Koran Reading

Lo! Allah disdaineth not to coin the similitude even of a gnat. Those who believe know that it is the truth from their Lord; but those who disbelieve say: What doth Allah wish (to teach) by such a similitude? He misleadeth many thereby, and He guideth many thereby; and He misleadeth thereby only miscreants;

Those who break the covenant of Allah after ratifying it, and sever that which Allah ordered to be joined, and (who) make mischief in the earth: Those are they who are the losers.

How disbelieve ye in Allah when ye were dead and He gave life to you! Then he will give you death, then life again, and then unto Him ye will return.

He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth. Then turned He to the heaven, and fashioned it as seven heavens. And He is Knower of all things.

-- The Koran, Surah II: 26-29

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I've begun to read The Glorious Koran, translated by Marmaduke Pickthall, the Everyman's Library edition. Two other editions I glossed over because of egregious "thee's" and "thou's," or because of over-compensation the other way, replacing basic words like "Allah" with "the Unknown" or "the Eternal Being." Plus, I need footnotes.

Some first-impression thoughts on the Koran, by way of a sort of slapdash online reading journal:

1.) Language of distinction. I'm obviously reading this ancient text from a modern, westernized perspective, so I want to be careful I do not read into or read out the language of violence or peace that may or may not be there. But already I find that the focus tends to be on distinctions between people rather than ideas or world elements. For example, the first ten verses of the second Surah, "The Cow," meditate not on the difference between humans and deity, or good and evil, but between believers (the "successful") and infidels (the "losers"). The Preface says it was written during a time of economic strife among Jewish and Muslim tribes, so maybe that accounts for some of it.

2.) An active Allah. He is not active in the sense that he creates things and loves actively, but rather that he causes nonbelievers not to believe, and keeps vigil on wrongdoers. He seems the kind of deity who is chiefly concerned with his glory. But according to the second Surrah, Allah is the one who selects and trains those who glorify him, so free will seems a non-issue.

3.) Judeo-Christian foothold. Because it began in the sixth and seventh centuries AD, Islam has to be conscious of the popular religion of its two biggest rivals. So in the footnotes about Adam and "his wife," the translator explains that Allah's commands not only apply to the first humans but to humanity; and when in Surah II: 72-73, "ye slew a man and disagreed concerning it and Allah brought forth that which ye were hiding, / And we said: Smite him with some of it," most people see this as a reference to Jesus Christ, "on whom may be peace."