Exploring Muhammad and the Quran

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Recommended: The origins of the quran essay

Buddha once said, “Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” He understood the need that men have for belief in a higher power. This belief transcends all religions and beliefs across the earth. With religion comes a sacred text provided through the words of a prophet. The problem we run into with these texts is that they have the potential to be flawed by historical revision. Every form of religious text can have this problem, including the Quran. This would be a concept difficult to understand for many Muslim’s today who belief the current text is the exact recitation of the prophet Mohammad. To understand the historical context of Mohammad and the Quran we will follow the timeline of how Mohammad became the man to share this sacred scripture, and how the current form of the Quran came to be. In doing so, opinions can be developed about whether the current form of the Quran could possibly be exactly what Mohammad said.

The exact details surrounding the birth of Mohammad are open to debate, even today. Scholars have stated that he was born in 570, while others have said they the correct year would be around 552. Aslan talks about this at great deal in his book “No God but God” in which he explains that this time and society were not big on using years to determine events. It was not until after Muhammad’s death they attempted to put a date to his birth (Aslan, 2011). They closest event that corresponded to his birth would be what they referred to as “The year of the Elephant.” The story behind such event involves the ruler of Yemen, who brought an army of elephants to destroy the Ka’ba in hopes of building a holy structure in his home. The people of Mecca ran in fear, and just as t...

... middle of paper ...

...story of Muhammad’s live through the development of the Quran, and looked at the possibility of it being exact recitation of Muhammad himself.

References

Aslan, R. (2011). No God but God. New York: Rand House.

Brown, D. (2009). A New Introduction to Islam. New York: Blackwell Publishing.

Gordon, M. (2009). Islam. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.

History of Muhammad and the Quran. (2014, March 1). Retrieved from Answering Islam: http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Fisher/Topical/ch01.htm

Mattson, I. (2007). The Story of the Quran. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Miracle of the Quran. (2014, March 1). Retrieved from The Wisdom Fund: http://www.twf.org/Library/Miracle.html

Sa-id, L. (1975). The Recited Koran. Ann Arbor: Darwin Press.

The Origin of the Quran. (2014, March 1). Retrieved from Why Islam: http://www.whyislam.org/the-origin-of-the-quran/#

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