Answered by Sidi Yahya Birt
Do Muhammad Asad’s books reflect Sunni scholarship and do traditional Sunni scholars recommend them?
As-salamu alaykum,
The main concern, although there have been others, of Sunni exegetes with regard to Muhammad Asad’s translation of the meanings of the Holy Qur’an with a commentary has been that it lent very heavily upon the ideas of Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) who was wont to “explain away” miraculous events in terms of natural causes. The orthodox belief is that there is no chain of cause and effect in the created world, but rather it is Allah who creates all causes and effects, and He has set them for the most part in system of regularity (literally dubbed “hikmah” or wisdom) so that humankind might employ its intelligence to understanding this regularity. However, miracles might be said to interrupt this regularity, but in ultimate terms, the miraculous is still only the cause and effect willed by Allah.
Yahya.