What Makes The Qur’an Different From Any Other Books?
This question originally appeared on Quora, the knowledge-sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. It is answered by Muhammad Rasheed and reposted here with his permission.
“When My servants ask thee concerning Me, I am indeed close to them—I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me. Let them also, with a will, listen to My call and believe in Me that they may walk in the right way.”The Holy Qur’an 2:186
The One God is pretty blunt in the Qur’an, the central source text of the religion of Al-Islam, and doesn’t care about hurting the feelings of disbelievers nor of the wayward People of the Book. Many have gallantly attempted to read it through, then got their feelings hurt and abandoned it before they managed to clear the hefty second Surah (chapter).
The Qur’an is truly unique, even among the worldwide collection of religious sacred scripture. It is the only one in God’s Voice throughout, from His point of view to humankind. All other scriptures are writers telling remembered. half-remembered and pretend remembered tales about figures of the past using the signature story form of human literature. The Qur’an is revealed scripture – from God to His angel to His prophet – and hungrily, immediately committed to memory and written down by the protective early Muslim community. This is one of the key reasons the Qur’an is so unique, since apparently no other believing communities of the past treated their prophets’ revealed verbatim preaching so protectively. If they ever did, such works have been lost to the ages and never made it down to us.
This is Islam’s greatest strength; the Qur’an puts it way above all other religions. It takes a great deal of personal fortitude to read through the Qur’an in its entirety, as it is a unique experience requiring you to truly ’empty your cup’ and approach it with an open mind.
The Holy Qur’an is the Supreme Creator of reality speaking directly to His prophet (pbuh) and telling him what to say to the people in His Name. There are also portions with God talking directly to the believers, to the disbelievers, to the People of the Book, and even to the ever present reader.
Even for the believers themselves, it is often a challenging force in its admonishments and warnings. But it does enable us to know what it is the One God requires of us with certainty, and we come to know the Voice and Divine Personality of the Lord Most High.
Despite what you’ve heard about Islam in mainstream mass media messaging, the reason why the white racist aristocracy hates Islam is because of Allah’s uncompromising stance against usury, greed, hoarding wealth and everything else treated as faux virtues (“Greed is good!”) by the enemies of the Black American Descendants of Slavery (#ADOS). It is clear from the context of the Word of Allah that a pure repentance from the American white dominant political interest group must take the form of a sincere sharing of wealth, land and rule with the despised Black American former slave class, necessarily beginning with a full comprehensive reparations program designed to close the infamous racial wealth gap. Their 150-year refusal to do so is no less than a pagan worship of the wealth they hoard.
Muhammad Rasheed is an editorial cartoonist, socio-political commentator, graphic novel serialist, Muslim and initiated Shemesu Heru. He is the highly-prolific author of two 10-titled graphic novel series, Tales Of Sinanju: The Destroyer and the award-winning Monsters 101. Mr. Rasheed has dedicated himself to chronicling his socio-political analysis in an award-winning daily political cartoon project, Weapon of the People: Decoded, and helping the anti-racism activist community to reclaim the pro-Black narrative.