The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qurʾan: ​Raison d’être & Project Summary 

Out of some 6.6 billion men, women, and children now living on earth, every fourth proclaims there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. This testimony (shahada) makes them Muslims--those who consciously and willingly submit to their Creator. Muslims believe the Qur'an is the last revealed Book, sent by Allah to guide humanity to the Straight Path (al-sirat al-mustaqim), and the life of Prophet Muhammad the best model to follow. The Qur'an and the vast repository of texts dealing with the life of the Prophet (Sunna) are in classical Arabic, as are most of their respective commentaries. Only about 15 percent of all Muslims now speak Arabic as their mother tongue, and, even within this segment, knowledge of classical Arabic is rapidly deteriorating. Of the non-Arabic speaking majority, which is rapidly increasing due to population growth and conversions, only about 8 to 10 per cent have knowledge of classical Arabic. This means that, at best, only 20 percent of Muslims now understand the language of the primary sources of their religion.

​This disconnect with the linguistic tradition of Islam is a recent phenomenon for Muslims. Until the middle of the twentieth century, a large percentage of literate Muslims had at least a working knowledge of Arabic, even though the process of erosion of this tradition had already started in the eighteenth century with the colonization of the Muslim world by European powers. This cleavage with the tradition did not occur by itself but emerged through a number of fundamental shifts in the makeup of the Muslim world over the last three centuries. During that time, the educational system throughout most of the Muslim world was replaced by a new system based on Western education, often imposed by the European powers which occupied most Muslim lands for various lengths of time between the eighteenth and the twentieth century. The same period saw a rapid destruction of the traditional Islamic institutions of learning and the emergence of a new social, political, economic, cultural, and educational order through systematic and complex processes of social engineering at a scale seldom witnessed in human history.

Journal of Islam & Science, Vol. 8 (Summer 2010) No. 1 ​

Muzaffar Iqbal

Muzaffar Iqbal is the President of the Center for Islamic Sciences and the General Editor of the Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān.