Qur’an and Bible passages for Ramadhan

All Bible quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version. All passages from the Qur’an are taken from Readings in the Qur’an — selected and translated by Kenneth Cragg, Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 1999.

Week 1: The Patriarchs and Matriarchs

This week’s reflections from the Qur’an

Recall our servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, men of strength and vision, men We made altogether genuine in faith through their pure sense of the eternal world. Truly We count them the chosen and most excellent.

Surah 38:45—47

We dealt graciously with Moses and Aaron, and delivered both them and their people from great tribulation.

Surah 37:114

Daily Bible readings

Day 1: Genesis 12:1—9 Abram is called by God (YHWH) to leave his home community and go to a land he does not know. Abram sets out with his wife Sarai and their household, and wherever they stop in their journey Abram sets up an altar and invokes the name of the LORD.

Day 2: Genesis 14:17—24 Abram meets with Melchizedek (meaning King of Righteousness) the priest-king of Salem, later to be called Jerusalem. Melchizedek brings bread and wine and pronounces a blessing of God Most High upon Abram.

Day 3:Genesis 21:1—20 In her old age Sarai, now Sarah, gives birth to a son, Isaac. At his weaning she turns against Hagar, Abraham’s (formerly Abram’s) other wife, and orders that she and her son Ishmael be banished. God hears the cries of the boy and his mother in the wilderness, and meets their needs.

Day 4: Genesis 28:10—22 Jacob, grandson of Abraham, leaves his parents’ home having cheated his brother of his birthright, and sets out to find a wife. He interrupts his journey at ‘a certain place’, and there experiences a vision of God’s angels and a promise from the God of his ancestors, that the land where he is sleeping will become the home of his descendants: ‘Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.’ Jacob declares the place Bethel, meaning house of God.

Day 5: Exodus 3:13—22 The Hebrew people, descendants of Abraham, Jacob and his son Joseph who went to live in Egypt, are enslaved. God sees their misery and commissions Moses to lead them. Here God reveals the Divine name and nature to Moses: I AM, or I AM who I AM. (This is the meaning understood by the tetragrammaton YHWH, pronounced Yahweh, normally translated as LORD.)

Day 6: Exodus 16:1—17:7 The Hebrew people escape Egypt and wander the wilderness, but they suffer great hunger and thirst and begin to complain. I AM sees their need and sends manna for their nourishment, and water from a rock.

Day 7: Exodus 20:1—21 and 34:1—9 Moses, on behalf of the people, enters into relationship with God, receiving, as a sign of that relationship, laws and an affirmation of God’s steadfast love. Obedience to these laws is a commitment to the love-relationship which is established between God and people.

Week 2: The time of the Judges and the Kings: finding God through loving one another, and the prophetic call to challenge injustice

This week’s reflection from the Qur’an

The hour, truly, is coming — My choice is to keep its time hidden — that every soul may have reward for its efforts. Let no one who refuses belief in it and follows his own desires deter you from faith in it, lest you perish.

Surah 20:15

Daily Bible readings

Day 8: Ruth 1 In the time of the judges, a family affected by famine moved to a neighbouring land. The women of that family found themselves bereaved. The mother-in-law, seeking to return to her own people, is accompanied by Ruth, who pledges love and loyalty: ‘your people shall be my people; your God, my God.’

Day 9: 1 Samuel 2:1—10 In the time of the Judges, Hannah, a woman longing for a child, utters a song of praise to God, who hears her prayer. Her song inspires the words of Mary, mother of Jesus, in the Magnificat: ‘My heart exults in the LORD … ’ and speaks of the reversal of roles, help for the lowly, the oppressed and the hungry, and the bringing down of the mighty.

Day 10: 2 Samuel 11—12:14 The prophet Nathan dares to speak out against King David’s abuse of power to gain Bathsheba as his wife. It is the LORD, I AM, who sends Nathan and gives him confidence to speak out against injustice.

Day 11: 1 Kings 19 The prophet Elijah opposes the behaviour of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, but when his life is threatened he runs away. At the mouth of a cave on Mount Horeb, Elijah experiences the presence of God in stillness, and returns to life, his confidence and sense of mission renewed.

Day 12: Isaiah 58, especially verses 6—8 The will of God is to break the bonds of injustice, to feed the poor and bring the homeless to share shelter. This is the fast of God, and when it is carried out, then shall come healing.

Day 13: Amos 4:1—10 The voice of the LORD, spoken through Amos, berates the rich ‘cows’ of Bashan who oppress the poor and needy, living a life of luxury. Amos describes the suffering of a people stricken with drought, disease and war, and calls them back to the way of God, which is the way of justice and of compassion for the needy.

Day 14 Daniel 6 Refusing to be intimidated by an edict of King Darius, Daniel, a Hebrew in exile, continues to get on his knees and bow down three times a day to the true God, rather than worshipping the man Darius. For this, he is thrown to the lions. Darius regrets Daniel’s fate and spends the night fasting, in deep concern. On discovering that Daniel has survived, King Darius sends out a new message that Daniel’s God is the living God.

Week 3: The words of the psalmists: drawing closer to God

This week’s reflections from the Qur’an

Bear patiently with what they say and remember Our servant David, a valorous man and great penitent. In him We recruited to Our praise the very mountains at the fall of day and at the sunrising, and the birds also mustering in flight, each echoing his song.

Surah 38:17

Your Lord knows all in the heavens and in the earth. We have graced some prophets above others. To David We gave the Psalms.

Surah 17:55

Daily Bible readings

Day 15: Psalm 46 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth … Be still and know that I am God … I am exalted among the nations!

Day 16: Psalm 131 the psalmist’s soul is quieted before God as a child on her mother’s knee

Day 17: Psalm 133 a celebration of the blessedness of unity between brothers and sisters

Day 18: Psalm 138 thanks that God hears the prayers of the lowly and responds with steadfast love

Day 19: Psalm 40 I will sing a new song … I delight to do your will, O my God … As for me I am poor and needy but the Lord takes thought for me …

Day 20: Psalm 16 trust and security in God rather than false gods. God shows followers the path of life and instructs the heart even through the night.

Day 21: Psalm 139:1—18 an affirmation of God’s presence: O God you have searched me and know me …

Week 4: Jesus — the way, the truth and the life

This week’s reflections from the Qur’an

One who guarded her chastity, We breathed into her of our spirit and We made her and her son a sign to the worlds.

Surah 57:27a

We commissioned Jesus, son of Mary, in the train of the prophets, attesting the truth of what is already in the Torah. We gave him the Gospel in which are guidance and light and which confirms what is already there in the Torah, as guidance and admonition to all who would be God-fearing.

Surah 5:46

Daily Bible readings

Day 22: Matthew 1:18—2:23 Born into simple poverty, Jesus is visited by people from another land, another faith-tradition, who recognise his messiahship. The corrupt Roman puppet ruler King Herod hears of this; feeling threatened, he seeks to have Jesus killed. Jesus’s parents are forced to flee with him to Egypt as refugees and Herod massacres the children of Bethlehem in his futile search for Jesus.

Day 23: Luke 3:23—4:30 The genealogy at the start of the reading firmly sets Jesus within the Jewish tradition. After his baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit to fast in the desert, where he was tempted by the Devil. On his return, having resisted temptation, Jesus begins his public ministry by speaking in the synagogue, challenging those who hear him to such an extent that they want to kill him.

Day 24: Mark 2 A passage full of examples of Jesus’ radical action: healing the paralysed man and pronouncing forgiveness of sins; eating with outsiders; challenging a legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath; arguing about interpretation of Scripture and religious practice with Pharisees.

Day 25: Luke 6:12—49 Not only a man of action but also of prayer. Jesus is deep in prayer before selecting his closest disciples and then delivers the ‘sermon on the plain’ — the radical manifesto of the way of non-violent action, the way of love and resistance.

Day 26: John 4 Jesus travels through Samaria and has a wonderful encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well. Listen to Jesus as he speaks of the true water and the spiritual food and nourishment that is found in drawing closer to him.

Day 27: John 19 Jesus is crucified ‘under Pontius Pilate’.

Day 28: John 20 The resurrection of Jesus — and the call to believe in him and follow him.

Week 5 (two days): The Early Church

This week’s reflection from the Qur’an

Who says a better thing than the one who sounds the call to God, who does what is right, and says: ‘I am among those who surrender to God’

What is good and what is evil are in no way commensurate. Return evil with some better thing and, so doing, you will make the one with whom you are at enmity to become like a close friend. Only those who have patience can attain this, and any such, reaching it, come to possess great good fortune.

If some prompting from Satan comes to you, seek refuge with God who listens and who knows all.

Surah 41:33—36

Daily Bible readings

Day 29: 1 Corinthians 1:18—31 Paul’s teaching on the way of the Cross.

Day 30: Acts 2:43—47 The vibrancy of the early church challenges us to become more a church that demonstrates the presence of the Spirit in real sharing and generosity of heart.

This page was last updated on Saturday, 07 May 2005

home | about all hallows | what’s on | worship and prayer | discussion and reflection | action in the community | projects | an open, welcoming … | weekly bulletin | site map | search site | admin |