Tengoklah Pengetahuan Orang Lain Tentang Qur'an

Quran: Holy Book from Heaven

09.04.2012

Every religion, especially global one, has its own holy book. Each of them has its own history, traditions, worship and a place in the modern world. Holy book of Muslims is the Quran - a revelation given, according to the tradition, to the Prophet Muhammad by angel Gabriel. What is this Scripture? Is it true that not a single letter of it was amended?

The word "Quran" (in Arabic - al-Qur'an) is literally translated as "reading out loud" or "edification." However, there are several opinions as to the origin of the name. The standard theory is that the source of the name is a verb "kara'a" - to read. However, the connection with the word "keriana" - to read the sacred text, edification is not denied either.

The Quran contains the following names of the Muslim holy book: Furqan (the distinction between truth and falsehood, good and evil), Kitab (book), Tanzilya (revelation) and dhikr (reminder). In addition, there is the word "mushaf." Initially, this was the name of the earliest scrolls of the Quran recorded by Muhammad's disciples (in the first place, the Secretary Zaid bin Thabit.) on the orders of the Caliph Abu Bakr after the death of the Prophet in 632. But over time, copies of the Quran that enjoyed special reverence were named this way.

During the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the teachings of the Quran were nearly exclusively oral tradition. Where did the teaching itself, its ideas and content came from? It was initiated on the Night of Power (aka Night of Predestination), the holiday celebrated today on the 27 night of Ramadan. In 610, at night, the Archangel Gabriel appeared before Muhammad praying in the cave of Hira, and handed him a scroll, commanding: "Read!" This was the transfer of the first surah of the Quran. 

At the time of this landmark night, Prophet Muhammad was 40 years old. After this, for nearly 23 years, the prophet was given the Revelation. In turn, he conveyed it to the people in the name of Allah. The process of knowledge transfer was divided into two periods: from 610^th to 622^nd - 90 "Meccan" surahs, and then - 24 "Medina" surahs. While the "Medina" surahs contain more legal content, the first period is marked with the emergence of faith of Muhammad himself. That is why God gave him the revelation not as a whole, but by nurturing the world views of his prophet, comforting him, responding to emerging questions, literally arguing with the opponents or doubters in his studies.

Sometimes a new revelation contradicts (and, therefore, cancels) the previous one. God speaks of himself in the first, then in the third person, sometimes the narrative is chaotic, and the language is ragged and jumpy. Of course, this is partly due to the fact that Muhammad himself set forth a revelation in a state of ecstasy, and kept no records. He was illiterate, and only a few sermons were written down by his disciples when he was alive. Everything else was collected by the followers after the death of the Prophet.

While coinciding in meaning, the records of these people were different in terms of the order and location of the revelations, and even spelling of names and certain expressions and words. These differences required the establishment of a special panel that was convened by Caliph Othman. Pundits gathered from 650 to 655 and compared all the available records, calling the followers who remembered the preaching of Muhammad by heart. As a result, one text was drawn up, later known as Osman interpretation. Not only was it the first written monument of Arabic prose that quickly supplanted other lists of the Quran, but it was also recognized as canonical.

It does not negate many questions, because the beautiful ambiguity of the text allows for multiple interpretations, and the earliest commentary came from the inner circle of the Prophet, from among his students and relatives. One of them was Ibn al-Abbas, a cousin of Mohammed. It was al-Abbas who initiated Quranic exegesis - the interpretation of the holy book of Muslims. Comments to the Quran from the very beginning existed in all Eastern languages, marking the beginning of the Islamic theology. Prophet Muhammad said that the best of men are those who study the sacred book and interpret it for the believers. Incidentally, only the Quran in Arabic is considered a real Scripture. Translations into any other language are only interpretations of the meaning. 

However, in addition to the religious precepts, the Quran is a code of civil laws. In breaking the tradition of Islam, the meaning of the Quran is that it is a divine guidance meant to help everyone to build relationships not only with God, oneself or family, but also with the community in which they live, to live in chastity and righteousness, to fulfill their mission.  

This way the Quran was not something completely new - the Archangel Gabriel did not tell Prophet Muhammad a previously unknown revelation. The Quran mentions many biblical prophets, the foundations of both Judaism and the Christian faith. Iranian scholars explain this situation by saying that God revealed the commandments and covenants to Jews and Christians through the prophets Musa (Moses) and Isa (Jesus Christ), but they were not able to retain the essence of the teachings in a clean and undistorted way. Only Muhammad was able to give his followers the true faith. This is why he was called the last prophet in a series of multiple predecessors (these included even Alexander the Macedonian), and there will be no prophets after him.

Most descriptions coincide with the Biblical ones. The main contradiction is the rejection of Isa (Jesus) as the Son of God. According to Muslims, Islam is far more accurate and consistent in the idea of ​​monotheism. In addition to matching descriptions of the prophets, the theological and philosophical motives of Judaism and Christianity are present in the Quran to the fullest. In a sense, this played into the hands of Islam: for the conquered Christians, forcibly transferred into someone else's faith, in the case of consent it was much easier to accept a similar doctrine.

In contrast to the uneven narrative, the structure of the Quran impresses with its rigorous certainty. The book consists of 114 surahs (chapters), each of them, except the ninth, begins with the words "In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful." Surahs in the Quran are arranged not in the chronological order, but in terms of length of chapters. Each surah is divided into verses. In addition, there is a division of the calendar: seven equal parts determine the reading of the Quran during the week, and the division into 30 parts allows one to read it for a month.

The sacred Arabic of the Quran is not the only unchanged thing. The contents of the book also cannot be altered, because God himself has promised to protect it until the Judgment Day.

Olga Nemchikova