The Qur'an

The Islamic teaching that can be said to come directly from God is contained in this work.

The Qur’an does not prescribe one way of government for all time, however, and this was soon recognised by early Muslims. For one thing, many of the ideas of government in the Qur'an were clearly meant to have application during the lifetime of a prophet-ruler. Once the prophet died there was no way to apply to God for a solution to issues as Muhammad had done so he could receive Qur'anic answers. A new form of government was immediately required to account for this change in circumstances and the period of interpretation had begun. What came to be called Islamic law involved interpretation of the Qur'an and also the acts, words and omissions of Muhammad during his lifetime especially following his first revelation.

In various posts, I will consider what the Qur’an actually can be said to prescribe today. For now, I'll briefly outline in this post aspects of the contents of the Qur'an that may be of especial interest for the typical Western reader.

The first Sura (recited today before any reading from the Qur’an by a Muslim) actually is reminiscent of the Lord’s Prayer.

The Qur’an is literally a recitation but is now a book divided into chapters called Suras of varying length (which are each, roughly, separate revelations, although they are not necessarily revealed in one go). Each Sura has been given a title or titles by which Muslims refer to it that does not form part of the Qur'an itself.

Suras are further subdivided for convenience of referral into verses called ayyat (signs – singular ayya).

There is apparently assumed knowledge of a significant number of Biblical stories, which the Qur'an appears to consciously build upon. Stories of Arab tribes and prophets are also added. Everything from the flood story and the stories of Joseph, Jonah and Job to the story of Mary and Jesus are included.

It was roughly in its current form within a few years of Muhammad’s death. It was written on treated animal skin (known as vellum) at a time when paper was only known in China after having been collected from various more fragmentary sources.

All but one Sura begins, roughly, with the words (in Arabic) "in the name of the God the most gracious the most merciful (Bism allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim)". As a result, it became from the outset and has remained a tradition for Muslims to commence all serious communication that way. Some Muslims believe the Sura without the usual beginning was actually a continuation of the Sura that all other Muslims traditionally consider immediately precedes it.

Some Suras actually commence with letters that have never been understood and are seen as part of God's mystical version of Arabic. That is really just the beginning of problems of interpretation always admitted by Muslim scholars.

Its rhythm makes it relatively easy to memorise large parts of it even for children and many followers did memorise it from its first revelation.

Suras were not compiled in order of revelation.

Excepting the first quite short Sura, the longer Suras tend to be the earliest in the traditional ordering and Suras thus become mercifully shorter fairly reliably as the Qur'an proceeds. Today scholars recognise a kind of division into Meccan and Medinan Suras as useful for some forms of analysis, that is pre- and post-hijra. Meccan Suras tend to be more lyrical and less narrative than Medinan Suras. The reason appears to be the historical circumstances obtaining in the two periods. Some Western scholars have attempted to make a possibly more dubious distinction between early, mid and late Meccan revelations. A large traditional explicatory literature developed in early Islam which I will discuss in later posts.

Several modern English translations (especially those not written by Muslims) appear to deliberately interpret the Qur'an in ways that cast it in a poor light from a modern perspective. Traditionally, no translation from the Arabic can do it justice although translation by non-Muslim non-Arabs with axes to grind has occurred for hundreds of years. There are English versions that many Muslims prefer but as a non-Muslim, I am not going to recommend any versions. I WILL recommend that you double check any interpretation of any of the Qur'an that you don't like for any reason before condemning any particular part of the Qur'an. The following people have either written either sympathetic or accurate translations or commentaries in English: Muhammad Asad, A.J. Arberry, F. Rahman, Majid Fakhry and ‘Abdel Haleem.

Nevertheless, there is a lot I didn't like about the Qur'an, myself, probably due in part though to the, in my view, limited Penguin translation (by a non-Muslim scholar, NJ Dawood) that I read. I may explore some of that later.

I will consider the development of the law that developed based on the Qur’an and the life of Muhammad in more detail in later posts but first I will discuss the political developments following the death of Muhammad (beginning with the next post).