Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Johan Blank, Mullahs on the Main-

frame: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Tanya 

Gulevich,  Understanding Islam and Muslim Traditions

(Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2005); Gustav E. von Grune-

baum, Muhammadan Festivals (1951. Reprint, London: 

Curzon Press, 1976).

holy books

One of the most important features common to the 

Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and 

K  306  

holy books

---

Islam is the primacy their adherents give to holy 

books, scriptures believed to have been revealed or 

inspired by the one God. Jews look to the t

orah

(Hebrew: “teaching” or “law”), the revelation 

given by God in Hebrew to m

oses

 at Sinai, which 

consists of written and oral components. The writ-

ten Torah includes the five books of Moses (the 

Pentateuch), the Prophets, and the Writings (for 

example, the books of Psalms and Proverbs). The 

oral Torah, known as the Talmud, is said to have 

been inherited by the rabbis, Jewish sages, from 

Moses. It consists of the Mishnah (Hebrew: “rep-

etition”), a collection of legal prescriptions plus 

extensive rabbinic commentaries. Scripture for 

Christians is the Old Testament, which includes 

the books of the Hebrew written Torah, and the 

New Testament, composed of the four Gospels of 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, letters of Paul and 

other early church authorities, an early history of 

the church (Acts of the Apostles), and the conclud-

ing book of Revelation. In Islam, the holy book is 

the  q

Uran

 (Arabic: “recitation”), which Muslims 

believe to be the word of God as communicated 

to m

Uhammad

 during the last 23 years of his life 

(between 610 and 632 

c

.

e

.). It is complemented 

by the 

hadith

, accounts of Muhammad’s deeds and 

sayings transmitted and assembled into books by 

his followers after his death. Both Sunni and Shii 

Muslims look to the Quran and hadith for guid-

ance, but the Shia prefer to interpret both in light 

of the teachings of the i

mam

s (divinely inspired 

descendants of Muhammad).

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy books 

have historically defined communities of religious 

belief and action, serving as the basis for their 

understandings of God and his 

creation

, ritual 

life, ethics and law, history, and ways to salvation 

in this world or in the 

aFterliFe

. Indeed, member-

ship in the Abrahamic communities is defined, 

in part, by believing what is taught in them. The 

communities, however, are not passive recipients 

of scriptures, blindly following their teachings. 

Rather, Jews, Christians, and Muslims continually 

preserve and infuse them with new life from gen-

eration to generation by studying and memorizing 

them, using them in worship, and interpreting 

and debating their meanings in accordance with 

lived experience and changes in the world around 

them. The ways communities give life to scripture 

are represented, for example, by the Jewish rabbi, 

a “master” of the Torah, who is charged with 

teaching and upholding its commandments. His 

counterpart in Islam is the alim (pl. 

Ulama

), “one 

who knows” the Quran, hadith, and the 

sharia

(Islamic law). Any person who has memorized 

the Quran is called hafiz, “one who preserves” the 

sacred text. Muslims are obliged to recite short 

passages from the Quran during their five daily 

Page from modern print edition of the Quran showing 

the first verses of Sura 2, with Arabic text on the right 

and Hindi transliteration on the left 

(Quran majid, New 

Delhi, 1987)