What is the Quran 2

 The Quran is a book sent down to us by God to provide guidance to those who fear Him.

 

You can find this definition in chapter two verse two (Q2:2) of the Quran. The next three verses that follow further explain who those people who fear God are. They are: Those who believe in the unseen, and are steadfast in the prayer, and they spend of what God has provided them. They are also those who believe in what has been sent to Prophet Muhammad and what was sent down before Prophet Muhammad, and these people are sure of the hereafter. These are the people who are on guidance from their Lord and those people, they are the prosperous.

Please read Quran 2:1-5 to confirm that I have told you the truth.

The people who fear God can also be further defined as the pious or those who are dutiful to God. The Arabic word used in Quran chapter two verse two (Q2:2) encompasses these meanings.

Perhaps you know that what was sent down to Prophet Muhammad is the Quran, but you are not sure of what was sent before Prophet Muhammad. If you continue reading the Quran, you will read about some of the other books God has sent down. For example you will read about the Torah and the Gospel and the Psalms. The Torah was given to Prophet Moses, The Gospel was given to Prophet Jesus and The Psalms were given to Prophet David. 

I encourage you to continue reading the Quran to find out more.

The first three verses of chapter twenty-seven of the Quran (Q27:1-3) provide more information about what the Quran is, I encourage you to read them. The verses tell us that the Quran is a clear book that provides guidance for the believers. Then it goes on to tell us who the believers are. They are: Those who are steadfast in the prayer, and give alms, and they are those who are sure of the hereafter.

Please read Quran 27:1-3 to confirm that I have told you the truth.

Did you notice that in the first three verses of chapter twenty-seven there is a name given to those whom the Quran is for? They are called "The Believers" If you are not a believer, then you are a disbeliever. And if you are a disbeliever, you will not be guided by the Quran. Please read Quran chapter two verses six to twenty (Q2:6-20) to understand better.

Why not continue reading chapter two till you get to verse thirty-nine (Q2:1-39)? This way you will understand how it all began.

Even more details about what the Quran is can be found in chapter two verse ninety-seven (Q2:97). In this verse we are told that the Quran is a verification of what was before it, and that it is a guidance and glad tidings to believers. This verse also tells us that Gabriel revealed the Quran to Prophet Muhammad's heart by God's permission.

Please read Quran 2:97 to confirm that I have told you the truth.

Hopefully, you now know what the Quran is.

Below are some other details about the Quran: 

1. The Quran contains one hundred and fourteen (114) chapters. Generally speaking, the chapters close to the end of the book are quite short, having as little as three verses. While the chapters close to the beginning of the book are much longer, having more than a hundred verses.
2. The Quran is not chronological. However, you are advised to read it from the beginning to the end. 
3. Some of its chapters are long while others are short. Also, some verses have many words while others have very few words. For example chapter one (1) is only seven verses long, while chapter two (2), which is the longest chapter, is two hundred and eighty six verses long. Also, chapter thirty-seven (37) may seem long because it has one hundred and eighty-two verses, but it is actually not so long because most of its verses contain very few words compared to other chapters of the Quran.
4. Some chapters focus on one main topic. For example: Chapter twelve (12) which tells the story of Prophet Joseph and chapter seventy-one (71) which tells the story of Prophet Noah. Many of the chapters touch on several topics.
5. Prophet Moses is by far the most mentioned messenger of God in the Quran. Some of those mentioned by name in the Quran include: Adam, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Saul, Lot, Hud, Jonah, Mary, Zachariah, John, Jesus, Pharaoh, Korah, Haman, Shuayb, Salih, Job, David, Solomon, Muhammad, Joseph, Luqman, …
6. The Quran is a book that provides details then repeats or expands on the information given in the chapters that follow. You have already seen an example of this in the write-up above where information was provided in chapter two (2), then more details were provided in chapter twenty-seven (27).
7. God constantly tells the reader to think and use reason. He does not approve of guessing or conjecture.
8. The Quran has what I call hidden treasures. For example God might be discussing one topic then embedded in the discussion of that topic will be a piece of salient information that may be seemingly unrelated to the topic being discussed. For example: 2:152 and 2:186.
9. There are certain phrases that are repeated in the Quran. Some of them are: "God is swift in the reckoning", "God is severe in punishment", "God is powerful over all things", "God knows all things", "God is witness over all things", "Fear God", "God's promise is true", … 
10. You can find God's names scattered all over the Quran. For example in chapter eighty-seven (87) and ninety-two (92) God says He is The Most High.

I hope I have made you curious enough to start reading the Quran. Please make haste to read the Quran. This is because reading the Quran is just the beginning of the journey... Let us say you are trying to get to Ghana, and someone gave you a map that shows you how to get from your location to Ghana. First you will read the map to make sure that it is a true map, then you begin the journey to Ghana while consulting the map periodically. Here, you are trying to get to the Garden, God has sent down a map to you. The Quran is the map that provides guidance to believers. First you read the Quran, then you have to act according to the guidance in the map. This is how you will get to your promised destination, which is the Garden. Please note that the promised destination of those who do not believe and therefore are not guided by the Quran is Hell.

Remember, the Quran is a message from God to you for your guidance. Please read the Quran.

Get a free e-copy of The Wise Quran at JustReadTheQuran.com

Names For Pig And Pig Meat In English That Muslims Should Know

Notes From Atlanta 

Names For Pig And Pig Meat In English That Muslims Should Know

By Farooq Kperogi 

(Published in Saturday Tribune on 16th March 2024) 

In the spirit of Ramadan, I am republishing a revised version of an article I wrote in June 2017 in my defunct “Politics of Grammar” column about pig-based meats and foods that Muslims are forbidden from eating but which many of them who visit the West unwittingly eat on occasion because of their poly-appellativeness (my coinage for multiple names.)

The column was inspired by an encounter I had in 2015. A Muslim high court judge from Osun State nearly ate pepperoni pizza (pepperoni is a mixture of beef and pork) at a workshop for Nigerian judges that I facilitated here in the United States. I knew he was an observant Muslim because we’d prayed together, and he’d shared concerns about the ubiquity of pork in Western culinary choices.

During lunch break, I saw him with slices of pepperoni pizza amid several people. I beckoned to him to come immediately, but he was really hungry, so he said I should give him a few minutes to finish his food. 

I know enough Yoruba to know that pig is called “alede” and eat is “je.” I combined the words to make a sentence that I didn’t think made much sense. He jumped out of his seat instinctively and asked me in English if what he was about to eat contained pork. I answered in the affirmative.

He went straight to the bathroom and vomited, even though he hadn’t eaten anything. I felt sorry for him. He refused to eat or drink anything thereafter. 

Another inspiration for this column derives from the tales of distress and guilt I’ve heard from many Muslim visitors to the West who consumed pig meat or who were awfully close to doing so out of ignorance of the deceptive appellative trappings of many pork-based gastronomic products.

For instance, at least five Muslims have told me that they either ate or almost ate a pig-based meat product called “salami” because they were deceived by the lexical similarities between “salami” and “salam” (Arabic for “peace”) and were misled into thinking they were eating halal meat. 

What could be more halal, they thought, than a meat that shares lexical and phonological similarities with “salam,” the short form of the Muslim, Arabic-derived greeting, As-salamu alaykum, and the root word of Islam itself?

In fact, many African Muslims bear the name Salami as the short form of Abdulsalam or “Abdus Salam (which stands for servant of the Peaceful, “salam” being one of the 99 names of Allah.) (Africans typically add a terminal vowel to every word or name. Thus, “Salam” becomes “Salami.”)

So how did pig meat come to share lexical similarities with the name of Allah and/or the short form of the most common greeting among Muslims, especially given that pork is prohibited in Islam? 

A northern Nigerian Muslim who ate salami in London in ignorance told me he was sure that the choice of the name was a deliberate “Zionist plot to make Muslims eat pork.” That’s not true. First, Jews, like Muslims, are forbidden from eating pork. Second, the phonemic similarity between “salami” to “salaam” is actually accidental.

Salami is salted Italian pork sausage (more about this later.) “Salami” is derived from the Latin name for salt, which is “sal.” The Italian suffix “ame” is used to form collective nouns. For example, foglia, which means “leaf,” ‎becomes ‎fogliame when used as a collective noun. So salame actually literally means “salts,” but specifically salted meats. (“Salami” is the plural form of salame). The association of salami with salted pork came later.

Interestingly, this pork-based meat is called “salam” in Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish!

Well, there are few animals in the English language that trump “pig” in abundance of alternative names for it. 

This includes names that indicate gender (such as “boar” for male pig and “sow” and “gilt” for female pig) and names that indicate age (such as “piglet,” “farrow,” or “shoat/shote” for young pigs).

A pig is also called a “hog,” a “swine,” a “grunter,” a “squealer,” a “sus scrofa,” a “porker,” and a “cobb roller.” 

Most people know “pork” as the culinary noun for meat from pig, but there are way more pig-based foods and meats than “pork” that several people, especially Muslims who are prohibited from eating pork, are not familiar with. I list 14 more below as a public service.

1. “Bacon”: This is usually served during breakfast at homes and in hotels—along with eggs and sausage. It’s thin, sliced, salted, fried and brownish pork. It’s one of the most traditional culinary treats in the West. It’s so central to the gastronomy of the West that it appears in idioms such as “bring home the bacon,” which means to be the breadwinner, to be responsible for one’s family’s material wellbeing.

Most people know that bacon is derived from pig, but I have met many Muslim visitors to America, especially from Nigeria, who don’t know this. It’s also less commonly called “flitch.”

2. “Banger”: This is chiefly British English. Banger is pork cut into tiny pieces, seasoned, and stuffed in casings. The usual name for this elsewhere is “sausage” (see 3 below). It appears in collocations such as “banger and beans,” “bangers and mash,” etc.

3. “Bratwurst (or just brat)”: Just like “banger” is chiefly British, “bratwurst” is mostly German. It’s a popular German pork sausage, although it’s often mixed with beef. In America bratwursts are called “brats.” (Sausage is any type of minced meat, mostly pork, that is seasoned and stuffed in casings).

4. “Chitlings” or “chitlins” or “chitterlings”: It is the intestines of a pig, which American blacks ate as food during slavery because it was one of the few sources of protein available to them. 

Several decades after slavery, chitlins (also spelled chitlings and chitterlings) are still an African-American delicacy. If you are a Muslim who wants to experience African-American culinary delights, often called “soul food,” be sure to avoid “chitlings.” It’s just a cute word for the intestines of pigs.

5. “Chops” or “pork chops”: I know “chop” means “eat” in West African Pidgin English. But in Standard English it can mean a small cut of meat. It usually, though, is a small cut of meat from cooked pig. That’s why the usual phrase is pork chops, but it is also frequently rendered as “chops,” and that’s where people unfamiliar with the culinary vocabularies of the West might be misled into thinking they are eating a small cut of beef or mutton, etc.

6. “Frank” or “Frankfurter”: This is a type of smooth, minced, smoked pork often served in a bread roll. It is sometimes made of beef or a mixture of beef and pork. It’s generally called “hot dog,” especially in American English, and it’s so named because some people suspected, without any proof, that in Germany, where it was invented in the city of Frankfurt, dog meat was surreptitiously inserted into the meat since Germans ate dogs up until the 20th century. 

Other names for franks or Frankfurters are “dog,” “weenie,” “wiener,” “wienie,” and “wienerwurst.” Although hot dogs or Franks started in Germany, they have become a staple of American street cuisine.

Thankfully, there are now turkey hot dogs, beef hot dogs, and chicken hot dogs, but the most popular ones are the pork-based ones. It’s always good to ask before you buy.

7. “Gammon”: This is pork taken from the thighs of a pig. It’s derived from the Latin word “gamba,” which means leg. It’s also called jambon or, more commonly, ham.

8. “Kielbasa”: This is the Polish word for pork-based sausage, which has achieved widespread acceptance in American English, especially in northeastern United States. It’s also called “Polish sausage” because it’s originally from Poland.

9. “Liverwurst”: Sometimes people in the West grind the liver of pigs and stuff them in casings. Germans call it leberwurst, which has been Anglicized to liverwurst. It’s also called “liver pudding” or “liver sausage.” Wurst, as you’ve probably guessed, is German for sausage.

10. “Rasher”: This is another name for bacon. Note that because of increasing pressure from Muslims and Jews, there's now bacon or rasher made entirely from beef, turkey, chicken, or goat. If in doubt, ask.

11. “Ribs (or baby back ribs)”: This is meat from the ribs of a pig. But the term can seem like a generic reference to the ribs of any animal. It is also called back ribs or loin ribs.

12. “Pancetta”: It is Italian pork, derived from the belly of the pig. It is dried, salted, and chemically processed.

13. “Prosciutto”: As you’ve probably guessed, it’s also an Italian word. It is ham (see number 7 above) that has been dried and salted.

14. “Sowbelly”: It is salted pork cut from the belly. Other obvious names are “pork bellies” and “pork slab.”