I would like to post this as a response to the previous post by Mr. Rivas, who obviously has a very uninformed background on Islam and the Qur'an.

As a Western, Non-Muslim student of Islam, I understand the confusion that can arise when you first pick up the text. It does not follow a specific chronology (either within or between chapters), nor does it always speak with directness (opting for analogies, as the Bible often does). It is important to know that the Qur'an as a printed, bound book is not really THE Qur'an, as was revealed by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh); back then, the text was recited orally, and the relevant passages were quoted as needed. But a book, of course, must have a beginning and an ending, so when the Qur'an was finally written down, an order was chosen in which the chapters were arranged more or less from longest to shortest.

It is not advisable that you should read the Qur'an alone, without the help of a teacher or a commentary. Farid Esack's "The Qur'an: A User's Guide" and Ingrid Mattson's "The Story of the Qur'an" are two useful introductions.

As for Mr. Rivas' comment about murder, paradise, and "72 virgins," you will not find this in the Qur'an. In fact, you will not find that any such promise was ever uttered by the Prophet Muhammad. Instead, it is a perversion of Islam used by radicals who prefer to draw upon their own region's non/pre-Islamic cultural traditions than listen to the guidance of the actual religion they claim to follow.

The Coran, not exactly the book that I was looking for. This book is more like a collection of poems, I was looking for a more explicit and open scriptures about Islam and how or where does it said that you can kill and still go to paradise with 72 virgins...

The Coran is the mos important book of Islam. The book is excelent to know Ala message for the people on Earth.

As of now, June 2, 2006, if you look inside this book you'll only see the table of contents and the indexes, not any of the translation.