c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ It opens with the al-Fatiha, a succinct rendering of Islam’s essence also included in the prayers that observant Muslims recite five times daily. For Muslims, the holy book known in formal Arabic as al-Qur’an al-Karim,”the noble Koran,”has a status roughly equivalent to that of Jesus for Christians.”In the name of Allah, the all-merciful, the most generous. Praise and gratefulness are due to Allah alone, the Lord of all being, the all-merciful, the most gracious, Lord of the day of judgment,”the Koran begins.”You alone do we worship and from you alone do we seek aid. Guide us to the straight way; the way of those on whom you have bestowed your blessings, not of those who have been condemned (by you), nor of those who go astray.” Muslim tradition holds that Allah _ Arabic for”the God”_ began to reveal the Koran to the Prophet Muhammad during Ramadan, the ninth month of the Arab and Muslim lunar calendar, which begins again with the sighting of the new moon on Dec. 31.

Ramadan’s start just hours before the end of 1997 means that for the first time in some three decades, Muslims will celebrate Ramadan twice in the same year of the Gregorian solar calendar. Ramadan was last celebrated Jan. 10-Feb. 8, 1997. Similar situations also will occur in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

This will happen, explained Imad A. Ahmad, an astronomer and Islamic activist in Bethesda, Md., because Muslim months, which adhere strictly to the lunar cycle, begin from a Gregorian perspective some 11 days earlier each year, gradually migrating across the seasons. After 2000, Ramadan will not fall twice in the same Gregorian calendar year for another three decades.

Because of its association with the Koran, Muslims are directed by their faith to spend additional time during Ramadan studying the text. Able-bodied adult Muslims are also required to fast from daybreak to sunset and refrain from sex, listening to music and other sensual pleasures during Ramadan’s daylight hours.

But understanding the Koran’s subtleties is no easy matter. The language of the Koran _ which Muslims venerate as a virtual extension of God _ is exceedingly poetic, and exceedingly difficult to grasp, even for many Arabic-speaking Muslims.”For the younger generation of Muslims in the United States in particular, the Koran is very hard because this generation is not as well schooled in Arabic and the traditions,”said Fathi Osman, a retired professor of Islamic studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Assad N. Busool, chairman of the Arabic studies department at Chicago’s American Islamic College, said the Koran is”written in classical Arabic and every word is loaded with meaning. For the typical Arabic speaker, their predicament with the Koran is like Shakespeare. How much of him can the average American who speaks English understand?” Revered in its original Arabic as the actual, spoken word of God as transmitted by the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad over a 23-year period in 7th-century Arabia, the Koran follows no narrative or chronological line. Rather, it skips from theme to theme and has Allah speaking in the first as well as the third person as it lays out a complex standard for relating to God, other humans and the natural world.

Its only apparent order is that, following the al-Fatiha, the Koran is arranged according to the descending length of its 114 suras, or chapters: Sura two has 286 verses; sura 114, six.

Vague in places, exacting in others, the Koran, wrote Muslim scholar Cyril Glasse, author of”The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam”(Harper & Row), is”a labyrinth which suddenly opens out into a secret and transcendent center.” A new book by Osman _”Concepts of the Quran”(MVI Publications) _ attempts to make the Koran more accessible to English-speaking American Muslims, particularly converts to Islam.

Osman said the converts’ generally limited knowledge of Arabic, combined with their newness to the faith, often makes it particularly difficult for them to grasp the Koran’s intended lessons.

Converts, the vast majority of them African-Americans, account for roughly one-quarter of the estimated 3 million to 6 million Muslims in the United States, according to Ihsan Badby, a Muslim demographer and international relations professor at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. American Muslims from Arabic-speaking backgrounds comprise about 20 percent of the total.

Osman’s book also is directed at non-Muslims _ journalists, academics and others wanting to understand the Koran’s intricacies.”Concepts of the Quran”is a”topical reading”of the text. Osman spent about five years grouping the Koran’s references according to various themes, which he has presented with commentary under the general headings of faith, worship, moral values and manners, Islamic law and”supplications,”which he called”the closest point in the relationship between the human being and God.””Concepts of the Quran”is the most comprehensive volume of its kind published in English, according to Osman. Giving it additional cache, said Mahmoud Ayoub, a professor of Islamic studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, is that it was written by a Muslim, unlike some similar works written in other languages.”Any sacred scripture is open to interpretation,”said Ayoub.”He brings a Muslim’s interpretation to this work.” Osman, who studied history and law in his native Egypt prior to obtaining his doctorate in Islamic studies from Princeton University, described his approach to the Koran as”modernistic.””I am traditional in the sense that I am tied to the Koran,”he said.”But I understand it as a contemporary person. The human mind changes, even if the Koran does not, so the understanding of it changes, within the rules of Arabic.” Osman said his book _ published in a limited edition with the aid of the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles _ seeks to provide context for understanding the Koran, particularly its more controversial aspects, such as its pronouncements on women.

Westerners, and some more-liberal Muslims, both men and women, often view the Koran as supporting male supremacy. However, Osman believes that is a false reading of the Koran if the full range of Koranic references to women are considered. “There’s a sura that speaks of the men being in charge of women,”said Osman.”Critics often seize upon that.”But if read in the context of the full Koran, it becomes clear that what is meant is not in the sense of superiority, but rather in the sense of responsibility. … Men have a greater responsibility to women than women to men because a woman with children or who is pregnant cannot earn a living as easily as can a man.” If the Koran is difficult even for Arabic-speakers, how can the non-Arabic speaking Westerner hope to comprehend it?

No less a scholar than Huston Smith, author of”The World’s Religions”(Harper Collins) and widely regarded as a leading academic exponent of the religious experience, said he was nearly baffled by the Koran when he first attempted to read it in the 1950s.”To an outsider, the Koran is almost an incoherent text,”said Smith, who most recently taught at the University of California at Berkeley prior to his retirement.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS. STORY CAN END HERE.)”Unlike the Bible, which is presented for the most part as history with theology worked in, the Koran is the direct opposite. It contains no dramatic stories and is vague on history. Seeing itself as a prolongation of the Bible, it presupposes that the reader is already familiar with the stories and personalities of the Bible, allowing it to concentrate on theology.” Temple University’s Ayoub said that traditional-minded Jews may have an easier time understanding the Koran (notwithstanding some strongly negative comments it includes about the Jews of Muhammad’s day) because of their view of the Hebrew Bible.

The Hebrew Bible _ the Old Testament in Christian parlance _ is viewed by traditional Jews as a direct revelation received by Moses in a sacred language, Hebrew. That corresponds directly with the Muslim view of Muhammad’s receiving the Koran in Arabic, he said.

Christians generally have a tougher time with the Koran, said Ayoub, because of its direct rejection of such core Christian concepts as the Trinity, and the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus.”One must shed a Christian viewpoint when reading the Koran if it is to be truly understood,”he said.”In Christianity, the revelation is Christ. In Islam, the scripture is the revelation.”

MJP END RIFKIN