The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God (Allāh). It is organized in 114 chapters which consist of individual verses. Besides its religious significance, it is widely regarded as the finest work in Arabic literature, and has significantly influenced the Arabic language. It is the object of a modern field of academic research known as Quranic studies.
Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. Warraq is the vice-president of the World Encounter Institute.
John Edward Wansbrough was an American historian of Islamic origins and Quranic studies and professor who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was vice chancellor from 1985 to 1992.
Magog is the second of the seven sons of Japheth mentioned in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.
The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn is mentioned in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran. It has long been recognised in modern scholarship that the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn has strong similarities with the Syriac Legend of Alexander the Great. According to this legend, Alexander travelled to the ends of the world then built a wall in the Caucasus Mountains to keep Gog and Magog out of civilized lands.
Al-Kahf is the 18th chapter (sūrah) of the Qur'an with 110 verses (āyāt). Regarding the timing and contextual background of the revelation, it is an earlier Meccan surah, which means it was revealed before Muhammad's hijrah to Medina, instead of after.
Al-Khidr is a figure not mentioned by name in the Quran. He is described in Surah Al-Kahf, as a righteous servant of God possessing great wisdom or mystic knowledge. In various Islamic and non-Islamic traditions, Khidr is described as an angel, prophet, or wali, who guards the sea, teaches secret knowledge and aids those in distress. He prominently figures as patron of the Islamic saint ibn Arabi. The figure of al-Khidr has been syncretized over time with various other figures including Dūraoša and Sorūsh in Iran, Sargis the General and Saint George in Asia Minor and the Levant, Samael in Judaism, Elijah among the Druze, John the Baptist in Armenia, and Jhulelal in Sindh and Punjab in South Asia. He is commemorated on the holiday of Hıdırellez.
Dhu al-Qarnayn, appears in the Qur'an, Surah al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101, as one who travels to the east and west and sets up a barrier between a certain people and Gog and Magog. Elsewhere, the Qur'an tells how the end of the world will be signaled by the release of Gog and Magog from behind the barrier. Other apocalyptic writings predict that their destruction by God in a single night will usher in the Day of Resurrection.
Gerd Rüdiger Puin is a German scholar of Oriental studies, specializing in Quranic palaeography, Arabic calligraphy and orthography. He was a lecturer of Arabic language and literature at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. In regards to his approach of historical research, Puin is considered a representative of the "Saarbrücken School", which is part of the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.
The history of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is the timeline ranging from the inception of the Quran during the lifetime of Muhammad, to the emergence, transmission, and canonization of its written copies. The history of the Quran is a major focus in the field of Quranic studies.
The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: A Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran is an English-language edition (2007) of Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache (2000) by Christoph Luxenberg.
The biblical account of the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus (ʿĪsā) recorded in the Christian New Testament is traditionally rejected by the major branches of Islam, but like Christians they believe that Jesus ascended to heaven and he will, according to Islamic literary sources, return before the end of time. The various sects of Islam have different views regarding this topic; traditionally, mainstream Muslims believe that Jesus was not crucified but was bodily raised up to heaven by God, while Ahmadi Muslims reject this belief and instead contend that Jesus survived the crucifixion, was taken off the cross alive and continued to preach in India until his natural death.
The Quran is viewed to be the scriptural foundation of Islam and is believed by Muslims to have been sent down by God and revealed to Muhammad by the angel Jabreel (Gabriel). The Quran has been subject to criticism both in the sense of being the subject of an interdisciplinary field of study where secular, (mostly) Western scholars set aside doctrines of its divinity, perfection, unchangeability, etc. accepted by Muslim Islamic scholars; but also in the sense of being found fault with by those — including Christian missionaries and other skeptics hoping to convert Muslims — who argue it is not divine, not perfect, and/or not particularly morally elevated.
Günter Lüling was a German Protestant theologian, philological scholar and pioneer in the study of early Islamic origins. From 1962 to 1965 he was the Director of the German Goethe-Institut in Aleppo, Syria.
The Ahmadiyya branch in Islam has relationships with a number of other religions. Ahmadiyya consider themselves to be Muslim, but are not regarded as Muslim by mainstream Islam. Mainstream Muslim branches refer to the Ahmadiyya branch by the religious slur Qadiani, and to their beliefs as Qadianism a name based on Qadian, the small town in India's Punjab region where the founder of Ahmadiyya, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was born.
The revisionist school of Islamic studies is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins.
The Syriac Alexander Legend, is a Syriac legendary account of the exploits of Alexander the Great composed in the sixth or seventh century. For the first time in this text, the motifs of Gates of Alexander, an apocalyptic incursion, and the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog are fused into a single narrative. The Legend would go on to influence Syriac literature about Alexander, like in the Song of Alexander. It would also exert a strong influence on subsequent apocalyptic literature, like the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius composed in the late seventh century. In Quranic studies, the representation of Alexander in the Legend is also seen as closely related to the Quranic figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn.
Quranic studies is the academic application of a diverse set of disciplines to study the Quran, drawing on methods including but not limited to ancient history, philology, textual criticism, lexicography, codicology, literary criticism, comparative religion, and historical criticism.
Alexander the Great was a king of ancient Greece and Macedon who forged one of the largest empires in world history. Soon after his death, a body of legend began to accumulate about his life and exploits. With the Greek Alexander Romance and its translation into numerous languages including Armenian, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, and more, an entire genre of literature was dedicated to the exploits of Alexander in both Christian and Muslim realms. Alexander was also the one most frequently identified with Dhu al-Qarnayn, a figure that appears in Surah Al-Kahf in the Quran, the holy text of Islam, which greatly expanded the attention paid to him in the traditions of the Muslim world.
