This Religion Is a Science 159influence in all the major schools of law and theology with the excep-
tion of the Shi‘ite schools (discussed in the following chapter). And
while the debate over the nature of the Quran continues to this day,
the influence of the Traditionalist interpretation has led to a number
of extraordinary theological and legal developments in Islam.
For instance, belief in the eternal, uncreated word of God has led
to the widespread conviction among Muslims that the Quran cannot
be translated from its original language. A translation into any other
language would remove the direct speech of God, rendering it an
interpretation of the Quran, not the Quran itself. As Islam spread
from the Arabian Peninsula to the rest of the world, every convert—
whether Arab, Persian, European, African, or Indian—had to learn
the Arabic language in order to read Islam’s sacred text. Even today,
Muslims of every culture and ethnicity must read the Quran in Arabic,
whether they understand it or not. The message of the Quran is vital
to living a proper life as a Muslim, but it is the words themselves—the
actual speech of the one and only God—that possess a spiritual power
known as baraka.
While baraka can be experienced in a number of ways, it is most
vividly encountered through Islam’s unrivaled tradition of calligraphy.
Partly because of the primacy of the word in Islam, and partly because
of the religion’s aversion to iconolatry and thus the figural arts, callig-
raphy has become the supreme artistic expression in the Muslim
world. Yet Islamic calligraphy is more than just an art form; it is the
visual representation of the eternal Quran, the symbol of God’s living
presence on earth.
The words of the Quran are inscribed on mosques, tombs, and
prayer rugs in order to sanctify them. They are emblazoned on com-
mon objects like cups, bowls, and lamps, so that when one eats from a
plate adorned with God’s Speech, or lights a lamp with a Quranic verse
etched into it, one is able to consume baraka, to be illuminated by it.
In the same way that pre-Islamic poetry was thought to convey divine
authority, so do the words of the Quran act as a talisman that trans-
mits divine power. It is no wonder, then, that after the Ka‘ba had been
cleansed and rededicated, the pagan odes that had hung from the
sanctuary were torn down and replaced by verses from the Quran,
which still form a golden band around the sacred shrine.