The Quran

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The Quran

• Islams Holy Book

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Translations

• Islam
• Translates to surrender (to the will of God)
• Muslim
• Translates to Those who have surrendered
• Quran
• Translates to Recitation
• Written in Arabic
• Untranslatable
• Gods word
• Meanings lost in translation

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The Quran

• Mohammad visited by angelic figure
• Gabriel
• Conversation went as follows
• Gabriel You are the messenger of God! Recite!
• Mohammad I cannot recite.
• Gab Recite in the name of the Lord!
• Mohammad recited verses

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The Quran

• Visions continued 22 years.
• Passed orally to his followers.
• Written down 41 years after original vision by
  followers to form the Quran

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The Quran - Layout

• 114 suras (units of revelations) - we'll use
  "chapters"
• Each chapter divided into "verses".
• Led with Fatihah
• not in chronological order.
• Traditional name
• ("The Cow," "The Bee," "The Night Journey.")
• All chapters but one begin with "In the name of
  God, the Merciful, the Compassionate"

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Bible Overlap

• Extension of Old New Testament
• Mohammad expected to be well-received by
  Christians and Jews.
• He sees himself as the latest of prophets through
  whom God has communicated
• Abraham
• Moses
• David
• and Jesus.

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• Teachings form core of Islam.
• Doctrine of a single, unified, and unifying God.
  
• Islam is a worldly religion that insists
• on the unity of the sacred and the earthly,
• of faith
• The practice of building a good society.

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FYI

• Historians who see is as a "revolutionary"
  religion do so because Muhammad's teachings
  required him to flee the anger of the rulers in
  Mecca in order to conduct guerrilla warfare
  against the old ways of running a society.
• These early struggles against social injustice
  continue as the fundamentalists jihad (holy war).
  This is a twisting of the book, much like
  fundamentalist Christians twist the Bible for
  their own uses.

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• Quran called for
• the defeat of more than three hundred idols
  worshipped in Mecca in favor of one God
• the need to submit to new laws about such things
  as marriage, the spoils of war, slavery,
  inheritance, and the rights of women. The common
  practice of killing newborn girls was outlawed.
• It also address common everyday matters like
  washing, eating, daily prayer