Professor Dr Ali Qaradaghi, the Head of the Board of Trustees of the University of Human Development, offers a new interpretation of the word “Iqra’ Read (اقرأ)” in the Quranic verse “اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ (Read in the name of your Lord, who created.)”

In a speech to the lecturers at the University of Human Development, Dr Qaradaghi, also the Secretary-General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, said that the very first word of the Quran had not been well interpreted by the majority of scholars – many scholars have said that “Read” had meant reading Quran. He criticised this view and said that this was not possible since the rest of the Quran was not communicated to the Prophet Muhammad at that time, so how could the Prophet or people read something that was not there?

His interpretation of the word was that God orders believers to read all kinds of books including the Quran when it is communicated, to try to understand human thoughts in general, to understand different cultures and civilisations…etc and this is the foundation of knowledge. He further said that it was not possible for the Prophet Muhammad, and neither is it for Muslims, to become the “mercy to the world” if he was ill-informed about others’ beliefs and thoughts and others’ way of life.

The video is available on YouTube via this link: