Category: Catholicism

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 12 (“Ta-ha”)

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Today’s chapter of the Qur’an focuses on the life of Moses…

Surah 20 – “Ta-ha” (Taha)
We start with the origin story of Moses, starting with the Burning Bush. Unlike the Biblical account, Moses has his family with him at the time he encounters the bush. Allah calls to Moses and tells him to worship Him alone, to “establish prayer” and then warns him of Judgement Day. Allah instructs Moses in transforming his staff and hand, then tells him he’s going to go to Pharaoh who “has transgressed [i.e. tyrannized]”. Moses asks Allah to “untie the knot from my tongue” and to grant his brother Aaron as a minister. Allah grants his request.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 11 (“Mary”)

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mary

Today is a particularly special chapter of the Qur’an, the one dedicated to Mary (“Miriam”), the Mother of Jesus (“Isa”):

Surah 19 – “Mary” (Maryam)
We begin this chapter with the story of Zechariah. As in the Bible, we are told that he and his wife had failed to have children. He is told through an angel that he will have a son named John. However, we soon start seeing a departure from the Biblical narrative…. Zechariah asks Allah to “make for me a sign”. He is then told that the sign will be that he will not be able to speak for “three nights”. However, in the Bible Zechariah cannotspeak until John’s circumcision. An interesting side note is that Allah tells John to “take the Scripture [i.e. adhere to it] with determination”, which shows that, at least in this chapter, the Old Testament is assumed to be preserved without corruption (contrary to the claim of most Muslims with whom I’ve spoken).

We now come to the story of Mary. We’re told that she withdraws from her family, heads eastwards and takes seclusion behind a screen – it’s not clear to me why. At this point, Gabriel visits her to give her “[news of] a pure boy [i.e. son]”. As in Luke’s Gospel, she does not understand how this will happen. There is a conspicuous absence of St. Joseph in this story – he is not mentioned once.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 10 (“The Angels”)

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Today in Atlanta, my friend’s son was baptized and entered into the Body of Christ! However, there’s no rest for the wicked, so here I am writing up today’s text from Qur’an, Surah 35:

Surah 35 – “The Angels” (Fatir)
The chapter begins with a typical set of assertions relating to Allah’s soveignty and the denial of the existence of any other God. 

Some interesting things are said about Satan and evil doers. One phrase I really liked was “[Satan] only invites his party to be among the companions of the Blaze”. This is why Satan’s parties are the worst! Ayah 8 affirms that “Allah sends astray whom He wills”, once again suggesting that Muslims believe in double-predestination.

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Prophet or Messiah?

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john

As you will have no doubt noticed, I have been recently working my way through reading the Qur’an. As a result, over the last few days my inbox has begun filling up with messages related to Islam…

I received one such email from a Muslim who asked me about the time when the Jewish leaders questioned John the Baptist about his identity:

And this is the testimony of John [the Baptist], when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Eli′jah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” And he answered, “No.”

– John 1:19-21

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 9 (“The Criterion”)

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I was on a plane flying to Atlanta today, so I’m a little late, but here are my notes for Surah 25.

Surah 25 – “The Criterion” (Al-Furqan)
The title of this chapter is significant. The “criterion” here is identified as the Qur’an itself. This is principal means by which Muslims “distinguish truth from falsehood and right from wrong”. This definitely is in accordance with my experience of speaking with Muslims: everything is viewed through the lense of the Qur’an.

There are are quite a references to other religions in this surah and, I would say, it identifies Christianity in particular. For example, we are told that “[Allah] has not taken a son and has not had a partner in dominion… But they have taken besides Him [Allah] gods”. This seems to be a fairly clear reference to the Christian belief in the Divine Sonship of Jesus. It is also possibly a reference to His mother, Mary, whom we will encounter in later suwar. A little later we are told that on Judgement Day, those false deities will testify against those who worshipped them, saying that none is worthy of worship but Allah. Those who “commit injustice” in this way are guilty of the sin of Shirk and will therefore “taste a great punishment”.

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Qur’anic Study Tool

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During my study of the Qur’an, I came across this website:

I have to say, I’m really rather impressed. The site allows me to compare different Qur’anic translations, which has proved very helpful in discerning the meaning of obscure verses:

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It also has an ontology graph, showing the relationships between different concepts in Islam.

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There’s also a considerable material here on grammar, which I’m sure I’d find useful if I actually spoke Arabic:

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The only thing it doesn’t have which I’d find really helpful is integration with the hadith, since context is still my #1 issue when reading the Qur’an…

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