Koran
Reader comment on item: [Al-Hudaybiya and] Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad's Diplomacy
in response to reader comment: Koran

Submitted by Joe (United States), Feb 15, 2006 at 13:15

It is true that for the most part the Koran is arranged according to length of each Sura. However, some Muslim scholars (although they are not supposed to think about it) can trace a chronology of the suras. At least the suras are separated into the Medinan and the Meccan suras.

However, there is a lot of controversy within Islam on the legitimacy of some of the Qur'an and resultant hadith. In many cases, hadith contains narrations involving the Koran before it was even accumulated into one book. Also, Leila Ahmed notes that earlier Qur'anic recitations are directed only to men, but later ones to both men and women after a confrontation.

It is important to note, however, that the pages of the Qur'an were picked and chosen from a vast multitude before its compilation. For a long while, they were just stories told and remembered and passed down, and it was not until much later that they were recorded, let alone picked.

I am alluding to the fact that there is actually a very slim chance that what is in the Qur'an is the exact word as Muhummad told it, and perhaps the stories that are in it have been greatly altered, and with cataclysmic stories left out. It was interesting to hear the vastly different outcome that came from secular, objective sources.

I do not doubt that the clerical Islam, as Muslims understand it today, is vastly different from the intended Islam, or perhaps not. Sometimes when relgious texts are compiled under a central authority, they tend to change. I also note that in Arabic the suras of the Qur'an flow like a poem and rhyme as well. Sometimes the evil things in this world "look fairer, and feel fouler".

This implies that the entiriety of practiced Islam is indeed false and the intended message is lost, even if you believe the message was pure in the first place.

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