The poetics of Iblīs: narrative theology in the Qurʾān, by Whitney S. Bodman

The Poetics of Iblīs: Narrative Theology in the Qurʾān, by Whitney S. Bodman, (Harvard Theological Studies, 62), (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2011), xii + 311 pp., ISBN: 978-0-674-06241-2, $25.00 (pb) (First paragraph) To engage in the delineation of a "narrative theology" of evil as it is found in the world presumes that a discussion of evil is communicated most easily and profoundly through stories. For Whitney Bodman, narrative has the ability to capture "the tragic dimensions of life, the ambiguities of fate, the confusion of flawed characters, noble intentions with ruinous outcomes." (p. 1) The problem of evil, he suggests, cannot be resolved into a dualistic vision of the struggle between the divine and the human because that "belies the truth of human experience;" (p. 1) such a perspective is the realm of normative dogmatic theology and lacks the insights that narratology can provide.