What the Qur'an meant and why it matters / Garry Wills.

Includes index.

My Qur'an Problem -- Iraq: The Cost of Ignorance -- Secular Ignorance -- Religious Ignorance -- Fearful Ignorance -- The Qur'an: searching for knowledge: A desert book -- Conversing with the cosmos -- The perpetual stream of prophets -- Peace to believers -- Zeal (Jihad) --The right path (shariʻah) -- Commerce -- Women: plural marriage -- Women: fighting back -- Women: the veil.

There was a time when ordinary Americans did not have to know much about Islam. That is no longer the case. We blundered into the longest war in our history without knowing basic facts about the Islamic civilization with which we were dealing. We are constantly fed false information about Islam—claims that it is essentially a religion of violence, that its sacred book is a handbook for terrorists. There is no way to assess these claims unless we have at least some knowledge of the Qur’an.