From Doubt to Faith: Discovering Islam

Part 2: Prophets and Revelations

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Beyond Culture: Is the Quran Only for Arabs? (Part 2.3)

Another misconception I once held was that the Quran was meant mainly for Arabs, or for people culturally or historically connected to them. Following it fully felt like it would threaten my own national identity. ‘Islamicised’ is the word often used nowadays. Even after embracing Islam, it took me a while to unlearn the idea of imagining Allah as an ‘Arab God’ and Muhammad (peace be upon him) as a foreign messenger.

Part of that sense of foreignness probably came from the Arabic language itself. The Quran, as the unaltered direct speech of God, is recited and preserved in Arabic in the same form in which it was originally revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). For those who do not speak Arabic, this can make the Quran feel tied to an Arabic identity.

Once you start reading the translation though, what stands out is how often the Quran keeps referring itself to earlier scriptures:

He has sent the Scripture down to you [Prophet] with the truth, confirming what went before: He sent down the Torah and the Gospel earlier as a guide for people, and He has sent down the criterion [between right and wrong]. (3:3–4)

Indeed, this is in the former scriptures, the scriptures of Abraham and Moses. (87:18–19)

Reading such verses makes it difficult to maintain the idea that the Quran belonged to the history of one nation alone. Although it was revealed in Arabic, the Quran presents itself not as something new, but as continuing and confirming the chain of earlier scriptures all coming from the same divine source.

Without prior exposure to any scripture, I initially didn’t pay much attention to the fact that the Quran tells the stories of prophets I had at least heard of by name: Noah, Moses, Jesus, Mary (the mother of Jesus), Joseph, Abraham, and many others. It took me some time to realize that these prophets are not confined to an Arabic context but are the same figures who lived long before the advent of Islam and are also known from the Bible.

This coherence between the Quranic accounts of the prophets and the earlier revelations opened my eyes to something much deeper: all revelations came from one and the same God. In this light, the Quran speaks to the human being as such, not exclusively to Arabs.

As for language, revelation comes in the tongue of its initial audience. Just as the Torah and the Gospel were revealed in Hebrew and Aramaic through Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them), the Quran was revealed in Arabic through Muhammad (peace be upon him):

Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran so that you may understand. (12:2)

Surprisingly, though, even while being revealed in their own language, many people at the time of the Prophet still perceived the Quran as something foreign:

We know very well that they say, ‘It is a man who teaches him,’ but the language of the person they allude to is foreign, while this revelation is in clear Arabic. (16:103)

Even more striking is how God makes clear that language or ethnicity is not the real barrier to belief:

Had We revealed it to a non-Arab, who would then recite it to the deniers in fluent Arabic, still they would not have believed in it! (26:198-199)

The same point is made elsewhere in the Quran: if the heart is closed for whatever reason – by arrogance, prejudice, fear, or anything else – then no language, no messenger’s background, and no miracle will be enough (41:44). The real barrier is not the medium, but the mindset.

That was probably my mindset early on – a quiet fear that reading the Quran and accepting its message would somehow erase my national identity and turn me into someone strange: someone who prays all day and wears a scarf. Praise be to God for the beautiful gifts of prayer and yes, even the scarf, which brought its own lessons (maybe more on that another time).

But when it comes to holding tightly to inherited traditions, the Quran challenges this mindset with a simple yet powerful question: How can you be sure that what your ancestors followed was the ultimate truth?

And when it is said to them, ‘Follow what God has revealed,’ they say, ‘Rather, we will follow that which we found our fathers doing.’ Even though their fathers understood nothing, nor were they guided? (2:170)

They say, ‘We saw our fathers following this tradition; we are guided by their footsteps.’ Whenever We sent a messenger before you to warn a township, those corrupted by wealth said, in the same way, ‘We saw our fathers following this tradition; we are only following in their footsteps.’ (43:22-23)

God created nations and cultures in all their rich diversity, but He also challenges uncritical attachment to what we simply inherit. This is deeply ingrained in many societies. As some Quran commentators note, traditions can become the standards by which people form relationships and measure one another’s worth.

Every country has beautiful cultural elements to learn from, but also many man-made norms that stem more from human ego or group interests than from divine standards. Even someone who identifies as ‘believing in God’ is always at risk of drifting into deeply rooted cultural habits that function in practice as godless. At times, such habits are even justified in God’s name. When this happens, basic values such as justice, compassion, or human dignity can easily be overshadowed by other interests:

Yet when these people do something disgraceful, they say, ‘We found our forefathers doing this,’ and, ‘God has commanded us to do this.’ Say, ‘God does not command disgraceful deeds.’ (7:28)

Quranically, labels do not determine one’s closeness to God. What matters is our inner reality – the state of a heart in sincere submission, free from ego – which then shapes our actions and interactions with one another. In an ideal world, everything else – laws, rituals, norms, and traditions – would grow from that root.