As both chapter author and volume editor of Three Testaments I am feeling a certain weight of responsibility to check facts right now, and do what is called “due diligence” at a couple levels at least. So last month in this blog space I put out a call for Islamic scholars and others to verify or correct a report given to me about the uniqueness of the last two chapters of the Quran and their relationship to a central thesis of the book. No need to go into detail again, but let me thank you for the many responses which prevented me from letting a flagrant error stand.

Perhaps related to that call for help, other things brewing in the Muslim side of our team then immediately tumbled forth as well. Firstly, Kazi Publications, the parent company that owns the rights to The Sublime Quran, has decided to bring out a revised edition to suit our typesetting and other needs. It will “premiere” in this book.

Secondly, Kazi has joined our negotiations with leading publishers as a proposed partner.

Thirdly, America’s famous Islamic calligrapher, Mohamed Zakariya, was invited by his friend, Amir Hussain, to allow us use images from his work as chapter headings for the Book Three section. He agreed and has joined our team. His agent, Suleyman Cooke is generously assisting us in accessing these works from their repository in the Linearis Institute. For those who are unfamiliar with this art form, Zakariya is the creator of the Eid stamp design for the US Postal Service, gifts for president Obama for presentation to visiting Islamic heads-of-state, and artworks now at the Smithsonian, the Vatican and elsewhere.

Fourthly, while an announcement would be slightly premature, we are now confident of a General Foreword from a Muslim figure of a certain stature that will assist in marketing the book.

Laleh Bakhtiar and Nevin Reda, the Islamic scholars who are contributing to the compendium, have always held up their end, but until recently the support from online collaborators and the responses from the surrounding community had been mainly Jewish and Christian in reference to artwork, publishing options and other matters. The work has come entirely into balance at this point and we are less than a year from lift-off.

Thank you to our Muslim friends and colleagues for this increasing level of engagement and support.