Qur'an

The Qur'an ({{lang-ar|أَلْقُرآن}} al-qur'ān literally "the recitation"; also called Al Qur'ān Al Karīm or "The Noble Qur'an"; or transliterated Quran, Koran, and less commonly Alcoran) is the holy book of Islam. It is a tenet of Islam that the Qur'an is the literal word of God in Arabic and the culmination of God's revelation to mankind, revealed to Muhammad, the final prophet of Islam, over a period of 23 years through the angel Jibril (Gabriel).

The beginnings of the suras

Every chapter but one is preceded by the words Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim (), "In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate". 29 suras begin with letters taken from a restricted subset of the Arabic alphabet; thus, for instance, surat Maryam begins "Kaf. Ha. Ya. 'Ain. Sad. A mention of the mercy of thy Lord unto His servant Zachariah." While there has been some speculation on the meaning of these letters, the consensus of Muslim scholars is that these letters' full meaning is beyond our understanding. However, they have observed that in all but 4 of the 29 cases, these letters are almost immediately followed by mention of the Qur'anic revelation itself. Western scholars' efforts have been tentative; one proposal, for instance, was that they were initials or monograms of the scribes that had originally written the sura down. See Qur'anic initial letters for a fuller discussion.

Related Topics:
Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim - Arabic alphabet - Maryam - Qur'anic initial letters

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~