Quran, The

The Qur'an (Koran, Quran) is the Holy Book of Islam and the religion's most sacred writing.  Muslims consider it the actual word of Allah and not the word of Muhammad to whom it was given.  Muslim tradition states that the angel Gabriel visited Muhammad and gave him the words directly from Allah.  These words were Allah's words of wisdom, truth, and commandments to His creation.  The Qur'an (which means recitation) was revealed in the Arabic dialect used by the Quraish tribe of Mecca of that time.  This dialect became the formal Arabic of the Islamic nations due to the distribution of Qur'anic scriptures throughout the Islamic empire.  In the Arabic, the Qur'an is poetic in style with rhymes, meter, and shifts in line lengths.  Those who speak the language say it is a beautiful work.

The Quran is divided into 114 chapters called Surahs.  The word surah means "row."  Today the Koran is arranged with the longer surahs first and the shorter ones after, with the whole thing divided into approximately 30 equal lengths.

 

 

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