{"product_id":"reading-the-qurn-in-latin-christendom-1140-1560-9780812220629","title":"Reading the Qur'\u0026#257;n in Latin Christendom, 1140-1560","description":"\u003cp\u003eSelected by \u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMost of what we know about attitudes toward Islam in the medieval and early modern West has been based on polemical treatises against Islam written by Christian scholars preoccupied with defending their own faith and attacking the doctrines of others. Christian readings of the Qur'ān have in consequence typically been depicted as tedious and one-dimensional exercises in anti-Islamic hostility. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eReading the Qur'ān in Latin Christendom, 1140-1560\u003c\/i\u003e, Thomas E. Burman looks instead to a different set of sources: the Latin translations of the Qur'ān made by European scholars and the manuscripts and early printed books in which these translations circulated. Using these largely unexplored materials, Burman argues that the reading of the Qur'ān in Western Europe was much more complex. While their reading efforts were certainly often focused on attacking Islam, scholars of the period turned out to be equally interested in a whole range of grammatical, lexical, and interpretive problems presented by the text. Indeed, these two approaches were interconnected: attacking the Qur'ān often required sophisticated explorations of difficult Arabic grammatical problems. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFurthermore, while most readers explicitly denounced the Qur'ān as a fraud, translations of the book are sometimes inserted into the standard manuscript format of Christian Bibles and other prestigious Latin texts (small, centered blocks of text surrounded by commentary) or in manuscripts embellished with beautiful decorated initials and elegant calligraphy for the pleasure of wealthy collectors. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAddressing Christian-Muslim relations generally, as well as the histories of reading and the book, Burman offers a much fuller picture of how Europeans read the sacred text of Islam than we have previously had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThomas E. Burman is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50845455253778,"sku":"9780812220629","price":30.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_63d00c9e-ef12-4f5e-8dbf-e2deb39c207e.jpg?v=1737351227","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/reading-the-qurn-in-latin-christendom-1140-1560-9780812220629","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}