Why is there so many verses that constantly repeat in the Quran?
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Thank you for the explanation.
That makes sense.I will keep reading the Quran. I am highly driven to read it all the way through.
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I'm glad to hear that. ) If God wills you will be guided. ) (Although sounds like you're already getting a lot of guidance! )
I wouldn't pay too much attention to chapter titles - supposedly the titles aren't found in the original Arabic transcripts. Personally when I've paid attention to the titles it's made my reading much more confusing. Qur'an doesn't read like an ordinary book, as you know by now. Just stick to the content. And as always, search for or post any questions or concerns you may have.
What translation are you using?
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At the moment I'm reading the M. A.S. Abdel Haleem translation.
I checked it out from the library, but I bought two other translations that should be coming in the mail soon- The Message by the Monotheist Group.
- Quran by Book of Signs Foundation.
I like seeing how different translations can be.
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i) Title of the Book;
Experts and educationists suggest that the first rule in critical reading is that you must know what kind of a book is in your hand; and they say that we should know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before we begin to read. Many readers ignore titles and prefaces because perhaps they do not think it important to classify the book they are about to read. However, the author of a book facilitates its reader to know the kind of book he is being given by assigning it a title. Obviously, a descriptive and illustrative title will be considered the best for a reader to facilitate him immediately classify the book in hand.
Importance of the title of a book Perception and meanings conveyed by the title The Qur'aan
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At the moment I'm reading the M. A.S. Abdel Haleem translation.
I checked it out from the library, but I bought two other translations that should be coming in the mail soon- The Message by the Monotheist Group.
- Quran by Book of Signs Foundation.
I like seeing how different translations can be.
I see. ) I have Haleem's translation too. It's convenient for travel due to its smaller size. I no longer use mine for reading and studying purposes - I mainly refer to The Message myself, or online tools such as Islam Awakened's Quran site, which gives a side-by-side verse comparison from many different English translations (you might want to check it out for cross-reference, and Qur'an Arabic Corpus as well).
I like The Message because of how clearly the text is presented. No parenthesis or commentary (although commentary is nice sometimes if you want another opinion on a verse). It has a good-sized font with spaced-out verses that make it plain to read.
i) Title of the Book;
Experts and educationists suggest that the first rule in critical reading is that you must know what kind of a book is in your hand; and they say that we should know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before we begin to read. Many readers ignore titles and prefaces because perhaps they do not think it important to classify the book they are about to read. However, the author of a book facilitates its reader to know the kind of book he is being given by assigning it a title. Obviously, a descriptive and illustrative title will be considered the best for a reader to facilitate him immediately classify the book in hand.
Importance of the title of a book Perception and meanings conveyed by the title The Qur'aan
I don't understand.
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repeating the verses in so many places is due to a reason,
the topics and questions that comes up in a mind while reading the verses when it link up with similar verses sometimes u get ur answers, and some topics need research and understandings ,, and let say the verse regarding the creation,,
on eight places God told us about the creation of mankind and event of iblees in one place God also clear he was among jinns,
and somethings are really very important for us to remember and thats why its a general formula when we repeat reading something we remeber it by heart ,, on other words the installation process of mind is to remind a thing multiple times,, thats why some important things God mention again and again...
peace God bless you
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I think most often is mentioned the that the ones who are real Muslims and take no other God besides Allah will go to heaven and there they will have eternal life. I also asked my self many times why did Allah mention so many times this. Then i read surah 4011 about that we have 2 deaths and 2 lives and i wonder if this is important. Because i do not understand how we can have 2 deaths. You die once and go in your grave, when should we have our second death? About life i understand we get one life when we are born and the second when we are resurrected. I think we should really think about this, it might be very important.
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I think most often is mentioned the that the ones who are real Muslims and take no other God besides Allah will go to heaven and there they will have eternal life. I also asked my self many times why did Allah mention so many times this. Then i read surah 4011 about that we have 2 deaths and 2 lives and i wonder if this is important. Because i do not understand how we can have 2 deaths. You die once and go in your grave, when should we have our second death? About life i understand we get one life when we are born and the second when we are resurrected. I think we should really think about this, it might be very important.
the verse 4011 is addressed to the disbelievers, or those who are destined for hell.
i wonder whether the second life and death is the resurrection (life) and hell (death)
the quran does say (in relation to hell) 'death will come to them from everywhere but they are not to die' or something along those lines if i recall correctly
this may be one possible explination, i dont feel as if it entirely fits in because it says 'but they are not to die' and also the verse 4011 seems to be in past tense, but then im not very learned in arabic, so i may be missing something, i have not taken the time to look fully into this.another possible meaning..
Dr Rashad Khalifa believed that We exsisted before this life in paradise (i may be incorrect, i cant recall exactly) or somewhere in another realm, and that was where we originaly followed satan, so god put us to death, and gave us this life as a chance to redeem ourselves.
dont take my word for it though, you can read the Appendices to 'The Final Testament - Dr Rashad Khalifa' if you want to know more..
While i dont entirely agree with everything he said, but there may well be elements of truth in this view, because there are verses'Did i not gather you all together and have you bear witness that I am your only Lord and Master' - or similar, i believe the context is before this life if i recall, and
'His throne had been over the waters that he could test you who was best in deed' -or similar, i believe its a similar context.
this - in my understanding at least, seems to point to a pre-this-world exsistance. Though again.. im no expert and prehaps i am missing somethingAlso of note,
the bible, specificaly the gospel does talk about a second death, this is where many christians get the concept of the lake of fire, and a second death after hell or something.. to be honest there doctrine makes me do mental circles and get nowhere.. and that the righteous would avoid this second death.. i believe that it is actualy somewhere in the synoptic gospels, not just in revelation, which i doubt the authenticity of.
that may or may not be significant..i also believe somewhere it says in the quran that the righteous do not realy die.. i recall that was one of R.K.s views as well..
again i may be incorrect, just saw that you seemed interested so prehaps theese are some leads to something.. god willing not missleads..
Peace
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Peace,
i cant recall the exact verse, but there is one which explains this occurance,
'a book consistent within itself, yet/and repeating things in various ways, so that you may understand. the skins of those who fear there lord shiver at it, and then they soften at the rememberance of their lord'
not verbatim of course, its from memory.Essentialy God knows how human beings learn, he says 'We made the Quran easy to learn, does anyone wish to learn' - that itself is repeated 10 or so times in one surah, cant recall exactly the one.. possibly Hud'
Repetition is one of those ways in which he has made it easy to learn, other ways include
not only the repitition of concepts etc, but also audio cues in many verses which end on a certain sound and the next verse early on continues with that certain sound being prominent in both the end and start of the next verse, to help us remember the next line, there are a few good examples of how god sometimes changes the regular order or words in some verses to accomodate this, something which seems quite strange at first, well it did to me at least.. like he mentions a list of things, and whatever he was saying about them, and as if as an afterthought (obviously theres no such thing for God, however) says.. and x.. and adds to the list, but also adds a good cue for the next verse.
and in general the sometimes unconventional style of the quran, while it may seem strange at first, is actualy amazingly helpfull in memorization of it.. alhamdullilah
also, the use of words is in such a way that the arabic is actualy very easy to recite. and often, in addition to the cues i mentioned earlier, many verses, especialy in the shorter surahs, all end in the same or very similar sounds or have chunks of same end-sound bits.
i cant remember where i read it but there was a great article i stumbled across once which talked about this.. prehaps it was on submission.org under 'we made the quran easy to learn' or something similar, though i could be wrong..
in regards to translations, i find the monotheist group a great one. i dont mind Edip Yuksels reformist translation, but i diddnt like all the footnotes. and in that regard, i appreciate the Monotheist groups choice to ommit them.. sadly, i find myself still getting caught up by my distorted understanding, as alot of the quran translation i remember is based on my 6 months in prison with nothing to read but an Yusuf Ali translation, which is quite distorted, ironicaly, it got to a point where, thanks to Gods instruction, i in my limited understanding of arabic actualy understood many of the verses better from the arabic than the english translated by Yusuf Ali.
anyway i thought i would share my bit, sorry for any lack of clarity or if i have missed something, its 4am and i havent slept yet so im quite tired..
Peace everyone
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It is great you have decided to read the Qur'an, keep reading, you shall not be disappointed.
As for the repetition, I agree with everyone here about the same important concepts being repeated multiple times, but I also highly agree with Timotheus about the memorizing scheme. This is why learning Arabic is so important if you want to study Al-Qur'an in my opinion. I will post here one example which I have found just recently.
Translation Arabic Transliteration
Surah Ash-Shams - The Sun
911 By the sun and its brightness Washshamsi waduhaha
912 And the moon when it follows it Walqamari itha talaha
913 And the day when it displays it Wannahari itha jallaha
914 And the night when it covers it Wallayli itha yaghshahaSurah Al-Layl - The Night
921 By the night when it covers Wallayli itha yaghsha
922 And the day when it appears Wannahari itha tajallaAs you can see the wording is almost exactly the same, key word almost, as it is actually quite different when you recite it in Arabic. In my opinion, that difference is key as it helps you to remember, and tell apart, one chapter from another, and one verse from another. If you want to see what that might sound like I am sure you can search for someone reciting these chapters on You Tube.
The repetition is not exact repetition if you read the book in Arabic, a verse that might sound the same in the English translation could actually have a different meaning, sound, and feel in the original Arabic language.
I also noticed while writing this that these chapters are The Sun and The Night respectively, they also reverse the order of how they introduce Day "nahar" and Night "layl" to correspond with their titles in their respective verses. Subhan'Allah. Allah never seizes to amaze me with this Qur'an.
May God bless your studies FaithSeeker.
Salaam,
Clash.
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It is great you have decided to read the Qur'an, keep reading, you shall not be disappointed.
As for the repetition, I agree with everyone here about the same important concepts being repeated multiple times, but I also highly agree with Timotheus about the memorizing scheme. This is why learning Arabic is so important if you want to study Al-Qur'an in my opinion. I will post here one example which I have found just recently.
Translation Arabic Transliteration
Surah Ash-Shams - The Sun
911 By the sun and its brightness Washshamsi waduhaha
912 And the moon when it follows it Walqamari itha talaha
913 And the day when it displays it Wannahari itha jallaha
914 And the night when it covers it Wallayli itha yaghshahaSurah Al-Layl - The Night
921 By the night when it covers Wallayli itha yaghsha
922 And the day when it appears Wannahari itha tajallaAs you can see the wording is almost exactly the same, key word almost, as it is actually quite different when you recite it in Arabic. In my opinion, that difference is key as it helps you to remember, and tell apart, one chapter from another, and one verse from another. If you want to see what that might sound like I am sure you can search for someone reciting these chapters on You Tube.
The repetition is not exact repetition if you read the book in Arabic, a verse that might sound the same in the English translation could actually have a different meaning, sound, and feel in the original Arabic language.
I also noticed while writing this that these chapters are The Sun and The Night respectively, they also reverse the order of how they introduce Day "nahar" and Night "layl" to correspond with their titles in their respective verses. Subhan'Allah. Allah never seizes to amaze me with this Qur'an.
May God bless your studies FaithSeeker.
Salaam,
Clash.
Alhamdullilah, this is a great example. and i agree, the quran does seem alot more repetitive in english, because the english translation misses things which are very hard to translate, or for other reasons.. there are many subtle differences in wording of the arabic in many of theese verses, which more or less in not easily translated.
even the best attempt to render the meaning of the quran, by any human being, is by nature limited, especialy when translating into another language,
Thankfully though, God has stated that language is not important, that 'Whether it is arabic, or non arabic, for those who believe, it is a guidance and a mercy'I recommend patience, when studying the quran, and asking God for guidance, He is good to us, and he answers our prayers and gives us understanding if we are genuine.
Because God is teacher of the Quran, we dont need anyone else, while it helps to know arabic, The majority of the book is clear, and easy to understand in any language, god willing. a fact we often see in the 'secterian islamic world' where they have all theese learned scholars in arabic, and yet they do not even understand the most clear and consice statement like 'The testimony of God, the Angels, and those with knowledge is "la ilaha ila hu" (There is no God except Him)' or the concept of 'fully detailed book'
All we need is God. He is the one who is all knowing, and can readily help us to understand the quran
'The Most Gracious, who taught the Quran'
Surah al-rahman, The Most Gracious, (54? from memory its number 55) verses 1-2Peace be upon you, and may god bless you and have mercy upon you, and increase you in guidance