Humanity has received the Divine guidance only through two channels: firstly the word of God, secondly the Prophets who were chosen By God to communicate His will to human-beings. These two things have always been going together and attempts to know the will of God by neglecting either of these two have always been misleading. The Christians, in total disregard to the Book of God, attached all importance to Jesus Christ (AS) and thus not only elevated him to Divinity, but also lost the very essence of Tawheed (monotheism) contained in the Bible.
As a matter of fact the main scriptures revealed before the Quran i.e., the Old Testament and the Gospel, came into book-form long after the days of the Prophets. This was because the followers of Moses and Jesus made no considerable efforts to preserve these Revelations during the life of their Prophets. Rather they were written long after their death. On the contrary, the last revealed Book, the Quran, is in its original form. God Himself guaranteed its preservation and that is why the whole of the Quran was written during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (pbuh). Moreover, there were tens of thousands of the companions of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) who memorized the whole Quran and the Prophet (pbuh) used to recite it to the angel Gabriel once a year and twice when he was about to die.
The Quran was so meticulously preserved because it was to be the Book of guidance for humanity for all times to come. That is why it does not address the Arabs alone in whose language it was revealed. It speaks to man as a human being. The practicability of the Quranic teachings is established by the examples of Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) and the good Muslims throughout the ages. The distinctive approach of the Quran is that its instructions are aimed at the general welfare of man and are based on the possibilities within his reach. That is why the Quran is the central sacred reality of Islam. Its importance is so great that the sound of the Quran is the first and last sound that a Muslim hears in this life.
Beginning with this issue, we will explain in greater detail the wisdom and miracles of The Holy Quran, God-willing.
The Islamic Bulletin
P.O. Box 410186, San Francisco, CA 94141-0186
info@islamicbulletin.org