The Quran

The Quran

[BEGINNER]

The Quran (al-Qur'an, "the Recitation") is Islam's supreme scripture — believed by Muslims to be the literal word of God (Kalam Allah), revealed in Arabic to Prophet Muhammad over 23 years through the angel Jibreel (Gabriel). Its 114 chapters (suras), from the seven verses of the Opening (Al-Fatiha, prayed seventeen times daily) to the short closing chapters of refuge, cover God's oneness, worship, law, stories of the prophets, and the Last Day.

Because the revelation is Arabic, translations — however honoured — are called interpretations: Indian madrasas teach children to recite the Arabic text melodiously (tajwid) before they study its meaning through Urdu, Persian, Malayalam (Mappila commentaries), or Tamil exegesis.

[INTERMEDIATE]

The Quran in India lives in sound and script. Dawn recitation drifts from mosque loudspeakers; Ramadan nights fill with tarawih prayers completing the whole text; calligraphers illuminate verses in Mughal-derived scripts; and South Asia's great Quranic scholarship — from Shah Waliullah Dehlawi's 18th-century Persian translation to Ahmed Raza Khan's Urdu Kanz ul-Iman (1911) to Deoband's commentaries — made the subcontinent a world centre of Quranic learning. The verse most quoted in Indian interfaith settings is 2:256, "There is no compulsion in religion," and 49:13, "We made you nations and tribes that you may know one another."

[SCHOLAR]

Indian Quranic culture includes distinctive institutions: hifz schools producing thousands of memorisers (hafiz) yearly; women's dars study circles; and the annual Ramadan dawras (complete recitations). Academic study in India spans traditional tafsir lineages and modern university departments — with textual history (the Uthmanic codex, manuscript traditions) taught alongside theology.