For well over a millennium Muslims have revered Mecca as the site of their holiest shrine, the Kaaba. And until recently Western scholarship always accepted the traditional Muslim origins narrative, which says that was where Muhammad began, in Arabia. But in…

According to Muslim tradition, the recitations comprising the Qur’an were compiled in book form only after Muhammad’s death. Western scholars[1] wish the compilers had ordered the recitations chronologically, but they did not.[2] We also wish the Qur’an were rich in details identifying…

Anyone who doesn’t know Arabic faces many obstacles reading the Qur’an. The last thing they need is an archaic translation. Though cheap and popular, Marmaduke Pickthall’s The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation is very archaic, making it hard…