Tuesday, January 08, 2008

This looks interesting...

David Thompson has kindly alerted me to a great new series at The Guardian: Blogging the Qur'an! "Each week, writer, broadcaster and cultural critic Ziauddin Sardar will blog a different verse or theme of the Qur'an. Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting will help frame the debate." Georgina Henry explains the rationale behind the series here -- but comments are not allowed on her piece. Now, why is that?

Of course, I have been Blogging the Qur'an myself since May 27, 2007, and am now about a third of the way through the book, and I welcome this new Guardian endeavor with great excitement. Since I have a bit of a head start on Mr. Sardar (although I am not sure from his initial post whether he intends to go through the book passage by passage, as I have been doing) I think some readers might find my first 33 Blogging the Qur'an posts, as well as the ones to come, useful to help them frame polite questions for Mr. Sardar -- questions which might make his enterprise, as well as mine, much, much more interesting.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Sardar does not plan to take questions from all and sundry in the comments field, as I have done here and at Hot Air in my own Blogging the Qur'an series, but it may be that a question from a reader who has read both his series and mine might make it over the transom. In the spirit of furthering a full understanding of this highly influential book, I certainly hope so.

I also will be keeping up with Mr. Sardar's efforts, and commenting on them here where appropriate. Thanks to the Guardian for beginning this terrific new endeavor!

Might be worth a look-see.

No comments: