Creative Project 2
The Quran as a Stream
The Quran was not revealed all at once, rather it was revealed to Muhammad over a period of 23 years during which the angel Jibril came to Muhammad to teach Him Allah’s message for the whole world. The Quran, which literally means “to recite,” was memorized by Muhammad and his followers, each of whom had their own collections of his revelations imprinted in their heart. For this reason, the Quran is not chronological and the stories in it follow no specific order.
An excerpt from “Reading the Qur’an” written by Ziauddin Sardar demonstrates the fluidity of the Qur’an and how the order in which you recite it does not affect it’s spiritual message, “Children begin their reading at the end. So I started with the 30th Sipara.” The author here recalls his learning of the Quran and how he began at the end. In no other book can you begin at the end and still understand and absorb the entirety of what the book is saying.
Professor Asani once compared the Quran’s non-linear compilation to a flowing stream, for it does not have a beginning or end, rather it flows smoothly and can be understood from any point. Even within any one sura, the Quran reads like a stream of consciousness rather than story. For this project, I wanted to depict the image that came to mind during class when Professor Asani described the Quran as a stream of revelations. When he said this, I envisioned a stream of the Quran’s words and stories flowing peacefully and continuously around rocks and waterfalls. As shown in my project, people, places, and aspects of the Quran that we have learned about in class are flowing down the stream in harmony.