Unit 4 · The Shape of the Qur'an

The Qur’an is the holy book of Muslims. It is divided into 114 chapters. Each chapter is called a surah. Some surahs are very long. Surah 2 has 286 verses. Some are very short. Surah 108 has only three. Every surah has a name, such as The Cow, The Bee or The Opening.

Each surah is made of verses. A verse is called an ayah. The word ayah also means "a sign." Muslims believe each verse is a sign from God. Altogether the Qur’an has about 6,200 ayahs. Different counting systems give slightly different totals, so people say "about."

When Muslims point to a verse, they give two numbers. The first is the surah. The second is the ayah. So 2:255 means surah 2, verse 255. It is a little like a street address. Once you know the two numbers, you can find any verse in any copy of the book.

The 114 surahs are not all the same size. So Muslims also divide the book another way. They cut it into 30 parts of about equal length. Each part is called a juz'. The plural is ajza’. The juz’ does not follow surah lines. One juz’ can end in the middle of a surah.

Why 30? Because many Muslims want to read the whole Qur’an during Ramadan. Ramadan is the month of fasting. It lasts 29 or 30 days. One juz’ a night means the whole book in one month. In many mosques, the reciter reads one juz’ each night in special evening prayers.

Printed Qur’ans mark each juz’ in the margin. Some also mark smaller pieces. Each juz’ has two halves, called hizb. Each hizb has four quarters. Readers use these marks to keep their place. A child learning to read might aim for one quarter a day.

Open a Qur’an and look at the size of the surahs. After the short first surah, the second is the longest in the book. Then the surahs slowly get shorter. Near the end they are tiny. This is the pattern: roughly longest to shortest. It is not a perfect rule, but it is close.

This is not the order the words came, according to Muslim belief. Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad over about 23 years. Tradition says the first verses to come were the start of surah 96. Yet surah 96 sits near the back. So the book’s order and the time order are different.

Muslim scholars have written about why the surahs sit where they do. Most Muslims believe the Prophet himself showed where each part belonged. Some scholars think the order shows patterns of meaning. Historians describe the order as it is. Either way, readers learn to use the book as it is arranged.

Muslim tradition tells of two cities in Muhammad’s life. He was born in Mecca. He lived there until he was about 52. Then he and his followers moved to Medina, a city to the north. That move happened in the year 622. Muslims count their calendar from it.

Every surah carries a label. It says Meccan or Medinan. The label tells where Muslims believe the surah was revealed. About 86 surahs are called Meccan. About 28 are called Medinan. Printed Qur’ans put the label at the top of each surah.

Scholars notice that the two groups sound different. Meccan surahs are often short. They speak about one God and about the Day of Judgment. Medinan surahs are often longer. They speak about how a community should live together. Knowing the label helps a reader understand what a surah is doing.

The first surah of the Qur’an is called Al-Fatiha. The name means "The Opening." It has only seven ayahs. Yet Muslims say it more than any other part of the book. They recite it in every unit of their daily prayers. A Muslim may say it more than fifteen times a day.

The surah is a prayer spoken to God. It begins with praise. It calls God the Lord of all worlds, full of mercy. It says that God is the master of the Day of Judgment. Then the speaker says, in simple words: You alone we worship, and from You alone we ask help.

The last lines are a request. The speaker asks God to show the straight path. It is the path of those God has blessed. It is not the path of those who earned anger or who went astray. Muslim scholars call Al-Fatiha a summary of the whole book. Some call it "the mother of the book."

Deep inside the long second surah is one famous ayah. It is verse 255. Muslims call it Ayat al-Kursi, the Throne Verse. Many Muslim children learn it early. Many adults say it after each prayer and before sleep. You may see it on wall hangings in Muslim homes.

The verse describes God. It says there is no god but God, the Living One, who never sleeps. It says God knows what is in front of people and behind them. It says God’s throne, or kursi, reaches over the heavens and the earth. Keeping them is no burden for God.

Muslim scholars read the verse as a picture of tawhid. Tawhid means that God is one. Some readers take the throne as a real throne. Others read it as a way of saying God’s power and knowledge cover everything. Both readings appear in Muslim commentaries.

Near the end of the book is a tiny surah. It is number 112. Its name is Al-Ikhlas, which means sincerity, or pure faith. It has just four ayahs. Children often learn it right after Al-Fatiha. Many Muslims say it in their daily prayers.

The surah begins with the word "Say." Muslims believe God is telling Muhammad what to say. The message is short. God is one. God is the one everyone needs and who needs no one. God did not have children and was not born. Nothing is like God.

Muslim tradition says the Prophet called this surah worth a third of the Qur’an. Scholars explain why. They say the Qur’an has three big themes: God, the Day of Judgment, and how to live. This surah covers the first theme all by itself. That is why it matters so much to Muslims.

Look at the start of any surah. You will see the same line. In Arabic it begins "Bismillah." The whole line means: In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Muslims call the line the Bismillah. It sits at the head of 113 surahs.

One surah does not begin with it. That is surah 9. Muslim scholars have long discussed why. Some say surah 9 continues surah 8. Others say its stern tone did not fit a line about mercy. No one is sure. But everyone agrees the line is missing there.

The line also appears inside surah 27. There it opens a letter that the king Sulayman (Solomon) sends to a queen. So the Bismillah is counted 114 times in the book. Muslims also say the line before eating or starting a task. It is one of the most spoken lines in the world.

The book’s own name tells you something. Qur'an is an Arabic word. It comes from a word that means to read aloud or recite. So the name means "the recitation." The name points to a voice. Muslims believe the words were spoken to Muhammad, who spoke them to others.

The very first word revealed, according to Muslim tradition, was a command. It was "Iqra!" The word means "Read!" or "Recite!" It opens surah 96. Muhammad could not read or write, as tradition tells it. His followers learned the words by heart and said them back.

Even today, most Muslims meet the Qur’an first by ear. A parent sings it to a baby. A teacher says a line and the class repeats. In the next chapter you will see how the spoken book became a written one, and how Muslims keep the sound alive.

Now you know the Qur’an’s map. It has 114 surahs. Each has a name, a number and a label, Meccan or Medinan. Each surah is made of numbered ayahs. Each begins with the Bismillah, except surah 9. And the whole book is split into 30 juz’ for reading over a month.

To find a passage, start with the surah number. The table of contents lists all 114. Then count ayahs. Printed copies put a small number at the end of each ayah. It usually sits inside a little circle or flower shape. Find the number, and you have the verse.

Try it with three famous spots. Al-Fatiha is 1:1-7, at the very front. The Throne Verse is 2:255, deep in the second surah. Al-Ikhlas is 112:1-4, near the back. Muslims around the world use the same numbers. A child in Chicago and a grandmother in Cairo can turn to the same line.

The Qur’an did not start as a book on a shelf. Muslim tradition says the words came to Muhammad a few at a time, over about 23 years. He spoke them to his followers. They said them back and learned them by heart. Some wrote pieces on leather, bone or palm leaves. But mostly the words lived in voices.

The Qur’an itself talks about being recited. To recite means to say aloud from memory. One verse tells the Prophet to recite the Qur’an slowly and clearly (73:4). Another says that God sent it down in the month of Ramadan (2:185). Muslims read these verses as a sign that the book is meant for the ear.

After the Prophet died in 632, his followers worried. Many who knew the words by heart had died in battles. According to Muslim tradition, the leader Abu Bakr ordered the pieces gathered. Later, the leader Uthman had a standard copy made, around the year 650. That is how, as Muslims tell it, the voice became a book.

Listen to a Muslim recite the Qur’an. You will hear long, stretched sounds. You will hear soft hums through the nose. You will hear clear stops. None of this is random. It follows rules. The rules are called tajwid. The word means making something good or beautiful.

Tajwid tells the reciter where each sound comes from in the mouth and throat. It says which vowels to stretch and for how long. It says where a reader may pause and where a pause would change the meaning. Muslims believe the rules keep the words the way the Prophet said them.

Children learn tajwid slowly. First they learn the Arabic letters. Then they learn to join them. A teacher says a line, and the student copies the sound. Mistakes are fixed gently. A student who reads with good tajwid is praised. Muslims in Chicago learn it at mosques and at weekend schools, just as students do in Cairo or Jakarta.

Some people know the whole Qur’an by heart. All 114 surahs. All 6,200 ayahs. Such a person is called a hafiz. A girl or woman is called a hafiza. The word means "guardian" or "keeper." Muslims believe a hafiz helps keep the book safe by carrying it in memory.

Muslim tradition says several of the Prophet’s companions knew the whole Qur’an by heart. Since then, every generation has had memorizers. Today they number in the millions, though no exact count exists. Some are children as young as eight or nine. Some are grandparents. They live in every country where Muslims live.

How do they do it? Slowly, and every day. A student learns a few lines, then repeats them. The next day, a few more. Old lines are reviewed so they do not fade. It often takes two to five years. Many Muslim families hold a party when a child finishes. Some countries and cities hold contests for the best young reciters.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. They do not eat or drink during the day. The Qur’an says God sent the book down in this month (2:185). So Muslims treat Ramadan as the Qur’an’s own month.

After the sunset meal, many Muslims go to the mosque for extra night prayers. They are called tarawih. In many mosques, the reciter reads one juz’ each night. Over 29 or 30 nights, the people hear the whole Qur’an. People stand quietly and listen. Some follow along in a copy of their own.

Muslims also honor one special night near the end of the month. It is called Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Power. Surah 97 says the Qur’an was sent down on that night. It calls the night better than a thousand months. Many Muslims stay up late that night to pray and recite.

Muslims use a special word for a written copy of the Qur’an. It is mushaf. The word means a set of pages bound together. The Qur’an is the words. A mushaf is one copy of the words on paper. There are millions of mushafs in the world, but Muslims believe there is only one Qur’an.

Muslims treat a mushaf with care. Many wash their hands before touching it. Families keep it on a high shelf, often wrapped in cloth. It is never placed on the floor. It is not stacked under other books. When a copy wears out, many Muslims bury it or store it rather than throw it away.

The oldest mushaf pages are very old. Two pages kept at a library in Birmingham, England, were tested by scientists. The test dated the animal skin to the 600s, the century of the Prophet. Historians note that the words on them match the Qur’an read today. Muslims see this as a sign of careful copying.

Arabic is written from right to left. It has 28 letters. Many letters share the same basic shape. Small dots above or below tell them apart. In the earliest Qur’an pages, those dots were often left out. Short vowels were not written at all. Readers who already knew the words by heart did not need them.

As Islam spread, many new Muslims did not speak Arabic as a first language. Reading without dots was hard for them. So, over the next two or three hundred years, scribes added the dots. They added small marks for short vowels. They added signs for where to stretch a sound or stop. The page began to show what the voice already knew.

Today a printed mushaf carries all of these marks. It also has ayah numbers, juz’ marks and notes on where to pause. In 1924, scholars in Cairo, Egypt, printed a carefully checked edition. Most printed Qur’ans today follow it. Muslims see the marks as helpers. The sound, they say, came first.

Open an old mushaf in a museum. The letters are not just clear. They are beautiful. Some are thick and gold. Some curve like waves. This art is called calligraphy. The word means beautiful writing. For Muslims, writing the Qur’an well is a way of honoring it.

Calligraphy has styles, the way music has styles. The earliest Qur’ans used a style called Kufic. Its letters are straight and boxy. Later a rounder style called Naskh became common. It is easier to read. Most printed Qur’ans today use a form of Naskh. Other styles bend and stack letters into shapes.

Great calligraphers were famous, like great painters are today. One was Ibn Muqla, who lived in Baghdad and died in 940. Tradition says he worked out rules for the size and shape of each letter. Calligraphers still train for years. They copy a master’s lines until their hand learns the form.

Walk into a mosque and look around. You will not see a painting of God. You will not see a statue of Muhammad. Most Muslims believe such pictures should not be made. They worry a picture might be worshipped, or might make God seem small. So, in most Muslim art, God and the prophets are not shown.

Instead, the walls carry words. Verses of the Qur’an are carved in stone. They are painted on tiles. They run in bands around domes and doorways. A famous early example is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, finished around 691. Long lines of Qur’an verses circle its inside walls.

Beside the words, artists use geometric patterns. Stars, hexagons and knots repeat across a wall. Vines and flowers curl around the letters. Muslims say the patterns point to order and to the oneness of God. Not every Muslim culture has followed the same rules. Some Persian and Turkish books did show the Prophet, often with his face veiled. But in mosques and in mushafs, the words are the art.

Most Muslims do not speak Arabic as their first language. There are about 1.9 billion Muslims, and estimates vary. They live in Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey, the United States and many other places. So people have translated the Qur’an into hundreds of languages, including English.

The first full English translation from Arabic was made by George Sale in 1734. Others followed. In 1930, an English Muslim named Marmaduke Pickthall made the translation this course uses. He called it The Meaning of the Glorious Koran. He did not call it the Qur’an. He said only the Arabic is the Qur’an. A translation gives the meaning.

Most Muslims agree with Pickthall on this. A translation helps a reader understand. But it is a person’s best try at the meaning. Two translators may choose different English words for one Arabic word. That is why many Muslim homes keep a copy with Arabic on one side and English on the other.

A Muslim boy in Chicago prays in Arabic. So does a girl in Senegal and a grandmother in Malaysia. None of them may speak Arabic at home. Yet all of them recite Al-Fatiha in the same Arabic words. Why not use their own languages?

Muslims believe the Arabic words are the revelation itself. The Qur’an says of itself that it is an Arabic Qur’an, sent so that people could understand (12:2). For Muslims, the sound and the words go together. Changing the language would make a different text. So prayer stays in Arabic, and the translation is for study.

This shared language links Muslims across the world. A reciter from Egypt can lead prayer in Chicago. A child who learns Al-Fatiha in Detroit can pray in Mecca. Muslims say this is one of the ways the Qur’an makes them one community. Learning Arabic letters and sounds is part of growing up Muslim, in any country.