The Qur’ān (Arabic: القرآن al-Qur’ān, literally “the recitation”; Muslims usually refer to it as القرآن الكريم al-Qur’ān al-Karīm “The Noble Qur’ān”; also transliterated as Quran, Koran, and Al-Quran) is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, consider the text in its original Arabic, to be the literal word of Allah revealed to Muhammad over a period of twenty-three years