Islam 101
What is the Qur'an?
A book meant to be heard
5 min, Intro
The Qur'an is the scripture Muslims believe God revealed to Muhammad ﷺ over twenty-three years. It has 114 surahs in Arabic. It is recited aloud. It is memorised by millions. It is read in translation by many more.
Draft written with AI help: awaiting scholar review
The thread
Muslims believe the Qur'an is God's speech, given to Muhammad in Arabic over twenty-three years. This lesson follows how it is built, why it is meant to be heard, and how a text first kept in memory became the written standard that today's printed Qur'ans descend from.
The word of God, in Arabic
What do Muslims believe the Qur'an is? The literal speech of God, brought by the angel Jibril to Muhammad ﷺ in Arabic.
It did not arrive all at once. It was revealed in parts over about twenty-three years, from around 610 to 632. Often it came in answer to events and questions in the early community.
That belief has a consequence. The words themselves are held to be divine. So translations are treated as translations of the meanings, not as the Qur'an itself.
إِنَّآ أَنزَلۡنَٰهُ قُرۡءَٰنًا عَرَبِيࣱّا لَّعَلَّكُمۡ تَعۡقِلُونَ ٢
2 We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an so that you may understand.
A translation carries the meaning; the Arabic is the Qur'an.
How it is put together
What does the Qur'an look like when you open it? It has 114 chapters called surahs, of very different lengths. They are made up of verses called ayat: 6,236 in the most widely used counting. It is about the length of the New Testament.
The Qur'an is not arranged in the order it was revealed. And it is not a single narrative. After the short opening surah, the longer surahs mostly come first.
Stories, laws, prayers and arguments are woven together. Themes return in different settings. Many readers find it helps to read with background. That is what Lantern tries to give.
The Qur'an reads more like a conversation than a chronicle.
Meant to be heard
The clue is in the name. The word Qur'an means "recitation".
It was first preserved in memory and recited aloud. It still is. Muslims recite it in every prayer. Millions of people around the world, called huffaz, have memorised all of it.
Its rhyme and rhythm matter to how it is experienced. That is why even Muslims who do not speak Arabic learn to recite it in Arabic.
وَلَقَدۡ يَسَّرۡنَا ٱلۡقُرۡءَانَ لِلذِّكۡرِ فَهَلۡ مِن مُّدَّكِرࣲ ١٧
17 We have certainly made the Qur’an easy to understand and remember; is there anyone to take heed?
The Qur'an was memorised before it was a book.
From memory to a written book
The Qur'an lived in memory, but it was written down too. During the Prophet's lifetime, companions wrote down parts of it on whatever was at hand.
After his death, the first caliph, Abu Bakr, had the whole text gathered into one written copy.
Around twenty years later the third caliph, 'Uthman, had standard copies made. He sent them to the main cities of the growing empire, so that people would recite the same text.
Today's printed Qur'ans descend from that standard.
Memory and writing preserved the Qur'an side by side.