In one of his articles,1
Mr
Jochen Katz has pointed out a contradiction in the following two verses
of the Qur’an
And We know that they are saying that a person
has taught this [Qur’an] to him. The language of him, to whom they
falsely ascribe it, is non-Arabic, while this is a clear Arabic dialect.
(16:103)
It is He, Who has revealed this book on you [O
Prophet], in which there are concise verses, which form the foundation
of the book and there are others, which are analogous [in nature]. As for
those, whose hearts are perverse, they are after the analogous among these
verses, seeking discord and seeking their reality. But [the fact is that]
no one knows about their reality, except God. And the firm in knowledge
say: ‘We believe in it. All these [verses] are from our Lord’. And no one
shall be reminded [of the truth] except men of understanding. (3:7)
Mr Katz writes:
16:103 states that the Qur’an is ‘clear
Arabic speech’. If it were really clear, why is this explanation even necessary?
But it doesn’t seem to be so clear after all when we read:
At this point, Mr Katz has given A. Yusuf
Ali’s translation of 3: 7, which reads as:
He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book:
In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are
the foundation of the Book: others are analogous. But those in whose hearts
is perversity follow the part thereof that is analogous, seeking discord,
and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings
except Allah.
And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge
say: ‘We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord’, and
none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.
Mr. Katz further writes:
In the same verse, it says that ONLY Allah knows
the meaning of these difficult allegorical verses in the Qur’an ...
and then it goes on to tell that ‘men of understanding’ can grasp it. Is
that a contradiction or do we want to resolve it with the concept of ‘incarnation’
[God becoming man] which is so much looked down upon by Muslims? But Christianity
believes God became man only once. The Qur’an talks about men in
the plural...
Actually Arberry translates ‘... desiring its
interpretation; and none knows its interpretation, save only Allah’. It
does not talk about having a plain clear meaning and also a hidden meaning,
but that there are verses which none know at all what they mean, even though
they desire its explanation or interpretation.
In the above paragraphs, Mr. Katz has
pointed out two contradictions. The first contradiction is with reference
to 16:103 (which states that the Qur’a#n is in clear Arabic) and 3:7 (which
states that the meaning of the analogous verses is known only to God).
While the second contradiction is within 3:7 (which first states that the
meaning of the analogous verses is known only to God and then states that
men of understanding do grasp it).
As far as the first criticism is concerned,
it is based on an incorrect premise that clarity in language necessarily
results in ease of comprehension. This, as the readers will agree, is not
always the case. A message may be written in a clear and a pure dialect,
yet it may not be easily comprehensible.
However, one may ask that if it is
only God, who knows the reality of the analogous verses, then why are such
verses given in the Qur’an. What, after all, is the utility of including
such verses in the Qur’an, the true meaning and implication of which
are known only to God?
To fully comprehend the stated issue,
it is important to understand that, besides other things, the Qur’an
has
informed man about a yet non-existent world – the Hereafter. However, because
the Qur’an wants to urge man to work for the rewards of the Hereafter
and to warn him against the severe punishment thereof, it has, therefore,
given a broad concept of the rewards and punishments of the Hereafter.
Nevertheless, due to an inherent weakness in human language and comprehension,
the Qur’an has referred to the rewards and punishments in a way
which would give an overall picture of these concepts.
In one of my earlier articles2,
I had explained the referred inherent weakness of human language and comprehension
in the following words:
Man can understand and develop physical concepts
about things primarily in two ways. Firstly, if something comes within
the scope of man’s sense of touch or his sense of sight; and secondly,
by comparison to things that come within the scope of man’s senses.
Take the example of the words ‘light bulb’. As
soon as I speak the words ‘light bulb’, I get a picture of a round or a
pear-shaped glass container for the filament of an electric light. The
reason for such spontaneous physical imaging of the words ‘light bulb’
is that whatever we call a ‘light bulb’ in the English language is something
that is within the scope of our sense of touch and our sense of sight.
In other words, because we have already developed a physical image of a
‘light bulb’ through our sight or our touch, we can easily recall the already
developed image as soon as the words ‘light bulb’ are uttered in front
of us. The same is the case with most of the words of our languages that
connote physical entities. The words man, woman, child, horse, donkey,
cat etc. all belong to the same category.
Closely related to this category of words depicting
physical concepts is another category, which connotes imaginary physical
entities. For instance, the word ‘unicorn’ connotes an animal, which although
does not exist in reality, yet its image can be developed by explaining
it. However, to develop effective images of such imaginary physical entities,
it is extremely important that they be explained with reference to those
physical entities that we are already exposed to. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Encyclopedic Dictionary describes the word ‘unicorn’ as: ‘A mythical animal
resembling a horse, with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead.’
This explanation, if correctly understood, would
help in developing a physical image of a non-existent entity. However,
it is important to note that to be comprehendible the explanation had to
resort to words, which already had their respective physical images in
our minds. Note the words ‘animal’, ‘horse’, ‘single’, ‘straight’, ‘horn’
and ‘forehead’. All these words have their respective physical or abstract
images in our minds. It is only on the basis of these already existing
images, that we can now form a new physical image of a non-existent physical
entity.
From the above explanation, it should also be
clear that human languages, normally, are a collection of words connoting
such physical or abstract entities, which the particular group of human
beings has either been exposed to or has a clear concept of. Thus, it is
obvious, that centuries ago, none of the human languages could have contained
the word ‘airplane’ or ‘computer’. These words were coined only after the
entities that they connote became clear in the minds of the speakers of
that language – even if such entities were only conceptual and not physical
in the beginning. Now suppose, someone living about fifteen hundred years
ago, somehow, had a visualization of an airplane and wanted to explain
to the people living around him that hundreds of years down the road, people
would use high speed airplanes for traveling long distances. How would
he do that? Simple!! He would say: ‘People would start using airplanes
for traveling’. Well, not so simple after all. We forgot that the word
‘airplane’ would be non-existent. What then would he say? Keeping in mind
the limitations of human languages mentioned above, it is obvious that
whatever the person says, would likely be within the frame of reference
of his own times. He may say: soon there will be a time when people start
using ‘flying horses’ or ‘huge birds’ or ‘big mechanical birds’ etc. for
travelling from one place to another. This explanation, however unclear
it may seem, is probably the closest that a person living fifteen hundred
years ago is likely to able to give and his listeners able to comprehend
(even if such comprehension is not likely to be very accurate).
In the above example of communicating the ‘visualization’,
we see, once again, that a relatively unknown concept (whether physical
or abstract) can only be communicated in human languages by using references
from what those human beings are aware of.
Thus, to summarize the preceding discussion,
a person can comprehend a physical or an abstract concept if:
-
Such physical or abstract concept enters the scope of man’s
senses; or
-
Such physical or abstract concept is explained to man with
reference to what has already entered the scope of his senses. However,
this is only possible if the concept is explainable by referring to any
existing concepts or if the listener is aware of the concepts to which
reference is being made. Thus, a ‘unicorn’ is only explainable if the listener
is aware of what the words ‘animal’, ‘horse’, ‘single’, ‘straight’, ‘horn’
and ‘forehead’ imply.
Thus, the Qur’an has referred to
fire and boiling water and the tree of Zaqqum to communicate the
severity of the punishment in the Hereafter and has referred to fruits
and rivers of honey and perfected partners to give an idea of the rewards
of the Hereafter. All these references are actually to communicate the
concept of the reward and punishment that man shall be subjected to in
the Hereafter and because the human languages do not have words to communicate
the reality of these concepts, the Qur’an has, therefore, introduced
them by drawing analogy with things, which man is aware of.
The concepts communicated through
analogous verses, even though they are in pure and clear Arabic, are understandably
slightly vague, only conveying the general idea of the concepts thus communicated.
The reality and the details of these concepts are known only to God till
the time that man comes face to face with these concepts, on the Day of
Judgment.
As far as the second criticism is
concerned, it is a classical example of the fact that because most of the
modern day critics of the Qur’an are absolutely ignorant of the
Arabic language, they have to completely rely on the various translations
of the Qur’an. It is due to this reason that most of the times their
criticism is actually on the translation, rather than the Qur’an itself.
This should also remind my readers
of the vulnerability of the books of which the original text is no longer
available. If the original text of a book is no longer existent and only
translations thereof are available, then all we have left is one or more
interpretations of the book, which – in all fairness – cannot be considered
as the book itself.
Nevertheless, I congratulate Mr Katz
on having very successfully criticized Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s translation
of 3:7. However, as far as the verses of the Qur’an are concerned,
because we still have their original text, we can easily check to see whether
the stated criticism applies to them or not.
Mr Katz writes:
16:103 states that the Qur’an is ‘clear
Arabic speech’. If it were really clear, why is this explanation even necessary?
Mr Katz should take another look at 16:103
and see that in this verse, the Qur’an has, in fact, not ‘explained’
that it is in ‘Clear Arabic’; on the contrary, it has actually referred
to this fact to refute an unfounded claim of its rejecters, who used to
say that the Qur’an is not revealed by God, but is actually dictated
to Mohammed (sws) by a foreigner. To refute this point, the verse has pointed
toward the quality of the Qur’anic language, stating that how can
these rejecters make such an unfounded allegation. Do these people not
see that this Book is in a dialect, which is so pure and clear that it
is impossible even for the proud Arabs to produce anything like it, and
yet these fools want people to believe that it has been dictated by a foreigner.
Mr Katz further writes:
In the same verse (3:7), it says that ONLY Allah
knows the meaning of these difficult analogous verses in the Qur’an...
and then it goes on to tell that ‘men of understanding’ can grasp it.
Those who know the Arabic language, can
easily see that the stated objection does not even remotely apply to the
text of the Qur’an. The verse does not say that men of understanding
can grasp ‘it’. On the contrary, the verse ends with the words: ‘only men
of understanding shall take admonition/be reminded’. It is clear that Mr
Katz has based his objection on the translation of Yusuf Ali, who has translated
the related part of the verse as: ‘and none will grasp the Message except
men of understanding’. Mr Katz has mistakenly taken the phrase ‘the Message’
to refer to the unknown reality of the analogous verses, while, it seems
that Yusuf Ali had intended these words to imply the overall message of
the Qur’an. Whatever the case, the point remains that the text of
the Qur’an cannot, in any way, be interpreted to imply that ‘men
of understanding do understand the reality of the stated analogous verses’.
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