The Living Miracle

From the beginning of time Allah has sent his prophets and messengers, from Adam to Muhammad. Each prophet brought with him the laws of Allah and the highest standard of moral excellence, with their legacies preserved by each following prophet who reinforced the commandments of Allah. This chain eventually ended with the coming of Muhammad, the last and seal of all prophets. Sent as a Messenger for all of mankind, he was sent with a universal message which would be preserved for all times within the Holy Quran.

While the word of God is said to be preserved in the pages of the Tanakh (the Jewish Scriptures) or within the Bible (Christian scriptures), history has shown these efforts have been forced to travel a long and winding road. Without further discourse into why we do not follow these books, I would like to take the time to make mention of the number of books within them. The Tanakh contains 39 books, The Old Testament in Protestant Bibles contains 39 books as well, however Catholic Bibles contains seven more books than are found in the Protestant Bible or the Tanakh (46 compared to 39, respectively). These seven books are called Apocrypha and Catholics know them as the Deuterocanonical books. These seven books are: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (or, Sirach), and Baruch. Also, Catholic Bibles contain an additional six chapters (107 verses) in the book of Esther and another three in the book of Daniel (174 verses). These books and chapters were found in Bible manuscripts in Greek only, and were not part of the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament.

It is now time not to delve further into why we do not follow the Tanakh or Bible, but instead, why we do follow the Holy Quran. It has been said that the whole of the Quran has a perfect fluency, a superb clarity and soundness, a firm coherence, and a well-established harmony and proportion, and a strong mutual support and interrelation amongst its sentences and their parts, and an elevated correspondence amongst its verses and their purposes. The text of the Holy Quran has remained unchanged over the past 1400 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:

“Verily: It is We Who have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Qur'ân) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption).” Noble Quran 15:9

This is the honor bestowed upon mankind, a perfect revelation, preserved for all times. The Quran is divided into 114 Surahs or Chapters and each Chapter consists of individual Ayaat or verses. There are in total 6,348 verses in the Holy Quran. These numbers remain unchanged regardless of time or place. Allah even challenges those who disbelieve to disprove the Quran, while assuring them they will never be able to.

“And if you are in doubt concerning that which We have sent down to Our slave (Muhammad Peace be upon him), then produce a Sûrah of the like thereof and call your witnesses besides Allâh, if you are truthful. But if you do it not, and you can never do it, then fear the Fire whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.” Noble Quran 2:23-24

"If the mankind and the jinns were together to produce the like of this Qur'ân, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they helped one another." Noble Quran 17:88

The glory of the Quran could fill an infinite number of pages, so I will conclude with this reminder, the reason behind this article. All of mankind should appreciate the beauty of it, but it is we the Muslim Ummah that should be grateful to Allah, for all of his mercy, his greatest mercy was the Holy Quran, miracle of miracles, the living miracle, a mercy that lives through time, and offers hope, inspiration and the path to eternal salvation to all. Embrace it, make it part of us, for we can not have a better part of us, then that which worships, and obeys Allah.