quran – Hybrid Learning

The Qur’an in Muslim Thought and Practice

Batoota — Sun, 09 Jul 2017 07:30:13 +0000

The Qur’an in Muslim Thought and Practice
Because Muslims view the Qur’an as the very word of God, it naturally occupies the central place in their religious life. It is the one means for discovering the will of God and for measuring the success of a life lived in accordance with it. The Qur’an has shaped the individual and collective lives of Muslims in many ways.
The Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad not all at once, but in large and small parts over some twenty-two years (61o-632). Furthermore, the revelations it contains are related to the situations in which they were revealed. Thus the revelations, taken together, become a record of the society of Muhammad’s time and constitute the most important source for tracing the historical development of Islam from its origins in Mecca to its full maturity in Medina. The significance of the intermittency of revelation can be appreciated if, as Malek Bennabi suggests (1977), one asks what would have happened if the Qur’an had been revealed all at once. In that case, Bennabi remarks, all those passages that console Muhammad and his followers at times of distress, encourage them at times of difficulty, or guide them at times of uncertainty would not have the immediacy and freshness they otherwise do. The first thing to note about the Qur’an, therefore, is its dual role as record and guide.
These two roles are important for understanding not only the times of the Prophet but also much of the later religious history of Muslims. Early Islamic history (even allowing for sectarian and other differences in periodizing and interpreting it) has paradigmatic value for Muslims, and the event of the Qur’an is universally admitted to be central to that history. It is not surprising that all later movements, whether of radical reform or of moderate change, whether originating at the center or at the periphery of the Islamic world, have sought to ground themselves in the Qur’an or at least to seek support from it. A typical instance is the Khariji movement during the caliphate of `All. Displeased with `All’s decision to accept arbitration (tahkim) as an alternative to a military solution of the dispute with Mu’awiyah, the Khawarij appealed to the Qur’an, saying that only its verdict was acceptable, and not the verdict of human arbitrators. For their part, the troops of Mu’awiyah, had, in order to avert imminent defeat, already impaled copies of the Qur’an on their spears and waved them on the battlefield, practically forcing `All’s camp to accept arbitration.
Arabian culture was oral; its transformation from preliterate to literate was due mainly to the Qur’an. The notions of “writing,” “reading,” “pen,” and “book” are found in some of the early revelations. For instance, the very first revelation, according to the generally accepted view, consisted of the first five verses of what is now surah 96: “Read in the name of your Lord Who created: He created man from a clinging matter. Read, and your Lord is Most Gracious, the One who taught by means of the pen: He taught man what he did not know.” According to some scholars, the second to be revealed was surah 68, al-Qalam, which takes its name “Pen” from the opening verse. The Qur’an as a whole is called a “book” in numerous verses. The Qur’an repeatedly insists on writing down the details of a loan extended (2.282-283) and enjoins that the manumission contract be made in writing (24.33). A large number of scribes were employed by Muhammad to preserve the scriptural text. Reading and writing were encouraged in general; it is interesting in this regard that the prisoners taken by the Muslims in the Battle of Badr were given the opportunity to win their freedom by teaching a certain number of Muslims how to read and write. A fundamental transformation was thus brought about in the consciousness of the Arabs, a nonliterate culture rapidly becoming a literate one.
An important element of the new consciousness was
QUR’AN: The Qur’an in Muslim Thought and Practice
the notion of book as law, for law now came to be identified with something more than custom and tradition passed down orally from earlier times; it came to mean something written down or laid down in writing. Surah 98.3 represents a coalescence of the notions of book and law; the word kutub in it means “laws, regulations.”
The idea of the Qur’an as a book of law, or indeed as a code of life, was to have further important consequences. Directly or indirectly it gave rise to the major disciplines of Islamic learning and led to the proliferation of literature in each. Hadith (prophetic tradition), or rather the sunnah (path) of Muhammad embodied in hadith, is regarded as the authoritative explication of the Qur’an. The sciences of the Arabic language, from lexicography to grammar to rhetoric, were developed with a view to arriving at a precise and accurate understanding of the Qur’anic text. The need to understand the legislative content of the Qur’an gave rise to both Islamic law and legal theory. The fundamental theological issues in Islam understandably revolve around certain verses of the Qur’an. Historiography originated with the aim of elaborating the Qur’anic view of religious history, according to which Adam was the first bearer of the divine message and Muhammad the last.
Many Muslim scholars believe that not only the growth of religious sciences but also of learning in general was due to the inspiration of the Qur’an. They point to its repeated urgings to study the universe, which is regarded as furnishing dyat (signs) that point to the creator of the universe. A connection is thus established, the argument runs, between science and religion: the study of nature becomes a sacred pursuit; acquisition and dissemination of knowledge of all kinds takes on a religious significance; and a spirit of empirical inquiry and investigation is engendered that expresses itself in various areas of scholarly activity. Surah 2]64 may be taken as typical in this regard:
Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, and what God has sent down from the sky in the form of water-reviving by means of it land after it has become barren, and spreading in it animals of all kinds -and the causing of the winds to blow in different forms, and the clouds that are held under control between the heavens and the earth, there are signs for those who would exercise reason.
The Qur’an plays a central role in the larger world of Muslim society in at least five realms. First, as the fundamental text of Islam, it is cited as the ultimate authority in all matters pertaining to religion. Thus the Qur’an furnishes the basic tenets of Islam, the principles of ethical behavior, and guidance in general or specific terms for social, political, and economic activities. Second, the Qur’an is used in liturgy. In each of the five obligatory prayers of the day, the opening surah of the Qur’an, al-Fatihah, is recited with other portions. During Ramadan, the month of fasting, the Qur’an is recited in special prayers (tardwih) offered congregationally every night after the fifth and last prayer, usually with the goal of completing a recitation of the entire Qur’an during the month.
The Qur’an is also a basic vehicle of education. A large majority of the world’s Muslim population is nonArabic-speaking, yet in most Muslim societies the first alphabetical system children learn is the Arabic alphabet, in order to be able to read the Qur’an. Beginning with a primer, young students work up to reading through the Qur’an, usually under the guidance of the local imam of the mosque. The completion of a child’s reading of the Qur’an is often celebrated publicly, with the child receiving gifts and being the center of attention. Special importance is attached to completing the first reading of the Qur’an at an early age, and even in Western countries it is not unknown for a Muslim child to complete his or her first Qur’an-reading before entering public school at the age of five. The Qur’anic education of children is not confined to mere reading of the text; it often includes inculcation of basic scriptural teachings.
The Qur’an is an element of many nonliturgical social events. It is used to invoke the blessing of God (tabarruk) on various occasions. Thus to complete a recitation of the Qur’an (khatm (al-Qur’an at the death of a loved one-survivors, relatives, and friends get together for the purpose-is a custom in several parts of the Muslim world. The Qur’an is often recited at the beginning of public political or social meetings, at conferences, and sometimes also at government or official functions, including cabinet meetings. Finally, the Qur’an has artistic uses. The art of reciting Qur’anic verses in a beautiful voice (tajwid) and the art of Qur’anic calligraphy are among the most highly developed skills in Islamic culture. Most mosques have inscriptions from the Qur’an, and tajwid competitions at different levels are popular events, with good reciters often becoming celebrities. [See Qur’anic Recitation; Calligraphy.]
As noted above, even in non-Arab Muslim societies an attempt is made to teach children the Qur’anic Arabic script, even though most people never learn the Arabic language. The concern that all Muslims be able to read at least the text of the Qur’an derives from the fact that the Qur’an is regarded as the very word of God. As such, the act of reciting the divine word is a good and pious act that brings blessings (barakah). The disjunction between recitation and understanding produces the curious result that even in parts of the Muslim world that do not have a long history of distinguished Islamic scholarship, the art of recitation may be very highly developed; Malaysia and Indonesia are perhaps the most notable examples. On another level, the doctrine of i`jaz (the inimitability or matchlessness of the Qur’an) determines standards of linguistic excellence and makes an intimate knowledge of the Qur’anic text-displayed in the ability to recognize a Qur’anic quotation or to cite verses appositely-a mark of good education.
In modern times renewed emphasis has been placed on the Qur’an as the fundamental source of guidance, though this has received more than one interpretive expression. Some distinguish between the kernel and husk of Islamic tradition, identifying the Qur’an as the kernel and denying the normative value of the other religious sciences. Others seek to reassert the primacy of the Qur’an in the hierarchy of Islamic sciences, pointing out that although theoretically the Qur’an has always been the most important source of Islam, in practice hadith and sectarian fiqh have relegated it to a secondary position, usurping its rightful position. Still others maintain that the masses need to be educated Islamically and that Qur’anic learning should form the most important part of this religious training. In the eighteenth century Shah Wali Allah of India, defying opposition, translated the Qur’an into Persian, after which it was rendered into many regional and local languages of India. His primary aim was to make the Qur’an accessible to the common man, and his legacy in this regard has been an enduring one.
In whatever terms the primacy of the Qur’an is asserted today, it remains a fact that a number of modern Muslim reformist thinkers have made the Qur’an their main reference point. This is true of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Abu al-Kalam Azad of India, Abu al-A’la Mawdudi of Pakistan, Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, Muhammad Rashid Rida of Syria, and Ibn Badis of Algeria. All these writers chose the medium of Qur’anic commentary to present their thoughts and ideas. What sets these commentators apart from others is the fact that, besides explaining the Qur’dnic text in a general way, they make a conscious response to modernity by developing an argument based on a careful selection and systematic interpretation of key Qur’anic terms and concepts. Mawdud! and Sayyid Qutb, for example, develop the Qur’anic notion of the conflict of Islam and Jahiliyah at length, extrapolating the notion from the Arabian context and presenting it as an enduring truth of history. In doing so they aim to show the relevance of the Qur’anic message for the present and to motivate Muslims to play their role in history. [See Jahiliyah and the biographies of all the figures mentioned in this paragraph.]
The centrality of the Qur’dn in modern Muslim thought is also evident from the importance attached by scholars in law and other fields to developing a new Qur’anic hermeneutic. Fazlur Rahman has in several works stressed the need to take a fresh approach to the Qur’an, for only such an approach can take Muslims out of the intellectual morass in which they find themselves. In Islam and Modernity (1982) he proposes a process of Qur’dn interpretation that “consists of a double movement, from the present situation to Qur’anic times, then back to the present” (p. 5). The important point here is not the details of this “double movement” but Fazlur Rahman’s view of the pivotal role the Qur’an can play in reorienting Muslim life and rejuvenating Muslim thought. [See the biography of Rahman.] This is a view on which Muslim scholars, for all their conceptual and methodological differences, would be found in agreement.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bennabi, Malek. Le phenomene coranique. Damascus, 1397/1977. Translated into English as The Qur’anic Phenomenon. Salimiah, Kuwait, 1983.
Cragg, Kenneth. The Pen and the Faith: Eight Modern Muslim Writers and the Qur’an. London, 1985.
Denny, Frederick Mathewson. Qur’an. and Hadith.” In The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, edited by Frederick M. Denny and Rodney M. Taylor, pp. 84-108. Columbia, S.C., 1985. See especially pp. 94-97.
Denny, Frederick Mathewson. Qur’an. Recitation Training in Indonesia: A Survey of Contexts and Handbooks.” In Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’dn, edited by Andrew Rippin, PP. 288-3o6. Oxford, 1988.
Nelson, Kristina. The Art of Reciting the Qur’dn. Austin, 1985. Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Qur’an. Minneapolis, 1980, Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago, 1982.
Tabataba’i, Muhammad Husayn. The Qur’an. in Islam: Its Impact and Influence on the Life of Muslims. London, 1987.

The Qur’an as Scripture

Batoota — Sun, 09 Jul 2017 07:23:58 +0000

The Qur’an as Scripture
The term Qur’an, most often translated as “reading” or “recital,” has been linked etymologically to Syriac qeryana (“scripture reading, lection”) and to Hebrew miqra’ (“recitation, scripture”). Some Muslim commentators have also proposed that it comes from the Arabic verb qarana, “to put together” or “bind together,” thus giving the approximate translation of “a coherent recital” or “a scripture bound in the form of a book.” As a verbal noun (masdar) of the form fu’lan, qur’dn carries the connotation of a “continuous reading” or “eternal lection” that is recited and heard over and over. In this sense, it is understood both as a spiritual touchstone and a literary archetype. As a title, al-Qur’dn refers to the revelation (tanzil) “sent down” (unzila) by God to the prophet Muhammad over a period of twenty-two years (61o-632 CE ). In its more universal connotation, it is the self-expressed umm al-kitab or paradigm of divine communication (13.39). For all Muslims, the Qur’an is the quintessential scripture of Islam.
The term “the Noble Qur’an” (al-Qur’an al-Karim, 56.77) is often used to stress the extraordinary nature of this text. Since its divine source makes the Qur’an a sacred and therefore unique form of communication, its meaningfulness is dependent on the prior acceptance of a faith claim that posits specific assumptions about its historical and metahistorical contexts. Consequently, the Qur’an’s significance for the pious Muslim is entirely different from that seen by the non-Muslim or Islamic secularist. Because each and every written word and recited sound of the scripture is revered by believers in Islam as part of a divine lection, an interpretation of the Qur’an solely according to the canons of literary criticism or philology can only do violence to the revelation in terms of its meaning to its audience. For this reason, many scholars in the West have ceased speculating on the “actual” origins of the Qur’an or the historicity of its text and have devoted themselves instead to evaluating the Qur’an’s undeniable surplus of meaning in a combination of literary, cultural, and historical contexts.
As a communication from God, the Qur’an is the prime theophany of Islam. Because its text consists of divine rather than human speech (kalam Alldh, 9.6), its significance for Muslims is similar to that of the logos (divine word) in Christianity. However, unlike the normative Christian view of the Bible as a divinely inspired discourse (but closely akin to Jewish attitudes concerning the holiness of scripture), the words of the Qur’an are regarded by most Muslims as divine in and of themselves. Although the fully divine nature of Qur’anic “speech” is difficult for the secular reader to understand, the importance of this concept should not be underestimated. Modern Muslims still demonstrate their reverence for the Qur’an by approaching it in a state of ritual purity. At times it may also be treated as a prized artifact-as evidenced by the production of handdecorated, calligraphic copies (masahif) and the popularity of Middle-Period Qur’an manuscripts in collections of Islamic art. Sufis have long regarded the Qur’an as a paradigm for all of God’s communication with his creation. In the thirteenth century the great Andalusian mystic Ibn `Arabi (d. 1240) organized the entirety of Al -futuhat al-Makkiyah (The Meccan Inspirations), his magnum opus, in conformity with the discourses and “signs” of the divine text.
Structure. The text of the Qur’an is divided into 114 segments or surahs (Ar., surah; pl., suwar), each of which contains from three to 286 or 287 dyat (sg., ayah). Although it has been common for Westerners to translate ayah as “verse,” this is misleading. In the first place, the biblical concept of “chapter and verse” does not fully apply to the Qur’an. Particularly in the case of the longer segments, the surahs may not always discuss themes whose consistency is easily apparent from title to final ayah. Indeed, the names of the surahs themselves may refer only obliquely to the main point of the discourse, and in several cases they have been changed at different times in Islamic history. This process continues even today, despite the increased standardization brought about by the mass printing of official renditions. Surah 1’7, for example, might be called Banu Isra’il (Children of Israel) in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, while in Egypt and Iran it is likely to be known as Alisrd’ (The Night Journey). Each of these names refers to a different theme discussed in the same surah. Furthermore, while it is certainly correct to view the Qur’an as a collection of divine discourses, a single surah may contain more than one discourse. On other occasions (as in the story of Musa/Moses), the same discourse may be continued in two or more noncontiguous surahs.
The most important reason for not referring to ayah as “verse,” however, comes from the Qur’an’s own use of the term. The words ayah or ayat are employed nearly four hundred times throughout the text. Most frequently, ayah refers to evidences (athdr) in nature that demonstrate the existence of God. At other times it may refer to a miracle confirming the truth of a prophet’s message, a revealed message (tanzil) in general, or even a fundamental “point” in a particular surah’s discourse. Because of its multivalency, ayah can be seen to correspond quite closely to the concept of “sign” in Saussurean linguistics. An important proof of this assertion lies in the fact that “sign” (`alamah) is the most commonly accepted synonym for ayah in Ibn Manzur’s (d. 1311/1312) Lisan al-‘Arab and other influential lexicons of the Islamic Middle Period.
When inscribed in a written Qur’an or recited on a believer’s- tongue, ayah is best understood as “a statement in the speech of God.” The totality of these statements, along with a number of non-Qur’anic inspirations known as hadith qudsi (holy reports), constitute the divine “speech” (parole) as revealed to the prophet Muhammad. Yet each statement of the Qur’an was also revealed as a “remembrance” or “recollection” (dhikr or dhikra, 38.8), whose purpose is to awaken human beings and cause them to look up from the written or recited text, so that they may see the existence of God through his creation. In this case, each ayah of the Qur’an is also a sign-in the symbolic or semiotic sense-that points to another level of reality that in turn reaffirms the message of revelation. The believer who seeks to develop a sense of the sacred must thus learn two distinct levels of “language” (langue) at the same time-the Arabic text of the Qur’an itself and the “language” of nature, which is also a manifestation of the speech of God. God created the world as a book; his revelations descended to Earth and were compiled into a book; therefore, the human being must learn to “read” the world as a book. This aspect of spiritual intellection is exemplified in the Qur’an by the figures of Ibrahim/Abraham, who discerned the One God in the multiplicity of heavenly phenomena (6.75-79), and Sulayman/Solomon, who was inspired to understand the “discourse of the birds”(mantiq al-tayr, 27.16).
Theology and Anthropology. As an expression of theology, the Qur’an is first and foremost a demonstration (baydn) of the existence of God. In this guise it acts as a criterion of discernment (furgdn or mizan): “And We gave Moses the Book and the furgdn so that you might be guided” (2.55). This discernment-the same as that given to Muhammad, Abraham, Jesus, and all the other biblical and non-biblical prophets mentioned in the Qur’an-leads humankind to perceive a single, absolute truth (the only noncontingent reality) that transcends the world of phenomena. This truth is God, whose essence, being unique and exalted, lies beyond the limits of human imagination: “Say: He is Allah the Only; Allah the Perfect beyond compare; He gives not birth, nor is He begotten, and He is, in Himself, not dependent on anything” (112). This purely monotheistic expression of divine simplicity is complemented, however, by a more monistic image of a complex deity who is immanent in the world by virtue of being the source of existence itself: “He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward; And He is the Knower of every thing” (57.3). Between these two poles of monotheism and monism stands tawhid, the recognition of transcendent oneness that constitutes the theological premise of Islam and the fundamental message of the Qur’anic discourse.
Despite the radically monotheistic nature of Islamic theology, the discourse about God in the Qur’an fluctuates repeatedly between transcendence and immanence, the abstract and the concrete, the logical and the analogical: God is one and not a trinity (5.75); lord of the east and the west (55.17); he sends rain and revives the earth (29.63); his “face” will abide forever (55.27). Out of these distinctions arises the tradition of the ninety-nine asmd’ Alldh al-husna or “excellent names of God” (7.18o), which for later Muslim thinkers expressed the discursive field in which tawhid was conceptualized. The central or medial figure who straddles these perspectives (and in Sufism actualizes the excellent names according to his or her ability and destiny) is the human being (insan, masc. pl. nas, fem. pl. nisd’). The Qur’an’s use of this generic term demonstrates that both men and women are rational and ethically responsible creatures who occupy an intermediate position in respect to all the oppositions (e.g., true and false, necessary and contingent, or real and unreal) that characterize the Qur’anic discourse. As such, the most meaningful duty in the life of every person is to submit the ego and intellect to the criterion (furqdn) of manifest truth as given in the divine revelation. This act of choice, in turn, is the furqdn that separates islam (surrender and submission to the one God) from kufr (“covering up” or denying the reality and moral implications of islam).
Human accountability is epitomized in the Qur’an by a generic covenant (33.72) in which preexistent humanity, despite its creaturely limitations, assumes responsibility for the heavens and the earth. This moral and ecological commitment constitutes another furqdn by which human actions are assessed. Also called ” God’s covenant” (`ahd Alldh, 2.27), this pact was created to distinguish male and female hypocrites (munafiqun) and those lost in contingent reality (mushrikun) from the believers (mu’minun) who maintain their trust in the absolute (3373). The human being who trusts in God and is true to God’s trust by not breaking this covenant in thought, word, or deed actualizes God’s vicegerency (khildfah, 2.30-33), through which one is able to exercise choice and maintain covenantal responsibility. The society made up of such believing individuals thus constitutes a normative or “axial community” (ummatan wasatan), which acts collectively as a witness to the truth (2.143). This society appears in history as a “community in a state of surrender to God” (ummah muslimah, 2.128) and is exemplified in its penultimate form by the paradigmatic ummah created by the prophet Muhammad and his companions in Medina (622-632 CE).
Qur’an and Bible. References in the Qur’an to the stories of biblical and extrabiblical prophets and their communities must be viewed from the perspective of the ummah muslimah in order to become intelligible to the Western reader. The historical discourses of the Qur’an are linked together thematically rather than chronologically, and thus the revelatory concept of the book or divine communication (kitab) employed in this text has more in common with the genre of wisdom traditions (cf., al-Kitdb al-H, akim [X, I, than with that of European historiography or Aristotle’s Poetics. For this reason students of Islam whose view of scripture is based on Judeo-Christian models are likely to be confused or even put off by what at first seems to be an incoherent scattering of biblical accounts and apocrypha. If, however, the text of the Qur’an is read according to its own instructions to Christians and Jewsas a reminder (dhikr) and reaffirmation (musaddiq) of universal truths and the essential points of biblical discourse (5.44-4g)-its lack of historical detail becomes less of a problem, and the logic of the Qur’an’s selfdescribed complementarity to previous revelations (41.43) is easier to understand. As with every other sign, the purpose of a biblical reminder is to stimulate intellectual awareness, not to provide an exhaustive discussion of a particular person or topic. In the Qur’an these reminders revolve around the quintessential unity of the Abrahamic tradition and include exemplary and cautionary narratives detailing humanity’s acceptance or rejection of the divine message.
Despite the Qur’an’s apparent advocacy of an intertextual approach to scriptural analysis (5.47-51), a later preoccupation with abrogation (naskh) made the comparative study of revelation more difficult at precisely the time (ninth century CE) when the vocalization of the consonantal text of the Qur’an fixed its discourse so that a true hermeneutic could become possible. The jurist alShafi’is (d. 820) insistence that the Qur’an was the primary source (asl) for Islamic law meant that its prescriptive (muhkam) ayat abrogated similar statutes in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Gospels. Subsequent scholars expanded on al-Shafi’is comments and claimed that the words of the Qur’dn constituted a blanket abrogation of the texts of all previous holy books. This opinion was reinforced by the doctrine of the “inimitability of the Qur’an (i’jaz al-Qur’dn). Originating as part of a debate over the Qur’an’s challenge to unbelievers to produce a work of comparable eloquence and substance (2.23), by the time of the theologian al-Baqillani (d. 1013) this concept had evolved into the idea that the Qur’an was completely unlike anything that had been revealed before. As a result, contemporary Muslim arguments against the doctrines of other “peoples of the book” still tend to recycle earlier polemics against Christianity and Judaism that are found in the Qur’dn itself or in the works of Middle-Period theologians. Only rarely does a Muslim exegete overcome the influence of tradition and undertake a serious study of modern Judaism or post-Reformation Christianity. This is even more the case in regard to polytheistic or nontheistic scriptural traditions, such as those of China and India.
Translations. A hallmark of twentieth-century exegesis (tafsir) is the translation of the Qur’an into local and regional vernaculars. As early as the eighth century the jurist Abu Hanifah (d. 767) claimed that it was permissible for non-Arabic speakers to recite al-Fatihah, the opening surah of the Qur’an, in Persian. Although other jurists disputed this view as contradicting the Qur’an’s own assertion of its Arabic linguistic identity (cf. 12.2, 16.23), a nativist (shu’ubi) cultural revival on the Iranian plateau led to Persian translations of the complete text by the eleventh century. These works, however, did not have ritual value. The consensus of `ulama’. has long held that a direct translation of divine speech is impossible. Vernacular editions of the Qur’an are thus classified as commentaries or interpretations (tafsir or tafhim ) to distinguish them from the Arabic original. This monadist opinion was authoritatively reaffirmed in the present century by the Syrian Pan-Islamist Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935), who strongly rebutted Kemalist attempts to make Turkish a language of worship in the 1920s.
Important contemporary translations of the Qur’dn include those of the Indian modernist `Abdullah Yusuf `All (in English), the Pakistani reformer and politician Sayyid Abfi al-A’la Mawdudi (in Urdu), and the Indonesian scholar, poet, and independence activist Hamka (in Bahasa Indonesia). In each of these cases the purpose of translation was twofold: to promote the related causes of Islamic preaching (da’wah) and reform by making the text of the Qur’an accessible to non-Arabicspeaking audiences, and to counteract translations of the Qur’an in vernacular or European languages by nonMuslim missionaries and orientalist scholars working for colonial regimes. Of the translators mentioned above, Yusuf `All is the least inclined to believe that rendering the words of God into another language implies a decisive departure from the original text. Although he asserts that his desire is to provide an “English interpretation” (tafsir) of the Qur’an, the final product (variously entitled The Glorious Qur’an, The Holy Qur’an, or The Holy Qur-an, 1934) is more commonly thought of by Muslims as an annotated translation rather than an exegetical work per se. This is primarily because the commentaries are introduced as footnotes or bracketed additions to the translated text. In fact, Yusuf ‘Ali’s avowed goal of making “English itself an Islamic language” has very nearly been realized. His work is at present the most widely available Qur’an translation in English and forms the basis of the semiofficial Mushaf al-Madinah al-Nabawiyah printed in Saudi Arabia in 1990.
Mawdudi’s Tafhim al-Qur’dn (1942-1979) although superficially similar to Yusuf ‘Ali’s work, is indisputably an example of tafsir. In both his rendering of the original Arabic into Urdu and his extended discussions of each surah, the author’s explicit intent. is to amplify and clarify a unitary “Islamic message” for da’wah purposes. Part of this clarification entails transforming the structure of the Qur’an into paragraphs rather than leaving its text (either in Arabic or Urdu) in the traditional single-dyah format. This innovation is coupled with an analysis of the divine revelation according to the doctrines of the Jama’at-i Islami, which Mawdudi founded in 1941. According to this party’s point of view, the Qur’an is both a revolutionary manifesto and a manual for missionaries; its message calls for the reconstruction of human society into an ideologically motivated community of virtue and social activism. As such, its text provides a blueprint for transcending sectarian and legalistic divisions and uniting humanity into a single brotherhood. As an implicitly political work, Tafhim alQur’an. has much in common with Fi zilal al-Qur’dn, an equally influential tafsir in Arabic by the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). [See the biography of Mawdudi. ]
Vernacular translations of the Qur’an in Southeast Asia first appeared in the 1920s but did not become fully accepted until the 1960s. In most texts the vernacular rendition (in Bahasa Melayu, Indonesian, Sundanese, or Javanese) follows or is parallel to the Arabic original of each ayah and is referred to as an “interpretation” (Malay, terjemah, tafsir). Prefatory discussions are commonly added, and exegetical material is usually found in the form of extended footnotes, as in Yusuf` `All’s and Mawdudi-‘s translations. Tafsir al-Azhar, the translation and exegesis by the West Sumatran scholar and Indonesian independence activist Hamka (Hadji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah, d. 1981) is notable because of its nationalistic tone. Written in Bahasa Indonesia, this important work is a semi-official tafsir of the Indonesian Muhammadiyah organization and has been widely disseminated throughout the Malay-speaking world. Hamka is distinctive among Southeast Asian commentators for his use of interlineal exegesis (a technique common in the Arabic tradition) and his reliance upon recent Indonesian history to illustrate specific points in the Qur’anic discourse. [See the biography of Hamka. ]
Modern Arabic Exegesis. Modern exegesis of the Qur’an begins with the writings of Muhammad `Abduh (d. 1905), an Egyptian essayist, jurisconsult, founder of the Salafiyah movement, and rector of al-Azhar University in Cairo. `Abduh’s exegetical corpus consists of four works: Tafsir al -fatihah (igoi), Tafsir surat al-`asr (1903), Tafsir Juz’ `amma (1922-1923), and the twelvevolume Tafsir al-Qur’dn al-Hakim (sometimes called Tafsir al-manar, 1927-1935) which was completed after his death by Rashid Rida. As a neotraditionalist scholar who felt an affinity for Mu’tazili rationalism, `Abduh was influential in reviving the earlier genre of reasonbased exegesis (tafsir bi’l-ray), which except for the writings of certain Sufis had lain dormant for centuries. Also an avowed Spenserian social evolutionist, he saw the regulatory aydt of the Qur’an as corresponding to natural law, and he characterized the process of evolution as part of “God’s sunnah ” (sunnat Allah, 48.23) or unchangeable pattern of conduct. He generally rejected the possibility of miracles as contradicting this principle but excepted the Qur’an, whose miraculous uniqueness serves to awaken human reason to the truth of Muhammad’s prophecy. Claiming to follow the noted theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111), `Abduh asserted that even the ambiguous (mutashabihdt) ayat should be open to analysis using the tools of modern thought. Once Islam was understood through the light of modern knowledge, the
rectification of religious practice demanded that Muslims also take on the reformation of society as a whole. As a justification for this position `Abduh cited the first part of ayah 13.11: “God will never change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” [See the biography of `Abduh.]
A direct successor to the `Abduh-Rids tafsir is Sayyid Qutb’s (d. 1966) Fi zilal al-Qur’dn (In the Shade of the Qur’an). Written for the most part between 1954 and 1964 during the author’s longest period of imprisonment, this posthumously published work adopts many of the positions-both explicit and implicit-of `Abduh’s earlier tafsir. This reflects the fact that Qutb’s mentor, the Egyptian reformist and political activist Hasan al-Banna’ (d. 1949) was a student of `Abduh’s disciple Muhammad Rashid Rida. Like its predecessor, Fi zilal al-Qur `an. is also an example of tafsir bi al-ray. Despite numerous appeals to the precedent of the Prophet and his companions, Sayyid Qutb rivaled `Abduh in his faith in modern science as a universal criterion for knowledge, going so far as to quote British scientific journals in his exegesis. Both authors also distinguished themselves as advocates of social and intellectual reform and were equally fond of citing ayah 13.11 as a justification for sociopolitical activism.
Sayyid Qutb differed from his predecessor, however, over the degree to which change dictates compromise with alien sociocultural systems. Although `Abduh maintained a traditional aura of legitimacy as an Islamic scholar and jurisconsult, he was also a political accommodationist who regarded British administration and scientific positivism as evolutionary advances over a decayed and ignorant Muslim society. Sayyid Qutb by contrast, as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was a committed anticolonialist and anti-imperialist who sought to revive a Qur’an-based “Islamic system” (alnizam al-Isldmi) that remained true to the cultural and social values established by God and Muslim consensus. While fully modern in his belief in the unitary message of the Qur’an and skeptical of the accuracy of many prophetic traditions (hadith), Sayyid Qutb nonetheless rejected the examples of both the Uniteds States and the Soviet Union as societies where man is either made a commodity or reduced to little more than a machine. Western imperialism, he asserted, had created a “new ignorance” (jahiliyah) in the Muslim world, where an original, faith-based consciousness of God (taqwa) was replaced by a “jahili consciousness” characterized by immorality, political corruption, and a servile reliance on Western paradigms. As the title to his tafsir, “In the Shade of the Qur’an,” indicates, the Qur’an serves Muslims not only as a source of guidance but also as a refuge from destructive influences. [See the biography of Qutb.]
Apart from translation, the most important hallmark of modern exegesis of the Qur’an has been the tendency to view each surah as a unified discourse. In itself this approach is not new. As early as the eleventh century it was followed by the influential Sufi al-Qushayri (d. 1073) in his exegesis Latd’if al-ishdrdt (The Subtleties of Symbolism). In the following century the Andalusian legist Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arab! (d. 1148) bemoaned the lack of interest in intratextual hermeneutics (`ilm almunasabat), and the subject was brought up again in the fourteenth-century tafsir of Badr al-Din al-Zarakhshi (d. 1391). Until the twentieth century, however, such opinions were rare, and the usual approach was to view each surah as an atomistic collection of discontinuous narratives. In recent times Western attacks on the coherence of the Qur’an have led to an apologetic defense of the text that vindicates its present structure by demonstrating the existence of thematic unities.
Although this approach is now followed by most modern commentators, one of the clearest examples of `ilm al-mundsabat can be found in Al-mizan ft tafsir (al-Qur’an (The Balance of Judgment in the Exegesis of the Qur’an, 1973-1974) an influential Sh!’! tafsir in Arabic by the noted Iranian philosopher and theologian Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-Tabataba’i (d. 1981). He begins his exegesis of each surah by identifying its central theme, which he calls its “purpose” or “intent” (gharad). This theme is discovered by examining the surah’s opening, its end, and the general flow of discourse. The actual commentary is then divided into subtexts, which correspond to discursive changes in the divine speech.
It is important to note, however, that Tabataba’i does not impose an artificial unity on the Qur’an, nor does he conceive of his exegesis as an example of tafsir bi alra’y. As a scholastic theologian and strict follower of the usuli (source-oriented) jurisprudential tradition of Twelver or Imam! Shiism, he prefers to let the Qur’an “explain itself by itself’ (tafsir (al-Qur’an bi’l-Qur’an) following a statement of Imam ‘Ali: “One part of the Qur’an explains another, and one part witnesses to the other.” Rejecting the concept of reason-based exegesis as a matter of principle, Tabataba’i first tries to explain ambiguous dydt by syllogistically referring to others whose meaning is apparent. Next he turns to the extensive corpus of exegetical traditions left behind by the Shi’i imams. When using a purely scholastic approach, as in his discussions of grammatical points, semantics, or human nature, Tabataba’i takes great pains to ensure that his conclusions are in overall agreement with the consensus of previous Imami scholarship. [See the biography of Tabdtabd’i]
Qur’an and Modernism. In recent years the Qur’an has become a touchstone for controversy as well as piety. Nowhere has this been more the case than in modernist polemics, many of whose practitioners view the Qur’an through the lens of ideological precommitment. Particularly prominent is the debate over the empowerment of Muslim women, who have become both combatants and prize in the struggle between Western critics of Islam and their Muslim opponents. A recent discussion of the Qur’an from a womanist point of view is Amina Wadud-Muhsin’s Qur’dn and Woman (1992). First published in Malaysia, it is presently used as a manifesto by the “Sisters in Islam” movement in that country. In her approach to the Qur’an the American Wadud-Muhsin attempts to lay the groundwork for nontraditional tafsir from a scripturally legitimate perspective. Borrowing heavily from the semantic analyses of the Japanese Qur’anic scholar Toshihiko Izutsu and the modernist exegesis of the Pakistani Islamicist Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), she postulates a distinction between the historically and culturally contextualized “prior text” of the Qur’an and a wider metatext that conveys a more tolerant and universalistic worldview. Her conclusion is that while the Qur’an indeed acknowledges functional gender distinctions based on biology, it does not propose essential or culturally universal roles for males and females. In fact, the assignment of gender distinctions based on early Arabian precedent would eliminate the transcendental nature of the Qur’an by reducing it to a culturally specific set of discourses. Wadud-Muhsin argues her point by demonstrating the Qur’an’s stress on the “primal equality” of men and women, examining the issue of equity in the afterlife, and semantically analyzing Qur’an-based legal terminology relating to women and the family.
Another use of the concept of “prior text,” although with very different results, can be found in Al-risalah al-thaniyah min al-Islam (The Second Message of Islam) by the radical Sudanese modernist Mahmud Muhammad Taha (d. 1985). Essential to Taha’s doctrine is a distinction between two categories of the prophet Muhammad’s followers-the muslim (one who submits himself fully to God) and the mu’min (one who acknowledges the truth of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s message). During Muhammad’s lifetime the Prophet himself was the only true muslim, since he alone could submit himself to God completely. For this reason the community that the Prophet created in Medina was composed only of mu’minun-those who followed the historically and culturally contextualized example of Muhammad. This early stage of faith (imdn) is exemplified by the Medinan surahs of the Qur’an and constitutes the “first message of Islam.” As a formal religious tradition, it is characterized by the shari’ah. Because it reflected its era and culture, however, the resulting “nation of believers” was unsuited to modern social and intellectual conditions.
The coming age of islam, by contrast, will be characterized by humankind’s readiness to comprehend fully the universal message of the Qur’an, which appears in the Meccan revelations. Not limited by an outdated “prior text” like the Medinan surahs, which modern conditions have abrogated, the Islam of the Meccan period is open-ended and subject to further elaboration. Consequently, the “nation of Muslims” born under the influence of this era will be one of tolerance, gender equality, social democracy, and a science-oriented approach to knowledge. Not content to be bound by the sunnah, Taha, the “teacher” (ustddh) of this “second message of Islam,” affirms the continuity of divine guidance by proclaiming himself a post-Muhammadan “messenger” (rasul): “one to whom God granted understanding from the Qur’an and is authorized to speak” (p. 42).
Surprisingly, given the radical and even heretical nature of Taha’s doctrine, it still reflects exegetical issues that have occupied practitioners of tafsir since the very beginnings of the genre. Although the universality of the prophetic sunnah is seldom debated, the question of its applicability to contemporary conditions has always been important. The historical study of Qur’anic exegesis continually reveals how much the discipline of tafsir depends on prior methodologies. Muhammad `Abduh’s and Sayyid Qutb’s reliance on tafsir bi al-ray, for example, reprises the approach utilized by the influential Middle-Period commentator al-Tabari (d. 923). Even Amina Wadud-Muhsin’s undeniably modern use of semantic and “prior text” analyses echoes (albeit unintentionally) more mystically minded commentators such as Ibn `Arabi and al-Qushayri. Undoubtedly certain methodologies, such as translation and intratextual hermeneutics, have become more prominent in recent times; this is only natural given the increasingly non-MiddleEastern demographic profile of the Muslim world and the resulting demand for a crosscultural discourse. Yet the very fact that many new commentaries recall previous approaches highlights the authority of tradition in Islam and the continued self-referentiality of Muslim exegesis. After all that has been accomplished, one threshold of Qur’anically legitimate exegesis remains to be crossed-a systematically comparative approach to scriptural analysis.
[See also Tafsir.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayoub, Mahmoud M. The Qur’an. and its Interpreters. 2 vols. to date. New York, 1984-. Synopsis of Middle Period exegeses of the Qur’an. through surah 3 (Al `Imran). The introduction to volume i covers the history of tafsir.
Chodkiewicz, Michel. An Ocean without Shore: Ibn `Arabi, the Book, and the Law. Translated by David Streight. Albany, N.Y., 1993 Superb discussion of the Sufi approach to the Qur’an. in Ibn al’Arabi’s AI-Futuhat al -Makkiyah.
Cragg, Kenneth. The Pen and the Faith: Eight Modern Muslim Writers and the Qur’an. London, 1985. Introduction to the importance of the Qur’an. in modern Islamic thought, for the nonspecialist.
GaRje, Helmut. The Qur’an and Its Exegesis: Selected Texts with Classical and Modern Muslim Interpretations. Translated and edited by Alford T. Welch. Berkeley, 1976. Thematic exposition of classical and modern tafsir, more useful for its examples than for a history of the genre.
Greifenhagen, F. V. “Traduttore Traditore: An Analysis of the History of English Translations of the Qur’an. Islam and ChristianMuslim Relations 3.2 (December 1992): 274-291. Excellent overview of polemical and nonpolemical translations in English , with a very useful bibliography.
Hawting, G. R., and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, eds. Approaches to the Qur’dn. London and New York, 1993. Useful overview of traditional and modern approaches to exegesis.
Izutsu, Toshihiko. God and Man in the Koran: Semantics of the Koranic Weltanschauung (1964). New York, 198o. One of the classics of Qur’anic studies, and the best semantic analysis of this text written in the modern period.
Jeffery, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an. Baroda, 1938. Classic philological study of Qur’anic terminology as it relates to other religions and cultural systems. Especially useful for the advanced student of Arabic.
Jeffery, Arthur , ed. Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an. The Old Codices. Leiden, 1937. The only in-depth study of variations in the Qur’anic text in early Islamic history. Requires knowledge of Arabic.
Mawdudi, Sayyid Abu al-A’la. Towards Understanding the Qur’an. Translated by Zafar Ishaq Ansari. Leicester, 1988-. Excellent English translation of Tafhim (al-Qur’an by the director of the Islamic Research Institute in Pakistan.
McAuliffe, Jane Dammen. Qur’anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis. Cambridge and New York, 1991. Interesting study of the portrayal of Christians and Christianity in the Qur’an.
Qutb, Sayyid. In the Shade of the Qur’an. Vol. 30. Translated by M. Adil Salahi and Ashur A. Shamis. London, 1979. Competent translation of the last part of Fi Zildl (al-Qur’an
Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Qur’an. Minneapolis, 198o. One of the better modernist approaches to the Qur’an, best read as an apologetic response to polemical scholarship.
Tabataba’i, Muhammad Husayn. The Qur’an. in Islam: Its Impact and Influence on the the Life of Muslims. London, 1987. Discussion of Tabataba’i’s tafsir methodology and a useful introduction to Imami ShN exegesis. His Tafsir al-Mizan is presently being translated into English.
Taha, Mahmfid Muhammad. The Second Message of Islam. Translated and edited by `Abd Allah Ahmad Na’im. Syracuse, N.Y., 1987. Journey to the outer limits of Qur’anic exegesis.
Wadud-Muhsin, Amina. Qur’an and Woman. Kuala Lumpur, 1992. The most effective Muslim response to the feminist critique of Islam yet written.
Welch, Alford T., and J. D. Pearson. “Kur’an” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 5, pp. 400-432. Leiden, 196o-. Useful introduction to the history of the Qur’an for the nonspecialist, although the philological and Orientalist approach of its author is outdated.

QUR’AN

Batoota — Sun, 09 Jul 2017 07:12:39 +0000

QUR’AN
1-History of the Text
2-The Qur’an as Scripture
3-The Qur’an in Muslim Thought and Practice
The first article gives a brief history of the origin, collection, and structure of the text. The second presents the Qur’dn as a unique communication from God and provides a survey of modern exegesis of the text. The third discusses the central role of the Qur’dn in Muslim piety. For further discussion of the teachings of the Qur’dn, see Islam, overview article.
History of the Text
The Qur’an is a unique phenomenon in human religious history. It is held by its adherents to exist beyond the mundane sphere as the eternal and immutable word of God, “a glorious qur’an [preserved] in a well-guarded tablet” (85.21-22). It is also an earthly book whose history is intimately tied to the life and history of an earthly community.
Although it was shaped by the Muslim community, the Qur’an in fact created that community and remains the foundation-stone of its faith and morality. Many of its verses were circumstantially determined by the social and religious conditions and questions of the Prophet’s society; yet the Qur’an is believed to transcend all considerations of time and space.
Revelation. The Qur’an is for Muslims the literal word of God revealed to the prophet Muhammad. Like a number of pious Arabs, known as hanifs, who rejected the idolatrous and immoral ways of their people, Muhammad periodically left his home for solitary prayer and meditation (tahannuth) in a cave on Mount Hira’ in the vicinity of Makkah (Mecca). During one such retreat in his fortieth year an awesome person, later identified as the angel Gabriel, appeared to Muhammad as he sat one evening wrapped in deep meditation. Taking hold of him, the angel pressed Muhammad so hard that he thought he was dying. This he repeated three times with the command “Read” or “Recite” (iqra’). Muhammad asked, “What shall I read?” The angel then recited the first five verses of surah 96, which are traditionally considered to be the first revelation of the Qur’an.
According to other reports, when the Prophet saw Gabriel he was frightened; he ran home and asked his family to cover him up. In that state of fear and trepidation revelation came down, ordering him to “rise and warn” (74-1-2). After a period of uncertainty lasting somewhere between six months and two years during which revelation was temporarily interrupted, the Prophet was reassured that the revelations he was receiving were from God, and that the spirit he encountered was an angel and not a demon. Thereafter revelation continued without interruption until his death in AH 10/632 CE. The formative history of the Qur’an was therefore coterminous with the Prophet’s life.
Qur’an and Prophet. Tradition reports that when revelation came to the Prophet, he fell into a trancelike state. During such times he is said to have seen Gabriel either in human guise or in his angelic form. At still other times the Prophet heard sounds like the ringing of a bell; these sounds he apprehended as words that he remembered and communicated to others. The normal mode of revelation, however, was direct communication (wahy) by the angel Gabriel.
During the Prophet’s life many of his companions, as well as some of his wives, had their own partial collections (masdhif sg., mushaf) of the Qur’an, which they used in their prayers and private devotions. Other collections were made by the Prophet’s amanuenses, known as the scribes of revelation.
These early collections differed in important respects, such as the number and order of the surahs and variant readings of certain verses, words, and phrases. With the spread of Islam outside Arabia, private collections and hence variant readings multiplied. Furthermore, as different codices gained popularity in particular regions of the expanding Islamic empire, the need soon arose for an official codex.
Collection of the Qur’an. The crystallization of the Qur’an was a long process, and its early stages were shrouded in political, theological, and juristic exigencies. Each of the four rightly guided caliphs has been credited with either initiating or forwarding this important process. Historians and traditionists are, however, unanimously agreed that an official codex was adopted under the aegis of the third caliph, `Uthman (r. 644-656), within twenty years of the Prophet’s death. The difficult task of eliminating rival codices was gradually but never fully achieved; many peculiarities of the early codices have survived in the official variant readings of the Qur’an. By the third/ninth century a universally accepted orthography and system of vocalization of the `Uthmanic codex was This helped to reduce a multitude of variant readings to only seven equally valid ones. Among these, the reading of `Asim 4:344), transmitted, by Hafs, d. 805), predominates in most areas of the Muslim world today. The royal Egyptian edition of 1924, which follows this reading and has itself become a standard text has further contributed to its popularity.
Structure and Internal History. The Qur’an is a rather small book, consisting of 114 surahs or chapters varying in length from three to 286 verses. The surahs were arranged roughly by length, which means that the earliest and shortest surahs were placed at the end, and the latest and longest ones at the beginning.
Very early commentators classified Qur’anic materials into Meccan and Medinan surahs. On the basis of such internal evidence as change in style, idiom, and subject matter of the revelations, modern Western scholarship has divided the Meccan period into early, middle, and late periods.
In spite of such efforts to construct a broad chronology of the Qur’an, this goal remains impossible, because the sacred text itself provides no reliable framework for the history of its revelation. Nevertheless, knowledge of its chronology is crucial for an understanding of the early history of the Muslim community.
The Qur’an makes numerous references to particular events and situations in the life of the Prophet and his society. On the basis of such allusions an important field of Qur’anic study known as “occasions” or “causes (asbab) of revelation” was developed. This subject is closely related to another field, the study of the abrogated and abrogating verses of the Qur’an. Both fields are, moreover, of great significance for the developments of law and theology. But because law and theology have been inexorably bound to the political and sectarian realities of Muslim history, the study of the chronology of the Qur’an has likewise been deeply affected by political and sectarian considerations.
In itself, the Qur’an has been a closed book since the death of the Prophet; but the Qur’an has continued to interact with the history of the Muslim world. From the beginning Muslims have dedicated their best minds, voices, and musical talents to the exegesis and recitation of the Qur’an. While Western scholarship has subjected the Qur’an to the full rigor of modern historical and literary criticism, contemporary Islamic scholarship has limited itself to the criticism of the Qur’anic sciences. As for the Qur’an itself, it remains the criterion by which everything else is judged.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bell, Richard. Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an. New ed., revised by W. Montgomery Watt . Edinburgh, 1970. Basic English study, and still useful, but too speculative and inconclusive.
Burton, John. The Collection of the Qur’an. Cambridge, 1977. Through a thorough analysis of classical juristic, hadith, and exegetical sources, Burton arrives at the opposite conclusion from that of Wansbrough. The so-called `Uthmanic codex was in fact, Burton asserts, the mushaf used during the Prophet’s life. Thus it was not `Uthman, but Muhammad who first collected the Qur’an.
Goldziher, Ignacz. Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung (1920). Leiden, 1970. Classic work on Qur’anic exegesis, beginning with a very useful discussion of the history of the Qur’anic text. Jeffery,, Arthur, ed. Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’an. Leiden, 1937. Important piece of research into the codex fragments preserved in classical works on the subject.
Khu’ , Abu al-Qasim al-. Al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur `an. Beirut, 1975. Al-Khu’i (or al-Kho’i; d. 1993) was the supreme authority (marja`) in legal and religious matters for the Twelver Shi’i community. Long before Burton, he arrived at essentially the same conclusion. His thesis is that “`Uthman did not collect a mushaf, but rather united the Muslim community upon an already existing and generally excepted one.” The work also deals with many important issues in Qur’anic studies.
Noldeke, Theodor. Geschichte des Qordns (1860). Revised and enlarged by Friedrich Schwally. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1909. Revised and enlarged by Gotthelf Bergstrasser and Otto Pretzl. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1905-1938. Rev. ed. Hildesheim, 1964. Basic work on the history of the Qur’an.
Sa’id, Labib al-. The Recited Koran. Translated by Bernard G. Weiss et ah. Princeton, 1975. Muslim response to Western critical scholarship on the Qur’an.
Wansbrough John. Quranic Studies. Oxford, 1977. Using biblical critical methods in the study of the Qur’an, Wansbrough concludes that the sacred book did not attain its present state until the third century. Similar arguments are presented in his Sectarian Milieu (Oxford, 1978).
Welch, Alford T. “Kur’an.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., vol. 5, PP. 400-432. Leiden, 1960-. Welch remains one of the few committed proponents of Bell’s theories. The article provides a useful overview of Western Qur’anic studies and a number of the author’s own conclusions.
MAHMOUD AYOUB

The Opening

Batoota — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:44:38 +0000

This sura is seen to be a precise table of contents of the Quranic message. It is very important in Islamic worship, being an obligatory part of the daily prayer, repeated several times during the day.

In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy,a the Giverb of Mercy!c

Praise belongs to God, Lordd of the Worlds,e 3 the Lord of Mercy,

the Giver of Mercy,

4 Master of the Day of Judgement. 5 It is You we

worship; it is You we ask for help.

6 Guide us to the straight path:

the path of those You have blessed, those who incur no angerf and

who have not gone astray.

Most occurrences of this term rahman in the Quran are in the context of Him being

mighty and majestic as well as merciful. The addition of the word ‘Lord’ here is

intended to convey this aspect of the term.

This term rahim is an intensive form suggesting that the quality of giving mercy is

inherent in God’s nature.

This is the only instance where this formula, present at the start of every sura but

one, is counted as the first numbered verse.

The Arabic root r–b–b has connotations of caring and nurturing in addition to lordship, and this should be borne in mind wherever the term occurs and is rendered ‘lord’.

Al- alamin

in Arabic means all the worlds, of mankind, angels, animals, plants, this world, the next, and so forth.

f
Note that the verb here is not attributed to God.