The Study Quran and its discontents

Karen Bauer produced a review of the HarperOne "Study Quran" by Joseph Lumbard, Maria Massi Dakake, et al. Against this review Dr Lumbard and Dr Dakake defend their work, in their professional capacity.

I have no real friendship nor animosity to Dr/Ms Bauer - as a person. I don't share her politics, but - I don't share IQSA's politics, inasmuch as IQSA takes political sides. Ms Bauer is entitled to her opinions as, I think, IQSA is not. I've found Dr Bauer's scholarship insightful in places; my projects have cited her work. As for Lumbard there are those who think little of him. All this said, Drs Lumbard and Dakake seem correct in their assessment. Some editor should have intervened before Bauer stepped in it, frankly.

As far as mine own critique of the "Study Quran" project, which a previous blog mooted, I agree with Bruce Fudge that Dakake, Lumbard and his team had produced a "Protestant" tafsîr: presenting the Sunnite consensus from the Mutawakkil caliphate to the Cordova emirate. Thus: Abû Jaʿfar Ibn Jarîr al-Tabarî, al-Qurtubî, and al-Suyûtî (mostly Jalâlayn). Shîʿism is here but not such as kicks against the edges of the matn, like ʿAyyâshî and Sayyârî. As a mainstream Sunnî reference, I study this Qurân. But where I need it most, which (in my view) concerns whether the Qurân even exists in its present form, or even in the Umayyad form which al-Jallâd and van Putten reconstruct ... it's limited.

Going back to the issue of editors, for Dakake and Lumbard my problem was with their publisher. The Study Bible was, in fact, an excellent work of secular scholarship, explaining in painstaking detail what each reference meant based on archaeology and on variant texts, sometimes wildly variant (Samaritan Torah, Qumran . . .). If someone wants mediaeval Jewish footnotes to Exodus (say) he's referred to Telushkin or Fox or Alter or (more for concerned Christians) Dennis Prager.

tl;dr this "Study Quran" should not have been a secular imprint. It should have been an al-Azhar imprint. To the extent its authors sinned the khatiya was in submitting the manuscript to, I suspect, a Reputable publisher. Sayyid Nasr explicitly stated that HarperCollins' Bible was his model. As for Lumbard, Robert Spencer had his number in 2014: puffball. I don't know to what degree Makake went Along For The Ride, so to speak, but it's a dangerous ride to be on. Bauer can be dispatched, and maybe Spencer also (if Lumbard will dare); but I remain unsure about Fudge.