The main sacred text of Islam is the Qur'an, which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago.
It was revealed in instalments, by the Angel Gabriel, and it took about 23
years before the whole Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet, and the Prophet
would recite it as it was revealed to him. So, to us, to Muslims, the Qur'an is not written
by humans, it is not amended or commented on by the Prophet, it is simply a direct transmission
from the Divine to us humans, through angels, through the Prophet Muhammad.
This is the British Library's oldest Qur'an manuscript, and one of the oldest
Qur'ans in the world. It dates from the eighth century, about 150 years after the death of
the Prophet. No Qur'an manuscript from this period has survived intact completely, but
what we have here is one of the largest fragments, about two thirds of the Qur'an text.
For Muslims the Qur'an is a way of life, so it sets down for us not only
rules on how we live our life and what is permissible for us, and what is impermissible,
but also just general advice as well on how we should live. It also tells stories of previous nations,
the story of Jesus Christ, peace be upon Him, and his mother Mary, and Moses and Noah, all
these similar stories that you will find in the Bible, these narratives, the Qur'an tells
those same stories. But they're told for, in a way, to remind us, as believers, as human
beings, not to fall short in our worship to God.
So the Qur'an is far more than just a sacred text, it is a blueprint for life. And
it is a historic document, as well as a document of philosophy, of law, and of moral values.
As Muslims we were commanded to pray five times a day. The prayers are spread throughout
the day and follow the motion of the sun, so a prayer before sunrise, end of sunrise.
Then you have a prayer at the zenith, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky,
you have a late afternoon prayer, when the sun is coming down, then you have a sunset
prayer when the sun is actually set, then you have a night time prayer, when it's gone completely dark.
You can pray as much as you wanted to, you can pray all day long if you
wanted to, but those are the five minimum prayers that we have to do, which are one of the pillars of Islam.
The Shahadah is a declaration of faith
but also a declaration of belief in the unity of everything in the universe. So when
you say there is no God but God, what we are saying is that
everything in creation is connected, everything is one, and that really is a very important
principle of Islam: the unity of everything in creation.
This is one of the British Library's most beautifully decorated and ornamented Qur'an.
and this book was commissioned by Sultan Baybars at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
It really is a magnificent piece of illumination, calligraphy, design. Islamic art is essentially
beautifying the sacred text, that is to say writing down the sacred text in a beautiful
calligraphy and illuminating it. And it's very abstract, there is no human or animal representation.
Zakat is third pillar of Islam,
and it is very, very important for Muslims all around the world. It is tradition that
was started by the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon Him, 1,400 years ago. In practical
terms Zakat aims to purify one's wealth and it's devised so that the rich that are blessed
with wealth are not holding on to their wealth, they are sharing that wealth with the less fortunate in society.
So we give charity, which is a percentage
of wealth, or income, once a year, to the poor.
The Qur'an has very clearly directed Muslims around the world on how Zakat can be distributed and can be used.
Amongst them are the poor and needy, and spending in the cause of God,
and the cause of God can be striving to understand the religion or in terms of development work
or community engagement, community development. In recent history, we have seen the tragedy
of Grenfell in 2017. So a lot of people gave Zakat to Islamic Relief specifically for the
Grenfell tragedy and Islamic Relief administered Zakat at home? to help the survivors of the Grenfell tragedy.
Taking from the rich and giving to the poor has been emphasised in the Qur'an,
and there are many, many evidences in Qur'an and Hadith.
Hadith is one of our sources of law in Islam, so Hadith plays a huge role for us
in terms of understanding the Qur'an, because there are some verses in the Qur'an which
are quite general, so we use the Hadith to make those verses specific, or to get better
understanding of why those verses were revealed. But also for us as a source of law, where
we derive rulings.
We pray five times a day but the Qur'an
doesn't tell us to pray five times a day. The Qur'an doesn't tell us how to do our prayer.
This was collated or reported from what the early Muslims did, and what the Prophet did.
So that's why the Hadith is really important.
The fourth pillar is fasting in the month
of Ramadan. It is one month of the year when we are required to abstain from food and drink,
from dawn to sunset. It's really a month of detox, spiritual detox.
Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan because they were commanded to
by God. In the Qur'an God commands Muslims to fast in order to attain God consciousness.
The relationship with Muslims and the Qur'an is a very holy one during the specific month
of Ramadan. So many Muslims will attempt to complete a whole Qur'an in terms of its reading.
Fasting binds the Muslim community together, through purely when we come to break our fast,
we do so through communal gatherings, whether it's in our local mosque or a community centre,
or out here in a park for instance.
Islam is not a culture it's a prism through
which we look at our culture, our history, our moral values, and particularly in Britain
today we will find that the Muslim community is so diverse in terms of the ethnic background
or people, the cultural practices, the languages.
So yes, I think to me the beauty of Islam is the diversity
of the Muslim community across the world.