STOP QUOTING KORAN, START READING IT SAYS SCHOLAR: A risky position to take. “Benzine admits his hermeneutic approach has few followers in the Muslim heartland of the Middle East. He has been invited to lecture in Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria — but only in private schools. . . . Interpreting the Koran critically can also be dangerous. In Egypt, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was declared an apostate in 1995 for unorthodox reading of the Koran. A court annulled his marriage as he was deemed not a Muslim and Islamists threatened to kill him. He and his wife fled to the Netherlands.”