# Quran The scripture of [Islam](/codex/islam/), which Muslims receive as the literal word of God revealed to Muhammad, and which Christians assess as a later book that denies the central claims of the gospel. ## Intro The Quran is the holy book of Islam. The word means "the recitation." Muslims believe it is not a book written by people about God, but God's own speech, word for word. They believe the angel Gabriel brought it to the prophet Muhammad a piece at a time over about 23 years, from about AD 610 until Muhammad died in 632. It has 114 chapters, called surahs. The first is a short prayer called the Fatiha, "the Opening," which Muslims recite many times a day. After that the chapters run roughly from longest to shortest, not in the order they were revealed. Muslims memorize it, recite it aloud in Arabic, and treat the physical book with great care. A translation, in the Muslim view, is only an explanation of the meaning, because the real Quran is the Arabic. The Quran talks a great deal about Jesus. It says he was born of a virgin, calls him the Messiah, and calls him a "word" from God. But it also says he is not God's Son and that he was not really crucified. It speaks well of the Torah and the Gospel, yet Muslims today usually say the Bible has been changed. This page explains what the Quran is, how it is organized, how it was gathered into one book, and what it teaches about Jesus and the Bible, the way Muslims themselves understand it. Then it gives the Christian assessment. ## In full The **Quran** (Arabic *al-Qur'an*, "the recitation") is the foundational scripture of Islam. Muslim orthodoxy holds that it is the eternal, uncreated speech of God (*kalam Allah*), sent down to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril) in Arabic over roughly 23 years (c. AD 610 to 632), and preserved without alteration (Surah 15:9). It comprises 114 surahs of unequal length, traditionally classified as Meccan or Medinan by their setting, and is arranged largely by decreasing length after the opening surah, the Fatiha. The standard text descends from the codex promulgated under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (c. AD 650), and is today almost universally printed in the Hafs reading tradition, standardized in the Cairo edition of 1924. Its teaching on Jesus (virgin birth, messiahship, the titles Word and Spirit from God, together with the denial of his divine sonship and of his crucifixion) and its affirmation of the Torah and the Gospel put it in direct conversation, and direct conflict, with the New Testament. Christian assessment turns on that conflict, on the history of the text, and on whether the Quran's own tests for its divine origin succeed. ## What the Quran is, in the Muslim view - **God's own speech.** The Quran is not inspired human writing in the way many Christians describe the Bible. Muslims hold that every word is God's, and that Muhammad was the recipient and transmitter, not the author. Classical Sunni theology, after the controversy of the ninth century in which the Mu'tazila school argued that the Quran was created, settled on the position that it is the uncreated speech of God. - **Revealed in stages.** Tradition places the first revelation in AD 610, in a cave on Mount Hira near Mecca, and most Muslim scholars identify the opening verses of Surah 96 as the first words revealed. Revelation continued through Muhammad's years in Mecca and, after the emigration (Hijra) of 622, in Medina, until his death in 632. - **Final and confirming.** The Quran presents itself as confirming the earlier scriptures (Surah 3:3) and as the last revelation, given to the last prophet (Surah 33:40). - **Arabic and recited.** The Quran describes itself as an Arabic Quran (for example Surah 12:2). Recitation is central to Muslim devotion: it is recited in the five daily prayers, chanted according to the rules of *tajwid*, and memorized in full by many Muslims, who are honored with the title *hafiz*. Translations are generally treated as interpretations of the meaning rather than as the Quran itself. - **Not the only authority.** In practice the Quran is read alongside the Hadith (reports of Muhammad's sayings and deeds) and the Sunnah (his normative example), which supply much of the detail of Islamic law and worship. See [Islam](/codex/islam/) and [Five Pillars of Islam](/codex/five-pillars-of-islam/). ## Structure - **114 surahs.** Each surah (chapter) is divided into ayat (verses, literally "signs"). The standard Kufan count gives 6,236 verses. Surahs range from three verses to 286 (Surah 2, *al-Baqarah*). - **The Fatiha.** Surah 1, "the Opening," is a seven-verse prayer of praise and petition for guidance on the straight path. It is recited in every unit of the daily prayer, which makes it the most frequently recited text in Islam. - **Order by length, not by date.** After the Fatiha, the surahs run roughly from longest to shortest. The arrangement is not chronological, so a reader moves back and forth between early and late material. - **Meccan and Medinan.** Surahs are traditionally labelled by where they were revealed. Meccan surahs tend to be shorter and poetic, focused on God's oneness, the coming judgment, the signs of creation, and the stories of earlier prophets. Medinan surahs tend to be longer and address law, the life of the community, relations with Jews and Christians (the "People of the Book"), and warfare. Muslim scholars recognize that some surahs mix material from both periods. - **The basmala.** Every surah but one (Surah 9) opens with the formula "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful." - **Divisions for reading.** For recitation the text is also divided into 30 equal parts (*juz*), which lets it be recited in full across the month of Ramadan. ## Compilation and the text ### The traditional account - **During Muhammad's life**, revelations were memorized by his companions and written on whatever material was at hand. Muslim tradition holds that the full text existed in memory and in scattered written form, but not as a single bound codex. - **Under Abu Bakr** (632 to 634), after many Quran reciters died in the battle of Yamama, Umar urged that the text be gathered. Zayd ibn Thabit collected it onto sheets, which passed to Umar and then to his daughter Hafsa. This account is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari. - **Under Uthman** (c. AD 650), reports of differences in recitation between regions led the caliph to have a committee, again including Zayd, produce standard copies from Hafsa's sheets. Copies were sent to the major centers and, according to the same hadith collection, other written copies were ordered burned. - **Reading traditions.** The Uthmanic consonantal text was written without full vowel marks, and several recognized reading traditions (*qira'at*) developed on it. Seven, later ten, came to be accepted as canonical. The Hafs reading is now dominant worldwide; the Warsh reading remains common in parts of North and West Africa. Muslims see this history as the faithful securing of a text that was never lost, and they appeal to Surah 15:9, in which God promises to guard the revelation. ### Early manuscripts - **The Birmingham manuscript.** Two leaves held in the Mingana Collection at the University of Birmingham, containing portions of Surahs 18 to 20, were radiocarbon dated in 2015 to a range of roughly AD 568 to 645. The date measures the parchment, not the writing, but it places the manuscript among the earliest known. Muslims widely cite it as evidence that the text in circulation today goes back to the earliest generation. - **The Sana'a manuscripts.** A large cache of early Quran fragments was found in 1972 in the Great Mosque of Sana'a, Yemen. One of them is a palimpsest: an earlier text was washed off and overwritten with the standard text. The lower text differs from the Uthmanic text in wording and in surah order. Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi, in a 2010 study in *Der Islam*, argued that it represents a companion codex outside the Uthmanic line. Scholars disagree on what the lower text implies for the earliest history of the Quran. Both manuscripts are serious evidence and should be stated carefully. The Birmingham leaves show that a text close to the present one existed very early. The Sana'a lower text shows that more than one form of the text circulated before the Uthmanic standard prevailed. The full case on preservation is argued at [Quranic Corruption and Preservation](/codex/quranic-corruption-and-preservation/) and [Quran Preservation and Lost Verses Objection Defeater](/codex/quran-preservation-and-lost-verses-objection-defeater/). ## What the Quran says about Jesus The Quran calls Jesus *Isa*, usually "Jesus son of Mary," and gives him titles it gives to no other prophet. - **Virgin birth.** Surah 19:16-35 tells of an angel appearing to Mary, her conceiving a son without any man having touched her, giving birth beneath a palm tree, and the infant Jesus speaking from the cradle to defend her. The same surah closes the account by saying it is not fitting for God to take a son (Surah 19:35). Surah 3:45-47 gives a parallel annunciation. - **Messiah.** The Quran repeatedly calls Jesus *al-Masih*, the Messiah, though it does not explain the title in the Jewish or Christian sense of the anointed king who saves. - **Word and Spirit.** Surah 4:171 calls the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, a messenger of God and His word which He conveyed to Mary, and a spirit from Him. The same verse tells the People of the Book not to say "Three." Muslim interpreters read "word" as the creative command "Be," by which Jesus was conceived (compare Surah 3:59, which likens Jesus to Adam). See [Kalimatullah](/codex/kalimatullah/). - **Miracles.** Surah 3:49 and Surah 5:110 credit Jesus with healing the blind and the leper, raising the dead by God's permission, and breathing life into birds shaped from clay. - **Denial of the crucifixion.** Surah 4:157-158 says the Jews did not kill Jesus and did not crucify him, but it was made to appear so to them, and that God raised him up to Himself. Most Muslim interpreters hold that Jesus did not die on the cross, though they differ on how the appearance was produced, and many hold that another man was made to look like him. See [Crucifixion Denial in Islam](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam/). - **Denial of divine sonship.** Surah 112, four short verses, says that God is One, the Eternal, that He neither begets nor is begotten, and that there is none comparable to Him. Surah 5:116 pictures God asking Jesus whether he told people to take him and his mother as two gods besides God, and Jesus denying it. Surah 5:72-73 calls unbelievers those who say God is the Messiah, or that God is the third of three. - **Return.** Surah 43:61 is commonly read as referring to Jesus as a sign of the Hour, and the Hadith develop a fuller teaching that he will return before the end. Muslims honor Jesus as one of the greatest prophets and regard the Quran's account as the true picture of him, restored after Christians exalted him beyond what he was. ## What the Quran says about the Bible - **Earlier books named.** The Quran speaks of the Tawrat (Torah) given to Moses, the Zabur (often identified with the Psalms) given to David, and the Injil (Gospel) given to Jesus, and calls these revelations light and guidance (Surah 5:44-46). - **The People of the Gospel are to judge by it.** Surah 5:47 tells the people of the Gospel to judge by what God has revealed in it. Surah 5:68 tells the People of the Book that they have nothing to stand on until they uphold the Torah, the Gospel, and what was revealed to them from their Lord. - **Ask those who read the scripture.** Surah 10:94 tells the one in doubt about what has been revealed to ask those who were reading the scripture before it came. - **Charges of distortion.** Other passages accuse some Jews of twisting words from their places or of writing a book with their own hands and calling it from God (for example Surah 2:75-79, Surah 4:46, Surah 5:13). The common Muslim position today is that the Bible as we have it has been textually corrupted, so that the Torah and Injil the Quran praises are not identical with the present Old and New Testaments. Classical Muslim writers did not all agree: some argued that the corruption was of interpretation rather than of the text. See [Tahrif](/codex/tahrif/). Christians answer that the Quran's own commands presuppose that the scriptures in Christian hands in the seventh century were reliable, and that those scriptures survive in manuscripts older than Muhammad. That is the [Islamic Dilemma](/codex/islamic-dilemma/). ## Abrogation Muslim scholarship holds that some Quranic rulings were replaced by later ones, a doctrine called *naskh*. It rests on Surah 2:106, which says that whatever verse God abrogates or causes to be forgotten, He brings one better or like it, and on Surah 16:101, which speaks of one verse being put in place of another. - **Classical categories.** Classical jurists distinguished verses whose ruling was replaced while the wording remains in the text, verses whose wording was removed while the ruling remains, and verses where both were removed. - **A standard example.** The Quran's teaching on wine moves from a mixed verdict (Surah 2:219), to a ban on praying while intoxicated (Surah 4:43), to a full prohibition (Surah 5:90). Many scholars read this as progressive legislation. - **Disagreement on scope.** Medieval lists of abrogated verses ran long; some later scholars reduced them to a handful; some modern Muslims deny that any verse of the Quran abrogates another. Muslims see abrogation as God's wise and gradual guidance of a community. Christians press its implications for an eternal, uncreated text and for which verses govern on contested questions such as warfare. See [Quran Abrogation Naskh Problem](/codex/quran-abrogation-naskh-problem/). ## The inimitability claim The Quran challenges its doubters to produce a surah like it (Surah 2:23), and in other places ten surahs (Surah 11:13) or a whole book like it (Surah 17:88), and says they will not be able to. From these verses Muslim theology developed the doctrine of *i'jaz*, the miraculous inimitability of the Quran. - **The Muslim argument.** Muslims point to the Quran's eloquence, its distinctive form (neither poetry nor ordinary prose), its emotional power when recited, and the tradition that Muhammad could not read or write (often linked to the description of him as *al-ummi* in Surah 7:157). On this view the Quran is Muhammad's central miracle, a standing sign anyone can test. - **Variety within Islam.** Muslim scholars have explained the inimitability in different ways. Most located it in the text itself; the Mu'tazili thinker al-Nazzam is reported to have held instead that God prevented people from producing its equal (the doctrine of *sarfa*). ## The Christian assessment What follows is the Christian evaluation. It is offered after the Muslim account above so that the two can be compared fairly. 1. **The Quran contradicts the earlier revelation it claims to confirm.** It denies that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on the cross. Those are not side issues in the New Testament; they are the gospel. A later book cannot confirm the earlier scriptures while denying what they most centrally teach. Paul set the standard before the Quran existed: > But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. ([Galatians 1:8](/codex/galatians-1-8/), ASV) The Quran by its own account came through an angel. See [Islam vs the Christian God](/codex/islam-vs-the-christian-god/). 2. **The crucifixion denial fails as history.** The death of Jesus by crucifixion is attested by every strand of the New Testament and by non-Christian writers such as Tacitus and Josephus. Surah 4:157 was given about six centuries after the event and offers no evidence for its alternative. See [Crucifixion Denial in Islam](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam/) and [Crucifixion Denial in Islam Objection Defeater](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam-objection-defeater/). 3. **The Islamic Dilemma.** The Quran tells Christians to judge by the Gospel they possess (Surah 5:47) and tells the doubter to consult those who read the earlier scripture (Surah 10:94). The New Testament manuscripts of the seventh century, and many far older, match the New Testament Christians read today. If those scriptures were reliable in Muhammad's day, they are reliable now, and they contradict the Quran; if they were already corrupt, the Quran's commands to consult them make no sense. See [Islamic Dilemma](/codex/islamic-dilemma/) and [Tahrif](/codex/tahrif/). 4. **Preservation is claimed, not demonstrated.** Uthman's standardization and the burning of rival copies, the hadith reports of lost verses, the Sana'a lower text, and the multiple canonical readings all show a more complex history than the doctrine of perfect preservation allows. This does not make the Quran a poorly attested text. It means the Muslim claim of a uniquely flawless transmission, often set against the Bible, does not match the evidence. See [Quranic Corruption and Preservation](/codex/quranic-corruption-and-preservation/) and [Quran Preservation and Lost Verses Objection Defeater](/codex/quran-preservation-and-lost-verses-objection-defeater/). 5. **Inimitability is not a test of truth.** The challenge of Surah 2:23 names no agreed standard of judgment, and the community that judges whether any rival succeeds is the community committed to the answer. Great works in every language are inimitable in the sense that no one else could have written them. Literary excellence, even of the highest order, does not establish that the content is true or from God. Scripture's own test of a prophet is whether his word comes true and whether he speaks in line with the revelation already given. [Deuteronomy 18:22](/codex/deuteronomy-18-22/) says of a prophet who speaks in God's name, "if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken" (ASV). See [Falsifiability Across Worldviews](/codex/falsifiability-across-worldviews/). 6. **The Quran's own Christology presses beyond its denials.** A virgin-born Messiah, sinless, called the Word of God and a Spirit from Him, who gives life to the dead and will return, is a figure the Quran does not explain on a merely human reading. Christian apologists argue that these titles fit the Jesus of the New Testament far better than the purely prophetic Jesus of later Islamic theology. See [Kalimatullah](/codex/kalimatullah/), [Quran Confirms Jesus is God Argument](/codex/quran-confirms-jesus-is-god-argument/) and [Quran Confirms the Trinity Argument](/codex/quran-confirms-the-trinity-argument/). 7. **The Trinity it rejects is not the Trinity Christians confess.** Surah 5:116 pictures Jesus and his mother taken as two gods besides God, and Surah 5:73 condemns saying God is the third of three. No Christian creed teaches either. The denial may be sincere, but it does not engage the doctrine of one God in three persons. See [Muslim Objections to the Divinity of Christ](/codex/muslim-objections-to-the-divinity-of-christ/). The wider Christian case to Muslims, including its methodology and house style, is set out at [The Muslim Defense](/codex/the-muslim-defense/). ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - Seyyed Hossein Nasr et al., *The study Quran* (2015). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20018527W) ## See also - [Islam](/codex/islam/), the religion the Quran grounds, its history, beliefs and practice - [The Muslim Defense](/codex/the-muslim-defense/), the master frame for Christian engagement with Islam - [Quranic Corruption and Preservation](/codex/quranic-corruption-and-preservation/), the textual history of the Quran in detail - [Quran Preservation and Lost Verses Objection Defeater](/codex/quran-preservation-and-lost-verses-objection-defeater/), the debate-prep case on lost verses and variants - [Quran Abrogation Naskh Problem](/codex/quran-abrogation-naskh-problem/), abrogation and what it implies for an eternal text - [Tahrif](/codex/tahrif/), the Muslim charge that Jews and Christians corrupted their scriptures - [Islamic Dilemma](/codex/islamic-dilemma/), the Quran's affirmation of the Bible set against the corruption charge - [Crucifixion Denial in Islam](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam/), Surah 4:157 against the historical record - [Kalimatullah](/codex/kalimatullah/), Jesus as Word of God in the Quran - [Quran Confirms Jesus is God Argument](/codex/quran-confirms-jesus-is-god-argument/), the argument from the Quran's own Christology - [Quran Confirms the Trinity Argument](/codex/quran-confirms-the-trinity-argument/), the Word and Spirit titles read in Trinitarian light - [Islam vs the Christian God](/codex/islam-vs-the-christian-god/), the side-by-side comparison of God in each faith - [Muslim Objections to the Divinity of Christ](/codex/muslim-objections-to-the-divinity-of-christ/), the common Muslim objections answered - [Book of Mormon](/codex/book-of-mormon/), another later scripture claiming to restore or complete the earlier revelation - [Falsifiability Across Worldviews](/codex/falsifiability-across-worldviews/), how each faith states the test it can fail ## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is the Quran?** The Quran is the holy book of Islam. Muslims believe it is the literal, uncreated word of God, given to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel in Arabic between about AD 610 and 632. It has 114 chapters called surahs. **Q: How many chapters are in the Quran and how is it arranged?** The Quran has 114 surahs. It opens with the Fatiha, a short prayer recited in every Muslim prayer, and after that the surahs run roughly from longest to shortest rather than in the order they were revealed. Each surah is labelled Meccan or Medinan by where it was revealed. **Q: How was the Quran compiled?** Muslim tradition says the revelations were memorized and written down in pieces during Muhammad's life, gathered onto sheets under the first caliph Abu Bakr, and standardized under the third caliph Uthman around AD 650, who sent official copies to the major cities and had other copies burned. Early manuscripts such as the Birmingham leaves and the Sana'a palimpsest are now central to the debate about that history. See [Quranic Corruption and Preservation](/codex/quranic-corruption-and-preservation/). **Q: What does the Quran say about Jesus?** It affirms that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, calls him the Messiah, a word from God and a spirit from Him, and credits him with miracles. It also denies that he is the Son of God (Surah 112, Surah 5:116) and denies that he was crucified (Surah 4:157). See [Kalimatullah](/codex/kalimatullah/) and [Crucifixion Denial in Islam](/codex/crucifixion-denial-in-islam/). **Q: Does the Quran say the Bible is corrupted?** The Quran praises the Torah and the Gospel as revelation from God, tells Christians to judge by the Gospel (Surah 5:47), and tells the doubter to ask those who read the earlier scripture (Surah 10:94). It also accuses some people of twisting words. Most Muslims today hold that the Bible's text has been corrupted, which creates the problem Christians call the [Islamic Dilemma](/codex/islamic-dilemma/). **Q: What is the Quran's challenge to produce a surah like it?** Surah 2:23 challenges doubters to produce a single surah like the Quran, and Muslims treat its inimitability as Muhammad's greatest miracle. Christians answer that literary excellence, however great, does not show that a book's content is true or from God, and that the challenge names no agreed standard of judgment. **Q: Is the Quran the word of God according to Christians?** No. Christians hold that the Quran contradicts the earlier revelation it claims to confirm, especially on the deity of Christ and his death on the cross, and that [Galatians 1:8](/codex/galatians-1-8/) rules out any later message, even from an angel, that preaches a different gospel. See [Islam vs the Christian God](/codex/islam-vs-the-christian-god/).