Introduction

“And for the disbelievers, Allah has prepared a painful doom.”

This statement, or versions of it, is repeated more than 200 times in the Quran. It’s not always a painful doom, however. Sometimes it’s an awful doom, dreadful doom, shameful doom, or some other unpleasant type of doom. But the basic idea is the same: Allah will torture nonbelievers forever after they die.

This idea occurs so often in the Quran that it could be said to be a summary of the entire book, although it does say a few other things.

It has many stories, for example, some newly created and some old stories from the Bible. The Bible stories are, however, often quite different from, and contradictory to, those in the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian New Testament. Although many of the stories are repeated several times in the Quran, they are often told differently, so I have included them here.

The Quran provides much more detail about the afterlife than the Bible does. It tells us, for example, that the tormented in hell will have their skin burned off their flesh and then have fresh skin provided to be burned off repeatedly forever, while believers will live in pleasure-filled gardens with lovely-eyed virgins.

The Quran also has much to say about women, polygamy, the poor tax, and holy war. I’ve tried to include everything of interest to the modern reader in the Quran as completely and simply as possible – but with fewer words.

Of course, not everyone will agree with my decisions about what to include and what to leave out, which is as it should be since these are necessarily subjective in nature. I encourage the reader to refer to the corresponding verses in the Quran to compare my summary of the text that is included, as well as the text that I have left out. I have provided superscripted verse numbers to facilitate this.

I hope this will help those who would like know what's in the Quran but don't have time to read the entire book.