Revelation Of Quran Quotes

Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

Faith in Qur'anic revelation unveils all the possibilities that lie before the human intellect.

When the Qur’an critically evaluates the individual behavior of certain Jews, Christians, and pagans, it does so because these individuals serve as models for both what to do and not to do. Compared to the standards of harsh prophetic chastisement found in the revelations of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Qur’an is a gentle critic—despite attempts by some translators to heighten the tension.

[The Quran is] a Revelation sent down by al-'Azeez, ar-Raheem." [Yaseen: 5] The Quran is 'azeez (authoritative) and it's from al-'Azeez. And the Prophet is the most merciful human to ever live and was sent as a mercy to mankind from ar-Raheem. It's the perfect message delivered on the tongue of a perfect Messenger (salAllahu alayhi wa sallam).

And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better [than mere disputation], unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong [and injury]: but say, "We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; Our Allah and your Allah is one; and it is to Him we bow [in Islam].

The Qur'an follows on from the two Revelations that preceded it and is not only free from contradictions in its narrations, the sign of the various human manipulations to be found in the Gospels, but provides a quality all of its own for those who examine it objectively and in the light of science i.e. its complete agreement with modern scientific data.

While deeply admiring and affirming past prophets, the Qur’an casts a critical eye on human misapplication of their revelations. “Our prophetic guides came to them with clarifying signs, yet many among them soon lapsed, spreading disorder in the land” (5:32). The perpetual dynamic of monotheistic values revived by prophets only to be subsequently squandered by humans is what concerns the Qur’an. It diagnoses a range of repeated failures, including: losing a close relationship with the Divine and reverting to idolatry; debating minutiae as an excuse to avoid bold action; imposing dogma not found in scripture and turning petty disputes over dogma into deadly violence; and elites selfishly abusing their leadership positions to mislead and manipulate.

The Qur’an, in other words, had been revealed into an unwelcoming world that would instinctively reject it. Nor was the prophet through whom it was inspired prepared for the responsibilities of its guardianship. He had been caught completely off guard and was unprepared for the immense obligation before him. As he fled down the mountain, Muhammad trembled while repeatedly whispering, “Iqra . . . Iqra . . . Iqra. . . .

None argues against Allah's revelations except those who disbelieve. So do not be impressed by their activities in the land.

In a sense Muhammad was less the messenger than the translator, struggling to give human form -- words -- to the ineffable.

In [the] early days, Muslims did not see Islam as a new, exclusive religion but as a continuation of the primordial faith of the ‘People of the Book’, the Jews and Christians. In one remarkable passage, God insists that Muslims must accept indiscriminately the revelations of every single one of God’s messengers: Abraham, Isaac, Ishamel, Jacob, Moses, Jesus and all the other prophets. The Qur’an is simply a ‘confirmation’ of the previous scriptures. Nobody must be forced to accept Islam, because each of the revealed traditions had its own din; it was not God’s will that all human beings should belong to the same faith community. God was not the exclusive property of any one tradition; the divine light could not be confined to a single lamp, belonged neither to the East or to the West, but enlightened all human beings. Muslims must speak courteously to the People of the Book, debate with them only in ‘the most kindly manner’, remember that they worshipped the same God, and not engage in pointless, aggressive disputes.

1. My contention is that "Surah" is an arabicized form of the Hebrew name 171'01 B' surah, that is, Gospel, given to the Christian Gospels during the early centuries of Christianity and adopted in the Qur'an for "revelation.

The first verses establish an immediate correspondence with what Revelation was later to recount about the creation of humankind: “He [God] taught Adam the names of all things.”8 Reason, intelligence, language, and writing will grant people the qualities required to enable them to be God’s khalifahs (vicegerents) on earth, and from the very beginning, Quranic Revelation allies recognition of the Creator to knowledge and science, thus echoing the origin of creation itself.9

In the Qur’an’s telling, Abraham after much reflection declares himself a Hanifam-Muslima (3:67). Typically translated as “a pure Muslim,” both words were archaic Arabic terms at the time of the Qur’an’s revelation and together constituted a dynamic new identity for young Abraham. The root Hanif (cited twelve times in the Qur’an) originally described a tree precariously balanced atop eroding soil in a volatile climate, forced to constantly adjust its roots and branches—and was also used to describe traversing a perilous lava formation. The term connoted the need to constantly rebalance in order to stay safe in unstable situations: remaining true to core roots while having the courage to confront reality. In essence, a Hanif is a healthy skeptic who honestly evaluates inherited traditions. In Abraham’s formula, the Hanif interrogates reality not as a cynic but as a healer, diagnosing injuries in order to repair them. Indeed, Muslim derived from the ancient Semitic root S-L-M, literally “to repair cracks in city walls.” As the integrity of monotheism erodes over time, repairers need to assess the damage and then get to work restoring the fractures.

A religion is not judged by the contents of its book but by the power of its Spirit.

the essence of the message of Islam was always the same: have faith in one God and do good.

the earliest revelations. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. 1  Say: He, Allah, is One. 2  Allah is He on Whom all depend. 3  He begets not, nor is He begotten; 4  And none is like Him.a

Yet the greater the turmoil inside him, the more the revelations responded to it. It was as though the Quranic voice was able to see deep inside him and address questions he was barely aware he was asking.

We are then content with some well-intended speeches, and as far as the rest is concerned we would have to rely on God. As if "reliance on God" means a lack of intelligence or competence in action; as if the Qur'anic Revelation has not distinguished between orientation and state, between where we should be and where we are; between the actualised foundation of a social project and the well-intended expression of its form.

When you divorce women and they have ˹almost˺ reached the end of their waiting period, either retain them honourably or let them go honourably. But do not retain them ˹only˺ to harm them ˹or˺ to take advantage ˹of them˺.

As we engage more deeply with the intellectual heritage of centuries of Muslim thinkers, we must neither romanticize the tradition as it stands nor be blindly optimistic about prospects for transformation within it. Most importantly, as we expose reductive and misogynist understandings of the Qur’an and hadith, refusing to see medieval interpretations as coextensive with revelation, we must not arrogate to our own readings the same absolutist conviction we criticize in others. We must accept responsibility for making particular choices – and must acknowledge that they are interpretive choices, not merely straightforward reiterations of “what Islam says.

For the first time in his life, Midhat wished he were more religious. Of course he prayed, but though that was a private mechanism it sometimes felt like a public act, and the lessons of the Quran were lessons by rote, one was steeped in them, hearing them so often. They were the texture of his world, and yet they did not occupy that central, vital part of his mind, the part that was vibrating at this moment, on this train, rattling forward while he struggled to hold all these pieces. As a child he had felt some of the same curiosity he held for the mysteries of other creeds—for Christianity with its holy fire, the Samaritans with their alphabets—but that feeling had dulled while he was still young, when traditional religion began to seem a worldly thing, a realm of morals and laws and the same old stories and holidays. They were acts, not thoughts. He faced the water now along the coast, steadying his gaze on the slow distance, beyond the blur of trees pushing past the tracks, on the desolate fishing boats hobbling over the waves. He sensed himself tracing the lip of something very large, something black and well-like, a vessel which was at the same time an emptiness, and he thought, without thinking precisely, only feeling with the tender edges of his mind, what the Revelation might have been for in its origin. Why it was so important that they could argue to the sword what it meant if God had hands, and whether He had made the universe. Underneath it all was a living urgency, that original issue of magnitude; the way several hundred miles on foot could be nothing to the mind, Nablus to Cairo, one thought of a day’s journey by train, but placed vertically that same distance in depth exposed the body’s smallness and suddenly one thought of dying. Did one need to face the earth, nose to soil, to feel that distance towering above? There was something of his own mortality in this. Oh then but why, in a moment of someone else’s death, must he think of his own disappearance?

SECTION 11: Truth of Divine Revelation 91  And they honour not Allah with the honour due to Him, when they say: Allah has not revealed anything to a mortal.a Say: Who revealed the Book which Moses brought, a light and a guidance to men — you make it into (scattered) papers,b which you show and you conceal much? And you are taught that which neither you nor your fathers knew. Say: Allah. Then leave them sporting in their idle talk.

Remember how those who bent on denying the truth plotted against you to imprison you or kill you or expel you: they schemed—but God also schemed. God is the best of schemers. 31 Whenever Our revelations are recited to them, they say, ‘We have heard them. If we wished, we could produce the like. They are nothing but the fables of the ancients.’ 32 They also said, ‘God, if this really is the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from heaven, or send us some other painful punishment.’ 33 But God would not punish them while you [Prophet] were in their midst, nor would He punish them so long as they sought forgiveness. 34 Yet why should God not punish them when they debar people from the Sacred Mosque, although they are not its guardians? Its rightful guardians are those who fear God, though most of them do not realize it. 35 Their prayers at the Sacred House are nothing but whistling and clapping of hands. ‘So taste the punishment because of your denial.’ 36 Those who are bent on denying the truth are spending their wealth in debarring others from the path of God. They will continue to spend it in this way till, in the end, this spending will become a source of intense regret for them, and then they will be overcome. And those who denied the truth will be gathered together in Hell. 37 So that God may separate the bad from the good, He will heap the wicked one upon another and then cast them into Hell. These will surely be the losers. 38 Tell those who are bent on denying the truth that if they desist, their past shall be forgiven, but if they persist in sin, they have an example in the fate of those who went before.b 39 Fight them until there is no more [religious] persecution,c and religion belongs wholly to God: if they desist, then surely God is watchful of what they do, 40 but if they turn away, know that God is your Protector; the Best of Protectors and the Best of Helpers!

There is absolutely nothing divine about the Shariah and in no way can it possibly be considered fixed and infallible. The argument that the Shariah derives its divine nature from its first and primary source, the Quran, falls flat when one recognizes that the Quran, unlike the Torah, is not a book of laws. The Quran is God’s direct self-revelation to humanity. Certainly, it contains the moral framework for living a holy and righteous life as a Muslim. But it was never meant to function as a legal code, which is precisely why scholars had to rely so heavily on extra-Quranic sources like ijma (consensus), qiyas (analogy), istislah (which refers to the common good of the people), and ijtihad (independent juristic reasoning)—all of them, by definition, reliant on human judgment and historical context—in order to construct the Shariah in the first place. To say the Shariah is divine because the Quran is divine is akin to arguing that water and wine are the same, since water is a primary ingredient in wine.

For Ibn ’Arabi, whose most beloved teacher Abu Madyan was identified as being the stone, the continual revelation of God’s word is a living, breathing creation. Those highest saints, who are known as the malamatiyya, the blameworthy of this world, the ‘hidden’ or kafirun of God are the embodiment of all the systems of concealment and disclosure, jafr, ta’wil, taqqiyah, et al. The Qur’an is not just a book, it is a person. The texts of al-Kimia are not simple words which when put together produce magical formulas, they are alive.

In certain ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures there was often a process of initiation that young people would go through before they became adults. In some Native American traditions, for example, the initiate would be put out into the wilderness without any food or any other provisions for survival. He would have to rely on the Universe and his own soul. During the experience, the initiate would fast. He would experience himself confronting the Universe alone. He would be out there for a number of days. This would open up the initiate to a direct experience of something beyond the usual egoic mind and all of its concerns. The initiate would be thrust into an experience that would take him beyond his small, limited self. Such a process existed in our own Tradition going back to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. What was Muhammad doing in a cave when the first revelations of the Qur‘an began if not going through what Native Americans would call a „Vision Quest“? He received direct revelation and inspiration through this practice. (p. 12)

Al-Ikhlas: The Unity (Revealed at Makkah: 4 verses) This is really the concluding chapter of the Holy Qur’an — the two chapters that follow only show how the protection of the Lord is to be sought — and it gives the sum and substance of the teachings of the Holy Qur’an, which is the declaration of the Unity of the Divine Being. Ikhlas means purification of a thing from dross, and as this chapter purifies the Unity of God of all dross of polytheism, it is called al-Ikhlas. The chapter is one of the earliest revelations. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

Every American should own a Koran. There are no excuses. Every day you can switch on the television or the radio or open a newspaper and hear or read pronouncements about what Islam is and“what the Koran says. Most of it is wrong—very wrong. You owe it to yourself, your family, and all the Americans killed on 9/11 and since to know the truth. Do not take anyone’s word for it. Find out for yourself by reading the actual Koran. One of the most reliable and recognized versions is the The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Once you have a Koran and start to read it, take care to note the enormous differences between the half reportedly communicated to Mohammed in the beginning in Mecca, when he was weak and without followers, and the latter half, allegedly written after he returned from Medina with thousands of followers, the leader of a mighty military force. It is the post-Medina chapters of the Koran that are naturally favored by groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. They are not in fact perverting religious texts but skillfully applying those alleged revelations that best support their cause.

According to the Islamic law of international treaties, Muslims could make treaties of peace and live at peace with countries outside of dār al-islām if they themselves were not threatened by them. The best example of such a situation is the friendly relations the Prophet himself had with then Christian Abyssinians, who had in fact given refuge to some of the Muslims from Mecca shortly after the advent of the Quranic revelation. Many instances of such peaceful coexistence are also to be seen between Muslim and Christian kingdoms in Spain and Hindu and Muslim states in India. In

Did the latter[The Messenger] have a predecessor, who envisaged revelation as taking place by direct contact with a divine being rather than by a book being sent down (whether as a whole or in instalments), who claimed to have enjoyed such contact himself and who objected to the pagan angels— not because they violated the dividing line between God and created beings but rather because they were female? We do not hear of such a predecessor elsewhere in the Quran, but we do learn that the Messenger had competitors in his own time, at least in Yathrib (2:79, where they share his concept of revelation as a book), so there is nothing implausible about the proposition that there were preachers before him too, including some whose preaching anticipated features of his own.

Child marriage The Qur’an takes child marriage for granted in its directives about divorce. Discussing the waiting period required in order to determine if the woman is pregnant, it says: “If you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (Qur’an 65:4, emphasis added). In other words, Allah is here envisioning a scenario in which a prepubescent woman is not only married, but is being divorced by her husband. One reason why such a verse might have been “revealed” to Muhammad is that he himself had a child bride: The Prophet “married ‘Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old.”10 Child marriages were common in seventh-century Arabia—and here again the Qur’an has taken a practice that should have been abandoned long ago and given it the sanction of divine revelation.

however, as to whether he could read or write after revelation. Without entering into the details of this controversy I may remark that, while there is ground for believing that he could read, he still had his letters written by others; see 29:48a. 157b. There are many prophecies regarding the advent of the Holy Prophet both in the Old and the New Testament. The Torah and the Gospel are specially mentioned here because Moses and Jesus were respectively the first and the last of the Israelite prophets. Deut. 18:15–18 speaks very clearly of the raising of a prophet (who shall be the like of Moses) from among the brethren of the Israelites, i.e. the Ishmaelites or the Arabs, while Deut. 33:2 speaks of the shining forth of the manifestation of the Lord, i.e. his coming in full glory “from Mount Paran”. The Gospel is full of the prophecies of the advent of the Holy Prophet; Matt. 21:33–44, Mark 12:1–11, Luke 20:9–18, where the Lord of the vineyard comes after the son (i.e. Jesus) is maltreated,

When Muhammad, the pious merchant, began to preach to his fellow Meccans in 612, he was well aware of the precariousness of this volatile society. Gathering a small community of followers, many from the weaker, disadvantaged clans, his message was based on the Quran ("Recitation"), a new revelation for the people of Arabia. The ideas of the civilized peoples of the ancient world had traveled down the trade routes and had been avidly discussed among the Arabs. Their own local lore had it that they themselves were descended from Ishmael, Abraham's eldest son, and many believed that their high god Allah, whose name simply meant God, was identical with the god of the Jews and Christians. But the Arabs had no concept of an exclusive revelation or of their own special election. The Quran was them simply the latest in the unfolding revelation of Allah to the descendants of Abraham, a reminder of what everybody knew already. Indeed, in one remarkable passage of what would become the written Quran, Allah made it clear that he made no distinction between the revelations of any of the prophets.

The Qur’an’s tolerant verses: “canceled” What’s more, the Qur’an’s last word on jihad is not defensive, but offensive. The suras of the Qur’an are not arranged chronologically, but according to length. However, Islamic theology divides the Qur’an into “Meccan” and “Medinan” suras. The Meccan ones come from the first segment of Muhammad’s career as a prophet, when he simply called the Meccans to Islam. Later, after he had fled to Medina, his positions hardened. The Medinan suras are less poetic and generally much longer than those from Mecca; they’re also filled with matters of law and ritual—and exhortations to jihad warfare against unbelievers. The relatively tolerant verses quoted above and others like them generally date from the Meccan period, while those with a more violent and intolerant edge are mostly from Medina. Why does this distinction matter? Because of the Islamic doctrine of abrogation (naskh). This is the idea that Allah can change or cancel what he tells Muslims: “None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?” (Qur’an 2:106). According to this idea, the violent verses of the ninth sura, including the Verse of the Sword (9:5), abrogate the peaceful verses, because they were revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career: In fact, most Muslim authorities agree that the ninth sura was the very last section of the Qur’an to be revealed.

All that we have seen in this work shows us one clear fact: The Qur'an, this extraordinary book which was revealed to the Seal of the Prophets, Muhammad (saas), is a source of inspiration and true knowledge. The book of Islam-no matter what subject it refers to-is being proved as Allah's word as each new piece of historical, scientific or archaeological information comes to light. Facts about scientific subjects and the news delivered to us about the past and future, facts that no one could have known at the time of the Qur'an's revelation, are announced in its verses. It is impossible for this information, examples of which we have discussed in detail in this book, to have been known with the level of knowledge and technology available in 7th century Arabia. With this in mind, let us ask: Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known that our atmosphere is made up of seven layers? Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known in detail the various stages of development from which an embryo grows into a baby and then enters the world from inside his mother? Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known that the universe is "steadily expanding," as the Qur'an puts it, when modern scientists have only in recent decades put forward the idea of the "Big Bang"? Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known about the fact that each individual's fingertips are absolutely unique, when we have only discovered this fact recently, using modern technology and modern scientific equipment? Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known about the role of one of Pharaoh's most prominent aids, Haman, when the details of hieroglyphic translation were only discovered two centuries ago? Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known that the word "Pharaoh" was only used from the 14th century B.C. and not before, as the Old Testament erroneously claims? Could anyone in 7th century Arabia have known about Ubar and Iram's Pillars, which were only discovered in recent decades via the use of NASA satellite photographs? The only answer to these questions is as follows: the Qur'an is the word of the Almighty Allah, the Originator of everything and the One Who encompasses everything with His knowledge. In one verse, Allah says, "If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found many inconsistencies in it." (Qur'an, 4:82) Every piece of information the Qur'an contains reveals the secret miracles of this divine book. The human being is meant to hold fast to this Divine Book revealed by Allah and to receive it with an open heart as his one and only guide in life. In the Qur'an, Allah tells us the following: This Qur'an could never have been devised by any besides Allah. Rather it is confirmation of what came before it and an elucidation of the Book which contains no doubt from the Lord of all the worlds. Do they say, "He has invented it"? Say: "Then produce a sura like it and call on anyone you can besides Allah if you are telling the truth." (Qur'an, 10:37-38) And this is a Book We have sent down and blessed, so follow it and have fear of Allah so that hopefully you will gain mercy. (Qur'an, 6:155)

The Creation of Human Beings From Water Allah created every [living] creature from water. Some of them go on their bellies, some of them on two legs, and some on four. Allah creates whatever He wills. Allah has power over all things. (Qur'an, 24:45) Do those who disbelieve not see that the heavens and the Earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So won't they believe? (Qur'an, 21:30) And it is He Who created human beings from water and then gave them relations by blood and marriage. Your Lord is All-Powerful. (Qur'an, 25:54) When we look at the verses concerned with the creation of human beings and living things, we clearly see evidence of a miracle. One such miracle is of the creation of living things from water. It was only possible for people to come by that information, clearly expressed in those verses, hundreds of years afterwards with the invention of the microscope. Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an 165 The words "Water is the main component of organic matter. 50-90% of the weight of living things consists of water" appear regularly in encyclopaedias. Furthermore, 80% of the cytoplasm (basic cell material) of a standard animal cell is described as water in biology textbooks. The analysis of cytoplasm and its appearance in textbooks took place hundreds of years after the revelation of the Qur'an. It is therefore impossible for this fact, now accepted by the scientific community, to have been known at the time the Qur'an was revealed. Yet, attention was drawn to it in the Qur'an 1,400 years before its discovery.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE: (1) IT IS NOT [conceivable] that such as are bent on denying the truth – [be they] from among the followers of earlier revelation or from among those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God5268 – should ever be abandoned [by Him] ere there comes unto them the [full] evidence of the truth: (2) an apostle from God, conveying [unto them] revelations blest with purity, (3) wherein there are ordinances of ever-true soundness and clarity.5269 (4) Now those who have been vouchsafed revelation aforetime5270 did break up their unity [of faith] after such an evidence of the truth had come to them.5271 (5) And withal, they were not enjoined aught but that they should worship God, sincere in their faith in Him alone, turning away from all that is false;5272 and that they should be constant in prayer; and that they should spend in charity:5273 for this is a moral law endowed with ever-true soundness and clarity.5274 (6) Verily, those who [despite all evidence] are bent on denying the truth5275 – [be they] from among the followers of earlier revelation or from among those who ascribe divinity to aught beside God – will find themselves in the fire of hell, therein to abide: they are the worst of all creatures. (7) [And,] verily, those who have attained to faith and do righteous deeds – it is they, they who are the best of all creatures. (8) Their reward [awaits them] with God: gardens of perpetual bliss, through which running waters flow, therein to abide beyond the count of time; well-pleased is God with them, and well-pleased are they with Him: all this awaits him who of his Sustainer stands in awe!

Divorced women should wait for three menstrual cycles; it is unlawful for them, if they believe in God and the Last Day, to hide what God has created in their wombs. Their husbands have the right to take them back within that time, if they desire to be reconciled. The wives have rights corresponding to those which the husbands have, according to what is recognized to be fair, but men have a rank above them. God is almighty and all wise. 229 Divorce may be pronounced twice, and then a woman must be retained honourably or released with kindness. It is not lawful for you to take away anything of what you have given your wives, unless both fear that they would not be able to observe the bounds set by God. In such a case it shall be no sin for either of them if the woman opts to give something for her release. These are the bounds set by God; do not transgress them. Those who transgress the bounds of God are wrongdoers. 230 And if man finally divorces his wife, he cannot remarry her until she has married another man. Then if the next husband divorces her, there will be no blame on either of them if the former husband and wife return to one another, provided they think that they can keep within the bounds set by God. These are the bounds prescribed by God, which He makes clear to men of understanding. 231 Once you divorce women, and they have reached the end of their waiting period, then either retain them in all decency or part from them decently. Do not retain them in order to harm them or to wrong them. Whoever does this, wrongs his own soul. Do not make a mockery of God’s revelations. Remember the favours God has bestowed upon you, and the Book and the wisdom He has revealed to exhort you. Fear God and know that God is aware of everything. 232 When you divorce women and they reach the end of their waiting period, do not prevent them from marrying other men, if they have come to an honourable agreement. This is enjoined on every one of you who believes in God and the Last Day; it is more wholesome and purer for you. God knows, but you do not know.

There was another price too, though again, Aisha had no way of knowing the full extent of it. The sight of her riding into Medina on Safwan’s camel had branded itself into the collective memory of the oasis, and that was the last thing Muhammad needed. In due course, another Quranic revelation dictated that from now on, his wives were to be protected by a thin muslin curtain from the prying eyes of any men not their kin. And since curtains could work only indoors, they would soon shrink into a kind of minicurtain for outdoors: the veil. The Revelation of the Curtain clearly applied only to the Proph et’s wives, but this in itself gave the veil high status. Over the next few decades it would be adopted by women of the new Islamic aristocracy—and would eventually be enforced by Islamic fundamentalists convinced that it should apply to all women. There can be little doubt that this would have outraged Aisha. One can imagine her shocking Muslim conservatives by tearing off her veil in indignation. She had accepted it as a mark of distinction—but as an attempt to force her into the background? The girl so used to high visibility had no intention of being rendered invisible.

Dr. Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., a former professor of Islamic history at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt has described the contents of the Quran:          “In Medina, Muhammad became a military leader and invader, so   the revelations in Medina talk about military power and invasion in the name of Islam (Jihad). Sixty percent of the Quranic verses talk about Jihad, which stands to reason because Muhammad received most of the Quran after he left Mecca. Jihad became the basic power and driving force of Islam”. (Islam and Terrorism, Charisma House, 2002).

Asbab-an-nuzul: A body of Islamic literature purporting to detail the circumstances of specific Quranic revelations

God in His mercy had sent messengers to convey His message, to different peoples, in different times. Each prophet came with guidance and miracles that were relevant for his time, and for his people, but the message was the same: That there is only one God, and worship is for him alone. This "Islam" was the religion brought by all the prophets of God. Islam was the religion of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them all). God has in His Grace, addressed this issue to man in His final revelation, the Noble Quran.

How do Muslims view Christians and Jews, who the Quran calls “People of the Book”? At first, the early Quaranic verses encouraged Muslims to live peacefully with Christians, though verses about Jews were never favorable. However, after Muhammad moved to Medina, his revelations became very hostile to Christians.

The real problem is not in the Quran itself, but the accepted element of divine revelation that has enabled successive and rather dodgy regimes to use the Quran as an argument against freedom of speech or thought or freedom of anything. Thats the larger problem because if you walk into the global and deny freedom on the grounds that god didn't predict its evolution as a concept, then you can pretty much read a call for violence into a pingu anime or a winnie the pooh book

When I was admitted into Cook County jail in Chicago, I wanted the Holy Qur-an, too, but I was denied having it, though it is not a “sect’s Bible.” It is the religious scriptures and guide for the Muslim world, recognized universally as the last revelation given to the world. And the Holy Qur-an has been the Holy book and scripture for all Muslims for the past 1,381 years.

The Quran says, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256), and in most periods of Islamic history there was no forced conversion of the “People of the Book.” In fact, forced conversion is an affront to God and the dignity of the human conscience created by Him. Arabia at the time of the Quranic revelation was an exception. There the pagan Arabs who practiced a most crass form of polytheism were given the choice of either becoming Muslims or battling against them. It was very similar to the choice offered by Christian to European “pagans” once Christianity gained power on that continent. But even in Arabia, the Jews and Christians were not forced to become Muslims.

Although the word “contextualization” is recent, coming into popular usage over the past three or four decades, its practice and reality have always been present as essential to the Christian faith. Unlike the Qur’an, which sees truth as timeless divine oracles, or the Western Enlightenment tradition that believes truth to be found in unchanging and eternal ideas, the Bible understands truth to be the mighty acts of God in history, authoritatively narrated and interpreted in Scripture, as the true story of the whole world in which all people are invited to find their place. The mightiest act of God and fullest revelation of himself and his purpose for the creation has been disclosed in the person and work of Jesus the Christ, especially in his death and resurrection. Truth is a person along with the historical events surrounding him that have irreversibly changed the course of universal history. Sin and evil, death and demonic power, sickness and injustice, poverty and pain—in fact all that corrupts the very good creation of God—have been defeated at the cross

Even worse, the Qur’anic texts disagree with the Bible. How can we know this to be true?

According to the traditions of the Ahlul Bayt, Fatima's Mushaf is not a Qur'an, but most definitely a revelation by Allâh, to the Mistress of Women and Daughter of the Master of Prophets, just as He chose to make revelations to Moses' mother.

The Prophetic Sunnah makes clear the Glorious Qur’an. Consequently, the Law of Islam (1) never is practised without the Prophetic Sunnah. For example, we, as Muslims, did not know how to perform the Prayers from the Glorious Qur’an, but we learnt how to perform the Prayers from the Prophetic Sunnah. It was the guidance for us. The Muslims always say: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ has spoken the truth. Allah said in the Qur’anic verse: (Nor does he speak from (his own) inclination It is not but a revelation revealed) (2) [Surah An-Najm: 3, 4]. __________ (1) The Islamic Shari'ah. (2) The Qur’an (English Meanings and Notes by Saheeh International), Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif, Islamic Research Academy, General Department for Research, Writing & Translation.

In all, all the beings of the world are really one Petals are so many, but the flower is really one How can this medley ever disrupt unity Body and soul are two, the two are really one Of mankind’s supremacy over all others That’s a truth Gabriel knows; the truth is really one Qur’an’s revelation is a sure proof of this: In getting the truth, we all are really one All the believers surely agree with each other Dard, the eyes are two but the two are really one

One can classify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam variously. From one perspective, they are monotheisms, religions that uphold God's singularity. Islam itself provides another view, linking them by a tradition of continued divine revelation disclosed in scripture and culminating in the Quran. Muslims regard Jews and Christians as "People of the Book"—a name that outside observers occasionally apply to Muslims too. As apt as these designations may be, however, they do not entirely differentiate these three religions from others. Sikhism and ancient Egyptian Atenism, for example, also qualify as monotheisms, and Muslims came to include Zoroastrians and Hindus as other "People of the Book." The most useful term for collating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into a single category is "Abrhamic," which distinguishes them by stressing the significance they accord to Abraham: Israel's founding patriarch for Jews, guarantor of the covenant for Christians, and a prophet for Muslims. These Abrahamic identities unite the religions conceptually, even while frequently polarizing their adherents.

Through its self-presentation and subsequent Muslim reflection, the Quran has achieved a higher status in Islam than either Tanakh in Judaism or the Bible in Christianity. It calls itself "noble" and "hidden," Allah's "Revelation" that only "the purified" may touch (Qur. 56.77–80). These statements gird the widely held tenet that it is "uncreated"—that it existed eternally with God before being disclosed in historical time—and they guide its treatment.

Now if the teaching of Moses is inspired and Deuteronomy 13 and 18 tell you that future revelations must be judged according to previous revelation, and if the alleged future revelation of the Quran conflicts with the previous revelation of Moses, who has to go? By their own logic who has to go? The Qur'an has to go. Those who advocate the worldview of the Qur'an are not able to live according to their own worldview, there's this inconsistency

A sound heart has knowledge and trust, not doubt and anxiety. Shubuhāt alludes to aspects closely connected to the heart: the soul, the ego, Satan’s whisperings and instigations, caprice, and the ardent love of this ephemeral world. The heart is an organ designed to be in a state of calm, which is achieved with the remembrance of God: Most surely, in the remembrance of God do hearts find calm (QURAN, 13:28). This calm is what the heart seeks out and gravitates to. It yearns always to remember God the Exalted. But when God is not remembered, when human beings forget God, then the heart falls into a state of agitation and turmoil. In this state it becomes vulnerable to diseases because it is undernourished and cut off, Cells require oxygen, so we breathe, If we stop breathing, we die. The heart also needs to breathe, and the breath of the heart is none other than the remembrance of God. Without it, the spiritual heart dies. The very purpose of revelation and of scripture is to remind us that our hearts need to be nourished.

Even more threatening to Christian assumptions than the Qur’an’s flat denial that Jesus had been crucified, however, was the imperious, not to say terrifying, tone of authority with which it did so. Very little in either the Old or the New Testament could compare. For all the reverence with which Christians regarded their scripture, and for all that they believed it illumined by the flame of the Holy Spirit, they perfectly accepted that most of it, including the Gospels themselves, had been authored by mortals. Only the covenant on the tablets of stone, given to Moses amid fire and smoke on the summit of Sinai, ‘and written with the finger of God’,13 owed nothing to human mediation. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that Moses, of all the figures in the Old and New Testaments, should have featured most prominently in the Qur’an. He was mentioned 137 times in all. Many of the words attributed to him had served as a direct inspiration to Muhammad’s own followers. ‘My people! Enter the Holy Land which God has prescribed for you!’14 The Arab conquerors, in the first decades of their empire, had pointedly referred to themselves as muhajirun: ‘those who have undertaken an exodus’. A hundred years on from Muhammad’s death, when the first attempts were made by Muslim scholars to write his biography, the model that they instinctively reached for was that of Moses. The age at which the Prophet had received his first revelation from God; the flight of his followers from a land of idols; the way in which—directly contradicting the news brought to Carthage in 634—he was said to have died before entering the Holy Land: all these elements echoed the life of the Jews’ most God-favoured prophet.15 So brilliantly, indeed, did Muslim biographers paint from the palette of traditions told about Moses that the fading outlines of the historical Muhammad were quite lost beneath their brushstrokes. Last and most blessed of the prophets sent by God to set humanity on the straight path, there was only the one predecessor to whom he could properly be compared. ‘There has come to him the greatest Law that came to Moses; surely he is the prophet of this people.’16

The fact that no material from brahminical Hindu scriptures or the Qur’an is included is easily explained. Either it could result in the charge that the Gurus were merely plagiarists or to the assertion that they did accept the authority of these scriptures. What they certainly were is eclectic in their view of scripture, refusing to claim that God spoke only through the revelation that was given to them.

Another reason [for repeated revelation] was due to the different recitations of the Qurʾān. The Prophet said, My Lord sent me revelation to recite in one style. I returned to Him asking Him to make it easier on my nation. So he sent me revelation to read in two styles. I returned to him to ask him to make it easier on my nation. So He revealed to me to recite it in seven styles.54 This hadith indicates that the Qurʾān was not revealed in one instance, but rather time after time. Sūrat al-Fātiḥah is reported to have been revealed twice. It is permissible for a verse to be revealed the first time in one recitation, and a second time in various acceptable recitations, such as [reciting either] malik and mālik in Sūrat al-Fātiḥah.55

Dr. Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D., a former professor of Islamic history at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt has described the contents of the Quran: “In Medina, Muhammad became a military leader and invader, so   the revelations in Medina talk about military power and invasion in the name of Islam (Jihad). Sixty percent of the Quranic verses talk about Jihad, which stands to reason because Muhammad received most of the Quran after he left Mecca. Jihad became the basic power and driving force of Islam”. (Islam and Terrorism, Charisma House, 2002).

after Muhammad moved to Medina, his revelations became very hostile to Christians. Dr. Gabriel writes: “The following verse is considered to be the final revelation from Allah regarding Christians and Jews; therefore, it is understood to override all other revelations: It states: “And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and    polytheism, i.e., worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will be for Allah Alone (in the whole of the world)….” (Surah 8:39 This fact is also emphasized in Surah 5:52-57 and Surah 4:89. When fighting Christians, the Quran commands severe punishment, so Christians will leave their homes and be dispersed. (Surah 8:57).

The Prophet himself sometimes openly suppressed or negated older verses, considering them to have been replaced by newer ones. That is because Muhammad did not consider the Quran to be a static Revelation, which may be why he never bothered to authorize its collection into a codified book. The Quran was for Muhammad a living scripture that consciously evolved alongside the Ummah, continually adapting itself to meet the specific needs of the developing community.

The first word of the first revelation in Quran: Read i.e. why I read.

According to the Quran, God sent his revelation to both Jews and Christians: “The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah . . . and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus” (42:13).