Comment is free: Blogging the Qur'an
The Guardian is going to spend a year "blogging the Koran". This opening explanation of what they are going to do acknowledges that it is a difficult book to read.
This came to mind when I recently watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for the first time, which led me to re-read the story in the Bible. (I am not sure whether I had ever read this section from beginning to end before.) It's a good story, and made me think about the simple pleasure of narrative that is to be found in many parts of the Old Testament.
As far as I know, there is no extended story telling in the Koran. Certainly, you come up pretty empty handed when you type in "great stories from the Koran" in Google.
Anyway, the first column in The Guardian about their experiment is of cultural interest at least.
It seems a curious feature, however, that good education results in the east asian cultures is sometimes thought to be due to large role of rote learning and increased use of memory that their language requires. However, the common exercise of children memorising an entire book in Muslim cultures does not have the reputation of having the same result.
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