The Qur'an is a religious text considered by its Muslim adherents to be the verbatim word of God (Allah). Muslims believe that the verses of the Qur'an were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by God through the archangel Gabriel between 610 AD until the year of his death, twenty two years later.
Mohammed's teachings were recorded or memorized by his secretaries as he spoke them. Shortly after the prophet's death, a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle, so the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634) decided to collect the book in one volume in order that Mohammed's teachings could be preserved.
By about 650, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656) began noticing increasing differences in the texts as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula into the Middle East and North Africa. Uthman gathered a committee headed by one of Mohammed's old secretaries to collect together the scattered documents. The result was the standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today.
According to Professor David Thomas of the University of Birmingham, before the final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650, some of the passages of the Quran were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels.
The Quran is the size of a New Testament, consisting of 114 chapters called Suras.
According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words.
Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina.
The tenth Sura of the Quran is named after Jonah, even though only 1 of its 109 verses mentions him.
The term sharia is mentioned only once in the Quran, in the 18th verse of its 45th chapter. A partial translation of the verse reads: "We have ordained for you a sharia to live in line with". Linguistically, the Arabic term sharia means "a straight, smooth path that leads to water", which in the context of Arabian desert culture could also mean "a path to salvation from death". This term later became a technical term for the Islamic law.
Nowhere in the Quran does it say that martyrs get 72 virgins in heaven.
The earliest translation of the Quran into a Western language was Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete (English: Law of Muhammad the pseudo-prophet/false prophet) a translation into Medieval Latin by Robert of Ketton (c. 1110 – 1160 AD). This translation of the Qur'an was completed by 1143 and remained the standard translation for Europeans until the 18th century.
Between August 9, 1537 and August 9, 1538 Venetian printers Paganino and Alessandro Paganini produced the first printed edition of the Qur'an in Arabic. This work was likely intended for export to the Ottoman Empire, with which Venice had extensive trade ties.
Thomas Jefferson had a copy of a 1734 edition Qu'ran in his private library. Historians believe he bought the book while studying law to better understand Islam’s influence on some of the world’s legal systems.
50,000 Qurans are buried in the mountains of Pakistan, each one in a white shroud.
Mohammed's teachings were recorded or memorized by his secretaries as he spoke them. Shortly after the prophet's death, a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle, so the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634) decided to collect the book in one volume in order that Mohammed's teachings could be preserved.
By about 650, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656) began noticing increasing differences in the texts as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula into the Middle East and North Africa. Uthman gathered a committee headed by one of Mohammed's old secretaries to collect together the scattered documents. The result was the standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today.
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| Birmingham Quran manuscript dated among the oldest in the world. |
According to Professor David Thomas of the University of Birmingham, before the final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650, some of the passages of the Quran were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels.
The Quran is the size of a New Testament, consisting of 114 chapters called Suras.
According to one estimate the Quran consists of 77,430 words.
Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina.
The tenth Sura of the Quran is named after Jonah, even though only 1 of its 109 verses mentions him.
The term sharia is mentioned only once in the Quran, in the 18th verse of its 45th chapter. A partial translation of the verse reads: "We have ordained for you a sharia to live in line with". Linguistically, the Arabic term sharia means "a straight, smooth path that leads to water", which in the context of Arabian desert culture could also mean "a path to salvation from death". This term later became a technical term for the Islamic law.
Nowhere in the Quran does it say that martyrs get 72 virgins in heaven.
The earliest translation of the Quran into a Western language was Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete (English: Law of Muhammad the pseudo-prophet/false prophet) a translation into Medieval Latin by Robert of Ketton (c. 1110 – 1160 AD). This translation of the Qur'an was completed by 1143 and remained the standard translation for Europeans until the 18th century.
Between August 9, 1537 and August 9, 1538 Venetian printers Paganino and Alessandro Paganini produced the first printed edition of the Qur'an in Arabic. This work was likely intended for export to the Ottoman Empire, with which Venice had extensive trade ties.
Thomas Jefferson had a copy of a 1734 edition Qu'ran in his private library. Historians believe he bought the book while studying law to better understand Islam’s influence on some of the world’s legal systems.
50,000 Qurans are buried in the mountains of Pakistan, each one in a white shroud.
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