For anyone, non-Muslim or Muslim, who wants to know how to
approach, read, and understand the text of the Qur'an,
How to
Read the Qur'an offers a compact introduction and reader's
guide. Using a chronological reading of the text according to the
conclusions of modern scholarship, Carl W. Ernst offers a
nontheological approach that treats the Qur'an as a historical text
that unfolded over time, in dialogue with its audience, during the
career of the Prophet Muhammad.