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The history of the Qur'an refers to the oral revelation of the Quran to Islamic prophet Muhammad, and its subsequent written compilation into a manuscript. It spans several decades and forms an important part of early Islamic history. According to Muslim belief and Islamic scholarly accounts, it is said the history of the Quran began in the year 610 when the angel Gabriel (Arabic: جبريل, ''Jibrīl'' or جبرائيل, ''Jibrāʾīl'') appeared to Muhammad in the cave Hira near Mecca, reciting to him the first verses of Sura Iqra (al-`Alaq), beginning the revelation of the Quran. Throughout his life, Muhammad continued to have revelations until before his death in 632. Muslims agree that the manuscript, or version, of the Quran we see today was compiled by Uthman, the third caliph (reign 644 to 656); a caliph being the political leader of a Caliphate (Islamic government). For this reason, the Quran as it exists today is also known as the Uthmanic codex. Nevertheless, even according to secular scholars what was done to the Quran in the process seems to have been extremely conservative and the content was formed in a mechanical fashion as to avoid redactional bias.〔F. E. Peters, The Quest of the Historical Muhammad, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Aug.,1991), p. 297〕 ==Origin according to tradition== According to traditional Islamic beliefs, the Quran was revealed to Muhammad, starting one night during the month of Ramadan in 610 AD, when he, at the age of forty, received the first revelation from the angel Gabriel, who had given him the responsibility for inscribing these messages from the Islamic God to give to mankind. Muslim scholars believe that Muhammad was illiterate, as mentioned in the Quran itself,
According to Bukhari, Muhammad's wife Aisha described that the first Quranic revelation occurred when angel Gabriel visited Muhammad and asked him to recite. Muhammad responded ''ma ana bīqāre'u'', which could be translated into a number of ways: 'I do not read' or 'what am I to read/recite?' or 'I will not read/recite'. Gabriel pressed him "until all the strength went out of me; thereupon he released me and said: ‘Read!’" This was repeated three times and upon the third, Gabriel released him and said, "Read in the name of the Sustainer who created humankind from a clot! Read! And your Sustainer is the most Beautiful." After this Muhammad continued sporadically over a period of twenty-three years to have revelations, until shortly before his death in 11/632.〔 Muslims believe Gabriel brought the word of God to Muhammad verbatim, without any alteration or change. The Quran emphasizes that Muhammad was required only to receive the sacred text and that he had no authority to change it (10.15). Even though Muhammad had no authority to change the Quran, he was active in the way that he received the revelations in full consciousness, witnessing in his heart the greatness of the presence of the voice of God. The impact of receiving these revelations are described below. It is also believed that God did not make himself known through the revelations; it was his will that was revealed. There is nothing in the Quran that suggests that Muhammad saw God during his revelations. For Muhammad, the revelations were real and he believed the context was objective, but he was only able to describe the experience through metaphorical terms.〔 When asked about the experience of revelation Muhammad reported, ''"sometimes it is revealed like the ringing of a bell. This form of inspiration is the hardest of them all and then it passes off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes the Angel comes in the form of a man and talks to me and I grasp whatever he says."''〔 At times, it has also been reported that the experience was painful and agonizing for Muhammad. For example, Muhammad had been heard saying, "Never once did I receive a revelation without thinking that my soul had been torn away from me."〔 After Muhammad would get revelations he would memorize the Quran by ear, and later recite it to his companions, who also memorized it or wrote it down. Before the Quran was commonly available in written form, speaking it from memory prevailed as the mode of teaching it to others. The practice of memorizing the whole Quran is still practiced among Muslims. Millions of people have memorized the entire Quran in its original Arabic. This fact, taken in the context of 7th-century Arabia, was not an extraordinary feat. People of that time had a penchant for recited poetry and had developed their skills in memorization to a remarkable degree. Events and competitions that featured the recitation of elaborate poetry were of great interest. People questioned the nature and modes of Muhammad’s revelations. The Meccans of Muhammad judged the Quranic revelation based on their understanding of ‘inspiration’. For them, poetry was closely connected to inspiration from a higher spiritual source. For this reason when Muhammad began preaching and reciting the Quran, the Meccans accused him of being a poet (21.5) or a ‘poet possessed’(37.36). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the Quran」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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