According to the Islamic religion the Quran was given to the prophet Muhammad by God through the angel Gabriel (of “Gabriel blow your horn” fame).  An interesting thing about Gabriel he is also important to the Christian God and to Jesus as well.  Christian scholars believe that Gabriel, while not an aspiring musician, was an archangel together with Michael and Raphael who went around delivering messages from God as well.  He visited Zacharias, and even Mary, telling them about their child-to-be-thanks-to-God. Not only that, but Gabriel visited Daniel, according to the Jewish religion, to help him make sense of otherwise nonsensical messages being sent from the Man himself.  He also came back to Daniel a second time just to help out in various ways.  So basically, Gabriel was a real important angel to Muhammad, Jesus, and to God.  This may seem a bit contradictory seeing that all three religions claim that the others are not really the “true” religion.  Maybe it was because most people, including Jesus and Muhammad, were a little lax in their education, or a bit quick with their opinions.  But, one is to have faith.

Now, Muhammad was illiterate and this posed a problem as one might imagine.  So, the all important message, given to him by God through the angel Gabriel, had to be written down (as Muhammad dictated) by, well…someone else that was forced to take Muhammad on his word, and have a lot of time on their hands (the Quran is not a short piece of work).  If this sounds familiar to my Christian friends, it should. Jesus was also illiterate and like Muhammad never wrote anything down. His message was dictated in much the same way as Muhammad but not just to one person: to anyone who was listening.  God himself got in on the game as well when he dictated his laws (the Ten Commandments) to Moses (unfortunately no one has ever been able to give us those laws, carved in stone by the finger of God; nor have they been able to give us any evidence of any rock ever being carved by God).  All this is to say that three major religions of the world have their basis in two illiterate prophets that would talk to anyone who would listen and a God that decided to dictate his message on two stones to one man, in private, who evidently came to lose his stones.  But no worries: have faith.

So, after some hundreds of years of verbal “interpretation” of God’s all-important message from illiterate men to others, it was finally collected into an ensemble of books: the Quran, the Bible and a variance of the Bible.  The Quran is a continuation of the bible as the New Testament is a continuance of the Old Testament and at the same time all three religions claim that the others are nonsense. This seems strange given that all are evidently based on the Word of God, the one and only God, the creator of the universe, of moral obligation and justification and the like.  It seems as if God is a bit schizophrenic.  Plus, given the problems of translation and the number of languages that are in the world, the whole interpretive nature of these religions seems problematic.  I believe that the core language of all three is Arabic or some form of it.  I am told, and by what it looks like, Arabic is a complicated language, no vowels for one, and any translation from Arabic is easily lost.  But it is translated.  The Quran has been translated in several languages although all translations are considered simply summations by Muslims: summations based on a summation that was written down as dictated by an illiterate man by an anonymous “someone”.  The bible (all versions), well in short more of the same; some of the biblical languages include but are not limited to: Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, French, and English. None of these languages are known to translate well from one to another, and given the problems of translating Arabic, interpretation becomes even more troublesome.  But that is of no importance, unless, of course, it is the word of God we are talking about. It actually is the Word of God we are talking about, but you know: have faith.

None of the material that has been given to us by God seems to be consistent; it is not about one subject-matter, nor does it seem to be organized in any form or fashion.  It contains all the stuff that we as human beings tend to be interested in, especially illiterate ones: what’s right and wrong, what the nature of human beings are, what the nature of God is…it’s all there, in black and white as it were.  The Jewish bible is divided, although I’m not entirely clear as to how.  The bible can be divided into two sections as can the Quran: The Old and New Testament, and revelations Muhammad had in Mecca and Medina respectively.  The Jews do not accept the New Testament and the Christians try to play off all of the gore and bloodshed of the Old.  Muslims apparently accept both, but not as the entire bible, or simply not the correct interpretation.  But, have faith in the tireless work of religious authority to clear all of this up for all of us.

 The Muslims for their part have put their faith in a man by the name of Uthman ibn Affan, who was considered one of the Four Righteously Guided Caliphs by some. He assembled some scholars on the teachings of God given to an illiterate peasant who dictated those teachings to an anonymous person who then wrote them down.  These “men of intelligence” then created an “official” form of the Quran. This “official” Quran was then distributed over the Arabic empire (somehow) and then they did what all great intelligent men do: they destroyed any other version of the Quran that they could find.  The Catholic Church finally, in all their compassion and altruism, gave the west the “official” bible.  Of course, any persons found with a “non-official” bible on their persons, or any bible for that matter (at least for some time) were summarily killed, especially after it was translated into the language of the peasants so that everyone could read it for themselves rather than rely upon the church to…interpret it.  The Jewish people, however, take a different approach: they continue to argue over interpretation.  It will all work out because God has a plan, a plan that will eventually be deciphered if we just have faith.

This all sounds sensible: God gives the edicts of ethics, the nature of himself and humans etc… to men who were not able to write any of it down, in a language that is infamously difficult to translate.  For these reasons, God has left the interpretation of several contradictory collections written from the most part by anonymous authors, to be interpreted by at least three completely opposing religions and their authorities.  If this makes sense, then you have faith.  If you have the audacity to doubt any of this, then you are a heathen and are headed straight for Hell (a place that is very bad for the complexion).  If you disregard these meanderings through human imagination altogether, then the best thing for everyone concerned is if you are put to death in order to save the souls of the less skeptical; according to some, you are not to be a citizen and in many places are barred from any political position.  The best thing is to not ask questions, go to church when told, and don’t question authority: just believe blindly and don’t ask questions; well, I’m repeating myself: have faith.