The end of life (q.v.). The following aspects of the qurʾānic depiction of death (mawt, wafāt) and the dead (al-mawtā) shall be addressed here: various qurʾānic descriptions of attitudes towards death on the part of ¶ both believers and unbelievers (see belief and unbelief ); the main themes connected with death which occur in the Qurʾān, ordered according to Bell's chronology; distinctive features of qurʾānic statements about death; and, finally, a sketch of the qurʾānic vision of death and its meaning. Attitudes of believers and unbelievers The Qurʾān, especially in its Medinan…

 see death and the dead Bibliography

 see burial; death and the dead Bibliography

 see destiny; fate; life; death and the dead Bibliography

 see burial; death and the dead; weeping Bibliography

 see biology as the creation and stages of life; death and the dead Bibliography

 see death and the dead; paradise; hell and hellfire; barzakh Bibliography

 see eschatology; resurrection; eternity; paradise; hell and hellfire; fire; garden; death and the dead Bibliography

The Qurʾān depicts the creation of the universe and everything within it as a ¶ miracle (q.v.) of God and as proof of the existence of divine power (see power and impotence ). According to the Qurʾān, human life began with the creation of Adam and Eve (q.v.). The qurʾānic account of the creation (q.v.) narrative affirms that everything has been created in pairs for reproduction and perpetuation of its own species. Modern Muslim commentators, particularly those who are devoted to “scientific” exegesis ( tafsīr ʿilmī, see exegesis of the qurʾān ), have decided that since the Qurʾān make…

Rhetorical, grammatical and linguistic devices utilized in the conveyance of meaning. The message of the Qurʾān is couched in various literary structures, which are widely considered to be the most perfect example of the Arabic language (q.v.; see also language and style of the qurʾān ). Arabic grammars were written based upon the qurʾānic language (see grammar and the qurʾān ), and, by the general consensus of Muslim rhetoricians, the qurʾānic idiom is considered to be sublime. This article is concerned with these literary structures and how they produc…

Those who die (generally at the hands of others) for their faith. In a Sunnī Islamic context, martyrs are primarily those who fight unbelievers for the advancement of Islam, and sacrifice their lives for this (see fighting; belief and unbelief; suicide). This represents a marked difference with the situation of the defensive martyrs of early Christianity, who voluntarily suffered death as the consequence of witnessing to and refusing to renounce their religion. Christian martyrs were killed by hostile authorities in a period when thei…

Doctrine about the final things to come at the end of time. Two of the earliest and most important messages given to the prophet Muḥammad (q.v.), prominent in the Meccan revelations (see chronology and the qurʾān ), were about the oneness of God and the accountability of human beings at the last day ( yawm al-qiyāma, lit. the day of resurrection; see god and his attributes; last judgment; resurrection). These two message were so integrally linked that the Qurʾān in many places suggests that faith in God isfaith in the yawm al-qiyāma, the time when all will be resurrected and held acco…

-dāl-   d-b-b    dābba, pl. dawābb    Animal Life    Last Judgment    Nature as Signs    Resurrection    dābbat al-arḍ   d-b-r    dabbara    Cosmology    Teaching    dubur, pl. adbār    Anatomy    idbār    Day, Times of    Morning    Time    idbār al-nujūm    Day, Times of    Morning    Time    mudabbar    Slaves and Slavery    mudabbirāt    Spiritual Beings    tadabbur    Feminism and the Qurʾān    tadbīr    Politics and the Qurʾān   d-f-f    daffa    Sheets   d-f-q    indifāq    Medicine and the Qurʾān   d-f-t-r    daftar, pl. dafātir    Sheets   d-f-ʿ    dafaʿa    Clients and Cl…

-qāf-   mustaqīm    aqwam    The Collection of the Qurʾān    maqām, pl. maqāmāt    Festivals and Commemorative Days    God and his Attributes    House, Domestic and Divine    Intercession    Kaʿba    Mecca    Mosque    Muḥammad    Paradise    Place of Abraham    Ranks and Orders    Recitation of the Qurʾān    Rhymed Prose    Sacred Precincts    Suffering    maqām amīn    maqām ibrāhīm    maqām maʿlūm    maqām maḥmūd    maqāmahu wa-martabatahu    Ṣūfism and the Qurʾān    qawm    Brother and Brotherhood    Community and Society in the Qurʾān    Contemporary Critical P…

The Qurʾān has been judged in Islamic tradition as inimitable; indeed a dogma emerged in the third/ninth century holding that the Qurʾān is, linguistically and stylistically, far superior to all other literary ¶ productions in the Arabic language (q.v.; see also literature and the qurʾān ). Although the belief in the “inimitability of the Qurʾān” ( iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, see inimitability ) does not rely exclusively on formal criteria, it has been widely received as a statement about the literary qualities of the Qurʾān both in traditional scholarly literature…

Introductory remark This entry deals not with the Qurʾān as a source of historical information (for which see Paret, Geschichtsquelle, and, for instance, Faruqi, Muslim historiography or Sherif, A guide) nor with its influence upon world history but with its view of history as can be outlined by present-day historians and, secondarily, with its influence upon the development of later Muslim historiography. Although as a religious and metaphysical document, the Qurʾān is not meant to be a work of history, it deals to an asto…

Following a brief discussion of ritual in modern academic discourse which proposes a functional typology of rituals both within and involving the Qurʾān, and taking into account the context in which certain rituals occur and are performed, this article will then explore the treatment of qurʾānic rituals in works of Islamic jurisprudence (see law and the qurʾān ). Those rituals which employ verses of the Qurʾān — written or spoken, individually or collectively — in various ceremonial, talismanic and therapeutic contexts will also be examined. This arti…

  m-th-l    laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ(un)    Literary Structures of the Qurʾān    Simile    mathal, pl. amthāl    Air and Wind    Ambiguous    Debate and Disputation    History and the Qurʾān    Narratives    Pairs and Pairing    Parable    Signs    Simile    Springs and Fountains    Symbolic Imagery    Traditional Disciplines of Qurʾānic Studies    mathalu l-jannati    Ḥadīth and the Qurʾān    mathula, pl. mathulāt    Dialects    Reward and Punishment    Sunna    mithl    Literary Structures of the Qurʾān    Simile    mithāl    Philosophy and the Qurʾān    mumaththilūn…

Introduction Although not a philosophical document in the strict sense, the Qurʾān has been at the center of the most heated philosophical and theological controversies in Islam. Now, if by philosophy is meant wisdom (sophia) or rather love of wisdom, as understood by Pythagoras, who coined the term philo-sophos, the Qurʾān itself attests to the merit of acquiring wisdom (q.v.; ḥikma) as a gift from God. For as q 2:269 puts it: “He [God] gives wisdom to whomever he wills,” adding that indeed “whoever receives wisdom has received an abundant good” (see gift-giving; grace; blessing). More s…

The Qurʾān displays a wide range of theological topics related to the religious thought of late antiquity and through its prophet Muḥammad presents a coherent vision of the creator, the cosmos and man. The main issues of Muslim theological dispute prove to be hidden under the wording of the qurʾānic message, which is closely tied to Muḥammad's biography (see sīra and the qurʾān ). Preliminary remarks Dealing with theology and the Qurʾān means looking in two different directions at the same time. On the one hand, the qurʾānic message plays an important role in …