The founding document of Islam is the Quran or The Recitation. It is a composite work in which the revelations given by God through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad over the last twenty-two years of his life are collected into 114 suras or chapters. The suras vary greatly in length and are not arranged in chronological order; indeed, purely chronological considerations might invite one to read the book from its end to its beginning.
Many of the suras that appear to be early ones show a manner and an elevation of style not unlike that of the Jewish prophets as they admonish men to reform, or, as we shall see in chapter 8 below, warn of the judgment of eternity. The later suras, those revealed at Medina after 622 C.E., are longer and contain detailed regulations for the conduct of the already converted. For the Muslim it is God alone who speaks in the Quran; no other voice is heard in direct discourse. Much of the Quran is, indeed, about God, in Arabic Allah, and man’s relationship to Him. But there is also much about prophecy and Prophets, the consequences of men’s rejecting them in the past and the need to accept Muhammad as a genuine Prophet (nabi) and Messenger (rasul) of God.
The Quran is not only a “guidance” for the Muslims (2:185); it is also a history of God’s past attempts to warn His people. It abounds with tales of other Prophets and other Books, notably the Tawra given through Moses to the Jews and the Injil sent through Jesus to the Christians.
We sent down the Torah which contains guidance and light, in accordance with which the prophets who were obedient to God gave instruction to the Jews, as did the rabbis and the priests, for they were the custodians and witnesses of God’s writ…. Later in the train (of prophets), we sent Jesus son of Mary, confirming the Torah which had been sent down before him, and gave him the Gospel containing guidance and light for those who preserve themselves from evil and follow the straight path…. And to you We have revealed the Book containing the truth, confirming the earlier revelations, and preserving them. (Quran 5:44–48)
The Quran, then, is a book like those other Books, and its bearer, Muhammad, a Messenger in the tradition of Moses and Jesus—but, for all that, merely a messenger. God’s word rests far above his merely mortal powers.
When Our clear messages are recited to them, those who do not hope to meet Us say: “Bring a different Quran, or make amendments in this one.” Say: It is not for me to change it of my will. I follow only what was revealed to me. If I disobey my Lord, I fear the punishment of an awful Day. (Quran 10:15)
Muhammad is only a Messenger, and many a Messenger has gone before him. So what if he dies or is killed! Will you turn back and go away in haste? He who turns back and goes away in haste will do no harm to God. (Quran 5:144)
These notions all became commonplaces in the Islamic tradition, as is evident in this version of Sacred History, the details supplied and the lacunae filled in, by the literary virtuoso Jahiz (d. 886 C.E.).
When the situation becomes dangerous because the ancient traditions no longer inspire men’s complete confidence, God sets a term at the end of each period of time, a sign to renew the strength of the traditions and renew the teaching of the Messengers when it grows faint. In this manner Noah renewed the traditions dating from the period between Adam and himself by giving true testimony and producing effective signs, so as to safeguard the traditions from corruption and protect them from damage. The (Prophetic) traditions and proofs of earlier generations had not been entirely obliterated or destroyed, but when they were about to be, God sent His signs so that His proofs might not disappear from the earth. That is why the end-time of a period is called “the enfeeblement.” There is, however, an unmistakable difference between bending and breaking. Then God sent Abraham at the end of the second period, namely, that between the time of Noah and himself; this was the longest “enfeeblement” the world had yet experienced, for Noah remained among his people, expounding and reasoning and explaining, for 950 years, and the first of His signs was also the greatest, namely, the Flood, in which God drowned all the people of the earth except Noah and his followers….
Then the Prophets followed one after the other in the period between Abraham and Jesus. Because their proofs followed one upon the other, their signs clear, their acts numerous, and their deeds well known, because all of that took deep root in people’s hearts and souls and the whole world spoke of it, their teachings were neither overturned nor diminished nor corrupted during the entire period from Jesus to the Prophet (Muhammad). But when they were on the point of becoming weakened, enfeebled, and spent, God sent Muhammad, who renewed the teachings of Adam, Noah, Moses, Aaron, Jesus, and John (the Baptist), and gave further detail to them; for Muhammad is righteous, and his witness is true, declaring that the Hour was at hand and that he was the seal of the Prophets. We knew then that his proofs would endure until the term set for it by God. (Jahiz, The Proofs of Prophecy 133–134)
Almost any educated Muslim could write such a Quran-based summary. Witness this example from the Muslim theologian al-Nasafi (d. 1114 C.E.), who is careful to draw the distinction between private or personal written revelations—what he calls the “Scrolls”—and the “Books,” the four revealed codes of Law.
It must be recognized that all the books (of Scripture) which God has sent down (by revelation) to the Prophets and Apostles are the uncreated word of God. Of these there were one hundred Scrolls and four Books. (Of the Scrolls) God sent fifty to Seth the son of Adam, on whom be peace. Thirty were sent to Idris [that is, Enoch], on whom be peace; ten to Abraham, on whom be peace; and ten to Moses, on whom be peace, before the Torah was sent down to him. It was called “The Book of Naming” and was revealed before the drowning of the Pharaoh; then God sent down the Torah after the drowning of the Pharaoh. Later God sent down the Psalter to David, upon whom be peace, and then He sent down the Gospel to Jesus, on whom be peace, who was the last of the Prophets among the Children of Israel. Then God, may He be praised and exalted, sent down the Quran to Muhammad, upon whom be God’s blessing and peace, who is the last of the Messengers. Anyone who disavows a (single) verse in any of these Scriptures is in unbelief.
Should anyone say: “I believe in all the Messengers,” and then disavow one of the Messengers about whom there is no (Scriptural) text, saying, “this one does not belong among them,” he would not be in a state of unbelief, but he would be in heresy. This holds so long as he does not enter another religion, but if he enters another religion he is an apostate and may be killed…. Be it known, moreover, that the Prophets, upon whom be peace, are 124,000, and the Messengers among them are 313, according to the tradition transmitted from Abu Dharr, with whom may God be pleased, going back to a statement of the Messenger of God, upon whom be God’s blessing and peace. In some of the Prophetic traditions the (number of the) Prophets is given as a thousand thousand, or two hundred thousand and more, but the correct thing in this matter is for you to say, “I believe in God and in all the Prophets and Messengers, and in all that has come from God by way of revelation according as God willed.” By thus doing you will not affirm someone to be a Prophet who was not, nor will you affirm someone not to be a Prophet who was. (Nasafi, Sea of Discourse on Theology) [JEFFERY 1962: 447–448]
The Quran has no doubts that the earlier books given to the Jews and Christians were genuine revelation, and as such, they must have referred to the coming of the Prophet of Islam (Quran 7:157; 61:6; 3:81), much as Jesus was foreseen in the Old Testament. A search of those Scriptures failed to reveal any clear reference to Muhammad, however, which left to Muslim apologists the task of vindicating the Quran and demonstrating that the Jews and Christians had in fact tampered with the texts of the Books of God. One of the first to attempt such a demonstration in a systematic fashion was the Muslim theologian Juwayni (d. 1085 C.E.), in his work entitled The Noble Healing.
Certain clear passages in the Quran, whose information cannot be doubted, show that the texts of the Torah and the Gospel make mention of the Prince of Apostles, that the prayers of God were upon him. It is this motive that has induced Muslim scholars to declare that the texts were altered. The Jews and Christians in fact deny this announcement of the Prophet, and summon to their aid arguments which are like “a mirage in the desert. The thirsty man supposes it is water, but when he comes up to it, he finds that it is nothing” (Quran 24:39).…
What astonishes me is that the Jews and the Christians have conceded the fact of the alteration and at the same time regard as senseless someone who speaks of it as a possibility. They defend the impossibility of such a thing after agreeing that it did in fact take place. Listen to this ignorance. According to them, the affirmation of the fact of alteration is conditional to its possibility; but the conditions of such a possibility involve editing copies of the Torah and the Gospel dispersed all over the face of the earth, and of being assured of the willingness of each individual of the two religions, scholars, ascetics, the devout and the pious as well as the sinner, and of their agreement on one single opinion and one common expression, despite the wide differences of opinion….
My position, then, with the aid of God, is that most of the errors that occur in the sciences arise from the fact that arguments are accepted without examination and without reason’s making a careful examination of their premises. We shall mention the defects in this argument (of the Jews and Christians) and show wherein the carelessness of their authors lies.
Juwayni first takes up the circumstances that show the possibility of altering the Torah.
The Torah which is presently in the hands of the Jews is that which was written by Ezra the scribe after the troubles that Nabuchadnezzar imposed upon them. This latter wrought carnage among the groups of religious Jews, sparing only isolated groups, whose small number allows us to disregard them. He gave over their wealth as booty to his troopers and soldiers and he destroyed their books. Ignorant of the norms of their religious law, he [here, it seems, Antiochus IV] had decided in favor of the corrupt state of the practices of this law: he put up an idol in their place of worship and made public announcement by a herald warning against even a mention of the law. Things remained in this state until an entire generation had passed away. Then those who were in exile found some leaves of the Torah; they took refuge in caves and made pretenses in order to be able to read them in secret.
This (present Torah copy) Ezra wrote 545 years before the mission of the Messiah, upon whom be peace, and when there was not a single Christian upon the earth. It was at this moment that the alteration of the text was possible since it was not a question of reediting copies of the Torah scattered all over the world, as has been said, nor of counting on the willingness of individuals from different factions, nor were copies of the Torah in the hands of both Jews and Christians. In fact, they only came into Christian hands after they had been altered.
So there was only one doer of this deed, either Ezra himself or, if one puts it after Ezra, whoever it was who recopied Ezra’s copy. More, an alteration on his part was possible from the fact that he was eager to see his power extended and by the fact that he was not credited with that kind of impeccability which would have prevented his commission of either light or serious faults…. It has been said that the love of power is the last thing to be made to leave the heads of the righteous, and power had considerable importance for the Israelites. And anyone who knows well the chronicles of world history and has followed their extraordinary developments finds there that men greater than Ezra have been moved by the love of power to act senselessly, rejecting the bonds of reason and of religion.
The Jews and the Christians can be convicted out of each other’s mouth on the fact of alteration.
The reason why the Jews and Christians unanimously agree that the text was in fact altered is that the copies that each group has are clearly contradictory…. The motive for the difference is, according to the Christians, that the Torah testifies that the Messiah, on whom be peace, would be sent at the time he was, and the copies of the Torah in their hands support the truth of what they say. They maintain, then, that the Jews have changed their copies of the Torah to prevent the recognition of the mission of the Messiah, on whom be peace. The Jews for their part say that the Christians have changed their copies and that the Messiah, on whom be peace, will not come until the end of the seventh period, and their copies support the truth of what they say. Thus both parties agree that the text has been in fact changed, and each group puts a rope around the neck of the other.
For our part, we shall now mention the contradictions between the two versions: In the Jews’ Torah, Adam, when he was 130 years old, begot Seth, and in the Christians’, he was 230 years old when he begot Seth.
Juwayni then goes step by step through the age of the Patriarchs and shows the differences in the chronology of the Jewish and Christian versions of the Torah. He concludes:
These are the very expressions of the Torah, and you see how extraordinary and hateful is this divergence between the two religious groups. And they differ not on the kind of point where opinions vary according to the different points of view of scholars and there arise variations according to how much is assumed. Rather, each group maintains that its text came down to Moses, peace be upon him, and that is the very essence of the tampering.
Finally, there is the matter of the Samaritans’ Torah. Its text differs from that in the hands of the two other religious groups, and on the basis of that fact alone one could make a very convincing argument for the fact that the texts were altered.
Juwayni next takes up the Gospels.
There is first of all the enormous error the Christians made in not carefully preserving what they had to transmit, and no reasonable man can hope to correct that. The reason why they fell into this error is that they were careless in a matter that required urgent attention, in times propitious to the alteration and loss of texts, and in the matter of an oral transmission.
Matthew says clearly in his Gospel that he composed it nine years after the Ascension of the Messiah, on whom be peace; as for John, he says explicitly that he assembled his text thirty or more years after the Ascension; likewise Mark, 12 years after the Ascension, and Luke 22, or according to others 20 years after the Ascension. That is the point made manifestly in the Gospels, and thence arises the error against which there is no defense; more, even if someone attempts to dissemble through the imagination, he cannot achieve what he sets out to do.
Juwayni’s first point of attack on the Gospels is the contradictions between and the errors in Matthew and Luke’s versions of the genealogy of Jesus. Then he takes up the varying versions of Peter’s denial of Jesus, the prediction and the fact after the latter’s arrest. He concludes on the matter of this second case:
But the event that took place was unique, as were the moment, the place and the circumstances of the act. But generally when the circumstances in two accounts are identical and yet the accounts differ, one is forced to conclude that one of the two is false. You see then the integrity in the transmission of these Gospels; and how ironic that they pretend that the Evangelists were immune to error and that they transmitted their Gospels from the time of the Messiah, on whom be peace, as one would who personally heard these narratives, preserving what he heard, and carefully keeping the order of the narrative and the very words. According to my opinion, they allowed a great deal of time to pass before composing the Gospels, and both forgetfulness and carelessness got the better of them.
There are other examples of differences among the Gospels, and Juwayni concludes with this one.
It is likewise extraordinary that Matthew had mentioned in his Gospel that when the Messiah was crucified and had rendered up his spirit, “the Temple was riven from top to bottom in two pieces, the earth quaked, the stones were shattered, tombs opened, and the bodies of the saints were resuscitated and left their tombs” [Matt. 27:51–53]. Those are his own words in his Gospel, and yet no other Evangelist mentions it. But if the facts which he narrated, and which are of such an extraordinary strangeness, took place as he described them, they would be great miracles which one would have great reason to report and which everyone near and far would have recognized. Even people who were incapable of carefully preserving the events of the life of the Messiah, upon whom be peace, nor of retaining the accounts, would have loved to have told of such facts and to immerse themselves in stories on this theme….
All of which shows that Matthew lied or that the three other Evangelists have shown their carelessness by forgetting to mention these extraordinary facts. And they are well charged with negligence since they did not habitually forget. But it would be even stranger that they pretended not to have knowledge of the facts; in effect if such extraordinary miracles actually took place, everybody in the province, near or far, would have known, yes, and in other provinces as well. [JUWAYNI 1968: 40–83]
The Messenger of the Quran may have been a mere mortal, but there was no doubt about the origin of the message he carried to men.
And this (Quran) is a revelation from the Lord of all the worlds, which the trusted spirit descended with to your heart that you may be a warner in clear Arabic. (Quran 26:192–195)
As the Quran instructs us, this quality of “trustworthiness” is shared by the heavenly Spirit—identified by the Islamic tradition as Gabriel—with God’s chosen Messenger.
This is indeed the word of an honored Messenger,
Full of power, well-established with the Lord and Master of the Throne,
Obeyed and worthy of trust.
He had surely seen Him on the clear horizon.
And he is chary of making public what is unknown.
(Quran 81:19–24)
It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the true faith in order to make it superior to all other religions, though the idolaters may not like it. (Quran 9:33)
The message, the Quran also announces to the world, is not intended only for the pagans.
O People of the Book, Our Messenger has come to you announcing many things of the Scripture that you have suppressed, passing over some others. To you has come light and a clear Book from God, through which God will lead those who follow His pleasure to the path of peace, and guide them out of the darkness into light by His will, and to the path that is straight. (Quran 5:15–16)
O People of the Book, Our Messenger has come to you when Messengers had ceased to come long ago, lest you said: “There did not come to us any Messenger of good news or warnings.” So now there has reached you a bearer of good tidings and of warnings; for God has the power over all things. (Quran 5:19)
This is the Book free of doubt and involution,
A guidance for those who preserve themselves from evil
And follow the straight path,
Who believe in the Unknown, and fulfill their devotional obligations,
And spend in charity of what We have given them;
Who believe in what has been revealed to you and what was revealed to those before you,
And are certain of the Hereafter.
They have found the guidance of their Lord and will be successful.
(Quran 2:1–5)
Thus does God Himself characterize the Book He has sent down to Muhammad, His servant, this very Book in which He is Himself speaking. How and under what circumstances that “sending down” took place are less easily accessible, though there are clues in that same Book.
It is not given to man that God should speak to Him, except by suggestion or indirectly, or send a Messenger to convey by His command whatsoever He please. He is all-high and all-wise.
And so We have revealed to you (Muhammad) the Spirit of Our command. You did not know what the Scripture was before, nor faith, and We made it a light by which We show the way to those of Our creatures as We please. (Quran 42:51–52)
And this Quran is not such as could be composed by anyone but God. It confirms what has been revealed before, and is an exposition of what is decreed for mankind, without any doubt, by the Lord of the worlds.
Do they say (of the Prophet) “He has composed it?” Say to them: “Bring a Sura like this, and call anyone apart from God you can to help you, if what you say is true.” (Quran 10:37–38)
Do they say (of the Prophet): “He has forged (the Quran)?” Say: “Then bring ten Suras like it, and call upon anyone except God to help you, if what you say is true.”
If they do not answer you, then know it has been revealed with the knowledge of God, and that there is no god but He. (Quran 11:13–14)
These were not the only objections raised by Muhammad’s contemporaries. They demanded signs.
We have given examples of every kind of men in this Quran in various ways, and even then most men disdain every thing but disbelief. They say: “We will not believe you until you make a spring of water gush forth from the earth for us; or until you acquire an orchard of date palm trees and grapes, and produce rivers flowing through it, or let chunks of sky fall over us, as you assert.” (Quran 17:89–92)
Behind such a request seems to be a more profound doubt: that Muhammad is but a man and thus ill qualified to be a heavenly Messenger.
Nothing prevented men from believing when guidance came to them, but they said: “Has God sent (only) a man as a messenger?” Say: “If angels had peopled the earth and walked about in peace and quiet, We would surely have sent to them an angel as a messenger.” (Quran 17:94–95)
To which compare:
And they say: What sort of prophet is this who eats food and walks in the market places? Why was no angel sent to him to act as an admonisher with him? (Quran 25:7)
And:
Those who do not hope to meet us say: “Why are no angels sent down to us, or why do we not see our Lord?” (Quran 25:21)
However, there was a way, Muhammad was told by the Quraysh—whether in mockery or sincerity we cannot tell—by which their fellow Meccan could demonstrate his supernatural vocation.
And they say: “We will certainly not believe you until you … ascend to the skies, though we shall not believe in your having ascended till you bring down a Book for us which we can read.” Say to them: “Glory be to my Lord! I am only a man and a Messenger.” (Quran 17:95)
Thus Muhammad’s opponents at Mecca, the doubting and not entirely unsophisticated Quraysh, demanded two signs validating his claim to prophecy: that he should ascend into heaven and that he should return to them with a book that was intelligible to them.
The response lay in the Quran itself. We have already noted in chapter 2 above the somewhat enigmatic reference in Sura 17:1 to a miraculous journey whereby Muhammad was carried by God at night from Mecca to another place eventually identified as Jerusalem. But according to the tradition, the voyage did not end there. The source is the Life of the Messenger of God.
One whom I have no reason to doubt told me on the authority of Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri: I heard the Messenger say, “After the completion of my business in Jerusalem (on the occasion of the Night Journey) a ladder was brought to me finer than any I have ever seen. It was that to which the dying man looks when death approaches. My companion mounted it with me until we came to one of the gates of heaven called the Gate of the Watchers. An angel called Isma‘il was in charge of it, and under his command were twelve thousand angels, each of them having (another) twelve thousand angels under his command.” As he told the story the Messenger used to say, “and none knows the armies of God but He” (Quran 74:31). “When Gabriel brought me in, Isma‘il asked who I was, and when he was told that I was Muhammad, he asked if I had been given a mission, and on being assured I had, he wished me well.” …
… Then I was taken up to the second heaven and there were the two maternal cousins, Jesus, Son of Mary, and John, son of Zakariah. Then to the third heaven and there was a man whose face was as the moon at full. This was my brother Joseph, son of Jacob. Then to the fourth heaven and there was a man called Idris, “and We have exalted him to a lofty place” (Quran 19:56–57). Then to the fifth heaven and there was a man with white hair and a long beard; never before have I seen a more handsome man than he. This was the beloved among his people, Aaron, son of Imran. Then to the sixth heaven and there was a dark man with a hooked nose like the Shanu’a. This was Moses, son of Imran. Then to the seventh heaven and there was a man sitting on a throne at the gate of the immortal mansion. Every day seventy thousand angels went in, not to come back until the Resurrection Day. Never have I seen a man more like myself. This was my father Abraham. (Life 268–270) [IBN ISHAQ1955: 184–186]
Was this heavenly ascension the occasion, then, when Muhammad received the Book? The text just cited does not seem to suggest it, but on the evidence of the Quran—and of the Bible and the Jewish tradition—Moses certainly received his Book on one single occasion. The Quranic evidence is not so certain for Jesus, but in his case too the Book appears to have been delivered once and for all. Muhammad’s circumstances were patently different: both the Quran and the biographical traditions about the Prophet show the Quran being delivered chapter by chapter, and even occasionally verse by verse. It must have prompted remarks, since the Quran adverts to this quality that sets Muhammad apart from the other bearers of revelation.
We have divided the Quran into parts that you might recite it to men slowly, with deliberation. That is why We sent it down by degrees. (Quran 17:106)
The Muslim tradition certainly discussed the problem, chiefly in the context of the month of Ramadan, a holy month that the Quran itself closely associates with the act of revelation.
Ramadan is the month in which the Quran was revealed as guidance to man and clear proof of the guidance, and a criterion (of falsehood and truth). (Quran 2:185)
The Muslim commentator Zamakhshari (1134 C.E.) supplies additional details on this epochal event.
“In which the Quran was revealed”: … The meaning of these words is: in which it began to be revealed. This occurred during the Night of Destiny. Some say that the Quran may have been sent down as a whole to the lowest heaven (on this night), and then later section by section to the earth. Others say that the meaning is “(the month of Ramadan) on account of which the Quran was revealed.” … The following is transmitted from the Prophet: the sheets (of writing) of Abraham came down on the first night of Ramadan; the Torah was sent down on the sixth night into the month; the Gospel the thirteenth, and the Quran after a lapse of twenty-four (nights into Ramadan). (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
The Quran returns to the same event in another verse, and once again the commentator fills out the narrative.
The perspicuous Book is a witness that We sent it down on a night of blessing—so that We could warn—on which all affairs are sorted out and divided as commands from Us. (Quran 44:2–5)
Most traditions say that the “night of blessing” is the same as the Night of Destiny (that is, the 24th of Ramadan), for God’s word says: “Behold, We sent it (that is, the Quran) on the Night of Destiny” (Quran 97:1). Moreover, His words “on this night every wise bidding is determined” correspond with His words “In it the angels and the spirit descend, by the leave of their Lord, upon every command” (Quran 97:4). Finally, this also corresponds with his words “The month of Ramadan wherein the Quran was sent down” (Quran 2:185). According to most of the Prophetic traditions, the Night of Destiny falls during the month of Ramadan.
If one were to ask what is the significance of the sending down of the Quran on this night, I would respond: It is said that God first sent it down in its entirety from the seventh heaven to the lowest heaven. Then He commanded excellent writers to transcribe it on the Night of Destiny. Gabriel subsequently revealed it piece by piece to the Messenger of God. (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
Islam shares with Judaism its belief in a heavenly prototype of Scripture, here called in the Quran’s own words “the Mother of the Book,” or so the lines were understood by the Muslim commentators.
I call to witness the clear Book, that we made it an Arabic Quran that you may perhaps understand. It is inscribed in the Mother of the Book with Us, sublime, dispenser of (all) laws. (Quran 43:2–4)
“Perhaps”: This word expresses a wish, because there is a connection between this term and expressions of hoping. So we can say it means: We have created the Book in Arabic and not in any other language because We intended that the Arabs should understand it and not be able to say: “If only the verses of the Book had been sent forth clearly!”
The original text (of the Book) is the tablet corresponding to the words of God: “… it is a glorious Quran, in a well-preserved tablet” (Quran 85:21V.). This writing is designated the “Mother of the Book” because it represents the original in which the individual books are preserved. They are derived from it by copying. (Zamakhshari ad. loc.)
Zamakhshari was here simply summarizing what the Quran itself asserts: that the Book of revelation is one and is preserved in Heaven. It contains all God’s decrees and sums up all wisdom.
He has the keys of the Unknown. No one but He has knowledge; He knows what is on the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls without His knowledge, nor a grain in the darkest recesses of the earth, nor any thing green or seared that is not noted in the clear Book. (Quran 6:59)
… There is not the weight of an atom on the earth and in the heavens that is hidden from your Lord, nor is there anything smaller or greater than this but is recorded in the clear Book. (Quran 10:61)
Do you not know that God knows whatever is in the heavens and the earth? This surely is in the Book; this is how God works inevitably. (Quran 22:70)
There is no calamity that befalls the earth or yourselves but that it was in the Book before We created them. This is how God works inevitably. (Quran 57:22)
It is this same Book whose exemplars were given to the earlier peoples of God’s choice, to Moses for the Jews (Quran 28:43, 32:23, etc.) and to Jesus for the Christians (3:43, 19:31), and whose validity the Quran now confirms.
And this is a revelation from the Lord of all the worlds,
With which the trusted Spirit descended
Upon your heart, that you may be a warner
In clear Arabic.
This was indicated in Books of earlier people.
Was it not a proof for them that the learned men of Israel knew it?
(Quran 26:191–197)
What We have revealed to you in the Book is the truth, and proves what was sent before it to be true. (Quran 35:31)
And all the more reason why those “People of the Book” should accept this new exemplar being revealed through the Messenger Muhammad.
Say to them: “O People of the Book, what reason have you for disliking us other than that we believe in God and what was sent down before us?” (Quran 5:59)
It was the view that the Quran was in its primal form a book in heaven and thence was sent down to Muhammad, first whole and then in discrete revelations, that embroiled the Muslims’ Scripture in an internal theological controversy that has little direct echo in either Judaism or Christianity.
If the Quran is the “speech” of God, His Word, then it is necessarily one of His attributes, a subject that provoked a lively interest among early Muslim theologians who were just beginning to explore the connection between essence and accidents as those Greek-defined notions were applied to God. It is difficult to say whether that interest antedated the debate or the debate provoked the interest in a conceptual system that helped the parties to argue or defend their positions. In any case, by the middle of the eighth century the issue had been broached. Indeed, it had gained such notoriety that in the 830s it became the benchmark of one of the few officially promulgated definitions of orthodoxy—and so of heresy—in Islam: the Caliph al-Ma’mun (813–833 C.E.) required Muslims to swear that the Quran was the created speech of God and threatened the recusants with imprisonment.
One who chose not to swear on that occasion was the jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855 C.E.), whose “profession of faith” includes the following article on the Quran.
The Quran is the Word of God and it is not created. It is not wrong to say, “It is not created,” for God’s Word is not separate from Him, and there is nothing of Him that is created. Beware of discussing this with those who speak about this subject and talk of the “creation of sounds” and such matters, and those who go midway and say “I don’t know whether the Quran is created or uncreated, but it is God’s Word.” Such a one is guilty of a religious innovation, as is the one who says “It is created,” for it is God’s Word and that is not created. (Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Creed) [WILLIAMS 1971: 29]
In despite of Ma’mun and the theologians who may have had the caliphal ear at the time, it was the position of Ibn Hanbal—that the Quran is uncreated and eternal—that became the normative one in Islam. But while Ibn Hanbal simply asserts it in the document just cited, later theologians were willing to argue the case at length and in detail. This, for example, is how the theological argument is integrated into the received accounts of the revelation of the Quran by al-Nasafi (d. 1114 C.E.) in his Sea of Discourse on Theology.
The Quran is God’s speaking, which is one of His attributes. Now God in all of His attributes is One, and with all His attributes is eternal and not contingent, (so His speaking is) without letters and without sounds, not broken up into syllables or paragraphs. It is not He nor is it other than He. He caused Gabriel to hear it as sound and letters, for He created sound and letters and caused him to hear it by that sound and those letters. Gabriel, upon whom be peace, memorized it, stored it (in his mind) and then transmitted it to the Prophet, upon whom be God’s blessing and peace, by bringing down a revelation and a message, which is not the same as bringing down a corporeal object and a form. He recited it to the Prophet, upon whom be God’s blessing and peace, the Prophet memorized it, storing it up (in his mind), and then recited it to his Companions, who memorized it and recited it to the Followers, the Followers handed it on to the upright, and so on until it reached us. It is (now) recited by tongues, memorized by hearts and written in codices, though it is not contained by the codices. It may be neither added to nor taken from; just as God is mentioned by tongues, recognized by hearts, worshipped in places, yet He is not confined to existence in those places nor in those hearts. It is as He said, “Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Messenger, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel which they have” (Quran 7:157), for they found (in those Books) only his picture, his description, not his person. Similarly, Paradise and Hell are mentioned, but they are not actually present among us. All this is according to the school of the truly orthodox. (Nasafi, Sea of Discourse) [JEFFERY 1962: 398]
We have already seen the Quran’s own response to accusations that it represents nothing more than the invention of Muhammad. Go, God challenges the doubters, and produce another Book like it.
This Quran is not such as could be composed by anyone but God. It confirms what has been revealed before, and is an exposition of what was decreed for mankind, without any doubt, by the Lord of the worlds.
Do they say (of the Prophet) “He has composed it”? Say to them: “Bring a Sura like this, and call anyone apart from God you can to help you, if what you say is true.” (Quran 10:37–38)
The Quran, then, was not only of heavenly origin; it was, as a direct consequence of that origin, inimitable by mere men, Muhammad or any other, and so the challenge issued in this sura went unanswered. That fact remained the chief probative miracle of Islam, the “sign” that Muhammad resolutely refused to produce but that God produced for him and so verified His religion and His Prophet. The essayist al-Jahiz (d. 868 C.E.) reflects on this.
Muhammad had one unique sign, which affects the mind much in the same manner that (Moses’) parting of the seas affected the eyes, namely, when he said to the Quraysh in particular and the Arabs in general—and they included many poets and orators, and eloquent, shrewd, wise, tolerant, sagacious, experienced, and farsighted men—“If you can equal me with but a single sura, my claims will be false and you will be entitled to call me a liar.” Now it is impossible that among people like the Arabs, with their great numbers, the variety of their tastes, their language, their overflowing eloquence, and their remarkable capacity for elegant language, which has enabled them to describe … everything that crawls or runs, and in short everything that the eye can see and the mind picture, who possess every kind of poetic form,… the same people who were the first to show hatred toward him and make war, suffering losses themselves and killing some of his supporters, that among these people, I say, who were the fiercest in hatred, the most vengeful, the most sensitive to favor and slight, the most hostile to the Prophet, the quickest to condemn weakness and extol strength, no orator or poet should have dared take up the challenge.
Knowing everything we do, it is inconceivable that words should not have been their weapon of choice … and yet that the Prophet’s opponents should have unanimously refrained from using them, at a time when they were sacrificing their possessions and their lives, and that they should not all have said, or that at least one of them should have said: Why do you kill yourselves, sacrifice your possessions, and forsake your homes, when the steps to be taken against him are simple and the way of dealing with him easy: let one of your poets or orators compose a speech similar to his, equal in length to the shortest sura he has challenged you to imitate, or the meanest verse he has invited you to copy? (Jahiz, Proofs of Prophecy 143–144)
Scholars, medieval Muslim and modern Western, have for a long time been attempting to arrange the suras or chapters of the Quran in some kind of chronological order, chiefly in an attempt to integrate them into the biographical data on the life of the Prophet. As this quest proceeded, there have been various candidates for the earliest of the revelations, among them Sura 74.
O you, enfolded in your mantle,
Arise and warn!
Glorify your Lord,
Purify your inner self,
And banish all trepidation.
(Quran 74:1–5)
When we turn to the medieval Muslim commentators, we find a variety of opinions on which might have been the earliest sura.
It is maintained by some that this (74:1–5) was the first sura to be sent down. Jabir ibn Abdullah related (the following) from the Messenger of God: I was on Mount Hira (near Mecca) when someone called out to me, “Muhammad, you are the Messenger of God.” I looked to the right and to the left but saw nothing. Then I looked up above me and there I saw something.—In the report according to (his wife) Aisha he says, “I glanced up above me and there I saw someone sitting on a throne between heaven and earth,” meaning it was the angel Gabriel who had called out to him—“I was frightened,” the tradition continues, “and returned to Khadija (Muhammad’s first wife) and called out: ‘Dress me in a mantle, dress me in a mantle!’ Then Gabriel came and said, ‘O you, enfolded in your mantle….’”
From al-Zuhri it is related, on the other hand, that the first sura to come down was “Recite in the name of the Lord” down to the words of God “what he has not known” (Sura 96:1–5). (After the revelation of this sura) the Messenger of God became sad (because the revelations had ceased) and he began to climb to the tops of the mountains. Then Gabriel came to him and said, “You are the Prophet of God.” And then Muhammad returned to Khadija and called out: “Dress me in a mantle and pour cold water over me!” Thereupon there came down the sura (which begins) “O you, enfolded in your mantle….”
Still others say that the Prophet heard certain things from the (members of the tribe of) the Quraysh which displeased him, and that this caused him to grieve. Afterwards he was wrapped in his robe reflecting on what grieved him, as is customary with grieving people. Then he was commanded (through the present sura) to warn his countrymen continuously (of the punishment of God), even when they insulted him and caused him injury. (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
God’s throne in heaven plays an important role in both Jewish and Muslim piety. In Islam the explicit mention of God’s heavenly seat in the Quran set in train a whole series of speculations on both the throne and the verses in which it appeared.
God! There is no god but He, the living, the eternal, self-subsisting, ever sustaining. Neither does somnolence affect Him nor sleep. To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth, and who can intercede with Him except by His leave? Known to Him is all that is present before men and what is hidden and that which is to come upon them, and not even a little of His knowledge can they grasp except what He wills. His Throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and He tires not protecting them: He alone is high and supreme. (Quran 2:255)
Qurtubi (d. 1273 C.E.) relates … on the authority of Muhammad ibn al-Hanifiyya: “When the Throne Verse was revealed, every idol and king in the world fell prostrate and the crowns of kings fell off their heads. Satans fled, colliding with one another in confusion until they came to Iblis [their chief]…. He sent them to find out what had happened, and when they came to Medina they were told that the Throne Verse had been sent down.” …
Tabarsi (d. 1153 C.E.) relates on the authority of Abdullah ibn Umar that the Prophet said: “Whoever recites the Throne Verse after a prescribed prayer, the Lord of Majesty Himself shall receive his soul at death. He would be as if he had fought with the Prophet of God until he was martyred.” … Ali also said: I heard the Messenger of God say, “O Ali, the chief of humankind is Adam, the chief of the Arabs is Muhammad, nor is there pride in this. The chief of the Persians is Salman [an early Persian convert to Islam], the chief of the Byzantines is Suhayb [A Christian convert among the Companions of the Prophet] and the chief of Abyssinia is Bilal [another convert and Islam’s first muezzin]. The chief of the mountains is Mount Sinai, and the chief of the trees is the lote tree. The chief months are the sacred months and the chief day is Friday. The chief of all speech is the Quran, the chief of the Quran is the (second) Sura, ‘The Cow,’ and the chief of ‘The Cow’ is the Throne Verse. O Ali, it consists of fifty words and every word contains fifty blessings.” [AYOUB 1984: 247–248]
If speculation on the Quran’s mention of the throne of God is essentially the work of piety, other verses in the Book raised enormously complex exegetical and legal questions. The following, for example, the so-called Satanic verses, occur in Sura 22 and are addressed to Muhammad.
We have sent no Messenger or Prophet before you with whose recitations Satan did not tamper. Yet God abrogates what Satan interpolates; then He confirms His revelations, for God is all-knowing, all-wise. This is in order to make the interpolations of Satan a test for those whose hearts are diseased and hardened. (Quran 22:52–53)
The occasion of the revelation of the present verse (22:52) is the following: As the members of the tribe of the Messenger of God turned away from him and took their stand in opposition to him, and as his relatives also opposed him and refused to be guided by what he brought to them, then, as a result of extreme exasperation over their estrangement, and of the eager desire and longing that they be converted to Islam, the Messenger of God hoped that nothing would be revealed to him that would make them shy away…. Now this wish persisted until the Sura called “The Star” (Sura 53) came down. At that time he (still) found himself with that hope in his heart regarding the members of his tribe. Then he began to recite (53:19–23):
“Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza
And Manat, the third, the other?
Are there sons for you and daughters for Him?
This is certainly an unjust apportioning.
“These are only names which you and your fathers have invented. No authority was sent down by God for them. They only follow conjecture and will-fulfillment, even though guidance had come already from their Lord.”
When, however, he came to God’s words “And Manat, the third, the other,” Satan substituted something else conformable to the wish that the Messenger of God had been harboring, that is, he whispered something to him which would enable the Messenger to fulfill his wish. In an inadvertent and misleading manner his tongue hurried on ahead of him, so that he said: “These (goddesses) are the exalted cranes. Their intercession (with God) is to be hoped for….” Yet the Messenger of God was not clear at this point until the protection (of God) reached him and he became attentive again.
Some say that Gabriel drew his attention to what had happened, or that Satan himself spoke these words and brought them to the people’s hearing. As soon as the Messenger of God prostrated himself in prayer at the end of the sura, all who were present did it with him and felt pleased (that they had had their way). That the opportunity for doing this would be given to Satan constituted a temptation and it was God’s test through which the hypocrites should increase in grievance and injury, but the believers should increase in enlightenment and assurance. (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
The intrusion of these spurious verses into the Quran, followed by their removal, is mirrored in reverse by the question whether our copies of the Quran, its written exemplars, contain all the material revealed by God to His Prophet. The text itself gives us no reason to think that such is not the case, but the Muslim tradition preserves another recollection. As we shall see shortly, the Shi‘ite Muslims have charged that the received text was indeed tampered with for sectarian reasons, but there are other, more fundamental cases of omissions that are more anomalous. The best known is that of a verse which prescribed stoning as a penalty for adultery and which was, on unimpeachable testimony, “memorized and recited” as part of the Quran in Muhammad’s own lifetime. Yet it occurs nowhere in the text of the Book. If the “stoning verse” is the most celebrated example of genuine revelation not incorporated into the “copy” of the Quran, it is not the only one, as these canonically accepted traditions suggest.
Ubayy reports: The Messenger of God said to me, “God has commanded me to instruct you in the reciting of the Quran.” He then recited “Did not those who rejected the Prophet among the People of the Book and the associators….” The verse continued, “Did the offspring of Adam possess a wadi of property,” or “Were the offspring of Adam to ask for a wadi of property and he received it, he would ask for a second, and if he received that, he would demand a third wadi. Only dust will fill the maw of the offspring of Adam, but God relents to him who repents. The very faith in God’s eyes is the original belief, not Judaism or Christianity. Who does good, it will never be denied him.” (Suyuti) [Cited by BURTON 1977: 82–83]
Ibn Abbas said, Did the offspring of Adam possess two wadis of wealth, he would desire a third. Only dust will fill the maw of the offspring of Adam, but God relents to him who repents. Umar asked, “What is this?” Ibn Abbas replied that Ubayy had instructed him to recite this (as part of the Quran). Umar took Ibn Abbas to confront Ubayy. Umar said, “We don’t say that.” Ubayy insisted that the Prophet had so instructed him. Umar then asked him, “Shall I write it into the copy in that case?” Ubayy said, “Yes.” This was before the copying of the Uthman codices (without the verses in question) and on which the practice now rests. (Burhan al-Din al-Baji) [Cited by BURTON 1977: 83]
The assembled and ordered text of the Quran as we now possess it was the result of a cooperative work begun soon after the death of the Prophet. It was brought to completion by Uthman, an early companion of the Prophet and the third Caliph or head of the Muslim community (644–656 C.E.).
Zayd ibn Thabit said: Abu Bakr [Caliph 632–634 C.E.] sent for me at the time of the battle of al-Yamama, and Umar ibn al-Khattab [Caliph 634–644 C.E.] was with him. Abu Bakr said: Umar has come to me and said:
“Death was rampant at the battle of al-Yamama and took with it many of the reciters of the Quran. I fear lest death in battle also overtake the reciters of the Quran in the provinces and so a large part of the Quran be lost. I think you should give orders to collect the Quran.”
“What,” I asked Umar, “do you wish to do something which the Prophet of God himself did not do?”
“By God,” replied Umar, “it would be a good deed.”
Umar did not leave off urging me until at length God opened my heart to this and I thought as Umar did.
Zayd continued: Abu Bakr said to me: “You are a young man, intelligent, and we see no fault in you; more, you have already written down the revelation for the Prophet of God, may God bless and save him. Therefore go and seek the Quran and collect it.”
By God, if he had ordered me to move a mountain, it would not have been harder for me than his order to collect the Quran. “What,” I asked, “will you do something which the Prophet of God himself, may God bless and save him, did not do?”
“By God,” replied Abu Bakr, “it would be a good deed.”
Umar did not leave off urging me until at length God opened my heart to this as He had opened the hearts of Abu Bakr and Umar.
Then I searched out and collected the parts of the Quran, whether they were written on palm leaves or flat stones or in the hearts of men. Thus I found the end of the “Sura of Repentance” (Quran 9:129–130), which I had been unable to find anywhere else, in the possession of Abu’l-Khuzayma al-Ansari. These were the verses “There came to you a Prophet from amongst yourselves. It grieves me that you sin …” to the end.
The (collected) leaves remained in the possession of Abu Bakr until his death, then in Umar’s for as long as he lived, and then with Hafsa, the daughter of Umar.
Anas ibn Malik said: Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman accompanied Uthman [Caliph 644–656 C.E.] when he was preparing the army of Syria together with the army of Iraq to conquer Armenia and Azharbayjan. Hudhayfa was astonished by the differences in the (two armies’) reading of the Quran, and said to Uthman, “O Commander of the Faithful, catch hold of this community before they begin to differ about their Book as do the Jews and the Christians.”
Uthman sent to Hafsa to say, “Send us the leaves. We shall copy them in codices and return them to you.”
Hafsa sent them to Uthman, who ordered Zayd ibn Thabit, Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, Sa‘id ibn al-As and Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham to copy them into codices. Uthman said to the three of them who were of the tribe of the Quraysh, “If you differ from Zayd ibn Thabit on anything in the Quran, write it down according to the language of the Quraysh, for it is in their language that the Quran was revealed.”
They did as he bade, and when they had copied the leaves into codices, Uthman returned the leaves to Hafsa. He sent copies of the codex which they made in all directions and gave orders to burn every leaf and codex which differed from it. (Bukhari, Sahih 3.392–394)
One striking feature of the Quran as we possess it is the fact that only one sura, Sura 9, also called “Repentance” or “Immunity,” does not open with the formula “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” The following Prophetic tradition explains the anomaly and sheds some light as well on how the suras might have been put together.
Ibn Abbas said he asked Uthman what had induced him to deal with (Sura 8 called) “The Spoils,” which is one of the medium-sized suras, and with (Sura 9 called) “Immunity,” which is one with a hundred verses, joining them without writing the line containing “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” and putting it among the seven long suras (at the beginning of the Quran). When he asked again what had induced him to do that, Uthman replied: “Over a period of time suras with numerous verses would come down to the Messenger of God, and when something came down to him he would call one of those who wrote and tell him to put those verses in the sura in which such-and-such was mentioned, and when a (single) verse came down he would tell them to put it in the sura in which such-and-such is mentioned. Now ‘The Spoils’ was one of the first to come down in Medina, and ‘Immunity’ was among the last of the Quran to come down, and the subject matter of one resembled that of the other, so because the Messenger of God was taken (by death) without having explained to us whether it (‘Immunity’) belonged to it (‘The Spoils’), I joined them without writing the line containing ‘In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,’ and put it among the long suras.” Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Tirmidhi, and Abu Dawud transmitted this tradition. (Baghawi, Mishkat al-masabih 8.3)
The Quran, with its vowels unmarked in the manner of Semitic writing and transcribed in a still somewhat defective script—the Quran is the earliest Arabic literary text committed to writing—was open to different manners of reading and pronunciation. The Hebrew Bible had gone through similar uncertainties until its own textual standardization, and here we stand at the beginning of the same process as it affects the Quran.
Umar ibn al-Khattab said: I heard Hisham ibn Hakim ibn Hizam reciting the sura (called) “The Criterion” [that is, Sura 25] in a different manner from my way of reciting it, and it was the Messenger of God who taught me how to recite it. I nearly spoke sharply to him, but I delayed until he had finished, and then catching his cloak by the neck, I brought him to God’s Messenger and said: “Messenger of God, I heard this man reciting ‘The Criterion’ in a manner different from that in which you taught me to recite it.” He told me to let the man go and bade him to recite. When he recited it in the manner in which I had (earlier) heard him recite it, God’s Messenger said, “Thus it was sent down.” He then told me to recite it, and when I had done so he said, “Thus it was sent down. The Quran was sent down in seven modes of reading, so recite according to what comes most easily.”
Ibn Abbas reported God’s Messenger as saying, “Gabriel taught me to recite in one mode, and when I replied to him and kept asking him to give me more, he did so till he reached seven modes.” Ibn Shihab said he had heard that these seven modes were essentially one, not differing about what is permitted and what is prohibited. (Baghawi, Mishkat al-masabih 8.3.1)
These Prophetic traditions represent the beginnings of one aspect of the textual study of the Quran in Islam, that devoted to a proper “reading” of the sacred text. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406 C.E.), who stands at the end of the process, describes how it evolved.
The Quran is the word of God that was revealed to His Prophet and that is written down between the two covers of copies of the Quran. Its transmission has been continuous in Islam. However, the men around Muhammad transmitted it on the authority of the Messenger of God in different ways. These differences affect certain of the words in it and the manner in which the letters were pronounced. They were handed down and became famous. Eventually, seven specific ways of reading the Quran became established. Transmission of these Quranic readings with their particular pronunciation was also continuous. They came to be ascribed to certain men from among a large number of persons who had become famous as their transmitters. The Seven Quran Readings became the basis for reading the Quran. Later on other readings were occasionally added to the seven. However, they are not considered by the authorities on Quran reading to be as reliably transmitted (as the Seven).
The (Seven) Quran Readings are well known from books which deal with them. Certain people have contested the continuity of their transmission. In their opinion they are ways of indicating the pronunciation, and pronuciation is something which cannot definitely be fixed. This, however, they thought not to reflect upon the continuity of the transmission of the Quran (itself). The majority do not admit their view. The majority assert the continuity of the transmission of the Seven Readings. Others asserted the continuity of all Seven, save for certain fine points of pronunciation…. Quran readers continued to circulate and transmit these readings, until the knowledge of them was fixed in writing and treated systematically. (Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima 6.10) [IBN KHALDUN 1967: 2:439–440]
The discipline of Quran readings is often extended to include also the discipline of Quran orthography, which deals with usage of the letters in copies of the Quran and with the orthography of the Quran. The Quran uses many letters that are used differently than is usual in writing…. When the divergences in the usage and norm of writing made their appearance, it became necessary to deal with them comprehensively. Therefore, they too were written down when scholars fixed the sciences in writing. (Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima 6.10) [IBN KHALDUN 1967: 2:442]
God had helped you during the Battle of Badr at a time when you were helpless. So act in compliance with the laws of God; you may well be grateful. (Quran 3:123)
Some Muslim scholars had difficulty with this particular verse in the transmitted Quran.
“When you were helpless …”: al-Qummi and al-Ayyashi say according to (the Imam) Ja‘far al-Sadiq: They were not helpless, for the Messenger of God was among them. (Actually the following) came down: “When you were weak….” Al-Ayyashi reports according to Ja‘far al-Sadiq that Abu Basir recited the verse in this manner in al-Sadiq’s presence. Ja‘far said that God had not revealed the verse in that form, but what had come down was “When you were few.… ” In a Prophetic tradition it is said that God never cast down His Messenger and so what had been revealed was “when you were few….” In several reliable reports it is said that they numbered three hundred and thirteen. (Kashi ad loc.)
This kind of textual criticism may have had no other object than to express a reservation on what was considered an unlikely thing for God to have said of His own Prophet. But in other instances the criticism is more direct and more pointed—namely, that the text of God’s Book had been tampered with in order to promote one sectarian view at the expense of another. The latter was most often the Shi‘ites or “Party of Ali,” who thought that spiritual leadership in the community had been reserved for Muhammad’s cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib and his descendants. Since the Quran is silent on this claim, there were inevitably Shi‘ite charges of tampering with the text.
… And the oppressors will now come to know through what reversals they will be overthrown! (Quran 26:227)
Al-Qummi says: God mentioned their enemies and those who did wrong against them. He has said (in 26:227), “Those who have done wrong against the law of the family of Muhammad will (one day) know what kind of turning upside down they will experience.” This is the way the verse was actually revealed. (Kashi ad loc.)
O Messenger, announce what has reached you from your Lord, for if you do not, you will not have delivered His message. God will preserve you from men; for God does not guide those who do not believe. (Quran 5:67)
“Announce what has reached you”: That is, concerning Ali. According to the tradition of the authorities on doctrine, this verse was actually revealed in this (extended) form [that is, including “concerning Ali”].
“For if you do not …”: If you discontinue the delivery of what has been sent down to you concerning Ali’s guardianship (over the believers), and you keep this secret, then it is as if you delivered none of the message of the Lord concerning that which requires reconciliation. Some also read: “His message concerning the confession of the unity of God.” …
“God does not guide those who do not believe”: In the Collection (of al-Tabarsi) it is said on the authority of Ibn Abbas and Jabir ibn Abdullah that God commanded His Prophet to place Ali before men and to (publicly) inform them of his guardianship (over them). The Prophet, however, was afraid that they would say: “He is protecting his cousin,” and that a group of his companions might find this distressing. The present verse came down regarding this. On the following day, the Prophet took Ali gently by the hand and said: “Whose protector I am, their protector (also) is Ali.” Then he recited the verse in question.” (Kashi ad loc.)
Among the voluminous works of the essayist al-Jahiz (d. 886 C.E.) is one entitled The Proofs of Prophecy. In it he took up the question of why the earliest generations of Muslims did not, like the Christians, make a systematic collection of the various and many proofs of Muhammad’s prophetic calling.
Let us return to the question of the signs and tokens of the Prophet, and the arguments in favor of his proofs and testimonies. I say this: If our ancestors, who compiled written editions of the Quran, which up to that point had been scattered in men’s memories, and united the people behind the reading of Zayd ibn Thabit, while formerly other readings were in free circulation, and established a text free from all additions and omissions, if those early Muslims had likewise collected the signs of the Prophet, his arguments, proofs, and miracles, the various manifestations of his wondrous life, both at home and abroad, and even on the occasion when he preached to a great multitude, to a crowd so large that its testimony cannot be questioned except by ignorant fools or the bigoted opponents (of Islam), if they had done so, today no one could challenge the truth of these things, neither the godless dualist, nor the stubborn materialist, not even the licentious fop, the naive moron, or callow stripling. This tradition of the Prophet would then have been as well known among the common people as among the elite, and all our notables would see the truth (of their religion) as clearly as they see the falsity (of the beliefs) of Christians and Zoroastrians….
The first Muslims were led (to commit this omission) by their confidence in the manifest nature (of the acts of the Prophet); but we ourselves have come to this state because dunces, youths, madmen, and libertines lack the proper care and show themselves totally unconcerned, callow, and neglectful; also because, before acquiring even the elements of dialectical theology, they filled their heads with more subtleties than their strength can manage or their minds contain. (Jahiz, The Proofs of Prophecy 119)
Christianity rested its claim upon a Messiah, an individual who was sent not so much to teach the Kingdom of God as to proclaim it in his own person. For the Christian, Jesus did not belong in the company of the Prophets but was a unique figure in God’s plan, the Son of God promised from the beginning and whose redemptive death required no sequel. With Islam we are back on biblical ground, however. As we have seen, Muhammad was announced as one of a line of Prophets stretching back to Adam and reaching forward through Abraham and Moses, David and Solomon, until it reached Jesus. And, according to the Quran, though he had predecessors, he would have no successor.
Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but a Messenger of God and the seal of the Prophets. God has knowledge of every thing. (Quran 33:40)
The commentators took the verse as self-evident.
“But (he is) the messenger of God”: Every messenger is the father of his religious community insofar as they are obliged to respect and honor him, and he is obliged to care for them and give them advice….
“And the seal of the Prophets”: … If one asks how Muhammad (as the Seal of the Prophets) can be the last Prophet when Jesus will come down at the end of time [that is, to announce the Day of Judgment and suffer death], then I reply that Muhammad’s being the last of the prophets means that no one else will (afterwards) be active as a prophet; Jesus was active as a prophet before Muhammad. And when Jesus comes down he will do this because he devotes himself to the law of Muhammad and performs his prayer according to Muhammad’s direction of prayer [that is, facing Mecca], as if he were a member of this community. (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
Another already cited verse opens the perspective somewhat, however.
We have sent no Messenger or Prophet before you with whose recitations Satan did not tamper. (Quran 22:52)
The second half of the verse requires its own exegesis, as we have already seen in connection with the “Satanic verses.” Our concern here is with the opening phrase, which speaks to an important distinction.
“We have never sent any Messenger or Prophet … ”: This is a clear proof that there is a difference between a “Messenger” (rasul) and a “Prophet” (nabi). It is related from the Prophet that once when he was asked about the Prophets, he replied: “There are one hundred and twenty-four thousand.” And when he was then asked how many Messengers there were among those, he answered, “The great host of three hundred and thirteen.” The distinction between the two is that a Messenger is one of the Prophets to whom the Book is sent down, together with a miracle confirming it. A Prophet, on the other hand, who is not an Apostle, is one to whom no book has been sent down, but who was commanded only to restrain people on the basis of the earlier revealed Law. (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
The question mooted by Zamakhshari is in part exegetical—the occurrence in the Quran of two distinct terms, “Messenger” and “Prophet”—but arises as well from the need to separate and distinguish Muhammad from the other Prophets, biblical and nonbiblical, mentioned in the Quran. Zamakhshari’s criterion, that the Messenger is the recipient of a public revelation, which separates Muhammad from Jeremiah or Isaiah, for example, and brackets him with Moses and Jesus, was not the only distinction possible. In the passage that follows, the comparison is straightforward, detailed, and obviously popular. The context is said to be a meeting between Muhammad, who is accompanied by Umar, and the Jews of Medina. When Umar praises Muhammad, the Jews retort that he must be talking about Moses. Umar turns to Muhammad and asks, “Alas for my soul, was Moses better than you?”
Then the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: “Moses is my brother, but I am better than he, and I was given something more excellent than he was.” The Jews said: “This is what we wanted!” “What is that?” he asked. They said: “Adam was better than you; Noah was better than you; Moses was better than you; Jesus was better than you; Solomon was better than you.” He said: “That is false. I am better than all these and superior to them.” “You are?” they asked. “I am,” he said. They said, “Then bring a proof of that from the Torah.”
Muhammad agrees but must invoke the assistance of one of his Jewish converts, Abdullah ibn Salam, to check the Torah, presumably because this latter could read Hebrew, while Muhammad was, as the Muslim tradition maintained, “unlettered.” The discussion continues:
“Now why,” Muhammad asked, “is Adam better than I?“ “Because,” they answered, “God created him with His own hand and breathed into him of His spirit.” “Adam,” he then replied, “is my father, but I have been given something better than anything he has, namely, that every day a herald calls five times from the East to the West: ‘I bear witness that there is no god but the God and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’ No one has ever said that Adam was the Messenger of God. Moreover, on the Day of Resurrection the Banner of Praise will be in my hand and not in that of Adam.” “You speak but the truth,” they replied, “that is so written in the Torah.” “That,” he said, “is one.”
Said the Jews: “Moses is better than you.” “And why?” he inquired. “Because,” they said, “God spoke to him four thousand four hundred and forty words, but never did He speak a thing to you.” “But I,” he responded, “was given something superior to that.” “And what was that?” they asked. Said he: “Glory be to Him who took His servant by night (Quran 17:1), for He bore me up on Gabriel’s wing until He brought me to the seventh heaven, and I passed beyond the Sidra tree of the Boundary at the Garden of Resort (Quran 53:14–15) till I caught hold of a leg of the Throne, and from above the Throne came a voice: ‘O Muhammad, I am God. Beside me there is no other god.’ Then with all my heart I saw my Lord. This is more excellent than that (given to Moses).” “You speak but the truth,” they replied, “that is so written in the Torah.” “That,” he said, “makes two.”
Noah is then similarly disposed of. “Well,” said Muhammad, “that is three.”
They said: “Abraham is better than you … God Most High took him as a friend.” He answered, “Abraham was indeed the friend of God, but I am His beloved. Do you know why my name is Muhammad? It is because He derived it from His name. He is Al-Hamid, the Praiseworthy, and my name is Muhammad, the Praised, while my community are the Hamidun, those who give praise.” “You speak but truly,” they replied, “this is greater than that.” “That is four.”
“But Jesus,” they said, “is better than you … because he mounted up to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem, where the satans came to bear him away, but God gave command to Gabriel who with his right wing smote them in their faces and cast them into the fire.” “Nevertheless,” he said, “I was given something better than that. I returned from fighting with the polytheists on the day of Badr exceedingly hungry, when there met me a Jewish woman with a basket on her head. In the basket there was a roasted kid, and in her sleeve some sugar. She said: ‘Praise be to God who has kept you safe. I made a vow to God that if you returned safely from this warlike expedition I would not fail to sacrifice this kid for you to eat.’ Then she set it down and I put my hand to it, which caused the kid to speak, standing upright on its four feet, and saying, ‘Eat not of me, for I am poisoned.’ ” “You speak but true,” they said. “That is five, but there remains one more, for we claim that Solomon was better than you.”
“Why?” he asked. “Because,” they said, “God subjected to him satans, jinn, men and winds, and taught him the language of the birds and insects.” “Yet,” he replied, “I have been given something superior to that. God subjected to me Buraq (the miraculous beast that bore Muhammad on the Night Journey), who is more precious than all the world. He is one of the riding-beasts of Paradise…. Between his eyes is written ‘There is no god but the God. Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’” “You speak truly,” they said, “we bear witness that there is no god but the God and that you are His servant and Messenger.” (Suyuti, Glittering Things) [JEFFERY 1962: 334–336]
Finally, in the course of his Night Journey and Ascension to Heaven (see chapter 2 above), Muhammad was given sight of his fellow Prophets, whose physical appearance is relayed, on his authority, in his standard biography.
Al-Zuhri alleged as from Sa‘id al-Musayyab that the Messenger described to his companions Abraham, Moses and Jesus as he saw them that night, saying: “I have never seen a man more like myself than Abraham. Moses was a ruddy faced man, tall, thinly fleshed, curly haired with a hooked nose as if he were of the Shanu’a. Jesus Son of Mary was a reddish man of medium height with lank hair and with many freckles on his face as though he had just come from a bath. One would suppose that his head was dripping with water, though there was no water on it. The man most like him among you is Urwa ibn Mas‘ud al-Thaqafi.” (Life 266) [IBN ISHAQ 1955: 183–184]
For the philosophers among the Muslims, a prophet too is a philosopher in his understanding of God’s eternal truths and moves to the higher stage of prophecy only upon turning toward society and converting those truths, or at least some of them, into an idiom comprehensible to the masses, who cannot philosophize and so need guidance on their path to happiness and salvation. So it is set forth by one of the most prominent among the philosophers: the physician, statesman, and polymath Ibn Sina (d. 1038 C.E.), or Avicenna as he came to be called in the West. In this passage from his Book of Deliverance it is first established that man is a social animal and will of necessity associate with other men and transact business. These transactions require a code of law, which in turn calls for a lawgiver, someone “in the position to speak to men and constrain them to accept the code; he must therefore be a man.” Avicenna continues:
Now it is not feasible that men should be left to their own opinions in this matter so that they will differ each from the other, every man considering as justice that which favors him, and as injustice that which works against his advantage. The survival and complete self-realization of the human race requires the existence of such a lawgiver….
It follows therefore that there should exist a prophet, and that he should be a man; it also follows that he should have some distinguishing feature which does not belong to other men, so that his fellows may recognize him as possessing something which is not theirs, and so that he may stand out apart from them. This distinguishing feature is the power to work miracles.
Such a man, if and when he exists, must prescribe laws for mankind governing all their affairs, in accordance with God’s ordinance and authority, God inspiring him and sending down the Holy Spirit upon him. The fundamental principle upon which his (that is, the prophet’s) code rests will be to teach them that they have One Creator, Almighty and Omniscient, whose commandments must of right be obeyed; that the Command must belong to Him who possesses the power to create and that He has prepared for those who obey Him a future life of bliss but wretchedness for such as disobey Him. So the masses will receive the prescriptions, sent down upon his tongue from God and the Angels, with heedful obedience. (Avicenna, Book of Deliverance) [AVICENNA 1951: 42–44]
There is little in this to suggest that Muhammad had either a unique role among the prophets or that the possibility of prophetic revelation ended with him. One can suggest that it is because these passages occur in the context of a discussion of metaphysics or theories of knowledge. But in one of his works, On the Proof of the Prophecies, Avicenna explicitly takes up the case of the prophethood of Muhammad, for reasons he explains at the outset.
You have asked—may God set you aright—that I sum up for you in a treatise the substance of what I said to you with a view to eliminate your misgivings about accepting prophecy. You are confirmed in these misgivings because the claims of the advocates of prophecy are either logically possible assertions that are treated as necessary without the benefit of (rigorous) demonstrative argument or even of (secondary) dialectical proof, or else impossible assertions on the order of fairy tales, such that the very attempt on the part of their advocate to expound them deserves derision.
Avicenna then gives his own succinct explanation of what prophetic revelation is and how it occurs.
Revelation is the emanation and the angel is the received emanating power that descends on the prophets as if it were an emanation continuous with the Universal Intellect. It is rendered particular, not essentially, but accidentally, because of the particularity of the recipient. Thus the angels have been given different names because (they are associated with) different notions; nevertheless, they form a single totality, which is particularized, not essentially, but accidentally, by the particularity of the recipient. The message, therefore, is that part of the emanation termed “revelation” which has been received and couched in whatever mode of expression is deemed best for furthering man’s good in both the eternal and the corruptible worlds as regards knowledge and political governance, respectively. The Messenger is the one who conveys what he acquires of the emanation termed “revelation,” again in whatever mode of expression is deemed best for achieving through his opinions the good of the sensory world by political governance and of the intellectual world by knowledge.
There immediately follows this curiously reticent conclusion.
This, then, is the summary of the discourse concerning the affirmation of prophecy, the showing of its essence, and the statements made about revelation, the angel and the thing revealed. As for the validity of the prophethood of our prophet, of Muhammad, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, it becomes evident to the reasonable man once he compares him with the other prophets, peace be on them. We shall refrain from elaboration here. (Avicenna, On the Proof of Prophecies 120–124) [LERNER & MAHDI 1972: 113–115]
The Bible is, in a sense, a long commentary upon itself, and Jesus too gave instruction to his disciples on how they were to understand his teaching, and particularly his parables. The reason in both instances is that the Word of God is not prima facie clear, or, if that sounds like an overbold statement, that it requires explanation. That much is clear from the Quran itself, which issued a warning about the problems and dangers in understanding the words of God, and thus provided an inviting peg upon which later commentators might hang their own theories concerning Quranic exegesis.
He has sent down this Book which contains some clear verses that are categorical [or “are from the Mother of the Book”] and others allegorical [or “ambiguous”]. But those who are twisted in mind look for verses allegorical [or “ambiguous”], seeking deviation and giving them interpretations of their own; but none knows their meaning except God; and those who are steeped in knowledge affirm: “We believe in them as all of them are from the Lord”; but only those who have wisdom understand. (Quran 3:7)
The following are the comments of Zamakhshari on these verses, written in 1134 C.E.
Categorical verses: namely, those whose diction and meaning are sufficiently clear that they are preserved from the possibility of differing interpretations and ambiguity. “And others that are ambiguous,” namely, those verses that are ambiguous in that they allow differing interpretations.
The Mother of the Book: that is, the origin of the Book, since the ambiguous verses must be traced back to it and harmonized with it. Examples of such ambiguity include the following: “The vision reaches Him not, but He reaches the vision; He is All-subtle, All-aware” (6:103); or “Upon that day their faces shall be radiant, gazing upon their Lord” (75:22); or “God does not command indecency!” (7:28) compared with “And when We desire to destroy a city, We command its men who live at ease, and they commit ungodliness therein. Then the command is realized against it, and We destroy it utterly” (17:16).
If one then asks whether the (meaning of the) entire Quran might not be (clearly) determined, I answer that men would (then) depend on it since it would be so easily accessible, and thus they would neglect what they lack, namely, research and meditation through reflection and inference. If they did that, then they would be neglecting the only way by which we can attain to a knowledge of God and His unity. Again, the ambiguous verses present a test and a means of distinguishing between those who stand firm in the truth and those who are uncertain regarding it. And great advantages, including the noble sciences and the profit of higher orders of being, are granted by God when scholars stimulate each other and so develop their natural skills, discovering the meanings of the ambiguous verses and harmonizing these with the (clearly) determined verses. Further, if the believer is firmly convinced that no disagreement or self-contradiction can exist in God’s words, and then he notices something that appears at least to be a contradiction, and he then diligently searches out some way of harmonizing it (with the clear verses), treating it according to a uniform principle, and by reflecting on it comes to an insight about himself and other things, and with God’s inspiration he comes to an understanding of the harmony that exists between the ambiguous verses and the (clearly) determined verses, then his certainty grows and the intensity of his conviction increases.
As for those whose heart is swerving: these are the people who introduce innovations.
They follow the ambiguous part: that is, they confine their attention to the ambiguous verses, which give free rein to innovations without harmonizing them with the (clearly) determined verses. But these (same verses) likewise permit an interpretation which agrees with the views of the people of truth.
The following interpretation depends on how one divides—in our parlance, punctuates—the text: to wit, whether or not there should be a pause or semicolon after “except God.” In Zamakhshari’s first interpretation it is not in fact so punctuated, though he concedes the possibility.
And none knows its interpretation except God and those firmly rooted in knowledge: namely, only God and His servants who have firmly rooted knowledge, that is to say, those who are firm in knowledge and so “bite with a sharp tooth,” come to the correct interpretation, according to which one must necessarily explain it. Some, however, place a pause after except God and begin a new sentence with And those firmly rooted in knowledge … say. Thus they interpret the ambiguous verses as those whose understanding God reserves to Himself alone as well as the recognition of whatever wisdom is contained in them, as, for example, the exact number of the executioners in Hell and similar questions. The first reading is the correct one, and the next sentence begins with they say, setting forth the situation of those who have a firmly rooted knowledge, namely, in the following sense: Those who know the meaning say we believe in it, that is, in the ambiguous verses.
All of them are from our Lord: that is, all the ambiguous verse as well as all the (clearly) determined verse (in the Quran) is from Him. Or (to put it another way), not only the ambiguous verses in the Book but also the (clearly) determined verses are from God, the Wise One, in whose words there is no contradiction and in whose Book there is no discrepancy. (Zamakhshari ad loc.)
One who preferred to read and punctuate this text as Zamakhshari had was the most straightforward Aristotelian produced in Islam, the Spanish philosopher Ibn Rushd or Averroes (d. 1198 C.E.). In his Decisive Treatise he is developing an argument that since there is no absolute Muslim consensus on which Scriptural verses should be read literally and which allegorically, a certain latitude should be permitted in exegesis (see below). He then turns to this same verse, Sura 3:7.
It is evident from what we have said (to this point) that a unanimous agreement cannot be established in (theoretical) questions of this kind, because of the reports that many of the believers of the first generation (of Muslims), as well as others, have said that there are allegorical interpretations which ought not to be expressed except to those who are qualified to receive allegories. These are those who “are firmly rooted in knowledge.” For we prefer to place a stop after God’s words “and those who are firmly rooted in knowledge” (and not before it), because if the scholars did not understand allegorical interpretation (but only God), there would be no superiority in their assent which would oblige them to a belief in Him not found among the unlearned. God has described them as those who believe in Him, and this can only refer to a belief which is based on (scientific or philosophical) demonstration; and this belief only occurs together with the science of allegorical interpretation. For the unlearned believers are those whose belief in Him is not based on demonstration; and if this belief which God has attributed to the scholars (in Quran 3:7) is peculiar to them, it must come through demonstration, and if it comes through demonstration, it only occurs together with the science of allegorical interpretation. For God the Exalted has informed us that those (verses) have an allegorical interpretation which is the truth, and demonstration can only be of the truth. That being the case, it is not possible for general unanimity to be established about allegorical interpretations, which God has made peculiar to scholars. This is self-evident to any fair-minded person. (Averroes, The Decisive Treatise 10) [AVERROES 1961: 53–54]
Instruction on how to read the Quran began, not unnaturally, with the Prophet himself, as this tradition circulated under Muhammad’s name spells out.
Abu Hurayra reported God’s Messenger as saying: “The Quran came down showing five aspects: what is permissible, what is prohibited, what is firmly fixed, what is obscure, and parables. So treat what is permissible as permissible and what is prohibited as prohibited, act upon what is firmly fixed, believe in what is obscure, and take a lesson from the parables.” (Baghawi, Mishkat al-Masabih 1.6.2)
Parables, this tradition would have us believe, are moral exempla, and the Quran abounds in them, like the rather extended one in Quran 68:17–32. Muhammad too used parables in his own teaching, and there is one with interesting similarities to Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1–23), and which has, like Jesus’, its own attached exegesis.
Abu Musa reported that the Messenger of God said: “The guidance and knowledge with which God has commissioned me is like abundant rain which fell on some ground. Part of it was good, and absorbing the water, it brought forth abundant herbage and pasture; and there were some hollows in it which retain the water by which God gave benefit to men, who drank, gave drink, and sowed seed. But some of it fell on another portion which consisted only of bare patches which could not retain the water or produce herbage. That [that is, the hollows] is like the one who becomes versed in religion and receives benefit from the message entrusted to me by God, so he knows for himself and teaches others; and (the bare patches) are like the one who does not show regard for that and does not accept God’s guidance with which I have been commissioned.” (Baghawi, Mishkat al-Masabih 1.6.1)
The already cited report in which Muhammad explains how the Muslim is to understand the Quran may seem somewhat schematic for a genuine Prophetic utterance. But the highly systematic, scholastic view of the sciences connected with reading and understanding the Quran that the Spanish social philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun inserted in his Prolegomenon to History in 1377 C.E. is less cause for surprise.
It should be known that the Quran was revealed in the language of the Arabs and according to their rhetorical methods. All the Arabs understood it and knew the meaning of the individual words and composite statements. It was revealed in chapters [that is, suras] and verses in order to explain the Oneness of God and the religious duties appropriate to the various occasions.
Some passages … are early and are followed by other, later passages that abrogate the earlier ones. The Prophet used to explain these things, as it is said, “So that you may explain to the people what was revealed to them” (Quran 14:46). He used to explain the unclear statements (in the Quran) and to distinguish the abrogating statements from those abrogated by them, and to inform the men around him of this sense. Thus the men around him became acquainted with the subject. They knew why individual verses were revealed and the situation that had required them, and this directly on Muhammad’s authority. Thus the verse of the Quran “When God’s help comes and the victory” (110:1) refers to the announcement of the Prophet’s death, and similar things.
These explanations were transmitted on the authority of the men around Muhammad [that is, the “Companions of the Prophet”; see chapter 5 below] and were circulated by the men of the second generation (after him). They continued to be transmitted among the early Muslims, until knowledge became organized in scholarly disciplines and systematic scholarly works began to be written. At that time most of these explanations were committed to writing. The traditional information concerning them, which had come down from the men around Muhammad and the men of the second generation was transmitted farther. That material reached al-Tabari (d. 923 C.E.), al-Waqidi (d. 823 C.E.) and al-Tha‘alibi (d. 1035 C.E.) and other Quran interpreters. They committed to writing as much of the traditional information as God wanted them to do.
The linguistic sciences then became technical discussions of the lexicographical meaning of words, the rules governing vowel endings, and style in the use of word combinations. Systematic works were written on these subjects. Formerly these subjects had been habitual with the Arabs, and so no recourse to oral and written transmission had been necessary with respect to them. Now, that was forgotten, and these subjects were learned from books by philologists. They were needed for the interpretation of the Quran, because the Quran is in Arabic and follows the stylistic technique of the Arabs. Quran interpretation thus came to be handled in two ways.
One kind of Quran interpretation is traditional. It is based on information received from the early Muslims. It consists of knowledge of the abrogating verses and of the verses that are abrogated by them, of the reasons why a verse was revealed, and the purposes of individual verses. All this can be known only through the traditions based on the authority of the men around Muhammad and the men of the second generation. The early scholars had already made complete compilations on the subject….
The other kind of Quran interpretation has recourse to linguistic knowledge, such as lexicography and the stylistic form used for conveying meaning through the appropriate means and methods. This kind of Quran interpretation rarely appears separately from the first kind. The first kind is the one that is wanted essentially. The second made its appearance only after language and the philological sciences had become crafts. However, it has become preponderant, as far as certain Quran commentaries are concerned. (Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima 6.10) [IBN KHALDUN 1967: 2:443–446]
The schema laid out by Ibn Khaldun is an ideal one. Even in its far less ideal forms, Quranic interpretation not only demanded linguistic skill, but—since the Book is filled with historical allusions, chiefly from the biblical tradition—required that the exegete possess a fund of information about the Sacred Past. The Jews were a likely source, as even the earliest Muslims understood.
Abdullah ibn Amr reported that God’s Messenger said: “Pass on information from me, even if it is only a verse of the Quran; and relate traditions from the Banu Isra’il, for there is no restriction.” … Bukhari transmitted this tradition. (Baghawi, Mishkat al-Masabih 2.1.1)
Thus a well-known tradition attributed to the Prophet. Ibn Khaldun concurred that such a transmission from Jewish sources had occurred, particularly when it came to fleshing out some of the narrative material in the Quran, and he had the social theory to enable him to explain it.
The early scholars’ works (on the Quran) and the information they transmit contain side by side important and unimportant matters, accepted and rejected statements. The reason is the Arabs had no books or scholarship. The desert attitude and illiteracy prevailed among them. When they wanted to know certain things that human beings are usually curious to know, such as the reasons for existing things, the beginning of creation, and the secrets of existence, they consulted the earlier People of the Book and got their information from them. The People of the Book were the Jews who had the Torah and the Christians who followed the religion (of the Jews). Now the People of the Torah who lived among the Arabs at that time were themselves Bedouins. They knew only as much about these matters as is known to ordinary People of the Book. The majority of those Jews were Himyarites [that is, South Arabians] who had adopted Judaism. When they became Muslims, they retained the information they possessed, such as information about the beginning of creation and information of the type of forecasts and predictions. That information had no connection with the (Jewish or Christian) religious laws they were preserving as their own. Such men were Ka‘b al-Ahbar, Wahb ibn Munabbih, Abdullah ibn Salam, and similar people.
The Quran commentaries were filled with material of such tendencies transmitted on their authority; it is information that entirely depends on them. It has no relation to (religious) laws, such that one might claim for it the soundness that would make it necessary to act (in accordance with it). The Quran interpreters were not very rigorous in this respect. They filled the Quran commentaries with such material, which originated, as we have stated, with the People of the Torah who lived in the desert and were not capable of verifying the information they transmitted. However, they were famous and highly esteemed because they were people of rank in their religion and religious group. Therefore, their interpretation has been accepted from that time onward. (Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddima 6.10) [IBN KHALDUN 1967: 2:445–446]
A thinker whose opinions recur again and again in the work of Averroes is Ghazali (d. 1111 C.E.), the earlier Baghdad theologian and lawyer. Ghazali’s scathing attack on the rationalist philosophy that was attracting some Muslim thinkers in the tenth and eleventh centuries was, despite its spirited defense by Averroes, the likely cause of its eventual repudiation in Islam. Ghazali too is willing to admit the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, though with considerably more caution than Averroes.
… The Prophet said: “Whoever interprets the Quran according to his own opinion will have his place in Gehenna.” The people who are acquainted with only the outer sense of exegesis have for this reason discredited the mystics to the extent that these latter practice exegesis, because they explain the wording of the Quran in a manner other than according to the tradition of Ibn Abbas and the (traditional) commentators; and they further maintain that what is involved (in such interpretation) is a matter of unbelief. If the advocates of traditional exegesis are correct, then the understanding of the Quran consists in nothing else than knowing its external meaning. But if they are not right, then what is the meaning of the Prophet’s words: “Whoever interprets the Quran according to his own opinion will have his place in Gehenna”?
It should be noted that whenever someone maintains that the Quran has no meaning other than that expressed by the external method of exegesis, then in so doing he is expressing his own limitations. With this avowal about himself he expresses something which is doubtless correct (for his own situation), but he is mistaken in thinking that the entire creation is to be regarded on his level, that is, restricted by his limitations and situation. The commentaries and traditions show that the meanings contained in the Quran exhibit a wide scope for experts in the field. Thus, Ali [the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet and the fourth Caliph of Islam] said (that a specific meaning can be grasped) only when God grants to someone an understanding of the Quran. But if nothing else is involved except the traditional interpretation, this is not “understanding.” Further, the Prophet said that the Quran had a literal meaning, an inner meaning, an end point and a starting point of understanding…. According to the opinion of some scholars, every verse can be understood in sixty thousand ways, and that what still remains unexhausted (of its meaning) is still more numerous. Others have maintained that the Quran contains seventy-seven thousand and two hundred (kinds of) knowledge….
Ibn Mas‘ud said: Whoever wishes to obtain knowledge of his ancestors and descendants should meditate upon the Quran. This knowledge does not appear, however, if one restricts the interpretation of the Quran to its outer meaning. Generally speaking, every kind of knowledge is included in the categories of actions and attributes, and the description of the nature of the actions and attributes of God is contained in the Quran. These kinds of knowledge have no end; yet in the Quran is found (only) an indication of their general aspects. Thereby the degrees of the deeper penetration into the particulars of knowledge are traced back to the (actual) understanding of the Quran. The mere outer aspect of interpretation gives no hint of this knowledge. Rather, the fact is that the Quran contains indications and hints, which certain select people with (correct) understanding can grasp, concerning all that remains obscure in the more abstract way of thinking and about which men disagree regarding the theoretical sciences and rational ideas. How can the interpretation and explanation of the outer meaning of the Quran be adequate for this?
There are, according to Ghazali, additional reasons why one should not be limited to the mere literal meaning of God’s word.
The Companions of the Prophet and the commentators disagree on the interpretation of certain verses and put forth differing statements about them which cannot be brought into harmony with one another. That all these statements were heard issuing from the mouth of the Messenger of God is patently absurd. One was obliged to understand one of these statements of the Messenger of God in order to refute the rest, and then it becomes clear that, as concerns the meaning (of the passage of the Quran in question), every exegete has expressed what appeared to him to be evident through his inferential reasoning. This went so far that seven different kinds of interpretations, which cannot be brought into harmony with one another, have been advanced concerning the letters at the beginning of (some of) the suras.
There arises, however, the danger of personal bias.
The prohibition (against interpretation according to personal-opinion cited at the outset) involves the following two reasons for its having been sent down: The first is that someone may have a (personal) opinion about something, and through his nature as well as his inclination he may harbor a bias toward it and then interpret the Quran accordingly in order thereby to find arguments to prove that his view is the correct one. Moreover, the meaning (which he links to his view) would not at all have appeared to him from the Quran if he did not have some preconceived opinion and bias. Sometimes this happens consciously, as perhaps in the case of those who use individual verses of the Quran as arguments in support of a heretical innovation and thus know that this is not in accordance with what is meant by the verse. They want rather to deceive their opponents. Sometimes, however, it (also) happens unconsciously. For instance, when a verse admits various meanings, a man inclines in his understanding to what best accords with his own opinion and inclination and thus interprets according to his “individual opinion.” That is, it is a person’s “individual opinion” which drives one to such an interpretation.
Finally, there is the question of the notorious ambiguity of the Arabic language.
The second reason is that someone may come to an interpretation of the Quran prematurely on the basis of the literal meaning of the Arabic, without the assistance of “hearing” (from earlier sources) and the Prophetic tradition on what is involved in the passages of the Quran which are difficult to understand, on the obscure and ambiguous expressions which are found in the Quran, and on the abbreviations, omissions, implications, anticipations, and allusions which are contained in it. Whoever has not mastered the outer aspect of exegesis, but proceeds hastily to conclusions on the meaning (of the Quran) solely on the basis of his understanding of the Arabic language, he commits many errors and aligns himself thereby to the group of those who interpret the Quran according to individual opinion. Prophetic tradition and the “hearing” are indispensable for the outer aspects of exegesis, first of all in order to make one secure thereby against the opportunities for error, and also in order to extend the endeavor to understand and to reach conclusions. (Ghazali, Revivification of the Sciences of Religion 1.268)
It is evident, then, from the differing opinions in the commentaries written on the subject—to say nothing of the received opinion that each verse of the Book “can be understood in sixty thousand ways”—that Muslims found a somewhat greater number of ambiguities in the Quran than the few classical instances cited by the exegetes. The whole range of learning that would eventually be brought to bear on elucidating them is next illustrated in textbook fashion by Ghazali.
The praiseworthy sciences have roots, branches, preliminaries, and completions. They (that is, the sciences of revelation) comprise, therefore, four kinds.
The “roots,” of which there are (in this instance) four, constitute the first kind: (They are) the Book of God, the custom of the Prophet, the consensus of the (Muslim) community, and the traditions concerning the Companions of the Prophet (that is, his contemporaries). The consensus of the community is a “root” because it furnishes indications of the custom of the Prophet; as a “root” it is ranked third. The same is true of the traditions (of the Companions), which likewise provide indications of the custom of the Prophet. The Companions witnessed the inspiration and the sending down (of the Quran) and were able to comprehend much, through a combination of circumstances, which others were not able to observe. Sometimes the explicit statements (of revelation) do not contain something which can be observed through a combination of circumstances. For this reason the men of learning found it beneficial to follow the example of the Companions of the Prophet and to be guided by the traditions regarding them.
The “branches” constitute the second kind. This group deals with that which one comprehends on the basis of the “roots” mentioned above—and indeed cannot be gleaned from the external wording alone—through which the mind is awakened and understanding is thus expanded, so that one comprehends other meanings that are beyond the external wording. Thus one comprehends from the words of the Prophet, “the judge may not judge in anger,” that he also would not judge when hungry, needing to urinate, or in the pains of sickness. The “branches” comprise two subtypes, the first of which deals with the requisites of the present world. This subtype is contained in the books of jurisprudence and is entrusted to the lawyers, who are thus the men of learning responsible for the present world. The second subtype deals with the requisites of the hereafter, thus the knowledge of the circumstances of the heart, its praiseworthy and blameworthy characteristics, that which is pleasing to God and that which is abhorrent to Him….
The “preliminaries” constitute the third kind. They are the tools (of Scriptural exegesis) such as lexicography and grammar, which are naturally one tool for gaining knowledge of the Book of God and the custom of His Prophet. In themselves lexicography and grammar do not belong to the sciences of revelation; however, one must become engrossed in them for the sake of revelation because the latter appears in the Arabic language. Since no revelation comes forth without language, the mastery of the language concerned becomes necessary as a tool. Among the tools of this kind belongs also the skill of writing; however this is not unconditionally required since the Messenger of God was un-lettered. If a man were able to retain in his memory everything he hears, then the skill of writing would become unnecessary. Yet, since people are not able to do this, in most cases the skill of writing is essential.
The “completions,” that is, in relation to the study of the Quran, constitute the fourth kind. This group contains the following divisions: (1) that which is connected with the external wording, such as the study of the (various) readings and of the phonetics; (2) that which is connected with the meaning of the contents, such as traditional exegesis, where one must also rely on tradition since the language alone does not yield the meaning; and (3), that which is connected with the “decisions” of the Quran, such as a knowledge of the abrogating and abrogated (verses), the general and the particular, the definite and the probable, as well as the kind and manner, in the same way that one makes one decision in relation to others.
It is already apparent from the listing of the “roots” above that the extra-Quranic traditions attributed to the Prophet rank directly after the Quran itself as part of God’s revelation. They too have their own proper sciences, as Ghazali now explains, and as we shall see in more detail in chapter 5 below.
The “completions” relating to the traditions of the Prophet and the historical narratives consist of: (1) the study of the authorities, including their names and relationships, as well as the names and characteristics of the Companions of the Prophet; (2) the study of the reliability of the transmitters (of those traditions); (3) the study of the circumstances under which the transmitters lived, in order to be able to distinguish between those who are unreliable and those who are reliable; and (4) the study of the life spans of the transmitters, through which that which is transmitted with defective chains of authorities can be distinguished from that which exhibits unbroken chains. (Ghazali, Revivification of the Sciences of Religion 1.254)
Averroes (d. 1198 C.E.) begins his tract entitled The Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy by demonstrating, as we shall see, that the Quran not only permits but even commands the study of philosophy. Whatever the virtues of this exercise, the fact remained that for most Muslims there was a conflict between what they were told in the Book of God and what they read in the Greek and Muslim philosophers. It is to this point that Averroes then turns.
Now since this religion is true and summons to the study which leads to the knowledge of the Truth, we the Muslim community know definitively that demonstrative study (that is, philosophy) does not lead to (conclusions) conflicting with what Scripture has given us; for truth does not oppose truth but accords with it and bears witness to it.
This being so, whenever demonstrative study leads to any manner of knowledge about any being, that being is inevitably either unmentioned or mentioned in Scripture. If it is unmentioned, there is no contradiction, and it is the same case as an act whose category is unmentioned so that the (Muslim) lawyer has to infer it by reasoning from Scripture. If Scripture does speak about it, the apparent meaning of the words inevitably either accords or conflicts with the conclusions of (philosophical) demonstration about it. If this apparent meaning accords, there is no conflict. If it conflicts, there is a call for allegorical interpretation. The meaning of “allegorical interpretation” is: the extension of the significance of an expression from real to metaphorical significance, without forsaking therein the standard metaphorical practices of Arabic, such as calling a thing by the name of something resembling it or a cause or a consequence or accompaniment of it, or other such things as are enumerated in accounts of the kinds of metaphorical speech.
… Muslims are unanimous in holding that it is not obligatory either to take all the expressions of Scripture in their apparent (or external) meaning or to extend them all from the apparent meaning by means of allegorical interpretation. They disagree (only) over which of them should and which should not be so interpreted: the Ash‘arites [that is, certain dialectical theologians] for instance give an allegorical interpretation to the verse about God’s directing Himself (Quran 2:29) and the Prophetic tradition about His descent (into this world), while the Hanbalites [that is, fundamentalist lawyers and traditionists] take them in their apparent meaning….
It may be objected: There are some things in Scripture which the Muslims have unanimously agreed to take in their apparent meaning, others (which they have agreed) to interpret allegorically, and others about which they have disagreed; is it permissible, then, that demonstration should lead to interpreting allegorically what they (that is, the Muslims) have agreed to take in its apparent meaning, or to taking in its apparent meaning what they have agreed to interpret allegorically? We reply: If unanimous agreement is established by a method which is certain, such (a result) is not sound; but if (the existence of) agreement on those things is a matter of opinion, then it may be sound. This is why Abu Hamid (al-Ghazali) and Abu’l-Ma‘ali (al-Juwayni) and other leaders of thought said that no one should be definitely called an unbeliever for violating unanimity on a point of interpretation in matters like these.
For Averroes, that unanimity which absolutely confines one to either a literal or an allegorical interpretation of a scriptural verse is only rarely achieved, particularly under the stringent conditions he posits. The absence of consensus of course gives considerable latitude to the exegete.
That unanimity on theoretical matters is never determined with certainty, as it can be on practical (or behavioral) matters, may be shown to you by the fact that it is not possible for unanimity to be determined on any question at any period unless that period is strictly limited by us, and all the scholars existing in that period are known to us, that is, known as individuals and in their total number, and the doctrine of each one of them on the question has been handed down to us on unassailable authority. And in addition to all this, unless we are sure that the scholars existing at the time were in agreement that there is not both an apparent and an inner meaning in Scripture, that knowledge of any question ought not to be kept secret from anyone, and that there is only one way for people to understand Scripture. But it is recorded in tradition that many of the first believers used to hold that Scripture had both an apparent and an inner meaning, and that the inner meaning ought not to be learned by anyone who is not a man of learning in this field and who is incapable of understanding it…. So how can it possibly be conceived that a unanimous agreement can be handed down to us about a single theoretical question, when we know definitely that not a single period has been without scholars who held that there are things in Scripture whose true meaning should not be learned by all people? (Averroes, The Decisive Treatise 7–9) [AVERROES 1961: 50–53]
Almost from its appearance in the Jewish tradition, the practice of allegorical exegesis was accompanied by warnings that it was not appropriate for every believer, that it should be reserved for the mature and the learned. This appears sagacious enough, but it led, not too far down the path, to a profound distinction between “pure truth,” the domain of the philosopher, on the one hand, and the crude and materialistic expressions by which the prophet, who certainly knew far better, was constrained to address the masses in Scripture. What follows is one expression of such a view, in this case from the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina, or, as the West called him, Avicenna (d. 1038 C.E.).
As for religious law, one general principle is to be admitted, to wit, that religions and religious laws promulgated through a prophet aim at addressing the masses as a whole. Now it is obvious that the deeper truths concerning the real Unity (of God), to wit, that there is one Creator, who is exalted above quantity, quality, place, time, position and change, which lead to the belief that God is one without anyone to share His species, nor is He made of parts, quantitative or conceptual, that neither is He transcendent nor immanent, nor can He be pointed to as being anywhere—it is obvious that these deeper truths cannot be communicated to the multitude. For if this had been communicated in its true form to the bedouin Arabs or the crude Hebrews, they would have refused straightway to believe and would have unanimously proclaimed that the belief to which they had been invited was a belief in an absolute nonentity.
This is why the whole account of the Unity (of God) in religion is (expressed) in anthropomorphisms. The Quran does not contain even a hint to (the deeper truth about) this important problem, nor a detailed account concerning even the obvious matters needed about the doctrine of Unity, for a part of the account is apparently anthropomorphic, while the other part contains absolute transcendence [that is, the total unlikeness of God to His creation], but in general terms, without specification or detail. The anthropomorphic phrases are innumerable, but they [that is, the orthodox interpreters of the Quran] do not accept them as such. If this is the position concerning the Unity (of God), what of the less important matters of belief?
Some people may say: “The Arabic language allows wide use and metaphor; anthropomorphisms like the hand and the face (of God), His coming down in the canopies of clouds, His coming, going, laughter, shame, anger are all correct (linguistically); only the way of their use and their context show whether they have been employed metaphysically or literally.” … Let us grant that all these (expressions) are metaphors. Where, then, we ask, are the texts which give a clear indication of pure Unity to which doubtlessly the essence of this righteous Faith—whose greatness is acclaimed by the wise men of the entire world—invites? …
Upon my life, if God the Exalted did charge a prophet that he should communicate the reality about these (theological) matters to the masses with dull natures and with minds tied down to pure sensibles, and then constrained him to pursue relentlessly and successfully the task of bringing faith and salvation to those same masses, and then, to crown all, He charged him to undertake the purifying training of all the souls so they may be able to understand these truths, then He has certainly laid upon him a duty incapable of fulfillment by any man—unless the ordinary man receives a special gift from God, a supernal power or a divine inspiration, in which case the instrumentality of the prophet will be superfluous.
But let us even grant that the Arabian revelation is metaphor and allegory according to the usage of the Arabic language. What will they say about the Hebrew revelation—a monument of utter anthropomorphism from beginning to end? One cannot say that that book is tampered with through and through, for how can this be with a book disseminated through innumerable people living in distant lands, with so different ambitions—like Jews and Christians with all their mutual antagonisms?
All this shows that religions are intended to address the masses in terms intelligible to them, seeking to bring home to them what transcends their intelligence by means of metaphor and symbol. Otherwise, religions would be of no use whatever. (Ibn Sina, Treatise on Sacrifice) [RAHMAN 1958: 42–44]
In the end, the Muslims had to face the same scriptural problems as the Jews and Christians before them and resorted to the same forms of scriptural exegesis to solve them. Chief among those problems was the question of anthropomorphism in Scripture. It is not that the Quran is more anthropomorphic than those other revelations, but rather that the Muslim was, from his view of the origin and nature of the Book, somewhat less easy with allegorizing God’s words for whatever reason. And yet it was done. The Quran, for example, had a great deal to say about the afterlife, and assurances to the pagans of Mecca of the physical reality of both Paradise and Gehenna are part of the earliest revelations in the Quran, as we shall see in considerably greater detail in chapter 8 below. Here we may simply note the words of Sura 76, which dates from the early Meccan period of Muhammad’s career.
Was there not a time in the life of man when he was not even a thing? Verily We created man from a sperm yoked (to the ovum) to bring out his real substance, then gave him hearing and sight. We surely showed him the way that he may be either grateful or deny. We have prepared for unbelievers chains and collars and a blazing fire.
Surely the devotees will drink cups flavored with palm blossoms from a spring of which the votaries of God will drink and make it flow in abundance. Those who fulfill their vows and fear the Day whose evil shall be diffused far and wide, and feed the needy for the love of Him, and the orphans and the captives, saying: “We feed you for the sake of God, desiring neither recompense nor thanks. We fear the dismal day calamitous from our Lord.”
So God will protect them from the evil of that day, and grant them happiness and joy, and reward them for their perseverance with Paradise and silken robes where they will recline on couches feeling neither heat of the sun nor intense cold. The shade will bend over them, and low will hang clusters of grapes. Passed round will be silver flagons and goblets made of glass, and crystal clear bottles of silver, of which they will determine the measure themselves. There they will drink a cup flavored with ginger from a spring by the name of Salsabil. And boys of everlasting youth will go about attending them. Looking at them you would think they were pearls dispersed.
When you look around you will see delights and a great dominion. On their bodies will be garments of the finest silk and brocade, and they will be adorned with bracelets of silver; and their Lord will give them the purest draught to drink. (Quran 76:1–21)
The Muslim commentators approach these and other Quranic descriptions of Paradise in a number of different ways. Here, for example, is a cosmology, a laying out of the celestial geography of Paradise in the context of its creation, and into whose fabulous details have been integrated some of the themes of Islamic theodicy. Often this comes in the form of a vision (chapter 7 below), but here the details have been supplied in a rather straightforward manner, presumably on the authority of the Prophet, and relayed through his contemporary Ibn Abbas.
Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with him, said that then (after the creation of the heavens) God created Paradise, which consists of eight gardens…. The eight gardens have gates of gold, jewel-encrusted and inscribed. On the first gate is written: “There is no God but the God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” On the second is written: “The Gate of those who pray the five (liturgical daily) prayers, observing perfectly the ablutions and the prostrations.” On the third is written: “The Gate of those who justify themselves by the purity of their souls.” On the fourth gate is written: “The Gate of those who encourage the doing of what is approved and discourage the doing of what is disapproved.” On the fifth gate is written: “The Gate of him who holds himself back from lusts.” On the sixth gate is written: “The Gate of those who perform the Greater and Lesser Pilgrimage.” On the seventh gate is written: “The Gate of those who go out on Holy War.” On the eighth gate is written: “The Gate of those who desire,” that is, those who avert their eyes (from unseemly things) and perform good works such as showing due affection to parents and being mindful of one’s kin. By these gates will enter those whose works have been of the kind written on them. (Kisa’i, Stories of the Prophets) [JEFFERY 1962: 172–173]
It is not always easy, or perhaps even useful, to connect a certain exegetical approach with a specific literary genre. The last passage cited above, which has a distinct homiletic flavor, occurs in a collection of narratives, the Stories of the Prophets. The following sections of the homiletic Arousing of the Heedless by Abu’l-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. 983 C.E.) easily combine a Quranically based moral exhortation—the individual Prophetic tradition has already glossed the Quran, and Samarqandi braids a catena of these texts to make his own point—with an undisguised interest in the fabulous elements of Paradise.
It is related of Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with him, that he used to say: In Paradise are dark-eyed maidens of the type called “toys,” who have been created out of four things, from musk, ambergris, camphor and saffron, stirred into a dough with water of life. All the celestial maidens love them dearly. Were one of them to spit into ocean its waters would become sweet. On the throat of each of them is written: “He who would desire to have the like of me, let him do the works of obedience to my Lord.” Mujahid said that the ground of Paradise is of silver, its dust of musk, the trunks of its trees are of silver, their branches of pearl and emerald, their leaves and fruits hang low so that he who would eat standing can reach them, and likewise he who would eat sitting or even lying can reach them. Then he recited: “Its fruit clusters hang low” (Quran 86:14), that is, its fruits are near so that both he who is standing and he who is sitting can reach them. Abu Hurayra, may God be pleased with him, said: “By Him who sent down the Book to Muhammad, upon whom be God’s blessing and peace, the dwellers in Paradise increase in beauty and handsomeness as in this world the inhabitants increase in decrepitude.” (Samarqandi, Arousing the Heedless) [JEFFERY 1962: 240–241]
There are problems with such anthropomorphisms, and they are raised, not unnaturally, by a Christian polemicist.
The sage Abu’l-Fadl al-Haddadi has related to us … from Zayd ibn Arqam, who said: There came a man of the People of the Book to the Prophet, upon whom be God’s blessing and peace, and said: “O Abu’l-Qasim (that is, Muhammad), do you pretend that the inhabitants of the Garden (really) eat and drink?” “Surely,” he replied, “by Him in whose hand is my soul, every one of them will be given the capacity of a hundred men in eating and drinking and having intercourse.” The man said: “But someone who eats or drinks has a need of relieving himself, whereas Paradise is too fine a place for there to be in it anything so malodorous.” Muhammad replied: “A man’s need to relieve himself will be satisfied by perspiring, which will be as sweet-smelling as musk.” (Samarqandi, Arousing the Heedless) [JEFFERY 1962: 243]
In the following passage the physical delights of Paradise begin to recede into the background, however, and the exegetical focus turns to the vision of God in the afterlife.
In another tradition it is related that God, may He be exalted, will say to His angels, “Feed my saints,” whereupon various kinds of food will be brought, in every bite of which they will find pleasure different from that they found in any other. When they have had their fill of eating, God, may He be exalted, will say, “Give My servants drink,” whereupon drinks will be brought, in which they will find a pleasure different from that which they found in any other. When they have finished, God, may He be exalted, will say to them: “I am your Lord. I have made My promise to you come true. Now ask of Me and I will give it to you.” They will reply: “O our Lord, we ask that You should be well pleased with us.” This they will say two or three times, whereupon He will say: “I am well pleased with you, but today I have an increase (for you). I shall favor you with a token of regard greater than all that.” Then the Veil will be removed and they will look upon Him for such a period as God wills. Then they will fall on their faces in a prostration, remaining prostrated for such a time as God pleases, whereat He will say to them: “Raise your heads. This is no place for worshiping.” At that they will quite forget all the other enjoyment they have been having, for to see their Lord is the most precious of all their joys.
We shall look somewhat more closely at this question of the vision of God in the afterlife in chapter 8 below, but Samarqandi knows very well that it presents a problem, and so he intervenes to offer a correction and his own interpretation.
The lawyer [that is, the author, Abu’l-Layth al-Samarqandi], may God have mercy on him, says: When he [presumably Muhammad, the source of the anonymous transmitted tradition] speaks about the Veil being lifted, he means the veil which is over them (that is, over the glorified souls) which prevents them from seeing Him. As for his statement that they will look upon Him, some say (it means) that they will look on a token such as they had not previously seen. Most of the learned, however, say that it is to be taken according to its literal meaning, and that they will actually see Him, though we know not how, save that it will not be in an anthropomorphic manner, just as here on earth they knew Him, but not in an anthropomorphic manner. (Samarqandi, Arousing the Heedless) [JEFFERY 1962: 242–243]