What is Al-Quran?

Al-Quran is the Holy Scripture of the Muslims who believe that this book, in its entirety, was revealed verbatim by Allah to Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.(pbuh) through Angel Gabriel (Jibreel) and hence to them it is the infallible Word of Allah and provides the basic codes of conduct in all spheres of life.

Al Quran was revealed piece-meal, mostly when at short intervals, during a long period of about 23 years-13 years at Makka and 10 at Madina.

The first revelation came in 610 A.D when the prophet reached the fortieth  year of his life and the last verse about a couple of months before his death in 632 A.D.

The Quranic verses, immediately after revelation, were at first committed to memory by reliable men of high retentive power and during the prophet's life-time these were written down by his literate companions on palm leaves, stones, dried skins and any other suitable material that was readily available.

Their collections were completed during the caliphate of Abu Bakar, the first caliph and an authenticated version was established during the reign of the third caliph Uthman (644-656 A.D) and authentic copies were sent to different countries.

This has come down to us without any alteration whatsoever. Al-Quran is divided into 114 chapters called surah. The larger chapters are divided into sections, each section containing a number of verses, called ayats.

There are in all 558 sections, 6236 verses and 77,436 words in the Quran. The Book is also divided into 30 sparts of equal lenggth, each called a 'Juz' or Para'.

The chapters are of unequal lengths, the longest surah (surah Al Baqarah) contains as many as 286 verses and covers more than one-tenth of the entire Quran, while the shortest surah (surah Al Kauthar) has only three verses and ten words.

The verses are also of unequal lengths; the verse number 282 of surah Al Baqarah. which contains as many as 109 words, is the largest; the shortest verses contain one single word (e.g verse 1 of surah Qariah) or even two 'abbreviated' letters (e.g. verse 1 of surah Ya-asin).

The Chapters as well as the verses are arranged in the Quran in the manner indicated by the prophet himself and not chronologically in the order of their revelation.

Surah Fatihah (opening), one of the earliest revealed surahs constitute the first chapter and surah An Nas (which was also an early Makka surah) the last (i.e. 114th) Chapters.

Under each chapter the verses are arranged numerically starting with 1 with a view to locating a verse the normal practice is to indicate the chapter number followed by the particular verse number.

Thus, 24:30 means verse 30 of surah 24 (surah An Nur and 2:30. means verse 30 of surah 2 (surah Al Baqarah). The first revealed verses have been included as the beginning verse of surah Al 'Alaq (96: 1-5) and the last revealed verse forms a part of verse 4 of surah Al Maidah (surah number 5)

Each of the chapters except Chapter 10 (surah At Taubah) , has the common opening verse, BismillahhiRahmannirRahim meaning 'In the name of Allah the Mercy-giving, the merciful.'

As regards the nomenclature of the surahs, most of them have been named after their beginning word such as surah Ar Rahman, surah Al Qariah etc. or after an important word such as surah Al-Waqi'ah, surah Al Mulk etc. or after the abbreviated letter or leters occuring at the beginning, such as surah Qaf, surah Sad, Surah Yaa-sin etc. quite a number have been named after a significant word used in the text while describing an important episode (such as surah Al Maidah, surah yunus etc) and in some cases the word means an insect or an animal such as surah Naml (ant), surah Nahl (bee), surah Al Ankabuut (spider), surah al Baqarah (cow). some others have been named after important theme dealt with in the surah, such as surah 'Bani Israil', Surah 'Aali Imran' (family of Imran), Surah An Nisaa'(women), surah yusuf (joseph) etc.

Al Quran was revealed in the language of the Quraish tribe, who were the custodians of the sacred Kaba and were fairly well-to-do and famous for their aristocracy. As such they were specially honored throughout Arabia by other tribes. The Quraishy dialect was widely understood and looked upon as an elegant form of speech.

by Perihatin