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CONTENTS
Editorial Board
Editors’ Contributions
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Arabic Transliteration and Pronunciation
General Introduction, Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Approaching The Study Quran
Understanding the Citations in the Commentary
Commentator Key
The Quran: Translation and Commentary
1 The Opening, al-Fātiḥah
Commentary
2 The Cow, al-Baqarah
Commentary
3 The House of ʿImrān, Āl ʿImrān
Commentary
4 Women, al-Nisāʾ
Commentary
5 The Table Spread, al-Māʾidah
Commentary
6 The Cattle, al-Anʿām
Commentary
7 The Heights, al-Aʿrāf
Commentary
8 The Spoils, al-Anfāl
Commentary
9 Repentance, al-Tawbah
Commentary
10 Jonah, Yūnus
Commentary
11 Hūd, Hūd
Commentary
12 Joseph, Yūsuf
Commentary
13 The Thunder, al-Raʿd
Commentary
14 Abraham, Ibrāhīm
Commentary
15 Ḥijr, al-Ḥijr
Commentary
16 The Bee, al-Naḥl
Commentary
17 The Night Journey, al-Isrāʾ
Commentary
18 The Cave, al-Kahf
Commentary
19 Mary, Maryam
Commentary
20 Ṭā Hā, Ṭā Hā
Commentary
21 The Prophets, al-Anbiyāʾ
Commentary
22 The Pilgrimage, al-Ḥajj
Commentary
23 The Believers, al-Muʾminūn
Commentary
24 Light, al-Nūr
Commentary
25 The Criterion, al-Furqān
Commentary
26 The Poets, al-Shuʿarāʾ
Commentary
27 The Ants, al-Naml
Commentary
28 The Story, al-Qaṣaṣ
Commentary
29 The Spider, al-ʿAnkabūt
Commentary
30 The Byzantines, al-Rūm
Commentary
31 Luqmān, Luqmān
Commentary
32 Prostration, al-Sajdah
Commentary
33 The Parties, al-Aḥzāb
Commentary
34 Sheba, Sabaʾ
Commentary
35 The Originator, Fāṭir
Commentary
36 Yā Sīn, Yā Sīn
Commentary
37 Those Ranged in Ranks, al-Ṣāffāt
Commentary
38 Ṣād, Ṣād
Commentary
39 The Throngs, al-Zumar
Commentary
40 The Forgiver, Ghāfir
Commentary
41 Expounded, Fuṣṣilat
Commentary
42 Counsel, al-Shūrā
Commentary
43 Gold Ornaments, al-Zukhruf
Commentary
44 Smoke, al-Dukhān
Commentary
45 Upon Their Knees, al-Jāthiyah
Commentary
46 The Sand Dunes, al-Aḥqāf
Commentary
47 Muhammad, Muḥammad
Commentary
48 Victory, al-Fatḥ
Commentary
49 The Private Apartments, al-Ḥujurāt
Commentary
50 Qāf, Qāf
Commentary
51 The Scatterers, al-Dhāriyāt
Commentary
52 The Mount, al-Ṭūr
Commentary
53 The Star, al-Najm
Commentary
54 The Moon, al-Qamar
Commentary
55 The Compassionate, al-Raḥmān
Commentary
56 The Event, al-Wāqiʿah
Commentary
57 Iron, al-Ḥadīd
Commentary
58 She Who Disputes, al-Mujādilah
Commentary
59 The Gathering, al-Ḥashr
Commentary
60 She Who Is Examined, al-Mumtaḥanah
Commentary
61 The Ranks, al-Ṣaff
Commentary
62 The Congregational Prayer, al-Jumuʿah
Commentary
63 The Hypocrites, al-Munāfiqūn
Commentary
64 Mutual Dispossession, al-Taghābun
Commentary
65 Divorce, al-Ṭalāq
Commentary
66 Forbiddance, al-Taḥrīm
Commentary
67 Sovereignty, al-Mulk
Commentary
68 The Pen, al-Qalam
Commentary
69 The Undeniable Reality, al-Ḥāqqah
Commentary
70 The Ascending Ways, al-Maʿārij
Commentary
71 Noah, Nūḥ
Commentary
72 The Jinn, al-Jinn
Commentary
73 The Enwrapped One, al-Muzzammil
Commentary
74 The Covered One, al-Muddaththir
Commentary
75 The Resurrection, al-Qiyāmah
Commentary
76 Man, al-Insān
Commentary
77 Those Sent Forth, al-Mursalāt
Commentary
78 The Tiding, al-Nabaʾ
Commentary
79 The Wresters, al-Nāziʿāt
Commentary
80 He Frowned, ʿAbasa
Commentary
81 The Enfolding, al-Takwīr
Commentary
82 The Cleaving Asunder, al-Infiṭār
Commentary
83 Those Who Defraud, al-Muṭaffifīn
Commentary
84 The Sundering, al-Inshiqāq
Commentary
85 The Constellations, al-Burūj
Commentary
86 What Comes by Night, al-ṭāriq
Commentary
87 The Most High, al-Aʿlā
Commentary
88 The Overwhelming Event, al-Ghāshiyah
Commentary
89 The Dawn, al-Fajr
Commentary
90 The Land, al-Balad
Commentary
91 The Sun, al-Shams
Commentary
92 The Night, al-Layl
Commentary
93 The Morning Brightness, al-Ḍuḥā
Commentary
94 Expansion, al-Sharḥ
Commentary
95 The Fig, al-Tīn
Commentary
96 The Blood Clot, al-ʿAlaq
Commentary
97 Power, al-Qadr
Commentary
98 The Clear Proof, al-Bayyinah
Commentary
99 The Earthquake, al-Zalzalah
Commentary
100 The Chargers, al-ʿĀdiyāt
Commentary
101 The Calamity, al-Qāriʿah
Commentary
102 Vying for Increase, al-Takāthur
Commentary
103 The Declining Day, al-ʿAṣr
Commentary
104 The Slanderer, al-Humazah
Commentary
105 The Elephant, al-Fīl
Commentary
106 Quraysh, Quraysh
Commentary
107 Small Kindnesses, al-Māʿūn
Commentary
108 Abundant Good, al-Kawthar
Commentary
109 The Disbelievers, al-Kāfirūn
Commentary
110 Help, al-Naṣr
Commentary
111 The Palm Fiber, al-Masad
Commentary
112 Sincerity, al-Ikhlāṣ
Commentary
113 The Daybreak, al-Falaq
Commentary
114 Mankind, al-Nās
Commentary
ESSAYS
How to Read the Quran
Ingrid Mattson
The Quran in Translation
Joseph Lumbard
The Islamic View of the Quran
Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami
Quranic Arabic: Its Characteristics and Impact on Arabic Language and Literature
and the Languages and Literatures of Other Islamic Peoples
Muhammad Abdel Haleem
Quranic Commentaries
Walid Saleh
Traditions of Esoteric and Sapiential Quranic Commentary
Toby Mayer
Scientific Commentary on the Quran
Muzaffar Iqbal
The Quran as Source of Islamic Law
Aḥmad Muḥammad al-ṭayyib
The Quran and Schools of Islamic Theology and Philosophy
Muṣṭafā Muḥaqqiq Dāmād
The Quran and Sufism
William C. Chittick
The Quran and Islamic Art
Jean-Louis Michon
The Quranic View of Sacred History and Other Religions
Joseph Lumbard
Quranic Ethics, Human Rights, and Society
Maria Massi Dakake
Conquest and Conversion, War and Peace in the Quran
Caner K. Dagli
Death, Dying, and the Afterlife in the Quran
Hamza Yusuf
Essay Author Biographies
Appendix A
Ḥadīth Citations
Appendix B
Time Line of Major Events Related to the Quran
Appendix C
Biographies of Commentators
Maps
Index
Copyright
About the Publisher
EDITORIAL BOARD
(Editor-in-Chief), University Professor of Islamic Studies at
the George Washington University, is an international authority on Islamic
philosophy, mysticism, art, and science as well as comparative religion and
religion and ecology. He is the author of dozens of books and hundreds of articles
and the subject of a number of books, edited collections, and articles. Some of his
recent publications include The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of
Sufism (2007), Islam’s Mystical Tradition (2007), Islam in the Modern World
(2010), In Search of the Sacred (2010), and Metaphysical Penetrations (a
translation of Mullā Ṣadrā’s Kitāb al-Mashāʿir, 2014).
SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR
CANER K. DAGLI
(General Editor), Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the
College of the Holy Cross, is a specialist in Sufism, Islamic philosophy, interfaith
dialogue, and Quranic studies. His publications include The Ringstones of
Wisdom (an annotated translation of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, 2004), The
Oxford Encyclopedia of Science, Philosophy, and Technology in Islam (senior
coeditor, 2014), and Ibn al-ʿArabī and Islamic Intellectual Culture: From
Mysticism to Philosophy (2015).
(General Editor) is Associate Professor of Religious
Studies at George Mason University, specializing in Shiism, Sufism, Islamic
philosophy and theology, the Quran, interfaith dialogue, and issues related to
women and the feminine in classical Islam. She is the author of The Charismatic
Community: Shīʿite Identity in Early Islam (2007) and coeditor of The
Routledge Companion to the Quran (forthcoming).
MARIA MASSI DAKAKE
JOSEPH E. B. LUMBARD
(General Editor) is Assistant Professor in the Department
of Arabic and Translation Studies at the American University of Sharjah and an
Associate Editor for the Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān (in progress). A
specialist in Quranic studies, Sufism, Islamic philosophy, comparative theology,
and Islamic ecotheology, he is the editor of Islam, Fundamentalism, and the
Betrayal of Tradition (2nd edition, 2010), and author of Submission, Faith, and
Beauty: The Religion of Islam (2009) and Love and Remembrance: The Life and
Teachings of Aḥmad al-Ghazālī (2016).
(Assistant Editor), Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at
Carleton University, specializes in Sufism, Islamic philosophy and theology, and
Quranic exegesis. He is the author of The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and
Scripture in Mullā ṣadrā (2012) and translator of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī’s The
MOHAMMED RUSTOM
Condemnation of Pride and Self-Admiration (2017).
EDITORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
Seyyed Hossein Nasr supervised the entire Study Quran, including selecting the
editorial board and essay authors; editing the translation, commentary, and essays;
and overseeing the style and scope of the translation and commentary. Caner K.
Dagli wrote the commentary for sūrahs 2–3, 8–9, and 21–28, was the primary
translator for sūrahs 2–3, 8–9, and 22–28, and was an editor for the remainder of
the translation and commentary; he also conceived and supervised the design of
the book. Maria Massi Dakake wrote the commentary for sūrahs 4–7 and 16–19,
was the primary translator for sūrahs 4–7, 10–12, and 14–21, and was an editor
for the remainder of the translation and commentary. Joseph E. B. Lumbard wrote
the commentary for sūrahs 1 and 29–114, was the primary translator for sūrahs 1,
13, and 29–114, and was an editor for the remainder of the translation and
commentary. Mohammed Rustom wrote the commentary for sūrahs 10–15 and 20
and contributed to editing other parts of the commentary and the translation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Major funding for The Study Quran was provided by:
The Institute for Religion and Civic Values
The El-Hibri Foundation
The following organizations and individuals provided additional support:
His Majesty King Abdallah II
The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies
The Radius Foundation
Sheikh Abdul Rahman and Sadiqua Rahman
Steve and Debra York
The Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta
We would like to express our gratitude to our contributors for their generous
support. The funds provided allowed the editors to devote their time to The Study
Quran and subsidized the many research assistants whose contributions have been
invaluable. We must also thank Shabbir Mansuri, Munir Sheikh, Karim El-Hibri,
and Zen Hunter Ishikawa for their assistance in procuring and managing these
funds.
George Mason University and the College of the Holy Cross provided
generous leaves and financial assistance that contributed to the completion of this
project.
The editors of The Study Quran wish to thank the authors of the essays for
their excellent contributions. We are grateful to Daoud Casewit for his work on
the citations of ḥadīth and sayings, and for conceiving of and providing the initial
drawings for the maps. We also wish to thank Ryan Brizendine for several years
of invaluable editorial work as well as Shankar Nair, Arjun Nair, Hamilton Cook,
Sayed Amir Mirtaheri, and Abigail Tardiff, all of whom helped with research,
editorial work, indexes, and the preparation of the text for publication. Their work
has vastly improved the final product, though any errors remain our own.
Our special thanks go to HarperOne and its editors Eric Brandt, who helped
launch the project, and Mickey Maudlin, who has guided the project to
completion, along with all those who helped to prepare the text for publication,
especially Ann Moru, who skillfully copyedited an enormous, demanding, and
complex text, as well as our production editors, Suzanne Quist and Natalie
Blachere. We would like to thank Ralph Fowler, who typeset the book, and Shiraz
Sheikh, who indexed it. We are also grateful to Stephen Hanselman, our literary
agent, who first proposed this project when he was an editor with HarperOne.
Many friends and colleagues have made helpful suggestions and provided
invaluable advice along the way. They are too numerous to name here, though we
owe them all a debt of gratitude. We were honored to have the American master
calligrapher Mohamed Zakariya provide the Arabic calligraphy that appears in the
text.
Finally, we thank our families, who have been so patient and supportive
during the many years it has taken to complete this project.
ABBREVIATIONS*
AD
Common Era year, Anno Domini
AH
Islamic year, Anno Hegirae
c
commentary of The Study Quran
ca.
circa
cf.
compare
chap. chapter
d.
death date
ed.
editor
passim throughout
pl.
plural
sing.
singular
v.
verse
vv.
verses
*Note: A list of abbreviations for the commentators cited in this work is to be found on pages lvii–lix.
ARABIC TRANSLITERATION AND PRONUNCIATION
Arabic sounds resemble corresponding English sounds unless otherwise noted.
ء
ʾ
ب
b
ت
t
ث
th
ج
j
ح
ḥ
a heavy h, with the throat constricted
خ
kh
like the ch in the Scottish loch or German Macht
د
d
ذ
dh
like the th in that
ر
r
like a Spanish rolled r
ز
z
س
s
ش
sh
ص
ṣ
a heavy s, with the back of the tongue raised
ض
ḍ
a heavy d, with the back of the tongue raised
ط
ṭ
a heavy t, with the back of the tongue raised
ظ
ẓ
more a heavy dh than z, with the back of the tongue raised
ع
ʿ
voiced sound formed by constriction of air in the throat, commonly elided into the
following vowel
غ
gh
like the French r, at the back of the tongue
ف
f
ق
q
ك
k
ل
l
م
m
ن
n
ه
h
ة
-h, -t
hamzah or glottal stop, marking a shift in vowel, as in the middle of the colloquial uh-oh
like the th in thin
a heavy k, back in the throat
tāʾ marbūṭah, appears at the end of some words and is written and pronounced h when
not in construct with the following word, e.g., zakāh, and as t when it is, e.g., zakāt alfiṭr
The letters ي,ا, and وcan function either as consonants or long vowels:
ا
ʾ
when used as an initial hamzah
ا
ā
when used as a long vowel
ي
y
when used as a consonant
ي
ī
when used as a long vowel
و
w
when used as a consonant
و
ū
when used as a long vowel
Short Vowels
a
like the vowel in son when vowelizing heavier consonants (kh, r, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, gh, q), and like the vowel in set
for lighter consonants (ʾ, b, t, th, j, ḥ, d, dh, z, s, sh, ʿ, f, k, l, m, n, h, w, y)
i
like the vowel in sit
u
like the vowel in soot
Long Vowels
ā
like the vowel in sob for heavier consonants (kh, r, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, gh, q) and like the vowel in sat for lighter
consonants (ʾ, b, t, th, j, ḥ, d, dh, z, s, sh, ʿ, f, k, l, m, n, h, w, y), but pronounced slightly longer
ī
like the vowel in seen
ū
like the vowel in soon
The Hamzah
In transliteration, the hamzah (ء, see above) is not represented at the start of a
word, but is elided into the following vowel, e.g., iḥsān, not ʾiḥsān. An initial
“discontinuous” hamzah or hamzat qaṭʿ ( أor )إis always pronounced fully
regardless of what precedes it, but a “connecting” hamzah or hamzat waṣl,
usually represented by an alif ( )اat the start of a word but sometimes as an alif
with a waṣlah sign ()ٱ, is elided into the vowel that precedes it. The most common
connecting hamzah is the first letter of the definite article al-, and the elision of
the a is shown by the replacement of the connecting hamzah with an apostrophe.
For example, when dhū is attached to al-qurbā, it is written as dhu’l-qurbā, not
dhū al-qurbā. This elision and connection also has the effect of shortening any
long vowel that immediately precedes the hamzah; thus one writes dhu’l-qurbā,
not dhū’l-qurbā, and one pronounces it dhul-qur-ba, not dhool-qur-ba.
Another important instance of the connecting hamzah is the first letter of the
Divine Name Allāh. For example, one writes lā ilāha illa’Llāh, not lā ilāha illā
Allāh, with the capital “L” taking the place of the first letter of the Divine Name.
However, in some cases, as in names such as ʿAbd Allāh and phrases such as
subḥān Allāh, the Divine Name is written without the elision.
Sun and Moon Letters
When spoken or recited, the l in the definite article al- takes on the sound that
follows it in the case of certain consonants, traditionally called “sun letters”: t, th,
d, dh, r, z, s, sh, ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, l, n. For example, al-nūr is pronounced an-noor, not alnoor. For the other consonants, traditionally called “moon letters” (ʾ, b, j, ḥ, kh, ʿ,
gh, f, q, k, m, h, w, y), the l in the definite article al- remains pronounced; for
example, al-kitāb is pronounced al-ki-taab. This pronunciation difference is not
represented in the transliteration or the original Arabic script.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Bi’smi’Llāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm
The Quran is for Muslims the verbatim Word of God, revealed during the twentythree-year period of the prophetic mission of the Prophet Muhammad through the
agency of the Archangel Gabriel (Jibrīl or Jabraʾīl). The meaning, the language,
and every word and letter in the Quran, its sound when recited, and its text written
upon various physical surfaces are all considered sacred. The Quran was an oral
revelation in Arabic first heard by the Prophet and later written down in the
Arabic alphabet in a book consisting of 114 sūrahs (chapters) and over 6,200
verses (āyāt), arranged according to an order that was also revealed. Considered
the Book (al-Kitāb) by all Muslims, it has many names, such as al-Furqān (“the
Criterion”) and al-Hudā (“the Guide”), but its most commonly used name is alQurʾān, which means “the Recitation.” In the same way that Christians refer to
their sacred scripture as the Holy Bible, Muslims usually refer to theirs as alQurʾān al-Majīd (“the Glorious Quran”; 50:1; 85:21) or al-Qurʾān al-Karīm
(“the Noble Quran”; 56:77). Known in English as the Quran (also Koran), it is the
central theophany of Islam and the basic source and root of all that is authentically
Islamic, from metaphysics, angelology, and cosmology to law and ethics, from the
various arts and sciences to social structures, economics, and even political
thought.
The Quran is the constant companion of Muslims in the journey of life. Its
verses are the first sounds recited into the ear of the newborn child. It is recited
during the marriage ceremony, and its verses are usually the last words that a
Muslim hears upon the approach of death. In traditional Islamic society, the sound
of the recitation of the Quran was ubiquitous, and it determined the space in which
men and women lived their daily lives; this is still true to a large extent in many
places even today. As for the Quran as a book, it is found in nearly every Muslim
home and is carried or worn in various forms and sizes by men and women for
protection as they go about their daily activities. In many parts of the Islamic
world it is held up for one to pass under when beginning a journey, and there are
still today traditional Islamic cities whose gates contain the Quran, under which
everyone entering or exiting the city passes. The Quran is an ever present source
of blessing or grace (barakah) deeply experienced by Muslims as permeating all
of life.
Inasmuch as the Quran is the central, sacred, revealed reality for Muslims, The
Study Quran addresses it as such and does not limit it to a work of merely
historical, social, or linguistic interest divorced from its sacred and revealed
character. To this end, the focus of The Study Quran is on the Quran’s reception
and interpretation within the Muslim intellectual and spiritual tradition, although
this does not mean that Muslims are the only intended audience, since the work is
meant to be of use to various scholars, teachers, students, and general readers. It is
with this Book, whose recitation brings Muslims from Sumatra to Senegal to tears,
and not simply with a text important for the study of Semitic philology or the
social conditions of first/seventh-century Arabia, that this study deals.
This Book, according to Islam, was revealed by Gabriel to the Prophet during
the twenty-three years of his prophetic mission on different occasions during night
and day, in both Makkah and Madinah, in such a manner that, although the words
of the Quran came out of his mouth, its Author is God. The Prophet was the
instrument through which the reality of the Quran, which existed with God on a
level of reality beyond time, in what Muslims call the Preserved Tablet (al-lawḥ
al-maḥfūẓ; 85:22), was revealed to men and women in this world. That is why
revelation itself is often described as “descent” (tanzīl), which means that the
Quran was a reality before its revelation or descent to the Prophet and therefore
not his own words, as claimed by those who have denied the revealed nature of
the Quran over the ages.
And yet something of the reality of the Prophet’s soul is present in the Quran,
and that is why, when asked about his character, his wife ʿĀʾishah replied, “His
character was the Quran.” Shortly before his departure from the earthly plane, the
Prophet said in a famous tradition, or ḥadīth, “I leave among you something which
is very important and should be followed; you will not go astray if you take hold
of it after I am gone, one part of it being more important than the other: God’s
Book, which is a rope stretched from Heaven to earth, and my close relatives,
who belong to my household. These two will not separate from one another till
they come down to the pool [in the Hereafter]; so consider how you act regarding
them after my departure.”
The Message of the Quran
What are the grand themes with which this sacred scripture deals? The Quran
contains above all a doctrine about the nature of reality on all its levels, from
Absolute Reality Itself, that is, the One God, to the reality of creation both
macrocosmic and microcosmic. It provides the full revelation of Allāh, or God, as
the supreme Reality Whose Oneness is at the center of the Islamic message. God
is One, at once impersonal and personal, transcendent and immanent, majestic and
beautiful, beyond all that we can conceive and yet nearer to us than our jugular
vein, as the Quran itself asserts so poetically (50:16).
The Quran also reveals a galaxy of Divine Names and Qualities, which by
virtue of being revealed are sacred and provide the means of not only knowing
God, but also of returning to Him. They thus play a central role not only in Islamic
metaphysics and theology, but also in the practical and ritual aspects of Islamic
religious and spiritual life. As the Quran itself states, Unto God belong the Most
Beautiful Names (7:180; cf. 17:110; 20:8; 59:24); it then commands the believers
to call upon Him through these Names (7:180). Islamic doctrine based upon the
Quran distinguishes between the Divine Essence, which is beyond all names,
qualities, attributes, and descriptions; His Names, Qualities, and Attributes; and
His Acts, which include the creation and sustenance of all the worlds and all
creatures within them and the constant operations of His Will in His creation,
especially the human order, in which His Love and Mercy as well as Justice and
Judgment are ever present.
The testimony of faith in Islam, that is, the first shahādah, lā ilāha illa’Llāh
(“There is no god but God”), a phrase that was revealed in the Quran itself
(37:35; 47:19), is not only the supreme statement concerning Divine Unity and
Transcendence, but also the means of reintegrating all positive qualities back into
the One. The shahādah also means that there is ultimately no beauty but the Divine
Beauty, no goodness but the Divine Goodness, no power but the Divine Power,
and so on. Metaphysically it means that there is ultimately no reality but the
Divine Reality.
The Quran also deals fully with the nature of human beings. It teaches us who
we are, why we were created and placed here on earth, what our goal in life is,
what our responsibilities and rights are according to the Divine Law, what we
need to know about the immortality of the human soul and its posthumous states,
and the consequences of how we live in this world for our state of being after
death. Although it addresses both men and women in most of its verses, it also
deals explicitly in some places with the meaning of the creation of human beings
as male and female or in pairs (zawj), the sacredness of sexuality, the importance
of the family, and the responsibilities of each gender toward the other in marriage.
Also treated is the correct relationship between the individual, society, and the
rest of God’s creation.
No sacred scripture of which we have knowledge speaks more about the
cosmos and the world of nature than does the Quran, where one finds extensive
teachings about cosmogenesis, cosmic history, eschatological events marking the
end of the cosmic order as it now exists, and the phenomena of nature as revealing
Divine Wisdom. In fact, the Quran refers to these phenomena as āyāt (“signs,” or
symbols), employing the same word that is used for the verses of the Sacred Book.
The Quran also speaks of life and its origin and of the relation of all beings,
animate as well as inanimate, from animals and plants, to mountains, seas, and
stars, to God. In a sense the Quran was revealed to a whole cosmic sector as well
as to humanity, and many Muslim sages over the ages have referred to the cosmos
itself as a revelation, in fact the primordial revelation. That is why they have so
often referred to the cosmos as “the cosmic Quran” (al-qurʾān al-takwīnī), the
meaning of whose “verses” can only be understood by means of “the written
Quran” (al-qurʾān al-tadwīnī), that is, the book of the Quran, which is Islam’s
sacred scripture.
Of course, as many traditions of the Prophet (aḥādīth, sing. ḥadīth) have
indicated, the Quran possesses an outward meaning (ẓāhir) and an inward
meaning (bāṭin), in fact several inner meanings, the most inward of which is said,
according to tradition, to be known only to God. Grasping the multiple levels of
meaning of the Quranic text is essential for learning to “read” the cosmic book and
for the full understanding of all of its teachings, including the metaphysics,
cosmology, science of the human state, eschatology, and spiritual life of which the
Quran speaks.
To return to the central subjects and themes mentioned in the Quran, it is
important to emphasize that the Quran is the fundamental source of Islamic Law
(al-Sharīʿah) and that, although historically the Prophet has been called, like
Moses, a legislator, the ultimate legislator is considered in Islam to be God
Himself, who is often called al-Shāriʿ, “the Legislator.” A few hundred Quranic
verses deal in a concrete manner with law, while others deal with principles upon
which revealed laws are based. In fact, for Muslims the Islamic Sharīʿah, or
Divine Law, is the concrete embodiment of the Divine Will as elaborated in the
Quran for the followers of Islam; and from the Islamic point of view the scriptures
of all divinely revealed religions, each of which possesses its own sharīʿah (see
5:48), have the same function in those religions. For Muslims, who accept the
Quran as the Word of God, therefore, following the Divine Law is basic and
foundational for the practice of their religion.
The Quran is also a book of ethics. It provides the criteria for discernment
between not only truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, but also good and evil.
Although it emphasizes that human beings should use their God-given gift of
intelligence (al-ʿaql) to discern what is true, beautiful, and good, it also insists
that it is necessary to have faith in the revelation that provides the final judgment
as to what is true and good and in fact allows human intelligence to be fully
operative rather than becoming atrophied by human passions. Moreover, the
ethical teachings of the Quran concern both the cultivation of virtues that pertain
specifically to individuals, and of social ethical qualities, such as justice and
generosity, that are basic for any society that could be called properly Islamic.
Furthermore, from a Quranic perspective the rights of the individual and those of
society are not in tension or opposition with each other, as they are sometimes
perceived to be in modern Western societies.
As the fundamental source of the Islamic religion, the Quran contains
teachings, including economic and political ones, that pertain to both individual
believers and Islamic society as a whole. It also contains instructions for various
individual religious practices and especially rites, whose details were provided
by the sunnah (“wont”) and aḥādīth (sayings, actions, and tacit approvals) of the
Prophet. But the Quran also establishes communal religious practices and
institutions that are basic to Islamic society as a whole.
Many are aware that the Quran is concerned with religious life as well as
matters related to both individual salvation and the social order, but fewer realize
that the Quran is also a guide for the inner spiritual life. Paying attention to the
inner meaning of the Quran results in the realization that not only does it contain
teachings about creating a just social order and leading a virtuous life that results
in a return to God after death in a felicitous state; it also provides the means of
returning to God here and now while still in this world. The Quran is therefore
also a sapiential and spiritual guide for the attainment of the truth, a guide for the
attainment of beatitude even in this world.
Another theme that runs throughout many of the sūrahs of the Quran is sacred
history and narratives that pertain to prophets of old and their peoples. This
sacred history confines itself almost completely to the Abrahamic tradition and the
Israelite prophets, although some Arab prophets not found in the Bible are also
mentioned. The import of this sacred history is meant, however, to be universal,
since the Islamic revelation is addressed to all of humanity rather than to a
particular people, as is the case with Judaism. For Muslims, the sacred history
narrated in the Quran was revealed by God to the Prophet; it is not simply a
compilation of reports heard from Jewish or Christian sources. There is in fact a
subtle difference between Biblical and Quranic accounts of sacred history. While
the Biblical accounts have a more historical nature, Quranic sacred history is
more ahistorical and is revealed primarily to teach ethical and spiritual lessons.
Quranic sacred history is seen more as events within the human soul rather than as
just historical events in the world. All human beings possess within their being,
for example, the qualities of Moses and those of Pharaoh, the beauty of Joseph and
the conniving of his brothers; this sacred history is a means of teaching Muslims
about their own souls as well as about good and evil and the ultimate triumph of
good over evil, if one takes recourse in God, seeks His Help, and has confidence
in Him throughout the trials of life, as did prophets of old.
Traditional views of religious history are usually concerned with eschatology,
and Islam’s are no exception in this regard. The Quran looks upon history as a
finite reality that begins with God’s creation of the present humanity and ends with
His bringing human and cosmic history to its eschatological end. The Quranic
conception of the march of time is in a sense cyclical: each cycle is marked by the
descent of a message from God through a prophet, the gradual forgetting of that
message by the particular people to whom it was sent, and usually the occurrence
of a Divinely willed calamity, followed by the coming of a new prophet. But these
cycles of prophecy are not endless. Rather, the Quran announces that the Prophet
of Islam is the Seal of prophets (33:40) in the chain of prophecy and that after him
will come not another prophet, but eschatological events that mark the end of this
world and present-day humanity. The Quran also hints at the possibility after the
destruction of this world of a new creation by God, an issue, which is, however,
beyond the concerns of present humanity, to which the Quran is addressed (see
14:19, 48; 35:15).
Descriptions of eschatological events related to both individuals and human
society as well as to the cosmos are central to the Quranic message. Numerous
passages throughout the Sacred Text speak about death, Resurrection, Divine
Judgment, Paradise, Hell, and by implication Purgatory as well as human beings’
final end. The Quran expresses these eschatological realities in a most powerful,
concrete, and at the same time highly symbolic language. The Hereafter is
presented in such a manner that it remains a constant reality in the consciousness
of Muslims throughout their lives here in this lower world (al-dunyā). The
delights of Paradise as well as the terrible punishments of Hell are described in
such a way as to leave an indelible effect upon the mind and soul of believers,
profoundly affecting their actions and thoughts in this world. Moreover, Quranic
language is at once concrete and sensuous, to be understood by the simplest
believers, and symbolic and metaphysical, to satisfy the needs of sages and saints.
The paradisal delights described in the Quran are not sublimations of earthly
delights, as some have claimed; but earthly delights, both those that are
permissible to Muslims in this life and those, such as wine, that are not, are
presented as earthly reflections of paradisal realities.
The Quran is also a book of knowledge, and for Muslims it contains the roots
of all authentic knowledge as traditionally understood, not as seen by some
modern scientistic commentators who seek to identify various verses of the Noble
Book with this or that recent scientific theory or discovery. In traditional Islamic
civilization, all the Islamic sciences, from jurisprudence to astronomy, from
theology to medicine, were considered to have their root in the Quran; in fact, all
Islamic thought and art can be viewed as commentaries on it. The fact that the
descent of the Quran led not only to the foundation of one of the world’s great
civilizations, but also to the creation of one of the major scientific, philosophical,
and artistic traditions in global history was not accidental. Without the advent of
the Quran, there would have been no Islamic sciences as we know them, sciences
that were brought later to the West and we therefore would not have words such as
“algebra,” “algorithm,” and many other scientific terms of Arabic origin in
English. Nor would there be the Summas of St. Thomas Aquinas, at least in their
existing form, since these Summas contain so many ideas drawn from Islamic
sources.
Not only was the Quranic message foundational for the development of the
Islamic sciences, but it was and remains the essential reality in the creation of the
Islamic arts, whose principles derive from the ḥaqīqah, or inner truth, of the
Quran. The Islamic holy book has provided over the ages the principles as well as
the inspiration for the sacred Islamic arts from calligraphy to architecture. Its
teachings have also channeled Muslim artistic creativity in certain directions and
provided the social context for the creation of works of Islamic art. The fact that
Islamic civilization has produced so much outstanding poetry, but practically no
sculpture of consequence, and the fact that calligraphy is so central to Muslim life,
are directly related to the Quranic message, in both its form and content. Also
stemming from the Quran are the determination of what constitutes sacred art,
what domains are of significance in the traditional arts, and what the hierarchy of
the arts must be in Islamic civilization.
The message of the Quran concerning religion is universal. Even when it
speaks of islām, it refers not only to the religion revealed through the Prophet of
Islam, but to submission to God in general. Therefore, in the Quran Abraham and
Jesus are also called muslim in the sense of “submitter.” The Quranic message is
based on the universality of revelation, and the Sacred Text states explicitly that
there are no people to whom God has not sent a messenger, as in 16:36: We
indeed sent a messenger unto every community, “Worship God, and shun false
deities!”
This universalist perspective has had the greatest effect upon the relation
between Muslims and followers of other religions, both practically and
intellectually, throughout Islamic history. It is because of the message of the Quran
that before modern times Muslims were the first people to develop what has come
to be known as the science of religions, or Religionswissenschaft, and to write in
a scholarly fashion about other religions, including non-Abrahamic ones, as we
see in the Indica of Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. 442/1048), written a thousand years
ago. It is for the same reason that over seven centuries ago such Muslim seers and
sages as Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī (d. 672/1273) wrote
about the inner unity of religions, and somewhat later Sufis in India carried out
religious dialogue based on mutual understanding with Hindu authorities and
translated sacred texts of Hinduism from Sanskrit to Persian, and some in China
created a body of works that can be called “Islamic Neo-Confucian.”
The message of the Quran is at once sapiential and practical, legal and moral,
concerned with everyday problems as well as the spiritual and intellectual life.
The Sacred Text deals with every aspect of human concern, from the deepest
intellectual questions and the most lofty spiritual issues to the mundane matters of
ordinary life. It is at once therapeutic and didactic. It is a message of glad tidings
(bishārah) and also of warning (nadhr). That is why it calls the prophets,
including the Prophet of Islam, both harbingers or bearers of glad tidings (bashīr)
and warners unto humanity (nadhīr). It is a guide for every conceivable aspect of
human life, action, and thought and yet also a comfort for the soul of believers. As
the central theophany of Islam, a theophany whose every aspect is considered
sacred, the Quran is the source of all that is properly speaking Islamic. As the
living Word of God, it is the ubiquitous companion of Muslims from the cradle to
the grave and provides the spiritual and religious space within which they are
born, breathe, live, and die.
The Language, Structure, and Recitation of the Quran
The Quran was revealed in the Arabic language and refers to itself as an Arabic
Quran (12:2; 20:113; 39:28; 41:3; 42:7; 43:3). The Quranic revelation in a sense
“shattered” the Arabic language and transformed it into the sacred language that it
is for Muslims. It created a work whose language is inimitable and considered
miraculous, a book that is believed to be untranslatable. The sacred presence and
theophanic reality of the Quran as well as the levels of meaning contained in its
verses cannot be rendered into another language, even Persian and other Islamic
languages that were themselves deeply influenced by Quranic Arabic. In this
context it is essential to remember that in various religions where the revelation is
considered by believers to be the directly revealed Word of God, the language in
which it was revealed is a sacred language, as is the case of Hebrew in Judaism
or Sanskrit in Hinduism; in religions where the founder himself is considered to
be the Word or the Message, the language of the message does not play the same
role.
For example, in Christianity Christ himself is considered to be the Word of
God or the Logos, and in a sense the New Testament is the word of the Word of
God. For two millennia traditional and Orthodox Christians have conducted the
Mass in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and, in the smaller Eastern churches, Aramaic,
Coptic, and even Arabic itself. But for Christianity these languages are liturgical
and not sacred. The celebration of the Eucharist is valid according to the
traditional churches no matter which accepted liturgical language is used. But in
Islam the daily prayers, the central rite that could be said to correspond to the
celebration of the Eucharist in Christianity, are not valid if not performed in
Arabic, whether the worshipper is Arab or non-Arab. One might say that, just as
in the Eucharist worshippers become “attached” to the Word, that is, Christ, by
eating the bread and drinking the wine, which are transformed through the rite into
his flesh and blood, in Islamic rites worshippers “devour” the Word of God
through the enunciation of verses in Quranic Arabic. For Muslims, Quranic Arabic
is therefore, in the deepest sense, like bread and wine in the Eucharist or the body
of Christ in traditional Christianity. Both are embodiments of the Word of God and
therefore sacred. For Christians or those from a Christian background who wish to
understand the full religious and spiritual significance of Quranic Arabic, it is not
enough to compare it to Aramaic, which was the language of Christ, or the Latin of
the Vulgate. It must be compared to the role of the body of Christ in the Christian
tradition.
Arabic was the last Semitic language to enter into the general arena of history
compared to other languages in this family such as Hebrew, Coptic, the
Babylonian languages, Aramaic, and Syriac. For many philologists, Arabic is
considered the closest to what German philologists call Ursemitisch, the original
and primordial Semitic language. The fact that this language, Arabic, was chosen
by God for the Quranic revelation is very much related to the nature of Islam as a
reassertion of the primordial religion, where the last and the first revelations are
united, where the omega reconfirms the alpha, where the alpha of the prophetic
chain manifests itself in the omega point in the vast history of prophecy.
The revelation of the Quran in Arabic lifted this language out of time and
created a work that stands above and beyond historical change. Arabic as a human
language used for daily discourse of course continued and in fact spread far
beyond Arabia, thanks to the Quran itself. This daily language has undergone some
changes over the centuries, but even those transformations have been influenced
by the immutable presence of the Quran. The language of the Quran has been
“dead” to the changes of this world, but has remained most alive as the
embodiment of the ever living Word of God. For every generation of Muslims,
Arab and non-Arab alike, the Quran as revealed in Arabic has been and remains
today an ever living presence beyond the changes of the human condition,
immutable and filled with the abiding life of the Spirit and constantly affecting and
guiding human life. It speaks directly to Muslims today as it did to the
Companions who first heard it from the mouth of the Prophet. It remains the
supreme guide of Muslims, no matter in which point of space or moment of time
they find themselves in this world.
The Arabic of the Quran is in places didactic and matter-of-fact and in other
places allegorical, anagogical, symbolic, and highly poetic. It is true that in some
places, such as Sūrah 26, “The Poets,” the Quran castigates poets and that some of
the early detractors of the Prophet accused him of being just a poet in a pejorative
sense. The reason for such criticisms is that in pre-Islamic Arabia poets were
often paid panegyrists and soothsayers with little concern for the truth or for
spiritual realities. During the rise of Islam, poets were also employed by the
Prophet’s opponents to compose verses denigrating him and the religion of Islam.
According to many Muslim authorities, the prominence of the linguistic arts in
pre-Islamic Arabia was among the reasons that the language of the Quran was
chosen by God to be miraculous and that the Quran itself challenges anyone to
produce its like (see 2:23; 10:38; 11:13). The eloquence (balāghah) of the Quran
is in fact considered to be miraculous (muʿjizah) and beyond the possibility of
imitation by any human being. But if we use the term “poetry” in its universal
sense, then the Quran, especially its last part, but also many other sections, is a
work of the highest poetic quality and power that has never been matched in any
work of even the greatest Muslim poets. It has also influenced profoundly the
poetry created in various Islamic languages and is, moreover, the direct cause of
the privileged position of poetry in Islamic civilization and in everyday Muslim
life in many Islamic communities.
The Quran speaks of itself as a clear Book (e.g., 12:1; 26:2; 27:1), but this
characteristic does not only indicate literal and outward clarity, for there are
verses whose clarity becomes known only when levels of meaning beyond the
outward are considered. Since God is both the Outward (al-ẓāhir) and the
Inward (al-Bāṭin), as the Quran states (57:3), so does His Word have outward
and inward levels of meaning. And since God is the Creator of both the apparent
or visible (al-shahādah) and the absent or Unseen (al-ghayb), in His Word the
Unseen often manifests itself mysteriously in the visible and apparent words and
phrases that constitute its recited and heard sounds. Because of the multiple levels
of meaning, the language of the Noble book is sometimes literal, sometimes
allegorical, sometimes anagogical, and yet at other times simultaneously
anagogical and symbolic. The Quran is like an ocean into which Muslims plunge,
but whose depth can never be fully reached. If we remember the original meaning
of the Latin verb comprehendere, which is “to encompass,” then it can be said that
it is the Quran that encompasses or “comprehends” the reader, while the reader
can never fully encompass the Quran. The Quran is like a net cast into the world
of multiplicity in order to bring us back to the world of Unity, which is infinite. As
finite beings, we cannot encompass the Infinite, but we can and should be drawn
to and ultimately immersed in It.
One cannot discuss the language of the Quran without saying something about
the remarkable mathematical structure that undergirds the Quranic text based on
the mathematical symbolism of the letters of the Arabic alphabet. The traditional
esoteric Islamic science known as al-jafr, whose origin is attributed traditionally
to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, who became the
first Shiite Imam and the fourth Sunni Caliph), deals with the numerical values of
the letters of the Arabic alphabet and their symbolic significance. It is similar to
the science of gematria, which, based on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, is
significant in Jewish Kabbalah and in those schools of Christian mysticism usually
known as Christian Kabbalah. In The Study Quran we have not considered
commentaries and separate Quranic studies based on al-jafr, but it is important to
mention here their existence.
The science of al-jafr brings out remarkable aspects of the inner teachings of
the Quran, including the meaning of the mysterious separated letters (al-ḥurūf almuqaṭṭaʿah) that appear at the beginning of twenty-nine sūrahs, and elucidates
many basic doctrines. For example, according to Islamic metaphysics, all beings
reflect certain Divine Names and Qualities, but man (homo or insān), meaning
both male and female, is the only being in this world who in his or her full reality
as the Universal or Perfect Man (al-insān al-kāmil) is the mirror that reflects all
of the Divine Names. Now, the Name Allāh contains all the Divine Names, and
that is why one of the names of the Prophet, as the Universal Man par excellence,
was ʿAbd Allāh and not, for example, ʿAbd al-Karīm, ʿabd here meaning the
recipient and reflection of any of His Names. According to the science of al-jafr,
the numerical value of Allāh is 66, and so is the numerical value of Ādam wa
Ḥawwāʾ, that is, Adam and Eve, who in their androgynous union constitute the
state of insān. Thus, the science of al-jafr helps one to grasp immediately and
intuit this profound doctrine concerning the human state in relation to God.
The orthography of the alphabet in which Quranic Arabic is written also
possesses a symbolic significance that is brought out in certain traditional studies
of the inner meaning of the Quran. For example, in Arabic, as in English, the first
two letters of the alphabet are a and b, or alif and bāʾ in Arabic. In Arabic
orthography alif is written as a straight vertical line ( )اand bāʾ as a horizontal line
with a dot under it ()ب. Now, alif is the first letter of the Divine Name Allāh, and
bāʾ the first letter of the first word of the Quran, that is, Bi’smi’Llāh (“In the Name
of God”), the full text of which is known as the basmalah. According to the
science of the symbolism of Arabic orthography, the alif symbolizes the descent of
the Divine Word from the world of Divine Transcendence, and bāʾ its reception in
the human world and in human language, which is thereby sanctified. The point
under the bāʾ symbolizes the meeting place of the two letters, of the vertical and
the horizontal, and therefore constitutes the essence of all the letters of Arabic,
hence of the Quran. In traditional Arabic calligraphy the lines are constituted by
the harmonious repetition of the single point or dot.
There is an enigmatic saying attributed to ʿAlī whose meaning can only be
understood by having recourse to this science of the symbolic form of the letters of
the Arabic alphabet when written in Arabic script. ʿAlī is reported to have said:
“The whole of the Quran is contained in al-Fātiḥah (“The Opening”). The whole
of al-Fātiḥah is contained in Bi’smi’Llāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm (“In the Name of
God, the Compassionate, the Merciful”) [this formula in Arabic begins with the
letter bāʾ]. The whole of the Bi’smi’Llāh is contained in the letter bāʾ. The whole
of the letter bāʾ is contained in the dot (nuqṭah) underneath the bāʾ. And I am that
dot.” ʿAlī was alluding here to his inner state of “supreme identity” or “supreme
union,” to the full realization of unity (al-tawḥīd). This account illustrates the
significance of the science of symbolism of the forms of the alphabet used in
Quranic Arabic, a science that needs to be mentioned, even if it has not been
considered in the commentary because of the audience for which this study is
meant.
Turning to the formal structure of the Quran, it bears repetition that it is
constituted of 114 sūrahs, which some translate as “chapters,” starting with alFātiḥah, “The Opening,” which consists of seven verses (āyāt), followed by alBaqarah (“The Cow”), which is the longest sūrah of the Quran. Then the sūrahs
as a general rule gradually become shorter as one proceeds through the text,
although there are exceptions. The last part of the Quran contains the shortest
sūrahs, but the last sūrah is not the shortest in number of verses or words. It is
important to note, for those not familiar with the Quran, that the sūrahs are not
ordered chronologically according to when they were revealed. Often parts of a
sūrah were revealed, followed by parts or the whole of another sūrah, and then
certain verses belonging to the earlier revealed sūrah descended. The order of the
sūrahs itself is considered a matter of revelation, as the Prophet himself specified
the location of verses in sūrahs and the order of sūrahs in relation to one another
as they were revealed to him.
Each sūrah has a name, and in some cases more than one. Muslims believe
that some of these names were also revealed to the Prophet along with the
command concerning which verses belonged to which sūrahs, no matter when
they were revealed, and the order of the verses within the sūrahs. During the
twenty-three-year prophetic career of the Prophet, when the whole of the Quran
was revealed, many memorized it, and it was also written down on parchment,
shoulder bones of camels, sheepskin, and other surfaces. According to tradition,
Zayd ibn Thābit compiled it, and this text was given to the first Caliph, Abū Bakr,
after which it was left with the second Caliph, ʿUmar, and upon his death it was
placed in the custody of his daughter Ḥafṣah, one of the widows of the Prophet.
After consultation with those who knew the Sacred Text by heart, a second
collection was ordered by ʿUthmān, the third Caliph, again under the direction of
Zayd ibn Thābit. This text, which is known as the ʿUthmānic codex, came to
constitute what ʿUthmān had scribes copy; copies were then sent to the four major
cities of the Islamic world of that time, Makkah, Kufa, Basra, and Damascus, and
ʿUthmān kept one copy for himself. These five texts then became the basis of the
written Quran that we have today.
There was some discussion among the Companions concerning the numbering
of some of the verses, and traditionally several schools of iḥṣāʾ, the Quranic
science dealing with the enumeration of the verses, have been recognized. With
regard to the recitation of the Quran, there are also variants in the declensions and
different traditionally transmitted styles of psalmody. Some morphological
variations are traditionally seen as something that testifies to the very polyvalence
of the Quranic text. The structure of the Quran is for all practical purposes one and
immutable. It has undergone no changes over the ages, and Sunnis, Shiites, and
Kharijites all accept the same text as the final revelation of God to humanity.
Shiites and some Sunnis believe that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib also wrote down the
Quran and therefore that there was a second original written copy of it; we know
that ʿUthmān also had Zayd ibn Thābit consult with ʿAlī in assembling the
definitive text of the Sacred Book. It is also reported in Sunni sources that other
Companions, chief among them ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, and
Salīm, had also collected copies of the Quran before the ʿUthmānic codex was
established. Polemical accounts in some apocryphal sources state that the Quran
written down by ʿAlī possessed certain sūrahs that were deleted in the ʿUthmānic
text, but this view is not accepted by mainstream Shiism or Sunnism, and the
Quran used by Shiites today contains the same sūrahs and āyāt as the Quran found
in the Sunni world except for a slight difference in the enumeration of a few
verses. There is but a single Quran, with fewer variations of any kind than are
found in any other sacred scripture.
In addition to being divided into sūrahs and āyāt, the Quran was also divided
later into thirty parts (ajzāʾ, sing. juzʾ). Each juzʾ is also divided in two, creating
sixty aḥzāb (sing. ḥizb), which are themselves divided into halves and quarters to
facilitate reading and memorization. In some parts of the Islamic world, one ḥizb
will be read, either communally or privately, in the early morning prayer and
another in the sunset prayer. The text is also divided into sevenths, known as
manāzil (sing. manzil), which allow devotees to complete the recitation of the
entire text in one week. Sometimes the thirty ajzāʾ or the seven manāzil are bound
separately, so that one may carry only those volumes one wishes to read while on
a journey. During the month of Ramadan, when the Quran was first revealed, it is
customary for many devout Muslims to read the Quran more than at other times of
the year; some read one juzʾ each day and thus complete the reading of the whole
of the Quran during the thirty days of the holy month. When Ramadan is twentynine days, they usually recite the last two ajzāʾ on the last day or night of that
month.
Recitation of the Quran is an essential part of Muslim piety. Many read the
Sacred Book from beginning to end not only during Ramadan, but also during
other periods of the year. However, most Muslims turn over and over again to
certain of the sūrahs with which they have particular affinity. In the same way that
many pious Jews and Christians continue to read the Psalms, such sūrahs as Yā
Sīn (“Yā Sīn,” 36), al-Raḥmān (“The Compassionate,” 55), al-Wāqiʿah (“The
Event,” 56), al-Mulk (“Sovereignty,” 67), and many of the shorter sūrahs at the
end of the Quran are recited often and in many cases on a regular basis by
numerous Muslims. Besides the recitation of the whole of the Quran, which
terminates with a joyous celebration known as “sealing the Quran” (khatm alQurʾān), ordinary recitation usually involves reading and meditating on a small
section at a time (a practice recommended for newcomers to the Noble Book as
well).
Of course all practicing Muslims, Arab and non-Arab alike, recite certain
parts of the Quran in their daily canonical prayers, a ritual recitation that must be
in Arabic. But other than during prayers, the Quran is often also read by many
Muslims in the language of non-Arab believers, whether they are from larger
groups who speak Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Malay, Bengali, Swahili, English,
French, or Spanish or from smaller groups who speak Yoruba, Fulani, Somali,
Albanian, Bosnian, Gujarati, Tamil, or Malayalam. There is practically no
language spoken by Muslims in which a translation of the Quran does not exist,
and in many cases there are numerous translations. There are, however, a few
exceptional cases that should be mentioned. Although the Berbers were among the
first non-Arab people to embrace Islam fourteen centuries ago, because of special
social and cultural circumstances, a Berber translation of the Quran has been
made available only recently for the first time. And in China for twelve centuries
Chinese Muslims did not want or allow a Chinese translation to be made of the
Quran; such a translation appeared for the first time only in the nineteenth century.
In any case when speaking of the recitation and reading of the Quran, it is
important to recall the vast number of languages in which it is read and studied,
but also the fact that no translation can take the place of the Arabic Quran in the
ritual and liturgical life of all Muslims, whatever their mother tongue might be.
The recitation of the Quran in Arabic is based on certain rules, and there is
both an art and a science connected with it. It can be read by individual Muslims
silently or recited aloud, but not excessively loud. Moreover, the recitation should
not be too fast or too slow. There is an art to the recitation of the Quran that must
be mastered, and Quranic psalmody, when performed according to traditional
norms, is considered the highest sonoral art in Islam, at the peak of the hierarchy
of Islamic arts. It is, along with Quranic calligraphy and sacred architecture, the
latter of which creates spaces in which the sound of the Quran reverberates,
Islamic sacred art par excellence.
Outside of the daily prayers, the experience of the recitation of the Quran for
most Muslims is passive rather than active; that is, most listen to the recitation
rather than recite themselves. That is why those who are professional reciters of
the Quran, or qurrāʾ (sing. qārīʾ), play such an important role in Islamic society.
There is no part of the Islamic world in which qurrāʾ are not present, and most
Muslims experience the Quran through their voices. This art is so important that,
in order to encourage it, international contests are held annually in many parts of
the Islamic world, contests in which both male and female qurrāʾ participate. And
although the Arab country of Egypt has been blessed over the ages with so many
remarkable qurrāʾ, some of whom are known throughout the Islamic world,
sometimes non-Arab qurrāʾ win those international contests. Some non-Arab
countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia produce a greater number of female
qurrāʾ than Arab nations.
Many who do not even know the full meaning of the Arabic are trained in the
art of recitation. Most Muslims thus experience the Quran as the oral revelation
that it in fact is and as it was experienced by many of the Companions who first
heard it from the mouth of the Prophet. Many qurrāʾ know the Quran by heart and
recite from memory. Those who have memorized the entire Sacred Text hold the
title of ḥāfiẓ, or memorizer of the Quran. The poet whom many, including myself,
consider to be the greatest poet of the Persian language, that is, Shams al-Dīn
Ḥāfiẓ (d. 793/1391), bore this name because he was a ḥāfiẓ of the Quran. A ḥāfiẓ
can usually be found in a village in the forest of Sumatra or in the desert of the
Sahara, not only in Makkah and other major Islamic cities such as Cairo, Isfahan,
and Istanbul. Wherever ḥuffāẓ (pl. of ḥāfiẓ) are, they recite the Quran in beautiful
psalmody and thus transmit the grace, or barakah, of the sound of the Sacred Text
to those around them. The ubiquitous presence of ḥuffāẓ is considered one of the
miracles of the Quran, because in a mysterious way it facilitates memorization
even by those whose mother tongue is not Arabic. In this vein, the Quran says of
itself: Indeed We have made the Quran easy to remember (54:17, 22, 32, 40).
There is probably no sacred scripture in any religion that is memorized by so
many people as is the Quran.
The Role and Function of the Quran in Muslim Life
Much of what has already been said deals with the reality of the Quran in the life
of Muslims, but it is necessary to portray the full range of its importance and its
effect on the lives of believers. As the central theophany of the Islamic religion,
everything related to the Quran, the verbatim revelation of the Divine Word, is
sacred—from the ideas, injunctions, laws, and other aspects of its message; to the
physical presence of the Sacred Text, which Muslims read and carry with them or
keep in a place of honor in their homes; to the sound of its recitation, which
accompanies them throughout their lives. The two testimonies (shahādatān), one
bearing witness to the Oneness of God and the other to the prophethood of the
Prophet of Islam, both verses from the Quran, are the first words uttered into the
ears of a newborn child and in most cases the last words uttered by a Muslim in
the last moments of consciousness before death. Between these two moments
marking the alpha and omega of earthly human existence, the life of the Muslim is
replete with the presence of the Quran. The sound of its recitation is nearly always
present in Islamic cities, towns, and even villages, and in an inner manner it
determines the qualitative experience of the space in which traditional Muslims
live.
Every positive act, from starting a meal, to leaving the house for work, to
welcoming a guest to one’s house, to starting a letter, a book, or any other task
legitimate in the Eyes of God, begins with the formula of consecration (the
basmalah), that is, “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” with
which the Quran itself begins; and these events usually end with another Quranic
phrase, al-ḥamdu li’Llāh, that is, “Praise be to God.” What has already taken
place is mentioned using another Quranic phrase, mā shāʾa’Llāh, “As God has
willed,” to reassure the believers that nothing has taken place without His Will;
and events that one hopes to occur in the future are referred to with in shāʾa’Llāh,
another verse drawn from the Quran meaning, “If God wills,” thus confirming that
the future also belongs to God and all events in it are determined by the Divine
Will. The Quran is recited on occasions of both joy and sorrow, at weddings and
at funerals, in individual circumstances as well as in communal events. It is
recited often by individuals during private moments when they are alone with their
Creator as well as at the opening of conferences or parliaments, the investiture of
political authorities, or even sports events.
It can be said that the substance of the soul of a Muslim, whether male or
female, is like a mosaic made up of the imprint of verses of the Quran upon that
human substance. Not only are the laws by which Muslims live, the ethical norms
that are to be followed in life, the root of all authentic knowledge, and the
principle and spirit of all forms of art that can be called truly Islamic based on the
Quran, but the Quran is present in the soul and mind of believers during every
moment of life, whether one is engaged in lovemaking, fighting a battle in the
middle of war, or busy in economic activity. No matter how much one writes
about the role of the Quran in Muslim life, it is impossible to exhaust the subject,
for the Quran affects every aspect of a Muslim’s existence, from the body, to the
psyche and the inner faculties, to the mind, the intellect, and spirit.
The Quran, complemented by the Prophetic wont (Sunnah), even affects in a
subtle manner all aspects of comportment (adab), which includes not only
thoughts, speech, and actions, but also bodily postures and physical faculties
—how traditional Muslims carry themselves while walking or talking, entering the
mosque, sitting in an assembly, or greeting others. The Quran also transforms the
inner faculties, especially the memory, and affects even the dreams of believers.
As far as memory is concerned, there is no practicing Muslim who does not
know some of the Quran by heart. The Quran itself strengthens the memory, and
traditional Islamic pedagogy places a great deal of emphasis upon memorization.
The traditional education system begins with Quranic schools for the very young,
where their memory becomes imprinted with Quranic verses that will serve them
the whole of their lives. Later, whether students continue on to higher education or
enter the workforce, their memory remains a treasury of Quranic verses from
which they continue to draw guidance, protection, and sustenance. Needless to
say, this is also true for all those Muslims who have gone on to produce
intellectual or artistic works on the highest level. When Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037),
the greatest Muslim philosopher-scientist, was writing his al-Qānūn fi’l-ṭibb (The
Canon of Medicine), which is the single most influential medical work in the
history of medicine, his memory was as much filled with Quranic verses, which
affected his whole attitude toward knowledge and science, as when he was
writing his own Quranic commentaries.
The most outstanding Muslim spiritual poets, such as Ḥallāj, Ibn al-Fāriḍ, Ibn
ʿArabī, ʿAṭṭār, Rūmī, and Ḥāfiẓ, did not compose their great poetic masterpieces
by forcing themselves to focus on the verses of the Quran. The Quran was already
present in their memory and had transformed their souls, so that during the artistic
process of creating their beautiful poetry the Quran was already functioning as the
central reality of their creative power. Those familiar with the history of German
literature know that Goethe and Rückert were influenced by the Quran. They can
surmise how much greater this influence must have been in the literatures of the
Islamic peoples themselves.
The same can be said for the Islamic arts and sciences in general. In the field
of the arts that affect directly everyday life, the Quran both provided the spirit, the
principles, and in many ways the forms of these arts and determined the direction
that these arts would take. It is the Quran that made calligraphy, architecture, and
Quranic psalmody the central sacred arts of Islam, and it is also the teachings of
the Quran that prevented the development in Islam of iconic sacred art, which is
so central to Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It is the Quran that led to the
development of the aniconic sacred art of Islam.
In everyday Muslim life, one practical aspect of the Quran is its role in the
protection of Muslims. It is said in the Quran that God is its protector, and in turn
His Word provides protection for believers. Its message, if heeded, protects
Muslim men and women from sin and error, while its physical presence is
considered protection from various external dangers. That is why many Muslims
carry the Quran or some of its verses on their bodies, why they pass under it when
embarking upon a journey, and why in days of old even the armor worn by
soldiers in battle was inscribed with Quranic verses. That is also why the Quran
is not only recited, but also physically placed near the head of a dying person as
protection for the journey to the afterlife.
Muslims also turn to the Quran for its therapeutic effect upon illnesses of both
body and soul. There is a whole traditional science dealing with the therapeutic
power of certain Quranic verses, and countless anecdotal accounts in all Islamic
societies maintain the miraculous efficacy of these verses. This aspect of the
Quran is also the source of such practices in folk medicine as immersing
particular verses of the Quran in water and then drinking it.
Finally, the Quran also plays a role in helping decide future actions. The
traditional Quranic art called al-istikhārah, which some have translated as
“bibliomancy,” though this only captures one dimension of the practice, involves
performing voluntary supererogatory prayers and then consulting the Quran for
guidance or asking God for other forms of guidance, usually by means of a dream.
On important occasions where human intelligence and revealed religious
injunctions are not sufficient criteria for deciding to perform or not perform a
particular action of consequence, believers often have recourse to istikhārah,
sometimes carried out by those who possess a gift for this art and other times by
themselves. Many people, when they want to marry, first make an istikhārah
before making their final decision. The same holds true for those who are not
certain of, for example, migrating to another place, choosing a particular physician
in case of serious illness, changing jobs, or deciding on a course of study and
lifelong profession. Some believers overdo this practice by using an istikhārah to
determine whether they should eat a particular dish for lunch, but this is a
distortion of the function of istikhārah and is discouraged by most religious
authorities. According to a famous dictum, there is no need for istikhārah when
there is clear istishārah, that is, indication based on religious injunctions and/or
God-given intelligence.
The Quran, then, is the foundation of Muslim life and of Islamic civilization in
all its aspects. It is a sacred reality that accompanies Muslims throughout their
lives. It is at once the means of discernment between truth and error, the criterion
of judgment of their actions, and their protector and source of grace and comfort. It
is both their judge and their friend; it inculcates in the soul both the love and fear
of God. For believers the Quran is not an inanimate book, but the living Word of
God. Its verses, words, and even letters are living beings that speak to believers
and also mysteriously “hear” them. The Sacred Text is the Muslim’s constant
companion from the beginning to the end of life and even beyond earthly life on
the journey to that Reality from which the Quran descended.
The Study Quran
The history of the composition of The Study Quran began some nine years ago
when the publisher HarperSanFrancisco (now HarperOne) approached me and
asked me to become the chief editor for a volume that would be called The Study
Quran and complement The HarperCollins Study Bible, which this firm had
already published. I was humbled by the enormity of the task and first balked at
accepting such a monumental undertaking. But after much soul searching and
prayer, I came to the conclusion that this was a responsibility that God was putting
on my shoulders, one I could not refuse, especially when I discovered that the
project might not be realized if I did not agree.
I therefore accepted with humility on the condition that this would be a
Muslim effort and that, although the book would be contemporary in language and
based on the highest level of scholarship, it would not be determined or guided by
assertions presented in studies by non-Muslim Western scholars and orientalists
who have studied the Quran profusely as a historical, linguistic, or sociological
document, or even a text of religious significance, but do not accept it as the Word
of God and an authentic revelation. Rather, it would be grounded in the classic
Islamic tradition in order to provide readers access to the many ways in which the
Quran has been understood and explained by Muslims for over fourteen centuries.
I also set the condition that I would have complete freedom in choosing the editors
and other collaborators. All my conditions were accepted, and so the project
began.
For the reasons mentioned above, I chose only Muslim scholars to collaborate
with me in this task. At the same time, I did not want the work to be confined or
limited confessionally, ethnically, or geographically. It was to be universal and at
the same time traditional, that is, expressing traditional Islamic views and
therefore excluding modernistic or fundamentalist interpretations that have
appeared in parts of the Islamic world during the past two centuries. I set out to
produce a text that reflects how Muslims have understood the Quran during their
long history and how those Muslims who remain traditional, which means most of
them, do so today.
To this end I chose three editors, all American, all with doctorates in Islamic
studies from leading American universities, and all with direct experience of the
Islamic world, familiarity with the traditional Islamic sciences, and mastery of
classical Arabic. To preserve diversity, I chose two men and one woman, two of
whom, Joseph Lumbard and Maria Dakake, are American Muslims of Christian
background, and one of whom, Caner Dagli, was born, in America, into a Muslim
family of Circassian origin. Later in the project, after the translation had been
made and the essays edited, I added an assistant editor, Mohammed Rustom, who
was born as a Muslim into a Canadian family of South Asian origin and who has a
doctorate in Islamic studies from a major Canadian university.
Since this collaborative effort also required the preservation of the unity of the
work, I chose these four from among those who had studied with me in one way or
another in years past. There exists, therefore, a unity of intellectual vision,
spiritual perspective, and scholarly attitude between us that has made it possible
to produce a unified work. This unity in the translation and commentary has come
about not because of my coercion, but because of the presence of a common vision
among us. We have consulted each other at every turn, and in cases of scholarly
disagreement between the editors, I have been the final judge and arbiter. But in
fact it is remarkable how harmonious our collaboration has been, which might be
surprising to some in this age of individualism.
Even so, it is appropriate to say a few words about the division of
responsibility. Each editor had primary responsibility for the translation, research,
and composition of commentary for different sections of the Quran. When the first
draft of a section of translation or commentary was completed, each editor would
consult with the others, who would make comments and suggestions. Then it
would come to me, and I would make my final additions and edits. The primary
contribution for the translation is as follows, by sūrah: Caner Dagli: 2–3, 8–9,
22–28; Maria Dakake: 4–7, 10–12, 14–21; Joseph Lumbard: 1, 13, 29–114. The
primary authorship of the commentary, which also includes a great degree of
collaboration among all of the editors, is as follows, by sūrah: Caner Dagli: 2–3,
8–9, 21–28; Maria Dakake: 4–7, 16–19; Joseph Lumbard: 1, 29–114; Mohammed
Rustom: 10–15, 20.
As for the essays, I drew up the list of the subjects to be treated in consultation
with the editors, and then I chose the authors for the essays, again in consultation
with them. In making these choices, I wanted to be as global and universal as
possible within the framework of traditional Islamic scholarship. I therefore chose
scholars from different schools of Islamic thought and different schools of Islamic
Law, Muslims who hailed from diverse parts of the Islamic world as well as
those living in the West. Some of these writers are world-famous Muslim
authorities; others, young gifted scholars just beginning to make their mark. They
include all the way from the grand Shaykh of the most important seat of Sunni
learning, al-Azhar University, and one of the leading Shiite ayatollahs of Iran to
young professors at Western universities. I took the final responsibility for editing
the essays, going over translations when it was called for, and translating into
English one of the essays that was written originally in Persian.
Translation
The translation of the Quran into a Western language has a nearly thousand-year
history going back to its translation into Latin ordered by Peter the Venerable in
the eleventh century. The earliest translation in English appeared in the
seventeenth century. Since then numerous translations have appeared in English as
well as in other European languages, and in fact the number of translations in
English has increased almost exponentially in recent decades. Most of the earlier
translations were made by non-Muslims, many in order to refute Islam. In more
recent decades, however, many translations have been made by Muslims
themselves. Among these many translations, some are more accurate than others,
some more eloquent and poetic, but there has never been nor can there ever be a
single “official” or perfect translation of the Quran, even one approved by Muslim
authorities, such as the religious authorities (ʿulamāʾ) of al-Azhar University.
In our translation we have often consulted some of the best-known English
translations such as those of Yusuf Ali, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall,
Muhammad Asad, A. J. Arberry, ʿAlī Qūlī Qarāʾī, and Muhammad Abdel
Haleem, but our rendition is based on the Arabic text itself and not on any
previous translation. Furthermore, we have sought to be extremely vigilant in
translating the Quranic Arabic itself and not later interpretations of the Arabic.
And the fact that ours was a collaborative effort by several scholars has helped us
to eschew the personal predilections that can often influence the translation
process.
Our aim in the translation has been, first of all, to be as accurate and consistent
as we could within the possibilities of the English language and with full
consideration of the different “fields of meaning” that many words, both Arabic
and English, possess, fields that often overlap only partially, and are not
completely equivalent. In fact, a huge effort and many countless hours have been
expended to ensure that the translation is internally consistent in matters of both
style and content. This effort included the creation of hundreds of secondary
indexing documents and an enormous spreadsheet to track the use of individual
words, phrases, and roots appearing in the translation. Considering the nature of
the sacred language of the Quran, we have sought to make use of the full
possibilities of the English language without the pretext of wanting to be so up-todate in word usage that our rendition would soon become out-of-date.
We have also sought to be as eloquent as possible, in an effort to reflect
something of the inimitable eloquence of Quranic Arabic, which Muslims
consider a miracle that no human being can ever duplicate. We have sought to
produce the best translation possible, and only God knows to what extent we have
succeeded.
Since we had the opportunity to explain in the commentary unfamiliar idioms
or turns of phrase in the Quranic text as well as to expand upon the broader ranges
of meaning that are alluded to in its verses, we could provide more literal
translations in many instances. Moreover, literal translation of certain Quranic
verses or phrases is often necessary to make sense of the traditional commentaries
on these verses, many of which offer substantial spiritual interpretations based
upon philological or grammatical analyses of the verses. A literal style of
translation is also especially important when trying to represent adequately the
complex intertextuality that is a hallmark of the Quranic style.
Commentary
Numerous commentaries have been written on the Quran over the ages not only in
Arabic, but also in many other languages. Among the traditional commentaries
some have been primarily grammatical and linguistic, and some historical, mostly
in the sense of sacred history. Others have been legal, theological, philosophical,
cosmological, scientific, metaphysical, esoteric, or mystical, and some several of
these at once. In a sense the whole of the Islamic intellectual tradition is a
commentary upon the Quran. Moreover, the sīrah literature (works dealing with
the life of the Prophet), his Sunnah (or wont), and the Ḥadīth (traditions) are the
first commentaries upon the Quran. Even the great works of Islamic architecture
from the Dome of the Rock to the Taj Mahal may be said to be commentaries upon
the Quran in stone. And lest one forget, the greatest mystical poem produced in
Islamic civilization, the Mathnawī of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī, has been called “the
Quran in the Pahlavi [i.e., Persian] language.”
We have benefitted in the composition of our commentary from all these
sources as well as of course from works known specifically as tafsīr, or
commentary, upon many of which we have based our commentary without
attempting to be exhaustive. We selected the most authoritative and widely read
and accepted traditional commentaries as well as specialized commentaries that
offered important information not always available in those commentaries that are
more widely read; all of these are listed in the “Commentator Key.” When
necessary we also drew from the sīrah literature and from Sunni and Shiite
Ḥadīth literature.
As far as our own commentary is concerned, it is not meant to be nor can it be
exhaustive in a work confined to a single volume. After all, there are well-known
commentaries in Arabic, Persian, and other Islamic languages that extend to
numerous hefty tomes, some running to twenty or thirty volumes, and even they are
not exhaustive. Our commentary is meant to take readers beyond the literal
meaning of the text when necessary, to clarify difficult passages, to reveal the
inner meanings of verses when called for, and to provide a reasonable account of
the diversity of views and interpretations in matters of law, theology, spirituality,
and sacred history put forth by various traditional Islamic authorities. Our hope is
that this exposition will enable readers to interact on various levels with the
Quran and remove the erroneous view, held in some non-Muslim quarters, that
because Muslims consider the Quran to be the Word of God, they do not think
about it or interact intellectually with it, whereas the Quran itself invites its
readers to meditate upon and think about its teachings.
Our commentary, while based on the traditional commentaries, is not simply a
collage of selections drawn from these books, but a new work. Our text has
required making choices about both inclusion and exclusion of earlier texts in
addition to providing in some places our own commentary, which is not found, at
least in the same way, in the earlier sources.
Ours is therefore a new commentary that is nonetheless based completely on
traditional Islamic thought and the earlier commentary traditions. We, and not
earlier commentators, are therefore fully responsible for its content, which
nevertheless contains numerous citations from the earlier traditional commentaries
that we have consulted. These citations are not exhaustive; rather, they provide
references for those who wish to pursue these citations further. In all instances we
have sought to make the source and origin of our commentary transparent and to
make clear when it is we who are expressing our voice. Traditional commentators
have often given multiple conflicting opinions regarding particular verses. It
should therefore be noted that when a particular traditional commentary conveys
an interpretation, this does not mean that the commentator subscribed to that
particular interpretation, only that this interpretation was mentioned in the
commentary on that verse. For guidance regarding our citation methodology, see
“Understanding the Citations in the Commentary.”
The sheer size of the commentary literature has forced us to exclude some
materials that might be of interest to certain readers concerned with some
particular issue. Moreover, we have tended to omit from the commentary purely
conjectural and fanciful interpretations or legendary and folkloric accounts,
particularly if they are not widely attested in the traditional sources or offer little
in the way of a meaningful interpretation. In cases where such material has been
included, we have tried to be clear about our assessment of its questionable origin
or authority and the extent to which it is consistent or inconsistent with other
passages of the Quran or with ideas found in the Ḥadīth.
Although we have relied heavily upon traditional sources, which are the
mainstay of our translation and commentary, we have also consulted reliable
sources based on both previous and recent academic scholarship in Quranic
studies. We have, moreover, carried out this task with constant awareness of the
biases and fashions present in both historical and contemporary writings about the
Quran. We have been fully aware that many of these resources suffer, from the
Islamic point of view, from the fact that they do not accept the Quran as revelation,
they have a truncated view of the Islamic intellectual tradition, or they reject the
Islamic worldview as a whole. In some extreme cases, such sources are based on
either thinly veiled or sometimes outright hostility toward Islam and are often
grounded in very questionable theories and published for the sake of worldly
ends, such as gaining fame or furthering academic careers.
Coming back to traditional commentaries, it is important to mention for those
not familiar with them that technically tafsīr refers to a commentary on a part or
the whole text of the Quran organized according to the order of the Quranic verses
and written to clarify and bring out its range of meaning and implications. As
already mentioned, in a sense all works on law, theology, metaphysics,
cosmology, the sciences, spirituality, esoterism, mysticism, and other forms of
knowledge developed in the Islamic intellectual tradition are also commentaries
upon the Quran, but are not, strictly speaking, included according to the Islamic
division of the sciences in the tafsīr category. In our commentary we have made
use primarily of tafsīrs, but also when necessary works from the second category.
The traditional commentators were usually men of great erudition, with
profound knowledge not only of the Quran, but also of the different Islamic
religious and intellectual disciplines. Their works therefore usually provide a
vivid picture of the lively Islamic intellectual scene of their time. They often cite
opposing opinions and views concerning various theological, ethical, or legal
issues, but treat their opponents with confidence in their own position and usually
with the courtesy and respect that is characteristic of disputations in the Islamic
intellectual tradition as a whole. One needs only to thumb through the tafsīr of alRāzī or of al-Qurṭubī to see the lively intellectual ambience in which they
flourished and the courteous tone of their disputations. Even a cursory study of
these tafsīrs should dispel the notion that Muslims had or have a rigid and
indiscriminate understanding of the text of the Quran. To the extent possible, we
have sought to preserve these characteristics in our commentary.
Essays
Since this work is meant to be an aid in the study of the Quran, we have included a
large number of essays at the suggestion of the publisher to deal separately with
various major themes contained in the Quran. Because of the space allotted to us,
again we could not be exhaustive. During Islamic history thousands upon
thousands of works have been written on aspects of the Quran by Muslim
scholars, from the language, grammar, and recitation of the Sacred Text to its
metaphysical meaning, from the history of the compilation of the Quranic text to
the sacred history contained in it, from Quranic legal injunctions to the most
esoteric meaning of some of its verses. Traditional Quranic studies include
numerous Quranic sciences, not all of which we have been able to include as
separate subjects in the essays.
We therefore had to select what we consider the most central issues for the
contemporary audience. As already mentioned, the choice of the topics for the
essays has been primarily mine, just as the choice of content has been up to the
individual essay authors, but I always made the topic choices in consultation with
the other editors; and of course other determining factors included the availability
of scholars and their willingness to collaborate with us on this project. In any
case, utmost care has been taken in the choice of both the topics of the essays and
their authors. The essays are in a sense a separate book within this book and can
be read either as a supplement to our translation and commentary or as an
independent work on Quranic studies written by some of the most competent
Muslim scholars of today.
Audience
The commentary we have provided has been composed with the aim of creating a
work that is accessible to the general English-reading public, whether Muslim or
non-Muslim, and that can also be of use to scholars and serious students of the
Quran, again Muslim or otherwise. No previous knowledge of Arabic or the
technical vocabulary of the Quran is necessary in order to understand our
commentary, although we have included transliterations of Arabic terms whenever
we deemed them valuable for those who have some knowledge of Arabic.
The Study Quran is meant to be a resource both for those who wish to study
the Quran in its entirety and for those who are interested in a particular subject or
topic. We have provided indexes and internal citations and designed the work
with red sūrah and verse numberings in the header, the translation, and the
commentary in order to facilitate easy navigation and enable readers to reference
quickly what they are seeking. Reading the translation does not require reading the
accompanying commentary or the essays. The essays, as already mentioned,
constitute a supplementary and independent section.
How to Read The Study Quran
As noted above, for Muslims the Quran is the Word of God; it is sacred scripture,
not a work of “literature,” a manual of law, or a text of theology, philosophy, or
history, although it is of incomparable literary quality, contains many injunctions
about Sacred Law, is replete with verses of metaphysical, theological, and
philosophical significance, and contains many accounts of sacred history. The
unique structure of the Quran and the flow of its content constitute a particular
challenge to most modern readers. For traditional Muslims the Quran is not a
typical “read” or a manual to be studied. For most of them, the most fruitful way
of interacting with the Quran is not to sit down and read the Sacred Text from
cover to cover (although there are exceptions, such as completing the whole text
during Ramadan). It is, rather, to recite a section with full awareness of it as the
Word of God and to meditate upon it as one whose soul is being directly
addressed, as the Prophet’s soul was addressed during its revelation. Newcomers
to Islam’s Sacred Scripture may, however, wish to read the whole text at least
once initially, but then subsequent study should take the form of returning to
sections of it in the manner just mentioned.
In this context it must be remembered that the Quran itself speaks constantly of
the Origin and the Return, of all things coming from God and returning to Him,
who Himself has no origin or end. As the Word of God, the Quran also seems to
have no beginning and no end. Certain turns of phrase and teachings about the
Divine Reality, the human condition, the life of this world, and the Hereafter are
often repeated, but they are not mere repetitions. Rather, each iteration of a
particular word, phrase, or verse opens the door of a hidden passage to other
parts of the Quran. Each coda is always a prelude to an as yet undiscovered truth.
These characteristics of the Sacred Text must be remembered in reading The
Study Quran in order to draw greater benefit from the encounter with it.
As for the commentary, many Quranic passages are cited in it, because these
citations play a major role in understanding the manner in which particular
Quranic passages are related to and elucidate one another. These citations often
include passages from other parts of the Quran whose very citation clarifies the
meaning of a particular word, phrase, or verse under consideration. The use of
this method is itself traditional, and many commentators over the ages have
composed works based on commenting upon the Quran through the use of the
Quranic text itself. In contrast to the Bible, which is more like a library than a
book with a single voice, the Quran has a single voice, the Voice of God as spoken
to a single prophet, and in a sense is itself a commentary upon itself. This
characteristic of the Quran was evident to the traditional commentators, who
usually had remarkable mastery of the whole text, but it is not known to most
contemporary readers, and we have therefore found it necessary to bring it out in
our commentary.
Technical Quranic terms can be found in the index with references to the
Quranic text and the commentary passages where the terms in question are
discussed. Often a turn of phrase or the relation between a family of concepts is
best brought out by pointing to similar Quranic passages; we have therefore
provided them in our commentary. Moreover, the multiple levels of meaning of
Quranic passages are usually brought out by citing other passages. Although each
word and even letter of the Quran is like a living being unto itself, on another
level it can be said that each part exists in relation to other parts and together they
function as a light that illuminates an object in such a way that we can see it from
many different angles.
To try to provide a translation and commentary of the Quran in English
authentically poses major challenges that readers of The Study Quran need to be
aware of. When one reads the King James Version of the Bible, one is not only
reading an expression of the English language, but also a text that has itself been a
major factor in the formation of modern English as far as symbols, metaphors,
proverbs, turns of phrase, and certain styles are concerned, not to mention
religious ideas and their formulations. This situation also holds true for such
Islamic languages as Persian and Turkish, which themselves already contain many
Quranic words, phrases, and ideas. Such of course is not as yet the case for
English as far as the Quran is concerned. The composition of The Study Quran in
English therefore posed for us a much greater challenge than if we had produced
this work in Persian or Turkish, into the fabric of whose language the Quran is
already woven. One of the goals of The Study Quran is to help close this gap and
to take a step toward transforming English into “an Islamic language,” of course
not in an exclusive manner, but like Bengali, which is both a Hindu and an Islamic
language. Readers of The Study Quran should view the language that we have
used in this light. It is meant to both reach the modern audience and convey the
timeless nature of the text.
Various Stylistic and Technical Points
In dealing with the commentary tradition, it is not always easy to separate glosses
that explain the language of the text from those that explain its meaning. This
difference is not always clear in traditional tafsīrs. In our commentary, therefore,
we have endeavored to render the Arabic without importing a particular
interpretation of its meaning into the text, that is, insisting that a word or phrase
that is allusive in its meaning and full of different implications in Arabic be made
explicit and unequivocal in English. As for alternative orthography and
pronunciation of words in Arabic, they are discussed in the commentary in those
cases where some significant differences of opinion or interpretation are at stake.
The commonly accepted “readings” and “recitations” (qirāʾah) are thus not
foregrounded in our commentary, although they inform it. They are, however,
discussed in the essay “The Islamic View of the Quran.”
Quranic Arabic does not use the punctuation marks that exist in English except
for the one that corresponds to the period. In fact, it has been said quite rightly that
the whole of a traditional book in classical Arabic is in a sense one long sentence.
But the structure of the Arabic sentences implies what would correspond to
commas, semicolons, colons, and so forth in English. In both our translation and
commentary we have made full use of punctuation marks according to the rules of
the English language, while seeking to be as faithful as possible to the flow of the
original Arabic.
Also there is no capitalization in Arabic; again in this case we have remained
faithful to the rules of English in capitalizing all proper names. Moreover, not only
all the Names of God, but also all pronouns pertaining to Him as well as all His
Qualities, Attributes, and direct Acts have been capitalized. In the latter case we
have sought to distinguish between His direct and universal Attributes and Acts,
which are always capitalized, and those that concern a delimited and particular
manifestation of these Attributes and Acts in the created order. A particularly
difficult case in this category is the word “sign,” or āyah, which strictly speaking
should sometimes be capitalized and sometimes not. But to preserve consistency
and avoid any confusion for readers we decided to lowercase “sign” in all
instances.
Design
As the art of Quranic calligraphy and later illumination developed, texts of the
Quran became often also works of art. In fact, some texts of the Quran, such as a
number of Mamlūk, Īl-Khānid, Tīmūrid, and Maghribī Qurans, using different
styles of calligraphy, are among the greatest works of sacred art created in any
civilization and are recognized by experts as such. Of course because The Study
Quran is in English, it cannot in any way reflect this art in the whole text, but we
have sought to incorporate as much of this art as possible in this book. The
basmalah was calligraphed especially for this book by the greatest living
American master of Arabic calligraphy, Mohamed Zakariya. Our custom
numbering medallions, created by Caner Dagli for this volume, hav...
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