Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Ed.). The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. Vol. 1 & 2. E. J. Brill, Leiden: 2001 and 2002. 557+572 pp., 225.56 € each.

After approximately four decades the “battleship” of modern Islam studies, the Encyclopaedia of Islam (“EI”), was completed and published by the renowned publisher E.J. Brill in eleven large volumes and on CD-ROM. At the same time this publisher issued another encyclopedia: the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (“EQ”). One might wonder about the publication of an encyclopedia in addition to the EI. There seem to be two main reasons for this.

One is that the EQ, with its five planned volumes (a total of approximately 2,500 pages), is designed to be significantly more limited in scope than the EI, but is thus easier to use. At the same time the EQ is restricted to topics that refer to the Koran, the first and most important source of Islamic theology and Islamic law. It is primarily concerned with terms and contents that appear in the Koran itself, but also with the meaning, use and exegesis of the Koran in the past and present (thus also an article un-der the heading “Qur’an in Everyday Life”).

The second way in which the EQ differs from the EI, which many view as an advantage, is the fact that the entries are recorded under English terms – not Arabic ones, as in the previous EI. In order to find out, for example, what the Koran and Islamic theology have to say about “Christians”, one can now look up this information under the entry “Christians” and no longer, as in the EI, under the Arabic “nasara”. The group of potential users, restricted in the case of the EI to those with a knowledge of Arabic, is thus significantly expanded and even non-Islamscholars are provided with a new means of accessing the Koran. The disadvantage is that the English translation of the Koran term made it necessary to choose one possible translation –one that an expert may not think of directly (e.g. “emigration” for “hidjra”) – which is, at least in part, well compensated for by cross references, however. In those cases where no suitable translation is available, it was necessary to keep the Arabic (such as “basmala”, “fatiha” or “hanif”). Allah could certainly have been listed under A rather than under “God”.

Due to its wider range of use, the EQ is definitely a must for all places of theological training: to some extent, with articles such as “History of the Qur’an” or “Collection of the Qur’an”, it opens up the field of Islamic studies -an area that otherwise publishes primarily for its own circle – even to those who are not Oriental scholars. It is hoped that the presentation of the Koran’s statements on topics such as “belief and unbelief”, “faith”, “good deeds” or “hope” will especially inspire theologians and exam candidates to engage in comparative religion studies. The articles were written by both Muslim and non-Muslim religion and Islam scholars.