Quest Magazine

The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary

EDITED BY SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR ET AL.
San Francisco: Harper One, 2015. lix +1988 pp., hardcover, $59.99.

The Qur’an (or Koran, or, in this edition, Quran), as is well known, is the holy book of Islam. As the Iranian scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr says in his introduction to this new translation, although the Prophet Muhammad was the instrument through which this text was revealed, “its Author is God.” In Muslim belief, the very sound of the words of the text — in the original Arabic and only in the original Arabic — is a divine transmission.

Several years ago the publisher of Harper One approached Nasr and asked him to compile a new study edition of the Qur’an. He agreed on the condition that “this would be a Muslim effort and that . . . it would not be determined or guided by assertions presented by non-Muslim Western scholars and orientalists who . . . do not accept it as the Word of God” (emphasis Nasr’s). It would also exclude “modernistic or fundamentalist interpretations that have appeared in parts of the Islamic world during the past two centuries.”

The result is a compendious new version. In addition to Nasr’s introduction, there is a full set of verse-by-verse annotations on the text, along with essays on such subjects as the Qur’an’s influence on art, science, and Islamic law, as well as its views on other religions, ethics and human rights, war, and death and the afterlife.

As a reviewer, I am limited in being neither a scholar of Islam nor an Arabic speaker. So I will restrict my comments to the extent that this edition succeeds in presenting the Qur’an to a general reader in the English-speaking world.

To turn to the translation: for the most part it is clear, though the English is far from impressive. The translators try to give the work an archaic flavor that tries to do justice to the grandeur of the original but does not succeed. It is dangerous to use an archaizing style unless you are a master of prose in a way that these translators are not. Thus we get “And naught prevents men from believing when guidance comes unto them, and from seeking forgiveness of their Lord, save that [they await] the wont of those of old to come upon them, or the punishment to come upon them face-to-face” (18:55; the bracketed insertion is the translators’). Sometimes the translation is simply ungrammatical: “Whosoever Thou shieldest from evil deeds on that Day, upon him hast Thou had mercy” (40:9). If you are going to use the archaizing “whosoever,” it would behoove you to stay the course and get the case right with “whomsoever.”

The annotations seem more successful, and the editors have highlighted the deeper and more esoteric contents of the text. I would expect that a reader who wanted to look into the mystical and esoteric elements of the Qur’an would prefer this edition over most others.

The essays in the third section are a mixed lot. Probably the most successful is Hamza Yusuf’s “Death, Dying, and the Afterlife in the Quran,” which gives a clear and succinct view of Islamic eschatology. William C. Chittick’s essay “The Quran and Sufism” is also helpful, although it avoids the awkward question of forms of Sufism that ignore or bypass Qur’anic norms. Others, notably Toby Mayer’s “Traditions of Esoteric and Sapiential Quranic Commentary,” are couched in an academic terminology that will be unappetizing to all but the specialist.

This edition is marred by some notable omissions. In the first place, although it is laced with Arabic words, it lacks a glossary of basic terms. At the same time, the index is a forest of citations, with “four kinds of locator numbers” printed in two colors, that make it unusable for many purposes.

An even more glaring omission is the lack of an essay that provides a historical context. It is not possible to grasp the context of the Qur’an without at least some understanding of what was going on in the Arabia of Muhammad’s time. The editors acknowledge this point to the extent of including a number of maps that illustrate this context, but without any broader narrative that enable one to make full sense or use of them.

Similarly, Hamza Yusuf’s essay points out that “the Arabs of the day . . . did not believe in an Afterlife.” This is extremely useful to know: it explains the Qur’an’s heavy emphasis on the resurrection and judgment on the Last Day. But what else did the Arabs of Muhammad’s time believe? Who were the people he was preaching to? To leave us with little more than the idea that they were “idolaters” tells us virtually nothing.

The background to this edition is best understood by grasping that S.H. Nasr is the leading living exponent of the religio-philosophical school known as Traditionalism. (For more on Traditionalism, see “Islam and Prince Charles” on page TK.) The paucity of historical material, for example, is, I suspect, the result of the Traditionalists’ relative indifference to historical fact. For them, historical fact, even when true, is merely contingent; its chief, or sole, value is to illustrate primordial metaphysical truths.

Although, to my mind, Traditionalism has serious limitations, it is not always mistaken. Although I imagine that many readers will be chagrined to see that this edition pays little attention to the status of women, Maria Massai Dakake’s essay “Quranic Ethics, Human Rights, and Society” avoids the pitfall of trying to justify Qur’anic ethics (including those regarding women) in terms of those of the modern West. In her discussion of 4:34, which reads in part, “The righteous women are devoutly obedient” to their husbands, she warns against present-day attempts “to reinterpret this verse in ways more acceptable to modern conceptions of women’s rights,” adding that “the fact remains that this verse is clearly at odds with contemporary Western views of appropriate spousal relations in marriage.” That is the plain sense of this verse, and one may as well face it.

The point is that the Qur’an and the civilization that is based on it cannot be crammed into a box of Western preconceptions.
In the end, there is much that is useful in this edition, and I would expect to turn to it first when delving into the Qur’an in the future. But I think a revised edition is necessary. The translation should be reworked by someone with a firmer command of English grammar and (one might hope) literary style. And the edition should include a glossary, an essay on the historical and sociological context of the Qur’an, and a less impenetrable index. Only then, I believe, will it take the place in contemporary culture to which it aspires.

Richard Smoley

For a longer version of this review, visit Richard Smoley’s blog, http://www.innerchristianity.com/blog.htm.

The Metaphysics of Ping-Pong

GUIDO MINA DI SOSPIRO
Wheaton: Quest Books, 2015. 226 pp., paper, $16.95.

Euclidean geometry is the geometry of plain surfaces and three-dimensional space, but non-Euclidean geometry is the geometry of curved surfaces, hence it is indeed an appropriate term for this kind of ping-pong.
—Rupert Sheldrake, in a note to Guido Mina di Sospiro

We live in a world of spin, above us the spinning, ever watchful orbits of satellites, our minds filled with the twists and turns of media spin doctors, and our lives lived in the spinning maze of global commerce. There is no escaping it. Yet the question, really, is not one of escape, but how to enjoy the playing in itself.

Guido Mina di Sospiro’s wonderful new book The Metaphysics of Ping-Pong brings the reader on a journey through a playful, personal, and deep relationship with the everyday, under the auspices of Mina di Sospiro’s quest to discover the intimate secrets contained in the fine art of ping-pong, and in the process the fine art of spin. Along the way is woven an intricate image of how subtle influences attend even the most mundane acts. If we pay attention, we’re given clues into how the profundity we often seek in more exotic pursuits can be found in the most basic elements of the everyday.

The book’s opening chapter includes a ping-pong faceoff between Mina di Sospiro and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, which provides the philosophical motivation for a new understanding of table tennis and its ability to capture some of the stranger nuances of our current culture. It is these odd angles and unexpected encounters that provide a rare opportunity to access an unspoken influence behind everyday façades. In Mina di Sospiro’s game against Sheldrake, we also find a hint at the wide-ranging dialogue of ideas that develops throughout the book. As the author writes in his prelude:

Down the centuries Taoism, Zen, and Sufism have created a large repertoire of short and seemingly mundane stories whose goal is that of violating logics and challenging our assumptions. Twentieth-century traditionalists have done much of the same, by turning received notions upside down. Ping-pong, as I will show, has so many baffling and refreshingly illogical qualities about it that, whenever I happened to play an occasional game, somehow it echoed inside me in a new and increasingly more resonant way. And as a result of that I marveled all the more at how magical it was to spin that little ball and make it fly, bounce on the table and off the opponent’s racket in mysterious ways. (Emphasis Mina di Sospiro’s)

Mina di Sospiro also explores the often mercurial nature of our global society through the vehicle of a popular pastime. In the descriptions of the players and personas from many nations that the author encounters, the reader is invited to feel the essential elements that define each nation’s identity. Anyone who has traveled or explored other cultures will laugh and be touched by the quirky personal tics, accurately portrayed here, that each country instills in its residents.

As with The Forbidden Book, Mina di Sospiro’s recent collaboration with the noted scholar of esoteric history Joscelyn Godwin (reviewed in Quest, summer 2014), there’s a resonance in this work that goes beyond the surface. Mina di Sospiro’s writing is known for its subtle craftsmanship, and it is surprising to read a book that manages to work in international relations, cultural differences, and personal anecdotes while focusing on philosophy, physics, and initiation, all seen through the lens of ping-pong. The closest comparison I can think of is Roland Barthes’s chapter in Mythologies on professional wrestling, but that doesn’t have the same heart.

Compared in some reviews to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Metaphysics of Ping-Pong is actually much more direct in its reflections of the interstices of daily living and deeper thinking, and doesn’t have the cultural baggage associated with Robert M. Pirsig’s well-known work. Mina di Sospiro’s prose reminds me a bit of J.-K. Huysman’s creative reworking of observational realism, where the frame of anecdotal experience holds together an insightful exploration of human, and humane, existence. One doesn’t get the sense of an attempt to explain more than the work, or author, can hold. Mina di Sospiro is too enraptured with the subtle mysteries of life to invite the reader to ruin the play of existential light and shadow with artificial theories.

Long-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and praised by Publisher’s Weekly editor Seth Satterlee, the book has already received a number of positive reviews, which, we can hope, will open the door for readers expecting standard sports journalism to a more nuanced relationship with their experiences. Erudite, experimental, and engaging, Mina di Sospiro has given us a work that breaks new ground in sports writing. Whether or not you ever pick up a paddle, The Metaphysics of Ping-Pong provides an initiation into a visionary life, igniting the fires of inspiration through an intriguing intimacy with the mysteries of daily experience.
David Metcalfe

David Metcalfe is the acting director for the Liminal Analytics: Applied Research Collaborative and a contributing editor for Limitless Mind on the Reality Sandwich website. This review originally appeared on The Daily Grail site.

How God Became God: What Scholars Are Really Saying about God and the Bible

RICHARD SMOLEY
New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2016. 286 pp., paper, $19.

The typical American churchgoer has limited engagement with contemporary scholarship regarding the Jewish and Christian scriptures. There is a tendency to take them at face value, even in communities where modern scholarship is welcome. Others on the liberal end of the spectrum, whether religious or not, may simply dismiss the texts without engaging with scholarship, perhaps believing it to be too technical to be of interest.
Richard Smoley has rendered a fine service for those who want to understand these texts and the origins of Christianity. The book is primarily occupied with a broad and highly readable summary of current historical, archeological, and literary research on the Bible. Of course, scholarship is always changing, and the field is huge. Smoley does not attempt to be comprehensive — an impossible task. Rather he provides a good summary of the mainstream consensus, with caveats that there are differing views and continuous new developments. He also provides notes and a Further Reading section that will help the interested reader proceed into more specialized works.

Smoley is to be praised for the care and honesty he brings to his task. He provides information on his background and theological views, enabling the reader to understand his context and bias. As he notes, “I have never read anything by any scholar that was not, to some degree, conditioned by his or her own ideology.” Especially with the quest for the historical Jesus, the offerings generally reveal more about the questors than about Jesus. Smoley steers cautiously through these waters, and argues for positions that make maximum use of the available evidence, instead of discarding large parts of the texts for shaky reasons, or ruling out miracles or healings on principle.

Of particular interest to Theosophical readers, Smoley points out the usefulness of the esoteric traditions for understanding the Bible in truly helpful ways, which are not dependent on a literal reading or destroyed by the questions raised by scholarship. In this pursuit, he draws on a deep working familiarity with traditions ancient (Kabbalah) and modern (A Course in Miracles). He is not afraid to question esoteric truisms (for example, the claim that John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated), but looks at biblical passages on these subjects with fresh eyes. This aspect of the book is not an end note, but is integrated throughout, bringing esotericism into a living conversation with some of the most fascinating corners of modern biblical scholarship, such as Margaret Barker’s work on the Great Angel.

As Smoley points out, the Bible is important for all of us. Whether we are Christian or not, religious or not, the Bible is part of the “thrownness” of our culture. We may run from it, but we cannot hide. With a guide like Smoley, we can engage it skillfully, and to our benefit.

John Plummer

John Plummer is an independent theologian and lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Under a Sacred Sky: Essays on the Practice and Philosophy of Astrology

RAY GRASSE
Bournemouth, England: Wessex Astrologer, 2015. 200 pp., paper, $21.

Although nearly all of Ray Grasse’s essays in this book have previously appeared in fairly recondite publications like Dell Horoscope, The Mountain Astrologer, or this magazine, Grasse’s enough of a versatile correspondent of symbolism and star lore to have something for everyone — from professional astrologers to a person on the street. Covering everything from chakras to cinema to counseling, Grasse, a former assistant editor of Quest, seeks to uncover the power of the stars to ignite modern life with more sacredness and meaning.

Grasse does best with his longer essays, especially as they open windows into novel takes and techniques that he’s picked up over the years. In his “Astrology and the Chakras” essay, Grasse explains the system of chakric-planetary correspondences he learned from Paramahansa Yogananda’s disciples. With five case studies, Grasse shows how to put this simple system into practice. It’s fascinating fodder for better aligning yourself with your planets and your chakras. In “Tectonic Triggers: The Hidden Power of Station Points,” the author also probes how stationing planets — planets that appear to stand still between retrograding or moving direct — can have surprising, powerful resonances in someone’s life. Grasse examines the implications for each possible stationing planet with examples from the charts of celebrities and major world events. There’s also plenty of meat both for beginners and for advanced students of astrology in Grasse’s evaluations of stern Saturn’s lessons in his essay, “Saturn, the Late Bloomer: Understanding the Long-Range Dynamics of Saturn in the Horoscope.”

Fortunately, Grasse doesn’t stop with providing grounded, sage insights into technique. In “The Seven Most Common Mistakes Made by Astrologers,” he dispenses practical wisdom to practicing astrologers (and indirectly to those who visit them). He speaks frankly as a professional who’s earned his stars from the scars of well-intentioned bad practices with clients. Many should heed his wisdom here, as is true for the shorter essay, “What Goes Around Comes Around: Learning from Past Transits to Better Understand Future Trends,” that follows it.

Grasse, who is a photographer as well as an astrologer, is no less adroit when he broadens his telescopic lens to focus on culture and cinema. In two different essays, Grasse shows how cinema, cosmos, and constellations converge to reflect accurately what’s going on in the psyche of the world. Grasse scores at connecting planetary line-ups with movie premieres, like the epic traffic jam of planets in acquisitive Taurus when Citizen Kane opened in 1941.

In another two essays, he delves into the symphony of symbolic synchrony in pop music and culture as they meet in the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. In “Tuning into the Zeitgeist: Riding the Waves of Planetary Change,” Grasse uses personal anecdotes and stories of famous artists to illustrate how periods of history might impress themselves more on us than we would like to recognize. Astrology, according to Grasse, shows these lasting imprints, even as they reverberate into the distant past. Grasse broadens his excavation of how periods of time come alive in “Monsters, Mystics, and the Collective Unconscious: Planetary Cycles and the Outer Limits of the Zeitgeist.” It’s uncanny how particular planets combine to illuminate the mythical and real monsters that plague our dreams and social aspirations.

Less successful are Grasse’s essays on the coming age of Aquarius. Although the esoteric notion of the Great Ages has entered pop consciousness, Grasse glosses over the controversy, at least among astrologers, about what truly constitutes an age and the trappings associated with it, like “revolutionary” Uranus as the ruler of the sign of Aquarius. Grasse never questions the significance of Great Ages, treating them as faits accomplis rather than as a twentieth-century exposition of the classical idea of the precession of the equinoxes. These Great Ages could be a posteriori readings of history, or they could indeed provide a clearer reading into the future. Unfortunately, Grasse never bothers to determine which.

That could be because Grasse is more than just a correspondent; he’s a believer. Nevertheless, he’s much too broad-minded to be evangelical or zealous about his symbolic vision of the world. He would rather have a conversation about it, as he does in two separate interviews with critically acclaimed author-astrologers Richard Tarnas and Laurence Hillman, the son of archetypal psychologist James Hillman. We may have to wait for another book for Grasse to draw his acute critical eye to our suppositions about the philosophical underpinnings of astrology and its most hallowed beliefs. Meanwhile, in Under a Sacred Sky, we have a gem of a book that shows how astrology’s symbols streak across and illuminate our minds wherever we look.

Samuel F. Reynolds

Samuel F. Reynolds, a former skeptic, had a life-changing visit to an astrologer and has since spent twenty-five years doing charts and studying astrology. Now he consults, writes, and teaches astrology full-time.