The Correct Approach To Studying The Quran

By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam 31August 2024 While Covering These Subjects, The Quran Uses Keywords Such As Islam, Muslim, Momin, Kafir, Zalim, Fasiq, Fitna, Qital, Taqwa, Shuhuda, Siddiq, Nafs, Ruh, And Many More. The Word Kafir And Its Other Grammatical Forms, For Example, Is Used In Over 500 Verses, Making It Easy To Determine Its Precise Meaning In Every Verse It Is Used Without Reference To Any Lexicon. ----- The Quran contains two kinds of verses. They are: The Muhkamat Verses: These verses describe the religion of Islam, its moral codes, personal and criminal law, standards of secular justice for all people, imperatives for maintaining peace and preferring peace treaty over war, guidance on waging just war, guidance on humane treatment of the defeated in battle, guidance on maintaining good relations with people of other faiths, exhortations to practise patience and forbearance overlooking the faults of others, preferring forgiveness over retaliation and never transgressing reasonable limits. The verses also guide on how to achieve excellence in moral behaviour. There is guidance on ritual cleanliness, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and charity. Guidance on good marital relations, conflict resolution mechanisms and, if all else fails in the divorce process. The divorce process stipulates a mandatory four-month waiting period during which the woman stays in her husband’s home, creating an opportunity for reconciliation. There is guidance on the maintenance of wives and divorced women, the division of inheritance, and the provision for making bequests and wills. There is detailed guidance on the treatment of aged parents, including the language we use and the body language we adopt. When understanding these subjects covered in the Quran, the Quran itself is the ultimate source of knowledge. It stands independently, without needing external references for clarification or validation. This is by design because Allah is the exclusive source for all knowledge on these subjects, and this knowledge is what mankind is incapable of having acquired independently. While covering these subjects, the Quran uses keywords such as Islam, Muslim, Momin, Kafir, Zalim, Fasiq, Fitna, Qital, Taqwa, Shuhuda, Siddiq, Nafs, Ruh, and many more. The word Kafir and its other grammatical forms, for example, is used in over 500 verses, making it easy to determine its precise meaning in every verse it is used without reference to any lexicon. This is important because lexicons contain meanings in use, often at variance with their meaning in the Quran. Therefore, Allah has made understanding its Muhkamat verses possible by itself without intermediaries such as the lexicons, Ahadith (these differ from the Quran on every subject), opinions of scholars (often off the mark), etc. The sure way to get the meaning right is by following the Quran alone, and the likelihood of repeating the mistakes of the previous scholars is to go by the lexicons, Tafsirs of scholars and the Ahadith. My relevant articles on subjects that demonstrate how relying on the Quran alone has helped in the correct understanding while the previous scholars erred are as follows: 1. Analytical Scholarship Vs Impressionistic Scholarship 2. Allah’s Divine Plan in Sending Messengers – Impressionistic Vs Analytical View 3. Why Is the Analytical Method Absent in Islamic Scholarship? 4. Countering The Bigoted Islamic Scholarship That Undermines the Quranic Message of Tolerance 5. What Does Taqwa Mean? 6. Inadequacies and Errors of Classical Islamic Fiqh - Inheritance Related Calculations 7. The Meaning of Islam and Muslim 8. The Importance of Understanding Correctly, the Attributes of Allah – Divine Will, Justice and Mercy 9. The Attributes of Allah – Kalam, Al-Alim, Al-Qadeer, Al-Muqtadi 10. Was Muhammad (pbuh) Pre-Destined To Be The Seal Of The Prophets? 11.The Principles of War from the Quran 12.Revisiting the Meaning of Kafir 13.Does The Quran Ask Us To Follow The Sunnat Of The Prophet? 14.The Quran and the Psychology of Human Behaviour - Nafs 15.The Role Models in the Quran 16.The Importance of Rendering Justice in Islam 17. Deen-e-Islam or the Moral Way of Living in Islam The Mutashabihat or the Allegorical Verses The verses that describe the world and its phenomena are covered by the Mutashabihat verses using a mix of direct language and metaphor. Metaphors are mainly used (but not exclusively) when the vocabulary of seventh-century Arabic is inadequate to communicate the complex subject covered by the verse. The accurate understanding of these verses depends upon how perfect our knowledge of the topic covered by the verse is. Many of these verses were misunderstood because people had inaccurate ideas about the subject and couldn’t relate to the verse. For example, until the late 19th century, conception was thought to take place only from the male's seed, and the role of the ovum from the woman was unknown. The human ovum was discovered by Karl Ernst von Baer in 1827, and in 1876, Oscar Hertwig first observed the fusion of a sperm and egg cell during conception. Now imagine people trying to make sense of the verses on reproduction in the Quran that speak of the mingling of fluids and the male anatomy “Sulb” and female anatomy “Taraib” involved in the process. “Sulb” means a stiff rod and refers to the male organ, while “Taraib” means an arch, referring to the pelvic arch of the woman where her ovum resides. The scholars who thought only the seed from the male is involved related both “Sulb’ and “Taraib” to the male anatomy and translated the verse as meaning that the fluid that impregnates comes from between the backbone and the ribs of the man. The backbone is also like a stiff rod, and the ribs are arched! Verse 7:172 uses metaphorical language to say that belief in Allah is instinctive or genetically coded and comes from the male sperm. This was way beyond the understanding of the people until recently; therefore, they concocted the story of Alam-E-Arwah to explain the verse. Read: The Fairy Tale of Alam-e-Arwah The disbelievers often asked the question, ‘How will we be resurrected once our body turns to dust or ashes’? Scholars have invented the concept of an immortal soul that survives our death to explain our continuous existence beyond death. The Quran does not support the idea of an eternal soul, and its answer to the question is that man will be resurrected from the record or information alone, and this is easy for Allah. We now know from science that this is possible. Read: The Seemingly Unanswerable Question That Religion Raised The Quran speaks of the universe's creation, destruction, and recreation as a cyclical process, and science is converging on this view, but it is not quite there. The system of logic science uses is inadequate to explain anything before the “Big Bang” creation of the Universe. That a Universe existed before that collapsed to a tiny size before the expansion to create a new one is an unprovable truth in our logic system. Such unprovable truths can exist, as Kurt Godel’s incompleteness theorems prove. The Quran is not limited by science, and Allah describes how He created our universe and how He will destroy it and recreate another. The Quran contains absolute truths, and science converges to the same truths, but it has taken several centuries and is not quite there on every subject. In some subjects, science is on the wrong track. Therefore, do not look for science in the Quran; look for the Quran in science. For example, looking for the theory of evolution in the Quran is pointless, as some people do, unless the correct explanation of a verse is found in the theory. Our understanding of the “Mutashabihat” verses is as good as our knowledge of the subject covered by the verse, which underlies the importance of science in correctly understanding these verses. For the “Mutashabihat” verses, we depend entirely on knowledge outside the Quran to understand its verses correctly. When the Prophet was asked why he was not given any miracle as previous prophets, he responded that the Quran was his miracle. The Quran is a miracle every time we discover the meaning of an enigmatic verse made clear by the latest scientific discovery. This has continued to this day and will continue till the end. The Quran is a greater miracle today than in the seventh century. Evolution Of The Meaning Of “The Fig” In Surah 95 To follow how the meaning of “The Fig” evolved over the last 1400 years, read the following articles: Is Buddha Mentioned In The Quran? Tafsir on the Surah At-Tin (The Fig) It will be apparent how gaining a better understanding of other religious traditions helped correctly interpret the meaning of the metaphor “The Fig” in the surah in three stages – first connecting it to Abrahamic traditions alone, then with Buddha, and now linking it to the numerous religious traditions in which “The Fig” has important religious significance. The correctness of the last interpretation is apparent. The Surah begins with Allah swearing by the founders of His religions. The metaphors for three of the founders of the Abrahamic faiths are quickly identified, but the fourth metaphor of “The Fig” remained enigmatic. In the early 20th century, it was first linked to Buddha by an Egyptian scholar. This was relatively simple because it is common knowledge that Buddha received enlightenment after meditating for many days under the Bodhi tree, a sacred Fig plant. What is less known is the significance of the Fig Tree in other religious traditions. This required extensive research; in the end, I could identify nine religious traditions outside the three Abrahamic faiths, and there will be many more. Suffice it to say that “The Fig” is a metaphor for all the prophets unnamed in the Quran who are founders of Allah’s religion outside the Abrahamic tradition. The Quran refers to Ibrahim (AS) as our spiritual father, although Noah, Idris, Hud, and Saleh preceded him. These prophets are the precursors of every other religious faith and tradition. The subject of the verse is how Allah has created humans in the best of moulds and how some are abased to the lowest of low, except those who believe and do righteous deeds who will be rewarded in the Hereafter. It talks about the Day of Judgment and Allah as the wisest of Judges. The significance of swearing by all the Messengers of Allah who founded His religion is: 1. They are the paragons (Shuhuda) of Allah’s creation in the best of moulds. 2. They are witnesses to the faithful communication of Allah’s message to their people. 3. They will be witnesses on the Day of Judgment against their people. 4. Allah may allow them to intercede on behalf of their people It stands to reason, therefore, that the metaphor “The Fig” refers to all the unnamed messengers in the Quran who founded Allah’s religion outside the Abrahamic tradition. A logical inference is true by definition and requires no other proof. The reference in the Quran to these other messengers is cited in the article. ----- A frequent contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Naseer Ahmed is an Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and is an independent IT consultant after having served in both the Public and Private sector in responsible positions for over three decades. He has spent years studying Quran in-depth and made seminal contributions to its interpretation. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/debating-islam/correct-approach-studying-quran/d/133090 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism