but bow before God,
Who created them—
if it is Him alone you worship.
SURA FUSSILAT, 41:37
The sun, moon and stars, men, women, and children, elephants, spiders and ants, trees, plants, and grass—all have been created by a single unitary force, God. God’s Oneness is the foundation of the other Quranic themes: the attributes of God, as in the ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God, the most prominent among them being the Creator, the Merciful, the Forgiving, and the All Knowing. Acknowledging the unity of God entails complete “submission” to Him.
The one God is the Creator, Ruler, and Protector of all things in the universe. The rhythm of creation reflects His signs (ayat), the same word used to denote “verses.” Far from being random, creation is designed to reflect the natural—and human—order as He willed it:
Your Lord is God, Who created
the heavens and the earth in six days,
then took up the throne.
He veils day with night,
which trails it swiftly.
He created the sun, moon, and stars—
all subject to His command.
Is the creation not His,
and the command? Blessèd be God,
Lord of the universe.
SURA AL-AʿRAF, 7:54
Other major themes include the obligation of human beings to worship God, not only through prayer but by practicing justice, honesty, and charity, as summarized in this passage:
Righteousness
does not reside
in turning your faces
toward East or West;
rather, it resides in those—
who believe in God
and the last day,
in the angels, the Book,
and the prophets;
who give their wealth
—despite their love of it—
for kin, for orphans, the needy,
the traveler, for those who ask,
and for freeing slaves;
who are steadfast in prayer,
who give in charity,
keeping their covenants;
who suffer in patience
hardship, pain, and
times of conflict—
they are the ones
who are truthful, and
they are the ones
mindful of God.
SURA AL-BAQARA, 2:177
The only attribute through which human beings can attain any degree of superiority over others is taqwa, or mindfulness of God—which means striving for all the qualities enumerated in this verse. The Quran speaks of itself as the final revelation, completing and confirming both the Jewish and Christian scriptures; it accords a very special place to Abraham, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, while affirming that Muhammad is the last messenger of God, the “seal” of the prophets.
Perhaps the signal characteristic of the Quran is its perfection in its original form, its conventionally cited “inimitability,” and the inevitable diminishment it suffers when translated into another language. Nonetheless, the majority of the world’s Muslims do not read (or comprehend spoken) Arabic and need the Quran to be conveyed to them in their own language. No translation can ever substitute for the Quran itself, but as we will explain in the next section, we believe that at least some of the power of this majestic book can be conveyed in English.
1The following narrative is based on three literary sources unless otherwise indicated:
(1) The Quran itself as it appears in print in what is known as the ʿUthmanic recension, authorized by the third caliph, in the mid-seventh century. Wherever the Quran is quoted, it will be noted briefly with English renditions from the current translation.
(2) Hadith, which are accounts relating both words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, gathered in numerous collections of varying authenticity from the eighth century on.
(3) The sira or biography of the Prophet, compiled from both hadith and Quranic passages, also dating from the eighth century. This biographical account draws largely on two sources: Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Prophet of God) written in the mid-eighth century and translated into English by Alfred Guillaume as The Life of Muhammad (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1955), and Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 1983).
2For more on the status of literacy in sixth-century Arabia, see Ahmad al-Jallad, “The Linguistic Landscape of Pre-Islamic Arabia: Context for the Qur’an,” in The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies, edited by M. Shah and M. A. S. Haleem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 111–27. The author stresses the importance of further analyzing the limited samples of pre-Islamic epigraphy and also conducting “a lexical study of Qur’anic vocabulary in the light of North Arabian inscriptions” (125). Both projects, it is hoped, will provide new insight into the earliest linguistic options for Quranic prophecy.
3There is a persistent ambiguity about what “read” meant as a command to someone who was “illiterate.” One could translate the command iqraʾ to mean “recite,” but such a rendition weakens the exchange in English. As Muhammad Asad explains, the concept of “reciting” implies no more than the oral delivery—with or without understanding—of something already laid down in writing or committed to memory, whereas “reading” primarily signifies a conscious taking-in, with or without an audible utterance but with a view to understanding them, of words and ideas received from an outside source: see his The Message of the Quran (Watsonville, Calif.: The Book Foundation, 2003), 1099n1.
4Throughout the introduction and the notes, we use CE (common era) to refer to the solar Julian calendar, distinct from the lunar Islamic calendar, known as AH (anno hegirae). The latter commemorates the hijra or migration of Muhammad and his followers to the city of Yathrib, later renamed Medina, in 622 CE.
5Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, 107.
6This verse is the earliest pronouncement of what became the principle of self-defense in Islamic law, not invoked until after Muhammad had left Mecca for Medina in 622 CE (1 AH), the hijra or migration. Sura 2:190–94, which also permits fighting in self-defense, was revealed about a year later. The reference to “mosques” underscores that the verse was influenced by developments in Medina.
7This is a stone set in the southeast corner of the Kaʿba, believed to date back to Adam.
8The poll tax or jizya was levied on non-Muslims in return for protection from any invading or attacking force because they were not required to fight in the Muslim army.
9Lings, Muhammad, 651.
10See The Quran: A Biography (2006), chap. 4 for citation, as well as an explanation of the multiple Quranic verses from the Dome of the Rock.
11All four scriptures are related in the Quran to their prophetic conduits: the Torah to Moses (Sura 32:33), the Psalms to David (Sura 17:55), the Gospels to Jesus (Sura 5:11), and, of course, the Quran to Muhammad.
