Towards a Better Understanding of Islam

By Dr.King

In this highly insightful book, Dr. King clearly brings out the strong undercurrent of humane concerns behind all major world religions, be it Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, or Hinduism. With the Holy Quran as the primary focus, the book compares and contrasts other religious scriptures with an intent to unify them.
Complete with select original verses from Holy Quran along with their English rendering.
A one stop read for anyone who wants to understand Islam and get a unified view of these great religions.
(Links to FREE Copy of Audio Version Included at the End of the E-book)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr.King
• Release date: Jun 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463579350

Dr.King

Dr.King is an avid writer in the nonfictional category. In the past 3 decades he has written several books in the areas of philosophy, Yoga, religious practices, sculpture, gardening, and so on. His books often blend scientific outlook with traditional faiths and practices. His books especially in the area of ancient philosophy succinctly showcase volumes of ancient literature in a condensed form, providing very authentic, insightful and unbiased portrayal. These books are generally characterized as thought provoking, giving an incisive look at the otherwise difficult to understand topics. One can expect to find reliable information, devoid of glorification and hype that is typical in this category.

Book preview

Prologue

As-salamu alaykum

Probably you are surprised to read some non-English words in the very beginning! These are Arabic words meant to convey peace to the other person – a beautiful way of greeting each other. Salaam means peace.

In chapters that follow, I am going to discuss some illuminating verses from Holy Quran with an intent to know Islam better.

This holy book – originally in Arabic - with 114 chapters (known as Surah), with variable number of verses (Ayat) in each chapter, together totaling 6236 verses is the primary religious text of Islamic faith.

Figure 1 An Artist’s portrayal of Prophet Muhammad receiving Quran from Jibril (Image from Wiki)

This text is believed to have been revealed to Prophet Muhammad by God himself through the Archangel Jibril. Muhammad used to frequently spend days in the caves near Mecca, mostly meditating, till he finally met this angel.

First of these revelations is believed to have taken place in the caves of Mecca some time during 610 A.D. when Muhammad was 40 years old. Later these revelations continued in different places in and around Mecca for a period of 23 years till Muhammad’s death.

Muhammad’s companions recorded these revelations in the form of verses and finally, after the death of Muhammad they were compiled into a book that we know today as the holy Quran.

Islam – as the word itself suggests, is based on total surrender to God or selfless devotion to God. And Quran is the text that discusses this path of devotion.

Quran is a huge text and I don’t intend to cover it chapter by chapter. I will only pick some verses from some chapters and keep my discussions around them.

While I would like to request people who may have some biases against Islamic faith, to keep an open mind, and accept good things no matter where  they come from, I also want to appeal to my devout Muslim readers to bear with me if I am found not strictly adhering to traditions.

My intention is to highlight the basic undercurrent in all religions that potentially unites all humans, irrespective of faith, geographic boundaries and ethnicity.

Let us start our discussions in the next chapter, keeping these points in mind.

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1. What do these mystic sounds mean?

F:\my_books\amazon\am_ancient_wisdom\cover_design\cover_logo_old.jpg There is strange combination of mystic sounds in the beginning of some chapters of Quran. No one knows for sure what those sounds really mean or why they are there in the beginning.  A devout Muslim just chants them with devotion without worrying about what they mean.

For example, in the beginning of Chapter 2 of Quran there are these 3 mystic sounds namely

Alif Laam Meem

Often abbreviated as A.L.M. in English.

Such combination of sounds are called Muqatta'at or abbreviated sounds. Various people have given various interpretations for these sounds.

Some even compare these sounds to A U M of Hindu sacred sound OM. They say that Alif is the letter A and Meem is the letter M in Arabic alphabet. They explain Laam as U since according to them in some Arabic words the sound U is pronounced as L. So they jump to the conclusion that A.L.M is nothing but A.U.M or OM of Hindus!

But the problem with this argument is that it is not merely these three letters, but other combination of letters is also present in some other chapters of holy Quran. Explaining away all of them may be difficult.

In the past, opponents of Islam even criticized Quran as mere witchcraft and they pointed to these mystic sounds to justify their claim.

Some Islamic scholars try to interpret these combinations of apparently meaningless sounds as a way of Allah to tell the Arabs that

"I have