{"id":728,"date":"2021-09-18T17:13:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-18T16:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/?p=728"},"modified":"2021-09-18T17:13:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-18T16:13:40","slug":"the-quran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/2021\/09\/18\/the-quran\/","title":{"rendered":"The Qur&#8217;an"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I am not a religious person. I just follow my own philosophy. But I am curious about the Qur&#8217;an from a social and historical point of view. I think after watching &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0434409\/\">V for Vendetta<\/a>&#8221; when Stephen Fry was praising the beauty of a Qur&#8217;an, that I told myself I had to read it one day. It is like some Bibles from the Middle Ages, they were master pieces.  Actually, a couple of years ago I read a biography about <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.co.uk\/Muhammad-Biography-Prophet-Karen-Armstrong\/dp\/1842126083\">The Prophet Muhammad<\/a>. It was very good for understanding the social circumstances and how Islam developed. So I bought this <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.co.uk\/Quran-Translated-Tarif-Khalidi-February\/dp\/B00QATPRKS\/\">version<\/a>. The intro was interesting for preparing for what was coming. I knew the Qur&#8217;an was formed by &#8220;suras&#8221; and I thought they would come written chronologically but it is not. It seems the first announced suras are actually the last one written. And I learned that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/exegete\">exegetes<\/a> are experts in interpretations of (mainly) religious texts. And in like in any holy book, there are things that only God can explain based on the exegetes expertise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To be honest I had some expectations. I though it would similar to the bible and quite poetic. The first suras were quite long. One of them touching a lot of subjects from inheritance,  divorce, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was surprised that the Children of Israel are the chosen ones. When you see all the news in that region&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As well, there are many references to the People of the Book: Jews, Christians, Sabenas and Magians. And The Quran confirms that the Torah and the Evangelis are sent by God. So why so much trouble about the three?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was surprised that Abraham, Moses and Noah are mentioned a lot of times. Then a bit less Jesus and Mary. So you can see a lot of connections between the Judaism and Christianity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As well, there are a lot of comments about Judgement day, God punishments to people who rejected God via other prophets (Lot, Thamud, etc). I was looking for an entry about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/if-the-mountain-won-t-come-to-muhammad--muhammad-must-go-to-the-mountain\">The Prophet and the mountain<\/a>, but didnt read it. As well, it is confirmed that God created everything is 6 days. Another subjet is the hijad. The word itself is not mentioned in the translation but I only could read one clear statement about it (47:6). When there are other subject that are repeated much more often: prey to god, follow god, fear god, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In general, the picture I got from the Qur&#8217;am  (about customs, habits, education, etc) and what you see in the world is quite different. But this is what it is, interpretations. The same would happen if  I read the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am not a religious person. I just follow my own philosophy. But I am curious about the Qur&#8217;an from a social and historical point of view. I think after watching &#8220;V for Vendetta&#8221; when Stephen Fry was praising the beauty of a Qur&#8217;an, that I told myself I had to read it one day. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/2021\/09\/18\/the-quran\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Qur&#8217;an&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.thomarite.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}