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The Quran vs. The Torah – Recitation

Author: MR
Filed under: Islam, Video
Date: Nov 1,2007 | 11:05 AM

Muslim convert (former Jew) recites the Quran and then the Torah. Check it out! The recitation of the Torah was very interesting and it sounded beautiful in some parts, but it obviously can’t beat the recitation of the Quran.

33 Responses for "The Quran vs. The Torah – Recitation"

undercover November 1st, 2007 at 2:28 pm
subhannallah. that was kinda interesting. the brother has a beautiful voice mashallah.
Suz.UKgal. November 1st, 2007 at 6:22 pm
yeah mashaAllah.subhanAllah. I prefer the quran recitation, mashaAllah, his voice, beautiful.
anob November 1st, 2007 at 6:25 pm
i am muslim bu the torah kinda sounded better, never know hebrew sounded like that.
fastaqim.blogspot.com November 1st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
how did the torah sound better?

alhamdulilah for the Qur’an. It’s amazing how it makes those who don’t even speak arabic shed tears and stand during the night reciting it and listening to it. Imagine if the torah was recited like the Quran is during taraweeh, how many people would attend?
Islam Blog November 1st, 2007 at 11:33 pm
We’ve got so much in common haven’t we. So close yet so distant.
JAMILA November 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 am
salam aleikoum

Soubhana allah, machaallah!

bonne continuation!!

jamila
princess peach November 2nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Wow this is a really good post! Do you know how long he’s been a Muslim? The reason I ask is cuz maybe thats why some may think the torah was better; I’m sure he’s had more practice reading it and with practice and repetition, the flow is sweeter.

But definitely, mashAllah, his voice is beautiful.

My vote: Quran. No contest!!!
Akhan November 2nd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Mashallah. great post.
Another thing to consider is how much the voice is contributing to the beauty and how much the actual text is contributing. You can tell from the torah recitation that he’s applying many more vocal techniques, like speeding up and slowing down, and hitting high and low notes more consistantly. How much of this beauty is coming from the Torah itself?
With the Quran hes not using nearly as many vocal tricks, so you can notice how the majority of the beauty comes from the text itself. Of course you can use more vocal techniques and make it sound even more beautiful, but its not necessary for someone to appreciate the Quran.
You could recite a biology textbook and it’ll sound good, but that doesnt mean that the bio textbook is superior to a piece of poetry. ya digg?
princess peach November 2nd, 2007 at 5:02 pm
mashAllah Akhan. you bring up really good points
naasir November 2nd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
how childish of us? Its an insult to both the Torah and the Qur’an to hold a competition of which sounds better to us.

Religion has dignity. We don’t need to turn it into a game to satisfy our egos.
naasir November 3rd, 2007 at 12:01 am
oh and btw, are you implying by your assertions that Allah sounds “better” in the Qur’an, as if He, glorified is He over anything you all can say, had not perfected His style yet when He revealed the Torah? And surely you DO believe God revealed the Torah as the Qur’an commands us to believe in His (glorified and exalted is He) books. God forgive us all.
fastaqim.blogspot.com November 3rd, 2007 at 12:56 am
Who says that Allah commanded them to recite like that?
American Muslim November 3rd, 2007 at 5:46 pm
That was cool. I enjoyed to hear the Torah, as I never had heard it before.
ahmed.a.a November 3rd, 2007 at 7:28 pm
very interesting!
Dave November 3rd, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Naasir,
I was thinking the same thing. I like MRs blog but he has a tendency to post these childishly “look how great Muslims are compared to X” posts and it makes me wince a little.
Jainie November 3rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Yea I think that was really interesting to hear the Torah since I haven’t heard it been recited, especially the way he did. MashaAllah his voice was very good. I also found it interesting that he used a Yemenite text which was considered the oldest of the Torah’s… being a Yemeni myself, that was pretty cool to find out.
Shama November 4th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Dave on November 3, 2007 at 10:20 pm said:

Naasir,
I was thinking the same thing. I like MRs blog but he has a tendency to post these childishly “look how great Muslims are compared to X” posts and it makes me wince a little.

This is funny. Its MRs blog and he posts his personal likings sometimes for which he doesn’t require anyone’s approval. Incase we do not share the same likings, then lets take from his blog what is beneficial and leave the rest.
UmmZaid November 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Salaam ‘Alaikum:

I’m sure we all post some (or many) things that make a lot of people wince. Some of us take great pride in it, while others do it inadvertently.

It was interesting to hear this, esp. using the Yemeni recitation, but as others have said, I don’t think it’s a competition (which the reciting brother himself said, not just MR).
Dave November 4th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Shama
That’s stupid. Don’t publicly post opinions, especially incendiary ones, if you don’t want others’ in return. If comment sections are just going to be to kiss the blog-owner’s ass, they serve no purpose. I accept criticism for what I write and if MR himself were taking your advice, he wouldn’t have posted the criticisms I’m talking about in the first place. “Don’t read it if you don’t like it” is a lame way to defend something you don’t have an answer for.
Mujahideen Ryder November 4th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
The reason I posted this is very simple. It was my first time hearing the recitation of the Torah. It was recited in comparison to the recitation of the Quran. As I said above in the post, the recitation of the Torah was beautiful.

Everyone else who thinks it’s a competition, needs to realize that it is nothing but a comparison between two recitations of two holy books of two religions. It’s that simple.

This video, nor this post, is not insulting either religions or either books. May Allah protect me and us all from that. Ameen! The person reciting in the video clearly says that he isn’t doing any of this to create animosity between Judasim and Islam. It’s simply a comparison between the two recitations.

It is also to note that there are many different ways to recite the Quran and different ways to recite the Torah. So the recitations above are not the only ways to recite each book.

Allah knows best.
enaner November 4th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
They both sounded really nice, I never knew Torah was recited like that.
mohammed November 4th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Is it just me, or did the Torah recitation sound completely out of sync? It also didn’t sound like Hebrew to me, but maybe it’s a dialect different from the one spoken by most Jews today.
naasir November 5th, 2007 at 12:28 am
“but it obviously can’t beat the recitation of the Quran.”

“Everyone else who thinks it’s a competition, needs to realize that it is nothing but a comparison between two recitations of two holy books of two religions. It’s that simple.”

how do i reconcile these two, God knows best.
ExEx Blogger November 5th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Salam Alaykum
Yes it is interesting to “hear it”.

The Prophet(peace be upon him) was angry at Omar for reading a part of the Torah. He was just “reading” it. Now analyzing it and seeing which one is better is definately not needed.

Now the Quran is definately better than the Torah in the following ways:

1. Arabic is the selected and language for the final message to mankind.
2. Arabic is the language of the people of paradise.
3. The Quran is preserved and not riddled with mistakes as compared to the Torah. To compare the pure Quran to the flawed changed Torah is not correct.

Lastly let me share with you a saheeh hadeeth:

Once a man (muslim) and jew got into an argument regarding who is better, Muhammad or Musa (Peace be upon them). The Prophet prohibited it and said, I do not know because when I am resurrected I shall see Moses clinging to one of the pillars of the throne of Allah.

Wallahu Alam
PS…The person has a good voice but made several tajweed and one word mistake in “yasfikud-dimaa”. he cut off the hamzah and combined it with the next word “A-Wa Nahnu” which should be “Wa Nahnu”.
Mujahideen Ryder November 5th, 2007 at 9:08 am
JazakAllah khair Shaykh Chao.

naasir on November 5, 2007 at 12:28 am said:

“but it obviously can’t beat the recitation of the Quran.”

“Everyone else who thinks it’s a competition, needs to realize that it is nothing but a comparison between two recitations of two holy books of two religions. It’s that simple.”

how do i reconcile these two, God knows best.

My comment is a clear Muslim bias.

The video is a comparison.
Shama November 5th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Dave on November 4, 2007 at 4:00 pm said:

Shama
That’s stupid. Don’t publicly post opinions, especially incendiary ones, if you don’t want others’ in return. If comment sections are just going to be to kiss the blog-owner’s ass, they serve no purpose. I accept criticism for what I write and if MR himself were taking your advice, he wouldn’t have posted the criticisms I’m talking about in the first place. “Don’t read it if you don’t like it” is a lame way to defend something you don’t have an answer for.

Such furiosity and rigorous energy can be utilized for things better. Take it easy please
loveProphet November 11th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Salaam,

No competition, by far the Qur’an one:)
Plus you can feel much more peace in the recitation of the Holy Qur’an than the Torah, thats what i noticed.

Wa Salaam
dontbesad December 29th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
–Curious, never been exposed to the Torah before.
haha December 29th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
That guy doesn’t even look Jewish. And you guys are nuts. haha
abu ayat December 29th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
yes we do have a lot in common, because the children of israel were originally muslims, later generations had corrupted the religion and in fact created a new one. it became a doctrine of blindly following the fatawa of their religious scholars, they had begun to make the haram into halal and vice versa. it is very interesting to see that the muslims today are on this same path (that of the jews), abandoning the book of allah and the authentic narrations for mere opinions and usually their own nafs. btw the eastern european jews who terrorize falasteen are not the descendants of the prophet yacoub (jacob/israel). they were pagans who had embraced the religion of judaism to maintain a certain level of autonomy during the period in history in which the majority of the known world had been ruled by either the holy roman empire or the ottoman empire.
Ayoub December 30th, 2007 at 7:38 am
haha on December 29, 2007 at 8:52 pm said:

That guy doesn’t even look Jewish. And you guys are nuts. haha

Look jewish??? Whats he suppose to look like? Jerry Seinfeld or Mel Brooks? The jews of today that are DIRECT hebrew bloodline are yemeni jews. Sorry to burst your stereotypical and racist fantasy.
abu ayat December 30th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
even still, a jew is a person on the religion of judaism, which is not the actual teachings of the torah (even the present day torah) but the opinions of jewish scholars. there is a difference between bani israel and a yahud (a jew), in the quran when ALLAH mentions the bani israel, these people were muslims, even though many of them disobeyed ALLAH many times some often came back the straight path and ALLAH is the most merciful. as for the yahud these are the people who distorted the torah and created a new religion. remember the jews in medina were arabs and arabs are not from bani israel who is a descendant of ishaq, they are bani ismail. so these were arab jews, because their religion was judaism. all of mankind started out muslims until they began to created new religions and divided themselves into sects. even the pagans of arabia were muslims at a point in time and maintained some of the earlier traditions of the prophet ibraheem, most notably the hajj. so how can one look like a jew, unless he is wearing a yarmulke and has curls?
Abu Fatimah September 11th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Does anyone downloaded the file. It seems youtube has deleted it.