Sacred Texts

Abū Zayd, Nasr Hāmid. Critique du discours religieux: Nasr Abou Zeid; essais traduits de l'arabe par Mohamed Chairet. Arles: Actes Sud, 1999.

Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992.

Al-Tabarī, Abū Ja'far Muhammad b. Jarīr. The Commentary on the Qur'ān. Vol. 1, edited by W. F. Madelung and A. Jones. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. A first volume of an abridged translation of the most famous classical commentary.

Ayoub, Mahmoud. The Qur'an and its Interpreters. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984–. Brings together the material of a dozen classical and modern commentaries. Only two volumes so far.

Bell, Richard, and W. M. Watt. Bell's Introduction to the Qur'ān. New ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1970. Classic Western introduction in English.

Esack, Farid. The Qur'ān: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001.

Hawting, G. R. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Hawting, G. R., and Abdul-Kader Shareef, eds. Approaches to the Qur'ān. London: Routledge, 1993.

Ibn Warraq, ed. Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam's Holy Book. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998. In spite of Ibn Warraq's polemical intent, these books are useful because they make available important scholarly articles on the Koran published in the last hundred years.

——. What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2002.

Madigan, Daniel A. The Qur'ān's Self-image: Writing and Authority in Islam's Scripture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Martin, Richard C., ed. Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld, 2001.

McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, ed. Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān. Leiden: Brill, 2001–. A new project eventually to be five volumes.

Mernissi, Fatima. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam. Translated by Mary Jo Lakeland. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1991.

Rippin, Andrew, ed. Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'ān. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Robinson, Neal. Discovering the Qur'ān: A Contemporary Approach to a Veiled Text. London: SCM Press, 2003.

Sells, Michael A. Approaching the Qur'ān: The Early Revelations. Ashland, Ore.: White Cloud Press, 1999.

Soroush, Abdolkarim. Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam: Essential Writings of 'Abdolkarim Soroush. Translated and edited by Mahmoud Sadri and Ahmad Sadri. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Includes a critical introduction by the editors.

Stowasser, Barbara Freyer. Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Tāhā, Mahmūd Muhammad. The Second Message of Islam. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1987.

Wansbrough, John E. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

——. The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Welch, Alford T. "Kur'ān." In Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 5, edited by P J. Bearman et al., 400–432. Leiden: Brill, 1960–.

Wild, Stefan, ed. The Qur'ān as Text. Leiden: Brill, 1996.