Disaffected Muslim

 Posted by on 26 April 2003 at 10:19 am  Uncategorized
Apr 262003
 

Last night, I stopped by Disaffected Muslim for only the second time, a really fascinating blog written by a 25 year old American woman (“Fatima”) deeply immersed in a critical personal investigation of Islam. (Her basic story is here. The bit about reading The Satanic Verses in the local mosque is priceless!)

I’m very much impressed with her deeply thoughtful, critical, and exploratory approach to Islam. It’s pretty rare to see that level of critical and voracious insight in any new adopter of a religion or philosophy. She’s also a very clear and engaging writer, which makes her posts a delight to read.

Frankly, I suspect that Islam will not ultimately satisfy her, but I hope that she continues to blog on the subject in the meantime!

I was particularly interested in this post on the history of early copies and recitations of the Koran, as my impression was always that Islam had a solid textual basis, unlike Christianity. (The excellent Teaching Company course The New Testament has an excellent discussion of the problems of very-non-original New Testament texts, as well as a fascinating comparison of the various versions of the Gospels.) The modern Koran might well be a more faithful record than the New Testament, but it’s not exactly a single, original, written-at-the-time text. Fatima gives some good background in her post and links to this interesting article from The Atlantic Monthly on archeological findings of early versions of the Koran which differ from the modern version.

In looking for an update on the findings about these early Korans, I came across this letter to the editor about the Atlantic Monthly article. After quoting some of the article, the author writes: “Please ensure that these scholars are not given further access to the documents. Also please rebury them or if they are not exact reproductions, please burn them. Allah help us against our enemies.” Ugh. Letters from a wide variety of perspectives also appeared in The Atlantic Monthly a few months later.

Okay, back to real work for me! (Big paper on moral judgment for my ethics class, Camp Indecon lessons, etc.)

   
Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha