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AUTHOR: ASSOCIATES OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
DATE: SEVENTH CENTURY
The Qur’an is the primary sacred text of Islam, the youngest of the three largest Abrahamic religions. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be the literal word of God, communicated directly to Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel between 610 and 632. Tradition has it that scribes among Muhammad’s Companions (i.e. followers) then committed these divine revelations to paper. Aside from its religious status, it represents arguably the pinnacle of Arabic literary attainment and is undoubtedly among the most influential books ever written.
Muhammad was born in Mecca (an oasis city in what is now Saudi Arabia) and worked as a trader. Mecca at the time was subject to many polytheistic beliefs, but was also home to the Ka’bah, a cube-shaped shrine said to have been built by Abraham as a place of worship to God. Muhammad hailed from a clan that had responsibility for protecting the shrine. According to tradition, Gabriel first appeared to Muhammad in a cave called Hira on Mount Jabal al-Nou during the month of Ramadan in 610. Muhammad, who was aged forty at the time, was in the habit of coming to the cave alone to pray. Further visitations followed over the ensuing years, with Muhammad telling of how the revelations sometimes came like the ringing of a bell while at other times Gabriel appeared as a man and spoke to him.
It has been widely speculated that Muhammad was illiterate so that he recited Gabriel’s messages to his Companions, some of whom memorized them while others committed the words to parchment, stones, the stalks of palm leaves and even the shoulder-blades of camels. At that time, the oral transmission and memorization of verse and stories was widespread. Muhammad was thus regarded as a vessel for the words that emanated from God himself, and so the faithful believe that the text of the Qur’an is not suitable for revision by human hand. The revelations ended in 632 with the death of Muhammad. Exactly when the entirety of these revelations was gathered together as the Qur’an is a subject of debate. Zayd bin Thabit, one of the Companions, is often credited with compiling the contents of the various oral and written sources into a single volume. As Islam spread to new regions with their own languages, a standardized edition of the Qur’an was ordered by Caliph Uthman ibn Affan by about 650, within two decades of Muhammad’s passing.
The Qur’an consists of some 6,236 verses (ayahs) across 114 chapters (surahs), which may be categorized as either Meccan or Medinean depending on whether they pre- or post-date Muhammad’s move to Medina in 622, when he set up a Muslim community free from religious persecution. While it is strictly forbidden for the Qur’an to feature figurative images, many editions boast ornate decoration in the Islamic style, which leans heavily on geometric designs, floral motifs and exuberant calligraphy. In terms of content, it is considered by believers to be the definitive word on all matters spiritual and secular, guiding aspects of life from one’s relationship with God to earthly laws and practices, including the timetabling of prayer, eating and fasting, pilgrimage, the giving of alms, the outlawing of usury, laws relating to marriage and divorce, appropriate punishments and so on.
While the existence of many branches of Islam indicate that the words of the Qur’an inspire a multitude of interpretations, the words themselves are sacrosanct. The text also acknowledges a relationship with the founding scriptures of the other major Abrahamic religions, but considers that Moses and Jesus – while they were prophets who received the word of God – are secondary to Muhammad. Jesus, for example, is described as human, not the Son of God as Christians hold. Emphasizing its monotheistic precepts, the Qur’an believes in the divine’s unity of being and transcendental nature that has a shared legacy with both Judaism and Christianity but which believers consider to have reached its zenith with Muhammad.
While Muhammad initially had just a small coterie of followers, mostly family and friends, Islam spread rapidly, especially after the migration to Medina (an event known as the Hijrah). By 630, Muhammad and his Companions had won control of Mecca while retaining their base in Medina. By the 660s, Muslim rule had extended far beyond the Arabian peninsula, encompassing large parts of the Near and Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. At the heart of the burgeoning empire was the Qur’an and its teachings.
AN OLD SURVIVOR
In 2015, a researcher at the University of Birmingham in the UK began investigating fragments of a Qur’an that had long been gathering dust amid a collection of three thousand documents from the Middle East collected by a Chaldean priest, Alphonse Mingana, in the 1920s. Carbon dating showed the two leaves of parchment to date from between 568 and 645, with a probability of more than 95 per cent. This would make the fragments the oldest-known examples of Qur’an text in existence, the previous record being held by the ‘Tübingen Fragment’, dated between 649 and 675. It also raises the real prospect that it was written by the hand of someone who knew Muhammad himself.
As a work of literature, it is imbued with all the finest traditions of Islamic poetry, its poetic nature regarded as evidence of its divine provenance. Indeed, the reciting aloud of the text remains an integral part of Islamic ritual. The very word ‘Qur’an’ derives from the Arabic for ‘to recite’. There is in fact a discipline, tajwid, devoted to teaching the rules governing correct recitation of the Qur’an, including the proper pronunciation of words, where to pause and resume, and how to ensure the musicality of the language. The link between divine revelation and poetical expression is made explicitly within the text, with those who opposed Muhammad said to have dismissed his teachings as merely ‘the utterances of a poet’.
It is possible to argue that the Qur’an has never wielded more influence than it does today, with close to 2 billion Muslims in the world. The precise interpretation of its words is at times a ferociously contested question, sporadically with significant geopolitical ramifications. It is unquestionably a work that has melded the global landscape for the past millennium and a half, and looks all set to continue to do so.