4.1 Perception and the Quran
When my grandfatherfirst held me as a newborn, he whispered in my ear,
“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.”While other
practices are recommended for Muslims, this utterance suffices to make
one Muslim.^2 Muhammad’s prophecy is based on the revelation to him of
the Quran, which articulates the divine for human comprehension.
The relationship between man and the divine established through this
prophecy contrasts with that in Christianity. Christians recognize Jesus
himself as divine. This divinity enabled him to perform miracles. Although
the Bible is often cited as the‘word of God,’the history of its compilation
by Church fathers from statements of witness gives it a worldly derivation.
In contrast, in Islam, the life of the Prophet is exemplary, as his human
perfection enabled his divine favor. But he is emphatically purely human.
Only God is divine, and the Quran, as God’s speech that Muhammad was
inspired to articulate, exposes this divinity. But what is the Quran?
Theologians debated the ontology of the Quran as the speech of God in
the early ninth century. Debates featured several conundra: if the Quran is
speech crafted for humans, it is not eternal; if it expresses thought, then
God is conceived with human attributes rather than as absolutely divine; if
there is a gap of‘meaning’between essence and expression, then God
becomes attributed with thought and not only has a human attribute, but is
not eternally self-identical.^3 The Mu’tazila held that as the speech of God,
the Quran could not be co-eternal with God, and thus was created. In
contrast, ibn Hanbal asserted the absolute literalism of the Quran, includ-
ing human attributes of God mentioned in it, such as a face or a hand.^4 In
the formulation by the theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ash’ari (d. 936), which
became the basis of dominant Sunni dogma regarding the relationship
between the Quran and its maker,“God’s eternal speech is not God, nor
something other than God; God is not His speech, nor something other
(^2) The phrase used in this non-universal but common initiation is thefirst of the normative
practices often described as the‘five pillars’of Islam. Scattered in the Quran, these practices are
listed in theHadithof Gabriel cited in early compilations. Thefirst practice is theshahada, the
statement of witnessing quoted here and used in the call to prayer (adhan), to which Shi’a
Muslims add a phrase meaning“and‘Ali is his regent (wali).”The‘pillars’also include: regular
ritual prayer (salah) (atfive prescribed times of day for Sunni, three for Shi’a Muslims); alms
(zakah); fasting from sunup to sundown during the month of Ramadan; and performing the
Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) once in a lifetime, if one has the means. Followers of the Sunni legal
school of ibn Hanbal (780–855 CE) add struggle (jihad), which can be understood as internal
struggle or as holy war. Isma’ili Shi’a Muslims also add purity.
(^3) Larkin, 1988 : 38. (^4) Martin, 2002.
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