Hamza Yusuf – How to Read a Book

About this lecture

In this wide-ranging faculty lecture at Zaytuna College, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf draws on Mortimer Adler's classic work *How to Read a Book* to explore the art and discipline of deep, meaningful reading — tracing its central importance from the first Quranic revelation of *Iqra'* through the great traditions of Islamic and Western scholarship. He covers the three levels of reading (structural, analytical, and critical), the importance of understanding words and language, the dangers of intellectual laziness and ideological bias, and the difference between reading for amusement, information, and genuine understanding. The lecture culminates in a rich close reading of Shelley's *Ozymandias*, modeling in practice the very skills of careful, layered literary interpretation he has been describing.