The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

oxford world’s classics
THE QURAN
The Quran is the supreme authority in Islam. It is the fundamental and
paramount source of the creed, rituals, ethics, and laws of the Islamic religion.
This supreme status stems from the belief that the Quran is the word of God,
revealed to the Prophet Muhammad via the archangel Gabriel, and intended
for all times and all places.
The Quran was the starting point for all the Islamic sciences, which were
developed in order to study its grammar, pronunciation, and style, and it is the
basis of Islamic law and theology; indeed, as the celebrated fifteenth-century
scholar and author Suyuti said, ‘Everything is based on the Quran’. The
entire religious life of the Muslim world is built around the text of the Quran.
As a consequence of the Quran, the Arabic language moved far beyond
the Arabian peninsula, deeply penetrating many other languages within the
Muslim lands––Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Indonesian, and others. The first sura
(or section) of the Quran, al-Fatiha, which is an essential part of the ritual
prayers, is learned and read in Arabic by Muslims in all parts of the world, and
many other verses and phrases in Arabic are also incorporated into the lives of
non-Arabic-speaking Muslims.
M. A. S. Abdel Haleem was born in Egypt, and learned the Quran by heart
from childhood. Educated at al-Azhar, Cairo, and Cambridge Universities,
he has taught Arabic at Cambridge and London Universities since 1966,
including courses in advanced practical translation and the Quran. He is now
Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London. His most recent publications are Understanding
the Quran: Themes and Style (2001) and English Translations of the Quran:
The Making of an Image (2004). He is also working on An Arabic–English
Dictionary of Quranic Usage, with El-Said Badawi. He is the editor of the
Journal of Quranic Studies and the London Quranic Studies series.