About this Book

The Koran is the sacred scripture of Islam, a collection of revelations given by God to Mohammed, the Prophet. Shortly after his death, Mohammed's followers published his suras (verse chapters) as the Koran (Scripture Lesson). Deeply moralistic, full of passion and fervor, the suras deal with such topics as the omniscience and majesty of God, death and judgment, the proper conduct of the faithful, stories of previous prophets, kindness to orphans, and much more. The selections in the present volume were carefully chosen to give a cross-section of the whole and to illustrate Mohammed's teaching as it developed from the rhapsodic style of his early Meccan period to the workaday legislative material of the Medinan period. This excellent English translation drops the original verse form for highly readable prose.