When it comes to fiqh punishments of death for apostates, and stoning for adultery, he argues that both run counter to the teaching of the Qur’an, and depend instead on often weak or misunderstood hadith. Haleem wants to privilege the Qur’an over hadith. It is evident throughout the essays that interpretation can be a matter of life and death. Haleem is able to remove the sting from such texts, and offers plausible and more eirenic interpretations.

In the first part, the essays address contentious issues head-on: the “sword” verse cited to justify militant expansionism the “tribute” verse associated with subjugating Jews and Christians and jihadists presented as enjoying priority access to paradise. This is especially true with regard to the more technical essays on Qur’anic style - for example, how the Noah narratives or divine oaths are deployed. Those who have some background in Islamic studies will benefit most from this collection, and will be able to locate the essays within the larger context of scholarly debate. These failures are evident, not just in the writings of anti-Muslim polemicists and Muslim extremists, but also entrenched in the classical tradition of exegesis ( tafsir) and Islamic law ( fiqh). Professor Haleem’s objective is to retrieve “the true nature of the Qur’an”, which, he holds, is obscured by “literalism, atomism and the disregard for the context and of what the Qur’an says to explain itself”. The book comprises 13 essays, five of them published here for the first time, which are organised in three categories: teaching, style, and impact. THE author, a professor of Islamic Studies at SOAS University of London, is an authority on Qur’anic studies.

Abdel haleem quran pdf