The authoritative scriptures of Islam. It is, properly, pronouced 'qur-'an,' (instead of 'ko-ran') from a Semitic verb meaning to 'read' or 'recite.'
The Quran is composed of 114 Suras (think of it as a chapter), identified either by a name and/or its order (e.g., Sura Nasr or Sura 110). Each Sura is divided into Ayat (verses). Some of the Sura have as few as three verses (e.g., Nasr). The Suras are generally arranged in decreasing order of length, and time, with the later Suras at the beginning of the Quran.
It should also be noted that the Quran cannot be fully understood without the Hadith, the collections of the sayings of Muhammad. Fazlur Rahman says in his book, Islam (2nd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, p.66; emphasis his.):
. . . if the Hadith as a whole is cast away, the basis for the historicity of the Qur'an is removed at one stroke.
Muhammad began getting his 'revelation' and preaching in 609. His 'revelations' were written down by his followers on the bones of animals, leather, leaves, palm branches and stones (many, of course, also memorized chunks of it). While Muslims like to claim that they—unlike Christianity, with their mulitple gospels—had, from the beginning, only one copy of the Qur'an, this is a myth. The idea of compiling a single copy of the Qur'an came the year after Muhammad's death, when Zaid ibn Thabit, on the order of Caliph Abu Bakar, made the first collection of sayings. When the Muslam armies spread out across the Fertile Crescent in conquest, quarrels started breaking out, with different groups accusing the others of being infidels because their version of the Qur'an read differently. It was then that Caliph Othman decided to act, and "commanded regarding everything of the Qur'an besides it, in every sheet and volume, that it should be burned" (Tabari's Commentary. These 'variant' copies included some of the first authentic records of Muhammad's original saying.
Further Reading & Resources:
☰ Ali Yusuf, The Nobel Qur'an. Ali Yusuf's translation is one of the most widely cited.
☰ William Campbell, William Campbell Answeres Maurice Bucaille on the Trustworthiness of the Bible. No publishing details. See esp., Sections 2 & 3, pp.31-158.
☰ Adam Dodds, "The Abraham faiths? Continuity and discontunuity in Christian and Islamic doctrine," Evangelical Quarterly 81.3 (July 2009): 230-253.
☰ Ida Glaser, "Towards a Mutual Understanding of Christian and Islamic Concepts of Revelation," Themelios 7.3 (1982): 16-22.
☰ Edward Malcolm, "Understanding Islam: Relating the Qur'an to Tradition," Churchman 117.2 (Summer 2003): 117-132.
Chronology:
(H represents the Muslim calendar that dates events from the Hijra, Muhammad's flight from Mecca.)
609 (-13H) - Muhammad's preaching of the first verses of the Qur'an.
622 (0H) - Muhammad's flight from Mecca; about two-thirds of the Quran already given.
632 (10H) - Muhammad dies; last of the Quranic 'revelation.'
632-4 (10-12H) - Abu Bakr orders the first copy of the Qur'an to be compiled.
647-652 (25-30H) - Conquest of Armenia; Othman's official copy of the Qur'an made and distributed. All earlier copies were ordered burned.
770 - One of the earliest extant copies of the Qur'an; now in the British Museum.
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