Jay interviews Robert Spencer on his new book "The Critical Qur'an"

May 10, 2023

Jay sits down with Robert Spencer by Zoom to ask him about his new and exciting book, just out last year entitled: "The Critical Qur'an". This is a book which should be on everyone's shelf, as it is a compendium which compiles the best exegesis of the Qur'an by early classical Muslim scholars such as Ibn Kathir (d.1372), and the two Jalalayns (d.1459 and 1505), as well as Muslim scholars who are more modern, and more relevant for the 21st century, such as Maududi (d.1979) and Muhammad Ashiq Ilahi Madani (d.2002). Because the Qur'an does not have complete stories, nor is it chronological, but is arranged by Surah lengths and not by subjects, it is difficult to understand or even follow. That is why Spencer has done a critical analysis of its content, to help the reader with these problems. This kind of work is well known in Christian circles with many critical commentaries carried out by numerous Christian and secular scholars on the Bible for the last 200 years, but it has just not been done with the Qur'an, possibly because Muslims don't believe it should be analyzed critically, and threaten those who do. So, it is important for someone with the gifting of Robert Spencer to have taken on this task. He's not a linguist nor has he done the germinal research on the Qur'an. Yet he has the experience and the gifting of communication needed to put together into one compendium the work of the scholars over the last few centuries who have done this kind of work, which is exactly what we need for our own research on the Qur'an. Enjoy this interview between Jay and Robert as they unpack what this book does, and why you need to get it for your library. You can buy The Critical Qur'an here: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Quran...