Inside the old Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, this caught my eye, a number of Qur'ans that are available for anyone to pick up and read.

Mosques in the Arab world are not just places go pray in, they are centres of learning, reflection, rest and socialising, don't be surprised if you enter one and find someone sleeping in a corner or a group of people talking quietly in another corner, in fact the larger mosques are known as "Gatherings" in Arabic because its a place where people come together.

Up until the Mamluk period it used to be common that each city would have one to two very large mosques only where Everybody would gather for Prayer!


Muslims consider the Qur'an to be the literal word of God, transmitted to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. It was revealed over a period of twenty-three years between the years of 610 and 632ACE. has 114 chapters , called surahs, and over six thousand verses , called ayahs. It is not in chronological order, and it uses references to historical events, past prophets, nature, and philosophical ideas to prove its arguments.