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The Qur'an
The Qur'an (Koran, Quran) is the Holy Book of
Islam and the religion's most sacred writing. Muslims consider it the
actual word of Allah and not the word of Muhammad to whom it was
given. Muslim tradition states that the angel Gabriel visited
Muhammad and gave him the words directly from Allah. These words
were Allah's words of wisdom, truth, and commandments to His
creation. The Qur'an (which means recitation) was revealed in the
Arabic dialect used by the Quraish tribe of Mecca of that time. This
dialect became the formal Arabic of the Islamic nations due to the
distribution of Qur'anic scriptures throughout the Islamic empire.
In the Arabic the Qur'an is poetic in style with rhymes, meter, and shifts
in line lengths. Those who speak the language say it is a beautiful
work.
The Qur'an deals mainly with what and how Allah
wants mankind to believe and do in Man's moral struggle. Its
primary theme is that of complete submission to the will of Allah.
However, it also teaches . . .
- there is only one sovereign God
(3:191; 5:73; 112:1-4).
- there will be an end of the world
and judgment day (:30; 35:33-37).
- those who are not Muslims will go to
hell (2:24; 3:12).
- that those whose good deeds exceed
their bad will obtain paradise (3:135; 7:8-9; 21:47).
- social and ethical behavior for
Islamic society.
In the year
610 (believed to be the 26th of Ramadan), while in a
cave on Mt. Hirah, which is now called Mount Jabal Nur, Muhammad said that
the angel Gabriel appeared to him and commanded him to recite
(96:1-19). From that point on, Muhammad claimed to have received revelations up to
the time of his death, 23 years later in 632. In these encounters
with the angel Gabriel, sometimes Muhammad would see the angel, other
times he would only hear him, and at others he only heard the sound of a
bell through which the words of the angel
came.
Since Muhammad could not read or write, his
companions wrote down what he said. These recitations were copied
onto a variety of materials: papyrus, flat stones, palm leaves,
shoulder blades and ribs of animals, pieces of leather and wooden boards.1 Additionally,
these sayings were also being memorized by Mohammad's followers. In
fact, to this day, great emphasis is placed upon memorizing the entire
Qur'an and there are many thousands of Muslims who have committed it to
memory. The work is roughly the same size as the New
Testament.
Apparently, there was no attempt made to collect
all of the sayings given by Muhammad during his lifetime. After all,
Mohammad was continuing to give ' recitations' on a somewhat regular
basis. But, after he died in 632, Abu-Bakr, Muhammad's father in
law, became the caliph (religious leader of the Muslims) and there was a
small effort to collect the fragments of Qur'anic sayings into a common
place. But, it wasn't until the fourth leader of Islam, Caliph Uthman, that the whole Qur'an was finally assembled, approved, and
disseminated throughout the Muslim world.
The Quran also contains many biblical figures
(Abraham, David, Moses, and Jesus) as well as non-biblical figures.
However, some of the accounts of biblical characters are different than
the Bible.
The Quran is
divided into 114 chapters, called Surahs. The word surah means
"row". Today the Koran is arranged with the longer surahs first
and the shorter ones after, with the whole thing divided into 30
approximately equal lengths.
"Islamic
law prohibits the touching of the physical Arabic Qur'an (and formal, but
not casual, recitation) unless the person is in a state of purity which
corresponds to the greater of Ablution...every Moslem must commit at least 12 vs. or lines of the Qur'an to
memory."2
The
revelations are identified as having been revealed either in Mecca or
Medina. Generally, those revealed in Mecca are the earlier ones and are
more poetic and deal with apocalyptic themes. The Medina revelations deal
more with the law of Allah. Many have noted that the arrangement of the Qur'an is not chronological or thematic. The subjects tend to be
disjointed and shifting. This is due in part to the directions of Mohammad
to put certain savings in different places in the Surahs. Muslims are
aware of this and considered as to be the divine order in the Koran.
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1. Watt, W. Montgomery, Islamic Surveys: Bell's
Introduction to the Qur'an, Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago, 1970,
page 40.
2. (Glasse, Cyril, The
Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. San
Francisco, 1989. p. 220)
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