Sacred Texts and Writings of Islam Chrissy, Claudia, Tayce, Kristina.

Islamic texts Nearly every religion have a book where they go to for answers on life, to get an understanding about situations, and to read about their religion bringing them closer to their God, and develop better understandings about aspects of their religion beliefs. For Catholics and Lutherans it’s the Bible, for Islamic people it’s the Qur’an.

Qur'an The Qur'an is the primary text of Islam, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad beginning in the year 610 C.E. It was created between 644 and 656. The Qur'an is required reading for anyone who wants to understand Islam. Qur'an means "The Recital" in Arabic; according to the story, the angel Gabriel commanded Muhammad to "Recite!". The Qur'an is thus believed to be the direct Word of God and must be obeyed without question.

Qur’an cont. For Muslims, the Qur'an comes directly and literally from God. It wasn't simply written down by inspired human authors, as is the case with the letters of Paul. No, the material in the Qur'an consists of the direct words of God. In a sense, the Qur'an is like an incarnation of God and is in some ways more akin to Jesus than the Bible.

Qur’an cont. Most Muslims today use printed editions of the Qur’an. There are many editions, large and small, elaborate or plain, expensive or inexpensive. Bilingual forms with the Arabic on one side and a gloss into a more familiar language on the other are very popular. Qur’ans are produced in many different sizes. Most are of a reasonable book size, but there exist extremely large Qur’ans (usually for display purposes) and very small Qur’ans (sometimes given as gifts).

Qur’an cont. Qur’ans were first printed from carved wooden blocks, one block per page. There are existing specimen of pages and blocks dating from the 10th century CE. Mass-produced less expensive versions of the Qur’an were later produced by lithography, a technique for printing illustrations. Qur’ans so printed could reproduce the fine calligraphy of hand-made versions. The oldest surviving Qur’an for which movable type was used was printed in Venice in 1537/1538. It seems to have been prepared for sale in the Ottoman empire, Catherine the Great of Russia sponsored a printing of the Qur’an in This was followed by editions from Kazan (1828), Persia (1833) and Istanbul (1877).

Hadith The Hadith, second only to the Qur'an in importance and authority, are collections of Islamic traditions and laws (Sunna). This includes traditional sayings of Muhammad and later Islamic sages. By the ninth century over 600,000 Hadith had been recorded; these were later edited down to about 25,000.

Hadith cont. Hadith literally means "tradition," and it constitutes for most Muslims the second set of religious scriptures - almost, but not quite as important as the Qur'an. Collected into authoritative books, these represent reports about the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate followers while he was alive.

Sufi Texts Sufism is a mystical Islamic belief system. It is renowned for its contributions to world literature: beautiful symbolic poetry and devotional story-telling, much of which was translated in the 19 th century by European scholars and travellers.

This is a Mosque The end