Qur'an

Muslims proclaim that the Qur'an is the spoken and recorded message of God to all peoples revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. The word Qur'an literally means “reading or recitation.” The Qur'an was revealed to Muhammad over a period of 23 years and is believed by Muslims to be the literal word-for-word message of God spoken in clear Arabic speech. Therefore translations of the Qur'an are not authoritative because they can never be precisely the same as that which was revealed in Arabic. The Qur'an serves as the guiding text in the religious and spiritual development of Muslims around the world.

There are 114 surahs or chapters in the Qur'an arranged approximately from longest to shortest, and there are 6,236 ayahs or verses. The Qur'an is slightly shorter in written length than the Christian New Testament. Although the Qur'an includes some narratives, it is not a story or a series of narratives but a complex interconnected text of rhythmic prose. Its language and style are inimitable, and indeed a number of skilled Arabic poets have apparently tried in futility to imitate the rhythmic prose of the Qur'an. The Qur'an has been systematically memorized, recited, and written down from the time of its revelation. The written fragments and oral memorizations were finally standardized and recorded in their present form by a scholarly group commissioned by Othman, the third Caliph between 644 and 656 C.E. within 20 years of Muhammad's death. Muslims insist that these master copies have been painstakingly reproduced in reliable textual succession to this day.