The Qur'an is a book held by Muslims to be holy and the final revealed word of God to mankind. Islamic theology views the prophets from Adam to Jesus as a series of people who have received God's message via revelation and passed it on to God's people. The Prophet Muhammad is held to be the last prophet to receive God's word as a consequence of "miraculous" revelations over a span of many years. The Qur'an is considered by Muslims to be a restatement and completion of the story and teachings of the Bible. Unlike the Bible, the Qur'an is weighted far more heavily towards theology and morality than towards recitation of stories or history.
The Qur'an is made of direct statements from Muhammad to those he is talking with. The Qur'an is fairly widely available in translation; however, unlike the Christian Bible, it is considered a point of faith that the Qur'an is only valid in the original seventh century classical Arabic. And, again unlike the Bible, we actually have "mostly original" copies of the Qu'ran, rather than a scrap of Greek here, a bit of Latin there. The Arabic that the Qu'ran is written in, is the basis for the modern standard language. Therefore, most educated Arabs have little difficulty reading the Qu'ran as it was originally written, rather than having to rely on a series of translations. Qu'ranic Arabic is widely taught in non-Arab speaking portions (i.e. the majority) of the Muslim world.
The Qur'an is made of direct statements from Muhammad to those he is talking with. The Qur'an is fairly widely available in translation; however, unlike the Christian Bible, it is considered a point of faith that the Qur'an is only valid in the original seventh century classical Arabic. And, again unlike the Bible, we actually have "mostly original" copies of the Qu'ran, rather than a scrap of Greek here, a bit of Latin there. The Arabic that the Qu'ran is written in, is the basis for the modern standard language. Therefore, most educated Arabs have little difficulty reading the Qu'ran as it was originally written, rather than having to rely on a series of translations. Qu'ranic Arabic is widely taught in non-Arab speaking portions (i.e. the majority) of the Muslim world.
The original Sura were oral traditions, and were only written down near the end of Muhammad's life, and not compiled into the one document until well after his death. They often have a poetic structure to them, in line with typical oral tradition.Because of the Qur'an's lack of a "storyline", the work itself has only a loose structure. Each Sura is independent of the others, rarely if ever making reference to any other Sura. Topics in any given Sura may be repeated in some other Sura and the Sura are not grouped into some kind of "logical" structure like "Sura on Family", "Sura on Business", etc.
Reference:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Qur'an
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Qur'an
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Contradictions of the Qur'an
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