Dear visitor,
This site is the online version of the book “My Ordeal With The Quran”, by Abbas Abul Noor, published in Cairo in 2004. The translation of the Arabic original was done by Hassan Radwan in 2016.
There are very few books by Muslims that analyse the Qurʾān in a truly critical way—and even fewer written in Arabic by Arabs. This book is important because it breaks that ground and removes that barrier. (Translator´s note)
WARNING!
This book is likley to upset and offend those who believe in the Quran as literal word of Allah! You should only continue to read if you have an open mind and a willingness to critically review the Quran.
“This book is an emphatic and unambiguous call for a rereading of the Qur’ān in order to understand it as it should be understood. It is a call to break the shackles and chains that have distorted our thinking and corrupted our understanding of life, the universe, and our destiny in it. It has forced us to see the universe and life from a single, narrow ideological perspective. Whereas in earlier centuries, the Qur’ān was a source of progress and building, it has today become a source of backwardness and ruin. It has become dead weight that lies heavily upon our minds and souls.
This book is an earnest critical attempt to liberate and emancipate us from those immovable and unshakable presuppositions that have led us into the crisis we face today. It is an attempt to shine a light of hope onto our current dark state. I have supported it with evidence from the Qur’ānic text, along with criticisms and analyses of its verses in an attempt to lift the veils that obscure our vision—nay, that have blinded it. They have paralysed our ability to think freely, anaesthetised our faculties, and killed the free spirit and innovator within us. They have turned our intellectual gifts into something negative, and caused us to have no ambition or concern apart from preserving the past, justifying and defending the “holy” text, and immersing ourselves in its profound and hidden wisdoms and “treasures.”” (from the Introduction, Chapter 1)