Book Reviews Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an: Volume Five: Si-Z Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ed. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. 576 pages. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an: Volume Six: Index Jane Dammen McAuliffe, ed. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. 860 pages. The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (hereinafter EQ) is a multi-volume collec- tion of reference texts on the holy book of Islam that appeared in western languages from 2001 until 2006. The Qur’an (lit. “the Recitation”), which Muslims believe to be the word of God delivered to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel, is systematically analyzed by the diverse contributing writers according to its different layers. The different Qur’anic strata embrace numerous themes, among them theology, Islamic jurisprudence, Biblical narratives, primary figures in Islamic history (e.g., the Prophet’s Companions and adversaries), historical events, rituals and customs, polemics, and the Qur’an’s literary structure and literary language, which combines poetry with rhymed prose. Each level is carefully examined and explored by leading scholars of Islamic studies. Therefore, this work is highly significant for those who wish to learn about the Qur’an’s different aspects from a reliable objective source. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, the general editor, has focused on two paral- lel spheres: Muslim traditional scholarship and non-Muslim inquisitive research. This approach enables the potential audience to gain Qur’anic knowledge from the scholarship of pious Muslims, although the scientific character of this academic work prevails. The articles vary widely in length and discuss diverse themes. Both Muslim and non-Muslim approaches, as well as traditional Islamic and modern investigative attitudes to the holy text, are introduced. Extensive reference is made to the classical and con- temporary Islamic exegetical traditions. Written in English to make the EQ PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.software-partners.co.uk http://www.software-partners.co.uk http://www.software-partners.co.uk accessible to non Arabic-reading specialists, it has become a most important secondary tool for any Qur’an research. The bibliography at the end of each entry, which cites works in both Arabic and western languages, is useful. As with the former volumes, the fifth volume maintains the EQ’s repu- tation as a large-scale reference text on various aspects of the Qur’an writ- ten in a serious and responsible, yet innovative and broadly accessible, way. The entries are very comprehensible, and the list of contributing scholars given at the volume’s end is quite impressive. One popular theme discussed in the fifth volume is Ruth Roded’s “Women and the Qur’an” (pp. 523-40), which is divided into spiritual equality, symbolic weakness and social reality, legal material relating to women and gender, female characters in Qur’anic narratives, and women’s scholarship and feminist readings of the Qur’an. As intended in the concept of the EQ, this entry offers the reader insights into both traditional Islamic attitudes toward women as well as such novel trends in the contemporary Muslim world as feminism in Islam and gender studies in the light of the Qur’an. An additional woman-related topic is Mona Siddiqui’s article on the veil (pp. 412-16), an issue lying at the heart of the ongoing open and controver- sial debates in the Muslim world and the West. In Europe, for example, the heated debate over the legitimacy of wearing the veil as an external symbol of religious conviction remains unresolved. Siddiqui reviews the veil in the light of Islamic religious literature (viz., the Qur’an, Qur’an commentaries, and the hadiths) and portrays the current state of affairs concerning it. A third example is Binyamin Abrahamov’s essay on “World” (pp. 551- 54), a brief yet thorough survey of the various meanings of this word in the Qur’an: the whole physical world, Earth, one’s lifetime in this world, the world to come, and its division into Paradise and Hell. Again, the contribu- tor covers all relevant aspects of the theme referring to the different theolog- ical attitudes toward the world (traditionalist vs. rationalist theologians) based on the diverse lingual usages of world in the Qur’an. Volume 6, the index for the entire encyclopaedia, integrates the alpha- betically arranged entries of articles about the contents of the Qur’an accord- ing to the list of authors, articles, proper names, Arabic words and phrases, and Qur’anic citations. Although these various indexes are exceedingly detailed, locating a specific word is not necessarily undemanding. For exam- ple, proper names appear sometimes in English and sometimes in Arabic, which is quite awkward and often confusing. Thus, someone looking for Nasara will not be able to find it, for it appears under “Christian[s]” and in 120 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 25:3 PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.software-partners.co.uk http://www.software-partners.co.uk http://www.software-partners.co.uk brackets. In addition, the mosque al-Aqsa not found under “mosque,” but under “al-masjid al-Aqsa” (under the letter “ma”). However, the index of Arabic words and phrases is comfortable, since the listings are alphabetized by the Arabic trilateral root only. The index can be purchased separately. On the whole, this small critique notwithstanding, the EQ is highly rec- ommended for inquiries on Qur’an-relevant topics. Next to the Encyclopae- dia of Islam, the EQ is of major importance for both non-specialists as well as specialists in the field of Islamic studies. Noga Hartmann Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies Potsdam University, Germany Book Reviews 121 PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.software-partners.co.uk http://www.software-partners.co.uk http://www.software-partners.co.uk