By: Ahmad Shams Madyan
According to the traditional belief of Muslims, al-Qur’an is the words of God revealed to the earth trough Gabriel, the angel, unto the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This doctrine is seemingly fixed as accepted to be one amongst the six pillars of Islamic faith (Rukun Iman). Some social scientists addressed questions to this belief clarifying about what does God’s revelation actually mean. In fact, this question is not addressed only to Muslims, as it is also addressed to other religions holding the idea of “scripture” as God’s revelation.
However, the problem is more complicated for Islamic theology which regards al-Qur’an as the prominent manifestation of that divine revelation. It is not like some Christians—for instance—who believed that the revelation of God is manifested prominently by the birth of Jesus, not by the canonic book namely “the Bible”. The Bible—for some Christians—is not the ultimate form of God’s revelation. Therefore, they are not really bothered theologically when they found some scientific mistakes or historical errors in their scripture.
On the contrary, Muslims believe that the core meaning of God’s revelation is reflected by the existence of Al-Qur’an itself, it is not reflected by the flesh of Muhammad PBUH. It is an excuse for Muhammad to do some mistakes in his life, because he is only a human being regardless of his divine mission as a prophet. But it’s never acceptable that Muslims find errors in al-Quran, since God is never wrong. Furthermore, Muslims believe that al-Qur’an with all of its text and its arabicity are the biggest miracle of Muhammad. They believe that those 114 chapters of al-Quran; all of them are the holyVerbum Dei; The Words of God.
“When in time that God actually said those words? In what occasion he said so? Did he use that Arabic language to speak? If God has a language, does it mean that he is bounded by temporal-spatial limitations like his creatures? Then how to understand the contradiction about the transcendence of God, which is already believed by Muslim’s theology as a completely different Being (Mukhalafah Lil Hawadits)?
Nobody can answer that question satisfactory. Therefore, those logical questions lead many social scientists to their statements that al-Quran is not more than just a worldly product; despite of its extraordinary meanings and inspirations which most Muslims may regard them as coming from the Divine.
Many scientific approaches to the Qur’an have been done by scholars; ranging from the discipline of history, anthropology, social linguistic, psychology and so forth in order to rationalize this doctrine and make it more intelligible. Some of these scientific assumptions come into deadlock, and turn into the idea of deconstruction, throwing a conclusion saying that actually “there is nothing such God’s revelation at all”. Many Muslim scholars in the past history of Kalam [theology] intruded Islamic faith with philosophical arguments by which they made some apologetic answers to that conflict. Some of them are satisfied, but many others consider the answers as even more problematic. A large number of Muslims just believe in the idea of Verbum Dei regardless of the unanswered questions, insisting their belief and defending what they hold as an unquestionable “creed”.
Contemporary religious studies and Interdisciplinary approaches then try to bridge religion and science and moderate the tensions by proposing a way of thinking in which both interests may come along without negation. It is a way that we may see the truth of al-Qur’an in a crystal analogue, in which the sparkling colors of it are many and they may be seen not only from only one perspective and dimension. It means that when some body believes in al-Qur’an as the divine words of God, he expresses one truth of it from only one angle. Also when somebody else tells that al-Qur’an is the words of Muhammad, he is also true because he is looking the other truth from different angle. Both truths are not contradictive at all, because like a sparkling-colorful crystal which has many projections of the colors, the many truths of al-Quran are seemingly similar
Many truths; How?
From the crystal analogue, a point that we should be sure before answering the question of whether the Quran is transcendent or profane, is to be sure about which dimension or perspective we are going to depart to throw the answer?” If we are talking about the historical authenticity based on material evidences (historical approach), we should not be bound to say that al-Qur’an is the words of Muhammad PBUH, because that’s all what history can provide report to us. History is right when it can only find that the first subject of al-Qur’an was only Muhammad. History is also honest when it couldn’t find any divine beings (i.e Allah or Gabriel) within the miraculous Qur’anic chronology. What we called “history” is merely a collection of material data, which can not trace its limit to report some thing beyond that material. For me, It is even too much to expect that history should report about God and Gabriel if the history itself is limited to be always based on the question about “when” (time) and “where” (space)?
In his book The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue (2000), Leonard Swidler said that one function of History, psychology, anthropology and sociology is to provide raw materials for the philosophy of religion, so it can attempt to relate the data to one another and explore their meaning and significance.
That’s why if some one is unable to say that al-Qur’an is the words of God because of her/his historical approach, ....
[the full version of this article should be requested via my email CONTACT - Madyan]
According to the traditional belief of Muslims, al-Qur’an is the words of God revealed to the earth trough Gabriel, the angel, unto the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This doctrine is seemingly fixed as accepted to be one amongst the six pillars of Islamic faith (Rukun Iman). Some social scientists addressed questions to this belief clarifying about what does God’s revelation actually mean. In fact, this question is not addressed only to Muslims, as it is also addressed to other religions holding the idea of “scripture” as God’s revelation.
However, the problem is more complicated for Islamic theology which regards al-Qur’an as the prominent manifestation of that divine revelation. It is not like some Christians—for instance—who believed that the revelation of God is manifested prominently by the birth of Jesus, not by the canonic book namely “the Bible”. The Bible—for some Christians—is not the ultimate form of God’s revelation. Therefore, they are not really bothered theologically when they found some scientific mistakes or historical errors in their scripture.
On the contrary, Muslims believe that the core meaning of God’s revelation is reflected by the existence of Al-Qur’an itself, it is not reflected by the flesh of Muhammad PBUH. It is an excuse for Muhammad to do some mistakes in his life, because he is only a human being regardless of his divine mission as a prophet. But it’s never acceptable that Muslims find errors in al-Quran, since God is never wrong. Furthermore, Muslims believe that al-Qur’an with all of its text and its arabicity are the biggest miracle of Muhammad. They believe that those 114 chapters of al-Quran; all of them are the holyVerbum Dei; The Words of God.
“When in time that God actually said those words? In what occasion he said so? Did he use that Arabic language to speak? If God has a language, does it mean that he is bounded by temporal-spatial limitations like his creatures? Then how to understand the contradiction about the transcendence of God, which is already believed by Muslim’s theology as a completely different Being (Mukhalafah Lil Hawadits)?
Nobody can answer that question satisfactory. Therefore, those logical questions lead many social scientists to their statements that al-Quran is not more than just a worldly product; despite of its extraordinary meanings and inspirations which most Muslims may regard them as coming from the Divine.
Many scientific approaches to the Qur’an have been done by scholars; ranging from the discipline of history, anthropology, social linguistic, psychology and so forth in order to rationalize this doctrine and make it more intelligible. Some of these scientific assumptions come into deadlock, and turn into the idea of deconstruction, throwing a conclusion saying that actually “there is nothing such God’s revelation at all”. Many Muslim scholars in the past history of Kalam [theology] intruded Islamic faith with philosophical arguments by which they made some apologetic answers to that conflict. Some of them are satisfied, but many others consider the answers as even more problematic. A large number of Muslims just believe in the idea of Verbum Dei regardless of the unanswered questions, insisting their belief and defending what they hold as an unquestionable “creed”.
Contemporary religious studies and Interdisciplinary approaches then try to bridge religion and science and moderate the tensions by proposing a way of thinking in which both interests may come along without negation. It is a way that we may see the truth of al-Qur’an in a crystal analogue, in which the sparkling colors of it are many and they may be seen not only from only one perspective and dimension. It means that when some body believes in al-Qur’an as the divine words of God, he expresses one truth of it from only one angle. Also when somebody else tells that al-Qur’an is the words of Muhammad, he is also true because he is looking the other truth from different angle. Both truths are not contradictive at all, because like a sparkling-colorful crystal which has many projections of the colors, the many truths of al-Quran are seemingly similar
Many truths; How?
From the crystal analogue, a point that we should be sure before answering the question of whether the Quran is transcendent or profane, is to be sure about which dimension or perspective we are going to depart to throw the answer?” If we are talking about the historical authenticity based on material evidences (historical approach), we should not be bound to say that al-Qur’an is the words of Muhammad PBUH, because that’s all what history can provide report to us. History is right when it can only find that the first subject of al-Qur’an was only Muhammad. History is also honest when it couldn’t find any divine beings (i.e Allah or Gabriel) within the miraculous Qur’anic chronology. What we called “history” is merely a collection of material data, which can not trace its limit to report some thing beyond that material. For me, It is even too much to expect that history should report about God and Gabriel if the history itself is limited to be always based on the question about “when” (time) and “where” (space)?
In his book The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue (2000), Leonard Swidler said that one function of History, psychology, anthropology and sociology is to provide raw materials for the philosophy of religion, so it can attempt to relate the data to one another and explore their meaning and significance.
That’s why if some one is unable to say that al-Qur’an is the words of God because of her/his historical approach, ....
[the full version of this article should be requested via my email CONTACT - Madyan]
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