Tag: Islam

The Message – Story of Islam

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“The Message” was the first movie I ever watched about Islam. A copy of it was actually given to me by some Muslims after we had spent a Sunday afternoon in London’s Hyde Park discussing Islam and Christianity. It’s an interesting movie for several reasons, but in particular for the way it depicts the life of the protagonist. In keeping with the Muslim practice of never portraying their prophet, at no point in the movie do you ever see Muhammad on the screen or hear his voice. Needless to say, to accommodate this restriction, the filmmakers had to get pretty creative…

Since I’m taking a break for a few weeks from working through the text of the Qur’an, I thought that now might be a good time to share the movie in case you’d like to learn a  little more about the story of the founder of Isalm:

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 25 (“Luqman” and “Sheba”)

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wise

It’s another long one today, one hundred and eighty-two verses.

Surah 31 – “Luqman” (Luqman)
The opening is fairly standard stuff…

  • Muhammad is told to warn those who lead other away from the Qur’an and Allah
  • “…those who believe and do righteous deeds  – for them are the Gardens of Pleasure”
  • Allah’s work of creation is extolled.

The title of this chapter refers to a person, “Luqman, the Wise”, an Abyssinian or Nubian slave who lived around Madyan, who was known to pre-Islamic Arabs. Muhammad is told to remind the people of when Luqman told his son “do not associate [anything] with Allah”. There then follow two ayat which comment on the two subjects raised here: care of parents and shirk. We then return to Luqman. He tells his son that Allah reveals all wrongdoings. He exhorts him to prayer, right action, patience and humility.

We turn to the subject of unbelievers, who chose to reject prophets who come with revelation and instead to follow the religious practices of their ancestors.

Muhammad is told to “not let…disbelief [of others] grieve you” since they will ultimately return to Allah: “We grant them enjoyment for a little; then We will force them to a massive punishment”. This seems rather vindictive.

The chapter ends by emphasizing that man doesn’t know the future, but Allah is all-knowing (“[Allah] knows what is in the wombs”).

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 23 (“Those who set the ranks”)

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angels

It’s another long one today, one hundred and eighty-two verses.

Surah 37 – “Those who set the ranks” (As-Saaffat)
The chapter opens with Allah swearing by the different angels that “your God is One”.

We are then treated to a description of Heaven’s defense system. We are told that an “adornment of stars…[act] as protection against every rebellious devil [so] they may not listen to the exalted assembly [of angels]” and “are pelted from every side” by flaming meteors. I believe this is a reference to the jinn we read about earlier who eavesdrop on Heaven and report what they hear to soothsayers.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 22 (“Cattle”)

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cattle

Today’s chapter is a long one…one hundred and sixty-five verses…here we go…

Surah 6 – “Cattle” (Al-Anaam)
We begin with statements about Allah: how he created mankind, the heavens and the earth and how he knows all things.

Next we hear from Muhammad’s critics:

  • Some appear to have asked for Allah to send down a written scripture that they can touch (rather than simply a recitation from the mouth of a prophet). However, we are told that the critics would just dismiss it as magic.
  • Some demand an angel alongside Muhammad. We are told that, if this happened, the disbelievers would just be destroyed immediately, allowing them no chance for repentance.
  • Some questioned why the messenger of the Qur’an couldn’t have been an angel. In reply, we are told that if this had happened, Allah would have made the angel appear as a man, and this would have confused them and filled them with doubt.

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Islamic Prophets

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In my post on Surah “Hud”, I asked a question. If there have been thousands of prophets sent by Allah, why is it that we are repeatedly told about the same ones? I mean, we hear the stories of Noah, Hud, Salih, Abraham, Lot and Moses again and again…

This piqued my curiosity, so I searched for a list on the Internet of all the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an. It turns out that, in total, twenty-five are mentioned. Here they are, together with the names used for them in the Arabic text:

prophets-in-islam

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 20 (“Joseph”)

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joseph

Thus far in the Qur’an we have encountered the stories of the prophets Adam, Noah, Hud, Salih, Abraham, Jacob, Shu’ayb, Moses and of Isa’s mother, Mary. Today we hear about the story of Joseph the patriarch, the one whom the Bible describes as having a “coat of many colours”:

Surah 12 – “Joseph” (Yusuf)
We open with the affirmation that the Qur’an is a “clear Book”. There is also the assertion by Allah that He is revealing “the best of stories” to Muhammad, about which he was previously unfamiliar. This seems to me to me an unlikely claim, given that Muhammad would have certainly had contact with Jews while he was a merchant trader.

We are then treated to the Islamic version of the story of the Patriach Joseph. Joseph tells his father about his dream where the sun, moon and stars bowed down to him. Jacob tells Joseph not to share this dream with his brothers, for fear they will plot against him.

(Although I’ve questioned previously whether the author of the Qur’an knew Isaac was the father of Jacob, this chapter does appear to recognize that correct relationship when Jacob is quoted as saying “[Allah will] complete His favour upon you and upon the family of Jacob, as He completed it upon your fathers before, Abraham and Isaac”)

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 19 (“Hud”)

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hud

As you may have noticed, as the chapters of the Qur’an have got longer, I’ve pretty much resorted to only doing only one a day. Yesterday, I went back and recaculated when I’m going to finish the Qur’an. I’ve concluded that, if I stay at a rate of about one hundred verses a day, I should be finishing the Qur’an at the end of January.

Here are today’s verses:

Surah 11 – “Hud” (Hud)
The first few pages of this chapter are filled with very standard stuff:

  • Worship Allah alone
  • Seek forgiveness, there will be punishment for the disbeliever on the Day of Judgement
  • Allah is all-knowing
  • Allah created the heavens and the earth
  • Those who disbelieve in the Messengers claim magic is at work
  • Mankind is ungrateful for the mercies of Allah
  • The disbelievers ask why Muhammad doesn’t come with some heavenly treasure or an angel
  • Muhammad is told to challenge those who say he invented the Qur’an, by demanding that they “bring ten surahs like it”
  • Those who believed in the former revelations (e.g. the Torah) believe in the Qur’an.

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