Re: Discussion about "My Ordeal with the Qur'an"
Reply #590 - May 31, 2010, 02:07 PM
Chapter 4 (cont...)
Part 3 - The Eloquence of the Qur'an.
We must now ask: Is the Qur'an really miraculous?
The belief in the Miraculous nature of the Qur'an does not withstand scrutiny in any way. There are numerous fallacies that surround this belief. We have seen some clear examples of that from Ibn al-Rawandi and Abu Bakr al-Razi and in a little while we shall see many other examples that refute this belief so long as we look impartially and objectively at the issues so we are not swayed by the majority or the prevailing views, for scientific facts are not discovered by voting as in Parliaments no matter how large the number of votes support it.
Miraculousness is of two types in my opinion: Language and Meaning.
As for Miraculous Language, it's conditions are clarity of expression, fluency of wording, being free from complexity, weak composition and disharmony. The speech must have a uniform level of quality, excellence, and perfection.
But miraculous language has no value if it is not accompanied by miraculous meaning. If not then it's just an arrangement of words cobbled together, good-looking gibberish, meaningless padding. For that reason eloquent speech must have consistency and symmetry in it's ideas and packed with meaning. It must be free from error and contradiction.
But the verses of the Qur'an are uneven in quality in both language and meaning and this was noticed by the classical scholars as confirmed by al-Suyuti.
Although a large portion of verses are the height of excellence and beauty, another portion of verses fall far below that, while others are weak and flawed.
In the same way ambiguity and riddles envelope a significant number of the verses to the extent that one is confused when trying to understand the intended meaning of this or that verse. While some appear to have no meaning at all, despite the fact that the exegetes (Mufassirun) and scholars of Eloquence "discovered" a thousand and one meanings.
Indeed the books of (the scholars) of Eloquence are full of chapters that have no meaning and have been contrived simply to provide an escape route and justification for the babble in some of the verses that confront the reader. Using the pretext of delving deeply for the secrets and sublime miraculousness of the Qur'an.
In my opinion the whole science of Balagha (Eloquence) was contrived in order to defend the Qur'an. In other words, only for ideological reasons, not to find the truth. Indeed, Ideology is the governing factor in all the treaties of our scholars in this field at the expense of objectivity and scientific methodology.
Finally, in addition to what we see in the Qur'an of fragmentation and disarray, not to mention blatant scientific mistakes.
So does all that correspond with the belief in the miraculous (nature of the Qur'an) in any way? Or are there locks on hearts? (Reference to Qur'an 47:24 ). This is what we shall investigate now.
The majority of those who studied the Qur'anic text are not Westerners - if not all of them. They treat it on the basis that it is a holy text. That it cannot be criticised. Since no falsehood comes to it from the front nor the back. The presumption of it's authenticity and infallibility is a prerequisite that places a barrier that comes between us and it. It deprives us of much of the wealth that may accrue from (their study of) it. In that way we close all the doors that were open in front of us before we begin. And nothing remains for us to do in this case, but pour everything we possess of effort into embellishing, and polishing the text and imposing upon it that which is unlikely and defend it - right or wrong - and to "discover" what is in it of hidden treasures and secrets and wisdoms and meanings that boggle the mind and astound the intellect and thus begins the journey of searching for the the pearls.
The text may not be more than a collection of bombastic speech that does not mean anything, but the exegete (Mufassir) - with his believing background and generous expectations - presupposes there is the wisdom of the ages in the text, because it is from the a wise all-knowing one. "The Trustworthy Spirit has descended with it, to thy heart so that you may be of the warners." (26:193-194). I say, if the text didn't mean anything, then indeed the exegetes ended up seeing everything in it! It became the protected pearl and the hidden jewel. But this is a profoundly bankrupt method of dealing with the Qur'anic text. It doesn't reap anything other than hot air and does not result in anything other than waffle, double-talk, concoction, and falsely attributing to the text that which never occurred to it's original author at all!
Indeed! The Qur'an is not amongst the secrets of the gods, it is not connected in any way to divine inspiration that would take it outside historical trends. It is purely a human achievement that complies with human principles. Like all human efforts it is subject to strength & weakness, accuracy & error, agreement & contradiction, cohesion & disarray, consistency & inconsistency, originality & imitation, depth & superficiality, lucidity & brittleness...
The direct result of all that is that the Qurʾan is a very ordinary book. For that reason it is necessary to remove it from its safe and secure refuge, outside Human history and return it to the world of people. After that it will no longer be storehouse for timeless wisdom, nor a divine book protected from error that no falsehood can approach it from either front or behind. In that way, it and its time and its context become part of the historical process and unfolding events. (NB: This is paragraph and part of the last is repeated from the beginning of this chapter.)
If you read the Qur'an you will find ample evidence of the Divine Being, acts of worship, exhortations, morals, legislation, injunctions, wisdoms, parables, stories and legends... but you with hardly come across one page where ideas correlate or or flow in a connected sequence or follow on from one another, unless the text is recounting the narrative of a story, or establishing a rule, which requires a certain amount of elaboration. But as soon as it finishes, it jumps to another subject that has no connection to it. That is then interspersed with digressions that interrupt the narrative flow leaving it without a point. So our waffling exegetes (mufassirun) are forced to come up with a point for it. If they find a point then it is only stumbled across after strenuous excavation that the wafflers attribute to profound wisdom.
There are complete pages in the Qur'an that are full confusion, as well as offensive words and weak expressions. It contains hollowness, affectation, artifice, fabrication, and ambiguity. Words that have meanings that conflict with one another, making it hard for one to decide which of the two conflicting aspects is the intended one. If that was simply confined to insignificant secondary issues it would be less important, but it extends also to issues of belief and legislation.
Not forgetting, that in addition to these the errors and flaws, the Qur'an contains contradictions that they eye cannot miss. How much effort the wafflers spent in trying to conceal them and give them strange meanings that they don't have, to make them the epitome of wisdom and sobriety!
In addition to this series of drawbacks that the Qur'an is packed with and which we shall see detailed for ourselves, is the mixing of the speech of Allah with the speech of man within a single verse. So while the first half of the verse starts off in the words of the prophet or one of the pious, we find the second half ending in speech that cannot be a human speaking, but must be attributed to Allah. So either this portion has been inserted into the text or the verse is incomplete, half of it being lost, so the scribe completed it - and most of them didn't understand what they were transcribing - according to whatever words came to their minds, repairing the verse and filling it's gap. This is despite all that is commonly disseminated about the authentication of the text and close attention to detail during it's recording process.
Last but not least, the scholars find very great difficulty in accepting many verses from the "Wise Reminder" (a name of the Qur'an) due to its complete opposition to scientific facts in the present time. These verses are true as long as science, philosophy, and myths are all approximately one and the same thing. But today the situation has changed and the position has become clear as to the extent of the naivety of the Qur'an when we see that it accepted all and sundry of handed-down knowledge of ancient times and then attributed it to the "treasure" of Divine knowledge about the secrets of the universe, life and destiny.
(To be cont...)
Topic: Discussion about "My Ordeal with the Qur'an"