The library

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In the order they were given. The three marked Critical are the ones the Recitation tells us to uphold, and itself.

How to read this library

The library is in the order the scriptures were given: the Torah first, then the Prophets and the Writings with the Psalms of David in their place among them, then the Gospel, then the Acts and the letters, then the Recitation. Each one confirms what came before it.

Three of them carry a mark that says CRITICAL. They are the Torah, the Gospel and the Recitation. The Lord God revealed to us in the Recitation that the People of the Scripture are on nothing until they uphold the Torah and the Gospel (5:68). Read those three, and read them whole.

The Recitation has its own names for the scriptures: the Torah is the Tawrāt, the Psalms are the Zabūr, the Gospel is the Injīl, and the Recitation is the Qur’ān. You see both names beside each section.

The Name. Where the Hebrew has the Name given to Moses, the English here says The Lord God. Where the Arabic says Allah, the English says The God, which is what the word means. Where the Messiah says “Father”, it is in speech marks: the Lord God is unique and has fathered no one.

The words of Jesus the Messiah are shown in red, so you can tell them from the narrator around them.

Beside the four are books we do not uphold: 1 Enoch before the Torah, and Judith, Tobit, 1 Maccabees and the Psalms of Solomon beside the Prophets and the Writings. Each carries a note saying what it is and what it is not. Read them after the three, never instead of them.

At the very end are the hadith, reports about the prophet Mohammed. They are not scripture and we do not follow them as guidance. They are there so you can see what is in them.

There is no commentary here and no tafsir. Nothing is explained on the Lord God’s behalf. The words are given as they were given, with their original tongue beside them, so you can read for yourself.

Every chapter has a bar above it holding the book, the chapter and the verse, so you are never more than a few taps from any verse in any book. Go to, in the bar at the top, reaches the same places by name. What you have opened stays on your device and can be read with no signal.

Before the Torah

The Lord God revealed to us in the Torah that Enoch walked with Him, and that he was not, because the Lord God took him (Genesis 5:24). The Recitation names him Idrīs, a man of truth and a prophet, whom the Lord God raised to a high place (19:56–57), and counts him among the patient (21:85).

A book carrying his name has come down to us in the language of Ethiopia, with parts of it in Greek and Aramaic. It tells of the watchers who came down, of the judgement, and of the one it calls the Son of Man. The English here is R. H. Charles’s translation of 1917.

Nothing in it is upheld as the scriptures are. The middle part, the Parables, is the part scholars doubt most, and in two places there (48:5 and 62:9) people are shown bowing to the one it calls the Son of Man.

Worship is for the Lord God alone; read those lines knowing that. Read it after the Torah, the Gospel and the Recitation, and hold to those.

Old Testament

The TorahMarked Critical

ٱلتَّوْرَاة Tawrāt

The five books given through Moses: the making of the Heavens and the Earth, the covenant with Abraham, the going out of Egypt, and the law given at Sinai. The Recitation calls it the Tawrāt and tells the People of the Scripture to uphold it.

Old Testament

The Prophets and the Writings

ٱلنَّبِيُّون an-Nabiyyūn

The histories of Israel and the words of the prophets sent to it, from Joshua to Malachi, with the Psalms of David in their place among them, and the wisdom of Solomon and Job. The Recitation names many of these prophets and honours them all, and names the Psalms the Zabūr, given to David.

Beside the Psalms

Read these after the scriptures, and hold to the scriptures. Each opens with a word on what to watch for.

Beside the Prophets and the Writings

Read these after the scriptures, and hold to the scriptures. Each opens with a word on what to watch for.

New Testament

The GospelMarked Critical

ٱلْإِنجِيل Injīl

The good news given through Jesus the Messiah, son of Mary: his words and his works, told in four accounts. His own words are shown in red. The Recitation calls it the Injīl and tells the People of the Scripture to uphold it.

A word on the narrators

The four Gospel accounts are told by narrators. The words of Jesus the Messiah are shown in red; what stands around them is the narrator’s telling. A narrator has no authority to speak for The Lord God Almighty. What he says in his own voice, such as the Word being before all things, or Joseph’s line reckoned through to Jesus, need not be believed. Hold to the words in red.

New Testament

The Acts, the Letters and the Revelation

ٱلرُّسُل ar-Rusul

What the Messiah’s disciples did and wrote after he was raised to the Lord God: the Acts of the apostles, the letters of Paul, James, Peter, John and Jude, and the Revelation given to John. Read it after the Gospel, with the words in red held highest.

A word on Paul, and on reading these

After the four accounts of the Gospel come the Acts of the apostles, the letters, and the Revelation given to John. We love the people who wrote them, and we ask the Lord God to reward their works.

A word on Paul. He was a man, and on one thing he was mistaken: he taught that the Torah no longer had to be kept. The Messiah said he had not come to do away with the law (Matthew 5:17–19). James, the Messiah’s brother, said the same (James 2:8–12). The Lord God revealed it again in the Recitation, given afterwards (5:43–48).

Paul himself kept the law when he was among those who kept it. In Jerusalem he took a vow, purified himself and went into the temple, so that everyone would see that he walked in order and kept the law (Acts 21:20–26).

We love him, we ask the Lord God to reward what he did in good faith, and we read him knowing this.

This is one more reason, perhaps, that the Lord God sent the Recitation: the Counsellor the Messiah told his disciples to wait for, who would guide them into all the truth (John 14:16–17, 16:12–13). Read these books, then, with the words in red held higher than the words around them.

The Recitation · Al-Qur’an

The RecitationMarked Critical

ٱلْقُرْآن Qur’ān

What was revealed after them, recited in Arabic through Muhammad: a confirmation of the Torah and the Gospel and a call to worship The God alone. Its chapters are surahs and its verses are signs (āyāt), each one a sign from Him.

The Recitation calls three rooms of people by name.