Quran Talk Blog

Christianity's central claim about God is that he is one being who exists as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The technical formula, hammered out in the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, is that God is one in substance (or essence) and three in person. Substance answers the question of what God … Continue reading Why Stop at Three? The counting problem hidden inside the doctrine of the Trinity

The Quran repeatedly describes itself as a clear book (kitābun mubīn): 12:1, 26:2, 27:1, 28:2, 43:2, 44:2. But clarity of expression is not the same thing as clarity of meaning. These are two distinct categories that are often collapsed, and the confusion between them has generated centuries of interpretive controversy. Consider a simple example: someone … Continue reading How is the Quran Clear?

Deconstruction is a way of reading, developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1960s, and its aim is closer to the opposite of demolition. It is the careful, almost affectionate act of noticing how a text quietly resists the tidy surface-level reading. It is an approach to reading texts and ideas that looks … Continue reading Deconstructionism & the Quran

Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina with a sentence that has outlived the plot it introduces: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." We read it as a remark about domestic life, but it is really a claim about the shape of good and bad. Flourishing converges on a single … Continue reading Many Darknesses, One Light

Righteousness is not a thing we accumulate but a process we become—and the process is what lasts. Ask a believer what happens to their good deeds, and you will usually get an answer shaped like accounting. The deeds are entered into a record. They accrue. They are weighed. On a long enough horizon they add … Continue reading Righteousness as a Process, Not a Thing

On shortcuts, certainty, and the test we keep failing. There is a particular anxiety that grips religious people, and it is worth naming precisely: the anxiety of getting the answer right. Is this permitted or forbidden? Is my prayer valid or void? Did I fulfill the obligation or fall short? The questions are sincere, and … Continue reading Process over Outcome

Few elements carry as much weight in the Quran as fire. It is the substance of the final punishment and the medium of the first revelation to Moses; it is the origin of a rebellious creature and a mercy kindled for weary travelers; it is the weapon of persecutors and the trial that separates the … Continue reading The Obedient Flame: Fire and Its Meanings in the Quran

There is a form of power that comes not from what a state declares but from what it refuses to declare. A written document names its parties, fixes its terms, and draws its lines—and in doing so it converts intention into obligation. To write something down is to make it enforceable against yourself. This is … Continue reading The Power of the Undefined: Israel’s Missing Constitution, Its Open Borders, and the Quranic Ethic of the Written Word

Why "The Quran Contradicts the Bible" Misreads the Bible One of the most common objections raised against the Quran is that it "contradicts the Bible." The Quran, the critic says, retells the stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, but changes details, so it cannot be from God. The objection sounds forceful until you … Continue reading Bible Tradition of Retelling and Revision