Nov. 20 2008 3:03 PM How To Read the Quran A new translation captures the confusion. By Reza Aslan Reading the Quran can be a baffling experience. Unlike the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), the Quran is not a collection of books recounting the mythical history of a community of faith. It is not, like the Gospels, a pseudo-biographical sketch of a particular prophet in a particular time. It does not narrate the life of Mohammed, nor does it chronicle the rise of Islam (indeed, Mohammed is barely mentioned in it). Though the Quran is divided into 114 chapters (called suras), these are arranged neither thematically nor chronologically but rather from longest to shortest, the lone exception being the first and most important chapter, al-Fatiha, or "The Opening." The chapters are given evocative titles like "The Cow" or "The Feast," but these have almost nothing to do with the content that follows. The Quran itself states that its verses have multiple meanings, some of which are unfathomable to human beings and known only to God. And yet, in both style and content, the Quran is unique among scriptures.

The words of the Quran are thought to be infused with divine power. Muslims believe it to be the actual speech of God handed down through Mohammed between 610 and 632 CE. The physical book—its cover and pages—is considered sacred and is to be handled only in a state of purity. Its verses are inscribed on buildings and tombs in order to sanctify them. They are placed in lockets and worn as amulets to ward off evil. They are etched into cups so that when one drinks from them one consumes God's divine power. The mere act of writing out the words of the Quran—the art of Islamic calligraphy—has been elevated into the supreme artistic expression in the Muslim world. The inherent sacredness of the Quran has historically created an unusual problem for many Muslims. Since the end of the seventh century CE, when its verses were collected into a single, authoritative canon, the Quran has remained fixed in Arabic, the language in which it was originally revealed. It was believed that translating the Quran into any other language would violate the divine nature of the text. Translations were done, of course. But to this day, non-Arabic versions of the Quran are considered interpretations of the Quran.

Unless the original Arabic verses are embedded on the page, it cannot technically be called a Quran. Advertisement The consequences of this belief are obvious. For much of the last 14 centuries, some 90 percent of the world's Muslims for whom Arabic is not a primary language had to depend on Islam's clergy—all of them men, as women are not allowed to enter the clergy—to define the meaning and message of the Quran for them, much as pre-Reformation Christians had to rely on priests to read them the Bible, which at the time was available only in Latin. That is now changing. Over the last century, the Quran has been translated into more languages than in the previous 14 centuries combined. A great many of these translations have been done not by Muslim clergy but by scholars and academics, by Muslim laity and non-Muslims, and, perhaps most significantly, by women. (The first English translation of the Quran by an American woman, Laleh Bakhtiar, was published in 2007.) Get Slate in your inbox. Arabic is a language whose words can have multiple, sometimes contradictory, meanings, so how one chooses to render a particular word from Arabic to English has a lot to do with one's biases or prejudice.

Take the following example from Sura 4:34, which has long been interpreted as allowing husbands to beat their wives: "As for those women who might rebel against you, admonish them, abandon them in their beds, and strike them (adribuhunna)." The problem, as a number of female Quranic scholars have noted, is that adribuhunna can also mean "turn away from them." It can even mean "have sexual intercourse with them." Obviously, which definition the translator chooses will be colored by whatever his or her preconceived notions are about a husband's authority. The new crop of Quran translators are brushing aside centuries of traditionalist, male-dominated, and often misogynistic clerical interpretations in favor of a more contemporary, more individualized, and often more gender-friendly approach to the Quran. In the process, they are not only reshaping the way Islam's holy book is read; they are reinterpreting the way Islam itself is being understood in the modern world. The latest entry into this cornucopia of Quran translations comes from eminent professor of Islamic history Tarif Khalidi, who is currently at the American University of Beirut.

Written in what Khalidi calls "measured modern English," his is an eloquent and eminently readable translation, but one that does not stray too far from other conventional English versions of the Quran. (Khalidi, like the majority of his male predecessors, renders the word adribuhunna as "beat them.") However, Khalidi's Quran is unique in that it is divided not into individual verses, as is the case with all other Qurans, no matter their language, but rather into clusters of three, four, or five verses at a time. In other words, he bundles the individual verses into lengthy paragraphs that are rendered in both prose and poetry. This may perturb those trying to pinpoint a particular verse (Khalidi does provide occasional verse markers on the margins of each page to let readers know where they are in the text), but the overall effect is that Khalidi's Quran probably reads much closer to the way the first Muslims originally experienced the Quran. The Quran literally means the recitation, an indication that this was a text meant to be heard, not read. That may explain why the Quran was never written down in Mohammed's lifetime.

Instead, the revelations were diligently memorized by a class of religious scholars called the Qurra (or "Quran readers"), who then disseminated God's words to the rest of the Muslim community in short, easy-to-remember bursts of prophecy. A few of the most important revelations—those dealing with legal or economic matters—were preserved on bits of bone or scraps of leather. But the bulk of the Quran was not collected into a single volume until about 50 years after Mohammed's death. Only then was the revelation divided into individual verses. This made it extremely difficult to place the Quran's verses, which had been revealed to Mohammed over a 22-year span, into historical context, much less chronological order. And so the compilers of the Quran did not bother doing either. Instead, they gathered up all of the revelations and recorded them in what can be described only as random order. This was a deliberate choice on their part. Muslims perceive the Quran as God's dramatic monologue, recorded without a human filter.

(According to traditional Islamic theology, the Prophet Mohammed was merely a passive conduit through which the words of God flowed.) For the compilers of the Quran to have provided any explanation or commentary to the text, for them to have organized the verses in any deliberate way—whether chronologically or thematically—would have, in their minds, interfered with the direct revelation of God. As a consequence, those who are unfamiliar with the early history of Islam, or who may not recognize the historical allusions or contextual references that assist scholars in their exegesis, can feel rudderless trying to navigate through this challenging book. In the introduction to his Quran, Khalidi admits that "the very allusiveness of the text, its impersonality, its meta-historical tone, seem almost deliberately to de-emphasize context." But he also seems to imply that it is natural to be confused by what we read. It is through the attempt to make sense of our confusions, to work through them with reason and with faith, that the Quran's dramatic monologue transforms into an eternal dialogue between humanity and God.

Indeed, of all the sacred texts of the world, Khalidi argues that the Quran is perhaps the one that most self-consciously invites the reader to engage with it, to challenge it, to ponder and to debate it. After all, as the Quran itself states, only God knows what it truly means. Qurán - definition of Qurán by The Free Dictionary Qurán - definition of Qurán by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia . Ko·ran or Qur·'an also Qur·an (kə-răn′, -rän′, kô-, kō-) n. The sacred text of Islam, considered by Muslims to contain the revelations of God to Muhammad. [Arabic (al-)qur'ān, (the) reading, recitation, Koran, from qara'a, to read, recite; see qrʔ in the Appendix of Semitic roots.] Ko·ran′ic adj. (kəˈrɑn, -ˈræn, kɔ-, koʊ-) n.

the sacred text of Islam, divided into 114 chapters, or suras: revered as the word of God, dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel, and accepted as the foundation of Islamic law, religion, culture, and politics. The Koran The Koran H.A.R. Gibb THE KORAN is the record of those formal utterances and discourses which Mohammed and his followers accepted as directly inspired. Muslim orthodoxy therefore regards them as the literal Word of God mediated through the angel Gabriel. They are quoted with the prefix 'God has said', the phrase 'The Prophet said' is applied only to the sayings of Mohammed preserved in the Traditions. Mohammed's own belief, which is still held without question by his followers, was that these discourses were portions of a 'Heavenly Book' sent down to or upon him in an Arabic version, not as a whole, but in sections of manageable length and in relation to the circumstances of the moment. In outward form the Koran is a book of some 300 pages, divided into 114 chapters, called suras, arranged roughly in order of length, except for the short prayer which constitutes Sura i.

Sura ii has 286 verses, Sura iii 200, and so on down to the final suras, which have only three to five short verses. As the Medinian suras are generally the longer ones the order is not chronological; and the difficulty of rearranging them in chronological order is increased by the fact that most of the Medinian and many of the Meccan suras are composite, containing discourses of different periods bound up together. Apart from the relatively few allusions to exactly dated historical events, the principal evidences are supplied by general criteria of style and content. In the earliest period of his preaching Mohammed's utterances were delivered in a sinewy oracular style cast into short rhymed phrases, often obscure and sometimes preceded by one or more formal oaths. This style is admittedly that of the ancient kahins or Arabian oracle-mongers, and it is not surprising that Mohammed's opponents should have charged him with being just another such kahin.

For this and other reasons his style gradually loosened out into a simpler but still rhetorical prose; and as social denunciations and eschatological visions passed into historical narrative, and that in turn at Medina into legislation and topical addresses, little was left of its original stylistic features but a loose rhyme or assonance marking the end of each verse, now anything from ten to sixty words long. Carlyle's dictum on the Koran: It is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook, a wearisome, confused jumble, crude, incondite. Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran puts succinctly what must indeed be the first impression of any reader. But years of close study confirm his further judgment that in it there is a merit quite other than the literary one. If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and authorcraft are of small account to that.

Though, to be sure, the question of literary merit is one not to be judged on a priori grounds but in relation to the genius of the Arabic language; and no man in fifteen hundred years has ever played on that deep-toned instrument with such power, such boldness, and such range of emotional effect as Mohammed did. In trying to trace the sources and development of the religious ideas expounded in the Koran (a question, be it remembered, not only meaningless but blasphemous in Muslim eyes), we are still confronted with many unsolved problems. Earlier scholars postulated a Jewish source with some Christian additions. More recent research has conclusively proved that the main external influences (including the Old Testament materials) can be traced back to Syriac Christianity. It is now well known that there were organized Jewish and Christian churches amongst the settled communities in the north, the south, and the east of Arabia. The Arab town of Hira on the Euphrates was the seat of a Nestorian bishopric which almost certainly conducted some kind of missionary activity in Arabia, and there are many references in old Arabic poetry to hermits living in lonely cells in the wilderness.

In the Yemen a Jewish or Judaizing movement supported by the local dynasty was overthrown by the Yemenite Christians with Abyssinian aid in A.D. 525. In view of the close commercial relations between Mecca and the Yemen it would be natural to assume that some religious ideas were carried to Mecca with the caravans of spices and woven stuffs, and there are details of vocabulary in the Koran which give colour to this assumption. From the Koran itself it is clear that monotheistic ideas were familiar in Western Arabia. The existence of a supreme God, Allah, is assumed as an axiom common to Mohammed and his opponents. The Koran never argues the point; what it does argue is that He is the one and only God. La ilaha illa'llah, there is no god but Allah. But it is more doubtful whether this is to be regarded as the direct deposit of Christian or Jewish teaching. In the Koran it is connected with a different tradition altogether, an obscure Arabian tradition represented by the so-called hanifs - pre-Islamic Arab monotheists whose very name shows that the Syrians regarded them as non-Christians (Syriac hanpa; heathen).

Mohammed glories in the name and attaches it as a distinctive epithet to Abraham, who was neither Jew nor Christian. There is even a suggestion in an early variant reading of a Koranic verse (iii, v. 17) that at one time Hanifiyya was used to denote the doctrine preached by Mohammed and was only later replaced by Islam. A further trace of this native North-Arabian prophetic tradition is found in the early passages of the Koran which refer to or recount the missions of former prophets. In these narratives certain obscure Arabian figures - Hud, Shu'aib and others - take a place at least as prominent as the prophets of the Old Testament. The earliest references assume that the stories of these prophets were familiar to Mohammed's hearers, and indeed one or two of them are mentioned in pre-Islamic verses. But while granting this native monotheistic tradition as an integral element in Mohammed's background of ideas, the doctrine which most powerfully gripped him (and which, through him, was most vividly impressed upon the mind of Islam in all later ages) was the doctrine of the Last Judgement. This was certainly not derived from the Arabian tradition, but from Christian sources.

The profound disbelief and scornful sarcasms with which it was received by his Meccan fellow-citizens show that it was a wholly unfamiliar idea to them. On the other hand, not only the ideas expressed by Mohammed about the resurrection of the physical body and the future life, but also many of the details about the process of the Judgement and even the pictorial presentation of the joys of Paradise and torments of Hell, as well as several of the special technical terms employed in the Koran, are closely paralleled in the writings of the Syriac Christian fathers and monks. Whatever may have been the channels through which these ideas reached Mohammed, the fear of God's wrath to come dominated his thought throughout his later life. It was for him not only, nor even chiefly, a weapon with which to threaten his opponents, but the incentive to piety and good works of every kind. The characteristic sign of the Believer is ever-present fear of God, and its opposite is heedlessness or frivolity. This antithesis was never absent from Mohammed's mind, and it forms the recurrent motive of early Muslim asceticism, which in this certainly reflected the central element in his teaching.

That God is the omnipotent master and man His creature who is ever in danger of incurring His wrath - this is the basis of all Muslim theology and ethics. Forgiveness is only to be attained by the grace of God; man cannot win it for himself by merit; but to be worthy to attain it requires of man unrelenting self-control and the service of God by means of good works and especially by prayer and alms-giving. Prophets are not theologians, and it could scarcely be demanded that Mohammed's expositions of this doctrine should have been theologically precise and rigid. The Koran sways between the conceptions of predestination and free-will, according to whether the relevant verses are addressed to the unheeding multitude or to the group of Believers. The carelessness of the worldly was a source of continued bewilderment to Mohammed, as to most religious minds, and seemed to be explicable only as the act of God; but some less deterministic formulation was needed account for the merit attached to the performance of ethical and religious duties and to encourage the Believers to persevere in them. For Mohammed did not preach solely a doctrine of damnation by an omnipotent and jealous God.

Combined with this was a gospel of hope. As the little community grew in numbers God's mercy was stressed again and again. At one time, indeed, Mohammed adopted a name for God which pre-Islamic inscriptions show to have been current in Arabia - ar-Rahman, The Compassionate One; and this term survived in the formula prefixed to every sura of the Koran (and presumably to each of Mohammed's discourses), bismi'llah ir-rahman ir-rahim, In the Name of God, the Compassionate One, the Merciful. Meanwhile the controversy with his Meccan opponents was forcing him to develop the content of his preaching. As they remained impervious to his claims to have been sent to warn them against God's wrath on the Day of Judgement and to his appeals to repent of their errors and evil deeds, his tone became more argumentative. In ever-increasing detail he expanded his exposition of the evidences in nature for the existence and power of God and of the missions of earlier prophets.

It was now not only the final retribution of the Judgement Day that he stressed, but also the prospect of some awful calamity in the present life in punishment for their rejection of his warning. He recalled again and again the catastrophes that had overtaken the Egyptians, the people of Lot, the people of Noah, and those Arabian tribes who had rejected his predecessors. New prophetic narratives - the stories of Joseph and John the Baptist, the first draft of the story of Jesus, stories of David and Solomon, of the Two-horned, the Seven Sleepers�, and other figures from apocryphal tradition and the Alexander-legend - were added for homiletic purposes or to demonstrate the supernatural origin of his knowledge. But the Meccans still demanded of him a miracle, and with remarkable boldness and self-confidence Mohammed appealed as the supreme confirmation of his mission to the Koran itself. Like all Arabs they were connoisseurs of language and rhetoric. Well then, if the Koran were his own composition other men could rival it. Let them produce ten verses like it.

If they could not (and it is obvious that they could not), then let them accept the Koran as an outstanding evidential miracle. During the later years at Mecca, years on the whole at disappointment and apparent stagnation, there was little fresh stimulus to widen the range of Mohammed's preaching. In the suras of this period old themes are repeated again and again; the general tone is sombre, and there are passages of anxious and heart-searching meditation. Yet these were years of great importance for the development of the Islamic community. In the face of growing hostility religious emotion, pent between narrow walls, ground a channel down to the very heart. Persecutions and social obstacles, while they weeded out the weaker converts, hardened that core of moral earnestness which proved to be at once the driving force and the sheet-anchor of the Islamic movement after the death of the Prophet. It must also be assumed that during this period the ritual of prayer was being stabilized. The traditions frequently refer to the prayers, both public and private, of Mohammad and his followers. But the Meccan suras mention only morning and evening prayers and private prayer during the night; indeed, the Koran nowhere explicitly prescribes the five daily prayers nor the ritual of prostration.

Nor, of course, were there as yet any precise legal or social prescriptions. Although the giving of alms, for example, is repeatedly stressed, the recommendation is formulated in terms of ethical duty as a means of self-purification, not in terms of an institution. And this is characteristic of general tone of the Meccan suras. At Medina all this was changed. The existence of the new community called for the promulgation of many rules of law and social order as well as for the expansion of his ethical teaching. But the change was gradual. Mohammed's first legislative enactment, the document in which he laid down the socio-political bases of the joint Medinian community, is not to be found in the Koran at all. That it was promulgated not as a revelation but on his own initiative throws some light on the distinction which he himself (and presumably his followers also) drew between revelation and personal action. An even more striking instance is shed by his address at the Farewell Pilgrimage, when he visited Mecca for the last time; for this too, in spite of its religious content and the solemnity of the occasion, is not in the Koran.

These examples should make us pause before accepting the often-expressed view that Mohammed deliberately used revelation as a device for imposing his will upon the community or for solving the problems with which he was called upon to deal. Certainly the large number of passages in the Medinian suras which relate to trifling incidents and to political and domestic matters must of themselves suggest this to the critic. Yet amongst the most genuine traditions there are many which relate to very much the same kind of incidents and many striking homilies. Whatever the psychological explanation may be, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the term revelation was confined to those utterances which were not consciously produced and controlled by the Prophet and seemed to him to have been put into his mouth from without. During the first year at Medina, Mohammed adopted several Jewish practices for the use of the Muslim community, such as the ashura fast on the tenth day of the first month (corresponding to the Day of Atonement), the institution of a midday prayer, and facing towards Jerusalem during prayer. But it was not long before he found himself involved in bitter controversy and conflict with the Jewish tribes.

Fragments of the disputes preserved in the Koran indicate clearly enough their general character. The Jews obviously refused to acknowledge Mohammed's claim to prophethood and to confirm the Torah, and from contradiction passed to mockery; while he, confident of his divine mission, charged them with falsifying their scriptures and concealing their true contents. To their criticisms of his prophetic narratives he replied at first with convincing simplicity Are ye more knowing than God? (Sura ii, v. 134). But the rift widened, and from attempts at persuasion the Koran turns to upbraiding, sarcastic reproof, and finally denunciation and threats - in all (strangely enough) reproducing many themes of the old anti-Jewish polemic of the early Christian writers. Although one of the charges repeatedly pressed against the Jews is their rejection of the Messiah Jesus son of Mary, the Koran includes the Christians also in the scope of its polemic. The Jews say the Christians have nothing to stand on, and the Christians say the Jews have nothing to stand on, and yet they both read the Book (Sura ii, v. 107).

More especially the doctrine of the divine Sonship of Jesus is emphatically repudiated, in terms which betray the crassly anthropomorphic form in which it had been presented or presented itself to the Arabs. An early Meccan sura (cxii), probably directed originally against the conception of the three Meccan goddesses as daughters of Allah, was evidently applicable also to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: Say, He is God, One1 - God the Eternal - He hath not begotten nor was He begotten - And there is none equal to Him. But the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception are reasserted; on the other hand the crucifixion of Jesus is declared to be a Jewish calumny and denied, another in his semblance having been crucified in his place and Jesus himself translated. It is evident, in fact, throughout the Koran that Mohammed had no direct knowledge of Christian doctrine. The background of this polemic against Christianity is obscure, since it is apparently contemporary with severe friendly references to Christians, and it antedates the conflict with the Christianized tribes of the north-west.

It was no doubt implicit in Mohammed's teaching from the outset, but may have been brought out by rivalry with the religious reform movement which was growing up simultaneously under Nestorian influence in the oases of Eastern Nejd, then called Yemama. It was not until the year a Mohammed's death, however, that the two movements were to engage in a life-or-death struggle. However that may be, the consequence was to make clear to Mohammed what we may call the historical theory of Islam. Since Judaism was claimed as the religion of Moses and Christianity as the religion of Jesus, he went back behind both to the figure of Abraham the Hanif , being neither Jew nor Christian, fitted into Mohammed conception of a primitive undistorted monotheism; constantly revived by a succession of Prophets, of whom he himself, the last, was the true heir of Abraham and purifier of the errors of both the Jews and the Christians. It is possible that this too was a legacy of that indigenous Arabian prophetic tradition of which only vague suggestions have survived to us.

Moreover, through Ishmael, Abraham was already associated by the scriptural religions with the Arabs, and (since the earliest Medinian sura speaks of the standing-place of Abraham at Mecca as a well-known site) it would seem that Abraham and Ishmael were already traditionally regarded as the founders of its sanctuary, the Kaaba. Thus Islam appeared, not as a new religion, but as a revival of pure Abrahamic monotheism, purified at once of the accretions of Judaism and Christianity and superseding them as the final revelation. But this is not to say that Islam became thereby a specifically Arabian form of monotheism. As will be seen in the next chapter, the one definitely Arabian institution retained in it is the Pilgrimage to Mecca, but by the reinterpretation of its ceremonies the Pilgrimage was given an ethical significance altogether foreign to its original Arabian character. Thus Islam, although a religion physically centred on Mecca, is not an Arabian religion, nor even an Arabian adaptation of Judaic and Christian monotheism, if by that is implied a lowering of the existing standards of Judaism and Syriac Christianity to a supposedly lower Arabian mentality.

On the contrary, the whole function of Islam was to raise both Arabian and non-Arabian religious conceptions and ethical standards to the levels set by the preaching of the earlier Prophets. Consequently, although polemic against the Jews, the luke-warm or time-serving elements in Medina (whom the Koran usually designates as the slinkers or the sick-hearted) and the fickle Bedonin tribesmen occupies a considerable portion of the Medinian suras, it is subordinate to the inculcation of religious, ethical, and social duties. Since most of these will be considered in the next chapter, it will be enough here to try to sum up in a few words their general character. Mohammed's system is rigid, positive, and emphatic. The rigidity, the special emphasis upon the compulsory performance of legal and religious duties, the demand for unquestioning obedience, can be explained largely as a reaction against the social and spiritual anarchy of Arabia. These Arabs, rebellious to all external control and devoid of self-discipline, must needs have [sic] the yoke fastened tightly upon their necks, or it would stand no chance of staying on at all.

To go Arab, to sink back into the spiritual laxity of the tribesmen, was in Mohammed's eyes backsliding into paganism, and he tried to keep his tribal converts as far as possible under his direct observation. There is a reality in the suggestion that the ceremonial bowings and prostrations in unison of the daily prayers were a means of physical as well as of spiritual discipline. On the other side, and in reaction from the asceticism and tendency to withdraw from the world which was so marked a feature of Eastern Christianity, Mohammed from the first set his community squarely in the midst of the world. His often-quoted phrase No monkery in Islam implies not only no professional cenobitism, but that the scene of religious activity in Islam is the life of men in the widest sense. All social activities were to be included within its purview and to be penetrated by its spirit. But this carried with it dangerous consequences. The inescapable impact of the outer world upon the religious ideals of Islam began even in the lifetime of the Prophet and among his closest Companions.

It was hastened on and intensified by the vast territorial conquests of the next few years, and came to a head in civil war and the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate at Damascus only twenty-eight years after his death. But it was this very capitulation to the world that proved to be the means of spiritual recovery for Islam. In the abandoned and now remote ancient capital of Medina the living tradition of Mohammed survived, developed, and gained strength to resist and to overcome - to an extent which at first seemed impossible - the perils which too rapid and too sweeping a worldly success had brought in its train. Whether the Koran was written down in full during Muhammed's lifetime is a question on which there are conflicting traditions. The generally received account describes its first compilation a few years after his death from of parchment and leather, tablets of stone, ribs of palm branches, camels' shoulder-blades and ribs, pieces of board and the breasts of men. To this, probably, is to be ascribed much of the unevenness and the rough jointing which characterize the present composition of the longer suras.

It is certain that, alongside these written materials, several of the Companions of the Prophet preserved by heart and transmitted versions with numerous small variants, and that the third Caliph, Othman, had an authoritative text prepared at Medina, copies of which were sent to the chief cities. These copies, however, were written in the very defective early Arabic script, which needed to be supplemented by the trained memories of the thousands of reciters. To meet this difficulty, improvements and refinements of orthography were gradually introduced into the old manuscripts. By the end of the first century the text as we now have it had been stabilized in all but a few details. Although in this process it was adjusted to the standard pronunciation, from which Mohammed's Meccan speech had differed in some small particulars, it seems reasonably well established that no material changes were introduced and that the original form and contents of Mohammed's discourses were preserved with scrupulous precision. Yet so many minor variations in reading and punctuation still survived that ultimately the problem had to be met by a characteristic Muslim compromise, such as we shall meet again.

First ten and then seven famous reciters were recognized as authoritative teachers and all their readings were accepted as orthodox. Although the learned claimed the right to accept the readings of other teachers, for all public purposes readings according to the text of one or other of the Seven only were adopted. In course of time several of these also dropped out of use, but it is only in the present century (as a result of the dissemination of printed and lithographed copies of the Koran from Constantinople and Cairo) that a single reading has acquired almost universal currency in the Muslim world. In public recitation the Koran is intoned or chanted in slow melodic phrases, the correct art of which is taught as part of the normal academic course at Muslim religious seminaries: A specimen will be found in E. W. Lane's, Modern Egyptians. In medieval times we hear of choirs of reciters. This practice has died out, but the services of professional chanters are still in great demand for both public and private occasions. As in the case of all sacred books, the need was soon felt for some guidance in the interpretation and exegesis of the Koran.

From the earliest days the transmission of the text was accompanied by oral glosses on points of languauage or interpretation. The glosses increased very greatly in number and complexity during the first two or three centuries, in consequence of the rise of theological and legal schools, of sectarian controversy, and of a great mass of popular tradition amplifying or claiming to explain the personal allusions and eschatological descriptions in the text. About the end of the third century the first collection and critical study of these materials was made by the theologian and historian al-Tabari (d. 923). His vast work in thirty volumes, is a monument of scholarly piety unequalled in his time or of its kind. It laid the foundations upon which later scholars built their more specialized commentaries, many of them with excellences of their own, is such as that of the grammarian al-Zamakhshari (d. 1143). The philosopher al-Razi (d. 1209), using a different system of analysis and in more subjective fashion, summed up the exegetical discussions of the three centuries after al-Tabari. A century later, al-Baidawi (d.

1286) brought together the various deposits of philological, theological legal, and textual exegesis in a compendious commentary which has remained the standard work down to the present day. Modern orthodox interpretation stands on his shoulders, and so do all the European translations. 1 Or as most Muslim exegetes prefer, Say, God is One. The word usually rendered Eternal is also variously interpreted. Mohammedanism, An Historical Survey H.A.R. Gibb, London: Oxford University Press, [1950] (pages 36-47). Koran | Define Koran at Dictionary.com Koran [kuh-rahn, -ran, kaw-, koh-] /kəˈrɑn, -ˈræn, kɔ-, koʊ-/ Spell noun 1. the sacred text of Islam, divided into 114 chapters, or suras: revered as the word of God, dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel, and accepted as the foundation of Islamic law, religion, culture, and politics.

Expand 1615-25; < Arabic qur'ān book, reading, akin to qara'a to read, recite Related forms [kuh-ran-ik, kaw-, koh-] /kəˈræn ɪk, kɔ-, koʊ-/ (Show IPA), adjective pre-Koranic, adjective Examples from the Web for Koran Expand The Daily Currant Moves In on The Onion’s Turf David Freedlander March 11, 2013 Historical Examples He wrote the Koran, which is used by an immense multitude of men as their only law-book and Bible. British Dictionary definitions for Koran Expand noun 1. the sacred book of Islam, believed by Muslims to be the infallible word of God dictated to Mohammed through the medium of the angel Gabriel Also Qur'an Derived Forms C17: from Arabic qur'ān reading, book; related to qara'a to read, recite Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd.

1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for Koran Expand 1610s, from Arabic qur'an "a reading, recitation, book," from root of quara-a "he read, recited." Related: Koranic. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper The Religion Of Islam - The Qur'an << Previous | Index | Next >> "THE RELIGION OF ISLAM" The Qur'an INTRODUCTION 1. In our previous study, we briefly surveyed the origins of the religion of Islam... a. Muslims believe it is the original religion, going all the way back to Adam b. They believe Muhammad is the last of a long line of prophets, including Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus c. Due to the efforts of Muhammad and his successors, Islam quickly spread from Arabia 2. In 610 A.D., Muhammad claimed to receive his first revelation from the angel Gabriel...

a. In a cave on the summit of Mt. Hira, where he often went to pray and fast b. He was commissioned to be the Messenger of God, to reveal the word of Allah c. A process involving a series of revelations lasting the rest of his life (23 yrs) d. Illiterate, he recited while others wrote the words [The "revelations" of Muhammad are written and preserved in what is called the Qur'an (or Koran), the holy book of Islam...] I. THE ORIGIN OF THE QUR'AN A. AS GIVEN TO MUHAMMAD... 1. "The Qur'an (literally, recitation) contains 114 chapters revealed to the Prophet during a period of 23 years from 609 to 632, the year of his death." - Introduction To Islam, M. Cherif Bassiouni 2. "The divine revelations were manifested in divine inspiration, which the Prophet sometimes uttered in the presence of his companions." - ibid. B. AS PRESERVED FOR MUSLIMS... 1. "His words were passed on in the oral tradition of his Arabic culture." - ibid. 2.

"They (his adherents) memorized and documented the divine messages delivered to Muhammad on makeshift material, such as palm leaves, fragments of pottery and, according to traditional accounts, on the shoulder-blades of camels." - Solomon Nigosian, Islam: The Way Of Submission 3. "Some forty years after his death they were transcribed in the written form that has been preserved to date without change." - Bassiouni, ibid. [To appreciate what the Qur'an means to the average Muslim...] II. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE QUR'AN A. TO ISLAM IN GENERAL... 1. "The central article of Islamic faith, from which all else flows, is that God (Allah in Arabic) has spoken to mankind in the Qur'an." 2. "The Qur'an (meaning Recitation) is, for Muslims, the final word of God and as such contains His divine message to mankind as revealed to His Prophet Muhammed." 3. "This divine communication is seen as the final stage in a long series of divine messages conducted through specific messengers or prophets chosen by God, starting with Adam and ending with Muhammad." 4.

"In each case, however, the message was altered and falsified by the perversity of later generations." 5. "Finally, God revealed His message in a definitive form to the Prophet Muhammad through the archangel Gabriel." 6. The Qur'an, then, is the infallible message or word of God." - Nigosian, ibid. B. TO MUSLIMS IN PARTICULAR... 1. "'You will never understand this power and warmth of religion among us [Muslims] until you can feel in your heart the poetry and music of the noble Qur'an.'" 2. "Indeed, the chanting of the Qur'an is the primary music of Islam. It is the soul of Islam and is reflected in the speech of all faithful Muslims." 3. "Muslim piety and even scholarship demand memorization and recitation of the Qur'an." 4. "Indeed, the divine injunction is 'Recite the Qur'an' (Qur'an 73:20f). Hence, the pledge of true discipleship lies in recruiting the memory and the voice." 5. "Recitation of the Qur'an in Islam is equivalent to a statement of 'faith' in Christianity.

Hence, the primary sign of a true Muslim is recitation of the Qur'an." 6. "Tradition ascribes the following sayings to the Prophet Muhammad, thus serving as a reinforcement to the habit of recitation: a. 'If any man recites the Qur'an and memorizes it, God will cause him to enter Paradise and will grant him the right to intercede successfully for ten people of his household, all of whom deserve Hell Fire.' b. 'The best man among you is he who learns the Qur'an and teaches it.' c. 'Learn the Qur'an, recite it and sleep.' d. 'The most excellent act of worship is the reciting of the Qur'an.'" - ibid. [Without going into great detail, some remarks about...] III. THE CONTENT OF THE QUR'AN A. THE DIVISIONS OF THE QUR'AN... 1. "It is...divided into 114 chapters (called suras), arranged in order of length from the longest to the shortest, except for a short opening prayer in Chapter 1." 2.

"The head of every chapter in the Qur'an (except the ninth, which is considered a continuation of the eighth) is prefixed by the following auspicatory statement: 'In the name of the most merciful God." - ibid. B. THE LANGUAGE OF THE QUR'AN... 1. "...Muslims insist that the Qur'an was revealed in Arabic (Qur'an 43:1); this divine origin is, according to pious Muslims, inimitable." 2. "...Muslims have deprecated, if not prohibited, any attempts to render the Qur'an in any other language than Arabic, since to translate it is tantamount to profaning the sacred language God chose as His instrument of communication." 3. "Muslims and even non-Muslim scholars of Islam universally acclaim the Qur'an as representative of the purest and most elegant forms of the Arabic language." 4. "Among adherents, the unexcelled literary style of Qur'anic Arabic is one of the proofs of its divine origin (Qur'an 12:2)" - ibid. C. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE QUR'AN... 1. The first sura (chapter) is a short prayer of 7 verses a.

Called "Al Fatihah" (The Opening) b. Described by Muslims as "the Essence of the (Qur'an)" 2. The second and longest sura contains 286 verses a. Called "Al Baqarah" (The Heifer) b. It summarizes much of the whole teaching of the Qur'an c.

Among its contents: 1) The story of the creation of man - 2:30-39 2) The story of Israel - 2:40-86 3) The story of Moses and Jesus, how revelations given to them were corrupted by those who followed them - 2:87-121 4) The story of Abraham, how he and Ishmael built the Kabah (the house of Allah) in the city of Mecca - 2:122-141 5) How the Kabah was now to be the center of universal worship and symbol of Islamic unity - 2:142-167 6) Ordinances to guide the Islamic ummah (community) - 2:168-242 a) With admonitions to faith, kindness, prayer, charity, probity, patience b) Pertaining to food and drink, bequests, fasts, jihad, wine and gambling, treatment of orphans and women, etc.

7) The concept of jihad explained in the story of Saul, Goliath, and David, in contrast to the story of Jesus - 2:243-253 8) A reinforcement that true virtue lies in practical deeds of manliness, kindness, and good faith - 2:254-283 9) A concluding exhortation to faith, obedience a sense of personal responsibility and prayer - 2:284-286 -- From The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, p. 16 3. The remaining suras expound upon similar themes a) Often in response to events (such as war and peace) as they occurred in the course of the life of Muhammad and the Muslim ummah - e.g., Suras 3-5,8-9 b) Often retelling histories of Biblical characters, supposedly correcting corruptions of such stories as held by Jews and Christians - e.g., Suras 7,10-15,19-22 CONCLUSION 1. It is difficult for non-Muslims to comprehend how the Qur'an is venerated by Muslims... a.

In some countries, children under ten are required to memorize the whole book b. It has been said that the Qur'an as the Word of God is to Muslims what Jesus as the Word of God is to Christians 2. In this brief introduction and survey of the Qur'an... a. My purpose has not been to debunk, point out weaknesses, contradictions, etc. b. My purpose has been to try to present it as viewed by Muslims -- In keeping with the principle: Seek first to understand, then to be understood The better one understands the origin and content of the Qur'an, the more effective they will be to share the gospel to Muslims. The same is true with understanding some of the beliefs and practices of the Islamic faith, which we shall survey in our next study... Qu'ran | Article about Qu'ran by The Free Dictionary Qu'ran | Article about Qu'ran by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Dictionary , Acronyms , Wikipedia . Related to Qu'ran: Torah or Koran (kōrăn`, –rän`) [Arab.,=reading, recitation], the sacred book of Islam.

Revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad Muhammad [Arab.,=praised], 570?–632, the name of the Prophet of Islam, one of the great figures of history, b. Mecca. Early Life Muhammad was the son of Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib and his wife Amina, both of the Hashim clan of the dominant Kuraish (Quraysh) ..... Click the link for more information. in separate revelations over the major portion of the Prophet's life at Mecca and at Medina, the Qur'an was intended as a recited text, and was not compiled as a single volume during the life of the Prophet. The establishment of the canonical text is attributed to the 3d caliph, Uthman, who appointed a committee (651–52) to reconcile the conflicting versions then available, under the direction of Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the Prophet's scribes. The internal organization of the Qur'an is somewhat ad hoc. Revelations consisted of verses (ayat) grouped into 114 chapters (suras).

The arrangement of the suras is mechanical: the first, al-Fateha or "the Opening," is a short prayer exalting God that has become an essential part of all Islamic liturgy and prayer. The rest are graded generally by length, from longest to shortest. It is thus impossible to tell from the book the chronological order of revelations; generally, however, the shorter suras, more electric and fervent than the rest, are the earlier, while many of the longer ones (and all of those revealed at Medina) are later. The Qur'an refers to religious and historical events but seldom provides comprehensive accounts. Its focus is their significance, rather than their narration. God in the Qur'an speaks in the first person. Tafsir, Qur'anic exegesis, initially emerged as a branch of the science of Hadith, in the attempt to gather Muhammad's elucidations of obscure Qur'anic passages, then developed into a separate discipline with the introduction of etymological and literary analysis tools. Being the verbatim Word of God, the text of the Qur'an is valid for religious purposes only in its original Arabic, cannot be modified, and is not translatable, although the necessity for non-Arabic interpretations is recognized.

This has made the Qur'an the most read book in its original language and preserved a classical form of Arabic as an Islamic lingua franca and medium of learning. Bibliography See A. J. Arberry's translation of the Qu'ran, The Koran Interpreted (2 vol., 1955, repr. in 1 vol., 2008); I. Toshihiko, God and Man in the Koran (1964); R. Bell, Introduction to the Koran (2d ed. 1970); K. Cragg, The Event of the Koran (1971); W. H. Wagner, Opening the Qur'an: Introducing Islam's Holy Book (2008); Z. Sardar, Reading the Qur'an (2011). Qur'an (religion, spiritualism, and occult) Muhammad was illiterate. The text he received from Allah and dictated to scribes, compiled and referenced only eighteen years after his death in 632 CE, is called the Qur'an ("Recitation"; also transliterated as Koran).

As one of the most recent of the world's scriptural texts, it has a strong historical basis. And because it cannot truthfully be translated from its original Arabic, we know exactly what Muhammad caused to be written, down to the very last word. For those who cannot read Arabic, it has, of course, been translated into various languages. But those translations are not considered to be valid copies of the Qur'an. They are simply aids. The Qur'an is divided into 114 chapters (suras), which are further divided into a total of some 6,000 verses. In length, it is roughly the same as the Christian New Testament. Sura 1 immediately places Allah at center stage: In the name of God, Most gracious, Most Merciful, Praise be to God, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds: Most Gracious, Most merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, And Thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way, The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.

The Qur'an goes on to defines the quintessential monotheistic theological statement: There is no God but [Allah]; That is the witness of Allah, His angels, and those endued with knowledge, standing firm on justice. There is no God but He, the Exalted in Power, the Wise (3:18) Muhammad saw both Jews and Christians as people to whom God had spoken in the past. He called them People of the Book: Mankind was one single nation, and Allah sent Messengers with glad tidings and warnings; and with them he sent the Book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear Signs came to them, did not differ among themselves, except through selfish contumacy (2:213) ... Say, "O People of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: That we worship none but Allah" (3:64). Many of the stories of the Jewish scriptures are told as well in the Qur'an: He it is who created the heavens and the earth is Six Days. (57:4) We said: O Adam!

Dwell thou and they wife in the Garden; and eat of the bountiful things therein. (2:34) And remember that Abraham was tried by his Lord with certain commands, which he fulfilled: He said, "I will make thee an Imam to the Nations." (2:124) Behold! The angel said: "O Mary! Allah hath chosen thee and purified thee—chosen thee above the women of all nations." (3:42) Then will Allah say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favour to thee and to thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and maturity." (5:110) Many of the stories, of course, differ somewhat from their Jewish or Christian counterparts. Ishmael, Abraham's eldest son, is the one to whom a blessing is imparted, not Isaac, the youngest. Jesus is crucified and dies in the Christian scriptures.

But in the Qur'an: "they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not: Nay, Allah raised him up unto himself: And Allah is exalted in power, Wise" (4:157-158). These common stories probably mean that Muhammad's audience was already familiar with the stories of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. But the Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be the final revelation by God to humankind. It completes the divine revelation. It is God's final word until that day when "Allah reward[s] the righteous, (namely) those whose lives the angels take in a state of purity, saying (to them), `Peace be on you; enter ye the garden, because of (the good) which ye did (in the world)'" (16:27-32). Quran - definition of Quran by The Free Dictionary Quran - definition of Quran by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia .

Ko·ran or Qur·'an also Qur·an (kə-răn′, -rän′, kô-, kō-) n. The sacred text of Islam, considered by Muslims to contain the revelations of God to Muhammad. [Arabic (al-)qur'ān, (the) reading, recitation, Koran, from qara'a, to read, recite; see qrʔ in the Appendix of Semitic roots.] Ko·ran′ic adj. (kəˈrɑn, -ˈræn, kɔ-, koʊ-) n. the sacred text of Islam, divided into 114 chapters, or suras: revered as the word of God, dictated to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel, and accepted as the foundation of Islamic law, religion, culture, and politics. Qur'an | Article about Qur'an by The Free Dictionary Qur'an | Article about Qur'an by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Dictionary , Thesaurus , Wikipedia . Qur'an or Koran (kōrăn`, –rän`) [Arab.,=reading, recitation], the sacred book of Islam.

Revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad Muhammad [Arab.,=praised], 570?–632, the name of the Prophet of Islam, one of the great figures of history, b. Mecca. Early Life Muhammad was the son of Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib and his wife Amina, both of the Hashim clan of the dominant Kuraish (Quraysh) ..... Click the link for more information. in separate revelations over the major portion of the Prophet's life at Mecca and at Medina, the Qur'an was intended as a recited text, and was not compiled as a single volume during the life of the Prophet. The establishment of the canonical text is attributed to the 3d caliph, Uthman, who appointed a committee (651–52) to reconcile the conflicting versions then available, under the direction of Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the Prophet's scribes. The internal organization of the Qur'an is somewhat ad hoc. Revelations consisted of verses (ayat) grouped into 114 chapters (suras).

The arrangement of the suras is mechanical: the first, al-Fateha or "the Opening," is a short prayer exalting God that has become an essential part of all Islamic liturgy and prayer. The rest are graded generally by length, from longest to shortest. It is thus impossible to tell from the book the chronological order of revelations; generally, however, the shorter suras, more electric and fervent than the rest, are the earlier, while many of the longer ones (and all of those revealed at Medina) are later. The Qur'an refers to religious and historical events but seldom provides comprehensive accounts. Its focus is their significance, rather than their narration. God in the Qur'an speaks in the first person. Tafsir, Qur'anic exegesis, initially emerged as a branch of the science of Hadith, in the attempt to gather Muhammad's elucidations of obscure Qur'anic passages, then developed into a separate discipline with the introduction of etymological and literary analysis tools. Being the verbatim Word of God, the text of the Qur'an is valid for religious purposes only in its original Arabic, cannot be modified, and is not translatable, although the necessity for non-Arabic interpretations is recognized.

This has made the Qur'an the most read book in its original language and preserved a classical form of Arabic as an Islamic lingua franca and medium of learning. Bibliography See A. J. Arberry's translation of the Qu'ran, The Koran Interpreted (2 vol., 1955, repr. in 1 vol., 2008); I. Toshihiko, God and Man in the Koran (1964); R. Bell, Introduction to the Koran (2d ed. 1970); K. Cragg, The Event of the Koran (1971); W. H. Wagner, Opening the Qur'an: Introducing Islam's Holy Book (2008); Z. Sardar, Reading the Qur'an (2011). Qur'an (religion, spiritualism, and occult) Muhammad was illiterate. The text he received from Allah and dictated to scribes, compiled and referenced only eighteen years after his death in 632 CE, is called the Qur'an ("Recitation"; also transliterated as Koran).

As one of the most recent of the world's scriptural texts, it has a strong historical basis. And because it cannot truthfully be translated from its original Arabic, we know exactly what Muhammad caused to be written, down to the very last word. For those who cannot read Arabic, it has, of course, been translated into various languages. But those translations are not considered to be valid copies of the Qur'an. They are simply aids. The Qur'an is divided into 114 chapters (suras), which are further divided into a total of some 6,000 verses. In length, it is roughly the same as the Christian New Testament. Sura 1 immediately places Allah at center stage: In the name of God, Most gracious, Most Merciful, Praise be to God, The Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds: Most Gracious, Most merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, And Thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way, The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.

The Qur'an goes on to defines the quintessential monotheistic theological statement: There is no God but [Allah]; That is the witness of Allah, His angels, and those endued with knowledge, standing firm on justice. There is no God but He, the Exalted in Power, the Wise (3:18) Muhammad saw both Jews and Christians as people to whom God had spoken in the past. He called them People of the Book: Mankind was one single nation, and Allah sent Messengers with glad tidings and warnings; and with them he sent the Book in truth, to judge between people in matters wherein they differed; but the People of the Book, after the clear Signs came to them, did not differ among themselves, except through selfish contumacy (2:213) ... Say, "O People of the Book! Come to common terms as between us and you: That we worship none but Allah" (3:64). Many of the stories of the Jewish scriptures are told as well in the Qur'an: He it is who created the heavens and the earth is Six Days. (57:4) We said: O Adam!

Dwell thou and they wife in the Garden; and eat of the bountiful things therein. (2:34) And remember that Abraham was tried by his Lord with certain commands, which he fulfilled: He said, "I will make thee an Imam to the Nations." (2:124) Behold! The angel said: "O Mary! Allah hath chosen thee and purified thee—chosen thee above the women of all nations." (3:42) Then will Allah say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favour to thee and to thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and maturity." (5:110) Many of the stories, of course, differ somewhat from their Jewish or Christian counterparts. Ishmael, Abraham's eldest son, is the one to whom a blessing is imparted, not Isaac, the youngest. Jesus is crucified and dies in the Christian scriptures.

But in the Qur'an: "they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not: Nay, Allah raised him up unto himself: And Allah is exalted in power, Wise" (4:157-158). These common stories probably mean that Muhammad's audience was already familiar with the stories of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. But the Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be the final revelation by God to humankind. It completes the divine revelation. It is God's final word until that day when "Allah reward[s] the righteous, (namely) those whose lives the angels take in a state of purity, saying (to them), `Peace be on you; enter ye the garden, because of (the good) which ye did (in the world)'" (16:27-32).

Question: Which book is divided into 114 chapters called Suras??
Answer: Koran