A Concise Guide to the Quran

September 28, 2020
Ibrahim (Muslim Conversions to Christ), an Egyptian Coptic Christian and theology professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, attempts to explain the Quran to an evangelical audience in this deceptive work. Ibrahim writes in the introduction that his aim is to help non-Muslims understand Islam’s holy book and the beliefs Muslims hold about it, but what follows is a challenge to or critique of a wide variety of those beliefs. The book is riddled with questionable generalizations (“Islam and Muslims were generally unknown before 9/11”) and fallacious statements (“there is no evidence of the acclaimed pre-Islamic poetry; not even a single line remains”), and Ibrahim employs a narrow lens that appears only focused on discrediting Islam through cherry-picking Quranic verses and scholarship. No distinction is made between the content of the Quran itself and the interpretations of it by various Muslim groups, and though the verses concerning jihad are examined at length, passages about love, mercy, and forgiveness are largely ignored. Anyone genuinely curious about the Quran or Muslim faith would be better served elsewhere.