A Quran photographed in a mosque (2012). Credit: RNS photo by Sally Morrow
Posted on 08/21/2012 11:38:08 AM PDT by NYer
(RNS) This year during Ramadan — the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad — I was in solidarity with my Muslim sisters and brothers throughout the world by reading the Quran. But here's the thing: I am a Roman Catholic.
My copy of the Quran, with more than 1,700 pages, has sat on the top shelf of my bedroom bookcase among other sacred texts for 14 years. Typically I would use it as a sporadic reference and resource to better understanding Islam, reading a few short passages at a time.
A Quran photographed in a mosque (2012). Credit: RNS photo by Sally Morrow
However, this Ramadan something at the core of my being was calling me to read the Quran in its entirety. And so my monthlong Ramadan journey began.
Each day and evening, the prayerful poetry in the Quran held me in a meditative mode of peace as I read without being aware of the passage of time.
When I finished reading a week before the end of the month, I felt as if the Quran was almost endless, reaching beyond the confines of my calendar days. I didn’t want to read the last page. I didn’t want to be finished.
The Quran inspired me, taught me and helped me to remember my essential holiness and how that holiness in the image of God should be reflected in the world.
As Ramadan comes to a close this weekend (Aug. 18-19) with Eid al-Fitr, I find myself focusing on the blessings I have been given through the grace of God while reading the Quran.
The Quran encouraged me to continuously be aware of a gracious and merciful God who cherishes humanity and cherishes all of creation. I came to believe more firmly during my humble Ramadan experience that being cherished by God is an example of divine love beyond the limitations of any one language, symbol and imagination.
Certainly this has implications for how we treat each other and care for the world.
Many chapters, or surahs, in the Quran had me reflecting on the diversity and opposite realities in nature (night/day, male/female, darkness/light, beginning/ending, life/death) and reaffirming that God is found in both. This insight into sacred polarity is a perfect teaching paradigm for respectful interreligious dialogue, which is never about win/lose, right/wrong profiling and divisiveness.
Among my greatest lessons from the Quran was to be reminded to have faith, seek the truth, praise God, pray, forgive, be kind, be peaceful and take care of people who are most vulnerable — those who are oppressed and often forgotten.
Perhaps the commentary found in the conclusion of my Quran says it best:
“What can we do to make Allah’s light shine forth through the darkness around us? We must first let it shine in our own selves. With the light in the niche of our inmost hearts we can walk with steps both firm and sure: We can humbly visit the comfortless and guide their steps. Not we but the light will guide. But oh the joy of being found worthy to bear the torch and to say to our brethren: I too was in darkness, comfortless, and behold, I have found comfort and joy in the grace divine."
After reading the Quran during Ramadan, I am again convinced that there are more commonalities between and among religions than there are differences that isolate and divide.
So of course moslems are his brothers and sisters but Fundamentalist Protestants are either comic caricatures or malevolent foes . . . no sir, no "brothers and sisters" in the trailer park.
Hmm. I note the remark that moslems believe the qur'an was "revealed" during the month of ramadan. Where's that scornful scriptural modernism with which Catholics so like to pour on "their own" bible? Apparently there was no J, E, P, or D involved in this little endeavor.
Orthodox Jews believe that the Torah as it exists now was wholly revealed by G-d to Moses. I expect a Catholic bishop to say this next year for Shavu`ot.
My apologies for assuming the author of the piece was a bishop.
Has anyone checked yet whether this latter-day Rachel Corrie (pbuh - pancake be upon her) is wearing an explosive vest?
Praying for this diocese and the replacement of the bishop who would allow such folly.
“”Praying for this diocese “”
Thank you,dear sister!I am in this Diocese like NYER , but I can tell you that we have some marvelous priests who tow the line even with their frustration of the Bishop.
We have many good priests who are stronger because of Hubbard, which shows our Lord works in many ways despite those who have a liberalized view of the Catholic Faith.
All I needed to know I learned on 9/11.
Satan’s words do have some value, as long as you know them for what they are.
Here’s what I learned.
Mohammed is a pervert and questioned his own sanity. He heard voices in hi head and was unsure where they came from.
Before Christians and Jews rejected his ideas for blending all three religions together his writings were favorable to them. After being rejected his writings became incredibly hostile to them advocating their deaths and 2nd class’citizenship and tribute to be paid.
Muslims can lie if it helps further muslim causes. Al-taqiyaa.
The Muslim 12th imam is the mirror image of the Bible’s description of the anti (substitute) christ. As in THE Antichrist.
Islam is the religious equivalent of the Hotel California. Nothing like a religion you can’t leave without possibly being killed for it.
Islam seems to have two central obsessions: Sexual perversion and killing. I tell people all the time to contrast the life of Mohammed and that of Jesus Christ. Even the most unfamiliar with the former know damn well there is no comparison with the latter. Try it sometime with someone talking about ‘’tolerance’’ and ‘’the religion of peace’’. If you ever do I’d be interested to know how it went. Keep in touch FRiend.
That can only be Abdullah Yusuf Ali's version. It has the original text, an English translation, and a lot of commentary, unfortunately all interleaved, which makes it a poor version for devotional reading. The modern editions have also edited (badly) much of Ali's original text.
The translation alone is about 40% of the whole. So she read 20 to 25 pages a day throughout the month. Not that hard.
I have read the Holy Quran twice. Once an english translation from the 1800s the second from the http://www.gutenberg.org . Looking in the bookstores at the more recent transltions, it has been altered a great deal to hide the violence the real Qurans contain.
For instance the Sura, “Spoils of War”, which tells how to divide the booty from vanquished infidels has been changed to “Victory” and states that Allah will give great booty to the true believers, never saying from whence it comes.
I have read the Holy Quran twice. Once an english translation from the 1800s the second from the http://www.gutenberg.org . Looking in the bookstores at the more recent transltions, it has been altered a great deal to hide the violence the real Qurans contain.
For instance the Sura, “Spoils of War”, which tells how to divide the booty from vanquished infidels has been changed to “Victory” and states that Allah will give great booty to the true believers, never saying from whence it comes.
I have read the Holy Quran twice. Once an english translation from the 1800s the second from the http://www.gutenberg.org . Looking in the bookstores at the more recent transltions, it has been altered a great deal to hide the violence the real Qurans contain.
For instance the Sura, “Spoils of War”, which tells how to divide the booty from vanquished infidels has been changed to “Victory” and states that Allah will give great booty to the true believers, never saying from whence it comes.
What Catholics can learn from the Koran is that the sola scriptura used by Wahabbis when they read the Koran is what gives them utter justification for massacres in the name of Allah.
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P.S. -- I have read the Koran and it ranks below the MeinKamf in coherency and sense. As pollster and AB point out -- we should all read it to understand the insanity that drives our enemies. Islam is pure evil and reading of its book only confirms that
95% my rear — it has a facade that it is similar to the tenets of Abraham, but that’s just a thin veneer. Only a fool like this author could think it the same.
Don't recall if you were on my list when I posted this article several years ago. It's a fascinating insight into the source books of the Koran and what happened when a German language scholar looked deeper into their sacred book. The title is misleading. I would be interested in your feedback.
The Virgins and the Grapes: the Christian Origins of the Koran
Ditto!
good points and I will do that.
Thank you.
The Koran is filled with a number of Biblical stories distorted -- some deliberate like the replacing of Isaac with Ishmael in the story about Abraham's sacrifice - a clear case of marketing to people who Mo said were the descendents of Ishmael. Others are clearly that of an illiterate man like Mo hearing the Gospel accounts of the birth of Christ and the Apocalypse and mixing them up
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