Definition
The sacred scripture of Islam, regarded by Muslims as the direct word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. In legal contexts, the Koran functions as a foundational source of law in Islamic legal systems, encompassing both religious obligations and secular rules governing civil, criminal, and family matters. Its relevance in Western legal research arises primarily in: (1) the law of oaths, where witnesses in some jurisdictions may swear on the Koran rather than the Bible; (2) conflicts of law and private international law, where courts must assess the content or effect of Islamic legal rules derived from Koranic authority; and (3) religious freedom litigation, where the Koran's status as a sacred text informs constitutional analysis of religious exercise claims.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The Wiktionary entry for "Koran" as a legal research term is unhelpful — it identifies the spelling primarily as a Czech surname. The relevant common English meaning is the sacred text of Islam, synonymous with Quran or Qur'an.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The Scriptures of the Mohammedans, containing the professed revelations to Mohammed; — called also Alcoran. [Written also Kuran or Quran.]"
The gap between common and legal meaning here is not one of definition but of function. In ordinary usage the Koran is understood as a religious text. In legal contexts it operates as a source of positive law in Islamic jurisdictions and as a ritual object with oath-administering significance in common law courts. A researcher who treats the term as purely religious will miss its doctrinal and procedural dimensions.
Common Confusion
The spelling varies significantly across historical and contemporary sources: Koran, Quran, Qur'an, Alcoran, Kuran. Black's Law Dictionary uses "Koran." Modern scholarship and most international legal instruments use "Quran" or "Qur'an." When searching historical legal sources, researchers should run all variant spellings. "Alcoran" — from the Arabic definite article al- plus Qur'an — appears in older English legal texts, treatises on Ottoman law, and early English-language works on Islamic jurisprudence. Failure to search this variant will produce gaps in pre-twentieth-century source retrieval.
Why It Matters in Research
The entry's significance in Western legal dictionaries reflects a specific historical concern: the administration of oaths. English and American courts historically required witnesses to swear on a text they regarded as sacred and binding on their conscience. Whether a Muslim witness could be sworn on the Koran — and whether such an oath would be legally valid and enforceable — was a live procedural question. Researchers working in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century case law on witness competency, oath administration, and affirmation procedures will encounter this issue directly.
For comparative and international law research, the Koran's dual secular-ecclesiastical character noted in Black's is the essential starting point for understanding Islamic legal systems. Sharia, fiqh, and related terms all trace their authority partly to Koranic text. Researchers approaching family law, inheritance, or commercial law questions in jurisdictions applying Islamic law need to understand the Koran not as background religious context but as a primary legal source — analogous in that system to a constitution or foundational statute.
The term also appears in religious liberty litigation. Courts addressing Free Exercise claims, prison religion cases, or religious accommodation disputes must assess whether the Koran qualifies as a sacred text triggering constitutional or statutory protection. In this context, the dictionary's characterization of the Koran as a "book of faith" containing both ecclesiastical and secular laws becomes legally operative, not merely descriptive.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's editions offer nearly identical entries: "The Mohammedan book of faith. It contains both ecclesiastical and secular laws." The second edition adds only the explicit observation that the secular laws are included alongside ecclesiastical ones — a meaningful distinction that flags the Koran's dual character as a source of both religious obligation and civil governance.
The brevity of both entries reflects the peripheral role of Islamic law in the Anglo-American legal tradition at the time of compilation. The characterization "Mohammedan" is now considered dated and potentially offensive; modern legal writing uses "Muslim" or "Islamic." Researchers should recognize this as a marker of period, not adopt the terminology in contemporary work.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the oath-administration question, the procedural status of Koranic oaths in English courts, conflicts of law analysis involving Islamic family law, or the constitutional dimensions of the text's sacred status. These gaps are significant. The entries treat the Koran as a reference item rather than as a term with active procedural and doctrinal implications.
Jurisdictional Note
In jurisdictions applying Islamic law — including many countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and South and Southeast Asia — the Koran functions as a primary legal source, supplemented by Hadith (the recorded sayings and practices of Muhammad), scholarly consensus (ijma), and analogical reasoning (qiyas). In common law jurisdictions, its relevance is procedural (oaths), conflict-of-laws (recognition of Islamic law judgments), and constitutional (religious freedom). No U.S. federal statute defines the Koran's legal status; its significance in American courts arises through case-by-case application of First Amendment doctrine and general oath statutes.