Religion

I recently finished, after a year, reading the Qu'ran, the holy text of Islam. Due to the sensitive nature of the subject in hand, I decided not to write a review on Goodreads.com, but will do so nonetheless on this relatively obscure corner of my internet output. The Qu'ran is vastly different from the Bible, being a series of revelations to a Prophet, transmitted through the Angel Gabriel from God. The Bible is a collection of scripts, which were written by many different hands, in different languages at different times, over a period of four to five thousand years.

The translation I read served to make the book accessible to me, also highlighting the many areas that Christianity and Islam have in common. However, there are also one or two statements that render the two religions incompatible. Islam states that God does not have a son - although it does acknowledge Jesus as a prophet (note lowercase). The Holy Trinity is a cornerstone of Christianity, I need not remind you. However, the Qu'ran also says, through the Prophet, that "God gave man the Torah, and he did not listen. God gave man the Gospel, and he did not listen. God gave man the Qu'ran, and he did not listen". In other words, in my opinion, Islam is the younger brother of Christianity, and a very vocal one at that.

I am profoundly saddened that, like Christianity, Islam has been hijacked for political ends, and used as justification for mass murder. I do not read or understand Arabic, but appreciate and acknowledge the  vast cultural heritage that the Arabian peninsula has to offer - do not forget that it was Arab scholars that invented the concept of the zero, without which we would not have the computers we are all working on today.

I shall reread the Qu'ran in the future, because it is a huge work with a huge impact that you cannot appreciate from just one reading. I shall also reread the Bible, in order to reacquaint myself with the Scriptures from that Book.