I mentioned yesterday on the DL that I needed to post this table on the blog. If you are going to read the Qur’an, you need this table. Read from left to right, top to bottom, this is a good, scholarly “guess” at the chronological order of the writing of the Surahs of the Qur’an. Remember, the Qur’an is organized not in a chronological manner, but in a manner based upon the length of the Surahs. So, if you copy this table and carry it with your Qur’an, you will be able to read the Qur’an in chronological order, which should help you to follow the work a bit better.
   Now, I recognize that there is scholarly dispute regarding the exact order of the Surahs chronologically speaking, and, what’s more, some of the Surahs have mixed materials from different periods. So, this isn’t perfect, but it is a whole lot better than reading it straight through as it is normally organized.

96
68
73
74
1
111
81
87
92
89
93
94
103
100
108102
107
109
105
113
114
112
53
80
97
91
85
95
106
101
75
104
77
50
90
86
54
38
7
72
36
25
35
19
20
56
26
27
28
17
10
11
12
15
6
37
31
34
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
51
88
18
16
71
14
21
23
32
52
67
69
70
78
79
82
84
30
29
83
2
68
3
33
60
4
99
57
47
13
55
76
65
98
59
24
22
63
58
49
66
64
61
62
48
5
8-9
110

Quick Update: LS was kind enough to point out a “problem” of sorts with my table. It did not include Surah 8. I have now included it with Surah 9, mainly because it is felt that these two Surahs were originally one (note how Surah 9 does not start as a normal Surah does). If anyone sat around last night and read the entire Qur’an and feels cheated for having missed Surah 8, I apologize! Ironically, this reminds me a bit of my own experience last evening, for I decided to take my Septuagint to prayer meeting instead of my Hebrew text. On Wednesday nights we work through the Psalter traditionally, and the Psalm for the evening was Psalm 10. But when I opened my LXX, I realized that this is where the numeration in the LXX breaks with the Massoretic numeration. In other words, in the LXX, Psalm 9 includes Psalm 10 in the MT, so I had to turn to Psalm 9 to read along in the text.
   In any case, I wanted to note the update to the table in case anyone had printed it out and started to wonder where Surah 8 went!

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