The Quran
 The Quran is held in the greatest esteem and reverence among Muslims as their holy scripture.  They dare not touch it without first being washed and purified.  They read it with the greatest care and respect, never holding it below their waist.  They swear by it and consult it on all occasions.  They carry it with them to war, write sentences of it on their banners, suspend it from their necks as a charm, and always place it on the highest shelf or in some place of honor in their houses.  It is said that the devil runs away from the house in which a portion of the Quran, Surat al-Baqarah (The Cow) 2, is read.

Sunna
 Next to the Quran in Islamic life is Tradition (Hadith).  While the former is regarded as supreme, the whole system of Islamic government is largely founded on the latter.  A command given by Muhammad or an example set by him is called Sunna, a rule.  The belief of Muslims is that their prophet, in all that he did and said, was guided by God, and that his words and acts became forever divine rules of faith and practice.  A Muslim places the Sunna on the same level as the Bible, but he regards the Quran as far superior to both --" the very words of God."  Muhammad said:

 He who loves not my Sunna is not my follower.  He who in distress holds fast to the Sunna will receive the reward of a hundred martyrs.

 The Sunna is taken from a much larger tradition.  For example, one Muslim, Bukhari, collected twenty thousand of them, of which he rejected ten thousand, accounting them untrue.  Of the remaining ten thousand, he accepted only 7,275, declaring the rest to be untrustworthy.  Abu Da'ud accepted as authentic only 4,800 rules out of 50,000.