Basic layout & contents of the Quran

[Delvo]

If I look through a list of books of the Bible, I generally know what's in them: I know which ones consist of old myths really heavy on the supernatural stuff... which ones have lists of laws... which ones depict mostly-plausible Bronze Age war stories through one particular tribe's filter with some supernatural embellishments... which ones are attributed to prophets and contain treatises on wisdom & righteousness or still more laws or acid trips posing as prophecies... which one is just a bunch of God-praise... which one was a long love poem from back when poets still admitted that lust is a big part of love... which ones tell parts of Jesus's alleged life... which ones are letters from one Christian to another trying to settle religious disputes among the sects...

So if you quote me a Biblical verse, I know generally what else is written around it nearby. But if you quote me a Quranic verse, I don't know what kind of context or framework to put it in because I don't know the book's structure.

It's not even clear to me that there are sub-books within it; I've seen the word "Sura" a lot with Quran verse quotes, which I thought at first might be the name of a book, but it seems to nearly always be there and I can't name an alternative that's appeared in its place, so now I suppose it might just mean "part" or "chapter" or "paragraph", in which case "Sura 12" means the twelfth sura, rather than the twelfth item within a thing named "Sura". And if so, then which sura numbers generally go with which kinds of subjects?

 

[Magrat]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran scroll down to text and arrangement.

 

[Delvo]

That says nothing about the contents.

 

[Craig B]

That says nothing about the contents.

It says that the Suras are arranged in order of decreasing length. That was the principle, not subject matter or chronology, that determined their position in the collection. The epistles of Paul are ordered in the same way, more or less, in the New Testament.

 

[Magrat]

Every library will have access to one. Go read the bloody thing.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I think summarizing the contents of a chapter would be very difficult. I've only read a little bit of the Quran, and what I saw was a meandering stream of conscioussness.

 

[A'isha]

If I look through a list of books of the Bible, I generally know what's in them: I know which ones consist of old myths really heavy on the supernatural stuff... which ones have lists of laws... which ones depict mostly-plausible Bronze Age war stories through one particular tribe's filter with some supernatural embellishments... which ones are attributed to prophets and contain treatises on wisdom & righteousness or still more laws or acid trips posing as prophecies... which one is just a bunch of God-praise... which one was a long love poem from back when poets still admitted that lust is a big part of love... which ones tell parts of Jesus's alleged life... which ones are letters from one Christian to another trying to settle religious disputes among the sects...

So if you quote me a Biblical verse, I know generally what else is written around it nearby. But if you quote me a Quranic verse, I don't know what kind of context or framework to put it in because I don't know the book's structure.

The Bible is written linearly and was assembled over something like a thousand years from individual coherent works, each written by a different author (or set of authors). The Qur'an was pieced together over a couple of decades from the separate, short sayings that were attributed to a single individual. The resulting structure and organization of each book therefore naturally differ - the Bible is more like a collection of essays, while the Qur'an is more like a collection of quotations.

It's not even clear to me that there are sub-books within it; I've seen the word "Sura" a lot with Quran verse quotes, which I thought at first might be the name of a book, but it seems to nearly always be there and I can't name an alternative that's appeared in its place, so now I suppose it might just mean "part" or "chapter" or "paragraph", in which case "Sura 12" means the twelfth sura, rather than the twelfth item within a thing named "Sura". And if so, then which sura numbers generally go with which kinds of subjects?

A surah is a chapter, containing a variable number of ayat, or verses. Each surah is given a name. Sometimes the name can refer to its general theme (such as surah 12, Yusuf, which describes the story of Joseph, or surah 65, At Talaq [divorce], which is about, well, divorce). Others are named for some unique word or symbol described in the surah, such as surah 2, Al Barakah (the Cow), named for the story told in ayat 67-71 of that surah about when Moses told his people that Allah had commanded them to sacrifice a cow and they resisted, demanding ever more specific details about what kind of cow Allah wanted to be sacrificed before they would do it.

That's confusing in and of itself, but neither the suwar in the Qur'an nor even the ayat within each surah are arranged directly by topic, nor are they arranged chronologically. Thus, it's pretty much impossible to pick up the book and read it like, well, a book. For Muslims, proper interpretation and understanding of the Qur'an is done by ayah, by individual verse, not by surah, or chapter.

I'd recommend, instead of attempting to read it like a book book, you check out an interpretive work, like The Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an (for a Western academic view of it), or a translation with tafsir, like Yusuf Ali's still-classic work for a Muslim view of it. Though keep in mind that if you read just one work, treat it as a general introduction rather than the be-all and end-all of interpretation - there's tons and tons of both Western scholarship and Islamic tafsir of the Qur'an out there, and pretty much none of it that agrees with each other!

 

[A'isha]

surah 2, Al Barakah (the Cow)

Ugh, that should be "Bakarah", not "Barakah". Sorry!

 

[Navigator]

The Bible is written linearly and was assembled over something like a thousand years from individual coherent works, each written by a different author (or set of authors). The Qur'an was pieced together over a couple of decades from the separate, short sayings that were attributed to a single individual. The resulting structure and organization of each book therefore naturally differ - the Bible is more like a collection of essays, while the Qur'an is more like a collection of quotations.



A surah is a chapter, containing a variable number of ayat, or verses. Each surah is given a name. Sometimes the name can refer to its general theme (such as surah 12, Yusuf, which describes the story of Joseph, or surah 65, At Talaq [divorce], which is about, well, divorce). Others are named for some unique word or symbol described in the surah, such as surah 2, Al Barakah (the Cow), named for the story told in ayat 67-71 of that surah about when Moses told his people that Allah had commanded them to sacrifice a cow and they resisted, demanding ever more specific details about what kind of cow Allah wanted to be sacrificed before they would do it.

That's confusing in and of itself, but neither the suwar in the Qur'an nor even the ayat within each surah are arranged directly by topic, nor are they arranged chronologically. Thus, it's pretty much impossible to pick up the book and read it like, well, a book. For Muslims, proper interpretation and understanding of the Qur'an is done by ayah, by individual verse, not by surah, or chapter.

I'd recommend, instead of attempting to read it like a book book, you check out an interpretive work, like The Blackwell Companion to the Qur'an (for a Western academic view of it), or a translation with tafsir, like Yusuf Ali's still-classic work for a Muslim view of it. Though keep in mind that if you read just one work, treat it as a general introduction rather than the be-all and end-all of interpretation - there's tons and tons of both Western scholarship and Islamic tafsir of the Qur'an out there, and pretty much none of it that agrees with each other!

That was a very well thought out answer. I myself have never even tried to read the Quran let alone much of the Bible or Torah.

 

[HansMustermann]

Far as I know, each surah is one speech given by Muhammad. This wasn't really composed as a book. It's just his speeches he did on some occasion or another. Although supposedly not HIS speeches, but what Allah told him to say. Well, via an archangel.

E.g., you even have stuff like Allah conveniently ranting about Muhammad's guests staying late at his house and chatting up one of his wives. It is said you know you've found the true religion when your god hates the same people you do, but it must be the REALLY right religion when God even cares about which guests chat up your wife

It was only collected into a book long after his death.

His speeches tended to get longer and windier as time went on, and since the longer ones were put at the front, the thing is largely in reverse order. They also tend to shift focus over time. E.g., once he actually is in power in Mecca, he has to deal with actually ruling and legislating, so his speeches tend to cover more of that than his early speeches from Medina.

 

[Craig B]

Far as I know, each surah is one speech given by Muhammad. This wasn't really composed as a book. It's just his speeches he did on some occasion or another. Although supposedly not HIS speeches, but what Allah told him to say. Well, via an archangel.

E.g., you even have stuff like Allah conveniently ranting about Muhammad's guests staying late at his house and chatting up one of his wives. It is said you know you've found the true religion when your god hates the same people you do, but it must be the REALLY right religion when God even cares about which guests chat up your wife

It was only collected into a book long after his death.

His speeches tended to get longer and windier as time went on, and since the longer ones were put at the front, the thing is largely in reverse order. They also tend to shift focus over time. E.g., once he actually is in power in Mecca, he has to deal with actually ruling and legislating, so his speeches tend to cover more of that than his early speeches from Medina.

I'm not sure about all that. Anyway the Medinan surah^WPs are the latest ones. The Mecca Suras are the early ones from when Muhammad was the leader of a small religious group in mainly pagan Mecca, before the migration to Medina.

The Medinan suras or Medinan chapters of the Qur'an are the latest 24 suras that, according to Islamic tradition, were revealed at Medina after Muhammad's hijra from Mecca. These suras were revealed by Allah when the Muslim community was larger and more developed, as opposed to their minority position in Mecca.

The Medinan suras occur mostly at the beginning and in the middle of the Qur'an (but are said to be the last revealed suras chronologically), and typically have more and longer ayat (verses). Due to the new circumstances of the early Muslim community in Medina, these suras more often deal with details of moral principles, legislation, warfare (as in sura 2, al-Baqara), and principles for constituting and ordering the community.​

 

[A'isha]

Far as I know, each surah is one speech given by Muhammad. This wasn't really composed as a book. It's just his speeches he did on some occasion or another. Although supposedly not HIS speeches, but what Allah told him to say. Well, via an archangel.

If only it were that simple!

While some chunks of verses were (supposedly) revealed at a single time, there are also a lot of single verses that were (supposedly) revealed independently. When all of this was assembled into a single text after Muhammad's death, longer speeches were mixed with individual verses to create suwar. Surah 9, for example, is composed of a speech supposedly made by Ali on behalf of Muhammad during the 11th month of 8 AH, another speech supposedly made by Muhammad five months earlier before the Battle of Tabook against the Byzantines, a third speech supposedly made by Muhammad after that battle, and a smattering of individual verses supposedly revealed independently at roughly the same time.

E.g., you even have stuff like Allah conveniently ranting about Muhammad's guests staying late at his house and chatting up one of his wives. It is said you know you've found the true religion when your god hates the same people you do, but it must be the REALLY right religion when God even cares about which guests chat up your wife

This, though, is true. And, according to my favorite hadith, it was noticed on by no less than ‘Ā’ishah, who snarked: "It seems to me that your Lord hastens to fulfill your desires".

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I guess it just shows I'm no mufti. If I come up with a fatwa (doctrine interpretation), totally ignore it

 

[Pup]

Thanks, everyone. I've never been able to get into the Koran, because I've tried to come at it like it's the Islamic Bible, so there will be books, chapters and verses, with little cohesive stories intermixed with laws and genealogies, approximately in chronological order.

Imagine my surprise.

This kind of information is invaluable.

 

[Delvo]

OK, so what about what kinds of subjects are in there at all, even if there's no telling exactly where to find them...

old myths really heavy on the supernatural stuff...

Muslims would have inherited some version of the stories of Genesis & Exodus from Jews & Christians, but they wouldn't have necessarily needed to be included in the holy book. But, they don't really need to be in the Christian one, either, and there they are.

Do they think of some of those older Hebrew books as nifty secondary books you should also have along with the Quran?

mostly-plausible Bronze Age war stories through one particular tribe's filter with some supernatural embellishments...

For this, I'd figure the equivalent is seventh-century war stories, not Bronze Age, and I already know some of that's in there from quotes I've seen before.

lists of laws... treatises on wisdom & righteousness...

I know Islam has these; they can't all be from other stuff like the hadiths, can they?

Also, on the last two bits together: Part of what made me think of this was some quote in which followers are ordered to kill the infidel scum, which made me wonder whether it was just the orders he gave his army once before invading some particular city or more general advice about how to live your life as much as possible wherever you can. In the Bible, I can tell which ones have which contexts to show what such verses really meant.

acid trips posing as prophecies...

I've never heard of Islam getting into the talking animals and flying cities and infidel-hunting demons and flaming angels and world-destroying monsters. But, I've also never heard that stuff from Jews, and some of it's in the Old Testament coming from Jewish prophets (just not the parts people talk about much).

just a bunch of God-praise...

I'm sure there are such verses scattered around in there, but the main noteworthy thing about the Biblical Psalms is that such a concentration of them are all in one place, which apparently would not be the case in the Quran.

a long love poem from back when poets still admitted that lust is a big part of love...

Presumably out

parts of Jesus's alleged life...

Or any other Jewish lowercase-p "prophet" before Muhammad's time... presumably those people would only be mentioned by the capital-P Prophet to comment on what they said compared with what he said, not to tell irrelevant stories about them. But what about stories from his own life?

letters from one Christian to another trying to settle religious disputes among the sects...

The counterpart would be commentaries about disputes among Muslim sects, but there wouldn't have been much time for those to develop and need to be talked about during Muhammad's life.

* * *

Any other big subject categories I missed due to lack of Biblical counterpart?

 

[A'isha]

Muslims would have inherited some version of the stories of Genesis & Exodus from Jews & Christians, but they wouldn't have necessarily needed to be included in the holy book. But, they don't really need to be in the Christian one, either, and there they are.

The Qur'an references, among other stories, Adam and Eve (Q 2:30-32; 38:75; 4:1; 7:189), the Ark and Noah (Q 11:40-48; 54:13; 23:23-30), Abraham (Q 53:36-7; 87:18-9; 2:135; 3:67, 95; 4:125; 6:79, 161; 16:120, 123), Jacob (Q 6:84; 11:71; 12:38; 19:49; 21:72; 29:27; 38:45; 12:93, 96), Isaac (Q 19:49; 37:112-113; 11:71; 14:37-9), Joseph (Sura 12), Moses Q 2:50-51, 67-71; 7:142; 26:63-6; 7:144-154; 20:85-91; 28:3-43), Aaron (Q 21:48-9; 7:122; 23:45; 37:114-20; 20:70; 26:48; 4:163; 6:84; 25:35; 20:29-36; 26:13; 28:35; 28:34-5), Jonah (Q 21:87-8; 37:139-48), Gog and Magog (Q 21:96-7; 18:94-8), Elijah and Elisha (Q 6:85-86; 37:123-32; 38:48), David and Goliath (Q 2:249-51), and Jesus (Q 19:16-40, 88-95; 43:57-65, 81-2; 23:50; 21:91-93; 42:13-14; 6:83-90; 2:87, 135-141, 252-253; 3:42-64, 81-85; 33:7-8; 4:156-159, 163-165, 171-172; 57:26-27; 66:10-12; 61:6, 14; 5:17-18, 46-47, 72-78, 109-118; 9:30-31).

The above is just a sampling of verses mentioning them. Abraham, for instance, is mentioned in some two hundred and forty-five verses in twenty-five suwar. Listing all references to everyone is way beyond the scope of this thread.

Do they think of some of those older Hebrew books as nifty secondary books you should also have along with the Quran?

They think of the Qur'an as the last of four holy books revealed by God to the prophets, confirming, completing, and correcting the other three (which are Tawrat, the Torah, Zabur, the Psalms, and Injil, the Gospels). Since the previous messages were all corrupted in some way post-transmission (hence the need for the Qur'an),

I know Islam has these; they can't all be from other stuff like the hadiths, can they?

There are some 500 verses containing legislation, covering things like matters of ritual, alms, property and treatment of orphans, inheritance, usury, consumption of alcohol, marriage, separation, divorce, adultery, theft, and murder), scattered all throughout the Qur'an (almsgiving is mentioned in Q 2:196 and 9:104-5, while adultery is mentioned in Q 4:15-16, for instance)

Also, on the last two bits together: Part of what made me think of this was some quote in which followers are ordered to kill the infidel scum, which made me wonder whether it was just the orders he gave his army once before invading some particular city or more general advice about how to live your life as much as possible wherever you can. In the Bible, I can tell which ones have which contexts to show what such verses really meant.

In the Qur'an, unlike the Bible, the context comes from outside the book, not within it. As a result, what those verses mean depends on which tafsir you consult. For an academic overview of the various interpretations, I'd recommend The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations by Ahmed al-Dawoody and Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought by Asma Afsaruddin.

I've never heard of Islam getting into the talking animals and flying cities and infidel-hunting demons and flaming angels and world-destroying monsters. But, I've also never heard that stuff from Jews, and some of it's in the Old Testament coming from Jewish prophets (just not the parts people talk about much).

It mentions angels (Q 6:8-9; 6:50; 11:12; 11:31; 12:31; 17:95:13; 25:7:13; 32:11), jinn (Q 6:100; 6:128; 18:50; 34:14; 51:56), and things like the splitting of the moon (Q 54:1-2) and Muhammad's miraculous night journey (17:1), or the wall behind which Gog and Magog are imprisoned (see above) to name a few.

I'm sure there are such verses scattered around in there, but the main noteworthy thing about the Biblical Psalms is that such a concentration of them are all in one place, which apparently would not be the case in the Quran.

Correct.

Or any other Jewish lowercase-p "prophet" before Muhammad's time... presumably those people would only be mentioned by the capital-P Prophet to comment on what they said compared with what he said, not to tell irrelevant stories about them.

See above.

But what about stories from his own life?

Unlike the Bible, the Qur'an focuses on Muhammad in the present-tense at the time of his supposed revelation, and contains pretty much nothing about his life and history. That stuff, the sira, is contained in separate traditions in Islam.

The counterpart would be commentaries about disputes among Muslim sects, but there wouldn't have been much time for those to develop and need to be talked about during Muhammad's life.

Correct for the most part, though Shias do interpret the Qur'an differently and see things that they believe speak directly to their doctrine, things that are quite at odds with the Sunni view.

Any other big subject categories I missed due to lack of Biblical counterpart?

Pretty much any category that's in the Bible is in the Qur'an (or, more specifically, that's in the Old Testament, since Judaism and Islam are a lot closer to each other than either of them are to Christianity).

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Pretty much any category that's in the Bible is in the Qur'an (or, more specifically, that's in the Old Testament, since Judaism and Islam are a lot closer to each other than either of them are to Christianity).

How did this come about? AFAIU Christianity was quite prominent in the regions of Muhammed's early conversions and Christians appear to have influenced him. Is there a direct source of the more Jewish elements (law-keeping, rituals, etc)? Or is it likely to be a more reactionary development, i.e. that Christians were corrupting the law and that the return to the "true" revelation meant going back to something more Jewish?

 

[TriangleMan]

How did this come about? AFAIU Christianity was quite prominent in the regions of Muhammed's early conversions and Christians appear to have influenced him. Is there a direct source of the more Jewish elements (law-keeping, rituals, etc)? Or is it likely to be a more reactionary development, i.e. that Christians were corrupting the law and that the return to the "true" revelation meant going back to something more Jewish?

In my layman viewpoint the Islamic view is that in some regards Judaism is considered "further" from Islam as it ignores the teachings of the Prophet Isa (Jesus). Both Jewish and Christian scriptures are corrupted, Jesus was sent by God because the Jewish scriptures had become corrupted, and the Revelations were later given to Mohammed because the Christian scriptures were corrupted. Both Jews and Christians are still Peoples of Abraham but they unfortunately have deviated from the "true path" of Islam.

That said some aspects of Islam are definitely closer to Judaism than Christianity. The best example are the dietary laws. They are not exactly the same as Judaism but have a lot of similarities (no pork, meat must be slaughtered a certain way, restrictions on other types of animals that can be eaten). Muslims can eat Kosher meat.

Some aspects of Christianity would certainly have been known in Mohammed's time yet Islam did not incorporate it. Having saints, common in Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, is completely rejected by Islam. I recall during the Reformation the Ottoman's were pleased with Lutheranism rejecting things like saints as it meant this new Christian movement was becoming "closer" to Islam.

Muslim scholars would probably agree that, broadly, aspects of Jewish and Christian scripture would of course agree with Islam (see Aisha's post about Noah, Moses etc being in the Qur'an) but as the Jewish and Christian scriptures became corrupted the details would not be the same and should be ignored in favour of the Qur'an as it is uncorrupted.

 

[TriangleMan]

People should also bear in mind the Qur'an is a lot shorter than the Bible, I think it is something like 1/10th the length of the Old and New Testament. It does not contain all of the stories and level of detail covered in the Bible.

 

[Delvo]

Christianity now is different from what Christianity originally was. Originally, they had no saints, were still held to Judaism's laws, and didn't all say that Jesus was of supernatural origin or sent here for a representative sacrifice.