nukular

While somewhat extra-biblical, I was wondering if anyone has any thought on Wansbrough's soon to be republished book on Quranic texts. While I can get by with my modern arabic in a pinch, I cannot for the life of me get past the first chapter of his main texts, since it seems to require a stronger background in pre-koranic poetry and early arabic language than I currently have. Thus I was wondering if anyone knows of book oriented more towards the layman (like Friedman's WWTB) and less towards a full blown textual criticism opus.

nukular