/lit/ - Literature

>>12298449
Practicing Muslim here(born, Sunni, non-Arab). If you’re interested in learning more about Islam then I’d recommend studying the life of the Prophet(saws) first, because the Qur’an cannot be understood fully without the context of the society back then and the events which took place in the lives of the Prophet and the first Muslims.

I’d recommend Martin Lings’ work, “Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources”, if you’re looking for a bio of the Prophet.

Another great work which I’m currently reading is The Vision of Islam, by Chittick & Murata. It serves as a sort of introduction to Islamic theology, the texts, the foundations of faith, the basis for the division of Islam into Sunni/Shia and a lot of other basics. Bonus points since it was written for a western audience and thus employs the standards of western academia.

If you want to go ahead and read the Quran straight away, then I’d recommend the translations by Pickthall or Yusuf Ali. This is purely a personal preference, I like how these because of the “flow”. Disclaimer: not an Arabic speaker, so I can’t vouch as to how “accurate” these translations are, compared to original. Many people are of the opinion that the Quran is too complex to be translated, and that “translations” are works which can never match the original.