Thread by @jordandenari

I reviewed Gary Wills' book, What the Quran Means, for @americamag. Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Catholic author.

In this thread, I summarize the book and outline some pros and cons I saw:
americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2…

Wills' writes about his experience reading the Quran. He encountered familiar characters he knew from the Bible — Adam, Moses, Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist.

"The overall tenor [of the Quran] is one of mercy and forgiveness, which are evoked everywhere, almost obsessively."

Wills writes a lot about the Quran's content, but spends little time discussing its significance in Muslims' lives.

He could have explained how in Islam the Quran plays a role similar to that of Jesus in Christianity: the 'Word made flesh.'

Wills reminds readers that both Christians and Muslims have things in our pasts and our present that we shouldn't be proud of, but that we also cannot blame each other's entire religious communities and traditions for them.

Wills draws parallels btwn today's Islamophobia & WWII anti-Japanese discrimination.

He also discusses how Americans' fear of Islam has been deliberately constructed to fuel war, calling out anti-Muslim pundits, like Catholic writer Robert Spencer.

See: religiondispatches.org/new-study-isla…

Wills admits to his readers that he has biases and stereotypes about Muslims, and he makes a concerted effort to challenge those.

This gives license to his readers to acknowledge their own internal misgivings and prejudices, and to begin the hard work of undoing them.

At the same time, Wills often falls into simplistic and stereotypical ways of talking about Muslims and their faith. At numerous points, he unintentionally leaves common tropes about Muslims' supposed violence, misogyny, and intolerance intact or even contributes to them.

He would have benefited from more Muslim eyes on the manuscript. Much of the subject matter he spends time on (like plural marriage) isn't at the fore of Muslim religious life or concerns. This leaves readers with the impression that issues like this loom larger than they do.

I challenge the key premise of the book — that "we'd better" read the Quran if we want to overcome our fears of Islam.

Even Wills asks himself, "What good was reading the Qur'an?" if "actual acquaintance with [it] failed to help me deal with Islam as other people perceive it."

Islamophobia is not simply a problem of religion. It's bigotry and racism, something much deeper than ignorance of religious beliefs. It won't simply be done away with if we all learn more about Islam.

Just as it would be misguided to think that reading the Torah would be the right first step (or any step) in addressing our anti-Semitism, so it is to wrong to think that reading the Quran is the place to start with addressing our Islamophobia.

Still, for those who do want to engage with the Quran, I offer recommendations for helpful guide books:

1) amazon.com/Readings-Quran…
2) amazon.com/How-Read-Quran…
3) amazon.com/Story-Quran-Hi…

There is little Catholic writing on Islam that manages to be simultaneously thorough, charitable, and accessible to a lay audience. Wills' book is all of these things, and thus his efforts are commendable. (END of thread)

My full review here: americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2…