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.