According to Abū Ḥanīfah, the great Sunnī Imām, the Qurʾān is eternal in its original essence. He says, “The Qurʾān is the Word of God, and is His inspired Word and Revelation. It is a necessary attribute (ṣifah) of God. It is not God, but still it is inseparable from God. It is written in a volume, it is read in a language, it is remembered in the heart, and its letters and its vowel points, and its writing are all created, for these are the works of man, but God’s word is uncreated (g͟hairu ʾl-mak͟hlūq). Its words, its writing, its letters, and its verses, are for the necessities of man, for its meaning is arrived at by their use, but the Word of God is fixed in the essence (ẕāt) of God, and he who says that the word of God is created is an infidel.” (See Kitābu ʾl-Waṣīyah, p. 77.)

Muḥammadans believe the Qurʾān to have been written by “the hands of noble, righteous scribes,” mentioned in the Sūratu ʿAbasa (lxxx.) 15, and to have been sent down to the lowest heaven complete, from whence it was revealed from time to time to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel. [GABRIEL.]

There is, however, only one distinct assertion in the Qurʾān of Gabriel having been the medium of inspiration, namely, Sūratu ʾl-Baqarah (ii.), 91; and this occurs in a Medinah Sūrah revealed about seven years after the Prophet’s rule had been established. In the Sūratu ʾsh-Shuʿarāʾ (xxvi.), 193, the Qurʾān is said to have been given by the Rūhu ʾl-Amīn, or “Faithful Spirit”; and in the Sūratu ʾn-Najm (liii.), 5, Muḥammad claims to have been taught by the Shadīdu ʾl-Quwā, or “One terrible in power”; and in the Traditions the agent of inspiration is generally spoken of as “an angel” (malak). It is, therefore, not quite certain through what agency Muḥammad believed himself to be inspired of God, the Holy Spirit or the angel Gabriel.

According to the traditions, the revelation was first communicated in dreams. ʿĀyishah, one of the Prophet’s wives, relates (Mishkāt, xxiv. 5):—

“The first revelations which the Prophet received were in true dreams; and he never dreamt but it came to pass as regularly as the dawn of day. After this the Prophet was fond of retirement, and used to seclude himself in a cave in Mount Ḥirāʾ and worship there day and night. He would, whenever he wished, return to his family at Makkah, and then go back again, taking with him the necessaries of life. Thus he continued to return to K͟hadījah from time to time, until one day the revelation came down to him, and the angel (Arabic malak, Heb. malak͟h, “an angel; a prophet”; a name of office, not of nature [See Wilson’s Hebrew Lexicon, p. 13]) came to him and said, ‘Read’ (iqraʾ); but the Prophet said, ‘I am not a reader.’ And the Prophet related that he (i.e. the angel) took hold of me and squeezed me as much as I could bear, and he then let me go and said again, ‘Read!’ And I said, ‘I am not a reader.’ Then he took hold of me a second time, and squeezed me as much as I could bear, and then let me go, and said, ‘Read!’ And I said, ‘I am not a reader.’ Then he took hold of me a third time and squeezed me as much as I could bear, and said:—

(These are the first five verses of the XCVIth Sūrah of the Qurʾān. The other verses of the Sūrah being of a later date.)

“Then the Prophet repeated the words himself, and with his heart trembling he returned (i.e. from Ḥirāʾ to Makkah) to K͟hadījah, and said, ‘Wrap me up, wrap me up.’ And they wrapped him up in a garment till his fear was dispelled, and he told K͟hadījah what had passed, and he said: ‘Verily, I was afraid I should have died.’ Then K͟hadījah said, ‘No, it will not be so. I swear by God, He will never make you melancholy or sad. For verily you are kind to your relatives, you speak the truth, you are faithful in trust, you bear the afflictions of the people, you spend in good works what you gain in trade, you are hospitable, and you assist your fellow men.’ After this K͟hadījah took the Prophet to Waraqah, who was the son of her uncle, and she said to him, ‘O son of my uncle! hear what your brother’s son says.’ Then Waraqah said to the Prophet, ‘O son of my brother! what do you see?’ Then the Prophet told Waraqah what he saw, and Waraqah said, ‘That is the Nāmūs [NAMUS] which God sent to Moses.’ ʿĀyishah also relates that Ḥāris̤ ibn Hishām asked the Prophet, ‘How did the revelation come to you?’ and the Prophet said, ‘Sometimes like the noise of a bell, and sometimes the angel would come and converse with me in the shape of a man.’ ”

According to ʿĀyishah’s statement, the Sūratu ʾl-ʿAlaq (xcvi.) was the first portion of the Qurʾān revealed; but it is more probable that the poetical Sūrahs, in which there is no express declaration of the prophetic office, or of a divine commission, were composed at an earlier period. Internal evidence would assign the earliest date to the Sūrahs az-Zalzalah (xcix.), al-ʿAṣr (ciii.), al-ʿĀdiyāt (c.), and al-Fātiḥah (i.), which are rather the utterances of a searcher after truth than of an Apostle of God.

Although the Qurʾān now appears as one book, the Muslim admits that it was not all made known to the Prophet in one and the same manner.

Mr. Sell, in his Faith of Islām, quoting from the Mudāriju ʾn-Nubūwah, p. 509, gives the following as some of the modes of inspiration:—

“1. It is recorded on the authority of ʾA′yesha, one of Muhammad’s wives, that a brightness like the brightness of the morning came upon the Prophet. According to some commentators, this brightness remained six months. In some mysterious way Gabriel, through this brightness or vision, made known the will of God.

“2. Gabriel appeared in the form of Dahiah (Daḥyah), one of the Companions of the Prophet, renowned for his beauty and gracefulness. A learned dispute has arisen with regard to the abode of the soul of Gabriel when he assumed the bodily form of Dahiah. At times, the angelic nature of Gabriel overcame Muhammad, who was then translated to the world of angels. This always happened when the revelation was one of bad news, such as denunciations or predictions of woe. At other times, when the message brought by Gabriel was one of consolation and comfort, the human nature of the Prophet overcame the angelic nature of the angel, who, in such case, having assumed a human form, proceeded to deliver the message.

“3. The Prophet heard at times the noise of the tinkling of a bell. To him alone was known the meaning of the sound. He alone could distinguish in, and through it, the words which Gabriel wished him to understand. The effect of this mode of Wahí (Waḥy) was more marvellous than that of any of the other ways. When his ear caught the sound his whole frame became agitated. On the coldest day, the perspiration, like beads of silver, would roll down his face. The glorious brightness of his countenance gave place to a ghastly hue, whilst the way in which he bent down his head showed the intensity of the emotion through which he was passing. If riding, the camel on which he sat would fall to the ground. The Prophet one day, when reclining with his head on the lap of Zeid, heard the well-known sound: Zeid, too, knew that something unusual was happening, for so heavy became the head of Muhammad that it was with the greatest difficulty he could support the weight.

“4. At the time of the Miʾráj, or night ascent into heaven, God spoke to the Prophet without the intervention of an angel. It is a disputed point whether the face of the Lord was veiled or not.

“5. God sometimes appeared in a dream, and placing his hands on the Prophet’s shoulders made known his will.

“6. Twice, angels having each six hundred wings, appeared and brought the message from God.

“7. Gabriel, though not appearing in bodily form, so inspired the heart of the Prophet, that the words he uttered under its influence were the words of God. This is technically called Ilka (Ilqāʾ), and is by some supposed to be the degree of inspiration to which the Traditions belong. (See as-Suyūt̤ī’s Itqān, p. 103.)

“Above all, the Prophet was not allowed to remain in any error; if, by any chance, he had made a wrong deduction from any previous revelation, another was always sent to rectify it. This idea has been worked up to a science of abrogation, according to which some verses of the Qurán abrogate others. Muhammad found it necessary to shift his stand-point more than once, and thus it became necessary to annul earlier portions of his revelation. [MANSUKH.]

“Thus in various ways was the revelation made known to Muhammad. At first there seems to have been a season of doubt, the dread lest after all it might be a mockery. But as years rolled on, confidence in himself and in his mission came. At times, too, there is a joyousness in his utterances as he swears by heaven and earth, by God and man; but more often the visions were weird and terrible. Tradition says:—“He roared like a camel, the sound as of bells well-nigh rent his heart in pieces.” Some strange power moved him, his fear was uncontrollable. For twenty years or more the revelations came, a direction on things of heaven and of earth, to the Prophet as the spiritual guide of all men, to the Warrior-Chief, as the founder of political unity among the Arab tribes.”

The whole book was not arranged until after Muḥammad’s death, but it is believed that the Prophet himself divided the Sūrahs [SURAH] and gave most of them their present titles, which are chosen from some word which occurs in the chapter. The following is the account of the collection and arrangement of the Qurʾān, as it stands at present, as given in traditions recorded by al-Buk͟hārī (see Ṣaḥīḥu ʾl-Buk͟hārī, Arabic ed., p. 745.)

“Zaid ibn S̤ābit relates:—‘Abu Bakr sent a person to me, and called me to him, at the time of the battle with the people of Yamāmah; and I went to him, and ʿUmar was with him; and Abu Bakr said to me, “ʿUmar came to me and said, ‘Verily a great many of the readers of the Qurʾān were slain on the day of the battle with the people of Yamāmah; and really I am afraid that if the slaughter should be great, much will be lost from the Qurʾān, because every person remembers something of it; and, verily, I see it advisable for you to order the Qurʾān to be collected into one book.’ I said to ʿUmar, ‘How can I do a thing which the Prophet has not done?’ He said, ‘I swear by God, this collecting of the Qurʾān is a good thing.’ And ʿUmar used to be constantly returning to me and saying: ‘You must collect the Qurʾān,’ till at length God opened my breast so to do, and I saw what ʿUmar had been advising.” And Zaid ibn S̤ābit says that, ‘Abū Bakr said to me, “You are a young and sensible man, and I do not suspect you of forgetfulness, negligence, or perfidy; and, verily, you used to write for the Prophet his instructions from above; then look for the Qurʾān in every place and collect it.” I said, “I swear by God, that if people had ordered me to carry a mountain about from one place to another, it would not be heavier upon me than the order which Abū Bakr has given for collecting the Qurʾān.” I said to Abū Bakr, “How do you do a thing which the Prophet of God did not?” He said, “By God, this collecting of the Qurʾān is a good act.” And he used perpetually to return to me, until God put it into my heart to do the thing which the heart of Abū Bakr had been set upon. Then I sought for the Qurʾān, and collected it from the leaves of the date, and white stones, and the breasts of people that remembered it, till I found the last part of the chapter entitled Tauba (Repentance), with Abū K͟huzaimah al-Anṣārī, and with no other person. These leaves were in the possession of Abū Bakr, until God caused him to die; after which ʿUmar had them in his life-time; after that, they remained with his daughter, Ḥafṣah; after that, ʿUs̤mān compiled them into one book.’

“Anas ibn Mālik relates: ‘Huzaifah came to ʿUs̤mān, and he had fought with the people of Syria in the conquest of Armenia; and had fought in Aẕurbaijān, with the people of al-ʿIrāq, and he was shocked at the different ways of people reading the Qurʾān. And Huzaifah said to ʿUs̤mān, “O ʿUs̤mān, assist this people, before they differ in the Book of God, just as the Jews and Christians differ in their books.” Then ʿUs̤mān sent a person to Ḥafṣah, ordering her to send those portions which she had, and saying, “I shall have a number of copies of them taken, and will then return them to you.” And Ḥafṣah sent the portions to ʿUs̤mān, and ʿUs̤mān ordered Zaid ibn S̤ābit, Anṣārī, and ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn az-Zubair, and Saʿīd ibn Alʿās, and ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥāris̤ ibn Hishām; and these were all of the Quraish tribe, except Zaid ibn S̤ābit and ʿUs̤mān. And he said to the three Quraishites, “When you and Zaid ibn-S̤ābit differ about any part of the dialect of the Qurʾān, then do ye write it in the Quraish dialect, because it came not down in the language of any tribe but theirs.” Then they did as ʿUs̤mān had ordered; and when a number of copies had been taken, ʿUs̤mān returned the leaves to Ḥafṣah. And ʿUs̤mān sent a copy to every quarter of the countries of Islām, and ordered all other leaves to be burnt, and Ibn Shahāb said, “K͟hārījah, son of Zaid ibn S̤ābit, informed me, saying, ‘I could not find one verse when I was writing the Qurʾān, which, verily, I heard from the Prophet; then I looked for it, and found it with K͟huzaimah, and entered it into the Sūratu ʾl-Aḥzāb.’ ”

This recension of the Qurʾān produced by the K͟halīfah ʿUs̤mān has been handed down to us unaltered; and there is probably no other book in the world which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text.

Sir William Muir remarks in his Life of Mahomet:—

“The original copy of the first edition was obtained from Haphsa’s (Ḥafṣah) depository, and a careful recension of the whole set on foot. In case of difference between Zaid and his coadjutors, the voice of the latter, as demonstrative of the Coreishite idiom, was to preponderate; and the new collation was thus assimilated to the Meccan dialect, in which the Prophet had given utterance to his inspiration. Transcripts were multiplied and forwarded to the chief cities in the empire, and the previously existing copies were all, by the Caliph’s command, committed to the flames. The old original was returned to Haphsa’s custody.

“The recension of Othmân (ʿUs̤mān) has been handed down to us unaltered. So carefully, indeed, has it been preserved, that there are no variations of importance,—we might almost say no variations at all, amongst the innumerable copies of the Coran scattered throughout the vast bounds of the empire of Islâm.

“Contending and embittered factions, taking their rise in the murder of Othmân himself within a quarter of a century from the death of Mahomet, have ever since rent the Mahometan world. Yet but one Corân has been current amongst them; and the consentaneous use by them all in every age up to the present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable proof that we have now before us the very text prepared by command of the unfortunate Caliph. There is probably in the world no other work which has remained twelve centuries with so pure a text. The various readings are wonderfully few in number, and are chiefly confined to differences in the vowel points and diacritical signs. But these marks were invented at a later date.

“They did not exist at all in the early copies, and can hardly be said to affect the text of Othmân. Since, then, we possess the undoubted text of Othmân’s recension, it remains to be inquired whether that text was an honest reproduction of Abu Bakr’s edition, with the simple reconcilement of unimportant variations. There is the fullest ground for believing that it was so. No early or trustworthy traditions throw suspicion of tampering with the Corân in order to support his own claims upon Othmân. The Sheeahs (Shīʿahs)115 of later times, indeed, pretend that Othmân left out certain Suras or passages which favoured Ali. But this is incredible. He could not possibly have done so without it being observed at the time; and it cannot be imagined that Ali and his followers (not to mention the whole body of the Mussulmans who fondly regarded the Corân as the word of God,) would have permitted such a proceeding.

“In support of this position, the following arguments may be adduced. First: When Othmân’s edition was prepared, no open breach had yet taken place between the Omeyads and the Alyites. The unity of Islâm was still complete and unthreatened. Ali’s pretensions were as yet undeveloped. No sufficient object can, therefore, be assigned for the perpetration by Othmân of an offence which Moslems regard as one of the blackest dye. Second: On the other hand, Ali, from the very commencement of Othmân’s reign, had an influential party of adherents, strong enough in the end to depose the Caliph, to storm his palace in the heart of Medîna, and to put an end to his life. Can we conceive that these men would have remained quiet, when the very evidence of their leader’s superior claims was being openly expunged from the book of God. Third: At the time of the recension, there were still multitudes alive who had the Corân, as originally delivered, by heart; and of the supposed passages favouring Ali—had any ever existed—there would have been numerous transcripts in the hands of his family and followers. Both of these sources must have proved an effectual check upon any attempt at suppression. Fourth: The party of Ali shortly after assumed an independent attitude, and he himself succeeded to the Caliphate. Is it possible that either Ali, or his party, when thus arrived at power, would have tolerated a mutilated Corân—mutilated expressly to destroy his claims. Yet we find that they used the same Corân as their opponents, and raised no shadow of an objection against it.

“The insurgents are indeed said to have made it one of their complaints against Othmân that he had caused a new edition to be made of the Corân, and had committed all the old copies to the flames; but these proceedings were objected to simply as unauthorised and sacrilegious. No hint was dropped of any alteration or omission. Such a supposition, palpably absurd at the time, is altogether an after-thought of the modern Sheeas.

“We may, then, safely conclude that Othmân’s recension was, what it professed to be, a reproduction of Abu Bakr’s edition, with a more perfect conformity to the dialect of Mecca, and possibly a more uniform arrangement of its parts,—but still a faithful reproduction.

“The most important question yet remains, viz. Whether Abu Bakr’s edition was itself an authentic and complete collection of Mahomet’s Revelations. The following considerations warrant the belief that it was authentic and, in the main, as complete as at the time was possible.

“First.—We have no reason to doubt that Abu Bakr was a sincere follower of Mahomet, and an earnest believer in the divine origin of the Corân. His faithful attachment to the Prophet’s person, conspicuous for the last twenty years of his life, and his simple, consistent, and unambitious deportment as Caliph, admit no other supposition. Firmly believing the revelations of his friend to be the revelations of God himself, his first object would be to secure a pure and complete transcript of them. A similar argument applies with almost equal force to Omar, and the other agents in the revision. The great mass of Mussulmans were undoubtedly sincere in their belief. From the scribes themselves, employed in the compilation, down to the humblest believer who brought his little store of writing on stones or palm-leaves, all would be influenced by the same earnest desire to reproduce the very words which their Prophet had declared as his message from the Lord. And a similar guarantee existed in the feelings of the people at large, in whose soul no principle was more deeply rooted than an awful reverence for the supposed word of God. The Corân itself contains frequent denunciations against those who should presume to ‘fabricate anything in the name of the Lord,’ or conceal any part of that which He had revealed. Such an action, represented as the very worst description of crime, we cannot believe that the first Moslems, in the early ardour of their faith and love, would have dared to contemplate.

“Second.—The compilation was made within two years of Mahomet’s death. We have seen that several of his followers had the entire revelation (excepting, perhaps, some obsolete fragments) by heart; that every Moslem treasured up more or less some portions in his memory; and that there were official Reciters of it, for public worship and tuition, in all countries to which Islâm extended. These formed an unbroken link between the Revelation fresh from Mahomet’s lips, and the edition of it by Zeid. Thus the people were not only sincere and fervent in wishing for a faithful copy of the Corân; they were also in possession of ample means for realising their desire, and for testing the accuracy and completeness of the volume placed in their hands by Abu Bakr.

“Third.—A still greater security would be obtained from the fragmentary transcripts which existed in Mahomet’s life-time, and which must have greatly multiplied before the Corân was compiled. These were in the possession, probably, of all who could read. And as we know that the compilation of Abu Bakr came into immediate and unquestioned use, it is reasonable to conclude that it embraced and corresponded with every extant fragment, and therefore by common consent, superseded them. We hear of no fragments, sentences, or words, intentionally omitted by the compilers, nor of any that differed from the received edition. Had any such been discoverable, they would undoubtedly have been preserved and noticed in those traditional repositories which treasured up the minutest and most trivial acts and sayings of the Prophet.

“Fourth.—The contents and the arrangement of the Corân speak forcibly for its authenticity. All the fragments that could possibly be obtained have with artless simplicity been joined together. The patchwork bears no marks of a designing genius or a moulding hand. It testifies to the faith and reverence of the compilers, and proves that they dared no more than simply collect the sacred fragments and place them in juxtaposition. Hence the interminable repetitions; the palling reiteration of the same ideas, truths, and doctrines; hence, scriptural stories and Arab legends, told over and over again with little verbal variation; hence the pervading want of connection, and the startling chasms between adjacent passages. Again, the frailties of Mahomet, supposed to have been noticed by the Deity, are all with evident faithfulness entered in the Corân. Not less undisguised are the frequent verses which are contradicted or abrogated by later revelations. The editor plainly contented himself with compiling and copying out in a continuous form, but with scrupulous accuracy, the fragmentary materials within his reach. He neither ventured to select from repeated versions of the same incident, nor to reconcile differences, nor by the alteration of a single letter to connect abrupt transitions of context, nor by tampering with the text to soften discreditable appearances. Thus we possess every internal guarantee of confidence.

“But it may be objected,—if the text of Abu Bakr’s Corân was pure and universally received, how came it to be so soon corrupted, and to require, in consequence of its variations, an extensive recension? Tradition does not afford sufficient light to determine the cause of these discrepancies. They may have been owing to various readings in the older fragmentary transcripts which remained in the possession of the people; they may have originated in the diverse dialects of Arabia, and the different modes of pronunciation and orthography; or they may have sprung up naturally in the already vast domains of Islâm, before strict uniformity was officially enforced. It is sufficient for us to know that in Othmân’s revision recourse was had to the original exemplar of the first compilation, and that there is otherwise every security, internal and external, that we possess a text the same as that which Mahomet himself gave forth and used.” (Life of Mahomet, new ed., p. 557 et seqq.)

The various readings (qirāʾah) in the Qurʾān are not such as are usually understood by the term in English authors, but different dialects of the Arabic language. Ibn ʿAbbās says the Prophet said, “Gabriel taught me to read the Qurʾān in one dialect, and when I recited it he taught me to recite it in another dialect, and so on until the number of dialects increased to seven.” (Mishkāt, book ii. ch. ii.)

Muḥammad seems to have adopted this expedient to satisfy the desire of the leading tribes to have a Qurʾān in their own dialect; for ʿAbdu ʾl-Ḥaqq says, “The Qurʾān was first revealed in the dialect of the Quraish, which was the Prophet’s native tongue; but when the Prophet saw that the people of other tribes recited it with difficulty, then he obtained permission from God to extend its currency by allowing it to be recited in all the chief dialects of Arabia, which were seven:—Quraish, Taiy, Hawāzin, Yaman, S̤aqīf, Huẕail, and Banū Tamīm. Every one of these tribes accordingly read the Qurʾān in its own dialect, till the time of ʿUs̤mān, when these differences of reading were prohibited.”

These seven dialects are called in Arabic Sabaʿtu Aḥruf, and in Persian Haft Qirāʾāt.

The Qurʾān, which is written in the Arabic language, is divided into: Ḥarf, Kalimah, Āyah, Sūrah, Rukūʾ, Rubʿ, Niṣf, S̤uls̤, Juzʾ, Manzal.

1. Ḥarf (pl. Ḥurūf), Letters; of which there are said to be 323,671, or according to some authorities, 338,606.

2. Kalimah (pl. Kalimāt), Words; of which there are 77,934, or, according to some writers, 79,934.

3. Āyah (pl. Āyāt), Verses. Āyah (Heb. ‏אוֹת‎) is a word which signifies “sign.” It was used by Muḥammad for short sections or verses of his supposed revelation. The division of verses differs in different editions of the Arabic Qurʾān. The number of verses in the Arabic Qurʾāns are recorded after the title of the Sūrah, and the verses distinguished in the text by a small cypher or circle. The early readers of the Qurʾān did not agree as to the original position of these circles, and so it happens that there are five different systems of numbering the verses.

(a) Kūfah verses. The Readers in the city of al-Kūfah say that they followed the custom of ʿAlī. Their way of reckoning is generally adopted in India. They reckon 6,239 verses.

(b) Baṣrah verses. The Readers of al-Baṣrah follow ʿĀṣim ibn Ḥajjāj, a Companion. They reckon 6,204 verses.

(c) Shāmī verses. The Readers in Syria (Shām) followed ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn ʿUmar, a Companion. They reckon 6,225 verses.

(d) Makkah verses. According to this arrangement, there are 6,219 verses.

(e) Madīnah verses. This way of reading contains 6,211 verses.

4. Sūrah (pl. Suwar), Chapters. A word which signifies a row or series, but which is now used exclusively for the chapters of the Qurʾān, which are one hundred and fourteen in number. These chapters are called after some word which occurs in the text, and, if the Traditions are to be trusted, they were so named by Muḥammad himself, although the verses of their respective Sūrahs were undoubtedly arranged after his death, and sometimes with little regard to their sequence. Muslim doctors admit that the K͟halīfah ʿUs̤mān arranged the chapters in the order in which they now stand in the Qurʾān.

The Sūrahs of the Muḥammadan Qurʾān are similar to the forty-three divisions of the Law amongst the Jews known as ‏סְדָרִים‎ Sidārīm, or “orders.” These were likewise named after a word in the section, e.g. The first is Bereshith, the second Noah, &c. (See Buxtorf’s Tiberias, p. 181.)

Each Sūrah of the Qurʾān, with the exception of the IXth, begins with the words—

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم‎

“In the name of the Merciful, the Compassionate.”

The Sūrahs, as they stand in Arabic editions of the Qurʾān, are as follows:—

5. Rukūʾ (pl. Rukūʾāt), an inclination of the head or bow. These are sections of about ten verses or less, at which the devout Muslim makes a bow of reverence; they are marked on the margin of the Qurʾān with the letter ʿain ع‎, with the number of the rukūʾ over it. Muḥammadans generally quote their Qurʾān by the Juzʾ or Sīpārah and the Rukūʾ.

6. Rubʿ. The quarter of a Juzʾ, or Sīpārah.

7. Niṣf. The half of a Sīpārah.

8. S̤uls̤. The three-quarters of a Sīpārah. These three divisions are denoted by the words being written on the margin.

9. Juzʾ (pl. Ajzāʾ). Persian Sīpārah. Thirty divisions of the Qurʾān, which have been made to enable the devout Muslim to recite the whole of the Qurʾān in the thirty days of Ramaẓān. Muḥammadans usually quote their Qurʾān by the Sīpārah or Juzʾ and not by the Sūrah.

10. Manzil (pl. Manāzil, Stages). These are seven in number, and are marked by the letters ف م ى ب ش و ق‎, which are said to spell Famī bi Shauq, “My mouth with desire.” This arrangement is to enable the Muslim to recite the whole in the course of a week.