Is an objective study of the Qur'an possible?
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salaam, followers of prophet abraham the true in faith,
i've been seeing "true meaning" of the quran alot lately and i'm glad people are reading my favorite book but the question is what do you want for an answer?
true meaning? do you want one word? do you want one sentence? nobody wants a paragraph because who quotes a paragraph?
maybe your asking for the unreasonable?
the true meaning of the quran is.... "meaning true", this is a two second epiphony yet explains everything.
remember that movie kung fu panda when the dragon scroll was blank? and there was no secret recipe?
the true meaning of the quran or anything is a simple process.
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you start with logic, "get your wings and fly" logic is there anyway i can actually fly?
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with that logic you can eliminate impossiblities with simple reason an go on to the second step "the dream of being" (actually doing it)
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how does it feel to fly? what are the results of flight? what will it cost to fly? how much time and energy will be put into this?
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after reasoning is it worth it? this is the objective part of quran understanding or any understanding is it worth it and should i do it again? can i do it again (i.e. jumping off a bridge or blowing yourself up)? this is the objective part the quran uses you as an example alot? "remember when you were going to...." "you prayed for death til ye saw it face to face"
so in fact the quran is a book about you. look at the places you are meantioned in the book, what you are advised? look at how you are introduced, what situation you are being meantioned in and the context. don't be a coconut god is trying to talk to you. does the bible or torah meantion you directly? -
i just wanted to put a number 5, i'm the messenger of ALLAH, obey the messenger and obey ALLAH.
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Shalom Aleikhem everyone,
Thank you all very much for sharing your thoughts. This issue has always been of major significance to me. In a way, it still is.
Just as Wakas pointed out, my very own method relied on trying to minimize as much bias as possible. I believe that the reason we all have argued so much over the possible interpretations and implications of the reading is precisely because we all wanted to get at the true meaning of what we were reading.
While I do agree that actually putting some effort into understanding the various uses of the words/ contextual uses/ themes throughout the text helps a lot, I still don't see how it can help eliminate bias to a healthy degree. Please understand that I am not starting from the presupposition that the Qur'an has been authored by a deity and is unaltered. This means that while reading this book, I will consider the possibility of statements being there which may be factually wrong or immoral or inconsistent thematically. This means that a believer's scope of interpretation will suffer from even more bias than mine.
As long as the author doesn't show up, as long as words will have multiple meanings, as long as metaphors may be present among absolute statements, I really don't think we can ever objectively study this book. I'd understand if as a believer you wonder why an atheist like me even cares about that. I care because it has always been and always will be my goal to seek the truth. If there are scriptures that really do contain the truth, I'd really love to know them. Unfortunately, this dilemma that I've presented tells me that dealing with scriptures to falsify anything is like playing a game of football where we don't even know if there is a goal post, let alone where it is. We can do all the fancy moves imaginable to man but the fact will remain that nobody will know if they've even scored. The presence of other scriptures makes the matter far more complicated. It makes it such that we don't even know if we are playing in the correct field to begin with.
Peace
----------------- Student of Allah -
Bias cannot be 100% totally eliminated.
On understanding anything...
It's a well known fact..The more perspective and approaches one uses to view something..
The richer the understanding will be..I'm not limiting this to merely understanding "books" any books on any format..
Unfortunately, this dilemma that I've presented tells me that dealing with scriptures to falsify anything is like playing a game of football where we don't even know if there is a goal post, let alone where it is. We can do all the fancy moves imaginable to man but the fact will remain that nobody will know if they've even scored. The presence of other scriptures makes the matter far more complicated. It makes it such that we don't even know if we are playing in the correct field to begin with.
The methodology of validating or falsifying something using merely "a holy book" is a fallacy from the start..
The presence of other sources / scriptures / books / ebooks / paper / slides is actually a blessing..The similitude to football game is inappropriate in this context..
Having said that even if we gonna use the football game as a metaphor.. then it will be..Validating "the truthful way to score a goal" cannot be done by merely observation to only one player or one team as a "holy" / "must not be questioned" reference... There are million ways to score a goal..
And the presence of million of players and thousands of team each with their own unique way to "score a goal" is actually a blessing and makes the game of football alive and always interesting...And putting a time dimension into the context.. new player and new team always appear introducing a new style of play and bringing in a fresh outlook on how to play the game. Thus there isn't such thing as the "last revelation" on how to play proper football...
Yet the ground rules definitely need to be established, no punching other player, no killing other player, no riot and looting when your favorite team lost the game, no suicide bombing on the football game. Those things are not "creativity" on how to play football, those things are insanity within the game of football.
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Shalom Aleikhem everyone,
Thank you all very much for sharing your thoughts. This issue has always been of major significance to me. In a way, it still is.
Just as Wakas pointed out, my very own method relied on trying to minimize as much bias as possible. I believe that the reason we all have argued so much over the possible interpretations and implications of the reading is precisely because we all wanted to get at the true meaning of what we were reading.
Shalom Aleikhem,
True! I agree. But as per my personal understanding we were walking the incorrect path.
While I do agree that actually putting some effort into understanding the various uses of the words/ contextual uses/ themes throughout the text helps a lot, I still don't see how it can help eliminate bias to a healthy degree. Please understand that I am not starting from the presupposition that the Qur'an has been authored by a deity and is unaltered. This means that while reading this book, I will consider the possibility of statements being there which may be factually wrong or immoral or inconsistent thematically. This means that a believer's scope of interpretation will suffer from even more bias than mine.
As long as the author doesn't show up, as long as words will have multiple meanings, as long as metaphors may be present among absolute statements, I really don't think we can ever objectively study this book. I'd understand if as a believer you wonder why an atheist like me even cares about that. I care because it has always been and always will be my goal to seek the truth. If there are scriptures that really do contain the truth, I'd really love to know them. Unfortunately, this dilemma that I've presented tells me that dealing with scriptures to falsify anything is like playing a game of football where we don't even know if there is a goal post, let alone where it is. We can do all the fancy moves imaginable to man but the fact will remain that nobody will know if they've even scored. The presence of other scriptures makes the matter far more complicated. It makes it such that we don't even know if we are playing in the correct field to begin with.
Peace
----------------- Student of AllahI disagree with the blue highlighted part above.
I strongly believe that there is not "fixed" interpretation of any word or sentence in alQuraan. Please understand if the book claims that it guides to humanity. It includes every human being, be it a layman or a highly educated one. How will be a fixed interpretation guides on all humans on different levels? That means there is no "fixed" interpretation.
If you want guidance, seek it with alRahaam and if anyone else need a guidance then they should do the same.
He is the one who guides in a way that will be easy for you to understand which you cannot deny. That interpretation will be just for you, not for others. This is how it works.Hope you understand what I am trying to say, inshaAllah.
Peace,
mmKhan -
Shalom Aleikhem,
If we now say that the book was not meant to be objective and can only be interpreted on a subjective level, we enter a whole new domain with it's own big problems. For example, I could conclude that the Qur'an teaches us to beat wives without anyone having the right to challenge my interpretation. After all, that is what subjectivity is all about.
Hi,
RED It depends who you think the author is.
If you believe that the author is good then I think you have no right to conclude this.Do you think that I've missed out on any method which guarantees that the study will remain objective? I'd like to know if that's the case. This problem always comes back to mess with me irrespective of which scripture I attempt at reading.
Peace
--------------- Student of AllahRED I think so, will reply later, have to go now.
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Shalom Aleikhem,
Do you think that I've missed out on any method which guarantees that the study will remain objective? I'd like to know if that's the case. This problem always comes back to mess with me irrespective of which scripture I attempt at reading.
Peace
--------------- Student of AllahHi,
I think to be objective you have to take te quran as an encrypted book, a book with hieroglyphs of an unknown language.
To decipher this book you need to approach it in a mathematical way. So you have to set up some "axioma's" and defintions on which you have to build theorems.
Then you test and finetune your theorems and/or axioma's and/or defintions everytime you hit a contradiction.I believe that if this book is indeed special then it doesn't matter from where you start (whatever your axioma's and defintions are), all roads will converge to one understanding.
Salaam,
Bender -
Shalom Aleikhem,
This issue has always been a difficult one for me. In fact, it transcends the Qur'an and can be seen in the study of other ancient scriptures too. Let me state my case
I believed that the closer to the real meaning of the Qur'an that we can get, the better we will be able to understand and thereby follow the ACTUAL message. That put me in the position where I had to rely on classical Arabic dictionaries, sites like PRL, etc. to try and interpret the Qur'an. Obviously, it wasn't an easy thing to do. To begin with, a lot of the words had MANY different meanings. On top of that, I had to go find similar topics being addressed in the Qur'an to get a sense of the scope of available meanings which I can justify in my translation. After being a member of a community like this one for years, I've realized that not even this method is close to "objective". The two biggest problem I faced were
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If I was trying to understand the most accurate meaning of , say a verse/word, I was going back to the study of the context along with other similar issues which were described throughout the Qur'an. The trouble is, those contexts and excerpts were themselves reliant on me translating them/interpreting them using dictionaries/other parts of the Qur'an. This made me feel like there was no way to claim accuracy of the interpretation.
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As though to prove my point, I discovered that the discrepancy in the translations/interpretations of the Qur'an among the people who followed similar methods as I did was huge! I mean, if you have been on this forum for a while, you'd understand what I'm talking about. The diversity of mutually exclusive interpretations of the text which came out of virtually the same methodology of studying the book is striking!
On top of that, please consider that a statement can be literal or metaphorical. That just adds to the problem of ascertaining the most accurate interpretation. This brings me to my main question. Can we do an objective study of the Qur'an to yield accurate interpretation of the text? At the absence of the author, it seems impossible of a task to do. As I've discussed above, it seems like even the most objective rules don't result in the same result when it comes to 2 different people doing the study.
If we now say that the book was not meant to be objective and can only be interpreted on a subjective level, we enter a whole new domain with it's own big problems. For example, I could conclude that the Qur'an teaches us to beat wives without anyone having the right to challenge my interpretation. After all, that is what subjectivity is all about.
Do you think that I've missed out on any method which guarantees that the study will remain objective? I'd like to know if that's the case. This problem always comes back to mess with me irrespective of which scripture I attempt at reading.
Peace
--------------- Student of AllahI believe I understand your view and have the same frustrating thought.
If
Quran is explained in details, is complete and has no contradictions (regardless of whether is
difficult to understand or not)
THEN IF
people use similar methodology to extract meaning out of the same holy book
IT
will result in similar outputs (when I say similar outputs, I mean not a huge difference in meaning as it usually occurs even on this website)Having said the above, I really hope we all find the truth and regardless of what the outcome is, I believe people on this forum are doing a great job.
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People are all different and besides that people gothrough different stages and experienced.
The Qura'nic text is full of possibilities. It is the same as life. Can anybody be objective with life? No, some people may be a little objective here and there, but mostly we are not objective and we are not meant to be objective, because in fact objectiveness is a mirage. What matters is not to be objective but to be effective. If we waited to be objective to live ou lives we wouldn't live. Absolute objectivity is a heavy utopia just as much as absolute knowledge.
In order to be objective we hould make due allowances for subjectivity. And if the Qur'an is revealed by God, as I believe, I am sure that all allowances have been made for the subjectivity of the reader.
Salaam
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People are all different and besides that people gothrough different stages and experienced.
The Qura'nic text is full of possibilities. It is the same as life. Can anybody be objective with life? No, some people may be a little objective here and there, but mostly we are not objective and we are not meant to be objective, because in fact objectiveness is a mirage. What matters is not to be objective but to be effective. If we waited to be objective to live ou lives we wouldn't live. Absolute objectivity is a heavy utopia just as much as absolute knowledge.
In order to be objective we hould make due allowances for subjectivity. And if the Qur'an is revealed by God, as I believe, I am sure that all allowances have been made for the subjectivity of the reader.
Salaam
I think we all start with a subjective view. BUT we always have to stay objective. I mean if we see something better, we have to be honest to ourselves and stay objective, this means throw away/correct our previous subjective view into something better. I believe if the quran is indeed special then it doesn't matter from which perspective we begin, if we stay objective in our research then all our understandings will converge to one understanding, this is if the quran is indeed special.
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As long as the author doesn't show up, as long as words will have multiple meanings, as long as metaphors may be present among absolute statements, I really don't think we can ever objectively study this book.
Salamun Alaikum.
If by ?objective study? one means to derive the ?one definitive meaning/interpretation? that is meant by the author? then I AGREE with the above statement. In fact I find it quite in line with the below famous statement from the very Qur?an
37 It is He who sent down the book on you. From it there are authoritative signs ? they are the leads of the book; and others are allegorical. Then as for those - in their hearts there is deflection ? so they follow whatever is allegorical of it ? seeking provocation and seeking its interpretation; But none knows its interpretation except God - and those deeply-rooted in knowledge ? they say, ?We put faith in it, everything is from near our Master? - but none rethinks except the men of discretion.
(My personal translation, cross checking is recommended.)
Please note the statement ?none knows its interpretation except God?? this validates SOA?s remark that ?As long as the author doesn't show up? we can never get the objective meaning of the book?.
THEN how and why should one study a book which itself claims that no one knows its ?(definitive) interpretation? except God? This is where we need to understand why the verses of Qur?an are called signs (ayats). The understanding to be derived of a sign always varies depending on the perspective of the reader.
So, those who put faith in Qur?an as the book of God would accept this as a blessing and treat the book as a ?living book? which is capable of changing how it would guide the reader.
Let me clarify with one example.
Qur?an frequently mentions ?He sent water from the heaven?? as a sign that God is in charge. From the very beginning of Qur?an study, this has been understood to be a reference to ?rain??and quite logically so. However, as a reader in the 21st Century I am privileged to know that the element "water" is not native to earth ? because the known process of planet formation does not support the generation of liquid water on this planet. So, scientists generally agree that water came to earth from extra-terrestrial sources, perhaps through comets or asteroids. The fact that this essential element for life was ?sent? to earth to make it habitable - adds to the odds that such events could have occurred without any master plan. Now with this privileged information when I read the following verse
222 Who assigned for you the earth as a bedding and the sky as a canopy and sent down from the sky ? water; then brought forth with these provision from the fruits for you; so don?t assign equals to God while you know.
(My personal translation, cross checking is recommended.)
? I cannot but wonder about the extra-terrestrial origin of water on this planet. - Not because Qur'an say's so, but because this verse is a sign that prompts me to such wondering.
When I read this verse I cannot but wonder about the facts that the crust of this loving blue planet needed to cool down at the correct temperature and then spread over the boiling core like a comfortable bedding.. and also greenhouse gasses needed to form a protective canopy to shed the planet from sun?s radiation and also water had to arrive from the heavens and only after these vital conditions are met life in the form of plans and animals could have sprung out here.
Do I claim this as a ?Scientific miracle? of Qur?an? No, I am not trying to claim that. What I am trying to say.. whoever would assume the Qur?an to be a humanly authored book might logically seek ?(definitive) interpretation? of the book and hence take the above verse as na?ve chatter of a 6th century individual. But whoever is open to the idea that this book is inspired by God and meant to guide us..would only stand to take guidance from this book utilizing the latest available knowledge and understanding.
In this forum this approach has been called ?interpretation acrobatics? before. I do not mind. I have faith that this book is meant to be useful as a guide to the readers only when the reader takes his best intention and best understanding to it. And this is how, I believe, Qur?an is meant to be studied. Is this approach subjective? Yes. Does this approach mean that different people could take different meaning from the same sign (ayah) and can both be right in their own way as long as their intention is right? Yes it does. We put faith in it, everything is from near our Master ... He guides to the straight way whomever He wills.
Regards,
Arman