Translated & Narrated by Aliya Atalay

Many people think reciting the Arabic letters of the Quran (without knowing their meaning) is akin to ‘reading the Quran’. Some even think they are reading the Quran simply by reciting its translation. Though the aforementioned may be necessary as a preparation, READing the Quran is much beyond this.

Reading the Quran is like reading the system. It's about grasping the spirit of its message.

But how can one understand the spirit of the Quran?

For which purpose has the Quran been revealed?

What does the Quran aim to make people gain?

What kind of a life has the Quran been disclosed to prepare humanity for?

Which of the qualities of mankind does the Quran reveal?

Has the Quran been revealed to force and confine humans into a restricted lifestyle and shield them from progress, or has it come to show them the path to continual growth and development, to awaken them to their rights which have been ripped away from them, and to inform, both men and women, of the way to realizing their inherent divinity?

Does the Quran aim to enable people to live in mutual respect and harmony, in continual growth and development, or to regress them back to the old?

If we can answer these questions we may begin to understand the spirit of the Quran and the gate to READing the Quran will be unlocked.

On the contrary, when people fail to do this they ask:

“Muhammad came as a Rasul 1400 years ago to a tribal community of approximately 5000 people, most of whom were very extremely primitive in thought. They buried their daughters alive, out of fear they would shame and dishonor them, and bought and sold their women, regarding them more as a commodity than humans! Surely then, it was the issues that arose in that community and that time and their respective solutions that which have shaped the Quran. Had Muhammad inhabited another area, say the North Pole rather than the Arabian Peninsula, the book he disclosed would have been in relation to the eskimos and their environmental conditions, traditions, issues, culture, etc.