The Story of the Qur’an Its History and Place in Muslim Life by Ingrid Mattson (Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. pages 262.)

Abstract

The resources for instructors dealing with the Qur’an in their courses have
improved in recent yearswith the completion of Jane DammenMcAuliffe’s
Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (Brill: 2001-06) and Cambridge Companion
to the Qur’an (Cambridge University Press: 2006) and Andrew Rippin’s
Blackwell Companion to the Qur’an (Balckwell: 2006). But however useful
the collected articles of these works are, new students of the Qur’an
often respond more enthusiastically to such narrative approaches as the
vignettes in Bruce Lawrence’s The Qur’an: A Biography (AtlanticMonthly
Press: 2007). The more integrated narrative approach of Ingrid Mattson’s
The Story of the Qur’an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life provides a
new accessible introduction to the Qur’an and its history. Mattson illuminates
the perspectives of believers and critical historical scholarship by
telling the story of the continuities and ruptures in the reception, transmission,
and interpretation of the Qur’an among diverse communities in
changing historical contexts ...