Science Talk

Edip Yuksel · Guest

Dear brothers and sisters:

The long-awaited book, after being abandoned by Palgrave/Macmillan
from fear of controversy and perhaps political considerations (see
below), is finally out. Its first print is now offered at:

www.brainbowpress.com

Let the world hear about the book, so that we can break the blockage
of the corrupt establishment and reactionary forces.

QURAN: A Reformist Translation

Translated and Annotated by: Edip Yuksel, Layth Saleh al-Shaiban, and
Martha Schulte-Nafeh

• The Reformist Translation of the Quran offers a non-sexist
understanding of the divine text; it is the result of collaboration
between three translators, two men and a woman.

• It explicitly rejects the right of the clergy to determine the
likely meaning of disputed passages

• It uses logic and the language of the Quran itself as the ultimate
authority in determining likely meanings, rather than ancient
scholarly interpretations rooted in patriarchal hierarchies.

• It offers extensive cross-referencing to the Bible and provides
arguments on numerous philosophical and scientific issues.

• It is God's message for those who prefer reason over blind faith,
for those who seek peace and ultimate freedom by submitting themselves
to the Truth alone.

"A bold and beautiful translation that serves as a timely reminder to
all believers that the Qur'an is not a static scripture, but a living,
breathing, ever-evolving text whose sacred words are as applicable
today as when they were first uttered by the Prophet Muhammad fourteen
centuries ago." - Reza Aslan, CBS News Consultant; Author, No god but
God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.

"A testament to the fact that faith need not suffocate reason. This is
bound to be among the smartest of 'smart bombs' in the battle of ideas
within Islam." - Irshad Manji, Fellow, Yale University and author, The
Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith.

"Every conversation begins with a single voice. This Reformist
Translation of the Quran and its ancillary materials should begin many
conversations, between and among Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In
many parts of the Muslim world this is a dangerous discussion, and
sometimes that danger can reach well into the West, as evidenced by
the 1990 fatwa-inspired murder of Rashad Khalifa in Tucson, Arizona .
It is an important discussion, however, and the editors of this book
have assumed this risk to argue for a perspective that sets violence
aside both in discourse and living. One can imagine that a broader
adoption of their perspective across the Muslim world would reduce
strife and invite greater examination of Islam by non-Muslims as
something other than a threat. It would expand the conversation." -
Mark V Sykes Ph.D. J.D. Director, Planetary Science Institute.

"Very Interesting and Timely" - Riffat Hassan, Ph.D. Professor of
Religious Studies and Humanities at the University of Louisville,
Kentucky. A pioneer of feminist theology in the context of the Islamic
tradition.

"I completely agree with you in your rejection of the right of any
group to arrogate to themselves the sole interpretation of the Quran.
The Quran, being a book containing divine knowledge and wisdom, can
only be understood progressively. It has to be interpreted anew by
every generation and through a scientific methodology…. Your effort is
praiseworthy. Well done. Keep it up." - Kassim Ahmad, former president
of Malaysian Socialist Party and head of Malaysian Quranic Society who
was declared "apostate" by religious authorities for his controversial
work on the Prophetic Traditions.

"This translation is the best tool for those who want to understand
the uncorrupted Message of Islam - justice and peace. This translation
shows that the Quran is but the confirmation and continuation of God's
system memorialized through Abraham, demonstrated in Torah through
numerous prophets, and in the Hebrew Gospel through Yeshu'a/Jesus, the
righteous of God. This translation is a message of peace, justice and
judgment. I pray that the Reformist translation of the Quran will
replace all others not only because it is the best but also because it
is the closest to the original Arabic text." - Gershom Kibrisli,
theologian and communal leader, The Karaim of the Early Hebrew
Scriptures, Holy Land & Benelux.

"Quran: A Reformist Translation is distinct from other translations of
the Qur'an in several important ways. First, to the best of my
knowledge, it is only the second English translation of the Qur'an
produced by Qur'anists--advocates of the concept of the Qur'an as the
sole legitimate scriptural source of religious law and guidance in
Islam. As Qur'anists, Yuksel and his colleagues reject the Hadith as
sources of religious law and guidance and do not rely on them in this
translation and commentary. The first Qur'anist English translation
was done by the late Rashad Khalifa, a seminal figure in the late
twentieth-century Qur'anist movement who directly influenced both
Yuksel and Shulte-Nafeh. Quran: A Reformist Translation is also unique
because it is the product of collaboration between two key figures in
the present-day Qur'anist movement: Edip Yuksel and Layth Saleh al-
Shaiban. The Qur'anist approach offers religious rather than
secularist challenges to traditional understandings of Islam, whether
Sunni, Shia, or academic, on a number of critical issues; so this
translation and commentary have the potential to spark extreme
controversy among Muslims and non-Muslims." - Aisha Y. Musa, PhD,
Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Florida International
University; author of An Examination of Early and Contemporary Muslim
Attitudes toward Hadith as Scripture (Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard
University, 2004).

"With its lucid language, brilliant theological and philosophic
arguments, Edip Yüksel removes the smoke of distortions and ignorance
generated by clergymen that have concealed the light of the Quran from
masses. Pulling our attention to numerous scientific evidences
supporting the authenticity of the divine nature of the Quran, the
Reformist Translation is destined to create a Copernican Revolution in
the realm of religions. I highly recommend it to Agnostics, Skeptics,
Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or anyone who seeks truth about God
without suppressing or compromising their brains." - Caner Taslaman,
PhDs in Theology and Political Science; Post doc fellow at Harvard
University; author, The Quran: Unchallengeable Miracle; The Big Bang
and God; The Theory of Evolution and God; and The Invented Religion;
www.mucizeler.com.

"Allah has gifted humanity with many signs for guidance. The Qur'an
not only directs us towards these signs all over creation, but also in
itself is a most miraculous sign. We can never know the full meaning
of the Qur'an even as we exercise our minds and peacefully surrender
our hearts to Allah so that we become able to read the signs and grow
to know more. A Reformist Translation directs us to this miracle by
offering an intense and challenging addition to the practice of
sincere reading for knowing. I cannot accept its Qur'an only
perspective, even as I support the efforts of these translators to
engage, as they have, in reading and growing with knowledge while
relaying to others some new possibilities of meaning for the sake of
reflection and peacefully surrender. I hope many will examine their
efforts to gain benefit and challenge." - Dr. Amina Wadud, Author:
Inside the Gender Jihad: Reform in Islam.

"A timely and stimulating contribution to scholarship on Islam that
offers cogent testimony to the diversity of views within the Islamic
community. This new translation challenges those in East and West
alike who see Islam as irreconcilably opposed to the scientific and
democratic impulses of modernity." - Germaine A. Hoston, Ph.D,
Professor, University of California. San Diego, former Director of the
Center for Democratization and Economic Development, and author of The
State, Identity, and the National Question and Faith, Will, and
Revolutionary Change (forthcoming), a comparative study of theologies
of liberation.

"I have to say that this translation --following in the same spirit of
Dr. Khalifa's Quran: The Final Testament -- not only is daring, brave
and non-traditional in its approach, it will open a lot of eyes that
the Quran is dynamic in nature and relevant for all times. The spirit
of using the Quran to explain the Quran, namely trying to understand a
certain word by searching for the meaning of the same word in many
different contexts within the Quran, is very evident in this
translation. This is a book that encourages the reader to use his/her
intelligence faculty in order to understand the message, true to the
key message of the Quran itself." - Gatut Adisoma, PhD, Indonesia.

"I am not a Qurâan scholar and therefore am not in a position to judge
the accuracy of your translation, and especially not the revisionist
understandings of some controversial ayats. But I can say that the
effort you and your colleagues have undertaken is very much in keeping
with my sense of the process of modernization that the Qurâan itself
and the Islamic religion more broadly must undergo. As such, I salute
your work and hope it will be published and extensively discussed both
in the United States and abroad." - Daniel Pipes, Ph.D., director of
the Middle East Forum, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, and a
columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

"From the perspective of the academic study of the Qur'an, this book
has very little to contribute. ... To proclaim that the Qur'an
contains 20th-century scientific discoveries renders meaningless the
religious faith of Muslims of the past who could not possibly have
been aware of such a concept. … Controversy may assist book sales, as
happened in the case of The Satanic Verses, but it would be a cynical
and questionable strategy to publish a book simply because it arouses
the wrath of many people. Simply to publish this work as it is
basically gives this religious group a platform to express their
distinctive theology, which is highly polemical and dismissive of
other perspectives…" – A anonymous Sunni Scholar who was described by
the editor of Palgrave-Macmillan as "a very well-established
professor."

EDIP YUKSEL is an American-Turkish-Kurdish author and activist who
spent four years in Turkish prisons in the 1980's for his political
writings and activities promoting an Islamic revolution in Turkey. He
experienced a paradigm change in 1986 transforming him from a Sunni
Muslim leader to a reformed muslim or rational monotheist. Edip Yuksel
has written more than twenty books and hundreds of articles on
religion, politics, philosophy and law in Turkish, and numerous
articles and booklets in English. Edip is the founder of 19.org, and
the Islamic Reform organization. His personal site is yuksel.org.
After receiving his bachelor degrees from the University of Arizona in
Philosophy and Near Eastern Studies, Edip received his law degree from
the same university. Edip is an Adjunct Philosophy professor at Pima
Community College , and teaches various classes at his children's
school. He is fluent in Turkish, English and Classic Arabic;
proficient in Persian, and barely conversant in Kurdish, his mother
tongue.

LAYTH SALEH AL-SHAIBAN is an author of various books and articles on
Islam, founder of Progressive Muslims, and co-founder of Islamic
Reform. Layth works in a financial institution as a financial adviser,
and lives in Saudi Arabia.

MARTHA SCHULTE-NAFEH is Assistant Professor of Practice at the
University of Arizona and Language Coordinator of Middle Eastern
Languages at the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Martha received
her B.S. from Wharton School , University of Pennsylvania in
Economics, received her M.A., in Linguistics from the University of
Arizona in 1990, and her Ph.D. from the same university in Near
Eastern Studies - Arabic Language and Linguistics 2004. In 1982, she
taught English as a Foreign Language at American University in Cairo,
Egypt .

Following a Fatwa-Review of Establishment,
Palgrave/Macmillan Abandoned the Publication of this Book

In 2004, my colleagues and I signed a contract with Palgrave/Macmillan
publishing house for the publication of Quran: a Reformist
Translation. The editor and other staff of the publishing house were
very encouraging and enthusiastic, and during the summer of 2006, I
was personally introduced to the director of the publishing company at
its New York headquarters. Palgrave even published an announcement
about the upcoming Reformist Translation in their 2006 Fall/Winter
Catalogue, which was later postponed to the summer of 2007. The
publishing house posted information about the Reformist Translation
for pre-orders at Amazon.com and other online bookstores. However, in
December 2006, the editor informed me that the board had determined
that my manuscript was not acceptable for publication.

Apparently, they were convinced or intimidated by a review (more
accurately, a fatwa) of "a very well-established professor," who
misleadingly likened our annotated translation of the Quran to Salman
Rushdie's Satanic Verses. This was akin to a medieval publishing house
turning down Martin Luther's 95 Theses after consulting "a very well-
established" Catholic Bishop! It is telling that Palgrave's "very well-
established scholar" in his several-page review, had only one
substantive criticism, which consisted of our usage of a word, yes a
single word in the translation: progressive.

I believe that without hearing my defense against this Sunni version
of excommunication in the guise of a "scholarly review," the
publishing house committed an injustice against my person and our
work. I called the publishing house and asked them to give me the
chance to respond to the reviewer and defend myself and work against
his disparagement and distortions; I was told he remain anonymous.

We were not surprised to hear negative remarks, insults, or false
associations from a reviewer who considers a rejection of backward and
bankrupt sectarian dogmas "heresy." However, we were surprised to
learn that the board of the publishing house cancelled the publication
of a potentially controversial yet crucial book that would introduce
the message of the Quranthe message of peace, justice, reason, and
progresswithout the distortion of sectarian teachings. Any scholar
who can see beyond his or her office can see the growing reform
movement, open or clandestine, particularly in Turkey, Malaysia ,
Iran, Egypt and Kazakhstan where people take great risks to question
the popular sectarian dogmas.

You may visit the following websites for the full text of the letter
of the Sunni scholar whose advice was taken at face value by Palgrave/
Macmillan, and for our response to the letter. You may also find in
the following websites, recent updates, reactions, and feedback from
reviewers, our responses, related news in the media, and the
activities of the global reformist movement:

www.19.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.progressivemuslims.org
www.free-minds.org

Let the world hear the message. Let the West hear the voice of
monotheism, the voice of reason, peace, justice and progress. Let the
East and the Middle East hear the clear message of the book that they
have abandoned for centuries, despite efforts by their leaders to
repress it.

9:32 They want to extinguish God's light with their mouths, but God
refuses such and lets His light continue, even if the ingrates hate
it.

9:33 He is the One who sent His messenger with guidance and the
system of truth, to make it manifest above all other systems, even if
those who set up partners hate it.

Edip Yuksel, J.D.
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
(USA) 520 481 1919 (Cell)