What is the Qur'an?

[lavender1]

hello to all that have contributed to this most interesting thread.
i hope you are still reading here...

www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-327/_nr-6/i.html

nasr hamid abu zaid died on july 5.
here is a quote from navid kermani, iranian-born, german writer and orientalist, a former student of abu zaid, beautifully written and very touching across all religious "borders":

... it was evident that my questions did please him; quran as an aesthetic event is in no way familiar to egyptian intellectuals to whom religion is only religion and no longer the melody of everyday, or relgion for them is only religion and all melodies from the devil, which also would mean: the entire tradition.
very far apart from each other, from the most different viewpoints possibly thinkable, both of us had felt the same - he before me, and he had already said it in the literature of the discipline: god is beautiful. and very far apart from each other, from the most different viewpoints possibly thinkable, we feared the advance of the zealots - he before me, and them already keeping tabs on him. ...*

* translation mine. for reference please see, die zeit no. 29, july 15, 2010, p. 39: navid kermani, der feind, der eiferer
www.navidkermani.de/view.php?nid=0&switch_lid=2

news.meedan.net/index.php?page=events&post_id=302866

[lavender1]

\!!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_S8DHsPFo&feature=related

i may not be ready as yet for the qur'an, nor for another violent confrontation of different religions and cultures.
but i may seek the chances of wisdom finding good in each.
one such has been hospitality.

www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/nathan_the_wise.html

[lavender1]

not proselytizing in anyway.
there is something very inspiring and touching i am reading in the following link. beautiful.
i tend to think prayer is a health and healing practice here.

www.quranreading.com/ramadan/taraweeh-prayer.php

[lavender1]

www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/cultural_revolution/1.htm

should spark interesting dialogs, in all directions, imho.