what is nuzul al-quran?

today is a public holiday (state public holiday, not national public holiday) – nuzul al-quran.

for past years, when this holiday came around, i had wonder what nuzul al-quran is about. i only know it has something to do with the quran and nothing else. well today i google for nuzul al-quran, and under the kampungnet website, discovered that another word for nuzul al-quran is ‘the revelation of the al-quran’. on another website, malaysian student, the meaning is explained more but it is in bahasa malaysia. first part talk of the history of nuzul al-quran, which is kind of difficult for me to translate.

i’ll try to translate the meaning of ‘nuzul’ and ‘al-quran’ as found in the website. if i err in any way, kindly show the way

‘nuzul’ bererti turun atau berpindah, iaitu berpindah dari tempat sebelah atas ke tempat di sebelah bawah.

NUZUL – means descent or shift, i.e. shift from the top to the bottom. (er… top, bottom doesn’t sound so right. ‘top’ is ‘atas’ but here it says ‘sebelah atas’).

‘al-quran’ pula bermaksud bacaan atau himpunan. Ia dikatakan sebagai bacaan kerana al-Quran itu untuk dibaca oleh manusia. Ia juga dikatakan himpunan kerana dalam al-Quran itu terhimpun ayat-ayat yang menjelaskan pelbagai perkara yang meliputi soal tauhid, ibadat, jinayat, muamalat, munakahat dan sebagainya.

AL-QURAN -  means reading or collection. it is said to be reading because the al-quran is for reading by humans. it can also be said to be collection because in the al-quran there are verses collected to explain various matters which covers….

er… sorry, those terms (tauhid, ibadat, jinayat, muamalat, munakahat), i don’t know how to translate! anyone can help?

nuzul al-quran falls on the 17th day of the ramadan month (which is today). it was on this day of the muslim calendar that the first verse of the al-quran was first revealed to prophet mumammad, hence the celebration of nuzul al-quran. is the day of nuzul al-quran the day where they usually have the quran reading competition? i wonder do we wish our muslim friends “selamat menyambut nuzul al-quran”? i’m not sure so i dare not use it but i am interested to learn more about the day.