From the Reciters by Zeyd

 The word Quran means the Reading or the Recitation.  A second and popular name is Al-Kitab, The Book.  A third and a very respected name is Al-Mashaf, A Handwritten Book.  Altogether fifty-five different names are applied to the Quran.
 The delivery and writings of the Quran extended over a twenty-three year period.  Passages were taken down from Muhammad's lips from time to time by some writers. or they were first committed to memory, then at some subsequent period recorded.  For this purpose, the crude writing material then in use among the Arabs was employed.  There was no fixed repository for these materials, but they were probably kept in the room of one of Muhammad's wives or left in charge of the persons who first wrote them down.  Many passages were preserved only in the memories of his followers and were never committed to writing during his lifetime.
 After Muhammad's death, many reciters of the Quran were slain in the Battle of Yamama.  'Umar therefore suggested to Abu Bakr that all the chapters of the Quran should be collected.  The task was committed to Zeyd, the chief scribe or secretary of Muhammad.  He sought out the fragments of the Quran from every quarter, gathering them together from palm leaves and tablets of white stone and from the memories of faithful men.  The first complete manuscript was compiled twenty years after Muhammad's death and was entrusted to the care of Hafasa, one of Muhammad's widows.
 Years later, the Khalifa 'Uthman appointed Zeyd to make a fresh revision of the work, and all previous copies were called in and burned.  This second revision, it is supposed, has been handed down unaltered.

 The Language of the Quran

 The Quran is written in a kind of rhyming Arabic prose, the jingling sound of which greatly delights the Arabs.  Pickthall's translation of Surat al'Fatihah (The Opening) 1 expresses this sound:

 In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.  Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds:  The Beneficent, the Merciful:  Owner of the Day of Judgment.  Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help.  show us the straight path:  The path of those whom Thou has favoured; Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.

 Muslims regard this chapter as the essence of the Quran and repeat it as Christians do the Lord's Prayer.

 Arrangement of the Quran
 The Quran is regarded as holy by Muslims and is divided into 114 Surats (rows or chapters), containing about 6,200 verses, 80,000 words, and 330,000 letters.  It is further arranged into 30 sections, called Juz or Sipara, enabling a Muslim to recite the whole book in the thirty days of the fast month of Ramadan.  The Ruku' are recited sections of about ten verses before which the Muslim makes a bow of reverence.
 The Quran was first printed in Arabic at Rome in 1530.  The first translation in French was done in 1647, and from it the first English translation was made soon after 1657.
 The Surats are not placed chronologically according to content or composition.  The opening prayer stands first, then the longest chapters.  Some of the Surats contain verses delivered at different times and put together without regard to subject.  Sir William Muir considers that the shorter chapters belong, as a general rule, to Muhammad's early ministry; so to begin at the end of the Quran and read backwards would give the best conception of the stages of Muhammad's teaching.  Muir identifies eighteen Surats consisting of short rhapsodies, which may have been composed by Muhammad before he conceived the idea of a divine mission, none of which are in the form of a message from Allah.

 Contents
 According to tradition, four Surats are supposed to belong to the beginning of Muhammad's ministry.  Nineteen Surats probably date from the commencement of Muhammad's public ministry to the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) emigration.  Twenty-two Surats are thought to have been given from the sixth to the tenth year of Muhammad's ministry to the flight from Mecca to Medina.  They contain some narratives from the Gospels.  Twenty Surats are supposed to have been given at Medina.  The second Surat is the longest in the book.  Its name is "The Cow," named after the heifer described within the Surat (although misidentified as yellow instead of red, as recorded in the Old Testament) as having been sacrificed by the Israelites under the direction of Moses.  Muslims assert from this Surat that Abraham and his firstborn, Ishmael, built the Ka'bah, Islam's holiest shrine.