In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful?

Coming home from shul over Pesach, I found at my doorstep a package. Upon closer examination, I found inside a book - "The English translation of the message of the holy Quran", along with a note from the Book of Signs foundation hoping to accept this as a present from our Muslim neighbors. Similar books were deposited at all the houses in our neighborhood.

I was always curious about reading the Quran, so this was a good opportunity for me to acquaint myself with the Muslim holy book. So over the three day Yom Tov I read through the book.

There was a long introduction, rivaling anything a kiruv organization could throw at me. Proofs of the book's Divine origin abounded.

The text itself is not easily penetrated. I suspect it is difficult to translate from Arabic, and based on my assessment, the translator was not a native speaker of English. That said, the book has a feel of a mixture of Tehillim and Mishlei. I'd say that if the words "Allah", "Merciful", and "Gracious" were deleted from the text, the book would easily shrink by 50% percent.

Of course, now the question is what to do with this book. I don't think I am interested enough to leave it on my bookshelf. One of my son's friends was planning to stomp on it in his backyard. I find that disgusting - I hope this is not what our school is teaching him. Perhaps I will leave it on the bookshelf at our train station. Either that or put it in genizah :)