English translation. Reading in hardback.
Commentaries
Note that I will in general use non-marked up Latin script transliteration to make my note taking easier, but all of the terms here have a more proper way of being written.
What is the Quran?
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 (shahadatan), one bearing witness to the Oneness of God and the other two 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. [p. xxxvii]
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. [p. xxxvii]
It is said in the Quran that God is its protector, and in turn His Word provides protection for believers. … 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. [p. xxxix]
However, while widely used, its value is not to be considered as its use-value for a Muslim:
…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. [p. xlvi]
- The Quran only exists in Arabic. Translations are not legitimate, only useful as a study companion, and prayers are always in Arabic
- The Quran is primarily an oral text and is often recited from memory
- Professional reciters are called qurra (sing. qari)
- Those who have memorized it are called hafiz (pl. huffaz)
- Similarly to Jewish prohibitions on certain iconography, rather Quranic calligraphy is inscribed in art and architecture instead of or with greater primacy than depictive art
On The Study Quran edition
[In editing The Study Quran] 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 mean most of them, do so today.
For some notes on Modern fundamentalism in Islam and in general, see Islam by Karen Armstrong.
Comparison to the Christian Bible
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 spoke to a single prophet, and in a sense is itself a commentary upon itself. [p. xlvii]
Quranic numerology
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 traditional to Ali ibn Abi Talib (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. [p. xxxii]
I discussed Kabbalah and numerology in general in my book A Critical Introduction to Tarot, Ch. 2 Pythagoras and Kabbalah. The clarification used in the quoted text as numerology as a “science” is highly contested, of course.
Quranic bibiomancy
…the Quran also plays a role in helping decide future actions. The traditional Quranic art called al-istikharah, which some have translated as “bibliomancy,” though this only captures one dimension of the practice, involves performing voluntary supererogatory prayers [those additional to the five obligatory prayers, the salat] and then consulting the Quran for guidance or asking God for other forms of guidance, usual by means of a dream. … Many people, when they want to marry, first make an istikharah before making their final decision. … [However] According to a famous dictum [regarding overuse], there is no need for istikharah when there is clear istisharah, that is, indication based on religious injections and/or God-given intelligence. [p. xxxix]
This exists also in the Christian tradition, as I have commented on my book (second last paragraph of Ch. 10 The Power of Worlds and Symbols):
Divination by the interpretation of dreams and visions (oneiromancy) has always been accepted [in Judaism and Christianity], and there exists a practice of opening the [Christian] Bible randomly to produce divine advice read from a verse, as, for example, did St Francis of Assisi. Member of my own strictly divination-rejecting Protestant family have engaged in this, as have many others, in what exists today as a kind of Christian folk divination practice.