Friday, April 6, 2007

The Book Foundation

My favorite translation of the Qur'an is the Muhammad Asad translation put out by the Book Foundation. SubhanAllah, it's a gorgeous book, something that is beautiful to look at as well as to read. The translation is easy to understand, has excellent footnotes, and it has accurate transliteration in addition to the english and arabic. If you don't have this book, put it on your list and get it!

The Book Foundation has also published a number of other books that are well worth checking into. If you don't have the $100+ it would cost to buy them all at the moment, the Book Foundation has kindly put up the first parts of each of these books online, mashaAllah. I printed them all out yesterday and have started to read through them. They all get a thumbs up from me thus far.

The Book of Revelations, Selections and Interpretations from the Holy Qur'an, Kabir Helminski, Editor - this is the one that's first on my list to buy. My husband is always telling me to THINK about the Qur'an, not just plow on through. He's excellent at doing that. He'll stop on a verse, pause for a moment, and then expound on it, going on and on and on, tying it to other verses and other subjects for as long as I'll listen to him. This book has 256 verses from the Qur'an with interpretation afterwards. I think it would help me with the thinking and reflecting

The Book of Character, Writings on Virtue from Islamic and Other Sources by Camille Helminski - second on my list to buy. If I could chose to be a scholar of anything, I would be a scholar of adab. Somehow, I feel that most of the world's ills are rooted in the fact that human beings treat each other like crud much of the time. We need a little more adab in this world.

The Book of Language, Exploring the Spiritual Vocabulary of Islam. Kabir Helminski, with Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad

The Book of Nature, A Sourcebook of Spiritual Perspectives On Nature and the Environment, Camille Helminski, Editor

The Book of Essential Islam by Ali, Aisha, and Aliaa Rafea

The Fragrance of Faith, The Enlightened Heart of Islam by Jamal Rahman

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