Wednesday, May 19, 2010

All About The Quran


The Quran is a Divine Miracle of Literature [Prophesy - Science - Warnings - Wisdom - Truths]...and it has been Preserved 100% In the Original Language - for over 1,400 years!

Humanity has received Divine Guidance only through two channels:

 The Word of Almighty God ("Allah" [in Arabic]) [scriptures, Bible, Psalms, etc.]
 The Prophets sent by the Allah to communicate His Will to mankind

These two things have always been going together, hand in hand.

More important though, there were at that time, tens of thousands of his companions ("sahabi" in Arabic) who memorized the complete Quran from the instruction of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Even the prophet himself (peace be upon him) used to recite it with angel Gabriel once a year and in the last year of his life he recited it two times just before the month in which he died.

Next, the leader who came after the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) (Abu Bakr) entrusted the collection of the Quran to be written in one volume by one of the Prophet's scribe, Zaid Ibn Thabit. He kept it till his death. Then the next leader, Umar and after him to his daughter, Hafsa who had been one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Then from the original text which now resides in Topkope Museum, in Istanbul, Turkey, the next leader, Uthman prepared several other exact duplications and sent them to various Muslim territories such as; Uzbekistan and Turkey and other places. These scriptures are still in museums there and one has found its way to a museum in England as well. All of them are exactly the same. Today many of the Muslims from these areas are still memorizing the Quran.

The Quran was so meticulously preserved because it is the Book of Guidance for all of humanity for all times. That is why it does not address just the Arabs, in whose language it was revealed. In fact Arabs today do not comprise more than 13% of the Today of Muslims in the world today.

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Journey of Life


The Journey of Life
The Holy Qur'an
The Eternal, Living Reality

The Qur'an is the word of the Ever-living God; it has been
sent down to guide man for all times to come. No book can
be like it. As you come to the Qur'an, Allah speaks to you.
To read the Qur'an is to hear Him, even to converse with
Him, and to walk in His ways. It is the encounter of life with
the Life-giver. 'God - there is no god but He, the Ever-living,
the Self-subsisting (by whom all subsist). He has sent down
upon you the Book with the Truth ... as a guidance unto
mankind ...' (Al 'Imran 3: 2-3).

For those who heard it for the first time from the lips of
the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him, the Qur'an was
a living reality. They had absolutely no doubt that, through
him, Allah was speaking to them. Their hearts and minds
were therefore seized by it. Their eyes overflowed with tears
and their bodies shivered. They found each word of it deeply
relevant to their concerns and experiences, and integrated
it fully into their lives. They were completely transformed
by it both as individuals and as a corporate body - into a
totally new, alive and life-giving entity. Those who grazed
sheep, herded camels and traded petty merchandise became
the leaders of mankind.

Today we have the same Qur'an with us. Millions of copies of
it are in circulation. Day and night, it is ceaselessly recited. In
homes, in mosques, and from pulpits. Voluminous exegetical
works exist expounding its meaning. Words pour out
incessantly to explain its teachings and to exhort us to live
by it. Yet eyes remain dry, hearts remain unmoved, minds
remain untouched, lives remain unchanged. Ignominy and
degradation appear to have become the lot of the followers
of the Qur'an. Why? Because we no longer read the Qur'an
as a living reality. It is a sacred book, but it tells us something
of the past only, concerning Muslims and Kafirs, Jews and
Christians, the faithful and the hypocrites, who 'once upon a
time used to be'.

Can the Qur'an, again, be a living, relevant force, as
powerful for us now, 1400 years away, as it was then? This is
the most crucial question that we must answer if we wish to
shape our destiny afresh under the guidance of the Qur'an.

There appear, however, to be some difficulties. Not least of
which has to do with the fact that the Qur'an was revealed at
a certain point in time. Since then we have travelled a long
way, made gigantic leaps in technological know-how, and
seen considerable social changes take place in human society.
Moreover, most of the followers of the*rfnan today do not
know Arabic, and many who do hav�,4ttle idea of the 'living'
language of the Qur'an. They cannot t3e expected to absorb its
idiom and metaphor, so essential to exploring and absorbing
the depths of the Quranic meaning.

Yet its guidance, by its own claim, has an eternal relevance
for all people, being the word of the Eternal God.

For the truth of this claim, it seems to me, it must be
possible for us to receive, experience, and understand the
Qur'an as its first recipients did, at least in some measure
and to some degree. We seem to almost have a right to this
possibility of receiving God's guidance in its fullness and
with all its riches and joys. In other words, despite the
historical incidence of the revelation in a particular language
at a particular time and place, we should be capable of
receiving the Qur'an now (because its message is eternal),
capable of making its message as much a real part of our
lives as it was for the first believers and with the same urgent
and profound relevance for all our present concerns and
experiences.