100 Fun Facts About Quran

Apart from the opening chapter, how are the Quran's chapters roughly ordered?

Longest first, as a general rule, so the short early Meccan chapters mostly come near the end rather than at the front.

In 2007, Congressman Keith Ellison took his ceremonial oath on which president's copy of the Quran?

Thomas Jefferson sold that copy to Congress in 1815 with his whole library, replacing the congressional books the British burned during the War of 1812.

What is the Arabic word for an individual verse of the Quran?

Ayah literally means 'sign', so the Quran uses the same word for natural wonders, such as God sending down rain, that point to his power.

Through which angel do Muslims believe the Quran was revealed?

Gabriel, Jibril in Arabic, is said to have gone through the whole Quran with Muhammad every Ramadan, and twice in the year he died.

Which wife comforted Muhammad after his first revelation and is traditionally credited as the first convert to Islam?

Khadijah covered him with a blanket when he came home terrified, then took him to her Christian cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal for advice.

Who does the Quran say helped Abraham raise the foundations of the Kaaba?

Ishmael and Abraham prayed as they built, asking God to send their descendants a messenger from among them.

Where did Muhammad receive the first revelation?

The Cave of Hira sits on Jabal al-Nour near Mecca, and Muhammad had long gone there to worship alone for nights at a time.

Which chapter of the Quran is traditionally believed to contain the first revealed verses?

Al-Alaq, 'The Clot', is named after a word in its second verse, which says God created man from a clinging clot.

What command did the angel give Muhammad at the first revelation?

"Read!" was the command; Muhammad is said to have replied that he could not read, and the angel squeezed him hard and asked again, three times over.

What is the Night of Power called in Arabic?

Laylat al-Qadr is called better than a thousand months in chapter 97, so worship on that one night is said to earn more than a thousand months of it.

When in Ramadan do Sunni Muslims expect the Night of Power?

An odd date in the last ten means the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th or 29th; Muhammad told followers to search for the night then, and spent those days in retreat.

What does the Quran say God saved of the drowning Pharaoh, for those who came after him?

His body was saved as a sign, yet the belief Pharaoh declared as he drowned was refused: 'Now? And you had disobeyed before.'

Which is the longest chapter of the Quran?

Al-Baqarah also holds the longest single verse, 2:282, which tells believers to write down debts before witnesses because that better prevents doubt.

In Islamic tradition, which uncle of Muhammad is condemned by name in chapter 111 of the Quran?

Abu Lahab, in Islamic tradition, cursed his nephew for gathering the clans to warn them, and chapter 111 answers by wishing ruin on Abu Lahab's hands.

What does the title of the Quran's second chapter mean?

The Cow is named for the cow the Israelites were ordered to slaughter, which they did only after demanding ever more detail about it.

Which is the shortest chapter of the Quran by word count?

Al-Kawthar, meaning 'Abundance', has just ten words, telling Muhammad to pray and sacrifice in thanks for what God has granted him.

Which chapter opens the Quran?

Al-Fatiha is recited in every unit of the daily prayers, and a prayer without it is held to be invalid.

In the Quran, who refuses God's command to bow before Adam?

Iblis claimed to be better than Adam, made from fire rather than clay, and was cast out for his arrogance.

What is verse 2:255 of the Quran called in English?

The Throne Verse, one hadith says, was taught as bedtime protection by a thief caught stealing charity food, and Muhammad said that liar had told the truth.

Al-Ikhlas, chapter 112, is also known by what name?

The Declaration of God's Unity is the chapter Muhammad reportedly said equals one-third of the Quran, after a man implied that reciting it alone was not enough.

Which chapter is named after the woman the Quran says God chose above all the world's women?

Maryam tells how the infant Jesus spoke from the cradle when her people accused her, declaring himself a servant of God.

Which prophet is mentioned by name most often in the Quran?

Moses is named 136 times, and the Quran says his mother, inspired by God, cast him into the river as a baby to protect him.

Besides Messenger of God, which title does the Quran give Muhammad in verse 33:40?

Seal of the Prophets is understood in mainstream Islam as meaning no prophet will come after Muhammad, as a hadith has him say.

Which prophet's whole life story is told in a single chapter, in order?

Joseph's chapter carries him from being dropped into a well by his brothers to forgiving them: 'No blame will there be upon you today.'

Chapter 18, Al-Kahf, shares a story with which Christian legend?

The Seven Sleepers legend matches the chapter's youths who fled their idol-worshipping people to a cave and woke thinking they had slept only a day.

What is the phrase "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" called?

Muslims say the Basmala before daily activities too, and in one hadith Muhammad tells a boy to mention God's name before he eats.

Which chapter of the Quran is the only one that opens without 'In the name of God'?

At-Tawbah, 'The Repentance', opens instead with a declaration of disassociation from polytheists with whom treaties had been made.

Quran chapters are labelled Meccan or Medinan according to which event in Muhammad's life?

The Hijrah, his move from Mecca to Medina, marks the split, and its year later became year one of the Islamic calendar.

Which caliph first ordered the Quran compiled after Muhammad's death?

Abu Bakr reportedly acted after many Quran memorisers were killed at the Battle of Yamama, raising fears that parts of the text could be lost.

Which caliph had a standard copy of the Quran sent to every province and other copies burned?

Uthman ibn Affan reportedly acted after a general warned that troops from Syria and Iraq differed over how to recite the Quran.

Which companion, once a scribe of Muhammad's revelations, was chosen to gather the Quran into one book?

Zayd ibn Thabit said moving a mountain would have been lighter, yet he went on to collect the text from palm stalks, flat stones and men's memories.

Which widow of Muhammad kept the first compiled copy of the Quran until it was copied for an official edition?

Hafsa bint Umar received the sheets from her father at the end of his life, and after they were copied for the official edition they were returned to her.

What is a person who has memorised the entire Quran called?

A hafiz, one hadith says, will one day be told to recite and rise, with their final rank set at the last verse they recite.

The army recalled in chapter 105 of the Quran is known as the army of which animal?

The Elephant army reportedly came to demolish the Kaaba, and the chapter says God sent birds in flocks that pelted it with stones of baked clay.

What are the rules for pronouncing every letter correctly when reciting the Quran called?

Tajwid follows how Muhammad recited: asked about his recitation, his companion Anas said he drew out certain sounds at length.

What is a written commentary explaining the Quran called?

Tafsir often explains one verse by another: when companions feared 6:82 meant any wrongdoing, 31:13 showed it meant associating others with God.

Which city does Islamic tradition identify as the site of the 'farthest mosque' in chapter 17 of the Quran?

Jerusalem is where, a hadith says, Muhammad was offered wine or milk and chose milk, and was told wine would have led his followers astray.

What do Muslims traditionally do right after reciting certain specially marked verses of the Quran?

Muslims prostrate after such verses; one hadith says that when Muhammad recited chapter 53 in Mecca, all present prostrated except an old man who lifted earth to his forehead.

In which language is the Quran traditionally recited during Muslim prayers?

Arabic only is held to be the Quran itself, so translations count as interpretations, as Pickthall's title 'The Meaning of the Glorious Koran' signals.

What is the term for a physical written copy of the Quran?

The earliest mushaf copies lacked full vowel marks and dots, which allowed slight differences in how the same text could be read.

Who is said to have made the first translation of any part of the Quran?

Salman the Persian, credited with a partial Persian translation, is also said to have suggested digging the trench that defended Medina in 627.

Robert of Ketton's 1143 translation was the first into which Western language?

Latin was its language, and the Italian Quran printed in 1547 was translated from it rather than from the original.

Which English university holds a Quran manuscript radiocarbon-dated to 568–645 CE?

Birmingham's two leaves were long misidentified and bound with pages of another early Quran, before they were matched to 16 leaves of the same manuscript in Paris.

In which city were thousands of early Quran fragments found in a mosque in 1972?

Sanaa's fragments, some among the oldest Qurans known, include text that varies from the standard version.

What was the Blue Quran's parchment coloured with?

Indigo dyed the parchment, yet scholars still disagree over where the manuscript was made and under which dynasty, with the Abbasids and Fatimids both proposed.

Which city's 1924 edition of the Quran became one of the most widely known printed editions in the Muslim world?

Cairo's edition followed only the reading of Hafs, which is held to be easier to recite because it avoids some vowel and letter changes found in other readings.

Which prophet in the Quran smiles on hearing an ant warn its colony to get out of his army's way?

Solomon later hears from a hoopoe about a queen whose people worship the sun, and she ends by submitting to God with him.

In which Islamic month was the verse 'This day I have perfected for you your religion' revealed?

Dhu al-Hijjah held the day of Arafat, and when a Jewish man told Umar his people would have made this verse's day a festival, Umar said it came on that day.

Which Umayyad caliph struck a coin bearing verses of Al-Ikhlas in 697 AD?

Abd al-Malik's first Islamic coins still carried images, but his reformed gold dinars dropped them for religious inscriptions.

Besides the Quran, which earlier scriptures does Islam hold were revealed by God?

The Torah, Psalms and Gospel are honoured, yet the doctrine of tahrif holds that the Jewish and Christian versions were distorted, in text or in interpretation.

The longest verse in the Quran, verse 282 of its second chapter, sets out detailed rules for doing what?

Writing down a loan is its subject: believers are told to record any debt with a fixed term, whether small or large, and to bring two witnesses.

Which bird does the Quran say brought a prophet-king news of a queen whose people worshipped the sun?

Hoopoe is the bird, and the ruler it found was the Queen of Sheba, whose meeting with the king is the most detailed story in chapter 27.

On which mountain does the Quran say the ark came to rest once the flood waters had drained away?

Mount Judi, in Turkey, was also the landing place in early Syriac and Armenian tradition; only in the Middle Ages did the peak now called Ararat take over that role.

Which prophet does the Quran call Dhul-Nun, 'the one of the fish', after he is swallowed at sea?

Jonah, called Yunus in the Quran, also gives his name to its tenth chapter, and the verses say only his praise of God kept him from staying inside the fish until the Day of Resurrection.

In the Quran, which prophet speaks as a newborn in the cradle when his mother is accused by her people?

Jesus speaking from the cradle is among the miracles the Quran gives him; the scene is not in the New Testament but does appear in the Syriac Infancy Gospel.

Chapter 47 of the Quran promises the righteous rivers of water, milk, wine and what else in Paradise?

Honey, described as purified, completes the four rivers of verse 47:15, where the milk never changes in taste and the wine is a delight to those who drink it.

In which Italian city was the first complete Quran printed with movable type, in 1537–38?

Venice printer Paganino Paganini and his son produced it, but the whole print run was reported lost until a single copy was found in a monastery on a Venetian island in 1987.

Which Russian ruler sponsored the Saint Petersburg press that printed an edition of the Quran in 1787?

Catherine the Great backed the press in 1786, with a mullah named Osman Ismail making the type, and its Quran was reprinted in Saint Petersburg and later in Kazan.

According to the Quran, humans were made from clay, but from what were the jinn created?

Smokeless fire is the phrase in chapter 55, and it is one reason Islamic lore credits jinn with invisibility and shape-shifting; angels are said to be made of light.

Chapter 54 of the Quran opens by declaring that the Hour has drawn near and which object in the sky has split?

The Moon gives the chapter its name, Al-Qamar, and many commentators take the verse as a literal miracle Muhammad performed when the Meccan polytheists demanded a sign.

How many chapters, known as surahs, make up the Quran, ranging from 3 verses to 286 verses in length?

114 is the count, holding more than 6,000 verses between them; the same text is also cut into 30 parts for a month of daily portions and into 7 parts for a week.

Muslims believe the Quran was revealed gradually, in Mecca and then Medina, over a period of roughly how long?

23 years separate the opening revelation, when Muhammad was 40, from the final one in 632, the year he died, so the verses arrived piece by piece as events unfolded.

Which creature, said in the Quran to be inspired by God to build its homes in the mountains, names chapter 16?

The Bee, An-Nahl, takes its title from verse 68, and the passage goes on to describe a drink of varying colours, with healing for people, coming from the insects' bodies.

In the Quran, which bird scratches at the ground to show Adam's son how to bury the brother he has killed?

A crow is sent by God in verse 5:31, and the sight fills Cain with regret; the next verse draws the lesson that killing one soul unjustly is like killing all mankind.

Which prophet does the Quran say spent 950 years among his people, most of whom still refused to believe?

Noah has the Quran's seventy-first chapter named after him, and in its telling one of his own sons is among the deniers who drown.

Which future prophet and king does the Quran's second chapter say killed the enemy champion Jalut in battle?

David, Dawud in the Quran, fells Jalut in a brief account that parallels the Bible's story of Goliath, and the same verse says God then gave him kingship and wisdom.

In the Quran, Dhul-Qarnayn builds a barrier between two mountains to hold back which pair of peoples?

Gog and Magog stay shut behind the barrier until the End Times, when the Quran says their release will signal that the Hour is close.

Which day names chapter 62 of the Quran, which tells believers to leave their trading when called to prayer?

Friday, al-Jumu'ah, is the day of assembly, and the chapter adds that once the prayer is over believers may scatter through the land and go back to earning a living.

What name is given to the direction of prayer, which the Quran's second chapter fixes on the Kaaba?

Qibla simply means direction, and most mosques show it with a wall niche so that worshippers anywhere in the world know which way to face.

Which collective term does the Quran use for Jews and Christians?

People of the Book, Ahl al-Kitab, marks them as holders of earlier scriptures; from the 8th century the recognition was extended to other groups, including, controversially, Hindus and Buddhists.

Which metal, described in the Quran as sent down with mighty strength, gives chapter 57 its name?

Iron, al-Hadid, is said in verse 25 to hold military might and benefits for people, and it is listed there beside scripture and the balance of justice as things God sent down.

Which animal does the Quran say was sent as a sign to the people of Thamud, who hamstrung it?

A camel, a female called the she-camel of God, appeared after Thamud demanded a miracle from the prophet Salih; they were told to let her graze unharmed.

Which long-suffering prophet in the Quran is told to strike the ground with his foot, releasing a cool spring?

Job, Ayyub in the Quran, is restored by the spring after years of affliction, and the passage ends by calling him patient, an excellent servant.

Which two hills in Mecca, which pilgrims walk between, does the Quran name among the symbols of God?

Safa and Marwa stand about 450 metres apart, and the walk between them recalls Hagar running back and forth in search of water for her infant son.

Chapter 68 of the Quran opens with a single letter and an oath sworn on which writing tool?

The pen, al-Qalam, gives the chapter its title, though it is also known as Nun after its opening letter, and it is counted among the oldest parts of the Quran.

Which force of nature, said in the Quran to exalt God with praise, gives chapter 13 its name?

Thunder, ar-Ra'd, is named in the chapter's thirteenth verse, where the angels too are said to praise God in awe while He sends thunderbolts on whom He wills.

During which nightly Ramadan prayers do many mosques work through the whole Quran, about one part a night?

Tarawih prayers usually run to 8 or 20 cycles a night, and finishing the whole text in them by the end of the month is a Sunni custom.

Which chapter of the Quran, named after the two letters that open it, is often called the heart of the Quran?

Ya-Sin, the 36th chapter, runs to 83 verses, and what its two opening letters mean is unknown and remains debated among scholars.

Which chapter of the Quran asks 31 times which of the Lord's favours its listeners will deny?

Ar-Rahman, chapter 55, has only 78 verses, so the refrain closes well over a third of them, and it speaks to two audiences at once: humans and jinn.

What is the usual literal translation of the word Quran, a noun formed from the verb qara'a?

The recitation is the literal sense, and the word appears about 70 times within the text itself; a related Syriac term refers to a scripture lesson.

Which legendary sage of pre-Islamic Arabia, a byword for wisdom, gives his name to chapter 31 of the Quran?

Luqman appears in the chapter as a father advising his son, telling him to be moderate in his pace and to lower his voice.

Chapter 30 of the Quran is named after which empire, whose recent defeat and coming recovery it announces?

The Romans, meaning the Byzantine Empire, had just lost to the Sasanians, and the opening verses predict they will overcome within three to nine years.

Which battle of 624, at which the Quran says angels reinforced the outnumbered Muslims, is named in chapter 3?

Badr is named in verse 3:123, and tradition puts the Muslim force at about 313 men against a Meccan army nearly a thousand strong.

Which elderly prophet in the Quran cannot speak for three nights, as the sign that he will father a son?

Zechariah had worried in old age about who would carry on his work, since his wife was barren, and the son he was promised was Yahya, known to Christians as John the Baptist.

Which two angels does the Quran's second chapter place in Babylon, where people learned sorcery from them?

Harut and Marut warn everyone they teach that they are only a trial, and some later theologians rejected the legend of their fall on the grounds that angels cannot sin.

Which minister does the Quran's Pharaoh order to bake clay bricks and build him a tower to the heavens?

Haman is named six times in the Quran, and the name also belongs to the scheming royal counsellor in the biblical story of Esther.

According to the Quran, into which animals were those who broke the Sabbath transformed as punishment?

Apes, despised, is the wording of verse 2:65, and the story is set in a town by the sea whose fish swam up openly on the day of rest and stayed away on other days.

Which angular script, named after a city in Iraq, was favoured for copying early Quran manuscripts?

Kufic takes its name from Kufa, an intellectual centre of the early Islamic period, and it stayed the main script for copying the Quran until about the 11th century.

Which group, said to be followed only by those astray, gives chapter 26 of the Quran its name?

The Poets, ash-Shu'ara, are pictured roaming in every valley, though the chapter's last verses go on to commend those among them who believe.

Which chapter, the Quran's fourth, sets out rulings on marriage, orphans and inheritance over 176 verses?

An-Nisa means The Women, a title drawn from the many references to women in its rulings, and the chapter also covers war, legal practice and relations with other faith communities.

Which cursed tree does the Quran root in Hell, with fruit that burns the stomachs of those who eat it?

Zaqqum is named three times in the Quran, which likens its fruit to the heads of devils and says the meal is followed by a drink of boiling liquid.

Which name for the Quran, also the title of its 25th chapter, casts it as the divider of good from evil?

Al-Furqan means The Criterion, and the chapter takes the title from just the fourth word of its opening verse.

What is a person who recites the Quran according to the proper rules of pronunciation called?

Qari now mostly means a professional reciter, but its plural, qurra, once named an elite class of scholars and settlers who shaped the politics of the early caliphate.

Which 14th-century Damascus scholar wrote one of the most famous commentaries on the Quran?

Ibn Kathir was born near Bosra around 1300, and his commentary is prized for resting on hadith and for being almost free of borrowed Israelite legends.

Which Quranic word, meaning barrier, names the stage between a person's death and the resurrection?

Barzakh appears only three times in the Quran, and it came to be pictured as a place where the spirit, parted from the flesh, reflects on the wrongs of its former life.

Which English novelist and convert to Islam published The Meaning of the Glorious Koran in 1930?

Marmaduke Pickthall produced it while in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the translation was authorised by Al-Azhar University.

What are the unexplained letter combinations, such as Alif Lam Mim, that open 29 chapters of the Quran called?

Muqatta'at means disjoined letters; each group has between one and five of them, and most Muslims hold that their meaning is known to God alone.

Which English solicitor's 1734 translation of the Quran led Voltaire to write an essay of his own?

George Sale drew on a 14th-century manuscript of a commentary kept at London's Dutch Church, and he prefaced the translation with a long Preliminary Discourse on Arabia and Islam.

What name is given to each of the 7 roughly equal portions of the Quran, used to finish it in one week?

Manzil divisions suit a week's schedule while the 30 juz suit a month's, and each juz is sometimes split again into two hizb of four quarters each.

Which rich man does the Quran say the earth swallowed along with his home, as punishment for his arrogance?

Qarun, the biblical Korah, owned treasures whose keys alone would burden a band of strong men, and he brushed off advice to be grateful and seek the hereafter.