As I read the assigned suras, I was surprised to find so many parallels to Christianity’s holy text, the Bible. In the first sura, for example, it talks about how God is the Master of the Day of Judgement and asks that he keeps us on the right path and to not follow those who have gone astray. I identify as a Christian, and when I go to church the preacher often refers to God “guiding us in the days ahead” and setting us on the right path so that we may have an eternal life. Obviously, followers want to follow the righteous path so that when Judgement Day comes, they are sent to Heaven to live out their eternal life. I also noticed that the Qur’an was a bit repetitive and talked about the same topics multiple times. I believe that this is likely to stress the importance of the topics that Muslims find to be the most valuable. Another sura that I found interesting was the ninety-ninth, which also talked about Judgement Day. It explained that on Judgement Day, every little thing that an individual has done throughout their lifetime will be weighed and considered to determine where they will spend eternity. Mankind will be divided into two groups, and those that followed the righteous path will be sent to Heaven, and those who fell off the path will go to Hell.
I also found a close connection with the Qur’an and the Bible in the seventy-first sura. In the sura, the people of Nuh’s community did not believe the word that he preached about God. Concerned, Nuh asked God what he must do to get people to listen and follow his word. God told Nuh to tell his people that there will be a flood, and those that do not listen and believe Nuh will be drowned and sent to Hell. In the Bible, there is a very similar teaching about Noah’s Ark. God realized that the world was full of violence, so he wanted to create a flood that would wipe out all of the evil. Noah, his wife, and their three kids and wives were spared on the Ark, along with a male and female of every land animal. The flood came just as God said would, and destroyed everything. Before studying other religions, I was always led to believe that they were all very different from each other and that followers of one often opposed followers of another. However, after reading just some of the suras from the Qur’an, I can see how there are often times many parallels between religions.