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The Quran was at fi rst an aural revelation before becoming
written in book form. The Prophet fi rst heard the Word
of God and then uttered it to his companions, who memorized
the verses and wrote them on parchments, camel
bones, and skins. According to the Islamic tradition, the
Prophet was unlettered (al-ummī) , which on the highest level
means that his soul was pure and virginal, undefi led by
human knowledge and worthy of receiving the Divine Word.
When the archangel Gabriel fi rst appeared to the Prophet,
the sound of the first verse of the Quran reverberated
throughout the space around him. This aspect of the reality
of the Quran remains very much alive to this day. Not only
is the Quran a book written often in the most beautiful calligraphy
and read throughout one’s life, but it is also a world
of sacred sound heard constantly in Islamic cities and towns. Its sounds reverberate throughout the spaces
within which men and women move and act in their
everyday lives, and there are many who have memorized the
text and recite it constantly without reference to the written
word. The art of chanting the Quran, which goes back to the
Prophet, is the supreme acoustic sacred art of Islam and
moves devout Muslims to tears whether they are Arabs or
Malays.

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The name of the sacred scripture of Islam by which it has
become famous, especially in the West, is the Quran, or
Koran, from the Arabic al-Qur’ān , which means “The Recitation.”
But the sacred text has many other names, each
referring to an aspect of it. It is also known as al-Furqān ,
“The Discernment,” for it contains the principles for both
intellectual and moral discernment. Another of its wellknown
names is Umm al-kitāb , “The Mother Book,” for it is
the ultimate source of all knowledge and the prototype of
the “book” as container of knowledge. It is also known as
al-Hudā , “The Guide,” for it is the supreme guide for people’s
journey through life. In traditional Islamic languages,
it is usually referred to as the Noble Quran (al-Qur’ān almajīd
or al-karīm) and is treated with the utmost respect as
a sacred reality that surrounds and defi nes the life of Muslims
from the cradle to the grave. The verses of the Quran
are the very fi rst sounds heard by the newborn child and the
last the dying person hears on his or her way to the encounter
with God.
In a sense, the soul of the Muslim is woven of verses and
expressions drawn from the Quran. Such expressions as
inshā’ Allāh , “If God wills,” al -.h amdu li’Llāh , “Thanks be
to God,” and bismi’Llāh , “In the Name of God,” all used by
Arab as well as non-Arab Muslims alike, punctuate the
whole of life and determine the texture of the soul of the Muslim. Every legitimate
action begins with a bismi’Llāh and ends with an al-
.h
amdu li’Llāh , while the attitude toward the future is always
conditioned by the awareness of inshā’ Allāh , for all depends
on the Divine Will. These and many other formulas drawn
from the Quran determine the attitude toward the past, the
present, and the future and cover the whole of life. The daily
prayers that punctuate the Muslim’s entire life, from the age
of puberty until death, are constituted of verses and chapters
from the Quran, while Islamic Law has its root in the sacred
text. Likewise, all branches of knowledge that can be legitimately
called Islamic have their root in the Quran, which
has served over the centuries as both the fountainhead and
the guiding principle for the whole of the Islamic intellectual
tradition.

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The Quran is the central theophany of Islam, the verbatim
Word of God revealed to the Prophet by the archangel
Gabriel and transmitted by him in turn to his companions,
who both memorized and recorded it. It was later assembled
in its present order under the instruction of the Prophet and
written down in several manuscripts. During the caliphate
of ‘Uthmān a few years after the death of the Prophet, the
defi nitive text was copied in several examples and sent to the four corners
of the newly established Islamic world. There exists only
one version of the text of the Quran, one that is agreed on by
all schools of Islam, a text considered to be sacred in its
entirety, not only in meaning but also in form.

Islam is a religion and a civilization

Islam is both a religion and a civilization, a historical
reality that spans over fourteen centuries of human history
and a geographical presence in vast areas stretching over the
Asian and African continents and even parts of Europe. It is
also a spiritual and metahistorical reality that has transformed
the inner and outer life of numerous human beings
in very different temporal and spatial circumstances. Today
over 1.2 billion people from different racial and cultural
backgrounds are Muslim, and historically Islam has played
a signifi cant role in the development of certain aspects of
other civilizations, especially Western civilization.