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ROBERT SPENCER
Blogging the Qur’an: Introduction
To understand the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists, one good placeto start might be to explore what they themselves say about why they’re doingwhat they’re doing, and what they want. That in turn will lead you to the Qur’an(or Koran), the Islamic holy book. The jihadists quote it frequentlyand portray
themselves as those who are following “pure Islam,” the genuine article as it is
taught in the Qur’an and Islamic tradition. So in the course of my work explaining the jihadists’ objectives, I’ve quoted the Qur’an a great deal – andhardly a day goes by without my being accused of “cherry-picking” violentpassages, and quoting them “out of context.” Meanwhile, the Council on American Islamic Relations and other Muslim groups say that in order tounderstand the true, peaceful Islam, we should read the Qur’an.So over the course of the next few months, I’m going to read it, and discuss it ina series of columns. All of it. Not “cherry-picked” or “out of context.” The wholething, beginning to end. Some of you may be familiar with David Plotz’s series onSlate, “Blogging the Bible.” This series will be similar to that one, but rather than just write about what I think or feel about a certain passage, I will, unlike Plotz,refer to commentaries – all Muslim ones – on the Qur’an. I’ll try to explain howmainstream Muslims who study the Qur’an will understand any given passage,and what its import might be for non-Muslims. You’ll need a Qur’an.Hereis a good Arabic/English text. In traditional Islamictheology, the Qur’an is essentially and inherently an “Arabic Qur’an” (as theQur’an describes itself repeatedly: see12:2;20:113;39:28;41:3;41:44;42:7;
and43:3). Its meaning can be rendered in other languages, but thosetranslations are not the Qur’an, which when no longer in Arabic is no longeritself. Some Muslim scholars even claim that the Qur’an cannot be fullyunderstood except in Arabic, but the blizzard of translations made by Muslims forMuslims who don’t speak Arabic (who are the great majority around the worldtoday) as well as to proselytize among non-Muslims belies that claim.Herearetwo popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and MohammedMarmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir.Hereis another populartranslation, that of Muhammad Asad. Andhereis an omnibus of ten Qur’antranslations.The Qur’an is, according to classic Islamic thought, a perfect copy of a book thathas existed eternally with Allah, the one true God, in Heaven: “it is a transcript of the eternal book [in Arabic, “mother of the book”] in Our keeping, sublime, andfull of wisdom” (43:4). The angel Gabriel revealed it in sections to Muhammad(570-632), an Arabian merchant. Like Jesus, Muhammad left the writtenrecording of his messages to others. Unlike Jesus, Muhammad did not originate
his message, but only served as its conduit. The Qur’an is for Muslims the pureWord of Allah. They point to its poetic character as proof that it did not originatewith Muhammad, whom they say was illiterate, but with the Almighty, whodictated every word. The average Muslim believes that everything in the book isabsolutely true and that its message is applicable in all times and places.This is a stronger claim than Christians make for the Bible. When Christians of whatever tradition say that the Bible is God’s Word, they don’t mean that Godspoke it word-for-word and that it’s free of all human agency — instead, there isthe idea of “inspiration,” that God breathed through human authors, workingthrough their human knowledge to communicate what he wished to. But forMuslims, the Qur’an is more than inspired. There is not and could not be apassage in the Qur’an like I Corinthians 1:14-17 in the New Testament, wherePaul says: “I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius;lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize alsothe household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)” Paul’s faulty memory demonstrates the human element of the NewTestament, which for Christians does not negate, but exists alongside the texts’ inspired character. But in the Qur’an, Allah is the only speaker throughout (witha few notable exceptions). There is no human element. The book is the pure andunadulterated divine word. Allah himself tells him this, in the Qur’an itself: “This is a mighty scripture.Falsehood cannot reach it from before or from behind” (41:41-2). It is “free fromany flaw” (39:28). In short, “it is the indubitable truth” (69:51). Allah, speaking
in a royal plural that does not, according to Muslim theologians, compromise hisabsolute unity, proclaims that “it was We that revealed the Koran, and shallOurself preserve it” (15:9). But reading the Qur’an is not always easy. Since somuch of it consists of Allah speaking with Muhammad, it is often rather likelistening in on a conversation between two people you don’t know, talking aboutevents with which you were uninvolved. Even though a surprisingly large amountof what the Qur’an says is said more than once, still often the reader can’t figureout what’s being said, or why, without reference to Muslim tradition. Also, it has no overarching narrative unity, although there are smaller narrativeunits within many chapters. With the exception of the brief first chapter (sura),its 114 chapters are arranged from the longest to the shortest. In the longerchapters, stories are told, laws are given, and warnings to unbelievers areissued, but in them and throughout the book, there is no chronological ornarrative continuity. The shorter suras, meanwhile, particularly those near theend of the book that run only a few lines, are poetic and arresting warnings of the impending divine judgment. When I first read the Qur’an and began studyingIslam in late 1980 and early 1981, those poetic suras captured my imagination tothe extent that I continued reading deeply into other Islamic texts.
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