Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School, and Shawkat Toorawa, Brand Blanshard Professor of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, will be in conversation about their new books, “The Bible: A Global History” and “The Devotional Qur’an: Beloved Surahs and Verses.”
In “The Bible: A Global History,” Bruce Gordon tells the astounding story of the Bible’s journey around the globe and across more than two thousand years, showing how it has shaped and been shaped by changing beliefs and believers’ radically different needs. Breathtakingly global in scope, it tells the story of this sacred book through the stories of its many and diverse human encounters, revealing not a static text but a living, dynamic cultural force.
Shawkat Toorawa’s “The Devotional Qur’an: Beloved Surahs and Verses,” is the first book to present a curated English translation of core Qur’anic surahs (chapters) and verses rooted in the practice of earlier figures—the Prophet Muhammad, his closest Companions, the Shiite Imams, saintly figures, learned scholars, Sufi masters, local imams and religious teachers, forebears, and parents. In these translations, he gives attention to rhythm, assonance, and end rhyme, as well as to the musicality and emotional force of the original Arabic. He organizes the selections according to devotional use and explains the place and role of the surah, verse, or passage in Muslim devotional practice.
In addition to five other books, Bruce Gordon has edited works and written widely on early modern history writing, biblical culture, Reformation devotion and spirituality, and the place of the dead in pre-modern culture. Shawkat Toorawa is a prolific scholar as well as Director of the School of Abbasid Studies; a series editor of Resources in Arabic and Islamic Studies; is on the editorial or advisory boards of several journals; and is an executive editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, an initiative to edit and translate the premodern Arabic literary heritage.