The Quran

The Quran is the foundational scripture of Islam. Its original Arabic name, "al-Qur'an," means "recitation," "reading aloud," or "that which is read." Older Chinese translations include such titles as "Gul'ani," "Kelan Jing," and "Baoming Zhenjing." Islam holds that it is the word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel over a period of twenty-three years. The first revelation came in 610 CE, and the revelations ceased after Muhammad's death in 632; the definitive text was established roughly twenty years later. The book comprises 114 chapters, arranged roughly from longest to shortest. Its contents encompass faith in the one God, the exhortations of the prophets, the obligations and prohibitions of believers, ethics and morality, social and legal norms, accounts of ancient peoples, and descriptions of the Last Day and the afterlife. For Muslims, it is the supreme criterion of faith and doctrine, the primary source of Islamic law, an essential standard for moral conduct, and the theoretical foundation upon which the various disciplines of Islamic learning are built. In literary terms, it is neither pure prose nor poetry but a unique fusion of the two, regarded as the pinnacle of Arabic literature. This edition is Mr. Ma Jian's complete Chinese vernacular translation, published by China Social Sciences Press. The translation strives for fidelity, clarity, and fluency. It opens with a preface by Bai Shouyi, a translator's preface, and an introduction to the Quran, and concludes with a select bibliography and an afterword. It is one of the most widely circulated and influential Chinese translations of the Quran.