Quotes About The Qur’an

We have collected and put the best Quotes About The Qur’an. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

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The Holy Quran (القرآن‎, “the recitation”; Qur’an or Koran) is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Allah).The Quran is the most sacred text, as it is believed to be the literal word of God (Allah) as revealed to Muhammad. The Holy Quran is divided into chapters (سورة‎ sūrah, plural سور suwar), which are subdivided into verses (آية‎ āyāh, plural آيات āyāt).

The Qur’an is the Divine Word or Speech sent down to humanity, the best pattern of creation that is uniquely qualified to receive it.

In accordance with humanity’s worth and value, and considering the human heart, spirit, mind, and physical being, the Qur’an descended from the Highest of the High. Containing the most perfect messages, it is a collection of Divine Laws. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Followed today by more than one billion people, the Qur’an is a unique book that, with its eternal and unchanging divine principles, guides everyone to the shortest and most illuminated road to happiness. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an has been a source of light for the most magnificent and enlightened communities that have ruled the world, those that have produced thousands of scholars, philosophers and thinkers. In this sense, no other rule is equal to its rule. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Since the day it was revealed, the Qur’an has encountered many objections and criticisms. However, the Qur’an has always emerged unscathed and so continues to reflect its victory. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an crystallizes in the heart, illumines the spirit, and exhibits truths from beginning to end. Only believers who can sense all the beauty of the universe in a single flower and see rainstorms in a drop of water can know and understand its real countenance. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an possesses such a style that Arab and foreign linguists and literary men and women who heard its verses bowed before it. Those who recognized its truth and understood its contents bowed before this masterpiece of eloquence. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Muslims can reach unity only by affirming and believing the Qur’an. Those who cannot do so cannot be Muslim, nor can they establish any lasting unity among themselves. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Saying that “faith is a matter of conscience” means “I affirm God, His Prophet, and the Qur’an” with my tongue and my conscience. Every act of worship connected to this understanding manifests this affirmation. – M. Fethullah Gulen

When humanity was floundering in the brutality of ignorance and unbelief, the Qur’an burst forth in a flood of enlightenment that drowned the world in its light. The Qur’an engendered a revolution without parallel or equal. History is a sufficient witness! – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an teaches in a most balanced way the meaning and nature of humanity, and the truth and wisdom, as well as the Essence, Attributes, and Names of God. No other book can equal it in this field. Look at the wisdom of scholarly saints and the philosophy of true philosophers, and you will understand. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an is the unique book commanding true justice, real freedom, balanced equality, goodness, honor, virtue, and compassion for all creation. It is also the matchless book forbidding oppression, polytheism, injustice, ignorance, bribery, interest, lying, and bearing false witness. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an is the only book that, protecting the orphan, the poor and the innocent, puts the king and the slave, the commander and the private, the plaintiff and the defendant in the same chair and then judges them. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Claiming that the Qur’an is a source of superstition is nothing more than repeating the words uttered by ignorant Arabs fourteen centuries ago. Such a view ridicules wisdom and true philosophy. – M. Fethullah Gulen

If only those who criticize the Qur’an and the things it brought could produce something to guarantee the order, harmony, peace and safety of human life even in a short, temporary period… Actually, it’s very difficult to understand this perversity and obstinacy when faced with the miserable and unbalanced civilizations based on principles foreign to the Qur’an, and the troubled, depressed, and moaning hearts of those deprived of its light. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The most orderly life for humanity is that breathed by the Qur’an. In fact, some of the beautiful things that are today universally commended and applauded are the exact things encouraged by the Qur’an centuries ago. So, whose fault it is if Muslims are in a miserable situation today? – M. Fethullah Gulen

Those who criticize the Qur’an as if it were their profession generally have only a vague and superficial knowledge of its contents. It is ironic that such people feel free to vent their opinions without researching the Qur’an or even reading it. Actually, there is no difference between their attitude and the obstinacy some ignorant people show in the face of (positive) sciences. It seems that we must continue to wait for people to awaken to truth. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Those who have faith in Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, and the Qur’an have faith in God. Those who do not believe in the Qur’an do not believe in Prophet Muhammad, and those who do not believe in Prophet Muhammad do not believe in God. These are the real dimensions of being a Muslim. – M. Fethullah Gulen

The Qur’an enables people to rise to the highest level, namely the station of being addressed by God. Those who are conscious of being in this position hear their Lord speak to them through the Qur’an. If they take an oath that they speak with their Lord, they will not be among those who swear falsely. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Even though we are still in this world, when we enter the Qur’an’s enlightened climate we feel that we are passing through the grave and the intermediate world (between this and the next), experiencing the Day of Judgment and the Sirat (bridge), shuddering at the horror of Hell, and walking on Heaven’s tranquil slopes. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Those who have prevented Muslims from understanding the Qur’an and perceiving it in depth have thus removed them from Islam’s spirit and essence. – M. Fethullah Gulen

In the near future, and under humanity’s gazes of commendation and amazement, the streams of knowledge, technique, and art flowing toward the Qur’anic Ocean will fall into their essential source and unite with it. At that time, scholars, researchers, and artists will find themselves in that same ocean. – M. Fethullah Gulen

It should not be too hard to see the future as the Age of the Qur’an, for it is the word of One Who sees the past, present, and future at the same moment. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Quotes about the Qur’an

• The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.
  • Passage comparing Christianity and Islam by an anonymous author in The American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9 (1830), edited by Joseph Blunt, Ch. X, p. 269; Robert Spencer attributed the authorship to John Quincy Adams in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005), p. 83, but provided no clear documentation as to why this attribution was made.

• This book is a long conference of God, the angels, and Mahomet, which that false prophet very grossly invented; sometimes he introduceth God, who speaketh to him, and teacheth him his law, then an angel, among the prophets, and frequently maketh God to speak in the plural. … Thou wilt wonder that such absurdities have infected the best part of the world, and wilt avouch, that the knowledge of what is contained in this book, will render that law contemptible …
  • John Adams Library (Boston Public Library) BRL; Du Ryer, André, ca. 1580-ca. 1660, tr; Adams, John, 1735-1826, former owner, “[[[:Template:Reference archive]] The Koran : commonly called the Alcoran of Mahomet (1806)],” Springfield [Mass.] : Printed by Henry Brewer, for Isaiah Thomas, Jun.

• In making the present attempt to improve on the performance of my predecessors, and to produce something which might be accepted as echoing however faintly the sublime rhetoric of the Arabic Koran, I have been at pains to study the intricate and richly varied rhythms which – apart from the message itself – constitute the Koran’s undeniable claim to rank amongst the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind… This very characteristic feature – ‘that inimitable symphony,’ as the believing Pickthall described his Holy Book, ‘the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy’ – has been almost totally ignored by previous translators; it is therefore not surprising that what they have wrought sounds dull and flat indeed in comparison with the splendidly decorated original.”
  • Arthur John Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, London: Oxford University Press, 1964, p. x

• KORAN, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic’s Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil’s Dictionary (1911).

• The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by those who see Muhammad as the author of the Qur’an untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature? How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human being could possibly have developed at that time, and all this without once making the slightest error in his pronouncement on the subject?”
  • Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, the Quran and Science, 1978, p. 125.

• A totally objective examination of it [the Qur’an] in the light of modern knowledge, leads us to recognize the agreement between the two, as has been already noted on repeated occasions. It makes us deem it quite unthinkable for a man of Muhammad’s time to have been the author of such statements on account of the state of knowledge in his day. Such considerations are part of what gives the Qur’anic Revelation its unique place, and forces the impartial scientist to admit his inability to provide an explanation which calls solely upon materialistic reasoning.”
  • Maurice Bucaille, The Quran and Modern Science, 1981, p. 18

• …I must say, it [the Koran] is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite; — insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran … It is the confused ferment of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself in words … We said “stupid:” yet natural stupidity is by no means the character of Mahomet’s Book; it is natural uncultivation rather. The man has not studied speaking; in the haste and pressure of continual fighting, has not time to mature himself into fit speech … The man was an uncultured semi-barbarous Son of Nature, much of the Bedouin still clinging to him: we must take him for that. But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Impostor without eyes or heart… we will not and cannot take him. Sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran; what had rendered it precious to the wild Arab men … Curiously, through these incondite masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint, ejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of what we might almost call poetry, is found straggling.
  • Thomas Carlyle, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History”, pg. 64-67

• But suppose we admit – as the followers of the Koran claim – ([a claim] whose denial all the wise and zealous believe, as was made evident above) – that the goal and intent of the book of the Koran, is not only not to detract from God the creator or from Christ or from God’s prophets and envoys or from the divine books of the Testament, the Psalter, and the Gospel, but also to give glory to God the Creator, to praise and bear witness to Christ (the son of the Virgin Mary) above all prophets, and to confirm and approve of the Testament and the Gospel. [If so,] then when one reads the Koran with this understanding, assuredly some fruit can be elicited [from it].
  • Nicholas of Cusa, Cribratio Alcorani, II, 1 (no. 86). Trans. Hopkins, p. 115

• The Koran abounds in excellent moral suggestions and precepts; its composition is so fragmentary that we can not turn to a single page without finding maxims of which all men must approve. This fragmentary construction yields texts, and mottoes, and rules complete in themselves, suitable for common men in any of the incidents of life.
  • John William Draper, A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, ed. Harper, 1863, p. 254.

• The Koran calls for belief and consequent obedience. It is, surely, calculated to inspire fear, indeed abject terror, rather than love.
  • Antony Flew, “The Terrors of Islam”, Atheist Notes No. 6, 2004, ISBN 1856372928

• Like all Arabs they were connoisseurs of language and rhetoric. Well, then if the Koran were his own composition other men could rival it. Let them produce ten verses like it. If they could not (and it is obvious that they could not), then let them accept the Koran as an outstanding evidential miracle.
  • H. A. R Gibb, (1980) Islam: A Historical Survey. Oxford University Press, p. 28.

• However often we turn to it [the Qur’an] at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence… Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim is stern, grand, terrible — ever and anon truly sublime — Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in Dictionary of Islam (1895), by T.P. Hughes, p. 526

• The Koran cannot be translated — the “map” changes on translation no matter how carefully one tries.
  • Robert A. Heinlein, in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

• The prophet died in the year 632 of our own approximate calendar. The first account of his life was set down a full hundred and twenty years later by Ibn Ishaq, whose original was lost and can only be consulted through its reworked form, authored by Ibn Hisham, who died in 834. Adding to this hearsay and obscurity, there is no agreed-upon account of how the Prophet’s followers assembled the Koran, or of how his various sayings (some of them written down by secretaries) became codified. … It is said by some Muslim authorities that during the first caliphate of Abu Bakr, immediately after Muhammad’s death, concern arose that his orally transmitted words might be forgotten. So many Muslim soldiers had been killed in battle that the number who had the Koran safely lodged in their memories had become alarmingly small. It was therefore decided to assemble every living witness, together with “pieces of paper, stones, palm leaves, shoulder-blades, ribs and bits of leather” on which sayings had been scribbled, and give them to Zaid ibn Thabit, one of the Prophet’s former secretaries, for an authoritative collation. Once this had been done, the believers had something like an authorized version. If true, this would date the Koran to a time fairly close to Muhammad’s own life. But we swiftly discover that there is no certainty or agreement about the truth of the story. Some say that it was Ali—the fourth and not the first caliph, and the founder of Shiism—who had the idea. Many others—the Sunni majority—assert that it was Caliph Uthman, who reigned from 644 to 656, who made the finalized decision. Told by one of his generals that soldiers from different provinces were fighting over discrepant accounts of the Koran, Uthman ordered Zaid ibn Thabit to bring together the various texts, unify them, and have them transcribed into one. When this task was complete, Uthman ordered standard copies to be sent to Kufa, Basra, Damascus, and elsewhere, with a master copy retained in Medina. Uthman thus played the canonical role that had been taken, in the standardization and purging and censorship of the Christian Bible, by Irenaeus and by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. The roll was called, and some texts were declared sacred and inerrant while others became “apocryphal.” Outdoing Athanasius, Uthman ordered that all earlier and rival editions be destroyed. Even supposing this version of events to be correct, which would mean that no chance existed for scholars ever to determine or even dispute what really happened in Muhammad’s time, Uthman’s attempt to abolish disagreement was a vain one. The written Arabic language has two features that make it difficult for an outsider to learn: it uses dots to distinguish consonants like “b” and “t,” and in its original form it had no sign or symbol for short vowels, which could be rendered by various dashes or comma-type marks. Vastly different readings even of Uthman’s version were enabled by these variations. … To take one instance that can hardly be called negligible, the Arabic words written on the outside of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem are different from any version that appears in the Koran.
  • Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great (2007).

• If the Qur’an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.
  • Christopher Hitchens, Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 21, Number 4

• We were headed toward Kufa and ‘Umar accompanied us as far as Sirar. Then he made ablutions, washing twice, and said: “Do you know why I have accompanied you?” We said: “Yes, we are companions of God’s messenger (peace and blessings be upon him).” Then, he said: You will be coming to the people of a town for whom the buzzing of the Qur’an is as the buzzing of bees. Therefore, do not distract them with the Hadiths, and thus engage them. Bare the Qur’an and spare the narration from God’s messenger (peace and blessing be upon him)!
  • Reported by Ibn Sa’d, quoted in Abbott, Nabia (1957). Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri. University of Chicago Press. pp. 6–7. and in Musa, Aisha Y. (2008). Hadith As Scripture: Discussions on the Authority of Prophetic Traditions in Islam. Springer. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-230-61197-9.

• As tangible signs, Qur’anic verses are expressive of an inexhaustible truth, they signify meaning layered with meaning, light upon light, miracle after miracle.
  • Bruce Lawrence, (2006) The Qur’an: A Biography. London: Atlantic Books, p 8

• The Koran admittedly occupies an important position among the great religious books of the world. Though the youngest of the epoch-making works belonging to this class of literature, it yields to hardly any in the wonderful effect which it has produced on large masses of men. It has created an all but new phase of human thought and a fresh type of character. It first transformed a number of heterogeneous desert tribes of the Arabian peninsula into a nation of heroes, and then proceeded to create the vast politico-religious organizations of the Muhammadan world which are one of the great forces with which Europe and the East have to reckon today.”
  • G. Margoliouth, in the Introduction to The Koran as translated by John Medows Rodwell, Everyman’s Library edition (1977), p. vii.

• The Koran is probably the most often read book in the world, surely the most often memorized, and possibly the most influential in the daily life of the people who believe in it. Not quite so long as the New Testament, written in an exalted style, it is neither poetry nor ordinary prose, yet it possesses the ability to arouse its hearers to ecstasies of faith. Its rhythms have been compared to the beat of drums, to the echoes of nature and to the chants which are common in all early societies. It is written In Arabic, and devout Muslims have often insisted that it must not be translated into any other language. One might expect that such a wish would have limited the spread of Islam. On the contrary, all over the world men have laboured to learn Arabic, not an easy language, just to be able to read their holy book and pray in the original.
  • James A. Michener, Islam: The Misunderstood Religion in Readers’ Digest (American edition), May 1955, pp. 70-71.

• For Muslims the Quran is the Word of God; it is sacred scripture, not a work of “literature,” a manual of law, or a text of theology, philosophy or history although it is of incomparable literary quality, contains many injunctions about a Sacred Law, is replete with verses of metaphysical, theological, and philosophical significance, and contains many accounts of sacred history. The unique structure of the Quran and the flow of its content constitute a particular challenge to most modern readers. For traditional Muslims the Quran is not a typical “read” or manual to be studied. For most of them, the most fruitful way of interacting with the Quran is not to sit down and read the Sacred Tex from cover to cover (although there are exceptions, such as completing the whole text during Ramadan). It is, rather, to recite a section with full awareness of it as the Word of God and to meditate upon it as one whose soul is being directly addressed, as the Prophet’s soul was addressed during its revelation. … In this context it must be remembered that the Quran itself speaks constantly of the Origin and the Return, of all things coming from God and returning to Him, who himself has no origin or end. As the Word of god, the Quran also seems to have no beginning and no end. Certain turns of phrase and teachings about the Divine Reality, the human condition, the life of this world, and the Hereafter are often repeated, but they are not mere repetitions. Rather each iteration of a particular word, phrase, or verse opens the door of a hidden passage to other parts of the Quran. Each coda is always a prelude to an as yet undiscovered truth.
  • Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary (2015)

• On the whole, while many parts of the Koran undoubtedly have considerable rhetorical power, even over an unbelieving reader, the book, æsthetically considered, is by no means a first-rate performance… Mohammed, in short, is not in any sense a master of style. This opinion will be endorsed by any European who reads through the book with an impartial spirit and some knowledge of the language, without taking into account the tiresome effect of its endless iterations. But in the ears of every pious Moslem such a judgment will sound almost as shocking as downright atheism or polytheism. Among the Moslems, the Koran has always been looked on as the most perfect model of style and language. This feature of it is in their dogmatic the greatest of all miracles, the incontestable proof of its divine origin. Such a view on the part of men who knew Arabic infinitely better than the most accomplished European Arabist will ever do, may well startle us. In fact, the Koran boldly challenged its opponents to produce ten súras, or even a single one, like those of the sacred book, and they never did so. That, to be sure, on calm reflection, is not so very surprising. Revelations of the kind which Mohammed uttered, no unbeliever could produce without making himself a laughing-stock.
  • Theodor Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, “The Koran”. Trans. John Sutherland Black. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892.

• No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it…..When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former (Book of Exodus). I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it.
  • Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part 1, Section 2, published in 1794.

• I finished the Koran – a good book and interesting.
  • George S. Patton, in his diary, October 30, 1942, published in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996), p. 79.

• The Koran cannot be translated. That is the belief of old-fashioned Sheykhs and the view of the present writer. The Book is here rendered almost literally and every effort has been made to choose befitting language. But the result is not the Glorious Koran, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy. It is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Koran – and peradventure something of the charm – in English. It can never take the place of the Koran in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so.
  • Marmaduke Pickthall in the Translator’s Foreword to his translation of the Qur’an, The Meaning of The Glorious Koran (1930)

• The Quran has always held the central position in Islamic thinking. Indeed it holds a position even higher that that of the Prophet, because the Prophet was as much bound by its injunctions as any believer.
  • Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, in Ulema in Politics (1972), p. 5

• Verily, this Quran does not reveal its secrets save to those who rush into battles with the Quran at their side.
  • Attributed to Sayyid Qutb by Brynjar Lia in Doctrines for Jihadi Terrorist Training, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), Kjeller, Norway, 2008, p.13 pdf

• From the literary point of view, the Koran has little merit. Declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic and coherence strike the unprepared reader at every turn. It is humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries, and that millions of men are still wasting time absorbing it.
  • Salomon Reinach, Orpheus: A History of Religions, (1909)

• The Koran! well, come put me to the test—
  Lovely old book in hideous error drest—
  Believe me, I can quote the Koran too,
  The unbeliever knows his Koran best.
  • Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Paraphrase From Several Literal Translations (1897) by Richard Le Gallienne
  • Not a literal translation of Omar Khayyám’s work, but a paraphrase according to Richard Le Gallienne’s own understanding, as stated in Le Gallienne’s Paraphrase and the Limits of Translation’‘ by Adam Talib, pp. 175-176.

• No better leaders guiding you on the Path of God

Than the Koran and the sacred Traditions.

Only Muhammad’s hand and heart are able to take care of the secrets’ treasury (the human heart).

If your heart is filled by Ahmad’s light,

Be assured that you are saved from the Fire.

• Sanai, Persian Sufi Poetry, by J. T. P. De Bruijn, Curzon, pg. 40

• Having thus given a cursory view of the Quran, I lay it before the sensible persons with the purpose that they should know what kind of book the Quran is. If they ask me, I have no hesitation to say that it can not be the work either of God or of a learned man, nor can it be a book of knowledge. Here its very vital defect has been exposed with the object that the people may not waste their life falling into its imposition… The Quran is the result of ignorance, the source of animalization of human being, a fruitful cause of destroying peace, an incentive to war, a propagator of hostility among men and a promoter of suffering in society. As to defect of repetition, the Quran is its store.
  • Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883) Dayanand Saraswati, “The religion of Moslems,” Ch. 14 of ‘The Light of Truth’, Published by Sarvadeshik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha, 3/5, Maharishi Dayanand Bhawan, Ramlila Ground New Delhi – 110002.

• Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all countries and ages, in their splendor and spaciousness, testify to man’s need for metaphysics, a need strong and ineradicable, which follows close on the physical. … Sometimes it lets inself be satisfied with clumsy fables and fairy-tales. If only they are imprinted early enough, they are for man adequate explanations of his existence and supports for his morality. Consider the Koran, for example; this wretched book was sufficient to start a world-religion, to satisfy the metaphysical need of countless millions for twelve hundred years, to become the basis of their morality and of a remarkable contempt for death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and the most extensive conquests. In this book we find the saddest and poorest form of theism. Much may be lost in translation, but I have not been able to discover in it one single idea of value.
  • Arthur Schopenhauer, E. F. Payne (Translator) – The World as Will and Representation, vol II, p. 162

• The Moslem, in proof of their religion, appeal to the plenary and manifest inspiration of the Koran. They rest the divinity of their holy Book upon its inimitable excellence; but instead of holding it to be divine because it is excellent, they believe its excellence because they admit its divinity. There is nothing in the Koran which affects the feelings, nothing which elevates the imagination, nothing which enlightens the understanding, nothing which ameliorates the heart: it contains no beautiful narrative, no proverbs of wisdom or axioms of morality; it is a chaos of detached sentences, a mass of dull tautology. Not a solitary passage to indicate the genius of a poet can be found in the whole volume.
  • Robert Southey, Chronicle of the Cid (1808), p. xviii

• A work, then, which calls forth so powerful and seemingly incompatible emotions even in the distant reader – distant as to time, and still more so as a mental development – a work which not only conquers the repugnance which he may begin its perusal, but changes this adverse feeling into astonishment and admiration, such a work must be a wonderful production of the human mind indeed and a problem of the highest interest to every thoughtful observer of the destinies of mankind.”
  • Francis Joseph Steingass, quoted in Dictionary Of Islam (1885) by Thomas Hughes, pp. 526-527.

• Here, therefore, its merits as a literary production should perhaps not be measured by some preconceived maxims of subjective and aesthetic taste, but by the effects which it produced in Muhammad’s contemporaries and fellow countrymen. If it spoke so powerfully and convincingly to the hearts of his hearers as to weld hitherto centrifugal and antagonistic elements into one compact and well organised body, animated by ideas far beyond those which had until now ruled the Arabian mind, then its eloquence was perfect, simply because it created a civilised nation out of savage tribes, and shot a fresh woof into the old warp of history.
  • Francis Joseph Steingasss, quoted in Hughes’ Dictionary of Islam, p. 528.

• It (Qur’an) is inimitable because of its eloquence, its unique style, and because it is free of error.
  • al-Suyuti, (2005) Al-Itqan fi ‘Ulum al-Qur’an. Madina: Mujamma Malik Fahad, p. 1881.

• I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.
  • Alexis de Tocqueville; Olivier Zunz, Alan S. Kahan (2002). “The Tocqueville Reader”. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 063121545X. OCLC 49225552. p. 229.

• That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and un-blessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters.
  • Mark Twain, Christian Science: Book I. Chapter V

• None of them was able to compose even a few sentences to match the Qurānic verses. Just think that they were a people who according to ‘Allāmah Jurjāni, could never resist ridiculing the idea in their poetry if they heard that there was someone at the other end of the globe who prided himself on his eloquence and rhetorical speech. It is unthinkable that they could keep quiet even after such repeated challenges and dare not come forward… They had left no stone unturned for persecuting the Prophet .صلى الله عليه وسلمThey tortured him, called him insane, sorcerer, poet and sooth-sayer, but failed utterly in composing even a few sentences like the Qurānic verses.
  • Taqi Usmani, (2000) An Approach to the Quranic Sciences, p. 262.

• Your religion, although it has some good points, such as worship of the great Being, and the necessity of being just and charitable, is otherwise nothing but a rehash of Judaism and a tedious collection of fairy tales. If the archangel Gabriel had brought the leaves of the Koran to Mahomet from some planet, all Arabia would have seen Gabriel come down: nobody saw him; therefore Mahomet was a brazen impostor who deceived imbeciles.
  • Voltaire, “Reason” in The Philosophical Dictionary selected and translated by H.I. Woolf (1924)

• Its highest degree of eloquence, which is beyond the capacity of a human being. However, since we come after the first Arabs we are unable to reach its essence. But the measure which we know is that the employment of lucid words and sweet constructions gracefully and without affectation that we find in the Tremendous Qur’an is to be found nowhere else in any of the poetry of the earlier or later peoples.
  • Shah Waliullah, (2014) Al-Fawz al-Kabīr fī Uṣūl at-Tafsīr. The Great Victory on Qur’ānic Hermeneutics: A Manual of the Principles and Subtleties of Qur’anic Tafsīr. Translated, Introduction and Annotated by Tahir Mahmood Kiani. London: Taha, p.160.

• I didn’t have to be Muslim to find the images beautiful, or its poetry moving.
  • Gordon Dietrich, interpreted by Stephen Fry in the film V for Vendetta (film), by Andy, and Larry Wachowski, Warner Bros. Production Limited, (March 17, 2006)
• I am not a Muslim in the usual sense, though I hope I am a Muslim as “one surrendered to God”, but I believe that embedded in the Quran and other expressions of the Islamic vision are vast stores of divine truth from which I and other occidentals have still much to learn, and Islam is certainly a strong contender for the supplying of the basic framework of the one religion of the future.
  • W. Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity Today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Routledge Library Editions, 1983, p. ix.

• Since the creation of the universe

God had already appointed his great faith-preaching man,

From the West he was born,

And received the holy scripture

And book made of 30 parts (Juz)

To guide all creations,

Master of all rulers,

Leader of the holy ones,

With support from the Heavens,

To protect his nation,

With five daily prayers,

Silently praying for peace,

His heart directed towards Allah,

Giving power to the poor,

Saving them from calamity,

Seeing through the Unseen,

Pulling the souls and the spirits away from all wrongdoings,

Mercy to the world,

Trans-versing the ancient, Majestic path,

vanquishing away all evil,

His religion, Qing Zhen (the name for islam in chinese (especially at that time), which literally means Pure and True),

Muhammad, The Noble Great One.

• Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor and first emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China, from Kaikyōken: Le monde Islamique, Volume 7, page 139, published by Shikai Shobo

• The universe began with the heavenly tablet recording his name.

The religion-delivering great sage, born in the western realm.

Conferring and receiving heavenly scripture in thirty parts, universally transforming all created beings.

Master of the trillion rulers, leader of the ten thousand sages.

Assisted by destiny, protector of the community. In each of the five prayers, he silently supplicates for their total well-being.

His intention is that Allah should remember the needy. Deliver them from tribulations to safety, Knower of the unseen.

Exalted above every soul and spirit, free from any blameworthy deeds.

A mercy to all of the worlds, whose path is preeminent for all time.

Renounce spiritual ignorance; return to The One – that is the religion called Islam.

Muhammad is the most noble sage.

• Zhu Yuanzhang, from Praising the Prophet Muhammad in Chinese, The Matheson Trust, page 3, by Brendan Newlon, translated by Brendon Newlon

• Not withstanding the literary excellence of some of the long pre-Islamic poems… the Qur’an is definitely on a level of its own as the most eminent written manifestation of the Arabic language.
  • Martin Zammit, (2002) A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur’anic Arabic. Leiden: Brill, p. 37.