|
About a hundred years ago, England had a
powerful Prime Minister. He was a Christian to a high section
of the Anglican Church. His name was Gladstone. One day in the
year 1882, he was speaking in the British Parliament on how to
weaken the power of Muslims in Egypt so that the British could
continue to rule over them.
At one stage he raised a copy of the Holy Qur'an in his hand
and said that so long as this book remained with the Muslims
in that country and they respected and followed it, the
British would never be able to dominate them. He added that
the only solution was to try and separate the Holy Qur'an from
the Muslims of Egypt.
At the end of the speech; a committee was formed to decide
upon ways and means of carrying out Gladstone's
recommendation. The committee resolved to send some experts to
Egypt who would launch a campaign which would weaken the faith
of people and make them suspicious of the truth of the Holy
Qur'an. The aim was to discourage people to refer to the Holy
Book and gradually make them turn against the Islamic way of
life.
In the course of this political and vicious programme, a
learned man by the name of Dunlop was sent to Egypt as a
teacher. He prepared many books containing lessons which were
nothing but propaganda in disguise. One of the lessons on
history was based on showing how Egypt was lagging behind and
was not making progress because of Islam and the Qur'an. It
alleged that people of Egypt were much more civilized prior to
the coming of Islam.
Such ill-intentioned programme first succeeded to a small
extent in influencing the youths at schools.
Then the Holy men of Al-Azhar university protested to the
authorities and demanded that an end be put to it.
Now let us find out what are the qualities of this book which
the enemies wished to remove from the Muslims.
The Holy Book is known as Al-Qur'an which means 'The Reading',
the reading of the Prophet of Islam who never went to any
school. Prophet Muhammad (s) had retired to a cave on Mount
Hira not far from Mecca. One day Angel Jibrail (Gabriel) came
to him and said "Read". The Holy Prophet said:
"What should I recite?" Jibrail said: "Read in
the name of thy Lord, who created; created man out of a mere
clot of congealed blood; read; and thy Lord is most bountiful;
He who taught (The use of) pen; taught man that which he did
not know".
The Holy Qur'an as word of God, the Almighty, as revealed to
his Prophet Muhammad (s) This book gives guidance for our
daily life. It appeals to our power of reasoning, and exhorts
us to follow the commands of Allah. It is a living miracle of
Prophet Muhammad (s), the last of the Prophets who came from
God. It is not surprising at all that this Holy Book has
remained intact for the last 1400 years. And it shall remain
so till the Day of Judgement, for Allah has taken it on
himself to protect it.
"Surely we have sent down the reminder (The Qur'an) and
we will most surely be its guardian (Sura Al-Hijr -verse 9)
The Qur'an is divided into 114 chapters (Suras). There are in
it 6226 verses (Ayats) containing 99,464 words made up of
330,110 letters.
Imam Ja'far Sadiq (a) has said that one should at least recite
50 Ayats everyday. Let us, therefore, value and respect this
Great Book by reading it with understanding and follow its
teachings.
|
