This title would, in the mind of many Muslims, justify the moniker that I have chosen for myself. This is something which has troubled me a great deal with time, and it has been increasingly difficult for me to maintain my many “unorthodox” views in the face of the overwhelming difference between them and the ideas that prevail in the Muslim conciousness. Only recently, after a brief period of disillusionment combined with an inability to honestly pray, have I begun to find a footing in myself as a helplessly uncertain and questioning person, and simultaneously a Muslim.

One of the cardinal beliefs of the religion we call Islam today is that the Qur’an is the literal Word of God, and is thereby perfect and flawless in every way. But what does that mean? What does it mean that the Qur’an or indeed any text is “perfect”? And are there kinds of perfection? Indeed, God, to the extent that we can speak of him(and we will come to this question later) is perfect. This is at least one thing on which myself and all other Muslims can agree on. Alhamdulillah. But is the Qur’an of the same type/order of perfection as God Himself?

The Qur’an is written in a specific human language. It is the speech of God, in human language. This fact(if it is indeed a fact-this caveat must be added, for I am an eternal skeptic) must have resulted in a cataclysmic clash of Divine and human consciousness, a mixing of two fundamentally different metaphysical states of experience and expression. I doubt that this “meshing” was a particular clean process. I think the full thrust and meaning of what was being communicated to Muhammad(may God bless him) or perhaps what Muhammad(may God bless him) was allowed to access to, may not have made its way fully into the words that we are reading today. How could it? How could the full latitude, magnificence, and content of Divine Speech be expressed in any human language? Can the words we read, can language itself(let alone human language) express the full Divine correlate of any Qur’anic idea? Are we not reading but flashes of Divine thought that we can still only struggle to fully grasp with our constant musing and bickering over interpretations? Can speech, even God’s speech, equal the glory and perfection of God Himself and the perfection in the truth of His eternal decrees? I have serious doubts about this.

We seem to have this idea that the Qur’an cannot be questioned, critiqued and must not be imperfect in any way in order for it to be the Word of God. I think that it could be imperfect, but only in so far that all speech which attempts to teach about God has to be. Every use of language contains within itself limitations of meaning, and limitations in its content and in the ideas it invokes, whereas the mind of God cannot be fragmented or limited in such a way. Maybe the Qur’an is a unique(and uniquely beautiful), well preserved record of the many numinous experiences by Muhammad(may God bless him) of God’s speech through the filter of his mind, rather than a full perfect representation of God’s speech to Muhammad in itself. Even if God specifically chose these exact words for him to recite and dictate, they cannot contain within themselves the full scope and content of these ideas within the Divine Mind.

I understand that most Muslims fear that even allowing for this possibility or anything like it could lead to a slippery slope and to questioning the text in a way that may lead to apostasy. Since religion, as the popular path to spirituality, is unfortunately and inescapably a social phenomenon and more importantly, a means of social cohesion and control, it makes sense that the more traditional view prevails.