History of computer science

History of computer science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science that emerged in the twentieth century. The progression, from mechanical inventions and mathematical theories towards the modern concepts and machines, formed a major academic field and the basis of a massive world-wide industry.

Early history

Early computation
The earliest known tool for use in computation was the abacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BCE. Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand with pebbles. Abaci, of a more modern design, are still used as calculation tools today.
In 1115 BCE, the South Pointing Chariot was invented in ancient China. It was the first known geared mechanism to use a differential gear, which was later used in analog computers. The Chinese also invented a more sophisticated abacus from around the 2nd century BCE known as the Chinese abacus).
In the 5th century BCE in ancient India, the grammarian Pāṇini formulated the grammar of Sanskrit in 3959 rules known as the Ashtadhyayi which was highly systematized and technical. Panini used metarules, transformations and recursions with such sophistication that his grammar had the computing power equivalent to a Turing machine.
Between 200 BCE and 400 CE, Jaina mathematicians in India invented the logarithm. From the 13th century, logarithmic tables were produced by Muslim mathematicians.
When John Napier discovered logarithms for computational purposes in the early 17th century, there followed a period of considerable progress by inventors and scientists in making calculating tools.
None of the early computational devices were really computers in the modern sense, and it took considerable advancement in mathematics and theory before the first modern computers could be designed.

Algorithms
In the 7th century, Indian mathematician Brahmagupta gave the first explanation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit.
Approximately around the year 825, Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi wrote a book, On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, that was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and then Europe. Around the 12th century, there was translation of this book written into Latin: Algoritmi de numero Indorum. These books presented newer concepts to perform a series of steps in order to accomplish a task such as the systematic application of arithmetic to algebra. By derivation from his name, we have the term algorithm.
Unfortunately…there are many claims from India. these articles need proofs and evidences.

Binary logic
Around the 3rd century BC, Indian mathematician Pingala invented the binary numeral system. In this system, still used today to process all modern computers, a sequence of ones and zeros can represent any number.
In 1703, Gottfried Leibniz developed logic in a formal, mathematical sense with his writings on the binary numeral system. In his system, the ones and zeros also represent true and false values or on and off states. But it took more than a century before George Boole published his Boolean algebra in 1854 with a complete system that allowed computational processes to be mathematically modeled.
By this time, the first mechanical devices driven by a binary pattern had been invented. The industrial revolution had driven forward the mechanization of many tasks, and this included weaving. Punch cards controlled Joseph Marie Jacquard’s loom in 1801, where a hole punched in the card indicated a binary one and an unpunched spot indicated a binary zero. Jacquard’s loom was far from being a computer, but it did illustrate that machines could be driven by binary systems.

The Analytical Engine
It wasn’t until Charles Babbage, considered the “father of computing,” that the modern computer began to take shape with his work on the Analytical Engine. The device, though never successfully built, had all of the functionality in its design of a modern computer. He first described it in 1837 — more than 100 years before any similar device was successfully constructed. The difference between Babbage’s Engine and preceding devices is simple – he designed his to be programmed.
During their collaboration, mathematician Ada Lovelace published the first ever computer programs in a comprehensive set of notes on the analytical engine. Because of this, Lovelace is popularly considered the first computer programmer, but some scholars contend that the programs published under her name were originally created by Babbage.

Birth of computer science
Before the 1920s, computers were human clerks that performed computations. They were usually under the lead of a physicist. Many thousands of computers were employed in commerce, government, and research establishments. Most of these computers were women, and they were known to have a degree in calculus. Some performed astronomical calculations for calendars.
After the 1920s, the expression computing machine referred to any machine that performed the work of a human computer, especially those in accordance with effective methods of the Church-Turing thesis. The thesis states that a mathematical method is effective if it could be set out as a list of instructions able to be followed by a human clerk with paper and pencil, for as long as necessary, and without ingenuity or insight.
Machines that computed with continuous values became known as the analog kind. They used machinery that represented continuous numeric quantities, like the angle of a shaft rotation or difference in electrical potential.
Digital machinery, in contrast to analog, were able to render a state of a numeric value and store each individual digit. Digital machinery used difference engines or relays before the invention of faster memory devices.
The phrase computing machine gradually gave away, after the late 1940s, to just computer as the onset of electronic digital machinery became common. These computers were able to perform the calculations that were performed by the previous human clerks.
Since the values stored by digital machines were not bound to physical properties like analog devices, a logical computer, based on digital equipment, was able to do anything that could be described “purely mechanical.” Alan Turing, known as the Father of Computer Science, invented such a logical computer known as the Turing Machine, which later evolved into the modern computer. These new computers were also able to perform non-numeric computations, like music.
From the time when computational processes were performed by human clerks, the study of computability began a science by being able to make evident which was not explicit into ordinary sense more immediate.

Emergence of a discipline

The theoretical groundwork
The mathematical foundations of modern computer science began to be laid by Kurt Gödel with his incompleteness theorem (1931). In this theorem, he showed that there were limits to what could be proved and disproved within a formal system. This led to work by Gödel and others to define and describe these formal systems, including concepts such as mu-recursive functions and lambda-definable functions.
1936 was a key year for computer science. Alan Turing and Alonzo Church independently, and also together, introduced the formalization of an algorithm, with limits on what can be computed, and a “purely mechanical” model for computing.
These topics are covered by what is now called the Church–Turing thesis, a hypothesis about the nature of mechanical calculation devices, such as electronic computers. The thesis claims that any calculation that is possible can be performed by an algorithm running on a computer, provided that sufficient time and storage space are available.
Turing also included with the thesis a description of the Turing machine. A Turing machine has an infinitely long tape and a read/write head that can move along the tape, changing the values along the way. Clearly such a machine could never be built, but nonetheless, the model can simulate the computation of any algorithm which can be performed on a modern computer.
Turing is so important to computer science that his name is also featured on the Turing Award and the Turing test. He contributed greatly to British code-breaking successes in the Second World War, and continued to design computers and software through the 1940s, but committed suicide in 1954.
At a symposium on large-scale digital machinery in Cambridge, Turing said, “We are trying to build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus”.
In 1948, the first practical computer that could run stored programs, based on the Turing machine model, had been built – the Manchester Baby.
In 1950, Britain’s National Physical Laboratory completed Pilot ACE, a small scale programmable computer, based on Turing’s philosophy.

Shannon and information theory
Up to and during the 1930s, electrical engineers were able to build electronic circuits to solve mathematical and logic problems, but most did so in an ad hoc manner, lacking any theoretical rigor. This changed with Claude E. Shannon’s publication of his 1937 master’s thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits. While taking an undergraduate philosophy class, Shannon had been exposed to Boole’s work, and recognized that it could be used to arrange electromechanical relays (then used in telephone routing switches) to solve logic problems. This concept, of utilizing the properties of electrical switches to do logic, is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computers, and his thesis became the foundation of practical digital circuit design when it became widely known among the electrical engineering community during and after World War II.
Shannon went on to found the field of information theory with his 1948 paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which applied probability theory to the problem of how to best encode the information a sender wants to transmit. This work is one of the theoretical foundations for many areas of study, including data compression and cryptography.

Wiener and Cybernetics
From experiments with anti-aircraft systems that interpreted radar images to detect enemy planes, Norbert Wiener coined the term cybernetics from the Greek word for “steersman.” He published “Cybernetics” in 1948, which influenced artificial intelligence. Wiener also compared computation, computing machinery, memory devices, and other cognitive similarities with his analysis of brain waves.

The first computer bug
The first actual computer bug was a moth. It was stuck in between the relays on the Harvard Mark II.[1] While the invention of the term ‘bug’ is often but erroneously attributed to Grace Hopper, a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, who supposedly logged the “bug” on September 9, 1945, most other accounts conflict at least with these details. According to these accounts, the actual date was September 9, 1947 when operators filed this ‘incident’ — along with the insect and the notation “First actual case of bug being found” (see software bug for details).

Qur’an

Qur’an
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Qur’an (Arabic: القرآن al-qur’ān, literally “the recitation”; also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran or Al-Qur’ān) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God. Islam holds that the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad by the angel Gibraele (Gabriel) over a period of 23 years. Muslims regard the Qur’an as the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with those revealed to Adam, regarded in Islam as the first prophet, and continued with the Suhuf-i-Ibrahim (Scrolls of Abraham), the Tawrat (Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), and the Injeel (Gospel). The aforementioned books are not explicitly included in the Qur’an, but are recognized therein. The Qur’an also refers to many events from Jewish and Christian scriptures, some of which are retold in comparatively distinctive ways from the Bible and the Torah, while obliquely referring to other events described explicitly in those texts.

The Qur’an itself expresses that it is the book of guidance. Therefore it rarely offers detailed accounts of historical events; the text instead typically placing emphasis on the moral significance of an event rather than its narrative sequence. It does not describe natural facts in a scientific manner but teaches that natural and supernatural events are signs of God.
The Qur’an was written down by Muhammad’s companions while he was alive, although the prime method of transmission was oral. It was compiled in the time of Abu Bakr, the first caliph, and was standardized in the time of Uthman, the third caliph. The Qur’an in its actual form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants in Western academia has not yielded any differences of great significance and that historically controversy over the content of the Qur’an has never become a main point. Therefore all Muslims, Sunni or Shia use the same Qur’an.

Etymology and meaning
The original usage of the word qur`ān is in the Qur’an itself, where it occurs about 70 times assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qara`a (Arabic: قرأ), meaning “he read” or “he recited”, and represents the Syriac equivalent qeryānā which refers to “scripture reading” or “lesson”. While most Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qara`a itself. In any case, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad’s lifetime. Among the earliest meanings of the word Qur’an is the “act of reciting”, for example in a Qur’anic passage: “Ours is it to put it together and [Ours is] its qur`ān”. In other verses it refers to “an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]“. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the “revelation” (wahy), that which has been “sent down” (tanzīl) at intervals. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: “So when al-qur`ān is recited , listen to it and keep silent”. The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.

The term also has closely related synonyms which are employed throughout the Qur’an. Each of the synonyms possess their own distinct meaning, but their use may converge with that of qur`ān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (“book”); āyah (“sign”); and sūrah (“scripture”). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. Other related words are: dhikr, meaning “remembrance,” used to refer to the Qur’an in the sense of a reminder and warning; and hikma, meaning “wisdom,” sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.

The Qur’an has many other names. Among those found in the text itself are al-furqan (“discernment” or “criterion”), umm al-kitāb (the “mother book”, or “archetypal book”), al-huda (“the guide”), dhikrallah (“the remembrance of God”), al-hikmah (“the wisdom”), and kalamallah (“the word of God”). Another term is al-kitāb (“the book”), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The term mus’haf (“written work”) is often used to refer to particular Qur’anic manuscripts but is also used in the Qur’an to identify earlier revealed books.

Structure
The Qur’an consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura (pl. suar). Chapters are classed as Meccan or Medinan, depending on where the verses were revealed. Chapter titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the sura. Muslims believe that Muhammad, on God’s command, gave the chapters their names.

Generally, longer chapters appear earlier in the Qur’an, while the shorter ones appear later. The chapter arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura with the exception of one, commences with the Basmala.
Each sura is formed from several ayat (verses), which originally means a sign or portent sent by God. The number of ayat differ from sura to sura. An individual ayah may be just a few letters or several lines. The ayat are unlike the highly refined poetry of the pre-Islamic Arabs in their content and distinctive rhymes and rhythms, being more akin to the prophetic utterances marked by inspired discontinuities found in the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The actual number of ayat has been a controversial issue among Muslim scholars since Islam’s inception, some recognizing 6,000, some 6,204, some 6,219, and some 6,236, although the words in all cases are the same. The most popular edition of the Qur’an, which is based on the tradition of the school of Kufa, contains 6,236 ayat.
There is a crosscutting division into 30 parts, ajza, each containing two units called ahzab, each of which is divided into four parts (rub ‘al-ahzab). The Qur’an is also divided into seven stations (manazil)
The Qur’anic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. Critics have commented on the textual arrangement pointing out lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order, and presence of repetition.

Literary structure
The Qur’an’s message is conveyed through the use of various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the chapters and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience’s efforts to recall the message of the text. There is consensus among Arab scholars to use the Qur’an as a standard by which other Arabic literature should be measured. Muslims assert (in accordance with the Qur’an itself) that the Qur’anic content and style is inimitable.
Richard Gottheil and Siegmund Fränkel in the Jewish Encyclopedia write that the oldest portions of the Qur’an reflect significant excitement in their language, through short and abrupt sentences and sudden transitions. The Qur’an nonetheless carefully maintains the rhymed form, like the oracles. Some later portions also preserve this form but also in a style where the movement is calm and the style expository.
“The values presented in the very early Meccan revelations are repeated throughout the hymnic Suras. There is a sense of directness, of intimacy, as if the hearer were being asked repeatedly a simple question: what will be of value at the end of a human life?”
- Sells

Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown’s observation that the seeming “disorganization” of Qur’anic literary expression — its “scattered or fragmented mode of composition,” in Sells’s phrase — is in fact a literary device capable of delivering “profound effects — as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated.” Sells also addresses the much-discussed “repetitiveness” of the Qur’an, seeing this, too, as a literary device.

Qur’an as a religious text
Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind and consider the text in its original Arabic to be the literal word of God, revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of twenty-three years and view the Qur’an as God’s final revelation to humanity.

The Christian concept of revelation which means God incarnating and unveiling himself and become visible and audible for mankind is foreign to Islam. Wahy in Islamic and Qur’anic concept means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil (to send down) or nuzul (to come down). As the Qur’an says, “With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down.” It designates positive religion, the letter of the revelation dictated by the angel to the prophet. It means to cause this revelation to descend from the higher world. According to hadith, the verses were sent down in special circumstances known as asbab al-nuzul. However, in this view God himself is never the subject of coming down.

The Qur’an frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained, an assertion that Muslims believe. The Qur’an — often referring to its own textual nature and reflecting constantly on its divine origin — is the most meta-textual, self-referential religious text amongst all religious texts. The Qur’an refers to a written pre-text which records God’s speech even before it was sent down.

The issue of whether the Qur’an is eternal or created was one of the crucial controversies among early Muslim theologians. Mu’tazilis believe it is created while the most widespread varieties of Muslim theologians consider the Qur’an to be eternal and uncreated. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.
“ And if ye are in doubt as to what We have revealed from time to time to Our servant, then produce a Sura like thereunto; and call your witnesses or helpers (If there are any) besides God, if your (doubts) are true. But if ye cannot — and of a surety ye cannot — then fear the Fire whose fuel is men and stones, which is prepared for those who reject Faith. ”
—Qur’an 2:23-4 (Yusuf Ali)
Muslims maintain the present wording of the Qur’anic text corresponds exactly to that revealed to Muhammad himself: as the words of God, said to be delivered to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion. They argue it is not possible for a human to produce a book like the Qur’an, as the Qur’an itself maintains.
Therefore an Islamic philosopher introduces a prophetology to explain how the divine word passes into human expression. This leads to a kind of esoteric hermeneutics which seeks to comprehend the position of the prophet by mediating on the modality of his relationship not with his own time, but with the eternal source from which his message emanates. This view contrasts with historical critique of western scholars who attempt to understand the prophet through his circumstances, education and type of genius.

History of Qur’an
The Prophet era
According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered a considerable number of the companions (sahaba) to recite the Qur’an and to learn and teach the laws which were being revealed daily. Companions who engaged in the recitation of the Qur’an were called qurra’. Since most sahaba were unable to read or write, they were ordered to learn from the prisoners-of-war the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of sahaba gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Qur’an was recorded on tablets, bones and the wide flat end of date palm fronds. Most chapters were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad’s use of the Qur’an as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Qur’an did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad’s death in 632.

Welch, a scholar of Islamic studies, states in the Encyclopedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad’s condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, seeing as he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad’s inspirations by the people around him. Muhammad’s critics, however, accused him of being a possessed man, or of being a soothsayer or magician since his claimed experiences were similar to those made by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Additionally, Welch states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad began to see himself as a prophet.

The Qur’an states that Muhammad was ummi,[citation needed] interpreted as illiterate in Muslim tradition. According to Watt, the meaning of the Qur’anic term ummi is unscriptured rather than illiterate. Watt argues that a certain amount of writing was necessary for Muhammad to perform his commercial duties though it seems certain that he had not read any scriptures.

Making Mus’haf
According to Shia and some Sunni scholars, Ali compiled a complete version of the Qur’an mus’haf immediately after death of Muhammad. The order of this mus’haf differed from that gathered later during Uthman’s era. Despite this, Ali made no objection or resistance against standardized mus’haf, but kept his own book.

After seventy reciters were killed in the Battle of Yamama, the caliph Abu Bakr decided to collect the different chapters and verses into one volume. Thus, a group of reciters, including Zayd ibn Thabit, collected the chapters and verses and produced several hand-written copies of the complete book.
In about 650, as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant and North Africa, the third caliph Uthman ibn Affan ordered the preparation of an official, standardized version, in order to preserve the sanctity of the text (and perhaps to keep the Rashidun Empire united). Five of the reciters from amongst the companions produced a unique text from the first volume which had been prepared on the orders of Abu Bakr and which was kept with Hafsa bint Umar. The other copies already in the hands of Muslims in other areas were collected and sent to Medina where, on orders of the Caliph, they were destroyed by burning or boiling. This remains the authoritative text of the Qur’an to this day.

The Qur’an in its present form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants in Western academia has not yielded any differences of great significance and that historically controversy over the content of the Qur’an has never become a main point. However, this consideration might also point to the

effectiveness of Uthman’s censorship.
Literary usage
In addition to and largely independent of the division into suar, there are various ways of dividing the Qur’an into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading, recitation and memorization. The thirty ajza can be used to read through the entire Qur’an in a week or a month. Some of these parts are known by names and these names are the first few words by which the juz’ starts. A juz’ is sometimes further divided into two ahzab, and each hizb subdivided into four rub ‘al-ahzab. A different structure is provided by the ruku’at, semantical units resembling paragraphs and comprising roughly ten ayat each. Some also divide the Qur’an into seven manazil to facilitate complete recitation in a week.
Recitation
“ …and recite the Qur’an in slow, measured rhythmic tones. ”
—Qur’an 73:4 (Yusuf Ali)
One meaning of Qur’an is “recitation”, the Qur’an itself outlining the general method of how it is to be recited: slowly and in rhythmic tones. Tajwid is the term for techniques of recitation, and assessed in terms of how accessible the recitation is to those intent on concentrating on the words.
To perform salat (prayer), a mandatory obligation in Islam, a Muslim is required to learn at least some suar of the Qur’an (typically starting with the first one, al-Fatiha, known as the “seven oft-repeated verses,” and then moving on to the shorter ones at the end). Until one has learned al-Fatiha, a Muslim can only say phrases like “praise be to God” during the salat.
A person whose recital repertoire encompasses the whole Qur’an is called a qari’, whereas a memoriser of the Qur’an is called a hafiz (fem. Hafaz) (which translate as “reciter” or “protector,” respectively). Muhammad is regarded as the first qari’ since he was the first to recite it. Recitation (tilawa تلاوة) of the Qur’an is a fine art in the Muslim world.

Schools of recitation
There are several schools of Qur’anic recitation, all of which are possible pronunciations of the Uthmanic rasm: Seven reliable, three permissible and (at least) four uncanonical – in 8 sub-traditions each – making for 80 recitation variants altogether.[54] A canonical recitation must satisfy three conditions:
1. It must match the rasm, letter for letter.
2. It must conform with the syntactic rules of the Arabic language.
3. It must have a continuous isnad to Muhammad through tawatur, meaning that it has to be related by a large group of people to another down the isnad chain.
These recitations differ in the vocalization (tashkil) of a few words, which in turn gives a complementary meaning to the word in question according to the rules of Arabic grammar. For example, the vocalization of a verb can change its active and passive voice. It can also change its stem formation, implying intensity for example. Vowels may be elongated or shortened, and glottal stops (hamzas) may be added or dropped, according to the respective rules of the particular recitation. For example, the name of archangel Gabriel is pronounced differently in different recitations: Jibrīl, Jabrīl, Jibra’īl, and Jibra’il. The name “Qur’an” is pronounced without the glottal stop (as “Qur’an”) in one recitation, and prophet Abraham’s name is pronounced Ibrāhām in another.[citation needed] The more widely used narrations are those of Hafss (حفص عن عاصم), Warsh (ورش عن نافع), Qaloon (قالون عن نافع) and Al-Duri according to Abu `Amr (الدوري عن أبي عمرو). Muslims firmly believe that all canonical recitations were recited by Muhammad himself, citing the respective isnad chain of narration, and accept them as valid for worshipping and as a reference for rules of Sharia. The uncanonical recitations are called “explanatory” for their role in giving a different perspective for a given verse or ayah. Today several dozen persons hold the title “Memorizer of the Ten Recitations.” This is considered a great accomplishment amongst Muslims.
The presence of these different recitations is attributed to many hadith. Malik Ibn Anas has reported:[55]
Abd al-Rahman Ibn Abd al-Qari narrated: “Umar Ibn Khattab said before me: I heard Hisham Ibn Hakim Ibn Hizam reading Surah Furqan in a different way from the one I used to read it, and the Prophet (sws) himself had read out this surah to me. Consequently, as soon as I heard him, I wanted to get hold of him. However, I gave him respite until he had finished the prayer. Then I got hold of his cloak and dragged him to the Prophet (sws). I said to him: “I have heard this person [Hisham Ibn Hakim Ibn Hizam] reading Surah Furqan in a different way from the one you had read it out to me.” The Prophet (sws) said: “Leave him alone [O 'Umar].” Then he said to Hisham: “Read [it].” [Umar said:] “He read it out in the same way as he had done before me.” [At this,] the Prophet (sws) said: “It was revealed thus.” Then the Prophet (sws) asked me to read it out. So I read it out. [At this], he said: “It was revealed thus; this Qur’an has been revealed in Seven Ahruf. You can read it in any of them you find easy from among them.
Suyuti, a famous 15th century Islamic theologian, writes after interpreting above hadith in 40 different ways:
” And to me the best opinion in this regard is that of the people who say that this hadith is from among matters of mutashabihat, the meaning of which cannot be understood. “
Many reports contradict the presence of variant readings:
* Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami reports, “the reading of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Zayd ibn Thabit and that of all the Muhajirun and the Ansar was the same. They would read the Qur’an according to the Qira’at al-’ammah. This is the same reading which was read out twice by the Prophet (sws) to Gabriel in the year of his death. Zayd ibn Thabit was also present in this reading [called] the ‘Ardah-i akhirah. It was this very reading that he taught the Qur’an to people till his death”.
* Ibn Sirin writes, “the reading on which the Qur’an was read out to the prophet in the year of his death is the same according to which people are reading the Qur’an today”.
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi also purports that there is only one recitation of Qur’an, which is called Qira’at of Hafss or in classical scholarship, it is called Qira’at al-’ammah. The Qur’an has also specified that it was revealed in the language of the prophet’s tribe: the Quraysh.[Qur'an 19:97][Qur'an 44:58])
However, the identification of the recitation of Hafss as the Qira’at al-’ammah is somewhat problematic when that was the recitation of the people of Kufa in Iraq, and there is better reason to identify the recitation of the reciters of Madinah as the dominant recitation. The reciter of Madinah was Nafi’ and Imam Malik remarked “The recitation of Nafi’ is Sunnah.” Moreover, the dialect of Arabic spoken by Quraysh and the Arabs of the Hijaz was known to have less use of the letter hamzah, as is the case in the recitation of Nafi’, whereas in the Hafs recitation the hamzah is one of the very dominant features.[citation needed]
AZ [however] says that the people of El-Hijaz and Hudhayl, and the people of Makkah and Al-Madinah, to not pronounce hamzah [at all]: and ‘Isa Ibn-’Omar says, Tamim pronounce hamzah, and the people of Al-Hijaz, in cases of necessity, [in poetry,] do so.
So the hamzah is of the dialect of the Najd whose people came to comprise the dominant Arabic element in Kufa giving some features of their dialect to their recitation, whereas the recitation of Nafi’ and the people of Madinah maintained some features of the dialect of Hijaz and the Quraysh.[citation needed]
However, the discussion of the priority of one or the other recitation is unnecessary since it is a consensus of knowledgable people that all of the seven recitations of the Qur’an are acceptable and valid for recitation in the prayer.[citation needed]
Moreover, the so-called “un-canonical” recitations such as are narrated from some of the Companions and which do not conform to the Uthmani copy of the Qur’an are not legitimate for recitation in the prayer, but knowledge of them can legitimately be used in the tafsir of the Qur’an, not as a proof but as a valid argument for an explanation of an ayah.[citation needed]

Writing and printing
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)[citation needed] and very small Qur’ans (sometimes given as gifts).[citation needed]
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 AD. 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.[citations needed]
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 1787. This was followed by editions from Kazan (1828), Persia (1833) and Istanbul (1877).
It is extremely difficult to render the full Qur’an, with all the points, in computer code, such as Unicode. The Internet Sacred Text Archive makes computer files of the Qur’an freely available both as images[62] and in a temporary Unicode version.[63] Various designers and software firms have attempted to develop computer fonts that can adequately render the Qur’an.
Before printing was widely adopted, the Qur’an was transmitted by copyists and calligraphers.[verification needed] Since Muslim tradition felt that directly portraying sacred figures and events might lead to idolatry, it was considered wrong to decorate the Qur’an with pictures (as was often done for Christian texts, for example). Muslims instead lavished love and care upon the sacred text itself. Arabic is written in many scripts, some of which are both complex and beautiful. Arabic calligraphy is a highly honored art, much like Chinese calligraphy. Muslims also decorated their Qur’ans with abstract figures (arabesques), colored inks, and gold leaf. Pages from some of these antique Qur’ans are displayed throughout this article.

Translations
Translation of the Qur’an has always been a problematic and difficult issue. Since Muslims revere the Qur’an as miraculous and inimitable (i’jaz al-Qur’an),[citation needed] they argue that the Qur’anic text can not be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.
Nevertheless, the Qur’an has been translated into most African, Asian and European languages. The first translator of the Qur’an was Salman the Persian, who translated Fatihah into Persian during the 7th century. The first complete translation of Quran was into Persian during the reign of Samanids in the 9th century. Islamic tradition holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Qur’an. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.
In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known.
Robert of Ketton was the first person to translate the Qur’an into a Western language, Latin, in 1143.[67] Alexander Ross offered the first English version in 1649. In 1734, George Sale produced the first scholarly translation of the Qur’an into English; another was produced by Richard Bell in 1937, and yet another by Arthur John Arberry in 1955. All these translators were non-Muslims. There have been numerous translations by Muslims; the most popular of these are by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al Hilali, Maulana Muhammad Ali, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, M. H. Shakir, Muhammad Asad and Marmaduke Pickthall.

The English translators have sometimes favored archaic English words and constructions over their more modern or conventional equivalents; for example, two widely-read translators, A. Yusuf Ali and M. Marmaduke Pickthall, use the plural and singular “ye” and “thou” instead of the more common “you.” Another common stylistic decision has been to refrain from translating “Allah” — in Arabic, literally, “The God” — into the common English word “God.” These choices may differ in more recent translations.

Levels of meaning
Shias and Sufis as well as some Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Qur’an to be not restricted to the literal aspect. The Qur’an also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:
“The Qur’an possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth).”

Commentaries dealing with the zahir (outward aspects) of the text are called tafsir, and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta’wil (“interpretation” or “explanation”), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Esoteric commentators believe that the ultimate meaning of the Qur’an is known only to God.
In contrast, Qur’anic literalism which follows by Salafis and Zahiris is the belief that the Qur’an should be taken at its apparent meaning, rather than employing any sort of interpretation. This includes, for example, the belief that Allah has appendages such as hands as stated in the Qur’an; this is generally explained by the concept of bi-la kaifa, the claim that the literal meanings should be accepted without asking how or why.

Tafsir
The Qur’an has sparked a huge body of commentary and explication, known as tafsir. This commentary is aimed at explaining the “meanings of the Qur’anic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance.” and best tafseer is done by Allah himself.
Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Qur’an, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, like Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Umar and Ubayy ibn Kab. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.

Because the Qur’an is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Qur’anic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Qur’an. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Qur’anic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad’s prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or “abrogating” (nāsikh) the earlier text (mansukh). Memories of the occasions of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl), the circumstances under which Muhammad had spoken as he did, were also collected, as they were believed to explain some apparent obscurities.

Inward Aspects of the Qur’an
It is an essential idea for Shia as well as Sufi Muslims that the Qur’an has inward aspects too. They refer to several hadith of Muhammad such as
“The Qur’an possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth).”

According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Qur’an does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body.
On the base of this viewpoint, Henry Corbin considers the Qur’an to have a part to play in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology. However, it is clear that those who don’t believe in the divine origin of the Qur’an or any kind of sacred or spiritual existence completely oppose any inward aspect of the Qur’an.

Ta’wil
As Ja’far al-Kashfi has defined ta’wil means to lead back or to bring back something to its origin or archetype is a science whose pivot is a spiritual direction and a divine inspiration, while the tafsir is the literal exegesis of the letter; its pivot is the canonical Islamic sciences.[81] Allameh Tabatabaei says according to popular explanation among the later exegetes ta’wil indicates that particular meaning towards which the verse is directed. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to ta’wil, is clear or according to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so wide spread that, at present, it has become the real meaning of ta’wil, while originally this word meant “to return” or “the returning place”. In his view what has been rightly called ta’wil, or hermeneutic interpretation, of the Qur’an is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Qur’an issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse; rather it transpires through that meaning – a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or basic aim of describing a divine attribute; there is an actual significance to which a Qur’anic story refers.
However Shia and Sufism on one hand and Sunni on the other hand have completely different positions on its legitimacy. A verse in the Qur’an points out this issue, but Shia and Sunni disagree on how it should be read. According to Shia, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like the Prophet and imams, know the secrets of Qur’an, while Sunnis believe just God knows it. According to Allameh Tabatabaei “none knows its interpretation except Allah”, remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Qur’an’s interpretation is reserved for Allah. But he uses another verses and concludes those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Qur’an to a certain extent.
The most ancient spiritual commentary on the Qur’an consists of the teachings which the Shia Imams propounded in the course of their conversations with their disciples. It was the principles of their spiritual hermeneutics that were subsequently to be brought together by the Sufis. These texts are narrated from Imam Ali and Ja’far al-Sadiq by Shia and Sunni Sufis.

As Corbin narrates from Shia sources, Ali himself gives this testimony:
Not a single verse of the Qur’an descended upon (was revealed to) the Messenger of God which he did not proceed to dictate to me and make me recite. I would write it with my own hand, and he would instruct me as to its tafsir (the literal explanation) and the ta’wil (the spiritual exegesis), the nasikh (the verse which abrogates) and the mansukh (the abrogated verse), the muhkam (without ambiguity) and the mutashabih (ambiguous), the particular and the general…

According to Allameh Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta’wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather only the implicit, whose ultimate meaning is known only to God and can’t be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here are those which refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow apparently attributed to God. Ta’wil that is unacceptable means “to transfer” the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this view has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Qur’anic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality to which a verse refers; it is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a real fact that is too sublime for words; Allah has dressed them with words so as to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.
Therefore Sufi spiritual interpretations usually are accepted by Islamic scholars as authentic interpretations as long as certain conditions were met.[88] In Sufi history, these interpretations were sometimes considered religious innovations (bid’ah), as Salafis today believe. However, even among Shia, ta’wil is extremely controversial. For example, when Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, the leader of Islamic revolution, gave some lectures about Surat al-Fatiha in December 1979 and January 1980, some protests forced him to suspend it before he could proceed beyond the first two verses of the surah.

Relationship with other literature

The Torah and the Bible
“ It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (of judgment between right and wrong). ”
—Qur’an 3:3 (Yusuf Ali)
The Qur’an speaks well of the relationship it has with former books (the Torah and the Gospel) and attributes their similarities to their unique origin and saying all of them have been revealed by the one God.
The Qur’an retells stories of many of the people and events recounted in Jewish and Christian sacred books (Tanakh, Bible) and devotional literature (Apocrypha, Midrash), although it differs in many details. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Heber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jethro, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Aaron, Moses, Ezra, Zechariah, Jesus, and John the Baptist are mentioned in the Qur’an as prophets of God (see Prophets of Islam). Muslims believe the common elements or resemblances between the Bible and other Jewish and Christian writings and Islamic dispensations is due to their common divine source, and that the original Christian or Jewish texts were authentic divine revelations given to prophets.
Muslims believe that those texts were neglected, corrupted (tahrif) or altered in time by the Jews and Christians and have been replaced by God’s final and perfect revelation, which is the Qur’an. However, many Jews and Christians[who?] believe that the historical biblical archaeological record refutes this assertion, because the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Tanakh and other Jewish writings which predate the origin of the Qur’an) have been fully translated, validating the authenticity of the Greek Septuagint.

Influence of Christian apocrypha
The Diatessaron, Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Arabic Infancy Gospel are all alleged to have been sources that the author/authors drew on when creating the Qur’an. The Diatessaron especially may have led to the misconception in the Qur’an that the Christian Gospel is one text. However this is strongly refuted by Muslim scholars, who maintain that the Qur’an is the divine word of God without any interpolation, and the similarities exist only due to the one source.
Arab writing
After the Qur’an, and the general rise of Islam, the Arabic alphabet developed rapidly into a beautiful and complex form of art.
Wadad Kadi, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago and Mustansir Mir, Professor of Islamic studies at Youngstown State University state that:
Although Arabic, as a language and a literary tradition, was quite well developed by the time of Muhammad’s prophetic activity, it was only after the emergence of Islam, with its founding scripture in Arabic, that the language reached its utmost capacity of expression, and the literature its highest point of complexity and sophistication. Indeed, it probably is no exaggeration to say that the Qur’an was one of the most conspicuous forces in the making of classical and post-classical Arabic literature.
The main areas in which the Qur’an exerted noticeable influence on Arabic literature are diction and themes; other areas are related to the literary aspects of the Qur’an particularly oaths (q.v.), metaphors, motifs, and symbols. As far as diction is concerned, one could say that Qur’anic words, idioms, and expressions, especially “loaded” and formulaic phrases, appear in practically all genres of literature and in such abundance that it is simply impossible to compile a full record of them. For not only did the Qur’an create an entirely new linguistic corpus to express its message, it also endowed old, pre-Islamic words with new meanings and it is these meanings that took root in the language and subsequently in the literature…

Qur’an miracles
Islamic scholars believe that the Qur’an is miraculous by its very nature in being a revealed text and that similar texts cannot be written by human endeavor. Its miraculous nature is claimed to be evidenced by its literary style, suggested similarities between Qur’anic verses and scientific facts discovered much later, and various prophecies. The Qur’an itself challenges those who deny its claimed divine origin to produce a text like it. [Qur'an 17:88][Qur'an 2:23][Qur'an 10:38]. These claims originate directly from Islamic belief in its revealed nature, and are widely disputed by non-muslim scholars of Islamic history.

Qur’anic Initials
14 different Arabic letters form 14 different sets of “Qur’anic Initials” (the “Muqatta’at”, such as A.L.M. of 2:1) and prefix 29 suras in the Qur’an. The meaning and interpretation of these initials is considered unknown to most Muslims. In 1974, Egyptian biochemist Rashad Khalifa claimed to have discovered a mathematical code based on the number 19, which is mentioned in Sura 74:30 of the Qur’an.

In culture
Most Muslims treat paper copies of the Qur’an with veneration, ritually washing before reading the Qur’an. Worn out, torn, or errant (for example, pages out of order) Qur’ans are not discarded as wastepaper, but rather are left free to flow in a river, kept somewhere safe, burnt, or buried in a remote location. Many Muslims memorize at least some portion of the Qur’an in the original Arabic, usually at least the verses needed to perform the prayers. Those who have memorized the entire Qur’an earn the right to the title of Hafiz.
Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of sura 56:77-79: “That this is indeed a Qur’an Most Honourable, In a Book well-guarded, Which none shall touch but those who are clean.”, many scholars opine that a Muslim perform wudu (ablution or a ritual cleansing with water) before touching a copy of the Qur’an, or mus’haf. This view has been contended by other scholars on the fact that, according to Arabic linguistic rules, this verse alludes to a fact and does not comprise an order. The literal translation thus reads as “That (this) is indeed a noble Qur’ān, In a Book kept hidden, Which none toucheth save the purified,” (translated by Mohamed Marmaduke Pickthall). It is suggested based on this translation that performing ablution is not required.
Qur’an desecration means insulting the Qur’an by defiling or dismembering it. Muslims must always treat the book with reverence, and are forbidden, for instance, to pulp, recycle, or simply discard worn-out copies of the text. Respect for the written text of the Qur’an is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims. They believe that intentionally insulting the Qur’an is a form of blasphemy.

Criticism
The Qur’an’s teachings on matters of war and peace have become topics of heated discussion in recent years. On the one hand, some critics interpret that certain verses of the Qur’an sanction military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after. On the other hand, other scholars argue that such verses of the Qur’an are interpreted out of context, and argue that when the verses are read in context it clearly appears that the Qur’an prohibits aggression, and allows fighting only in self defense.

Qur’an

Qur’an
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Qur’an (Arabic: القرآن al-qur’ān, literally “the recitation”; also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran or Al-Qur’ān) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God. Islam holds that the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad by the angel Gibraele (Gabriel) over a period of 23 years. Muslims regard the Qur’an as the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with those revealed to Adam, regarded in Islam as the first prophet, and continued with the Suhuf-i-Ibrahim (Scrolls of Abraham), the Tawrat (Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), and the Injeel (Gospel). The aforementioned books are not explicitly included in the Qur’an, but are recognized therein. The Qur’an also refers to many events from Jewish and Christian scriptures, some of which are retold in comparatively distinctive ways from the Bible and the Torah, while obliquely referring to other events described explicitly in those texts.

The Qur’an itself expresses that it is the book of guidance. Therefore it rarely offers detailed accounts of historical events; the text instead typically placing emphasis on the moral significance of an event rather than its narrative sequence. It does not describe natural facts in a scientific manner but teaches that natural and supernatural events are signs of God.
The Qur’an was written down by Muhammad’s companions while he was alive, although the prime method of transmission was oral. It was compiled in the time of Abu Bakr, the first caliph, and was standardized in the time of Uthman, the third caliph. The Qur’an in its actual form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants in Western academia has not yielded any differences of great significance and that historically controversy over the content of the Qur’an has never become a main point. Therefore all Muslims, Sunni or Shia use the same Qur’an.

Etymology and meaning
The original usage of the word qur`ān is in the Qur’an itself, where it occurs about 70 times assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qara`a (Arabic: قرأ), meaning “he read” or “he recited”, and represents the Syriac equivalent qeryānā which refers to “scripture reading” or “lesson”. While most Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qara`a itself. In any case, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad’s lifetime. Among the earliest meanings of the word Qur’an is the “act of reciting”, for example in a Qur’anic passage: “Ours is it to put it together and [Ours is] its qur`ān”. In other verses it refers to “an individual passage recited [by Muhammad]“. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the “revelation” (wahy), that which has been “sent down” (tanzīl) at intervals. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example: “So when al-qur`ān is recited , listen to it and keep silent”. The word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel.

The term also has closely related synonyms which are employed throughout the Qur’an. Each of the synonyms possess their own distinct meaning, but their use may converge with that of qur`ān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (“book”); āyah (“sign”); and sūrah (“scripture”). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. Other related words are: dhikr, meaning “remembrance,” used to refer to the Qur’an in the sense of a reminder and warning; and hikma, meaning “wisdom,” sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.

The Qur’an has many other names. Among those found in the text itself are al-furqan (“discernment” or “criterion”), umm al-kitāb (the “mother book”, or “archetypal book”), al-huda (“the guide”), dhikrallah (“the remembrance of God”), al-hikmah (“the wisdom”), and kalamallah (“the word of God”). Another term is al-kitāb (“the book”), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The term mus’haf (“written work”) is often used to refer to particular Qur’anic manuscripts but is also used in the Qur’an to identify earlier revealed books.

Structure
The Qur’an consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura (pl. suar). Chapters are classed as Meccan or Medinan, depending on where the verses were revealed. Chapter titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the sura. Muslims believe that Muhammad, on God’s command, gave the chapters their names.

Generally, longer chapters appear earlier in the Qur’an, while the shorter ones appear later. The chapter arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura with the exception of one, commences with the Basmala.
Each sura is formed from several ayat (verses), which originally means a sign or portent sent by God. The number of ayat differ from sura to sura. An individual ayah may be just a few letters or several lines. The ayat are unlike the highly refined poetry of the pre-Islamic Arabs in their content and distinctive rhymes and rhythms, being more akin to the prophetic utterances marked by inspired discontinuities found in the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. The actual number of ayat has been a controversial issue among Muslim scholars since Islam’s inception, some recognizing 6,000, some 6,204, some 6,219, and some 6,236, although the words in all cases are the same. The most popular edition of the Qur’an, which is based on the tradition of the school of Kufa, contains 6,236 ayat.
There is a crosscutting division into 30 parts, ajza, each containing two units called ahzab, each of which is divided into four parts (rub ‘al-ahzab). The Qur’an is also divided into seven stations (manazil)
The Qur’anic text seems to have no beginning, middle, or end, its nonlinear structure being akin to a web or net. Critics have commented on the textual arrangement pointing out lack of continuity, absence of any chronological or thematic order, and presence of repetition.

Literary structure
The Qur’an’s message is conveyed through the use of various literary structures and devices. In the original Arabic, the chapters and verses employ phonetic and thematic structures that assist the audience’s efforts to recall the message of the text. There is consensus among Arab scholars to use the Qur’an as a standard by which other Arabic literature should be measured. Muslims assert (in accordance with the Qur’an itself) that the Qur’anic content and style is inimitable.
Richard Gottheil and Siegmund Fränkel in the Jewish Encyclopedia write that the oldest portions of the Qur’an reflect significant excitement in their language, through short and abrupt sentences and sudden transitions. The Qur’an nonetheless carefully maintains the rhymed form, like the oracles. Some later portions also preserve this form but also in a style where the movement is calm and the style expository.
“The values presented in the very early Meccan revelations are repeated throughout the hymnic Suras. There is a sense of directness, of intimacy, as if the hearer were being asked repeatedly a simple question: what will be of value at the end of a human life?”
- Sells

Michael Sells, citing the work of the critic Norman O. Brown, acknowledges Brown’s observation that the seeming “disorganization” of Qur’anic literary expression — its “scattered or fragmented mode of composition,” in Sells’s phrase — is in fact a literary device capable of delivering “profound effects — as if the intensity of the prophetic message were shattering the vehicle of human language in which it was being communicated.” Sells also addresses the much-discussed “repetitiveness” of the Qur’an, seeing this, too, as a literary device.

Qur’an as a religious text
Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind and consider the text in its original Arabic to be the literal word of God, revealed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of twenty-three years and view the Qur’an as God’s final revelation to humanity.

The Christian concept of revelation which means God incarnating and unveiling himself and become visible and audible for mankind is foreign to Islam. Wahy in Islamic and Qur’anic concept means the act of God addressing an individual, conveying a message for a greater number of recipients. The process by which the divine message comes to the heart of a messenger of God is tanzil (to send down) or nuzul (to come down). As the Qur’an says, “With the truth we (God) have sent it down and with the truth it has come down.” It designates positive religion, the letter of the revelation dictated by the angel to the prophet. It means to cause this revelation to descend from the higher world. According to hadith, the verses were sent down in special circumstances known as asbab al-nuzul. However, in this view God himself is never the subject of coming down.

The Qur’an frequently asserts in its text that it is divinely ordained, an assertion that Muslims believe. The Qur’an — often referring to its own textual nature and reflecting constantly on its divine origin — is the most meta-textual, self-referential religious text amongst all religious texts. The Qur’an refers to a written pre-text which records God’s speech even before it was sent down.

The issue of whether the Qur’an is eternal or created was one of the crucial controversies among early Muslim theologians. Mu’tazilis believe it is created while the most widespread varieties of Muslim theologians consider the Qur’an to be eternal and uncreated. Sufi philosophers view the question as artificial or wrongly framed.
“ And if ye are in doubt as to what We have revealed from time to time to Our servant, then produce a Sura like thereunto; and call your witnesses or helpers (If there are any) besides God, if your (doubts) are true. But if ye cannot — and of a surety ye cannot — then fear the Fire whose fuel is men and stones, which is prepared for those who reject Faith. ”
—Qur’an 2:23-4 (Yusuf Ali)
Muslims maintain the present wording of the Qur’anic text corresponds exactly to that revealed to Muhammad himself: as the words of God, said to be delivered to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be a guide, a sign of the prophethood of Muhammad and the truth of the religion. They argue it is not possible for a human to produce a book like the Qur’an, as the Qur’an itself maintains.
Therefore an Islamic philosopher introduces a prophetology to explain how the divine word passes into human expression. This leads to a kind of esoteric hermeneutics which seeks to comprehend the position of the prophet by mediating on the modality of his relationship not with his own time, but with the eternal source from which his message emanates. This view contrasts with historical critique of western scholars who attempt to understand the prophet through his circumstances, education and type of genius.

History of Qur’an
The Prophet era
According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad emigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered a considerable number of the companions (sahaba) to recite the Qur’an and to learn and teach the laws which were being revealed daily. Companions who engaged in the recitation of the Qur’an were called qurra’. Since most sahaba were unable to read or write, they were ordered to learn from the prisoners-of-war the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of sahaba gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Qur’an was recorded on tablets, bones and the wide flat end of date palm fronds. Most chapters were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad’s use of the Qur’an as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Qur’an did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad’s death in 632.

Welch, a scholar of Islamic studies, states in the Encyclopedia of Islam that he believes the graphic descriptions of Muhammad’s condition at these moments may be regarded as genuine, seeing as he was severely disturbed after these revelations. According to Welch, these seizures would have been seen as convincing evidence for the superhuman origin of Muhammad’s inspirations by the people around him. Muhammad’s critics, however, accused him of being a possessed man, or of being a soothsayer or magician since his claimed experiences were similar to those made by such figures well known in ancient Arabia. Additionally, Welch states that it remains uncertain whether these experiences occurred before or after Muhammad began to see himself as a prophet.

The Qur’an states that Muhammad was ummi,[citation needed] interpreted as illiterate in Muslim tradition. According to Watt, the meaning of the Qur’anic term ummi is unscriptured rather than illiterate. Watt argues that a certain amount of writing was necessary for Muhammad to perform his commercial duties though it seems certain that he had not read any scriptures.

Making Mus’haf
According to Shia and some Sunni scholars, Ali compiled a complete version of the Qur’an mus’haf immediately after death of Muhammad. The order of this mus’haf differed from that gathered later during Uthman’s era. Despite this, Ali made no objection or resistance against standardized mus’haf, but kept his own book.

After seventy reciters were killed in the Battle of Yamama, the caliph Abu Bakr decided to collect the different chapters and verses into one volume. Thus, a group of reciters, including Zayd ibn Thabit, collected the chapters and verses and produced several hand-written copies of the complete book.
In about 650, as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian peninsula into Persia, the Levant and North Africa, the third caliph Uthman ibn Affan ordered the preparation of an official, standardized version, in order to preserve the sanctity of the text (and perhaps to keep the Rashidun Empire united). Five of the reciters from amongst the companions produced a unique text from the first volume which had been prepared on the orders of Abu Bakr and which was kept with Hafsa bint Umar. The other copies already in the hands of Muslims in other areas were collected and sent to Medina where, on orders of the Caliph, they were destroyed by burning or boiling. This remains the authoritative text of the Qur’an to this day.

The Qur’an in its present form is generally considered by academic scholars to record the words spoken by Muhammad because the search for variants in Western academia has not yielded any differences of great significance and that historically controversy over the content of the Qur’an has never become a main point. However, this consideration might also point to the

effectiveness of Uthman’s censorship.
Literary usage
In addition to and largely independent of the division into suar, there are various ways of dividing the Qur’an into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading, recitation and memorization. The thirty ajza can be used to read through the entire Qur’an in a week or a month. Some of these parts are known by names and these names are the first few words by which the juz’ starts. A juz’ is sometimes further divided into two ahzab, and each hizb subdivided into four rub ‘al-ahzab. A different structure is provided by the ruku’at, semantical units resembling paragraphs and comprising roughly ten ayat each. Some also divide the Qur’an into seven manazil to facilitate complete recitation in a week.
Recitation
“ …and recite the Qur’an in slow, measured rhythmic tones. ”
—Qur’an 73:4 (Yusuf Ali)
One meaning of Qur’an is “recitation”, the Qur’an itself outlining the general method of how it is to be recited: slowly and in rhythmic tones. Tajwid is the term for techniques of recitation, and assessed in terms of how accessible the recitation is to those intent on concentrating on the words.
To perform salat (prayer), a mandatory obligation in Islam, a Muslim is required to learn at least some suar of the Qur’an (typically starting with the first one, al-Fatiha, known as the “seven oft-repeated verses,” and then moving on to the shorter ones at the end). Until one has learned al-Fatiha, a Muslim can only say phrases like “praise be to God” during the salat.
A person whose recital repertoire encompasses the whole Qur’an is called a qari’, whereas a memoriser of the Qur’an is called a hafiz (fem. Hafaz) (which translate as “reciter” or “protector,” respectively). Muhammad is regarded as the first qari’ since he was the first to recite it. Recitation (tilawa تلاوة) of the Qur’an is a fine art in the Muslim world.

Schools of recitation
There are several schools of Qur’anic recitation, all of which are possible pronunciations of the Uthmanic rasm: Seven reliable, three permissible and (at least) four uncanonical – in 8 sub-traditions each – making for 80 recitation variants altogether.[54] A canonical recitation must satisfy three conditions:
1. It must match the rasm, letter for letter.
2. It must conform with the syntactic rules of the Arabic language.
3. It must have a continuous isnad to Muhammad through tawatur, meaning that it has to be related by a large group of people to another down the isnad chain.
These recitations differ in the vocalization (tashkil) of a few words, which in turn gives a complementary meaning to the word in question according to the rules of Arabic grammar. For example, the vocalization of a verb can change its active and passive voice. It can also change its stem formation, implying intensity for example. Vowels may be elongated or shortened, and glottal stops (hamzas) may be added or dropped, according to the respective rules of the particular recitation. For example, the name of archangel Gabriel is pronounced differently in different recitations: Jibrīl, Jabrīl, Jibra’īl, and Jibra’il. The name “Qur’an” is pronounced without the glottal stop (as “Qur’an”) in one recitation, and prophet Abraham’s name is pronounced Ibrāhām in another.[citation needed] The more widely used narrations are those of Hafss (حفص عن عاصم), Warsh (ورش عن نافع), Qaloon (قالون عن نافع) and Al-Duri according to Abu `Amr (الدوري عن أبي عمرو). Muslims firmly believe that all canonical recitations were recited by Muhammad himself, citing the respective isnad chain of narration, and accept them as valid for worshipping and as a reference for rules of Sharia. The uncanonical recitations are called “explanatory” for their role in giving a different perspective for a given verse or ayah. Today several dozen persons hold the title “Memorizer of the Ten Recitations.” This is considered a great accomplishment amongst Muslims.
The presence of these different recitations is attributed to many hadith. Malik Ibn Anas has reported:[55]
Abd al-Rahman Ibn Abd al-Qari narrated: “Umar Ibn Khattab said before me: I heard Hisham Ibn Hakim Ibn Hizam reading Surah Furqan in a different way from the one I used to read it, and the Prophet (sws) himself had read out this surah to me. Consequently, as soon as I heard him, I wanted to get hold of him. However, I gave him respite until he had finished the prayer. Then I got hold of his cloak and dragged him to the Prophet (sws). I said to him: “I have heard this person [Hisham Ibn Hakim Ibn Hizam] reading Surah Furqan in a different way from the one you had read it out to me.” The Prophet (sws) said: “Leave him alone [O 'Umar].” Then he said to Hisham: “Read [it].” [Umar said:] “He read it out in the same way as he had done before me.” [At this,] the Prophet (sws) said: “It was revealed thus.” Then the Prophet (sws) asked me to read it out. So I read it out. [At this], he said: “It was revealed thus; this Qur’an has been revealed in Seven Ahruf. You can read it in any of them you find easy from among them.
Suyuti, a famous 15th century Islamic theologian, writes after interpreting above hadith in 40 different ways:
” And to me the best opinion in this regard is that of the people who say that this hadith is from among matters of mutashabihat, the meaning of which cannot be understood. “
Many reports contradict the presence of variant readings:
* Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami reports, “the reading of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Zayd ibn Thabit and that of all the Muhajirun and the Ansar was the same. They would read the Qur’an according to the Qira’at al-’ammah. This is the same reading which was read out twice by the Prophet (sws) to Gabriel in the year of his death. Zayd ibn Thabit was also present in this reading [called] the ‘Ardah-i akhirah. It was this very reading that he taught the Qur’an to people till his death”.
* Ibn Sirin writes, “the reading on which the Qur’an was read out to the prophet in the year of his death is the same according to which people are reading the Qur’an today”.
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi also purports that there is only one recitation of Qur’an, which is called Qira’at of Hafss or in classical scholarship, it is called Qira’at al-’ammah. The Qur’an has also specified that it was revealed in the language of the prophet’s tribe: the Quraysh.[Qur'an 19:97][Qur'an 44:58])
However, the identification of the recitation of Hafss as the Qira’at al-’ammah is somewhat problematic when that was the recitation of the people of Kufa in Iraq, and there is better reason to identify the recitation of the reciters of Madinah as the dominant recitation. The reciter of Madinah was Nafi’ and Imam Malik remarked “The recitation of Nafi’ is Sunnah.” Moreover, the dialect of Arabic spoken by Quraysh and the Arabs of the Hijaz was known to have less use of the letter hamzah, as is the case in the recitation of Nafi’, whereas in the Hafs recitation the hamzah is one of the very dominant features.[citation needed]
AZ [however] says that the people of El-Hijaz and Hudhayl, and the people of Makkah and Al-Madinah, to not pronounce hamzah [at all]: and ‘Isa Ibn-’Omar says, Tamim pronounce hamzah, and the people of Al-Hijaz, in cases of necessity, [in poetry,] do so.
So the hamzah is of the dialect of the Najd whose people came to comprise the dominant Arabic element in Kufa giving some features of their dialect to their recitation, whereas the recitation of Nafi’ and the people of Madinah maintained some features of the dialect of Hijaz and the Quraysh.[citation needed]
However, the discussion of the priority of one or the other recitation is unnecessary since it is a consensus of knowledgable people that all of the seven recitations of the Qur’an are acceptable and valid for recitation in the prayer.[citation needed]
Moreover, the so-called “un-canonical” recitations such as are narrated from some of the Companions and which do not conform to the Uthmani copy of the Qur’an are not legitimate for recitation in the prayer, but knowledge of them can legitimately be used in the tafsir of the Qur’an, not as a proof but as a valid argument for an explanation of an ayah.[citation needed]

Writing and printing
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)[citation needed] and very small Qur’ans (sometimes given as gifts).[citation needed]
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 AD. 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.[citations needed]
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 1787. This was followed by editions from Kazan (1828), Persia (1833) and Istanbul (1877).
It is extremely difficult to render the full Qur’an, with all the points, in computer code, such as Unicode. The Internet Sacred Text Archive makes computer files of the Qur’an freely available both as images[62] and in a temporary Unicode version.[63] Various designers and software firms have attempted to develop computer fonts that can adequately render the Qur’an.
Before printing was widely adopted, the Qur’an was transmitted by copyists and calligraphers.[verification needed] Since Muslim tradition felt that directly portraying sacred figures and events might lead to idolatry, it was considered wrong to decorate the Qur’an with pictures (as was often done for Christian texts, for example). Muslims instead lavished love and care upon the sacred text itself. Arabic is written in many scripts, some of which are both complex and beautiful. Arabic calligraphy is a highly honored art, much like Chinese calligraphy. Muslims also decorated their Qur’ans with abstract figures (arabesques), colored inks, and gold leaf. Pages from some of these antique Qur’ans are displayed throughout this article.

Translations
Translation of the Qur’an has always been a problematic and difficult issue. Since Muslims revere the Qur’an as miraculous and inimitable (i’jaz al-Qur’an),[citation needed] they argue that the Qur’anic text can not be reproduced in another language or form. Furthermore, an Arabic word may have a range of meanings depending on the context, making an accurate translation even more difficult.
Nevertheless, the Qur’an has been translated into most African, Asian and European languages. The first translator of the Qur’an was Salman the Persian, who translated Fatihah into Persian during the 7th century. The first complete translation of Quran was into Persian during the reign of Samanids in the 9th century. Islamic tradition holds that translations were made for Emperor Negus of Abyssinia and Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, as both received letters by Muhammad containing verses from the Qur’an. In early centuries, the permissibility of translations was not an issue, but whether one could use translations in prayer.
In 1936, translations in 102 languages were known.
Robert of Ketton was the first person to translate the Qur’an into a Western language, Latin, in 1143.[67] Alexander Ross offered the first English version in 1649. In 1734, George Sale produced the first scholarly translation of the Qur’an into English; another was produced by Richard Bell in 1937, and yet another by Arthur John Arberry in 1955. All these translators were non-Muslims. There have been numerous translations by Muslims; the most popular of these are by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al Hilali, Maulana Muhammad Ali, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, M. H. Shakir, Muhammad Asad and Marmaduke Pickthall.

The English translators have sometimes favored archaic English words and constructions over their more modern or conventional equivalents; for example, two widely-read translators, A. Yusuf Ali and M. Marmaduke Pickthall, use the plural and singular “ye” and “thou” instead of the more common “you.” Another common stylistic decision has been to refrain from translating “Allah” — in Arabic, literally, “The God” — into the common English word “God.” These choices may differ in more recent translations.

Levels of meaning
Shias and Sufis as well as some Muslim philosophers believe the meaning of the Qur’an to be not restricted to the literal aspect. The Qur’an also has inward aspects. Henry Corbin narrates a hadith that goes back to Muhammad:
“The Qur’an possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth).”

Commentaries dealing with the zahir (outward aspects) of the text are called tafsir, and hermeneutic and esoteric commentaries dealing with the batin are called ta’wil (“interpretation” or “explanation”), which involves taking the text back to its beginning. Esoteric commentators believe that the ultimate meaning of the Qur’an is known only to God.
In contrast, Qur’anic literalism which follows by Salafis and Zahiris is the belief that the Qur’an should be taken at its apparent meaning, rather than employing any sort of interpretation. This includes, for example, the belief that Allah has appendages such as hands as stated in the Qur’an; this is generally explained by the concept of bi-la kaifa, the claim that the literal meanings should be accepted without asking how or why.

Tafsir
The Qur’an has sparked a huge body of commentary and explication, known as tafsir. This commentary is aimed at explaining the “meanings of the Qur’anic verses, clarifying their import and finding out their significance.” and best tafseer is done by Allah himself.
Tafsir is one of the earliest academic activities of Muslims. According to the Qur’an, Muhammad was the first person who described the meanings of verses for early Muslims. Other early exegetes included a few Companions of Muhammad, like Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Abdullah ibn Umar and Ubayy ibn Kab. Exegesis in those days was confined to the explanation of literary aspects of the verse, the background of its revelation and, occasionally, interpretation of one verse with the help of the other. If the verse was about a historical event, then sometimes a few traditions (hadith) of Muhammad were narrated to make its meaning clear.

Because the Qur’an is spoken in classical Arabic, many of the later converts to Islam (mostly non-Arabs) did not always understand the Qur’anic Arabic, they did not catch allusions that were clear to early Muslims fluent in Arabic and they were concerned with reconciling apparent conflict of themes in the Qur’an. Commentators erudite in Arabic explained the allusions, and perhaps most importantly, explained which Qur’anic verses had been revealed early in Muhammad’s prophetic career, as being appropriate to the very earliest Muslim community, and which had been revealed later, canceling out or “abrogating” (nāsikh) the earlier text (mansukh). Memories of the occasions of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl), the circumstances under which Muhammad had spoken as he did, were also collected, as they were believed to explain some apparent obscurities.

Inward Aspects of the Qur’an
It is an essential idea for Shia as well as Sufi Muslims that the Qur’an has inward aspects too. They refer to several hadith of Muhammad such as
“The Qur’an possesses an external appearance and a hidden depth, an exoteric meaning and an esoteric meaning. This esoteric meaning in turn conceals an esoteric meaning (this depth possesses a depth, after the image of the celestial Spheres which are enclosed within each other). So it goes on for seven esoteric meanings (seven depths of hidden depth).”

According to this view, it has also become evident that the inner meaning of the Qur’an does not eradicate or invalidate its outward meaning. Rather, it is like the soul, which gives life to the body.
On the base of this viewpoint, Henry Corbin considers the Qur’an to have a part to play in Islamic philosophy, because gnosiology itself goes hand in hand with prophetology. However, it is clear that those who don’t believe in the divine origin of the Qur’an or any kind of sacred or spiritual existence completely oppose any inward aspect of the Qur’an.

Ta’wil
As Ja’far al-Kashfi has defined ta’wil means to lead back or to bring back something to its origin or archetype is a science whose pivot is a spiritual direction and a divine inspiration, while the tafsir is the literal exegesis of the letter; its pivot is the canonical Islamic sciences.[81] Allameh Tabatabaei says according to popular explanation among the later exegetes ta’wil indicates that particular meaning towards which the verse is directed. The meaning of revelation (tanzil), as opposed to ta’wil, is clear or according to the obvious meaning of the words as they were revealed. But this explanation has become so wide spread that, at present, it has become the real meaning of ta’wil, while originally this word meant “to return” or “the returning place”. In his view what has been rightly called ta’wil, or hermeneutic interpretation, of the Qur’an is not concerned simply with the denotation of words. Rather, it is concerned with certain truths and realities that transcend the comprehension of the common run of men; yet it is from these truths and realities that the principles of doctrine and the practical injunctions of the Qur’an issue forth. Interpretation is not the meaning of the verse; rather it transpires through that meaning – a special sort of transpiration. There is a spiritual reality which is the main objective of ordaining a law, or basic aim of describing a divine attribute; there is an actual significance to which a Qur’anic story refers.
However Shia and Sufism on one hand and Sunni on the other hand have completely different positions on its legitimacy. A verse in the Qur’an points out this issue, but Shia and Sunni disagree on how it should be read. According to Shia, those who are firmly rooted in knowledge like the Prophet and imams, know the secrets of Qur’an, while Sunnis believe just God knows it. According to Allameh Tabatabaei “none knows its interpretation except Allah”, remains valid, without any opposing or qualifying clause. Therefore, so far as this verse is concerned, the knowledge of the Qur’an’s interpretation is reserved for Allah. But he uses another verses and concludes those who are purified by God know the interpretation of the Qur’an to a certain extent.
The most ancient spiritual commentary on the Qur’an consists of the teachings which the Shia Imams propounded in the course of their conversations with their disciples. It was the principles of their spiritual hermeneutics that were subsequently to be brought together by the Sufis. These texts are narrated from Imam Ali and Ja’far al-Sadiq by Shia and Sunni Sufis.

As Corbin narrates from Shia sources, Ali himself gives this testimony:
Not a single verse of the Qur’an descended upon (was revealed to) the Messenger of God which he did not proceed to dictate to me and make me recite. I would write it with my own hand, and he would instruct me as to its tafsir (the literal explanation) and the ta’wil (the spiritual exegesis), the nasikh (the verse which abrogates) and the mansukh (the abrogated verse), the muhkam (without ambiguity) and the mutashabih (ambiguous), the particular and the general…

According to Allameh Tabatabaei, there are acceptable and unacceptable esoteric interpretations. Acceptable ta’wil refers to the meaning of a verse beyond its literal meaning; rather only the implicit, whose ultimate meaning is known only to God and can’t be comprehended directly through human thought alone. The verses in question here are those which refer to the human qualities of coming, going, sitting, satisfaction, anger and sorrow apparently attributed to God. Ta’wil that is unacceptable means “to transfer” the apparent meaning of a verse to a different meaning by means of a proof; this method is not without obvious inconsistencies. Although this view has gained considerable acceptance, it is incorrect and cannot be applied to the Qur’anic verses. The correct interpretation is that reality to which a verse refers; it is found in all verses, the decisive and the ambiguous alike; it is not a sort of a meaning of the word; it is a real fact that is too sublime for words; Allah has dressed them with words so as to bring them a bit nearer to our minds; in this respect they are like proverbs that are used to create a picture in the mind and thus help the hearer to clearly grasp the intended idea.
Therefore Sufi spiritual interpretations usually are accepted by Islamic scholars as authentic interpretations as long as certain conditions were met.[88] In Sufi history, these interpretations were sometimes considered religious innovations (bid’ah), as Salafis today believe. However, even among Shia, ta’wil is extremely controversial. For example, when Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, the leader of Islamic revolution, gave some lectures about Surat al-Fatiha in December 1979 and January 1980, some protests forced him to suspend it before he could proceed beyond the first two verses of the surah.

Relationship with other literature

The Torah and the Bible
“ It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (of judgment between right and wrong). ”
—Qur’an 3:3 (Yusuf Ali)
The Qur’an speaks well of the relationship it has with former books (the Torah and the Gospel) and attributes their similarities to their unique origin and saying all of them have been revealed by the one God.
The Qur’an retells stories of many of the people and events recounted in Jewish and Christian sacred books (Tanakh, Bible) and devotional literature (Apocrypha, Midrash), although it differs in many details. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Heber, Shelah, Abraham, Lot, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jethro, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, Aaron, Moses, Ezra, Zechariah, Jesus, and John the Baptist are mentioned in the Qur’an as prophets of God (see Prophets of Islam). Muslims believe the common elements or resemblances between the Bible and other Jewish and Christian writings and Islamic dispensations is due to their common divine source, and that the original Christian or Jewish texts were authentic divine revelations given to prophets.
Muslims believe that those texts were neglected, corrupted (tahrif) or altered in time by the Jews and Christians and have been replaced by God’s final and perfect revelation, which is the Qur’an. However, many Jews and Christians[who?] believe that the historical biblical archaeological record refutes this assertion, because the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Tanakh and other Jewish writings which predate the origin of the Qur’an) have been fully translated, validating the authenticity of the Greek Septuagint.

Influence of Christian apocrypha
The Diatessaron, Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and the Arabic Infancy Gospel are all alleged to have been sources that the author/authors drew on when creating the Qur’an. The Diatessaron especially may have led to the misconception in the Qur’an that the Christian Gospel is one text. However this is strongly refuted by Muslim scholars, who maintain that the Qur’an is the divine word of God without any interpolation, and the similarities exist only due to the one source.
Arab writing
After the Qur’an, and the general rise of Islam, the Arabic alphabet developed rapidly into a beautiful and complex form of art.
Wadad Kadi, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago and Mustansir Mir, Professor of Islamic studies at Youngstown State University state that:
Although Arabic, as a language and a literary tradition, was quite well developed by the time of Muhammad’s prophetic activity, it was only after the emergence of Islam, with its founding scripture in Arabic, that the language reached its utmost capacity of expression, and the literature its highest point of complexity and sophistication. Indeed, it probably is no exaggeration to say that the Qur’an was one of the most conspicuous forces in the making of classical and post-classical Arabic literature.
The main areas in which the Qur’an exerted noticeable influence on Arabic literature are diction and themes; other areas are related to the literary aspects of the Qur’an particularly oaths (q.v.), metaphors, motifs, and symbols. As far as diction is concerned, one could say that Qur’anic words, idioms, and expressions, especially “loaded” and formulaic phrases, appear in practically all genres of literature and in such abundance that it is simply impossible to compile a full record of them. For not only did the Qur’an create an entirely new linguistic corpus to express its message, it also endowed old, pre-Islamic words with new meanings and it is these meanings that took root in the language and subsequently in the literature…

Qur’an miracles
Islamic scholars believe that the Qur’an is miraculous by its very nature in being a revealed text and that similar texts cannot be written by human endeavor. Its miraculous nature is claimed to be evidenced by its literary style, suggested similarities between Qur’anic verses and scientific facts discovered much later, and various prophecies. The Qur’an itself challenges those who deny its claimed divine origin to produce a text like it. [Qur'an 17:88][Qur'an 2:23][Qur'an 10:38]. These claims originate directly from Islamic belief in its revealed nature, and are widely disputed by non-muslim scholars of Islamic history.

Qur’anic Initials
14 different Arabic letters form 14 different sets of “Qur’anic Initials” (the “Muqatta’at”, such as A.L.M. of 2:1) and prefix 29 suras in the Qur’an. The meaning and interpretation of these initials is considered unknown to most Muslims. In 1974, Egyptian biochemist Rashad Khalifa claimed to have discovered a mathematical code based on the number 19, which is mentioned in Sura 74:30 of the Qur’an.

In culture
Most Muslims treat paper copies of the Qur’an with veneration, ritually washing before reading the Qur’an. Worn out, torn, or errant (for example, pages out of order) Qur’ans are not discarded as wastepaper, but rather are left free to flow in a river, kept somewhere safe, burnt, or buried in a remote location. Many Muslims memorize at least some portion of the Qur’an in the original Arabic, usually at least the verses needed to perform the prayers. Those who have memorized the entire Qur’an earn the right to the title of Hafiz.
Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of sura 56:77-79: “That this is indeed a Qur’an Most Honourable, In a Book well-guarded, Which none shall touch but those who are clean.”, many scholars opine that a Muslim perform wudu (ablution or a ritual cleansing with water) before touching a copy of the Qur’an, or mus’haf. This view has been contended by other scholars on the fact that, according to Arabic linguistic rules, this verse alludes to a fact and does not comprise an order. The literal translation thus reads as “That (this) is indeed a noble Qur’ān, In a Book kept hidden, Which none toucheth save the purified,” (translated by Mohamed Marmaduke Pickthall). It is suggested based on this translation that performing ablution is not required.
Qur’an desecration means insulting the Qur’an by defiling or dismembering it. Muslims must always treat the book with reverence, and are forbidden, for instance, to pulp, recycle, or simply discard worn-out copies of the text. Respect for the written text of the Qur’an is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims. They believe that intentionally insulting the Qur’an is a form of blasphemy.

Criticism
The Qur’an’s teachings on matters of war and peace have become topics of heated discussion in recent years. On the one hand, some critics interpret that certain verses of the Qur’an sanction military action against unbelievers as a whole both during the lifetime of Muhammad and after. On the other hand, other scholars argue that such verses of the Qur’an are interpreted out of context, and argue that when the verses are read in context it clearly appears that the Qur’an prohibits aggression, and allows fighting only in self defense.

Adam (Bible)

Adam (Bible)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adam (Standard Hebrew: אָדָם, masculine proper noun;[1][2][3] Arabic: آدم) was the first man created by God, according to Book of Genesis, and noted in subsequent Jewish, Christian and Islamic commentary.[4] He is considered a prophet by the Islamic, Mormon, Mandaean and Bahá’í faiths.[citation needed]
Adam’s wife was Eve.

Hebrew Bible
The story is told in the book of Genesis, contained in the Torah and Bible, chapters 2 and 3, with some additional elements in chapters 4 and 5.

Account of creation
Two accounts of the story of creation are told in the book of Genesis. [4]
God created all living creatures human beings on the sixth day of Creation. “Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam…” (Genesis 5:2). “Adam” is a general term, like “Man” and could refer to the whole of humankind. God blessed them to be “fruitful and multiply” and ordained that they should have “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Gen. 1.26-27, KJV).[4]
God first formed Adam out of “the dust of the ground” and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”, causing him to “become a living soul” (Gen. 2. 7, KJV). God then placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, giving him the commandment that “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2.16-17, KJV).
God then noted that “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2.18, KJV). He then brought every “beast of the field and every fowl of the air” (Gen. 2.19, KJV) before Adam and had Adam name all the animals. However, among all the animals, there was not found “a helper suitable for” Adam (Gen. 2.20, NASB), so God caused “a deep sleep to fall upon Adam” and took one of his ribs, and from that rib, formed a woman (Gen. 2.21-22), subsequently named Eve.[4] There is no mention of Adam waking up from his sleep.
Adam and Eve were subsequently expelled from the Garden of Eden, were ceremonially separated from God, and lost their immortality after they broke God’s law about not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This occurred after the serpent (understood to be Satan in many Christian traditions) told Eve that eating of the tree would result not in death, but in Adam and Eve’s eyes being opened, resulting in them being “as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3.4-5). Convinced by the serpent’s argument, Eve eats of the tree and has Adam do likewise (Gen. 3.6).
As a result, both immediately become aware of the fact that they are naked, and thus cover themselves with garments made of fig leaves (Gen. 3.7). Then, finding God walking in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve hide themselves from God’s presence (Gen. 3.8). God calls to Adam “Where art thou?” (Gen. 3.9, KJV) and Adam responds “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen. 3.10, KJV). When God then asks Adam if he had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam responds that his wife had told him to (Gen. 3.11-12). Herein is the second sin that Adam committed, the first being that he ate from the forbidden tree.
As a result of their breaking God’s law, the couple is removed from the garden (Gen. 3.23) (the Fall of Man) and both receive a curse. Adam’s curse is contained in Gen. 3.17-19: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (KJV).
After they were removed from the garden, Adam was forced to work hard for his food for the first time. He and Eve had many children although only three are named in Genesis: Cain, Abel, and Seth. The Book of Jubilees, in addition, names two of his daughters: Azura, who married her brother Seth, and Awan, who married her brother Cain.
According to the Genealogies of Genesis, Adam died at the age of 930. With such numbers, calculations such as those of Archbishop Ussher would suggest that Adam would have died only about 127 years before the birth of Noah, nine generations after Adam. In other words, Adam’s lifespan would have overlapped Lamech (the father of Noah) at least fifty years. Ussher and a group of theologians and scholars in 1630 did the math and created a study that reported the creation of Adam on October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 am and lived to 3074 BC. The controversy was not the time line but the fact that Ussher believed that the whole creation process occurred on that day.
According to the book of Joshua, the City of Adam was still a recognizable place at the time that the Israelites crossed the Jordan River on entering Canaan.
He appears to an extent in both Eastern and Western Christian liturgies.[5]

Adam in rabbinic literature
Islamic view
In Islam, Adam (آدم) is considered the first Prophet of God and the husband of Eve (Arabic: Hawwa) who was created from Adam by the “will of God”. Satan had lured Adam and Eve into disobeying God by tasting from the forbidden tree (although no reference is necessary as to what he may have tasted). This was the first act of revenge from Satan for being banished from the kingdom of heaven due to mankind. An important point to note here is that the Qur’an does not state or imply that it was Eve who tempted Adam to disobey God. They were both tempted by Satan and therefore equally guilty:
“Then began Satan to whisper suggestions to them, bringing openly before their minds all their shame that was hidden from them (before): he said: “Your Lord only forbade you this tree, lest ye should become angels or such beings as live for ever. And he swore to them both, that he was their sincere adviser. So by deceit he brought about their fall: when they tasted of the tree, their shame became manifest to them, and they began to sew together the leaves of the garden over their bodies. And their Lord called unto them: “Did I not forbid you that tree, and tell you that Satan was an avowed enemy unto you?” [Qur'an 7:20]
The Qu’ran also mentions that Adam was misled by deception and was in fact pardoned by God after much repentance.
“Then Adam received (some) words from his Lord, so He turned to him mercifully; surely He is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.” [Qur'an 2:37]
Islam indicates that because Adam was the first human, as a prophet he was also the first Muslim (“one who submitted to God”), thus teaching that the “word of God” is the oldest such religion that Islam has represented.

Bahá’í view
In the Bahá’í view, Adam was the first Manifestation of God in recorded history.[6] He is believed by Bahá’ís to have started the Adamic cycle 6000 years ago, which has culminated with Bahá’u'lláh.[7][8] The Biblical story of Adam and Eve, according to Bahá’í belief, is allegorical and is explained by `Abdu’l-Bahá in Some Answered Questions;[8] in the Bahá’í view, in the biblical story Eve represents Adam’s soul and the serpent represents attachment to the material world, and that ever since his fall, the human race has been conscious of good and evil.[9]

Latter Day Saint (LDS) view
Latter Day Saint religion holds that Adam and Michael the archangel are the same individual. Michael the archangel fought against and cast out Satan, “that old serpent”, at the conclusion of the war in heaven during pre-mortal existence (see Book of Revelation 12:7-9). “Michael” was born into this mortal existence as the man “Adam, the father of all, the prince of all, the ancient of days” (see Doctrine and Covenants 27:11 and 107:54). Mormons also consider Adam to be the first among all the prophets on earth.

Druze religion
In the Druze religion, Adam and Eve are seen as dualistic cosmic forces and are complementary to one another. Adam represents the universal mind and Eve, the universal soul.[10]

Etymology
The name Adam is the masculine form of the Hebrew word adamah meaning “ground”. Related words are adom, red (or brown) and dam, blood.
Some say that the word is primarily used in the generic sense of “mankind,” and not as the name of an individual.[11] In Gen. i. its use is wholly generic.[11] In Gen. ii. and iii. the writer weaves together the generic and the personal senses of the word.[11] In all that pertains to the first man as the passive subject of creative and providential action the reference is exclusively generic.[11] Indeed, it is doubtful whether “Adam” as a proper name is used at all before Gen. iv. 25 and v. 3 .[11] Here the same usage is manifest: for in the two opening verses of chap. v. the word is used generically.[11] It may also be observed that the writer in Gen. ii., iii. always says “the man” instead of “Adam”, even when the personal reference is intended, except after a preposition.[11]
Gen. ii. 7 explains the origin of the name thus: “God formed man of the dust of the ground.”[11] That is to say, the man was called “Adam” because he was formed from the ground (adamah).[11] Compare Gen. iii. 19.[11] This association of ideas is more than an explanation of the word: it is also suggestive of the primitive conception of human life in which men not only came from and returned to the earth, but actually partook of its substance.[11] The same notion declares itself in the Latin homo and humanus, as compared with humus and the Greek χαμαί, in the German gam (in Bräutigam), and the English groom (in “bridegroom”); also in the Greek έπιχθόνιος and similar expressions.[11]
However in the case of Adam the usage of the word as personal name appears to predate the generic usage. The name is attested in the Assyrian King List in the form Adamu showing that it was a genuine name from the early history of the Near East [12]. The generic usage in Genesis meaning “mankind” reflects the view that Adam was the ancestor of all men.

Abraham

Abraham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abraham (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם, Standard Avraham Tiberian ʾAḇrāhām Ashkenazi Avrohom or Avruhom ; Arabic: ابراهيم, Ibrāhīm ; Ge’ez: አብርሃም, ʾAbrəham) is a man mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, beginning with the Book of Genesis, the first of the Five Books of Moses, as well as in the Qur’an. His life as narrated in Genesis 11-25 may reflect various traditions. Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions regard him as the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples. In what is thus called Abrahamic religious tradition, Abraham is the forefather of these peoples.
His original name was Abram (Hebrew: אַבְרָם, Standard Avram Tiberian ʾAḇrām) meaning either “exalted father” or “my father is exalted” (compare Abiram). For the later part of his life, he was called Abraham (see retroactive nomenclature), often glossed as av hamon (goyim) “father of many (nations)” per Genesis 17:5, although it does not have any literal meaning in Hebrew.[1]
Abraham was the son of Terah and the grandson of Nahor. Abraham’s brothers were named Nahor and Haran.[2]
According to Genesis, Abraham was brought by God from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. This is thought to have occurred around 2000-1700 BCE.[3] There Abraham entered into a covenant: in exchange for sole recognition of YHWH as supreme universal deity and authority, Abraham will be blessed with innumerable progeny.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are sometimes referred to as the “Abrahamic religions”, because of the progenitor role Abraham plays in their holy books. In the Jewish tradition, he is called Avraham Avinu or “Abraham, our Father”. God promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the world will come to be blessed (Genesis 12:3), interpreted in Christian tradition as a reference to Christ. Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider him father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac (cf. Exodus 6:3, Exodus 32:13). For Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael – born to him by his wife’s handmaiden, Hagar. Abraham is also a progenitor of the Semitic tribes of the Negev who trace their descent from their common ancestor Sheba (Genesis 10:28).

Holy Bible
Origins and calling
Abraham was born in the Chaldean City of Ur, Mesopotamia, to Terah, his father.
Josephus, Islamic tradition, and Jewish authorities like Maimonides all concur that Ur of the Chaldees was in Northern Mesopotamia — now southeastern Turkey (identified with Urartu, or claiming Abraham was born in Urfa), or the nearby Urkesh, which others identify with “Ur of the Chaldee.”
Abram migrated to Haran, apparently the classical Carrhae, on a branch of the Habor. Thence, after a short stay, he, his wife and half-sister Sarai, Lot (the son of Abram’s brother Haran), and all their followers, departed for Canaan. Moreover, the names of Abram’s forefathers Peleg, Serug, Nahor, and Terah, all appear as names of cities in the region of Haran suggesting that these are eponymous ancestors of these communities. God called Abram to go to “the land I will show you”, and promised to bless him and man. In the Old Testament, when applied, to the patriarch, the name appears as ‘Abhram, up to Genesis 17:5; thereafter always as ‘Abraham. Two other persons are named ‘Abhiram. The identity of this name with ‘Abhram cannot be doubted in view of the variation between ‘Abhiner and ‘Abhner, ‘Abhishalom and ‘Abhshalom, etc. Abraham also appears in the list at Karnak of places conquered by Sheshonk I.

Etymology
‘brm (no. 72) represents ‘abram, with which Spiegelberg (Aegypt. Randglossen zum Altes Testament, 14) proposes to connect the preceding name (so that the whole would read “the field of Abram.”) Outside of Palestine this name (Abiramu) has come to light just where from the Biblical tradition we should expect to find it, namely, in Babylonia (e.g. in a contract of the reign of Apil-Sin, second predecessor of Hammurabi; also for the aunt (!) of Esarhaddon 680-669 BC). Ungnad has recently found it, among documents from Dilbat dating from the Hammurabi dynasty, in the forms A-ba-am-ra-ma, A-ba-am-ra-am, as well as A-ba-ra-ma.
Until this latest discovery of the apparently full, historical form of the Babylonian equivalent, the best that could be done with the etymology was to make the first constituent “father of” (construct -i rather than suffix -i), and the second constituent “Ram,” a proper name or an abbreviation of a name. (Yet observe above its use in Assyria for a woman; compare ABISHAG; ABIGAIL). Some were inclined rather to concede that the second element was a mystery, like the second element in the majority of names beginning with ‘abh and ‘ach, “father” and “brother.” But the full cuneiform writing of the name, with the case-ending am, indicates that the noun “father” is in the accusative, governed by the verb which furnishes the second component, and that this verb therefore is prove him (though hitherto childless) a great nation. Trusting this promise, Abram journeyed down to Shechem, and at the sacred tree (compare Genesis 35:4, Joshua 24:26, Judges 9:6) received a new promise that the land would be given unto his seed (descendant or descendants). Having built an altar to commemorate the theophany, he removed to a spot between Bethel and Ai, where he built another altar and then called upon (i.e. invoked) the name of God (Genesis 12:1-9.

Sarah and Pharaoh
Driven by a famine to take refuge in Egypt (Genesis 26:11, Genesis 41:, Genesis 42:), fearing that his wife’s beauty should arouse evil designs of the Egyptians and thus endanger his own safety, Abraham referred to Sarai as his sister, first to the Philistine king of Gerar and then to the unnamed Pharaoh of Egypt.
One interpretation of the original Hebrew includes Abram’s explanation that Sarai was literally his sister since she was his father’s daughter, but not his mother’s, i.e., a half-sister.[4] However, the kinship pattern of the Semitic chiefs listed in Genesis followed an established protocol that involved betrothal to half-sisters, so Abram may not have lied when he said that Sarai was his sister. On the other hand, there has been ancient tablets recently recovered from the ancient city of Mari that may suggest otherwise. These ancient Semite legal records show that when a woman is married to a man, she is then formally adopted by his father as a full daughter as well[1]. Like Abram, many ancient Semites were Nomads and it was customary for the daughter-in-law to be officially adopted as a full daughter in case her husband is to die while she is traveling with his family. According to Genesis 12:5, Sarai left her family to set out for the land of Canaan, which puts her in this same position as suggested in the ancient tablets of Mari (an ancient Semite city of Abram’s time). It is possible that Sarai may not have Abram’s half-sister, but adopted sister by law. However,marriage to half sisters was common throughout the ancient middle east and inheritance in the nomadic Semitic tribes was matrilineal. This gave a powerful incentive to marry a half sister and thus retain property within the family.
In any case, this did not save her from the Pharaoh, who took her into the royal harem and enriched Abram with herds and servants. But when Yahweh “plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues” Abram and Sarai left Egypt. There are two other parallel tales in Genesis of a wife confused for a sister (Genesis 20-21and 27) describing a similar event at Gerar with the Philistine king Abimelech, though the latter attributing it to Isaac not Abram.
When Abram with Sarai and his nephew Lot left Egypt they returned to Ai. Here he dwelt for some time, until strife arose between his herdsmen and those of his nephew, Lot. Abram thereupon proposed to Lot that they should separate, and allowed Lot the first choice. Lot preferred the fertile land lying east of the Jordan River, while Abram moved down to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron. After receiving reaffirmation and clarification of the promise from Yahweh, he built an altar there.

Chedorlaomer and Melchisedek
Some years after this, Lot was taken prisoner by Chedorlaomer and his allies, then warring against the kings of Sodom, and the neighboring places. Abram with his household pursued the conquerors, overtook and defeated them at Dan, near the springs of Jordan and retook the spoil, together with Lot.
At his return, passing near Salem (supposed to be the city afterwards called Jerusalem), Melchisedek, king of that city, and priest of the Most High God, came out and blessed him, and presented him with bread and wine for his own refreshment and that of his army; or as some have thought, offered bread and wine to God, as a sacrifice of thanksgiving on Abram’s behalf.

Ishmael
Main articles: Ishmael and Hagar (biblical)
After this, the Lord renewed his promises to Abram, with fresh assurances that his descendants would possess the land of Canaan and that his posterity should be as numerous as the stars of heaven.
As Sarai continued to be infertile, God’s promise that Abram’s seed would inherit the land seemed incapable of fulfillment. His sole heir was his servant, a certain Eliezer of Damascus (Genesis 15:2). Abram was promised one of his own flesh as heir.
The passage recording the ratification of the promise is remarkably solemn (see Genesis 15).
Sarai, in accordance with custom, gave to Abram her Egyptian handmaid Hagar as his wife (Genesis 16:3). But, Sarai seeing Hagar with child, was unable to endure the reproach of barrenness (cf. the story of Hannah, 1 Samuel 1:6), and dealt harshly with her and forced her to flee (Genesis 16:1-14). God heard Hagar’s sorrow and promised her that her descendants will be too numerous to count, and she returned.
Her son, Ishmael, Abram’s firstborn, was born when Abram was 86 years of age (Genesis 16:15-16). Hagar and Ishmael were eventually driven permanently away from Abram by Sarai (Genesis 21:).

Covenant
Main article: Isaac
God made his covenant with Abram thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael, when Abram was 99 years old (Genesis 17:1-5). Abram’s name was changed to Abraham and Sarai’s to Sarah. The covenant was sealed by Abraham’s circumcision (Genesis 17:11-14) and the first commandment relating to circumcision. Ishmael was also circumcised on that day, at the age of 13, as were the other men of Abraham’s household.
The Lord said to Abraham “ go from the country and your kindred and your fathers house to the land that I will show you.” And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. At this time Abraham was promised not only many descendants, but descendants through Sarah specifically, as well as the land where he was living, which was to belong to his descendants. The covenant was to be fulfilled through Isaac, though God promised that Ishmael would become a great nation as well. The covenant of circumcision (unlike the earlier promise) was two-sided and conditional: if Abraham and his descendants fulfilled their part of the covenant, Yahweh would be their God, give them the land, and make a great nation and kings out of Abraham’s line.
The promise of a son to Abraham made Sarah “laugh,” which became the name of the son of promise, Isaac. Sarah herself “laughs” at the idea because of her age, when Yahweh (God) appears to Abraham at Mamre (Genesis 18:1-15, ) and, when the child is born, cries “Yahweh has made me into laughter; every one that hears will laugh at me” (Genesis 21:6).

Sodom and Gomorrah
Main articles: Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot (Biblical)
The enormous sins of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the neighboring cities, being now filled up, three angels were sent to inflict upon them the divine vengeance. After visiting Abraham, they were ready to depart and Abraham accompanied them towards Sodom, whither two of them (who proved to be divine messengers) continued their journey. The third remained with Abraham, and informed him of the approaching destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham interceded, praying that if fifty righteous persons were found therein, the city should be spared; he reduced the numbers gradually to ten; but this number could not be found (or God, in answer to his prayers, would have averted his design). Lot, his wife and their 2 daughters, being the only righteous, were preserved from the disaster. His wife was turned to salt on their escape from the destruction when she disobeyed God’s command not to look back at the destruction.

Sarah and Abimelech
Main article: Abimelech
After Sarah conceived, according to the divine promise, she and Abraham left the plain of Mamre and went south, to Gerar, where Abimelech reigned. Fearing that Sarah might be forced from him, and himself put to death, Abraham again called Sarah ’sister,’ just as he had done in Egypt.
Abimelech took her to his house, with intentions to marry her. According to scripture, God informed Abimelech, through a dream, that Sarah was Abraham’s wife. Abimelech returned Sarah to Abraham with great presents.

Beersheba
Main article: Beersheba
About the same time, Abimelech came with Phicol, his general, to conclude an alliance with Abraham, who made that prince a present of seven ewe-lambs out of his flock, in consideration that a well that he had opened should be his own property; and they called the place Beer-sheba or “the well of swearing”.
Here Abraham resided some time.

Binding of Isaac
Main article: Binding of Isaac
Some time after the birth of Isaac, Abraham was commanded by God to offer his son up as a sacrifice in the land of Moriah. The patriarch traveled three days until he came to the mount that God taught him. He commanded the servant to remain while he and Isaac proceeded alone to the mountain, Isaac carrying the wood upon which he would be sacrificed. Along the way, Isaac repeatedly asked Abraham where the animal for the burnt offering was. Abraham then replied that God would provide one. Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, he was prevented by an angel, and given on that spot a ram which he sacrificed in place of his son. Thus it is said, “On the mountain the Lord provides.” (Genesis 22) As a reward for his obedience he received another promise of a numerous seed and abundant prosperity (22). After this event, Abraham did not return to Hebron, Sarah’s encampment, but instead went to Beersheba, Keturah’s encampment, and it is to Beersheba that Abraham’s servant brought Rebecca, Isaac’s patrilineal parallel cousin who became his wife.
The near sacrifice of Isaac is one of the most challenging, and perhaps ethically troublesome, parts of the Bible. According to Josephus, Isaac was 25 years old at the time of the sacrifice or Akedah, while the Talmudic sages teach that Isaac was 37. In either case, Isaac was a fully grown man, old enough to prevent the elderly Abraham (who was 125 or 137 years old) from tying him up had he wanted to resist. The narrative now turns to Isaac. To his “only son” (22:2, 12) Abraham gave all he had, and dismissed his other sons, as Abraham himself had been dismissed by Terah after Terah had given his territory to Nahor.
In Christian theology this event is sometimes interpreted as a foreshadowing of the crucifixion of Jesus, where Abraham is represented as God, and Isaac as Jesus Christ. Key elements from the stories given as symbols of this foreshadowing include: Both of their births were believed to be miraculous (Isaac to a woman who was far too old to have children, Jesus to a woman believed to be a virgin). According to scripture Abraham was told by God that he would be the father of many nations, and in the Christian faith God is the seen as the father of all people. In both stories Jesus and Isaac had the wood laid upon their backs and were forced to carry it up to the hills where they were to be sacrificed. Although according to scripture Abraham had fathered a son previously, namely Ishmael with Hagar, Isaac was the only son of Abraham through Sarah, as Jesus was the “only begotten son” of God (see John 3:16)(Isaac is also referred to as “his [Abraham's] only begotten son” in Hebrews 11:17). They both made their way up hills to be sacrificed (Isaac up Moriah, and Jesus to Golgotha, which may be located on the same hill, but with Golgotha on the North end). The exact location referred to is currently a matter of some debate. They both were laid on the wood alive, and it was allegedly voluntary on both their parts (this theory would explain why Isaac, possibly a full grown man at the time would not have resisted when his father tied him down). The difference in the stories comes when Abraham was stopped from sacrificing his son, and God provided an alternative to Isaac. For Jesus, there was no “ram caught in the thicket” (Gen. 22:13) and the “sacrifice” was carried out to completion.

Death of Sarah
Sarah died at an old age at about 127, and was buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs near Hebron, which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite, along with the adjoining field (Genesis 23). Here Abraham himself was buried so they could be with each other forever. Centuries later the tomb became a place of pilgrimage and Muslims later built an Islamic mosque inside the site.

A wife for Isaac
Abraham, being reminded by this occurrence, probably, of his own great age, and the consequent uncertainty of his life, became solicitous to secure an alliance between Isaac and a female branch of his own family.
Eliezer his steward was therefore sent into Mesopotamia, to fetch from the country and kindred of Abraham a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer went on his commission with prudence, and returned with Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, granddaughter of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham’s niece.

Other children of Abraham
Abraham lived a long time after these events. After the death of Sarah, who died when he was 137 years of age[5], and while in bad health (Gen 24:1), he took another wife, a concubine named Keturah and she bore Abraham six sons, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. (Genesis 25:1-6)

Abraham’s Death
He died at the age of 175 years. [6] Jewish legend says that he was meant to live to 180 years, but God purposely took his life because he felt that Abraham did not need to go through the pain of seeing Esau’s wicked deeds.
He was buried by his sons Isaac (aged about 76 years) and Ishmael (aged about 89 years), in the Cave of the Patriarchs, where he had deposited the remains of his beloved Sarah.
Sons of Abraham by wife in order of birth
Hagar Ishmael (1)
Sarah Isaac (2)
Keturah Zimran Jokshan Medan Midian Ishbak Shuah

Significance
Biblical narratives represent Abraham as a wealthy, powerful and supremely virtuous man, but humanly flawed, and when afraid for himself, miscalculating, and a sometimes deceiving and an inconsiderate husband. But his central importance in the Book of Genesis, and his portrait as a man favored by God, is unequivocal. Abraham’s generations (Hebrew: toledoth, translated to Greek: “Genesis”) are presented as part of the crowning explanation of how the world has been fashioned by the hand of God, how the boundaries and relationships of peoples were established by Him, and how the Kingdom of God would be established through Abraham.
As the father of Isaac , Abraham is ultimately the common ancestor of the Israelites. As the father of Ishmael, whose twelve sons became desert princes (most prominently, Nebaioth and Kedar), along with Midian, Sheba and other Arabian tribes (25:1-4), the Book of Genesis gives a portrait of Isaac’s descendants as being surrounded by kindred peoples, who are also more often enemies. This is because the clans practiced intermarriage. are in the descending scale, perhaps of purity of blood, or as of purity of relationship, or of connectedness to Sarah: Sarah, her servant, her husband’s other wife. The Bible says of the Hebrew people: “Your father was a wandering Syrian”. Yet to Abraham’s face the Hittites said, “You are a great chief among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs.” (Genesis 23:4 and 5)
As stated above, Abraham came from Ur in Chaldea to Haran and thence to Canaan. Late tradition supposed that this was to escape Babylonian idolatry (Judith 5, Jubilees 12; cf. Joshua 24:2), and knew of Abraham’s miraculous escape from death (an obscure reference to some act of deliverance in Isaiah 29:22). The route along the banks of the Euphrates from south to north was so frequently taken by migrating tribes that the tradition has nothing improbable in itself. It was thence that Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, came, and the route to Shechem and Bethel is precisely the same in both.
Further, there is yet another parallel in the story of the conquest by Joshua, partly implied and partly actually detailed (cf. also Joshua 8:9 with Gen. 12:8, 13:3), whence it would appear that too much importance must not be laid upon any ethnological interpretation which fails to account for the three versions. That similar traditional elements have influenced them is not unlikely; but to recover the true historical foundation is difficult. The invasion or immigration of certain tribes from the east of the Jordan; the presence of Aramean blood among the Israelites; the origin of the sanctity of venerable sites — these and other considerations may readily be found to account for the traditions.
Noteworthy coincidences in the lives of Abraham and Isaac, such as the strong parallels between two tales of a wife confused for a sister, point to the fluctuating state of traditions in the oral stage, or suggest that Abraham’s life has been built up by borrowing from the common stock of popular lore. More original is the parting of Lot and Abraham at Bethel. The district was the scene of contests between Moab and the Hebrews (cf. perhaps Judges 3), and if this explains part of the story, the physical configuration of the Dead Sea may have led to the legend of the destruction of inhospitable and vicious cities.[citation needed]

Christianity
Old Testament
Main article: Book of Genesis
New Testament
In the New Testament Abraham is mentioned prominently as a man of faith (see e.g., Hebrews 11), and the apostle Paul uses him as an example of salvation by faith, as the progenitor of the Christ (or Messiah) (see Galatians 3:16).
Authors of the New Testament report that Jesus cited Abraham to support belief in the resurrection of the dead. “But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken” (Mark 12:26-27). The New Testament also sees Abraham as an obedient man of God, and Abraham’s interrupted attempt to offer up Isaac is seen as the supreme act of perfect faith in God. “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense” (Hebrews 11:17-19). The imagery of a father sacrificing his son is seen as a type of God the Father offering his Son on Calvary.
The traditional view in Christianity is that the chief promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 is that through Abraham’s seed, all the people of earth would be blessed. Notwithstanding this, John the Baptist specifically taught that merely being of Abraham’s seed was no guarantee of salvation. The promise in Genesis is considered to have been fulfilled through Abraham’s seed, Jesus. It is also a consequence of this promise that Christianity is open to people of all races and not limited to Jews.

Liturgical commemoration
The Roman Catholic Church calls Abraham “our father in Faith,” in the Eucharistic prayer of the Roman Canon, recited during the Mass (see Abraham in the Catholic liturgy). He is also commemorated in the calendars of saints of several denominations: on August 20 by the Maronite Church, August 28 in the Coptic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East, with the full office for the latter, and on October 9 by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. He is also regarded as the patron saint of those in the hospitality industry.[7]
The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him as the “Rigteous Forefather Abraham”, with two feast days in its liturgical calendar. The first time is on October 9 (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian Calendar, October 9 falls on October 22 of the modern Gregorian Calendar), where he is commemorated together with his nephew “Righteous Lot”. The other on the “Sunday of the Forefathers” (two Sundays before Christmas), where he is commemorated together with other ancestors of Jesus. Abraham is also mentioned in the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great, just before the Anaphora. Abraham and Sarah are invoked in the prayers said by the priest over a newly married couple at the Sacred Mystery of Crowning (i.e., the Sacrament of Marriage).

Islam
Main article: Islamic view of Abraham
Abraham, known as Ibrahim in Arabic, is very important in Islam, both in his own right as a prophet as well as being the father of Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael, his firstborn son, is considered the Father of the Arabised Arabs, and Isaac is considered the Father of the Hebrews. Islam teaches that Ishmael was the son Abraham nearly sacrificed on Moriah. To support this view Muslims use various proofs, including the belief that at the time Ishmael was his only son. Abraham is revered by Muslims as one of the Prophets in Islam, and is commonly termed Khalil Ullah, “Friend of God”. Abraham is considered a Hanif, that is, a discoverer of monotheism.
Abraham is mentioned in many passages in 25 Qur’anic suras (chapters). The number of repetitions of his name in the Qur’an is second only to Moses.[8]
Abraham’s footprint is displayed outside the Kaaba, which is on a stone, protected and guarded by Mutawa (Religious Police). The annual Hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, follows Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael’s journey to the sacred place of the Kaaba. Islamic tradition narrates that Abraham’s subsequent visits to the Northern Arabian region, after leaving Ishmael and Hagar (in the area that would later become the Islamic holy city of Mecca), were not only to visit Ishmael but also to construct the first house of worship for God (that is, the monotheistic concept and model of God), the Kaaba -as per God’s command.[9] The Eid ul-Adha ceremony is focused on Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his promised son on God’s command. In turn, God spared his son’s life and instead substituted a sheep. This was Abraham’s test of faith. On Eid ul-Adha, Muslims sacrifice a domestic animal — a sheep, goat, cow, buffalo or camel — as a symbol of Abraham’s sacrifice, and divide the meat among the family members, friends, relatives, and most importantly, the poor.

Arab connection
A line in the Book of Jubilees (20:13) mentions that the descendants of Abraham’s son by Hagar, Ishmael, as well as his descendants by Keturah, became the “Arabians” or “Arabs”. The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus similarly described the descendants of Ishmael (i.e. the Ishmaelites) as an “Arabian” people.[10] He also calls Ishmael the “founder” (κτίστης) of the “Arabians”.[11] Some Biblical scholars also believe that the area outlined in Genesis as the final destination of Ishmael and his descendants (“from Havilah to Assyria”) refers to the Arabian peninsula. This has led to a commonplace view that modern Semitic-speaking Arabs are descended from Abraham via Ishmael, in addition to various other tribes who intermixed with the Ishmaelites, such as Joktan, Sheba, Dedan, Broham, etc. Both Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions speak of earlier inhabitants of Arabia.
Classical Arab historians traced the true Arabs (i.e., the original Arabs from Yemen) to Qahtan and the Arabicised Arabs (people from the region of Mecca, who assimilated into the Arabs) to Adnan, said to be an ancestor of Muhammad, and have further equated Ishmael with A’raq Al-Thara, said to be ancestor of Adnan. Umm Salama, one of Muhammad’s wives, wrote that this was done using the following hermeneutical reasoning: Thara means moist earth, Abraham was not consumed by hell-fire, fire does not consume moist earth, thus A’raq al-Thara must be Ishmael son of Abraham.[12]

According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Book of Abraham is a scriptural text for some denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement (also know as Mormons). Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt is given very differently in the Latter-day Saint Abraham 1 – 2.[13] than in in Genesis 12. Abraham is credited for restoring praise and worship of the One true God (Elohim, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost) and restoring the lost ordinances of circumcision and Temple covenants.
In July 1835, Michael Chandler brought a traveling exhibition of four Egyptian mummies and papyri contained Egyptian hieroglyphics to Ohio, then home of the Latter-Day Saints. Chandler asked Joseph Smith Jr. to look at the scrolls, due to Smith’s notoriety and claims to translate the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. These Joseph Smith and two other LDS purchased for $2400. Smith declared two of the scrolls contained original writings of Abraham and Joseph. From this results the The Book of Abraham. This translation became a book dealing with Abraham’s journeys in Egypt, containing many distinctive Mormon doctrines. Considerable controversy surrounds the surviving papyri claimed as the source for the translation of the Book of Abraham.
While the Book of Abraham scrolls were reported to be longer than the Bible,[14] only a small portion was published by Latter-day Saint Founder Joseph Smith. This portion, published serially in 1842,[15] is now found in the Pearl of Great Price. Chapters 1 and 2 include details about Abraham’s early life and his fight against the idolatry of Egypt (under rule of Pharaoh) and even of his own family.[16] It recounts how pagan priests of Pharaoh tried to sacrifice him, but an angel appeared and rescued him. Chapter 2 includes information about God’s covenant with Abraham, and how it would be fulfilled.
In addition to the text, there are three facsimiles of vignettes from the papyrus. The first and most disputed facsimile depicts Abraham about to be sacrificed by a priest; the second is the hypocephalus which contains important insights about the organization of the heavens (Cosmos) for order of the Temple ordinances and covenants to be officiated through the Priesthood Keys of Heaven. The final picture shows Abraham teaching in the Pharaoh’s court.
“Abraham is always regarded in the Old Testament as founder of the covenant race, which is personified in the house of Israel. He is the “father of the faithful.” Latter-day revelation has “clarified” the significance of the Abrahamic covenant and other aspects of Abraham’s life and ministry. He was greatly blessed with divine revelation concerning the planetary system, the creation of the earth, and the pre-birth activities of the spirits of people. One of the most valiant spirits in the pre-birth or “premortal” life, he was chosen to be a leader in the kingdom of God before he was born into this world (Abr. 1 – 5) and that he is now exalted and sits upon a throne in eternity (D&C 132:29, 37).”[17]

In philosophy
Abraham, as a man communicating with God or the divine, has inspired some fairly extensive discussion in some philosophers, such as Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre. Kierkegaard goes into Abraham’s plight in considerable detail in his work Fear and Trembling. Sartre understands the story not in terms of Christian obedience or a “teleological suspension of the ethical”, but in terms of mankind’s utter behavioral and moral freedom. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Sartre doubts that Abraham can know that the voice he hears is really the voice of his God and not of someone else, or the product of a mental condition. Thus, Sartre concludes, even if there are signs in the world, humans are totally free to decide how to interpret them.

Textual criticism
Writers have regarded the life of Abraham in various ways. He has been viewed as a chieftain of the Amorites, as the head of a great Semitic migration from Mesopotamia; or, since Ur and Haran were seats of Moon-worship, he has been identified with a moon-god. From the character of the literary evidence and the locale of the stories it has been held that Abraham was originally associated with Hebron. The double name Abram/Abraham has even suggested that two personages have been combined in the Biblical narrative; although this does not explain the change from Sarai to Sarah.
The interesting discovery of the name Abi-ramu on Babylonian contracts of about 2000 BC does not prove the Abraham of the Old Testament to be an historical person, even as the fact that there were Amorites in Babylonia at the same period does not make it certain that the ‘patriarch’ was one of their number. A fairly lucid treatment of the subject is given by Michael Astour in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (s.v. “Amraphel”, “Arioch” and “Chedorlaomer”), who explains the story of Genesis 14 as a product of anti-Babylonian propaganda during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews:
“After Böhl’s widely accepted, but wrong, identification of mTu-ud-hul-a with one of the Hittite kings named Tudhaliyas, Tadmor found the correct solution by equating him with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (see Tidal). Astour (1966) identified the remaining two kings of the Chedorlaomer texts with Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (see Arioch) and with the Chaldean Merodach-baladan (see Amraphel). The common denominator between these four rulers is that each of them, independently, occupied Babylon, oppressed it to a greater or lesser degree, and took away its sacred divine images, including the statue of its chief god Marduk; furthermore, all of them came to a tragic end.
3. Relationship to Genesis 14. All attempts to reconstruct the link between the Chedorlaomer texts and Genesis 14 remain speculative. However, the available evidence seems consistent with the following hypothesis: A Jew in Babylon, versed in Akkadian language and cuneiform script, found in an early version of the Chedorlaomer texts certain things consistent with his anti-Babylonian feelings.” (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Chedorlaomer”)
Another scholar, criticizing Kitchen’s maximalist viewpoint, considers a relationship between the tablet and Gen. speculative, also identifies but identifies Tudhula as a veiled reference to Sennacherib of Assyria, and Chedorlaomer, i.e. Kudur-Nahhunte, as “a recollection of a 12th century BC king of Elam who briefly ruled Babylon.” (“Finding Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives” by Ronald Hindel, BAR, Jul/Aug 1995)
The Anchor Bible Dictionary suggests that the biblical account was in all probability derived from a text very closely related to the Chedorlaomer Tablets, and this in a publication which can be said to do at least a reasonably good job of getting good scholarship. The Chedorlaomer Tablets are thought to be from the 6th or 7th century BC, well after the time of Hammurabi, at roughly the time when Gen. through Deu. are thought to have come into their present form (e.g. see the Documentary Hypothesis). While Astour’s identifications of the figures these tablets refer to is certainly open to question, he does cautiously support a link between them and Gen. 14:1. Hammurabi is never known to have campaigned near the Dead Sea at all, although his son had. Writes Astour, “This identification, once widely accepted, was later virtually abandoned, mainly because Hammurabi was never active in the West.” The Chedorlaomer Tablets, then, appear to still be the closest archaeological parallel to the kings of the Eastern coalition mentioned in Gen. 14:1. The only problem is, that in all probability, they refer to kings that were from widely separated times, having conquered Babylon in different eras. Linguistically, it seems, there is little reason to reject the identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel, but the narrative does not make sense in light of modern archeology when it is made. A number of scholars also say that the connection does not make sense on chronological grounds, since it would place Abram later than the traditional date, but on this, see the section on chronology below.
If Gen. ch. 14 is a historical romance (cf., e.g., the Book of Judith), it is possible that a writer who lived in an exilic or post-exilic age (i.e. during or after the Babylonian Captivity), and who was acquainted with Babylonian history, decided to enhance the greatness of Abraham by claiming his military success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates, the high esteem he enjoyed in Canaan, and the practical character displayed in his brief exchange with Melchizedek. The historical section of the article Tithe deals more extensively with the historicity of the meeting with Melchizedek.
Many scholars claim, on the basis of archaeological and philological evidence, that many stories in the Pentateuch, including the accounts about Abraham and Moses, were written under King Josiah (7th century BC) or King Hezekiah (8th century BC) in order to provide a historical framework for the monotheistic belief in Yahweh. Some scholars point out that the archives of neighboring countries with written records that survive, such as Egypt, Assyria, etc., show no trace of the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BC. Such claims are detailed in “Who Were the Early Israelites?” by William G. Dever (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). Another similar book by Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein is “The Bible Unearthed” (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001). Even so, the Moabite Stele mentions king Omri of Israel, and many scholars draw parallels between the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I and the Shishaq of the Bible (1 Ki. 11:40; 14:25; and 2 Chr. 12:2-9), and between the king David of the Bible and a stone inscription from 835 BC that appears to refer to “house of David”–although some would dispute the last two correspondences.

Dating and historicity
Traditional dating
According to calculations directly derived from the Masoretic Hebrew Torah, Abraham was born 1,948 years after biblical creation and lived for 175 years (Genesis 25:7), which would correspond to a life spanning from 1812 BC to 1637 BC by Jewish dating. The figures in the Book of Jubilees have Abraham born 1,876 years after creation, and 534 years before the Exodus; the ages provided in the Samaritan version of Genesis agree closely with those of Jubilees before the Deluge, but after the Deluge, they add roughly 100 years to each of the ages of the Patriarchs in the Masoretic Text, resulting in the figure of 2,247 years after creation for Abraham’s birth. The Greek Septuagint version adds around 100 years to nearly all of the patriarchs’ births, producing the even higher figure of 3,312 years after creation for Abraham’s birth.
Other interpretations of Biblical chronology place Abraham’s birth at 2008 AM (Anno Mundi). In Genesis 11:32 : Abraham was the youngest son of Terah who died in Haran aged 205, in year 2083 AM. In Gen.12:4 we learn that at that time Abraham was 75 years old. In other words Abraham was born when his father Terah was 130 years old. (205-75 = 130). Therefore Abraham was born in year 2008 AM.

History of dating attempts
When cuneiform was first deciphered, Theophilus Pinches translated some Babylonian tablets which were part of the Spartoli collection in the British Museum. In particular, he believed he found in the Chedorlaomer Text, currently thought to have been written in the 6th to the 7th century BC, the names of three of the kings of the Eastern coalition fighting against the five kings from the Vale of Siddim in Gen. 14:1.
In 1887, Schrader then was the first to propose that Amraphel could be an alternate spelling for Hammurabi (cf. the ISBE of 1915, s.v. “Hammurabi”).
Vincent Scheil subsequently found a tablet in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Istanbul from Hammurabi to a king of the very same name, i.e. Kuder-Lagomer, as in Pinches’ tablet. Thus are achieved the following correspondences:
Name from Gen. 14:1 Name from Archaeology
Amraphel king of Shinar Hammurabi (=”Ammurapi”) king of Babylonia
Arioch king of Ellasar Eri-aku king of Larsa (i.e. Assyria)
Chedorlaomer king of Elam (= Chodollogomor in the LXX) Kudur-Lagamar king of Elam
Tidal, king of nations (i.e. goyim, lit. ‘nations’) Tudhulu, son of Gazza
By 1915, many scholars had become largely convinced that the kings of Gen. 14:1 had been identified (cf. again the ISBE of 1915, s.v. Hammurabi, which mentions the identification as doubtful, and also The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917, s.v. “Amraphel”, and Donald A. MacKenzie’s 1915 Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, who has (p. 247) “The identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now generally accepted”). The terminal -bi on the end of Hammurabi’s name was seen to parallel Amraphel since the cuneiform symbol for -bi can also be pronounced -pi. Tablets were known in which the initial symbol for Hammurabi, pronounced as kh to yield Khammurabi, had been dropped, such that Ammurapi was a viable pronunciation. Supposing him to have been deified in his lifetime or afterwards yielded Ammurabi-il, which was suitable close to the Bible’s Amraphel.
Albright was instrumental in synchronizing Hammurabi with Assyrian and Egyptian contemporaries, such that Hammurabi is now thought to have lived in the late 18th century, not in the 19th as assumed by the long chronology. Since many ecumenical theologians may not hold that the dates of the Bible could be in error, they began synchronizing Abram with the empire of Sargon I (23rd century in the short chronology), and the work of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil fell out of favor with them.
The objection[citation needed] resurfaced that Amraphel could not be derived from Khammurabi, in spite of the Ammurabi/Ammurapi spelling for Hammurabi that had already been found. More substantial objections were later made, including the finding that the days of the Kuder-Lagomer of Hammurabi’s letter preceded the writing of the letter early in Hammurabi’s reign led some to speculate that the Kuder-Lagomer of Gen. 14:1 should be associated with later Hittite or Akkadian kings with similar names. These scholars[citation needed] thus generally considered the passage anachronistic – the product of a much later period, such as during or after the Babylonian Captivity. Others[citation needed] pointed out that the Lagomer of Kuder-Lagomer was an Elamite deity’s name, instead of the king’s actual name, which some believe referred to a king that must have preceded Hammurabi. Other misreadings of the Chedorlaomer Text[citation needed] were pointed out, causing them to be associated with entirely different personages known from archaeology. It seemed that the theory of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil had fallen utterly apart.
Mainstream scholarship in the course of the 20th century has given up attempts to identify Abraham and his contemporaries in Genesis with historical figures.[18] While it is widely admitted that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham, apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that speculations on the patriarch’s historicity and on the period that would best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles. “The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom” in Abraham – Father of the Faithful (2001) implies a historical Abraham by stating “At one time it was popular to connect Amraphel, king of Shinar, with Hammurabi, king of Babylon, but now it is generally conceded that Hammurabi was much later than Abraham.”
A traditional chronology can be constructed from the MT as follows: If Solomon’s temple was begun when most scholars put it, ca. 960-970 BC, using e.g. 966, we get 1446 for the Exodus (I Ki. 6:1). There were 400 years reportedly spent in Egypt (Ex. 12:40), and then we only need add years from Jacob’s going into Egypt to Abraham. So, we can add that Jacob was supposedly 130 when he came to Egypt (Gen. 47:9), Isaac was 60 years old when he had Jacob (Gen. 25:26) and Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born, and we get 1446 + 400 + 130 + 60 + 100 = 2136 BC for Abram’s birth.
A considerable variety of scriptural chronologies is possible. For example, unlike most modern translations, according to all the oldest Bible versions not dependent on the mediaeval rabbis — the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls — the 430 years of the sojourn is the period “in Canaan and Egypt” (probable text of Exodus 12: 42), thus reckoning from the time of Abraham. Cf Paul’s belief in Gal 3:17. Therefore the figure is more than two hundred years less (1446 + 430 = 1876 BC).
Thus, if one adheres to an Early Exodus theory, then Abram is usually synchronized with Sargon I, or sometimes other figures in the Sumerian Empire. If one favors a Late Exodus theory, and then Abraham’s life could overlap that of Hammurabi’s empire.
Gen. 10:10 has it that Babel was the beginning of Nimrod’s empire. Before the location of Sargon’s capital city, Agade, was identified, it was sometimes supposed that Nimrod was Sargon I, and that Agade was Babel. But even so, there are reasons to prefer the equation of Hammurabi with Amraphel. The Nimrod of Gen. ch. 10 precedes the Amraphel of ch. 14, and Nimrod’s kingdom began with “Babylon, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, in Shinar” (Gen. 10:10). Mentions of Nimrod both precede and follow those of Abram. Furthermore, Nimrod is associated with the Tower of Babel, not the Tower of Agade, in the Bible.
Rabbinic materials are full of an accounts of Abram being thrown into the furnace used for making bricks for the Tower of Babel by Nimrod, but Abram was miraculously unharmed, while the furnace spread to the rest of the city, causing the “Fire of the Chasdim”.[citation needed] The conclusion then, based on these assertions, would be that Nimrod and Abram were more or less contemporaries. But only during the time of Hammurabi did Babylon become the beginning of an Empire in its own right.
If one insists that Gen. Ch. 14 reads as a testament of historical authenticity, then the Old Babylonian Empire, like Nimrod’s, extended into the Trans-Jordan, but only during the reign of Hammurabi’s son; whereas the Sumerian Empire by contrast did not. The city of Babel was not only the beginning of the Old Babylonian Empire, it was its capitol. After the end of the Old Babylonian Empire with the defeat of Hammurabi’s son by the Elamites, there was not another empire ruled from the city of Babel until the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was much too late to be synchronized with Abraham.
There are no archaeological correlates for the life of Abram, whereas the Exodus can be correlated with traces of a Semitic presence in Egypt, as per Bietak, as well as numerous transitions in Israel from Egypto-Canaanite material culture to proto-Israelite. An Early Exodus would preclude synchronizing Abram with Hammurabi’s empire, pushing him back to Sumerian times.

Speculations on Hindu connections
In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were isolated speculations about an identity of Abraham and Brahma, or of Abraham and Rama. This was based on the similarities of the names (Abraham is a near anagram of Brahma). Voltaire summarised such speculations:
This name Bram, Abram, was famous in India and Persia: some learned men even allege that he was the same legislator as the one the Greeks called Zoroaster. Others say that he was the Brahma of the Indians.[19]
Such arguments were taken up by later religious synchretists such as Godfrey Higgins, who argued in 1834 that “The Arabian historians contend that Brahma and Abraham, their ancestor, are the same person. The Persians generally called Abraham Ibrahim Zeradust. Cyrus considered the religion of the Jews the same as his own. The Hindus must have come from Abraham, or the Israelites from Brahma…”[20]
One may also consider noteworthy the similarity of the names of Brahma’s wife Sarasvati[21] compared to Abraham’s wife Sarah.
The argument has been used by Biblical literalists to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham and by certain Hindu nationalists to suggest the converse.[22]
The argument has been used by Muslim missionaries to prove that Brahma is a corrupted memory of Abraham. They also have claimed that other characters in Hindu scripture are actually people mentioned in the Quran.[23] A. D. Pusalker, whose essay “Traditional History From the Earliest Times” appeared in The Vedic Age, claims a historical Rama dated to 1950 BC.So hence this cannot be true, since the historical dating of these scriptures were long before the biblical age.[24]