Fwd: The Koran: Words beyond worth
Moyez Kamani
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ali Janmohamed <ali...@gosonic.ca>
Date: Aug 8, 2008 11:56 AM
Subject: The Koran: Words beyond worth
To: Ali Janmohamed <ali...@gosonic.ca>
The Koran: Words beyond worth
Mona Siddiqui
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
June 21, 2008
How do you measure a book's worth? By its sales in the millions, by its
perennial appeal to generation upon generation, by the beauty of its
language and style or because, as in the case of the Koran, the book is
considered sacred and venerated as God's very word. With more than one
billion Muslims in the world who believe that the Koran is God's last
revelation in human history, the Koran, like the Bible, is one of the most
widely read, revered and recited books in the world.
Its reach is global, its influence is global. It has been the inspiration to
one of the greatest civilizations in the world and is the basis for some of
the most impressive art, architecture, literature, philosophy and science
the world has ever known.
A relatively short scripture, the Koran is the culmination of a series of
revelations that Muslims believe were given to Muhammad, a seventh-century
Arab who became God's last Prophet and the recipient of God's final
revelation.
The book was revealed in Arabic and subsequently compiled in Arabic.
Though it has been translated into numerous languages, the faithful
nevertheless always try to read the original Arabic because the power of the
book lies as much in the oral recitation of the verses as its does in its
content. For Muslims, the Koran is central to the good and moral life.
Like most Semitic scriptures, the Koran refers to the big themes: God,
prophecy, angels, the eschaton (the end of days), punishment and reward.
But it also refers to people of other faiths, namely Jews and Christians.
These are people who also received divine revelation, who had their own
prophets and who might also be saved in the next world. Thus, Muslims have
always shared an ambivalent history with the people of both these faiths.
The Koran also refers to what are understood to be more socio-ethical
matters: marriage, divorce, sexual relations, slavery, inheritance laws,
poverty, penal laws, ecology and ritual practice. Man worships God not just
through submission to ritual but through the ethical relations he forms with
the world and people around him.
This is where the greatness of the Koran lies. With its insistence on
reflection on God's world and its emphasis on the performance of just and
charitable acts, the Koran contains a transformative power. The language is
poetic, passionate and persuasive. The narrative is both long and elaborate,
and short and choppy. The thread that ties all the different themes together
is God' mercy, or rahma. The Koran is itself a reflection of God's mercy and
compassion, and must be central to the way we think of one another and the
relationships we form.
But like all scriptures, the Koran contains another side. In the post-9/11
world, many in the West are suddenly awake to the power of scripture, and to
the fact that zealotry and fanaticism can find their roots in scripture just
as much as compassion can. Issues of gender inequalities and a justification
for violence are being seen as defining descriptors of the Islamic world
with their basis in the Koran.
While academic and popular thinking contest or defend these issues, in so
doing they keep the Koran alive. Like every great book, the Koran inspires
and confuses, it moves and infuriates, it speaks and demands that we listen.
Its Arabian setting, its tales of prophets and messengers, its promise of
heaven and its threats of hell all mean that in one page, we live multiple
existences - we live both in the past and the present and we reflect on our
mortality. Philosophy, theology and poetry are all sealed intricately in the
book.
This is not an easy book to read, but sacred territory is never easy. The
Koran has continued to inspire the faithful for hundreds of years, and it
continues to shape the lives of millions from birth to death.
The Koran may look like any other book, but for the believer, it is quite
simply a call to God.
Mona Siddiqui is the University of Glasgow's professor of Islamic Studies
and Public Understanding, as well as the director of its Centre for the
Study of Islam.
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Have an excellent day.
Moyez
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