Koran biography

There is undoubtedly some worthwhile reasons to read this book, especially the sections dealing with the earliest translators of the Quran, but overall I came away from it feeling like I read a collection of very short reviews of various translations and nothing more.

Lawrence did address more theoretical issues involved with scriptural translation, as well as the very interesting – and high stakes – issue of political involvement in Quranic publishing, but only very briefly. Overall the book felt much more focused on cataloging reviews than contributing anything original or thought-provoking to the study of English translations of the Quran.

One could argue that this is in keeping with the book's subtitle to produce a "biography" (as opposed to an analysis?) and I can accept that; but I can't go so far as to say that it scratched an intellectual itch, so to speak.

Two other points merit attention. The first is the overly exhaustive e