Religion and Language
In ?Hamlet?, the Prince is asked what he is reading ? ?words? he replies. I think that this is an apposite point when considering the centrality of scripture in religion. ?Free Minders? rely, in the main, on the Qur?an as the revealed Word of God to guide their beliefs and spiritual practice, seeing it it as a more authentic, divine source of authority than the Hadith and the Sunnah, which report the sayings and the life of the prophet Mohammed. Fair enough, I say ? there does seem to be something special about the Holy Qur?an, something, miraculous, yes, even from God himself.
All this makes me wonder about the relationship between religion and and language does language refer to particular things in the world, is it ?real? or does it simply refer to our view of the world and therefore there is nothing absolute which underpins this view. If the latter view prevails where does this leave the Qur?an-only, God ?Alone type of Islam?
Personally speaking, I favour Wittgenstein?s ?language games? theory of language which itself is an example of a coherentist view of knowledge of the External World. I find several arguments to support this perspective. Firstly there are 11,000 religions in the world Not only that but if you add on the denominations, interpretations and sects within that figure, it blows your mind! No wonder the Buddha said there were 74,000 ways to Enlightenment! To me it is self ?evident religion is a bit like art or music, no matter how passionate we get over our favourites, there is no way on Earth we could or should get the rest of the world around to our way of thinking. I used to get really cross with people who didn?t think that Bob Dylan wasn?t the best thing since sliced bread. What a waste of time! If only there was a true religion, but no, religion is inextricably linked to history and culture. As Karl Marx wrote
?Man makes history, but he does not make it as he pleases.? Our freedom is seriously constricted by our circumstances, our knowledge, our language, even our geography.
So language is part of a ?lifeworld,? or ?form of life? call it what it what, where does that leave te language of the Qur?an? I will offer a few points for your consideration.
Let us take the word ?Allah?. We all know that this is the name of the one Go to which we owe everything. We cannot portray Allah, we cannot really ever know Him; He is mystery itself, the underlying point to everything, the meaning and end of this life. The 99 names give us guidance of sorts ? it is my personal view, and please, brothers and sisters, show me if and how I am wrong that Allah is synonymous with life itself. When we praise Allah we are ultimately praising, accepting and rejoicing in everything we know ? birth, death, happiness, sadness, fate ? as the phrase goes, it is all good. Well, perhaps more precisely, it is all to be embraced and dealt with because it originates from Allah and we should never turn away from it. The oft-used phrase ?Inshallah? is saying we will deal with life as it is and how it comes ? in Buddhism they call this ?the way things are.?
Other concepts in the Qur?an are worth considering, such as the afterlife. How can we talk literally over something we know nothing about? Near Death experiences point to some kind of glorious after-life, but their incidence is too infrequent to make that evidence conclusive. So what do the 400 references in the Qur?an actually mean to us? Well, again, I stand to be corrected but are they references to some kind of ideal state that all believers should strive towards in their lives and also one that they should seek to avoid ? after all, aren?t many desires ?burning? ones?
I must confess as to being mystified as to what ?houri?s? are. What do these wide eyed innocent creatures signify?
I have been studying Islam for a year now and I am curious as to how viable a human-centred approach to the religion might be. My premise is that religion is all the better for being a human creation ? it encompasses our best ethical, philosophical, aesthetic selves ? it is our ideal which lives on after us and began long before we arrived. It covers the generations like a blanket of goodness. Religion, for me, has nothing to do with metaphysical speculation, certainties or separating people with labels.
I offer these thoughts for your comments.