What is the Holy Quran

The Holy Quran is not only the book that was revealed to prophet Muhammad –peace and blessings be upon him, the Holy Quran is the miracle that was given to him, and we as Muslims, believe that the Holy Quran is the words of Allah -the Almighty- and every word came in it, is a rule for us.  

Revelation of the Holy Quran:

  The Holy Quran was revealed to prophet Muhammad –peace and blessings be upon him- by the archangel Gabriel –peace be upon him- over about 23 years. And the first words that were descended were, His Almighty saying: {Read in the name of your Lord who created, created the human from a clot, read and Allah is the most generous, who taught with the pen, taught the human what he didn’t know}. these words revealed to prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) when he was 40 , and while he was in a cave named ” cave of Hira’a”, where the archangel Gabriel –peace be upon him- suddenly appeared in front of Muhammad, and recite these holy words to him.    

The Holy Quran is a miracle:

  It is enough for the Holy Quran that Allah –the Almighty- challenged the polytheists to come up with an equivalent to it or even to bring only ten Surahs like its Surahs, then he -the Almighty- made the challenge more harder and asked them to come up with only one Surah like the Holy Quran, and even eloquent Arabians couldn’t do that and testified to it with rhetoric and eloquence, as Allah the Almighty said: {Oh do they say that it is fabricated?, Say: So, come up with a Surah same like it and invite whoever you can, other than God if you were truthful}.   The Holy Quran is a book for every time; as it was suitable for being read and understood 14 centuries ago, and it still suitable and understood until now. And whenever the science discovers a new thing, we find a sign of it in the Holy Quran. As an example, His Almighty saying; {And the horses and the mules and the donkeys to ride it and as an adornment, and creates what you don’t know}, this verse was interpreted by the ancients to be that Allah created the Heaven and the Hell, which are unknown for all the people, or that Allah created types of insects and vermin that humans can’t see. And in the recent times, it is interpreted as the new transportation means which were unknown for the ancients and that there will be newer means that we don’t know them yet.    

The writing and collection of the Holy Quran:

  Before the death of prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) the Holy Quran was preserved only in the hearts of the companions, and it remained like that until the era of the khalfa Abi Bkr and the wars of apostasy took place, and the martyrdom of seventy reciters and memorizers of the Holy Quran, which made Omar Ibn Al-khattab afraid to miss anything from the Holy Quran, and he suggested to Abi Bakr to preserve the Holy Quran by writing to protect it from being lost, but Abo Bakr was hesitant to do what prophet Muhammad didn’t do, then he convinced that it is a necessity, then this written version of the Holy Quran was given to Hfsa Bent Omar after the death of Abi Bakr, peace be upon him. In the era of Khalifa Uthman Ibn Affan, the Islamic countries were expanded in Iraq and Levant, and the companions dispersed in these countries reading and reciting the Holy Quran to people, and due to the different dialects, different readings have been emerged. And when Muslims gathered to invade Armenia and Azerbaijan, the dispute arose between them in reading the Holy Quran, and all of that was informed to Uthman Ibn Affan who sent to Hafsa Bent Omar asking her to give him the version of the Holy Quran to copy it, then he sent copies of the Holy Quran to Mecca, Levant, Basra, Kufa, Yemen, and Bahrain and kept one in the Medina, and this succeeded in eliminating the dispute between Muslims.      

Impact of the Holy Quran in the Arabic language:

  The Holy Quran contributed in laying and stabilizing the bases of the Arabic language grammar, as it is a reference for the development of the Arabic language. And in addition, the unifying of the Arabic language is credited with the descending of the Holy Quran, as it wasn’t unified before, although it was a rich and flexible language because when the Holy Quran came, it gave the Arabic language a flow of sweetness and rhetoric and preserved it from fading and extinction as happened with many other Semitic languages which became obsolete languages.