80 Percent Quranic Words

[Lorna Schildt]

Laylat al-Qadr, or the night of power, is considered by Muslims to be the holiest night of the year. It is the night when the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad inside the Cave of Hira - located in a mountain outside the city of Mecca.

Praying on that night is believed to be better than a thousand months of worship and devotion. For this reason, millions of Muslims head towards mosques to attend congregational prayers during this time.

The repetition of words and symmetry appears frequently in the Quran. For example, life and death are both mentioned 145 times throughout the Quran. Angels and devils are mentioned 88 times each, while man and woman are each mentioned 24 times.

Muslims believe that all prophets were sent to preach the message of God - from the first, Prophet Adam, to the last, Prophet Muhammad. More than a quarter (26 percent) of the words of the Quran are stories of the prophets which are meant to serve as historical lessons for people.

The prophets most mentioned by name in the Quran are Prophet Moses (136 times), followed by Prophet Abraham (54 times) and Prophet Noah (50 times). Prophet Adam and Prophet Jesus are mentioned 25 times each.

These frequently asked questions provide a brief overview of some of the issues that arise when teaching about Islamic art and culture. These issues pertain to the full range of places and time periods covered in this guide.

Q: What do the words Islam and Muslim mean?
A: The word Islam literally means "submission" in Arabic, referring to submission to God. Muslim, one who practices Islam, refers to one who submits to God.

Q: Do Muslims consider Allah to be the same God worshipped in Judaism and Christianity?
A: Yes. Allah is simply the Arabic name for God, like Yahweh in Hebrew, Dios in Spanish, or Dieu in French. However, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity each characterize God and the qualities of the Divine somewhat differently.

Q: What is the difference between Sunnism and Shiism?
A: The initial schism in the Islamic faith occurred after the death of the Prophet Muhammad as a result of the disagreement over who should succeed the Prophet as the leader of the Muslim community. Some believed that only a blood relative of the Prophet could lead the Islamic community; they believed 'Ali, the Prophet's cousin, should be his successor. They became known as Shi'a, meaning "Party [of 'Ali]." Others believed that leaders within the community should elect the Prophet's successor based on merit; they became known as Sunni (meaning "way" or "path," referring to the traditions of the Prophet, whose example all Muslims are to follow). About eighty percent of Muslims today are Sunni. Over time, differences in theology emerged, but both sects believe in the basic tenets of Islam (the Five Pillars) and revere the Qur'an as divine revelation.

Q: What is Sufism?
A: Some Muslims practice Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism. The focus of Sufism, which is practiced by Sunnis and Shi'is alike, is to attain unity with God. Its most notable practices include repeating the names of God, asceticism, and mystical dance.

Q: The numbers we use every day are called "Arabic numerals." Have Western languages also adopted words from Arabic?
A: Because of contact between the Islamic world and Europe at various junctures throughout history, many cultural and linguistic influences passed back and forth. For instance, a number of Arabic words were absorbed into the Romance languages, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. This was because of the proximity of Europe and the Arab world and the seven centuries of Muslim rule in southern Spain and Italy. Arabic words, such as apricot, alcohol, algebra, coffee, cotton, lute, sofa, and zero, made their way into English through Romance languages.

Q: What languages are spoken in the Islamic world?
A: Arabic is the language of the holy Qur'an. Muslims and non-Muslims alike in Arab lands speak Arabic. However, not all Muslims speak this language on a daily basis. Muslims in non-Arab regions, where the vast majority of Muslims live today, use Arabic for prayer and religious purposes only. Most of the works of art introduced in this guide were created in areas where Arabic, Persian, Turkish, or Urdu were, and still are, the primary spoken and written language. Arabic is a Semitic language similar to Hebrew, while Persian is an Indo-European language, like English or French. Turkish is related to neither and is an Altaic language. Though distinct languages, both Persian and Turkish (until 1928) were written in the Arabic alphabet. Because of the interconnections within the Islamic world, the Arabic, Turkish, and Persian languages borrowed many words from each other.

Q: What countries comprise the region called South Asia in this guide?
A: South Asia consists of the subcontinental region south of the Himalayas including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Maldives.

Q: How did The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquire all of these works of art?
A: The Museum started acquiring Islamic works of art as early as 1891. Since then many major collectors have donated objects or portions of their collections. The Museum's collection continues to grow through purchases and gifts.

Ellen Kenny: It's often thought that the presence of any kind of figural imagery is completely unacceptable in the Islamic world, but that's not what you see when you're going through these galleries.

Stefan Heidemann: What is prohibited, indeed, is the use of images in the ritual context, so that it is not mixed up with idolatry. The avoidance of images in the ritual sphere is not based on the Qur'an, but on another source, which is as authoritative as the Qur'an itself, that are the sayings of the Prophet and his deeds.

Q: What accounts for the Asian facial features of many people depicted in the works of art in the galleries of the Islamic department and in this guide?
A: From the eleventh century onward, the concept of human beauty in some parts of the Islamic world began to reflect Central Asian ideals, largely due to the westward migration of Turks from Central Asia. This convention endured in this region through the seventeenth century, after which new ideals of beauty emerged.

Q: There is calligraphy (decorative writing) on so many of the objects in the galleries and in this guide. Would the average person living in the Islamic world have been able to read it all?
A: Most educated people would have been able to read Arabic writing. However, some examples of calligraphy are so ornate that creativity was clearly favored over legibility. Calligraphy was, and is, appreciated above all for its aesthetic qualities and the skill of the calligrapher.

Q: Why are space and depth represented differently in works of art from many Islamic regions than they are in Western paintings?
A: Different cultures have different aesthetic values, ideals of beauty, and concepts of realism and space as represented in painting. Many Islamic paintings favor elements like color and detail, whereas many European painters and patrons of the same time were concerned with creating the illusion of spatial depth. Painters in Islamic and European countries were equally concerned with conveying stories through visual imagery. The differences derive from tradition and cultural conventions, and do not reflect fundamental differences in artistic skill.

Q: How did most artists in the Islamic world work?
A: The modern artist working today uses a very different process than an artist working in the Islamic world during the seventh through the nineteenth centuries. Most artists belonged to workshops, in which groups of skilled craftsmen worked together on multiple projects. Some workshops were commercial, creating relatively large numbers of art objects, from carpets to ceramics, for sale on the open market. Other workshops belonged to royal courts. These employed the very best artists from throughout the empire, who each often had their own specialty. For instance, in a manuscript workshop one artist might specialize in calligraphy, another in painting figures, and yet others in making decorative bindings. The workshop system was not unique to the Islamic world; it also existed in medieval and Renaissance Europe.

Abstract: In the Islamic hadith corpus and Quran, the way to atone for sins is called tawba (or tawbah), which requires one to complete a series of steps to receive forgiveness from Allah (God). Jihadist terrorist organizations use primarily Quranic scripture to recruit and employ suicide bombers who may have a guilty conscience for their past sins. It is said that martyrdom, or istishadi, will automatically save Muslims from hell and grant access to paradise no matter the sin committed. One of the understudied reasons for istishadi suicide bombings in jihadist groups is the concept of atonement. This article answers the following research questions: What role does guilt in Islam play in the motivations for male and female Sunni jihadist suicide bombers, and why is tawba not utilized?

The Quran and hadith corpus are major Muslim religious texts and sources of Islamic jurisprudence. The Quran is the principal text of Islam and is believed to contain direct revelations from Allah (God). The hadith corpus are a series of stories and traditions about the Prophet Muhammad. They are a primary source of Islamic law and are second only to the Quran. They took several hundred years to be written down and compiled. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The development of Hadith is a vital element during the first few centuries of Islamic history, and its study provides a broad index to the mind and ethos of Islam."1 There are six major hadith that are accepted by Sunni Muslims. The most well-known are those compiled by Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari (810-70 CE) and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (817-75 CE), both of which share the title al-Sahih (The Authentic).2 Unless otherwise noted, the al-Bukhari version is used in this article; it is highly respected by Sunni Muslims because the author was cautious in his compilation, making sure that the stories were authentic.

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