Tag: Quran

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 7 (“The heights” and “The Jinn”)

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Today I’m going to be looking at two chapters of the Qur’an, one long (#7) and one reasonably short (#72).

Surah 7 – “The heights” (Al-Araf)
Mankind is reminded to follow Allah and also reminded of the cities which He destroyed to punish unbelieving people. The scales of judgement which weigh good deeds are also recalled.

The fall of Satan is described, in an almost identical pattern to Surah 38 (“The letter sad”). The narrative continues, however, describing the Fall of Adam and Eve. Allah told them “do not approach this tree, lest you be among the wrongdoers”. The nature of the tree or the consequences of eating from it were not really explained. Rather than saying that they will be like gods (as in the Genesis narrative), Satan promised that if they eat the fruit they will “become angels or become of the immortal”. Once they have eaten, they recognize their nakedness and sew together leaves as clothes. God arrives and chastises them. We don’t see “the blame game” which we see in Genesis, where Adam blames Eve (and ultimately God) and Eve blames the serpent.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 6 (“The morning star”, …)

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morning-star

My course through the Qur’an continues today with chapters 86, 54 and 38. I’m tackling fewer chapters in this post because Surah 38 is quite long and I have quite a lot to say about it…

Surah 86 – “The morning star” (At-Tariq)
This chapter begins by reminding man from what he was made. In the same way that Allah created them from nothing, He is able to give them life again on Judgement Day. The authority of the Qur’an is reasserted, as is God’s control over the events of life.

Questions

Q1. What does aya 4  mean when it says “There is no soul but that it has over it as a protector”? Is it saying that every soul has a protector? If so, is this Allah or an angel?

Q2. Does semen really emerge “from between the backbone and the ribs”? sperm production is far lower than that.

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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 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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The Chronological Qu’ran

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I first encountered Islam about six years ago when I was living in London. After meeting a Muslim for the first time, I decided that I should probably become more familiar with the religion, given that it is followed by 1.6 billion people, approximately 23% of the world’s population.

In my naiveté, I decided to start reading the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Oddly enough, I had been given a copy of the Qur’an at my (Catholic) school’s prize-giving about ten years earlier. I dug out my copy and started reading…

I’ll admit that I found the text of Qur’an very dry and I gave up after reading it when I was only about a third of the way through. Jumping straight into the Qur’an is very difficult, particularly if you don’t know much about Islam. It would have been helpful to know, for example, that the chapters (“suwar”) are not placed in chronological order, meaning that as I read sequentially through the chapters, I was jumping between very different periods in Muhammad’s life.

quran

I’ve recently been reflecting on the subject of Islam and have concluded that the need for Christians to be familiar with this religion will only become greater with time. I’ve therefore decided to do more posts on this subject over the coming months. I have already written an introduction to Islam and the odd apologetics post, but in preparation for these upcoming articles, and for the sake of gaining credibility, I have decided to read the Qu’ran from cover-to-cover, but on this occasion I will read the chapters in chronological order.

Below you will see my reading plan, with the chapters arranged in (rough) chronological order. Discerning the exact chronology of the chapters is somewhat difficult for Muslim scholars to discern, particularly give that some chapters even contain verses from different periods. I found several different chronological orderings on the Internet, but I have chosen this one. There were other orderings I found on Christian websites, but in an attempt to limit Christian bias (which I will already bring to the text), I chose to use a chronology from a Muslim website.

My plan is to post some very brief thoughts about the chapters I read each day. I’ve also written a glossary of Islamic terms to make these easier to follow. From time to time, I’ll visit an Imam in San Diego, in order to clarify anything which I have found confusing.

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Introduction to Islam (Part 2 of 5: Revelation)

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In yesterday’s blog post I began a brief introduction to Islam.  I focussed primarily on the founding of Islam and Muhammad.

Today I would like to look at the divine revelation which Islam claims to have received, which is found principally in the Qur’an/Koran.

As I said yesterday, I have done my best to ensure factual accuracy in all these posts and have used Islamic sources as much as possible to ensure that I’m not propagating Christian misconceptions of Islam.  I did send this to some Muslim friends for comment, but I have yet to hear back. If you are a follower of Islam and believe that I have misrepresented your religion, please drop me an email and I will remedy the situation.

The Qur’an

As mentioned in my previous post, the Qur’an (literally, “the recitation”) is a compilation of the messages given to Muhammad.

Christians and Muslims understand the concept of scripture differently.  Christians describe the Bible, in the words of St. Paul, as being “God breathed” (theopneustos).  As Dei Verbum explains:

“In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted” – Dei Verbum, Chapter 3

Muslims, on the other hand, view the Qur’an as the word of God in the most literal sense, believing that the text bears no imprint of the writer’s character whatsoever. Rather, they believe that the Qur’an is the literal word of God, dictated to Muhammad, written down verbatim.

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Introduction to Islam

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This is one of the many blog entries I was halfway through before being distracted by something shiny… I started preparing this series of entries around the time of the media storm from the “Burn a Qur’an Day“. I was rather surprised by the reaction of many Christians to this dispute, but what I found even more troubling was their apparent lack of basic familiarity with the religion of Islam.

In this series of posts I will not be disputing any assertion made by Islam. I only intend to provide a brief sketch of the religion.  I would like this to be an introduction and brief overview for the average Christian who is unaware of Islam’s claims.

Please note, I have done my best to ensure factual accuracy in all these posts and have used Islamic sources as much as possible to ensure that I’m not propagating Christian misconceptions of Islam.  I did send this to some Muslim friends for comment, but I have yet to hear back. If you are a follower of Islam and believe that I have misrepresented your religion, please drop me an email and I will  remedy the situation.

Muhammad

Islam (“submission to God”) was founded by Muhammad in the early 7th Century, a little over six hundred years after Jesus’ ministry, seven hundred and sixty-six miles away from Jerusalem in Arabia.  In the early part of Muhammad’s life he was a successful trader and then, through marriage to a wealthy widow, he became an important figure.

Thanks to his wealth, at the age of forty, Muhammad was able to spend much of his time in meditation in a cave on the outskirts of Mecca. It is said that it was during this time that he began to receive messages from Allah (God) through Jibril (the Archangel Gabriel).  He was told that these messages were to be preached to all mankind.  They were subsequently written down by his companions and collected together to form the Muslim holy book: the Qur’an/Koran (literally “the recitation”).

Muhammad’s followers were initially fairly small in number, consisting mainly of his own family. There were soon violent persecutions in Mecca against the Muslims, causing Muhammad to move to Medina where Islam was more favourably received.  A little later, the first jihad (holy war) took place. Muhammad returned to Mecca and destroyed the idols there and within eight years Muslim armies had conquered (and effectively converted) the whole of Arabia.

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