The Qur'an

In the Name of Allah, The Most Merciful, The Most Gracious.

As all of us know, Qur'an is the biggest Mu'jizah that Allah revealed to Prophet Muhammad as the guidance for all mankind. As a Muslim, we should thankful to Allah for sending us the best guideline and the accurate map to get the peaceful life as the vicegerent of Allah not only in this world but importantly in the Hereafter..

I am not a Hafizah al-Qur'an, who is memorize the al-Qur'an but I try my best to be the best reader of this Holy Book. Although I have a thousand books, but I will never forget to read The Book which contained The Word of Allah once in a day. If I can't read due to special reason, I will listen to the recitation of al-Qur'an from my laptop at that time. The most important thing, I will never let my soul empty with the light of al-Qur'an.


Actually, I wanna share about the talk that I attended last week at IAIS (International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies Malaysia). The Public Lecture was jointly organised by IAIS Malaysia and Center for Civilisational Dialogue, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. It was delivered by Prof. Dr. Carl W. Ernst (University of North Carolina, USA) on the topic "The Qur'an in the Popular American Imagination".

Some important points can be highlighted from the lecture:

• Most of American unable to differentiate between the Qur'an and the Bible, only some of them can tell some differences about these two Holy Books, but not in a good way.
• Christians assumption about the Qur'an was understood in two manners; Polemical and Apologetic.
• Keith Ellison is the first person who swore using the Qur'an instead of the Bible in the court, year 2007. Further info read HERE.
  
• There were more negative views of American towards the Qur'an compared to the positive one, especially in the context of violence against non-Muslim, sword verses, the command of hostility towards Christians & Jews, and Women issues.
• The translation of the Qur'an among Christianity is trying to refute, go against and blaming the content of the Qur'an.
• 10% of African slaves in America were Muslims. Refer to "Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Differences in Africa" by Edward E. Curtis.
  
• Do not forget that the Muslims' imagination towards the Bible (corruption and nonsense) might be a reason of their bad imagination towards the Qur'an.
• The Qur'an was the most wanted reading after 9/11. Among them were groups to find the truth or to put a blame on Islam.
• The Qur'an is a free subject to be taken in American selected university. Anyone can learn it either Muslim or non-Muslim. Unfortunately, only Muslims can learn the Qur'an in Malaysia.
• There should be another interesting method to learn the Qur'an which should be practiced in Malaysia, perhaps by the use of Multimedia and Arts.
  
• New book of the speaker is "How to Read the Qur'an: A Reader's Guide to the Qur'an as Literature".
  

May Allah bless the speaker and a great sharing from him. May Allah bless all of us who take the Qur'an as the most important book in our life and practice its precious contents.

Wallahu'alam.