through the ahistorical vehicle of the Quran, homogeneous across time in
all its manifestations as tablet/book or text/speech, and through prophecy
at the specific moment of revelation. The uniqueness of the Quran emerges
through its transcendence of the rational relationship between sign and
knowledge via embodied perception. The perceptual efficacy of the Quran
is constant across the multitude of its interpretations.^19
Enjoining believers to intuit its divinity, the Quran declares the incapa-
city of human rational interpretation to fully comprehend its meaning:
Some of its verses are definite/clear/decisive/fundamental (muhakhama) in mean-
ing–these are the mother (substance/cornerstone) of the Scripture–and others
are ambiguous/allegorical (mutashabiha). The perverse at heart eagerly pursue the
ambiguous in their attempt to make trouble and to pin down a specific meaning of
their own: only God knows the true meaning. Thosefirmly grounded in knowledge
say,“We believe in it: it is all from our Lord”–only those with real perception will
take heed. (Q3:7)^20
No hermeneutic can reveal truth, reserved for God. If truth exists but is
unattainable, then positive interpretation of the Quran becomes impossible
and knowledge can only function within thefluidity of discourse. No
interpretation except that of the unknowable divine can suffice. On the
one hand, this suggests that a positive truth exists as an ultimate origin,
such that even if we cannot solve the puzzle of allegory, truth is ontologi-
cally knowable. On the other, as the author–God–manifests in creation,
and communicates linguistically only in the Quran itself, this truth also
remains infinitely ambiguous. The problem for a positive interpretation of
the Quran is that this opposition necessarily eludes human solution.
Instead, it produces a perpetual supplementation of meaning that simulta-
neously brings to mind the Derridian notions ofdifférence(the gap in value
between the pairs of a binary which serves as a supplement–an addition
that augments despite the absence of a lack) and the impossibility of an
’hors-texte(the idea that any text is bound within an infinite network of
texts, thus excluding the possibility of interpretive exteriority).^21 Rooted in
the transcendental signified, the Quran refuses to be pinned down through
any positive and stable exegesis. Citing the verse,“Say [Prophet],‘If the
whole ocean were ink for writing the words of my Lord, it would run dry
before those words were exhausted’–even if We were to add another ocean
(^19) Reynolds, 2008 :2–3.
(^20) Abdel-Haleem, 2004 : 34. Parenthetical alternative translations in this passage have been chosen
from Asad, 1980 ; Khan and al-Hilali, 2009 ; Pickthall, Pickthall, 1999 ; Shakir, 1999 ; Ali, 1995.
(^21) Derrida, 1981 : 158.
Perception and the Quran 109