Re:Quran
Critic:-
When you pick up a copy of the Quran, several questions should immediately come to your mind:
WHO? AUTHORSHIP
WHAT? LITERARY NATURE
WHERE? PLACE OF ORIGIN
WHEN? TIME OF WRITING
HOW? MEDIUM OF TRANSMISSION
WHY? JUSTIFICATION OF NEED
These questions are good and necessary. But how can we find answers to them?
There are two different approaches to answering these questions the empirical and the rational. This is followed by a logical analysis.
Comment:-
No, there are three approaches. The empirical, the rational and the spiritual.
At the empirical level it is just a book with words in it. You might wish to understand what the words mean but no Judgement is made.
If you want to make a rational, that is a purely intellectual assessment, then you might as well forget it. It means that the Quran has not affected you at a deeper level, generally known as the heart.
"Nay, but it (the Quran) is a clear revelation in the hearts of those who are endowed with knowledge, and none deny Our revelations save the unjust." 29:24
Intellectual arguments depend on motives, knowledge and on the power of perception or insight. It is these that select data, interpret them and organize them in order to serve whatever purpose a person may have. He can give meaning to terms and construct premises in order to reach any preselected conclusions. Different people have different motives, data and capacity for insight or intelligence. That is why there are always controversies at this level.
Even if an argument is accepted as true it only has intellectual affects. It does not change the person's being and behaviour. As such it does not do what the Quran came to do. In fact, what the person sees and reads is not the Quran.
Critic:-
Muslims interpret the Quran in many often fantastic ways and see in it anything they like. The Muslim tries to show that modern Scientific discoveries are already contained in the Quran by taking advantage of the weakness of the Arabic language and the vagueness of the Quranic verses, and thus perform some good old Islamic hermeneutics!
Comment:-
The Quran is revelation.
It comes from deeper and more direct experiences than that which comes indirectly through the rational mind.
The purpose of the Quran is to facilitate meditation and development, not to spoon feed, but expand consciousness, conscience and will.
The scientific technical language being used today is a recent invention. We must not expect the Quran to contain ideas in that language or conceptual system.
When people try to understand the Quran, they do this by translating it into whatever conceptual system they are familiar with according to their various abilities.
This is a perfectly legitimate thing to do as long as they do not mistake their fantasies, desires and interpretation for the reality and think that they have reached absolute truth.
Scientists and others must not make such mistakes either. Their descriptions are not the same thing as the experience or understanding or the reality of things.
But it is also necessary to remember that the purpose of the Quran is more than merely present factual information and its verses have a wider meaning and significance than that which such translations confine them to.
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