On the Study Quran

I’m hesitant to rate the content of a religious text, so I’ll speak instead to the translation and the essays. Over the past month, during Ramadan, I made it my personal mission to read the Qur’an in its entirety; I’d read that many consider this the best version, so I read a juz a day, along with all of the essays, though not the commentary. This edition seems to want to be for the Anglophone world what the King James Version is for the Bible — the standard, to be quoted and referenced for decades or centuries — and the language reflects that ambition: dignified rather than conversational, but never jargon-laden or unapproachable. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and his team did a great job on that front. The essays are all written from a Muslim standpoint, though non-sectarian and inclined toward perennialism, which I personally appreciate but understand others may not; you won’t find the critical-historical perspective here, and if that’s what you’re after, the Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies fills the gap. The Qur’an is a hard text, and I’m sure it’s not meant to be read cover to cover — it’s light on narrative, and the sūwar are arranged from longest to shortest rather than by theme or chronology, so the message really seems to be about building a Muslim community, with a great deal of legal regulation; when narrative is invoked, it’s as an aside to some larger point. Still, I’m glad I read this version, since the editors at times signpost important passages and how they fit into zāhir/bāṭin (exoteric/esoteric) readings. And if it isn’t heretical to have a favorite sūrah, or at least the one that resonated with me most, it has to be Sūrat al-Kahf.