Tag: Islam

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

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muslim

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’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 8 (“Ya Sin”)

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hell

Today I’m going to be looking at a longer chapters of the Qur’an: Surah 36.

Surah 36 – “Ya Sin” (Ya-Sin)
This chapter covers the usual material. Muhammad’s commission by God is, of course, reaffirmed. He is told that some people to whom he speaks will not listen to him, but his job is to warn them anyway.

This chapter describes a pair of missionaries arriving at a city. It is not clear if this is an historic story or not. Either way, the message of the missionaries is rejected, but then a man comes from the city and pleads with his fellow inhabitants to listen to these men. He draws particular attention to the fact that they do not ask for money. For his own part, the man testifies that Allah made him, he will return to Him and thus Allah is worthy of worship and the intercession of the city’s false gods is worthless. The text abruptly switches to speaking about Paradise so my footnotes suggest that this means that the man was killed for his faith. While I can understand this explanation, the Qur’an seems to me to jump randomly from topic-to-topic without warning on a regular basis.

Allah then identifies various “signs” to be submitted for consideration:

  • The bringing forth of life from dead earth
  • The production of fruit from trees
  • The departure of the sun at nighttime and the cycles of the moon
  • The salvation of Noah’s family through the Ark

I’m not 100% sure, but it seems that these signs are all meant to point to new life and Allah’s saving help.

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Islamic Glossary

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Turkey, Istanbul, Suleymaniye Mosque, crowd praying

If you regularly read this blog, you’ll know that at the moment I’m reading through the Qur’an, chapter by chapter. Each day I have been posting a brief entry discussing the material I’ve read that day. I’ve also been recording my questions about the text which I will ask when I meet one of the local San Diego Imams.

Since these posts contain words from Islam which may be unfamiliar to many Christians, this blog entry will act as a glossary of terms. I’ll be updating this post as I continue my reading each day.

UPDATE: Since this glossary is starting to get a little big, I’ve going to put the more obscure glossary items in a lighter font so that it’s easier to see which terms are more important.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 4 (“The Purity of faith”, …)

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islam

Another day, another collection from the Qur’an…

Surah 112 -“The Purity of faith” (Al-Ikhlas)
In the hadith (collections of stories about Muhammad’s life), Muhammad said that this surah is equivalent to a whole third of the Qur’an. It asserts tawhid (Islamic monotheism), saying “He is Allah, [who is] One”, but also appears to specifically challenge Christianity and Jesus as the status of the only begotten Son of God (“He neither begets nor is born”).

Questions

Q1. Would you agree that “He neither begets nor is born” is a statement referring to the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God?

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 3 (“Abundance”, …)

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abundance

Continuing through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters:

Surah 108 – “Abundance” (Al-Kauther)
A three-verse chapter in which Allah tells Muhammad that He has granted him the most abundant good and cut off Muhammad’s enemies from good things in this life and the next.

Questions

Q1. Muhammad is told to “offer sacrifice to [Allah alone]”. What sacrifices did Muhammad offer?

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 2 (“The dawn”, …)

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sunrise

Continuing with my chronological read through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters: 87, 92, 89, 93, 94, 103 and 100.

Surah 87: “The most high” (Al-Ala)
Allah tells Muhammad that he will make him recite the Qur’an and remember it…unless God wants him to forget it. This relates to the rather troublesome subject of abrogation in the Qur’an where, even within the lifetime of Muhammad, some chapters were overridden or replaced.

Allah promises to lead Muhammad and his followers to true religion, but the wretched to the fires of Hell.

Questions

Q1. The text says “…the Hereafter is better and more enduring. Indeed, this is in the former scriptures. The scriptures of Abraham and Moses”. Where does the Pentateuch teach about the afterlife?

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 1 (“The clinging substance”, …)

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unborn

As previously mentioned, I am going to read through the Qur’an in chronological order from beginning to end. I will be writing up my notes from the chapters (“suwar”) each day, starting today with the chapters which were composed at the beginning of Muhammad’s ministry in Mecca: 96, 68, 73, 74, 1, 111 and 81.

Surah 96 – “The clinging substance”/”Recite” (Al-Alaq)
This short surah accuses a man of sinning because he sees himself as “self-sufficient”. We are reminded that God made man (with a vague description of human development), that God sees everything and that if the man does not repent, God will drag him by the hair and angels will throw him into Hell.

Questions

Q1. “Created man from a clinging substance”. Is this a reference to a fetus?

Q2. “Who taught by the pen”. Is this a reference to the Bible?

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