I thought the Koran is ordered by the size of the books, not a timeline.
“I thought the Koran is ordered by the size of the books, not a timeline.”
No not by size, but by when various suras were dictated to Mohammad.
Gabriel gave Mohammad the First Given Half in 610 AD, while Mohammad was in Mecca; this part only attracted 150 or so followers and the part mostly focused on being nice to others; this part is believed to have been mostly plagiarized from the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah. Following threats he was forced to flee to Medina.
The Second given Half is often associated with having been given by Jinn; this part is the part that ISIS, AQ and others follow; this part was said by Mohammad to be the Last Words of allah and therefore superseded the previous suras given by Gabriel; this part gained Mohammad thousands of followers who began the conquest and utter destruction of the vast grain and animal herds of North Africa and eventually of Classical Christianity and of Classical Western Civilization (a feat ISIS hopes to replicate).
Further, reading the suras alone does not tell the reader what they meant in context of Mohammad’s life, nor what he said about the suras or how he answered his disciples’ questions about the suras; this is why to understand the import and value of the suras the other books must be read and, preferably, memorized.
Lately some very old koranic text has been found which may predate the birth of Mohammad - this and other bits and pieces are beginning to point top a pee-Mohammad existence of Islam. However, it is common practice and law in Saudi to destroy all religious items of whatever nature that predate Mohammad, making any real record very difficult to discover.