Ritual and Prayer

Is the Qur’an used in Public Worship? In other Formal Ceremonies? Observant Muslims pray five times a day, a cycle of devotion they perform in private or in the public space of a mosque or other gathering area. Each of these prayer periods follows a...

Behavior and Judgment

What does the Qur’an say about Death and Life after Death? For pre-Islamic Arabs, fate was the agent of death, and the only immortality lay in the memories of one’s tribal kin. Muhammad, however, preached a very different view of death and its aftermath. Suddenly...

Origins

Where did the Qur’an come from? Compared with other world scriptures—the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist sutras, or the Dao De Jing—the Qur’an’s history is reasonably clear and straightforward, at least as conveyed in traditional Muslim accounts. These accounts start, of course, with the...

Scholarship

How have Non-Muslims Studied the Qur’an? Non-Muslims have always taken an intense interest in the Qur’an, but their motivations for doing so have been mixed. Through at least the first ten centuries after the birth of Islam— and sometimes still today—the usual reasons for studying...

Interpretation

Can the Qur’an be Interpreted? Like any scripture or serious literary work, the Qur’an has been studied and discussed since its first appearance. According to traditional accounts, those to whom Muhammad first recited the revelations that he was receiving would ask him for explanations. “What...

Family, Social, And Religious Relations

What does the Qur’an say about Love and Marriage? About Children? The Qur’an’s teaching about love starts with God. God initiates love in humans so that they can respond and reciprocate. When God is reassuring Moses about times that he has intervened on Moses’s behalf,...

Structure

Does the Qur’an have Different Parts? Compared to the Bible or the library of Buddhist scriptures, the Qur’an is not a very long book. While the Bible is an assemblage of many books whose composition coalesced over more than a millennium, the Qur’an is a...

Influence

How did the Qur’an Shape Islamic Philosophy and Theology? The Qur’an’s core message is that God is one, that he is both creator and judge, and that the text reveals his will and guidance for his creation. These themes reinforce earlier forms of theological monotheism...

Manuscripts, Public Architecture, and Material Culture

How Important is the Qur’an to Art and Architecture in the Muslim World? Millions of people have made a pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal, waking at dawn to behold this white marble mausoleum as the sun’s rays begin to make it glow. The Taj Mahal...

Recitation

How do Muslims Study the Qur’an? What if they don’t Speak Arabic? Turning a corner in downtown Dakar some years ago, I stumbled onto a sidewalk school. Clustered around a teacher under a small shade tree sat a group of young children with chalk boards...