The Quranਕੁਰਆਨ

Every Muslim home in Punjab, from Malerkotla to Lahore, keeps a copy of one book above all others: the Quran. Muslims believe it is not a book written about God, but the speech of God himself, given to humanity through the Prophet Muhammad. That belief explains the care that surrounds it: the Quran is kept wrapped and high in the house, recited daily, taught to children, and treated as the final authority in questions of faith and conduct. This page explains what the Quran is, how it came into its present form, and how it is read, memorised and honoured.

What is the Quran?

The Quran is the central scripture of Islam. Its name, al-Quran, means the recitation, which points to how it was first received and how it is still mainly experienced: spoken aloud. Its central message is the absolute oneness of God, and it speaks of creation, the prophets of earlier traditions, moral duties, law, charity, family life and the Day of Judgment. Muslims regard it as the final and complete revelation, confirming the messages they believe were given earlier to prophets such as Ibrahim, Musa and Isa, and correcting, in their belief, the forms in which those messages had come down.

How was the Quran revealed, according to Islamic tradition?

Islamic tradition holds that in 610 CE, during the month of Ramadan, the Prophet Muhammad was meditating in the cave of Hira outside Mecca when the angel Gabriel brought him the first words of the revelation, beginning with the command to read. Revelations then continued for about twenty-three years, until 632 CE, in Mecca and later in Medina. Companions memorised the passages as they came, and scribes wrote them on the materials of the time. After the Prophet's death, the first caliph, Abu Bakr, had the text collected into one volume, and the third caliph, Uthman, commissioned the standard written text from which copies were sent to the growing Muslim world. The night in Ramadan on which the first revelation came is commemorated as Laylat al-Qadr, the Night of Decree, in the month's last days.

How is the Quran organised?

The Quran contains 114 chapters, called surahs, each made up of verses called ayat, which means signs. The surahs are not arranged in the order of revelation but roughly by length, longest first after the short opening chapter, Al-Fatiha, whose seven verses are recited in every unit of the daily prayers. The longest surah, Al-Baqarah, runs to 286 verses; the shortest have only three. Chapters are described as Meccan or Medinan, after where their verses were mainly revealed. For convenience in reading, the text is also divided into thirty parts, called juz, so the whole book can be read through in a month, and every surah except the ninth opens with the words known as the Basmala: in the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

The Hafiz tradition: a book carried in memory

Because the Quran began as recitation, memorising it is one of Islam's oldest honours. A Muslim who has memorised the entire book by heart is called a Hafiz, and the memorisation, hifz, is taught in mosque schools and madrasas where children learn section by section under a teacher. Recitation has its own discipline, tajwid, the rules of pronunciation and melody that keep the Arabic exact. A Hafiz is especially needed in Ramadan, when the whole Quran is recited across the nights of Taraweeh prayers. Punjab's larger mosques and madrasas, including those of Malerkotla, train Hafiz in this way, and a Punjabi Hafiz leading prayers is a familiar figure from Ludhiana to Lahore and in the diaspora's mosques in Canada and Britain.

The Quran in daily life

The Quran shapes the Muslim day directly: verses from it are recited in each of the five daily prayers, and its opening chapter is said many times a day. Families read it at home, gather for its study, and turn to it at births, marriages, illnesses and funerals. Calligraphy of its verses is the supreme decorative art of the Muslim world, carved on mosques like Lahore's Wazir Khan Mosque and written in gold in treasured manuscripts. Reverence has practical forms: most Muslims perform wudu, the ritual washing, before handling the book, keep it in a high and clean place, and never place it on the floor. Translations into many languages, Punjabi among them, are read for understanding, while the Arabic text itself is considered the Quran in the full sense.

Why is the Quran kept in Arabic?

Because Muslims believe the revelation was given in Arabic, the Arabic wording is the scripture itself, and translations are treated as interpretations of its meaning. That is why a Muslim in Punjab who speaks no Arabic still learns to read the Arabic script of the Quran, and why its recitation sounds the same in a Malerkotla mosque as in Mecca, Jakarta or Toronto. The sameness of the text across fourteen centuries and every continent is, for believers, part of the book's preservation and authority.