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The
Quran ("Qor-Ann") is a Message from Allah to
humanity. It was transmitted to us in a chain starting
from the Almighty Himself (swt) to the angel Gabriel to
the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)).
This message was given to the Prophet (PBUH) in pieces
over a period spanning approximately 23 years (610 CE to
622 CE). The Prophet (PBUH) was 40 years old when the
Quran began to be revealed to him, and he was 63 when the
revelation was completed. The language of the original
message was Arabic, but it has been translated into many
other languages.
The Quran is one leg of two which form the basis of Islam.
The second leg is the Hadith of the Prophet (PBUH). What
makes the Quran different from the Hadith is primarily its
form. Unlike the Hadith, the Quran is quite literally the
Word of Allah, whereas the Hadith was inspired by Allah
but the wording and actions are the Prophet's. The Quran
has not been expressed using any human's words. Its
wording is letter for letter fixed by no one but Allah.
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was the final Messenger of Allah
to humanity, and therefore the Quran is the last Message
which Allah has sent to us. Its predecessors such as the
Torah, Psalms, and Gospels have all been superceded. It is
an obligation - and blessing - for all who hear of the
Quran and Islam to investigate it and evaluate it for
themselves. Allah has guaranteed that He will protect the
Quran from human tampering, and today's readers can find
exact copies of it all over the world. The Quran of today
is the same as the Quran revealed to Muhammad (PBUH).
The Quran is available in the internet in most languages.
To read the Quran or listen to it, click here.
History
of the Quran:
In
this Book, the Holy Prophet's life, the history of the
Arabs and the events which occurred during the period of
the revelation of the Quran have not been mingled with the
Divine Verses, as is the case with the Bible. The Quran is
the pure word of God. Not one word therein is not divine.
Not a single word has been deleted from its text. The Book
has been handed down to our age in its complete and
original form since the time of Prophet Muhammad. From the
time the Book began to be revealed, the Holy Prophet had
dictated its text to the scribes. Whenever some Divine
Message was revealed, the Holy Prophet would call a scribe
and dictate its words to him. The written text was then
read out to the Holy Prophet, who, having satisfied
himself that the scribe has committed no error of
recording, would put the manuscript in safe custody. The
Holy Prophet used to instruct the scribe about the
sequence in which a revealed message was to be placed in a
particular Surah (chapter). In this manner, the Holy
Prophet continued to arrange the text of the Quran in
systematic order till the end of the chain of revelations.
Again, it was ordained from the beginning of Islam that a
recitation of the Holy Quran must be an integral part of
worship. Hence the illustrious Companions would commit the
Divine verses to memory as soon as they were revealed.
Many of them learned the whole text and a far larger
number had memorized different portions of it.
Method of
preservations of the Quran during the Prophet's time:
Besides,
those of the Companions (pbut) who were literate used to
keep a written record of several portions of the Holy
Qur'an. In this manner, the text of the Holy Qur'an had
been preserved in four different ways during the lifetime
of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
Method of
preservations of the Quran after the demise of the Prophet:
It
is an incontrovertible historical truth that the text of
the Holy Qur'an extant today is, syllable for syllable,
exactly the same as the Holy Prophet (PBUH) had offered to
the world as the Word of God. After the demise of the Holy
Prophet, the first Caliph Hadhrat Abu Bakr (PBUH)
assembled all the Huffaz and the written records of the
Holy Qur'an and with their help had the whole text written
in Book form. In the time of Hadhrat 'Uthman (PBUH) copies
of this original version were made and officially
dispatched to the Capitals of the Islamic World. Two Of
these copies exist in the world today, one in Istanbul and
the other in Tashkent. Whosoever is so inclined may
compare any printed text of the Holy Qur'an with those two
copies, he shall find no variation. And how can one expect
any discrepancy, when there have existed several million
Huffaz in every generation since the time of the Holy
Prophet (PBUH) and in our own time? Should anyone alter a
syllable of the original text of the Qur'an, these Huffaz
would at once expose the mistake. In the last century, an
Institute of Munich University in Germany collected
FORTY-TWO THOUSAND copies of the Holy Qur'an including
manuscripts and printed texts produced in each period in
the various parts of the Islamic World. Research work was
carried out on these texts for half a century, at the end
of which the researchers concluded that apart from copying
mistakes, there was no discrepancy in the text of these
forty-two thousand copies, even though they belonged to
the period between the 1st Century Hijra to 14th Century
Hijra and had been procured from all parts of the world.
This Institute, alas! perished in the bombing attacks on
Germany during World War II, but the findings of its
research project survived. Another point that must be kept
in view is that the word in which the Qur'an was revealed
is a living language in our own time. It is still current
as the mother tongue of about a hundred million people
from Iraq to Morocco. In the non-Arab world too, hundreds
of thousands of people study and teach this language.
The grammar of the Arabic language, its lexicon, its
phonetic system and its phraseology, have remained intact
for fourteen hundred years.
A modern Arabic-speaking person can comprehend the Holy
Qur'an with as much proficiency as did the Arabs of
fourteen centuries ago. This, then, is an important
attribute of Muhammad (PBUH), which is shared by no other
Prophet or Leader of Religion. The Book which God revealed
to Him for the guidance of mankind is today's in its
original language without the slightest alteration in its
vocabulary.
To read
more about the quran, please click here...
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