Islam [antikvár]

THE OPENINGIn the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds, The Merciful One, the Compassionate One, Master of the Day of Doom.Thee alone we serve, to Thee alone we cry for help.Guide us in the straight pathThe path of them Thou hast blessed.Not of those with whom Thou art angryNor of those who go astray.The Fattiha, the "Lord's Prayer" of Islam, is the opening sura of the Qur'an. It is recited for each new beginning.CHAPTER ONEThe Qur'an: The Word of GodThe departure point of the Islamic religion, the central article of faith from which all else flows, may be stated as follows: God (the only God there is: al-lldh, Allah in Arabic; El, Elohim, Jahweh in Hebrew; Khudd or Yazddn in Persian, Tanri in Turkish, 6 Geoc; in Greek, Deus in Latin, God in plain English) has spoken to man in the Qur'an.This divine communication is seen as the final stage in a long series of divine communications conducted through the prophets. It began with Adam, the first man, who was also the first prophet, because he was the first to whom God revealed Himself.After Adam, God continued to address men through prophets, to warn them that their happiness lay in worshiping Him and submitting themselves to Him, and to tell them of the terrible consequences of disobedience. In each case, however, the message was changed and deformed by perverse men. Finally, in His mercy, God sent down His final revelation through the seal of His prophets, Muhammad, in a definitive form which would not be lost.The Qur'an, then, is the Word of God, for Muslims. While controversies have raged among them as to the sense in which this is true^whether it is the created or uncreated Word, whether it is true of every Arabic letter or only of the message as a whole, that it is true has never been questioned by them.15