Critical Thinking and the Chronological Quran Book 29 in the Life of the Prophet Muhammad From Birth to Revelation

Critical Thinking and the Chronological Quran Book 29 in the Life of the Prophet Muhammad From Birth to Revelation

The Critical Thinking Quranic Studies Textbook Series There are thirty books in this series. Books entitled The Year 1 to The Year 24 consist of one book for each year of the revelation. They each include the relevant chapter (surah) or chapters (when they are short) or sections (ruku) (when there are multiple sections in a particular chapter). The chapters are numbered according to the chronological order of the Quranic chapters provided by al-Azhar University as the officially accepted order of revelation. The remaining books are: Book 25: Adam, Cain and Abel, Enoch (Idris), Noah, Hud and the People of Aad; Saleh and the People of Thamud; Book 26: Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Lot, Jacob (Israel), Joseph and Job; Book 27: Moses, Aaron, Children of Jacob (Israel), Jethro (Shuayb), Joshua, Khidr and Samuel; Book 28: David, Solomon, Elijah (Ilyas), Elisha (Alyasa), Jonah (Younis), Ezekiel (Dhul Kifl), Ezra (Uzayr), Dhul Qarnayn (Cyrus the Great or Alexander the Great), Luqman, Zechariah, John the Baptist (Yahya), Mary and Jesus. Books 25-28 are devoted to the Quranic stories of all other Prophets and Messengers in order of their dates. The last two are: Book 29: The Life of Prophet Muhammad from Birth to the Revelation and Book 30: Teacher s Manual. The last, Book 30 has been prepared for the teacher s Lesson Plans. The chapters or sections signs (ayat) are given according to the 558 ruku or sections of the 114 chapters of the Quran. Each section is followed by a commentary by one of the well-known commentators. Then, the history at the time of the specific Quranic section in question is given. At the end of each part, there is an exercise in critical thinking skills. Once we learn to understand signs and sections of the Quranic message, we will close the gap between our beliefs and our practices or how we live our lives. They will each motivate the other. There will no longer be a disconnect between the two so that we claim to bear witness with our tongues, but our hearts are not on the same page as what our tongue expresses. It is important to note that the order of The Nine Intellectual Standards or The Eight Elements of Reasoning or The Seven Moral Traits is not important. With the grace of God, once all are present they coalesce into a sense of unity in our thoughts and behavior. Each lesson is followed by questions for classroom discussion or for dialogue. At the end of each lesson there is an assessment for students to use while they are developing critical thinking skills as they hopefully learn HOW the Quran teaches critical thinking. Laleh Bakhtiar's 30-volume critical thinking project is designed to derive guidance from the Quran to promote critical thought, rather than merely to use critical thought to understand the Quran and promote critical advocacy. This approach constitutes a new direction in Islamic thought and advocacy She understand the term critical thinking as an English translation of the Arabic furqan, which means understanding and acting on the difference between right and wrong. --Robert Crane, Qatar Foundation and IIIT Institute, Herndon, VA. Prolific author and translator Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, is an American-Iranian who is a scholar-in-residence at Kazi Publications and is the President of the Institute of Traditional Psychology. She facilitates a unique perspective of being a licensed psychotherapist and also profoundly knowledgeable about the worlds religious and spiritual traditions. She has edited, translated and written over 100 books about Islam. She is the first woman to present a critical translation of the Quran into any language. Her English translation of the Quran is titled The Sublime Quran (2011), which has been chosen by H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan (b. 1966), to appear on his website. She is a foremost interpreter of the Sufi Enneagram and has written and presented extensively on this theme and has created a computer based training course. Dr. Bakhtiar is not only a scholar in these disciplines, but is a Muslim who has been privileged to have Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr (b. 1933), preeminent Islamic philosopher and renowned scholar of comparative religion, as her mentor. She has taught courses on Islam at the University of Chicago, presents regularly at conferences throughout the world and is acknowledged as an authority on Islamic spirituality and Quranic critical thinking.