Many Atheist bloggers have been accused of only “picking” on the Christian religion.  I want to ensure that no one can claim that of my blog.  I have mentioned in the past that I will be reading from both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  And I have completed the first book of each: Genesis and Gospel of Mark (yes, the Gospel of John Mark was written first).  I am planning to include the Jewish Apocrypha (that only the Catholic Church now uses), the Dead Sea Scroll (and no they are not a collection of the Essenes), the Nag Hammadi Library (Christian Gnostics – no that is not an oxymoron), but that is not all the Abrahamic monotheist religions.  I will be starting to review the Holy Qur’an as well.  Forgive me if I have not figured out a good way to organize all these Holy Documents.  I’m working on it.

The translation of the Holy Qur’an that I will be using is by Maulana Muhammad Ali.  The entire translation is available here: English Translation.  Read along if you like.  Starting with the seven part introduction will help. 

1)      The divisions of the Holy Qur’an

The Book was written over 23 years by the Prophet himself.  This included the 13 years in Makkah and 10 years in Madinah.  Even though the 114 chapters were not written in a specific order, as it was written an organization was specified.  So in the end, this book has divisions such as the preface (Sūratu al-Fātihah), the main text of four chapters, then the Alif Lām Rā, the Tā Sin, the Hā Mim, 48 small chapters, and then the closing 2 chapters.

2)      The Spiritual Force of the Holy Qur’an

The purpose of the Holy Qur’an is to bring mankind to perfection.  To fulfill that purpose all of humanity and the entire world will be conquered.   Lovely thought, especially when the Christian religion believes the exact same thing.  I’m sure we all see the problem in this thought process. 

The history of the Islamic peoples is quite compelling.  The effect of the Holy Qur’an on the tribesmen of the area was a resounding transformation from superstition and idolatry into a unified monotheist society almost overnight.

3)      Completion of the Abrahamic Religions

The Islamic faith believes that both the Old Testament and the New Testament were written by earlier prophets.  Yet at the same time they do not believe in the godhood of Jesus.  So basically, they give lip service to other religions but do not follow the teachings of those Abrahamic religions.  I am not aware of a way to make Jesus truly human yet still obey what he and the apostles taught.  The way the Holy Qur’an and Islam as a whole twists around this problem is by claiming “errors” were incorporated into those Holy Texts.  As an Atheist I can wholly agree with that…I want to see if the Holy Qur’an is any better!

4)      Islamic Liberal Views

I must quote one verse in the Holy Qur’an (the Maulana uses it to claim how accepting the Islamic religion is:

The Cow: Chapter 2:256 There is no compulsion in religion – the right way is indeed clearly distinct from error.  So whoever disbelieves in the devil (evil) and believes is Allāh, he indeed lays hold on the firmest handle which shall never break.  Allāh is Hearing, Knowing.

Quite the verse is it not.  We have been arguing over right and wrong for thousands of years, but to the Islamic faith a clear distinction exists.  And there is no requirement to do right.  Best of all, the only thing that must be done to do right is to disbelieve in evil. 

That is extremely liberal…I wonder why the Sharia Law is so extreme?  I certainly hope that the Holy Qur’an will help me understand how the most liberal religion can have the most compulsive requirements.

5)      The After-life

As with the other Abrahamic religions there will be a Day of Judgment.  Also, all of our actions have been recorded in writing.  Paradise is so mind blowing that no words can describe it.  Sorry guys, it’s not 72 virgins!  But at least hell is not permanent…the torture that sinners feel is just cleansing away the evil. 

6)      Woman in the Islamic Religion

I particularly like this section.  Just as in Genesis, Allāh made both man and woman equal, spiritually that is.  Women have the right to inherit.  Polygamy is harmful to woman.  And in the days of the Prophet, women were even teachers of the Holy Qur’an.  Three women are recorded as being qurra (reciters of the Holy Text, one of the highest positions in the early days of Islam). 

7)      Purity of the Holy Qur’an

I do have to admit that the way the Holy Qur’an was written and transcribed was incredible.  Hundreds of people had it identically memorized, that way with the written portion there was no way duplicates could be made with errors.  That was much better than the “inerrant” Bible, which has so many different versions it is impossible to get a reliable translation. 

The rest of the introduction is about how the copies were made to ensure no copy errors occurred.  One caveat was allowed, if a tribe could not pronounce a word correctly that tribe was allowed to “do their best”.  I am assuming that this is how Maulana Muhammad Ali determined that an English translation was acceptable.  I certainly cannot understand nor speak the original Quraish.