What is the Holy Quran? And what does it contain?

The Holy Quran is the Holy Book or the Scripture of the Muslims. It lays down for them the law and commandments, codes for their social and moral behaviour, and contains a comprehensive religious philosophy. The language of the Quran is Arabic. It is a compilation of the verbal revelations given to the Holy Prophet Muhammad^(sa) over a period of twenty three years.

The Holy Quran is divided into 114 Chapters and each Chapter consists of individual verses. The Chapters (called Surah in Arabic) are of varying lengths, some consisting of a few lines while others run for many pages. The text of the Holy Quran has remained unchanged over the past 1500 years. The millions of copies of the Quran circulating in the world today are all identical down to a single letter. And this is not strange since God says in the Holy Quran that He Himself will guard this book:

“Surely it is We Who have revealed the Exposition, and surely it is We Who are its guardians” (15:10)

To the Muslims, the Quran is the Word of God and contains complete guidance for mankind. Much of the Quran is about God, His attributes and man’s relationship to Him. But it also contains directives for its followers, historical accounts of certain prophets and peoples, arguments for accepting Muhammad as a genuine Prophet and good news for the believers and warnings for the disbelievers.