Qur'an

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Opponents of Islam point to verses where so-called disbelievers should eternally burn in Hell (2:12), as well as verses that say that  "people who make war against Allah and his prophet" have to be killed (5:33).  Unsurprisingly, though, these are in no way dissimilar from similar consequences for disbelieving in other faiths (see [[hell]]).
 
Opponents of Islam point to verses where so-called disbelievers should eternally burn in Hell (2:12), as well as verses that say that  "people who make war against Allah and his prophet" have to be killed (5:33).  Unsurprisingly, though, these are in no way dissimilar from similar consequences for disbelieving in other faiths (see [[hell]]).
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Also, it's a made-up bunch of religious silliness.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==

Revision as of 04:11, 15 March 2009

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There is a broader, perhaps slightly less biased, article on Wikipedia about Qur'an
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For those living in an alternate reality, Conservapedia has an "article" about Qur'an

The Qur'ān (Arabic: القرآن ‎ al-qur’ān, literally "the recitation"; also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran, or Al-Qur’ān) is a book held by Muslims to be holy and the final revealed word of God to mankind.

The Muslim theology views the prophets from Adam to Jesus as a series of people who have received God's message via revelation and passed it on to God's people. The Prophet Muhammad is the last prophet to receive God's word. Jibril brought Mohammad his revelations over a span of many years. The Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be a restatement and completion of the story and teachings of the Bible.

Unlike the Bible, the Qur'an is weighted far more heavily towards theology and morality than towards recitation of stories or history. The Qur'an is made of direct statements from Muhammad to those he is talking with [1].

Like every religious work, the Qur'an requires some level of interpretation to understand most of its passages, and is therefore heavily quote mined depending on the point of view or agenda of the one using the Qur'an. One example of such agendas is the use by the Western world to portray Islam as a bloodthirsty exhortation to violence, anti-Semitism, and treachery. Scholars and most theologians believe those views are unsupported by an actual review of the text, and they are largely dismissed as a holdover from a medieval view of Islam. On the other hand, followers of Muslim faiths like Wahhabism most certainly interpret such texts very literally, and Muslim countries such as the new improved Afghanistan and Pakistan use the Qur'an to justify their somewhat deadly objections to blasphemy.

The Qur'an is fairly widely available in translation; however, unlike the Christian Bible, it is considered a point of faith that the Qur'an is only valid in the original seventh century classical Arabic. Most educated Muslims are therefore at least somewhat able to read standard Arabic.

Contents

Structure

There are 114 Sura in the Qur'an. Each Sura is named for either an important figure or topic in the Sura. For Example, Sura 16 is "the Honey Bee". Each Sura was written in either Medina or Mecca, and the Qur'an tells which Sura was written where.

The original Sura were oral traditions, and were only written down near the end of Muhammad's life. They often have a poetic structure to them, in line with typical oral tradition.

Because of the Qur'an's lack of a "storyline", the work itself has only a loose structure. Each Sura is independent of the others, rarely if ever making reference to any other Sura. Topics in any given Sura may be repeated in some other Sura and the Sura are not grouped into some kind of "logical" structure like "Sura on Family", "Sura on Business", etc.

Criticism of the Qur'an

Opponents of Islam point to verses where so-called disbelievers should eternally burn in Hell (2:12), as well as verses that say that "people who make war against Allah and his prophet" have to be killed (5:33). Unsurprisingly, though, these are in no way dissimilar from similar consequences for disbelieving in other faiths (see hell).

Also, it's a made-up bunch of religious silliness.

External links

Footnotes

  1. Similar to the New Testament if it only had direct sayings from Jesus, and not other interpretations, stories, and letters
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