied in to turning this money over to her husband or her guardian and if he did not they could easily make her life worse.
The veil - not much is said about woman’s covering in the Qur'an. There is a discussion here on woman weaning the veil as a sign of their own identity or to adjure colonial imposition of authority. But my personal view of a woman having to cover her body to any great extent because of the lust she will arouse in men is that it is insulting and humiliating to both woman and men. It is another sign of woman’s inequality, men are the weaker sex unable to control their animal impulses but woman must hide and be inconvenienced as a result
I learned a great deal from the book and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the Qur’an or who wants to have a better understand of what it teaches

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wills has written a clear and readable account of the Qur'an which might be of only casual interest, were it not for the fact that our attention these days is everywhere on Islam. The United States has apparently never-ending wars in the Middle East and in Afghanistan against "Islamic terrorists" who claim to be representing Allah and are seen as threats to our western way of life. How much of their ideology and actions are based on the Qur'an is crucial, then, to our understanding and is "why it matters."

Surprisingly, Wills finds that the Qur'an is not understood very well, even by the faithful who claim to be its adherents. Or maybe not so surprisingly as the same could be said of Christians and Jews and their own holy book, the Bible. One of the first points he makes is the Qur'an is a "desert-haunted" book. Survival means knowing where the oasis' are, with their life-giving water. Knowing how to reach them, a "path" is crucial to life. On a metaphorical level, then, Allah shows the way, the path, to salvation and eternal life, and his directions are found in the pronouncements of the "Qur'an.

True, just as there are in the Hebrew Bible and in the Christian New Testament, there are differences in interpretation, and reconciling these differences is an ongoing activity, despite what fundamentalists (mostly of a literal bent)may think. But overall, the Qur'an is similar to the Jewish and Christian holy books in advocating attitudes of mercy and forgiveness.

What about "jihads" (holy wars)? Not mentioned in the Qur'an, Wills says, except in isolated passages about self-defence. Virtually nothing is said, either, of sharia law (a bogeyman, Wills contends, and much feared in the West) or of the wearing of the veil. In fact, overall, despite its patriarchal background, as in much of Judaism and Christianity, Islam may gives many rights to women. The three most important duties of a Muslim are prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, as well as a reverence for the Holy Place of Mecca).

For much of its history, Islam has coexisted peacefully with Judaism and Christianity. But when certain aberrant factions of Islam act violently and claim to speaking for Islam, then all of Islam can get blamed for the acts of these few.

[Dan Cotter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Wills, who has written much on Christianity, explores in this book the Qur’an and addresses many of the perceived teachings versus what is actually set forth. Worth a read. I learned much from Wills on the topic in this concise book.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The latest entry into Garry Wills's series "What [x] Meant" [x] being Jesus, Paul, the Gospels, and now the Qur'an. The second half of the title is covered in the first 70 pages or so--a brief description of our overreaction to 9/11, based largely on our ignorance of Islam, an ignorance which still produces our continuing hysteria over Muslims and their allegedly rigid, medieval, violent religion. If nothing else, Wills alerted me to The Study Qur'an, a physically beautiful book, full of helpful notes, maps, and explanatory essays by a wide range of Islamic scholars, and at nearly 2000 pages, longer than my Oxford Study Bible. He also alerted me to Chapter 50 in Gibbon's Decline and Fall, a remarkably open-minded and accurate description of the origins and beliefs of Islam. He endears himself to the reader by admitting up front that he has always had a hard time reading the Qur'an, he accurately lists the difficulties, and admits that he had given up a number of times until the present state of affairs in the United States pushed him to really lean into it. He then proceeds to explain various controversial aspects of the text in a way designed to ease the worries of concerned Christians and Jews, and he is very convincing. I agree with some other Goodreads reviewers, though, that he doesn't really deal very much with the vast discrepancy between the Qur'an and the way Muslim countries are run, other than to point out the similar vast discrepancy between the Gospels and how Christian countries are run. A very illuminating book, and, as another Goodreads reviewer remarked, almost a substitute for reading the Qur'an itself.

[Esther Bradley-detally · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breath of fresh air. I read this clear, lucid, easy to read account of What the Qur'an Meant, and applauded every page. He cuts to the chase and gets down to the concept of Revelation and in my mind's eye, progressive revelation. In the stages of disintegration and reintegration on our planet; Wills points out a clear path to understanding the Revelation of Muhammad. There are minor issues; but I found it heartening to discover his book. I have a review on Amazon which is more succinct. I believe in the concept of progressive revelation, i.e., that from the time of Adam, through the time of Muhammad, humankind was an infant, a child, and now our globe is adolescent to say the least. What will emerge is the oneness of humanity and the core revealed truths that sustained Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and now what I believe the Baha'i Faith, will be understood more clearly. Take it any way you want: God's Little Chapter book, the renewal of all the core spiritual teachings of the previous Messenger, the promise of one to come after, and now I suggest that the avid reader consider that mankind is coming of age, and as referred to in all the Holy Books and Native prophecies, we are on the threshold of awareness as to the oneness of humanity. Each Messenger/Manifestation/Prophet, comes with spiritual teachings for that particular day and age and social teachings. The social teachings are changed, according to the exigencies of the age.

This book is a welcoming presence and does not obscure the basic truths of Muhammad. I am a Baha'i, and I offer this to everyone with relief, joy and wonder. Gratitude of the highest order to its author Garry Wills.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dry and even-handed exploration of the fundamental precepts of the Qu'ran, and the actual language in it, in contrast to misleading interpretations fostered by political opponents of Muslim immigration.

[سید حماد حیدرآبادی · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10
I'm surprised I'm giving this a five, but hear me out.

Wills divides this book into two sections, Part I and Part II. Part II is great. It's a non-prescriptive exploration of Quranic themes, themes that we as Muslims ourselves tend to forget in our sectarian debates. Wills talks about how the Quran envisions a society that is just and forgiving. A society where women and orphans are treated equally, where Muslims and non-Muslims can live together in harmony, and where affirmative action is employed to bring the less-fortunate on par with the fortunate. Wills also comments on how the Quranic narrative is more cohesive than that of the Bible's, despite being a Christian himself, and how the God of the Quran is one who is constantly reminding its readers of his mercy and compassion.

Part I, however, though not directly engaging with the contents of the Quran, is what sets the stage for Part II. Part I is where we learn of Gills ulterior motives for exploring the Quran and the political ramifications of an American audience with a rudimentary understanding of Islam and Muslims via the Quran. This is where any praise and admiration for Part II is insufficient. When you read Part I, and then read Part II, it becomes clear that Wills wants to employ the Quran as a tool in the 'War on Terror,' and any sense of praise for the Quran that he may have is only a consequence of his ultimate goal.

That said, I do encourage others to read this book. Despite its imperialist and orientalist undertones, I believe that Wills cannot deny that what he does read is astonishing, and he never fails to express how captivated he is by these verses.

[readsbyem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even from a personal standpoint, this book is definitely a 5 star read. Garry Wills does an amazing job of breaking down the Qur'an and its misconceptions, and as someone with little to no knowledge of the text, it was enlightening and very intriguing.

I found myself fascinated by the parallels between the three major religious texts - the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur'an - and I enjoyed learning about how we as a Western society can take this knowledge and use it to deconstruct the stereotypes and negative view of Islam.

I recommend this read to everyone, but especially those who are interested in the Qur'an. It is a fairly short book and yet Wills crams so much knowledge within it.

[Miebara Jato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book of the week: "What the Qu'ran Meant" by Garry Wills

Like most non-Muslims, I judged the Quran without actually studying what's written in its pages. From that position of ignorance, I viewed the Quran as a horrible, violent-filled book that commands its adherents to slaughter "infidels". Out of curiosity, I decided to read the English translation of the text about 3 years ago.

Reading the Quran is tedious. It has no organisational structure; the books are arranged according to length (longer ones earlier, shorter ones toward the end) instead of chronological or topical order. Pope Francis was not exaggerating when he describes the Quran as a religious book that one can draw spiritual sustenance. It's a wonderful book.

But reading the Quran once or twice cannot make one fully grasp the contextual meaning or import of its words. Add the bigotry and theologically false application and interpretation of the Quran by fundamentalists to this, you feel if you hadn't missed something. Therefore, Garry Wills's book is a timely intervention for one to make sense of the dense maze of overreaching interpretations.

Wills takes some of the controversial and misappropriated topics in the Quran and analyse them, thereby showing how terrorists who used the Quran as the guide gravely deviates from its true teachings.

Just as you'll never find a mention of masturbation in the Bible nor a condemnation of homosexuals in the Bible, you'll not find things like the promise of 72 virgins to terrorists or jihadists; you'll not find a commentary on the duty of Muslims to kill "infidels". You'll find that the word shari'a is "used only once in the Qur'an, and not as a legal term."

Wills, a devout Christian, carefully examine the Qur'an, proceeding to highlight the areas of its commonality with the Gospel and Torah.

Wills shows that the Quran, like the Christian Bible and Torah, has violent passages within its pages. Granted Christianity is associated with horrible events in the past like the Crusades and slavery (and today their horrible treatment of homosexuals) but Christianity had grown passed those bad things. But for Muslim countries, that setting aside of beliefs or traditions that don't mesh with modern society hasn't happened. That's a problem.

[Phillip · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 / 5.0
After lecture I was prepared for this to be a dogmatic defense of Islam against common charges. Expected a he said she said narrative. Pleasantly surprised. Selection of topics and posture of defense against critics was as expected but arguments were nuanced well thought out balanced and well written.

[Leo Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever America gets involved in the second-world morass of Middle East politics, I try to read a book or two on Islamic religion, culture or history. So with Iran and the region's Shiites on alert after Trump unceremoniously had a popular Iranian military and political leader assassinated, that time has arrived again. So I checked WHAT THE QUR'AN MEANT by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gary Wills out of the library.

The book is uber-interesting. It dissects and summarizes the text of the Qur'an. He spends dozens of pages tracking the thematic thread that connects the disconnected, winding passages of the Qur'an: sweet, freshwater as a symbol for God's (Allah's) grace.

Along the way, he uses the text itself to illuminate misunderstood, and often intentionally by hard-right fear-mongering, aspects of the religion. For instance, in the Qur'an and Arabic in general, "jihad" simply means a path that leads to sweet water. It's what we'd call "the straight and narrow." And Wills points out that Muslim extremists are mid-interpreting the scripture when they use that term to advocate murder. He also illustrates how much Mohammed values other monotheists, like Christians and Jews. He held those faiths in high regard, which of course contradicts what right-wing misinformation lead most to believe about Islam.

He also spends thirty or so pages looking at precisely what Mohammed said about war. And again, Islam's holy book reveals that Allah told his followers that war must be just. The only allowable motive is self-defense. And instead of decapitating innocent captives as ISIS does, the Qur'an tells its followers to treat enemies justly... especially Christians and Jews. Ergo, this places outliers like Al Quaeda and ISIS in opposition to holy writ instead of being expressions of it.

And by placing things into their proper historical, 7th century AD context, he makes other misrepresentations understandable. For instance, the book may be patriarchal, but so was the Christain Council of Nicea, which convened about the time. He also rightly points out something that any person who's read European history knows: that under Islamic rule, Jews and "heretical" Christian sects fared very well under the Caliphate. But when Christians took back the land, they burned those people at the stake.

So much for Christianity being the "religion of peace."

That said, I've read some misleading reviews here that state half of the book was a history of Bush's bungling and hard-right misrepresentation of Islam. That's not true. I know, because based on those reviews, I was expecting it. But that introductory material was about 1/6th of the book, and I found it necessary as groundwork, illustrating how important it was to understand our enemies and "frenemies" on their own terms, and not distortions.

All told, a solid read. Though it's not long, it does require close reading as scriptures always do lest you miss something. Four-stars.

PS. I read the Qu'ran decards ago when I was trying to read the expanded "World Canon." In fact, I used a study Qu'ran... possibly the one Wills cites. And my reading was quite similar, albeit less scholarly, than Wills's. But that was well before 9/11 and after the hostage crisis. It's nice to know that my own reading was pretty much spot-on.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, this book lost a star beyond my originally planned 3-star rating, because of the editorial blurb. Wills is definitely not America's leading public intellectual, not in my book. Nor do I see him as America's leading scholar of religion. (I mean, how could he be when, by his own admission, he'd never read the Qu'ran before writing this book?)

The book itself? It's Garry Wills. Like many a book of his, it's as insightful, or more so, about Garry Wills' relationship to the subject matter at hand than it is about Wills himself. And, it pontificates at times. And, it's got errors.

What this really is, is a stream of consciousness set of reflections on what Wills thinks about the Qur'an. WHY it contains what it does, let alone a stab at its compositional history, etc.? Missing.

So, it includes errors of omission.

It also, outside Islam and the Qu'ran, contains one BIG error about modern American politics. In an effort to bust the chops of the Bush Administration and fellow travelers, Wills says the US never waterboarded before 9/11.

Bullshit. We did so a century earlier against the Filipino insurrection. We did so again in Vietnam. Both are pretty well documented.

[Sabeeha Rehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the equivalent of studying the content of the Quran without having to read it. The author offers his conclusion on each topic in a one liner, and then references the quotes from the Quran. You can eyeball, skip, or read the quotes - your choice, or just his conclusion. The later makes it an easy read. The first part of the book deals with the current situation, the setting, the circumstance, and the geo-political backdrop. That provides the book its framework. He then goes into the substance of the Quran. I would sum up by saying, 'all you wanted to know about the Quran, but did not have to time to read it through.'

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garry Wills’s What the Qur’an Meant is a book written against a particular American habit of mind. It is not so much a defense of Islam as it is an argument for reading a religious text carefully, patiently, and on its own terms. Wills’s central contention is simple but important: much of what Americans think the Qur’an teaches is not actually found in the Qur’an itself, but in political ideologies, cultural practices, and fear-driven interpretations that have been layered onto it, especially in the post–9/11 United States.

The first quarter of the book sets the stage for this argument by tracing how Islam came to be framed within a “clash of civilizations” narrative. Wills shows how the Qur’an was increasingly treated not as a religious text but as an ideological manifesto, one that could supposedly explain Islam's associations with terrorism, authoritarianism, and misogyny. In this context, quotation replaced interpretation, and suspicion replaced understanding. This opening section is less about Islam per se than about American intellectual history and the ways geopolitical anxiety distorts reading practices. I found this part of the book to be overly drawn out and I wanted more of what took place in the latter parts of it.

Still, the bulk of the book is devoted to close readings of an English translation of the Qur’an, organized around themes that dominate Western anxieties about Islam: religious difference, violence and martyrdom, law, and the status of women. Wills repeatedly emphasizes that the Qur’an is not a systematic theological treatise or a comprehensive legal code. It is episodic, rhetorical, and situational, more akin to prophetic proclamation than to constitutional law. Approaching it as a rigid blueprint for society, he argues, misunderstands both its genre and its purpose.

On religious difference, Wills highlights the Qur’an’s insistence that judgment belongs to God, not to human authorities. The text acknowledges pluralism as a feature of the world and repeatedly resists the idea that faith can or should be coerced. This stands in sharp contrast to claims that Islam mandates perpetual violence against non-believers. Wills is careful here, not denying that Muslim societies have sometimes practiced coercion, but insisting that such practices cannot simply be read off the Qur’an itself.

A similar pattern emerges in his discussion of violence and martyrdom. Passages often cited to justify extremist violence are placed back into their historical and textual context, where they appear defensive and limited rather than universal or aspirational. Wills argues that modern rhetoric around martyrdom bears little resemblance to the Qur’anic vision, and that equating the two is akin to treating the most extreme expressions of Christian nationalism as faithful summaries of the New Testament.

Wills’s treatment of Shari’ah law and women follows the same method. The Qur’an contains moral guidance and some legal material, but it does not present anything like a fully articulated legal system. Many of the rigid structures associated with Shari’ah arise from later interpretive traditions rather than directly from the text. Likewise, while the Qur’an reflects the patriarchal context in which it emerged, Wills argues that many practices attributed to Islam reflect cultural accretions rather than explicit Qur’anic mandates. More specifically, many of the claims about women apply mostly to the prophet's own large number of wives and their political relationships. Furthermore, women were given more access to property and rights than in the the Hebrew and Christian Bible depictions.

Running throughout the book is an analogy that Wills returns to again and again: reading Islam through its most extreme adherents is like reading Christianity through the lens of cultural Christianity or political fundamentalism. An uninformed cultural Christian (just like an uniformed cultural Muslim, even when such a person is an extremist)) often bears little resemblance to the biblical text itself. The same is true of Islam. In both cases, the gap between text and practice is significant, and collapsing the two obscures more than it reveals.

What struck me most about What the Qur’an Meant is its insistence that misunderstanding is not neutral. Bad readings have consequences, especially when they are amplified by political power. Wills does not pretend that the Qur’an offers easy answers to modern political questions, nor does he deny the reality of violence committed in Islam’s name. What he resists is the intellectual laziness of treating a complex religious tradition as a singular cause of modern geopolitical conflict.

This is not a polemical book, and readers looking for sweeping prescriptions or tidy conclusions may find it restrained. But as an exercise in disciplined reading and moral seriousness, it is compelling. Wills’s larger point is not only about Islam. It is about how fear corrodes interpretation, and how easily sacred texts become mirrors for our own anxieties. In that sense, What the Qur’an Meant is as much a warning to Christians as it is an invitation to understand Muslims more honestly. I was left wanting more detailed analysis of the text and a closer reading of it.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the many good books out that gives a real background to the religion of Islam...

[Geo Forman · Rating 4 out of 5]

as informative as expected. can't digest it all in one reading. Biggest surprise was Islam's view of women and their ststus.

[Sarah Privette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truthfully I just skimmed this book.

[Zizi · Rating 2 out of 5]

To preface this, the only other book I've read about Islam written by a non-Muslim was by Karen Armstrong, which I thought was absolutely dreadful. My expectations were very low going into this one as a result, because I suspected it would have the same problems, namely it would strip Islam of all of its history and really all of its actual text in order to present it as something palatable for Westerners. Wills avoids some of Armstrong's issues, but sadly falls into the same trap.

Wills here has made an admirable attempt to separate Muslims from their undeserved reputation for being violent. As a self-styled intellectual, he could have just said that most people are decent and non-violent, and given that there are a billion Muslims in the world, it stands to reason that most people born Muslim are also decent and non-violent. Unfortunately, that is not the path he chose to follow. What he did instead is argue (apparently straight-faced, though I can't believe it at times) that the Qur'an is a book of love and peace.

His immediate mistake is to go into the Qur'an intentionally knowing, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing about the development of Islam or the life of Muhammad. Armstrong's work I found bizarre because she did know, yet tried to present it all as a happy and generally peaceful history, contrary to Islamic historians themselves. Wills on the other hand has a knowledge that seems limited to 1) Muhammad was an Arab from "the desert" and 2) parts of the Qur'an are similar to Jewish and Christian texts. Not only does he know little about Muhammad himself, but he virtually entirely ignores the sunnah (the ways of Muhammad and his followers as recorded in books called the "hadith" collections, two of which are considered extremely reputable), despite these being part of the religion from its earliest days.

Forgive me, but as someone raised Muslim even though I am now non-religious... if you are going to analyze another religion's holy book and publish a book about it, perhaps you ought to learn about the religion a bit first? Or else you run the risk of telling your non-Muslim audience some very odd tales.

To give just a few examples:

The deathly nature of the desert without water is suggested when Muhammed throws sand at the army... Muhammad's troops are miraculously rained upon, while the enemy is left to perish in the waterless desert.

Where to even begin here. This is a description of the battle at Badr, which is, in fact... a watering hole. No one perished of thirst. Muhammad's followers had attempted to raid a caravan returning to Mecca from Syria, and a force set out from Mecca to defend it. The two met at Badr because the Meccan force stopped there for... water. It rained on both armies before the battle (Wills seems to think it hardly ever rains in the Hejaz region for some reason. While very rare during the summer, the battle at Badr was in March), which irritated and demoralized some of the troops from Mecca, and several had already gone home because they had received word that the caravan had found a safe route past Muhammad's forces. The throwing sand bit is just a standard part of Arab battles and does not imply Muhammad was threatening them with the desert, or whatever Wills is implying. All of this Wills would know if he had picked up any source on the life of Muhammad. But he did not.

Wills' description of the "sword verse" (9:5) likewise sure could have used some knowledge about Islamic history. In this case, the verse was revealed after Muhammad had conquered Mecca. He announced that there was a new official policy of hunting down pagan Arabs until they converted to Islam. Specifically the Arabic text instructs Muslims to ambush and kill them wherever they are spotted, unless the pagans pre-emptively beg for mercy, in which case the Qur'an should be preached to them and they should be left to digest its knowledge until the armies of Muhammad came around again. This policy was to be implemented after the sacred months of the Islamic calendar passed (months 11-12-1 in this case), except in the case of one tribe with whom Muhammad had previously made a treaty in Mecca; this tribe would be granted safety for the duration of the treaty and only hunted thereafter. This policy would, of course, be greatly successful, as no pagan Arabs are recorded as surviving the seventh century.

Compare this to how Wills describes this. First he misunderstands the term "sacred months", showing that he does not even understand the basics of the religion:

There was a sacred truce of four months

Following this is a complete misreading of the verse that follows this, instructing Muslims to abide by a treaty they made while in Mecca, versus those they made while still in Medina. Wills thinks this is about tribes honoring the Kaaba for some reason (it is not, and in fact nearly all Arabs "honored" the Kaaba or one of five other similar buildings throughout Arabia, as they were originally built by and for pagans).

But specific truces can be made with the unbelievers who honor the Ka'bah for their own reasons.

In fact the verse in question specifically says no new treaties with pagans can be made, and only tells Muslims to allow the existing treaty to run its course on account of Mecca being a sacred city. It almost takes talent to get this so wrong!

He then goes on to say, inexplicably:

The Qur'an never advocates war as a means of conversion

In fact it does just that, and says that the pagans will stop being hunted once they have converted. (After this sentence he says that Muhammad lived with the pagans in Mecca for 12 years without attempting to kill them all, as though this were some sign of tolerance on his part. He perhaps does not realize how small the Muslim community was at this time, and how the pagans could have destroyed it in one day if they so chose.)

Wills' incomplete understanding of the situation with the Jews of Medina hampers him in his discussion of the Qur'an's treatment of other faiths. He seems vaguely aware that there was conflict between the community and Muhammad but does not know the details. In his early revelations in Mecca, it is abundantly clear that Muhammad believed the Jews would follow him. Upon encountering an actual Jewish community in Medina, which not only did not follow him but actively questioned him and pointed out contradictions in his words, he rapidly changed his mind and began presenting the Jews as enemies. All three Jewish tribes of Medina would be gone from the city within five years, one by massacre and two by expulsion. Wills mentions none of them. The vague issues with Jews are said to be over dietary laws and never mentioned again.

The author's misunderstandings evidently extend into the present day, as he presents hudud (corporal punishment) and related Qur'anic measures as somehow implemented only by terrorist groups like "the Islamic State". In fact they are on the books and enforced in several legitimate countries, including both Shi'a (Iran) and Sunni (Saudi Arabia) ones, and both would take offense to the implication that they are extremists for doing so, when such things have been the norm throughout Islamic history and are not regarded as backwards by the region's standards. Likewise "jihad" is said to be a neutral term referring to general "striving for moral disclipine", with its association with religious warfare being, apparently, a mistaken assumption. Does Wills believe that Arabic-speaking Muslims have made this same mistake? Does he consider the fact that the verses about "striving" are in reference to actual armed conflicts, ranging from caravan raids to raids on Bedouin clans to conquest of Arab Christian cities towards the end of Muhammad's life? Did he pause at verses that used other Arabic words, such as qital, interchangeably with jihad? Was he aware of a hadith in which a woman bemoans the fact that she cannot partake in jihad, as she is not a man, and Muhammad says that her jihad can achieved by alternate means, such as going on the pilgrimage to Mecca--implying quite clearly that the Qur'an's "jihad" means something else altogether?

Wills is obviously attempting to "defend Muslims" here, but unfortunately it comes across as Orientalist instead. He talks over Muslims, not to them. Muslims know what "jihad" is. Modern-day Arabs know why veiling is required. His questions about the meaning of "sharia" could be answered by simply consulting one of the many books on fiqh, or Islamic law. He does none of these things. His attempts to "contextualize" the Qur'an on some historical level also fall flat. He rarely brings up Islamic history post-Muhammad--the Muslim conquest, the many Muslim empires of the Middle East and beyond, some details of which may be uncomfortable for some readers but all of which are a source of pride and heritage for Arabs--and this does not help matters. We are, collectively, misunderstood victims belonging to a peaceful religion, apparently. Those who act otherwise are not real Muslims because they are ignorant of the true religion. Wills has never considered the fact that extremists know of less-literal interpretations of the Qur'an. They just think they are wrong because Muhammad and his own followers were literalists.

Moving on to the author himself, since Wills is apparently a believing Catholic, I was interested in his opinion on the Qur'an's treatment of Jesus and his mother. What does he make of the emphasis on the childhood of Jesus, rather than his adult ministry? How does he feel about the crucifixion being something merely to trick the Jews? Is he not interested in the sources of the extra-Biblical stories about the young Jesus and Mary? Apparently not. In fact he has strangely little to say about anything, only discussing perhaps 2-3% or so of the Qur'an's verses (I am probably overestimating the number) and devoting a lot of time to European and American history that does not have much to do with anything. What does John Stubbs have to do with Islam, Muslims, or any combination thereof, unless Wills is arguing that the rulers of 16th century England were prophets?

All in all, a disappointing and tedious book. One day a non-Muslim will write a fair, thorough, and deeply contextualized look at the Qur'an and its varied influences on Muslims throughout history, from the remarkable Arab conquests through the present day, but it hasn't happened yet. I would recommend non-Muslims interested in this subject simply read a tafsir, or a Qur'anic exegesis, written by a Muslim scholar instead of this book, such as Ibn Kathir's. It seems to me that Muslims not only know their own history a lot better than Wills, but are less willing to hide it behind a fake veneer of sunshine.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 2 out of 5]

It sure is brief, with 13 chapters lasting only a tad over 200 pages. (And that oversells it: several chapters have a few pages of endnotes adding to their length). This is just a technical matter, but it highlights one of the main features of the book: it doesn't spend a lot of time on any particular matter.

In fact, a lot of the book's matter doesn't even seem to be on the Qur'an. There's an intro section of three chapters which mostly just discusses how people are ignorant of Islamic culture and how that can be dangerous. As an example, he looks at the Neo-conservative expectation that they could just turn Iraq into a western wonderland easily. OK .... but this goes on for a third of the book. This is far too much.

So there's about 130 pages on the Qur'an - but wait. Even there a lot of it isn't on the Qur'an. There's a lot of talk of side issues and cultural issues and .... look, the stuff is relevant, but over time I got the sense that Wills wants to talk about everything other than the Qur'an. That's bad given that his book is titled, 'What the Kor'an Meant."

There are some good points in this book (even if they aren't always especially well-developed). The language of the Qur'an is one of the desert, and that influences how it refers to nature and water. Animals talk in the Qur'an and Allah is not a distant God. Muslims believe in many prophets, not just Muhammad. Jesus is given a special place, as he's the only one who foresees Muhammad. The Kor'an never declares the Torah or Gospels to be obselete. There should be a solidarity of monotheists. Jihad means striving. Muhammad justifies defensive war, and there's also a "sword verse" that Wills says isn't nearly as extreme when you read it in context. The Kor'an is a religion of peace, even if Islam isn't always, Wills contends. The word shariah appears just once in the Kor'an. It means "path" there- not some legal term. The Koran is big on merit, and that's big in shariah law. The Kor'ans economic world is commercial, not agrarian. God keeps accounts, and so should humans. Plural wives exist, but a person should try to treat all wives well. Divorce is easy for women to obtain. They can own their own property. If a husband divorces them, they can keep all their property. There's a "bride price" which is often seen as a reverse-dowry, but that isn't right as the money goes to the wife personally. The last chapter is on the veil, as it symbolizes the gender culture clash of Islam and the West. Wills notes that many Islamic feminist writers wear a veil. They see taking the veil off as a surrender to colonization. He quotes a scholar who says that nothing causes fundamentalism to rise like an outside power coming to "correct" traditional ways. The Kor'an itself says little of the veil, except with regard to Muhammad's wives.

[Steve Greenleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters by Garry Wills

Another liberal arts education in a short book
The most recent book by Garry Wills takes off from where he left off with three of his earlier book What Jesus Meant, What the Gospels Meant, and What Paul Meant. Now, he turns his attention to What the Qur'an Meant--And Why It Matters (2017). The first three books draw upon Wills's status as a classicist and as one of the foremost Catholic intellectuals of our time. But so why go into this new arena, and of what value might he bring to his endeavor? He answers the first part of the question--the "why?"--in the first three chapters. As should be apparent to all of us, the Islamic world is one that holds considerable sway for Americans, and our ignorance about the world of Islam is abounding. As to the second issue, about the value of his endeavor, it's true that he's not an Arabist and cannot read the Qur'an in its original text (unlike the Greek and Latin texts of Christianity he's pondered), but he brings the same patient scholarship and care to reading that he brings to the more familiar Christian texts.

By reading this book, we learn about the meaning of jihad (struggle), shari'ah, and a host of other (sort of) familiar parts of the Qur'an. We learn that jihad is about struggle and that shari'ah refers to the right (straight) path, similar to some familiar Biblical injunctions. Also, we learn about Mohammed's thoughts (or more precisely, those of the Qur'an) about fellow people of the Book (Jews and Christians), who are to be treated with peace and forbearance. That there have been times when such peace and forbearance has not occurred reminds us how often those claiming fidelity to each of the three great monotheisms have fallen below from the intentions of the prophets. Some practices dictated by the Qur'an now seem archaic, if not barbaric. But if these are a mark against Islam, so are many of the actions and directives found in the Talmud and the New Testament, especially about the treatment of women. The wearing of the hijab (veil) is the least of problems: to many Muslim women, wearing some veil serves as a sign of feminism.

Like each of the many books that Wills has written, one gets a mini-liberal arts education. Wills deftly mixes the problems associated with our contemporary ignorance and misunderstanding of Islam (and the consequent messes in Iraq and Afghanistan that we suffered) with a deep understanding of the Book that gave rise to this extraordinary religion about 1300 years ago. In a short book, I learned a great deal about what guides millions and millions of my fellow humans. It's well worth the time and effort.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the Qur’an Meant And Why It Matters is a timely book. While I have read the Qur’an before, the main issue I had with it was the whole taking entire portions of text from the Bible and scrambling it around so it doesn’t make much sense. In this book, Garry Wills is a layperson that writes about religious matters. In this one, he admits to knowing little of the Qur’an, but growing attached to it in a different sense than with the Bible. With the stories being familiar but different at the same time, Wills came to enjoy the devotion it facilitates.

In any case, a lot of misconceptions arose due to the Terrorist Attacks made in the name of the Qur’an have led to it being called an Unholy Book, even a book worthy of being burned. This is unfortunate since it isn’t either of those things. While I can’t say I like the Qur’an I also can’t say that it deserves that sort of thing. So in any case, I saw this book in the library and became curious.

In this book, Wills mentions three types of ignorance that distort and malign our relationships with other religions: Secular Ignorance, Religious Ignorance, and Fearful Ignorance. Secular ignorance makes it so we amble into a country and think we can turn it into a Democratic Disney World. Religious ignorance pits our crusaders against their jihadists. Fearful ignorance is what makes us think that Muslims are infiltrating our Government and National Life. Given all of this nonsense going on, what better place is there to start than with the Qur’an itself? I mean, I am not a scholar of the Qur’an, and neither is Wills. He doesn’t know Arabic and neither do I, but you should at least attempt to understand rather than blindly hate something.

So Garry Wills goes on to read the Qur’an and talks about what is and what is not in this book. It is well done and informative. He talks about how misconceptions influenced what we did in Iraq and what that actually accomplished. Each chapter discusses these various ideas and what the Qur’an has to offer. It talks about how although Islam is a patriarchal religion, it still has a pretty forward thinking method of treating women and divorce and so on. There are many references to water in the Qur’an and the life-giving properties it possesses.

All in all, there are thirteen chapters in this book, each one focused on something that an ignorant person would think of Islam. I liked this book quite a bit.

[Mohammed alkindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual from me, i was attracted to read this book because i am always as muslim interested to read about what other non muslim write about Islam, and to what extent they are objective/subjective in their writing from the point of views of a Muslims. not that i then need to defend my religion because Islam does not need to be defended but rather to highlight to non muslims ,who seeks truth, to the best of my knowledge the pitfalls if any the author may have fall into.

i find this book to be reasonably objective in many topics that it touched with one exception when it talks about women and in a very consistent way. i do not know why the topic women specifically! the author constantly fall into the trap of attempting to elaborate the matter in a way that is not accurate to say the least. He mentioned is several occasion that matter need to be always taken in a context and even he applied it in few cases, however when it comes to topics related to women he tend not to do so.

the author stated that women are not important in Quran to have names as the only name mention in Quran was that of Merry. Quran is not a history book to start with even though one can find allot of historic events mentioned. there are many characters mentioned in the Quran without names, male or female. actually the name mentioned of a man in Quran is of Mohammed's adopted son, the rest of the names are of the prophets and messengers. One of the characteristics of Quran is its precise wordings where no word can be added or ignored to deliver the message it intended to deliver. so if name in a story, whether it is for a man or a women will not add a value it is not mentioned.

this remind me with a joke where a teacher is asking a student at what time the car moving at a speed of 100km/h reach to its destination that is 100 km away and the student would ask ,what is the color of the car.

if i to mention another topic that was discussed in the book is his statement saying that christian empire grown by battle and so did the islamic empire!!!! i find this statement to be shallow and without the argument that it deserve to have before concluding.

overall i will still recommending the reading of this book to non muslims hopping they will do their own homework to polish their understanding from resources that is worth trust.