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The two foundations
of Muslim faith are God's revelations to Muhammad, known as the Koran,
from the Arabic word Qur'an, or "recitation"; and the reports about
Muhammad's life and deeds, which are known as the hadith, from
the Arabic word for "report." The central miracle of Islam is God's revelation
to Muhammad, whose human fallibilities as a mere mortal are repeatedly
mentioned in the Koran.
The revelations
that comprise the Koran were revealed over a period of more than two decades
in two places. The first revelations from the period of Muhammad's residence
in Mecca are short and incantatory verses of extraordinary poetic beauty.
The later revelations from the period after Muhammad immigrated to Medina
are longer, legalistic texts appropriate to a developing community of
believers in need of rules and regulations.
Muhammad and his
followers initially committed the revelations to memory, but as these
revelations grew in number and complexity, some were probably written
down on whatever materials were at hand. After the Prophet died, his followers
were pressed to preserve the purity of the revelations and began to write
down as many of them as possible. According to the traditional view, a
uniform written text of the revelations to Muhammad was collected and
collated some twenty years after his death.
The Koran as a
book is comparable in length to the Gospels. It contains 114 chapters
(each called in Arabic a sura) of varying length. It opens with
the Fatiha, a beautiful short prayer that serves as an invocation
in many situations;
In the Name of
God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Praise belongs to God, Lord of all Being
the All-merciful, the All-compassionate
the Master of the Day of Doom
Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succor
Guide us in the straight path
the path of those whom Thou hast blessed,
not of those against whom Thou art wrathful
nor of those who are astray.
The other chapters
of the Koran follow in descending order of length, from the 286 verses
of the second chapter, known as "The Cow," to the final two chapters,
which are short prayers of a few lines. The chapters are thus arranged
neither in the order in which the verses were revealed nor in a narrative
sequence.
The Koran, as
God's literal word, can only be comprehended in the majestic and glorious
Arabic language in which it was revealed. The necessity of reading the
Koran in Arabic has meant that all believers should learn the language
in order to understand the scriptures. This requirement has created a
linguistic bond among believers, particularly as Islam spread beyond the
boundaries of Arabia to regions inhabited by speakers of other languages.
Having learned to use Arabic as the language of religion, the new converts
also used it as a language of literature, science, commerce and social
intercourse.
The primacy of
Arabic as the language of God's revelation has also helped to preserve
the purity of the Arabic language, for Muslims constantly call to mind
the noble and magnificent words and phrases of the Koran. Although the
Arabic language has evolved over the fourteen centuries since the Koran
was revealed, it has not changed as much as English has changed in the
six centuries since the time of Chaucer. Finally, the primacy of the Arabic
language has encouraged the spread and use of the Arabic script, which
is known and used from the shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific to render
a variety of languages, including Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Pashto, Kashmiri,
Urdu, Sindhi, Ottoman Turkish, Chaghatay, and Malay.
The second basis
of Muslim faith is the example of the Prophet. As the perfect Muslim,
Muhammad served and still serves as the model for all believers. His sayings
and deeds were remembered by his associates and preserved in the Traditions,
known in Arabic as hadith. These Traditions normally take the form of
a chain ("So-and-so heard from so-and-so, who heard from so-and-so, that
the Prophet said [or did]"), followed by a report of what the Prophet
said or did.
The Traditions
came to be considered second in authority to the Koran and also help explain
and elaborate the circumstances under which obscure passages in the Koran
were revealed. The Traditions were transmitted orally for several generations
before being written down, beginning in the eighth century. By the ninth
century the jurist al-Shafii (d. 820) came to consider the sunna,
or custom of the Prophet, the second most important root of Islamic jurisprudence
after the Koran. Together the Koran and the Traditions, along with consensus
and analogy, make up the sharia, the rules and regulations that
govern the day-to-day lives of Muslims.
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