Lesson video

Hi, my name is Ms. Speakman, and we're on lesson 9 of 14 of the Islamic beliefs and teachings unit.

In our lesson today, we're going to be focusing on the idea of Holy books within Islam, which is one of the six articles of faith in Sunni Islam.

But of course, Holy books are something that both Sunni and Shia Muslims would consider a very important belief.

So we are going to look at the importance of Holy books.

So Scrolls of Ibrahim, Tawrat, Zabur, Injil.

You'll know more about what those are and who they were real to by the end of the lesson.

You're going to consider the difference between these revelations and the revelation of the Koran.

So what makes the Koran different from these others? And then we're also going to look at the specifics of what the Koran is and what the Koran contains.

So hopefully by the end of the lesson you'll get a really, really clear idea of this is what Muslims believe about Holy texts, and this is what they believe specifically about the Koran.

So to make sure we're ready for our lesson, we're going to need a pen or a pencil, a piece of paper or an exercise book, and a different colour pen for corrections.

We're also going to need to make sure please that we've got a clear working space.

So TV, music off, phone to one side, with notifications turned off if you're not using it for the lesson, so you can concentrate.

And also a clear working quiet space.

So clear desk, perhaps away from any distractions so we can really concentrate.

When we can concentrate we learn best.

If you need to get yourself set up in any way by getting any of these materials or getting yourself into a quiet space, then please pause the video now and unpause when you're ready to start learning.

Okay, are we ready? What I'm going to get you to do first of all, I'm going to give you four sentences and you're going to need to tell me what's similar between them.

Okay? So what I'd like you to do, is I'm going to read out these four sentences and you are going to tell me what is similar about them.

So, Jack told Sally that he fancied her.

Tom admitted to his mother that he was the one who smashed the vase.

Muhammad shared Allah's message to his community.

And, the map showed Peter where to go.

What you're going to do for me please, is to write down, just a sentence or two, what you think is similar between these four statements.

So pause the video now, please, and write down what is similar about these four statements.

So hopefully what you would have written down is something along the lines of someone was shown something they didn't know before, it was something that that person learned, or perhaps maybe you would've even written down that someone has something revealed to them.

So we're going to be looking at this key term revelation in our lesson.

And this comes from the verb to reveal.

Within Islam we're going to talk about it in terms of God reveals something to humans, they wouldn't have known otherwise.

So when someone receives a revelation, they're being told something by God that they wouldn't have known, unless they'd received that revelation.

What I'd like you to do please, is to pause the video and to write down this definition of revelation because it's super important for our lesson today.

Okay, I'm going to assume that you've written that down.

Thank you very much if you have done that.

We're now going to move on to a second really important definition, and that is of the Koran.

Now we've talked about the Koran in previous lessons.

So if you've been watching some of the other previous lessons, you would have talked about the Koran with me, you would have learned a bit about it and how important it is.

But specifically today we're talking about the importance of the Koran.

Now the Koran in Arabic means recitation.

Let's think about that for a second.

When you recite something you're able to say it off by heart.

So for example, when I was perhaps your age, I could probably recite all of the lyrics to all the songs of Justin Bieber.

Can I do that now? Probably, but don't test me on it.

But essentially reciting is where you able to say something off by heart, and I'm sure there's many things that you all know off by heart and that's 'cause you can recite it.

Now when we talk about the Koran and recitation, Muslims believe that the Koran is the direct unchanged word of Allah revealed to Muhammad through the angel Jibril.

So Muslims believe that the message that angel Jibril gave to Muhammad from Allah has not been changed since the moment it was revealed to Muhammad.

So again, I'd you like to write down this definition please.

So you can pause the video now for me, write it down, unpause when you're ready to move on.

Okay.

Thank you for writing that down.

Let's now move on to what the Koran actually is.

Obviously, or hopefully that we know that it's a book.

But what else is it? What's it made up of? Why is it important? Let's consider that now.

So hopefully we're already aware that the Koran was revealed to Muhammad through the angel Jibril.

So Muhammad went to that cave and received the revelation over a span of 23 years.

He was able to recite this off by heart.

Now in the time of Muhammad, the Koran would have been passed on through oral tradition.

What that means is Muhammad would have told people.

He would have recited it to them, recited passages to them, and they would have repeated it by telling other people.

It wasn't originally written down.

And sometimes people might say well, that surely could be a reason why we might say it's not the same as when it was revealed to Muhammad by the angel Jibril.

Because I think we all know sometimes if we've played things like Chinese whispers, that you might pass something on and the message's completely lost.

What Muslims believe is that the Koran is a miracle.

That Allah protected the Koran from being changed, distorted, or things added.

That it's a miracle and will never be changed and can never be changed.

So that's what Muslims believe about why the Koran is still the same as when it was revealed to Muhammad.

Now, obviously after Muhammad's death, his closest companions were worried that the oral tradition would be lost, or that of course, without Muhammad, they don't have that direct link to the person who had the revelation.

And so it's up to the companions of the prophet who compiled the Koran and wrote it down after his death so that they had a written record of the revelation.

Now think about the makeup of the Koran.

It is made up of what we call the surahs and ayats.

Now surah's a chapter, ayat verse.

So essentially as we might call a chapter and verse in a book is the same as we would do in the Koran, but made up of surahs and ayats.

Now people often have this discussion, how is the Koran organised? Because the Koran is made up of all of these different passages, all of these different surahs, which were revealed to Muhammad at different points in time within history, over a period of 23 years.

Mostly the Koran is organised by length of surahs.

So not in chronological order, as something people might expect a book to be, but organised by the length of the surah.

There are 114 surahs in total in the Koran They cover all sorts of different things, which we'll look at in a bit more detail later.

But you'll find that at the beginning of each surah there is a particular passage which is revealed, which is written, sorry.

And in the majority of the surahs you'll find that at the beginning, but not in every single one.

There are a lot of discussions actually within scholars as to whether the Koran actually is organised by length because it's not always the case that we have the longest to the shortest, they're sort of a mixture, but mostly organised by length of the surah.

Now what we're going to do is do some quick fire questions and I find quickfire questions, a really useful way of just testing how much we have listened to what I've said.

It's also a really good way just to help get things stuck in our head, but also really good way to highlight to us, "Oh that something I need to go back to.

I wasn't quite sure on that question.

I wasn't quite sure on that answer." The way it works if you've not seen one of my videos before is I asked you a question, there are two possible answers, I will count down from three, you say out loud, or you point to your screen which one is the correct answer, I tell you whether you're correct or not, we move on to our next question, and then hopefully we get them all right.

But of course, as I said, it doesn't matter if you get them wrong because it's a way of highlighting to us what, you know, what we need to go back to.

So are we ready? I'm going to need to disappear for this.

So I'm going to disappear and then we are ready.

So, Muslims believes the Koran is the direct word of Allah, true or false? Three, two, one.

Good.

That is true.

Muhammad wrote the Koran down straight away.

Is that true or false? Three, two, one.

Good.

False.

'Cause as we know, it's Muhammad's companions who wrote it down after his death.

What is a chapter called in the Koran? Is it surah or ayat? Three, two, one.

Good.

It is a surah.

What is a verse called in the Koran? Is it surah or ayat? Three, two, one.

Good.

Ayat.

Well done if he got all of those correct.

It's a really, really good way as I said to recapping things, but it's okay if you got a couple of those incorrect.

These will be things that we go over and practise all of the time.

Let's now move on to looking at what the Koran contains.

Okay, as I said, what we're going to do is look at what the Koran contains.

There are three main themes within the Koran.

The first one is what Allah is like.

So Muslims believe that Allah has given Muslims an idea of his nature through the Koran.

So it reveals certain characteristics of himself, uh, qualities, and therefore Muslim can know what Allah is like through reading the Koran.

Of course it's because Muslims believes that they cannot have direct contact with Allah.

They cannot be in his presence because he's transcendent and we are imminent within the world.

But also 'cause they believe they are not worthy of being in Allah's presence because humans are sinful.

So the Koran is a really good way of them learning who Allah is, and understanding part of his nature.

Although of course, this idea of Tawhid means he cannot ever be fully described or understood.

Secondly, is what Allah wants from humans.

If he cannot directly contact humans, this is a way of him saying, "This is what I want you to do.

This is what submission looks like.

These are the rules.

These are the regulations".

And thirdly, what the afterlife is like.

Of course you can't really have experienced the afterlife and also be living at the same time.

You know? So the idea here is that the Koran lays out very clearly: This is what the afterlife is like.

This is what you have to do to get there.

It's also sometimes quite descriptive about places like paradise, and specifically how to try to turn people from misbehaving, doing the wrong things, sinning.

So the Koran is for Muslims, a really good guide to life.

It's a guide to life and what they should be doing.

It tells them what they need to be aware of in terms of the afterlife.

But also gives them a really good indication of the nature of God.

Now what we're going to do, is I'm just going to ask you a very quick question.

That quick question is: Why does Allah need the Koran to reveal things to humans? You're going to spend about three minutes on this question please, by pausing the video then unpausing when you are ready to go through the answer.

Okay.

So hopefully you've got the idea that Allah needs the Koran because he cannot directly talk to human beings, because humans are not worthy of being in his presence, because Allah is transcendent.

Therefore the Koran is his way of communicating with humanity so that they know exactly what they should be doing to submit to him.

Well done if you got that answer correct.

We're now going to have a look at different texts that Muslims believe had been revealed to prophets over time.

There are four main texts that Muslims believe have been given to prophets, which are no longer authoritative, which means something has happened to them, which means they're not ones to be followed.

So the first one is the Scrolls of Ibrahim, the Sahifah.

And you might say, "Never heard of these before".

Well, the reason probably is because they are said to have been lost.

That they weren't recorded properly, and therefore there's no written record of these texts anymore.

Although the Koran does refer to them so Muslims know that they did exist.

So the Scrolls of Ibrahim are instructions on how to live, were revealed to the prophet Ibrahim and would have been a way of the people knowing at the time, what God expected.

However, of course they were lost.

Muslims believe the Tawrat was revealed to Musa.

So it's the Torah, Moses.

And they believe that the word, that- Sorry, start again.

So the Tawrat, the word itself means instructions.

And Muslims believe the Tawrat would have contained instructions on how to live, such as the ten commandments.

But the overtime, the community around, at the time, did not follow those correctly, forgot the message, and therefore it was changed from its original message.

Then Muslims believe the Zabur, the Psalms were revealed to King David, Dawud.

Muslims believes that King David was a really important King and a really great military leader, and that the Zabur contained poetry, songs, and ways of showing submission and devotion to Allah.

Then Muslims believe the Injil, the Gospels, were revealed to the prophet Isa.

Now Isa is the name for Jesus in Arabic.

Muslims do not believe that Isa was the son of God.

They believe that goes against Tawhid.

There cannot be any equivalent, there cannot be any partner to God, and that God cannot have a son.

And therefore Muslims believe that that has been added after the Gospels were revealed to Isa.

So they believe it's the most distorted of all because they had this addition of making Jesus the son of God.

Muslims do not believe he's son of God, they do not believe he was crucified, but they do believe that Isa was an important prophet who was given the power to perform miracles by Allah.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to go through some quick fire questions just to test your understanding of what we've done so far, about these different Holy texts within Islam.

Now, of course, we need to remember that they would be considered Holy in their original form, but that all of these books are believed to have been changed, lost, forgotten, over time.

So quick fire questions.

Are we ready? Who received the Injil? Is it Isa or Musa? Three, two, one.

Good.

It's Isa.

Who received the Sahifah? Which is the scrolls.

Ibrahim, Dawud? Three, two, one.

Brilliant.

Ibrahim.

Who received the Tawrat, Isa or Musa? Three, two, one.

Amazing.

Musa.

It's also worth noting that the Tawrat in Arabic means instructions.

Who received the Zabur? Ibrahim, Dawud? Three, two, one.

Great.

Dawud.

Which revelation did Isa receive? Is it Injil or Tawrat? Three, two, one.

Good.

Injil.

Remember Isa, Jesus, Injil, Gospels.

Which revelation did Dawud receive? Sahifah, Zabur? Three, two, one.

Zabur, good.

Remember Zabur is Psalms. Which revelation did Ibrahim receive? Sahifah, Injil? Three, two, one.

Good.

Sahifah.

The scrolls of Ibrahim, often known as the lost scrolls.

Which revelation did Musa receive? Sahifah, Tawrat? Three, two, one.

Amazing.

Tawrat.

which remember of course means instructions.

Well done if you've got all of those correct.

We're now going to move on to doing some questions to bring all of these together.

And I'm going to introduce a task to you that I'd like you to complete.

So what I'd like you to do is to pause the video on the next slide to complete your task.

Once I've given you instructions of what to do.

So what I've got for you there, are some paragraphs about the Holy books, two of them for now, and then we'll move on to another two in a moment.

I want you to write the paragraphs out, but they have mistakes in.

So I want you to then write out the paragraph where the green parts are, where there is a mistake and you have to correct it.

So for example, the paragraph on Ibrahim you'd have to change where I've put Moses and change where I've put people changed the original message so another revelation needed to be sent.

Same for Tawrat.

I have then put Gospels that's a mistake, and scrolls is a mistake.

So what I'd like you to do is copy out that paragraph please.

Correct where there's a mistake so that you have completed perfect paragraphs.

Then we'll go through corrections soon.

So just pause the video, write out the paragraphs please, correct the mistakes then unpause, when you're ready to move on.

Okay.

So if you can see this screen, we're now going to move on to two new paragraphs.

And what we're going to do is go through those and then afterwards we're going to go through corrections.

So you can see here, I've got a paragraph for the Psalms and a paragraph for Isa and his revelation.

What I'd like you to do of course again, is to change the green parts into the correct bits.

So copy out the paragraphs please, correct the mistakes.

Pause your video now please, have a go, unpause when you're ready to go through corrections.

Okay.

If you can see this screen, I'm going to assume that you've done both of those pages.

So you've done four paragraphs in total, which will be amazing, amazing work, so well done.

If you'd like to have a different colour pen out ready for corrections, please, we'll now go through the answers.

If you need to go back at all, then just rewind the video and pause again, and then come back to this screen when you're ready for corrections.

So we should have the answers here.

So, Ibrahim is the Arabic name for Abraham and he had the scrolls revealed to him.

They contain rules people would have to follow.

However, this revelation was lost and we have no record of them.

The Tawrat is another name for the Torah.

This book was revealed to Musa, Moses.

The word Tawrat literally means instructions.

These contain instructions for how to live, and the ten commandments.

If you need to make any corrections, of course, it's the green bits we are looking for.

Can you please pause the video now and make your corrections.

And then in a moment we'll move on to the next two paragraphs and their corrections.

Okay.

The second set of paragraphs.

the Psalms in Islam are known as the Zabur and were revealed to King David, Dawud.

These contain poetry and over time were changed they don't look like the Psalms found in the Bible anymore.

Isa is the Arabic name for Jesus.

Muslims do not believe Isa is the son of God and that he received the Injil, which is another word for the Gospels.

They also believe that Isa performed miracles.

So again, if you need to make any corrections to the green sections, can you please pause the video now and make those corrections.

And then what we'll do after that is move on to what makes the Koran different.

We're now going to consider what makes the Koran different of the revelations.

Many Muslims believe that all of the revelations were revealed by the angel Jibril.

And this is of course because of the idea of prophets not being able to speak directly to Allah because of Allah's transcendence.

Muslims believe that Muhammad couldn't read and write either.

So when he was asked to read and recite by the angel Jibril, he was confused and he was squeezed until he memorised the words by heart.

He was able to recite them off by heart.

Traditionally at around Muhammad's time, it was an oral tradition.

So people would have said the words of the Koran to each other, and they would have learned it that way.

And it wasn't until after Muhammad's death, when it was written down by his companions.

Now Muslims believe that this was then compiled and finalised after his death and then the written record of the Koran was there for all people for all time.

And Muslims also say that the Koran is a miracle, that it can't be changed 'cause it's protected by Allah.

That it will always be the same as from the moment it was revealed to the prophet Muhammad.

That it contains everything a Muslim will ever need.

So for all time, for all people, all societies.

And they would say that therefore it's the final revelation, and there will never be another revelation or another prophet because everything a Muslim needs is contained within the Koran.

So the Koran is so much more important and prized above the other revelations 'cause they believe it's the only one which could never be distorted, never be changed, never have anything added or taken away.

But it is important to recognise that this is the view for the Koran in Arabic.

Because obviously when you translate from any language to another language, some meaning will be lost.

There are some words in some languages, which just don't have a direct translation to English, for example.

So Muslims would believe that a Koran in Arabic is the exact same Arabic that was revealed to the prophet Muhammad.

Therefore they can trust that those words are the correct words, that they're the words that Muhammad himself learned from the angel Jibril.

So what we're going to do is now do some questions just to make sure we understand these key things about why the Koran is more important than those other revelations.

Why it's prized above all of the others.

So what I'd like you to do is to pause the video on the next slide for me.

So you can go through the questions and have a go at answering them.

I'll give you instructions on what I'd like you to do.

So you've got four sentences there.

The green bits are where you're going to need to add in an answer or finish off that sentence.

I've given you clues for each of those sections as to what you need to be writing.

So what I'd like you to do is to pause the video now for me please, have a go at copying out these questions and writing in the answers.

So please do make sure that you've copied out the sentence and then filled in the bits where you'd fill in, in green.

So pause the video now for me, please.

Okay.

If you could see the screen, I'm going to assume that you are ready for corrections.

If you're not, then rewind the video, go back to it and continue.

If you are ready then please make sure you've got your different coloured pen out, ready for corrections, and we'll go through the answers.

So, the Koran was revealed to Muhammad by the angel Jibril.

This is because Allah is transcendent.

Humans are not able to speak directly to Allah.

Originally, people would have learned the Koran by oral tradition.

This means reciting it to one another.

This was until Muhammad's death when the community wrote it down.

if you need to make any corrections, can you please pause the video now and make those corrections for me.

Okay.

Three and four.

The Koran is a miracle because it's the unchanged word of Allah.

Allah does not make mistakes, so it would be true for all people for all time.

Muslims believe another revelation won't be sent because it's the final revelation which cannot be altered.

There also won't be any more prophets because of this.

So please pause again now, if you need to, to make any corrections.

So well done if you've got all of those answers correct, I'm really, really impressed.

So I want to say a huge, big, thank you for you for taking part in the lesson today, for learning loads of new things, for trying really, really hard, for really engaging.

I've really enjoyed teaching you today.

And I really hope I see you again soon for another lesson on Islam.

So again, thank you so much and hopefully I will see you soon.

Bye.