LESSON 13
THE QUR'ĀNThe Qur'ān in its present form consists of 114 sūras. Aside from the opening Fātiha, which is a standard prayer for every occasion, like the Christian Our Father, the arrangement of the sūras is not chronological, but proceeds roughly from the longest to the shortest.
Scholars are unanimous in recognized that there was an editing process in the Qur'ān. Muslim tradition recognizes this not only in the arrangement of sūras, but also in the insertion of verses of different dates, for example Medinan verses in a Meccan sūra. The dates are determined by the historical context of the verses, supplied by Islamic tradition, and by the correspondence of themes with certain periods of Muhammad's life. The dating of Qur'ān passages is a complicated matter, but in general the shorter sūras are earlier; so also are passages which are very poetic, with short verses and powerful rhythm and rhymes. Later passages are more prosaic, have longer verses, are concerned with administrative and military concerns, laws of marriage, inheritance etc.
The whole Qur'ān purports to be God's speech put in the mouth of Muhammad. Therefore it is basically oratorical in style. Nevertheless there are differences. There are passages of condensed poetry with mysterious words or letters which evoke the style of a traditional diviner. There are short proverbs and long passages dealing with law. And there are narrative passages telling the story of various peoples and prophets, but all concluding with the exhortation to believe in God and Muhammad. Anyone who reads the Qur'ān is immediately struck at how disjointed and repetitious it is. The same material was evidently preached in slightly different forms on different occasions. These passages were stitched together and revised many times. Editing shows up not only in mixing material of different dates, but also by abrupt changes of rhyme or thought, with parenthetical verses which qualify, explain or give exceptions to a statement and appear to be of a later date. Some insertions break the grammatical structure and leave phrases hanging unconnected, or pronouns are suddenly changed from singular to plural or from second to third person without an antecedent. Or an unusually long verse is found in the midst of a series of short verses.
Muslims have great regard for the Qur'ān, as shown in their care in writing or editing it, in chanting or handling it ("Only the purified may touch it"Q 56:79), and even using it for protection or healing. For Muslims, the Qur'ān is God's "Word made book", comparable to the "Word made flesh" rather than to the Bible. This veneration is rooted in the idea that the Qur'ān is a copy of a heavenly original, "the mother of the Book which is with us" (Q 43:4), the "guarded tablet" (85:22); God sent down the Qur'ān completely formed to the last word, and the prophet only transmitted the words he heard. Muhammad at first thought these inspirations came directly from God (Q 53:10), but later attributed them to Gabriel (Q 2:97).
The Qur'ān contains remnants of an earlier less mechanical idea of revelation, one through promptings or suggestions (way: Q 42:51, 19:11, 6:112, 16:68, 99:2-5, 11:36, 23:27, 20:77, 26:52, 26:63, 7:160, 16:123, 21:108, 41:6). Such suggestions would leave Muhammad formulate the exact words. He used to work on the Qur'ān at night when impressions are strongest and speech is most proper (Q 73:5-7), and he is warned not to force the composition but to wait for inspiration when the words will come (75:16-19). Early in Muhammad's prophetic career the Qur'ān came as an experience foisted upon him from outside. When he tried to bring about this experience on his own he was frustrated, but by learning to relax his mind he found that the Qur'ānic passages flowed more easily. Later in his life it became a simple thing for him to tune in on Qur'ānic revelations any time he wished, giving the impression that he was the composer. Yet he always claimed the authority of revelation from God for any such passages, and Muslim theologians insist that the revelation made to Muhammad was not merely of ideas but of the complete wording.
One proof Muhammad offered for the divine origin of the Qur'ān was its inimitability. The Qur'ān challenges his opponents: "If men and jinn conspired to produce a Qur'ān like this one they could not, even if they put all their forces together" (17:88). "Tell them, 'Bring a divine scripture with better guidance than this one and I will follow it'" (28:49). "If they say he invented it, tell them, 'Invent ten sūras like it.. if you are right'" (11:13). This challenge was later simplified: "Bring one sūra like it.. if you are right" (2:23).
Nevertheless it is evident that the Qur'ān accommodated common ideas the Arabs had about history and other matters; thus it makes use of Biblical and apocryphal stories that were circulating in the Middle East, even though they are erroneous in some details. Nevertheless the Qur'ān claims a divine origin even for these stories (28:43-48; 1:49; 3:44), insisting that Muhammad never recited or copied Jewish or Christian Scripture (29:48).
The way Muslims view the Qur'ān affects their view of the Bible. Like the Jews, Muslims say that Moses was the transmitter of the Torah and David of the Psalms. Likewise they say that the Gospel is a book that Jesus preached. There is no place for four evangelists and writers of epistles etc., much less for any oral development preceding the final written formulation of a book. Muslims also object to scandalous stories in the Old Testament about the patriarchs and other prophets, who are supposed to have been sinless men of God, and to the fact that the Qur'ān contradicts the New Testament regarding certain facts, such as the crucifixion of Jesus. Furthermore, it claims that the Bible contained prophecies about Muhammad (7:157, 61:6), leading Muslims either to force an Islamic interpretation of certain passages, such as John 14-16 about the Paraclete, or to conclude that the Christian Scriptures are corrupt. The common Muslim belief that the Bible is corrupt is based on Qur'ān accusations that it was wrongly copied or recited. Therefore Muslims reject any Biblical passage that contradicts the Qur'ān, but will quote passages that agree with it as divinely revealed. Besides, they believe that the Qur'ān is sufficient and they do not need the Bible.
QUESTIONS
- Give examples of the different literary styles of the Qur'ān, and of Biblical styles which are not in the Qur'ān.
- Give examples of disjointedness and repetition in the Qur'ān.
- Compare the common Muslim idea of Scriptural inspiration with Christian theology of inspiration.
- Explain why Muslims object to the Bible.
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