The Right Path and Right Responsibilities

The Quran
Islam , the religion of Muslims (), is a global religion
with believers from all over the worldin Muslim-majority countries such as Egypt
(North Africa), Saudi Arabia, Iraq (West Asia), Pakistan (Central Asia) and Indonesia
(South-east Asia), and among the minority Muslim populations in places such as
France and China (including Hong Kong). According to a demographic study by the
Pew Research Center (an American think tank and public opinion research
organization), by 2009, there were 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, nearly one
quarter of the humankind. In modern times, Islam-related themes, such as
modernization and conservatism in Islam, and Islamic finance and political turmoil in
the Muslim-majority states, have come to occupy pages in the international news and
academic studies. Islam is so relevant and so close to us, but how much do we know
about it? How much do we know about the Quran, the core and the Holy Book of the
religion?
Islam originated in the 7th century CE in the city of Mecca , located in presentday Saudi Arabia. According to the Islamic tradition, Muhammad (570632 CE), who
was born in Mecca, began to receive revelations at the age of 40 and became the
messenger of Allah ( , ), the God of Islam. Muslims believe that Allahi.e.,
the Godsent down the same religious faith to earlier prophets such as Abraham,
Moses and Jesus (2:135-136), but the Jews and the Christians perverted (2:75) its
message afterwards. Therefore, the mission of Muhammad, Gods final prophet, was
to show the right path to the true or original faith in Allah. After experiencing difficult
times in his missionary work, including periods of rejection, persecution and fights
against enemies, Muhammad finally revitalized this faith in the one god, and it is
called Islam . Moreover, in the context of polytheism in Mecca, his mission
could also be seen as an attempt to unify various clans into one single community by
replacing their own family gods with one single God.
The revelation that Muhammad received is what we nowadays call the Quran, and
Muslims around the world read or recite it every day with the highest esteem. The
word quran in Arabic means reading or recitation. For Muslims, the Quran is a
word-for-word record of Allahs speeches to Muhammad. The speeches were recited,
recorded and later collected as a book by Muhammads followers. With a total of 114
chapters, the Quran is divided into chapters of Mecca and Medina; Medina is the
second city where Muhammad received the revelation. For Muslims, the Quran is the

most authoritative, greatest and clearest instructions that Allah has given to the world,
in which Muslims can find guidance and the road to salvation.
The selected reading in the textbook is Sura 2, the Cow . It is the longest in
the Quran. The reasons for the selection are manifold. First, scholars generally agree
that it is the first Medina chapter, which represents the emergence of Islam as a
religious and political community; by studying Sura 2, we can analyze the reason why
this community came to be, and understand the way of its development, its mission to
the world, and expectations placed on its members, i.e., the Muslims. Second, we can
also learn the fundamentals of Islam by reading this Sura since it catches a glimpse of
some basic Islamic beliefs and duties, including what we now call the Six Articles of
Faith and the Five Pillars . Finally, it discusses the social obligations of this
emergent community such as taking up arms for Allah, care of the needy and practices
of divorce. By reading it, we can critically re-examine the image of Muslims that is
portrayed by the media as associated with violence and male superiority, for
example.
The translation of the Quran is taken from The Qur'an: A New Translation (Penguin
Classics). It is a recent publication by Tarif Khalidi, a Muslim professor in Islam
studies, who translated directly from the Arabic scripture.
Andy C. Yu