In the name of God most merciful, most compassionate





I spoke, in the introduction to this series, and to this blog as a whole, of just how important it is to bear in mind the true nature of the Qur’an, and how doing so can heighten our piety in worship beyond that to which we are accustomed. In this first part, then, I will demonstrate, if God wills it, some ways in which we can glimpse the true nature of the Qur’an, and how miraculous it truly is.

Quranic Discourse

The Quran is like no other book in existence, nor like any other scripture. Even among the books that we as Muslims believe to have been sent previously by God, it is only the Quran that is the Final Scripture, just as Mohammad was the Final Prophet, and it is only the Quran that God promised to protect and preserve through time.

We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will guard it (from corruption) [15:9]

The Quran is not simply read, but instead engages the reader in conversation and debate, challenging him or her, and answering his or her own challenges before they can even be voiced.

Jeffrey Lang, an American convert to Islam, in his book Even Angels Ask, speaks of this attribute when discussing the first verse of the Qur’an, Al-Fatiha:

Far from allowing us to warm up to its message, the scripture wastes no time recalling our complaints against religion. We will discover that this is a persistent tactic of the Qur’an; that it repeatedly agitates the skeptic by confronting him with his personal objections. We will soon see that this Qur’an is no soft sell nor hard sell; that in reality it is no sell at all; that it is no less than a challenge, a dare, to fight and argue against this book.

The Quran addresses the reader directly, as though each time we pick it up to read it we are in some way in contact with our Creator- though these words have been preserved for centuries after having been revealed over 1,400 years ago for the first time to the Prophet, somehow each time the book is picked up, be it by a Muslim or otherwise, the reader is engaged directly with his Lord.

No matter how many times we have read the words before, they seem alive each time we go over them again, somehow loaded with meanings we missed out on in previous readings, eliciting feelings the past hundred readings of the same Ayah might have not evoked.

In this sense, the Quran speaks for itself- that’s not to say that there is no room for the tafsir and discussions of men regarding it, but at the core of it, Islam is made unique by having a Scripture that, ultimately speaks for itself without needing any kind of interlocutor. We can pick the mushaf off our shelf and be in direct contact with our Creator.

Lang summarises his understanding of the Fatiha thus:

We moved through the seven verses quickly. There was a subtle shift in mood from the first four that glorified God to the last three that asked for guidance. More than likely our first reading of them was so casual that we did not observe the change. It was not until we had finished the opening surah that we realized that we had just involuntarily and semiconsciously made a supplication [du’aa]. We were almost tricked into it before we had a chance to resist.

This is how Al-Fatiha seems to a convert seeking answers: it presents the core of its message, and then, as the seeker reads on, he or she find themselves suddenly speaking a supplication to God- a prayer.

Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.

Guide us to the straight way,

The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray. [1:5-7]

Without knowing it, a person reading the Qur’an for the first time, within the first seven lines, makes an unwitting prayer to God, to be guided. The Qur’an speaks for itself, speaks with those who read from it, and has them uttering a supplication to God to be guided. How many converts began their road to Islam by uttering that prayer, long before they fully accepted the truth of the book from which they read?

Ongoing Revelation

It is almost as if the Qur’an is in a state of constant revelation- as though it is constantly being revealed each time that it is read, to every human being that has read its words since the first revelation to the prophet Muhammad. Its secrets, its bottomless depths of meaning are never plumbed, nor ever seem to run dry.

{Say: “If the ocean were ink (wherewith to write out) the words of my Lord, sooner would the ocean be exhausted than would the words of my Lord, even if we added another ocean like it, for its aid} [ 18:109 ]

The words of the Qur’an, far from being merely historical, or bound entirely in history, are instead living, and the Revelation, far from being restricted only to the Prophet, or to his tribe and time, is in fact a revelation that is repeated to every human being that approaches it with an open heart.

Each time the Quran is read and recited and heard, its message unravels into life again before our eyes; the moment of revelation is frozen in time like no other moment has ever been, and opened up again with each reading of it.

And even the moments of Revelation unique to the Prophet Mohammad himself, where the Qur’an addresses the prophet specifically, are preserved for us to re-live. And there, even when the Qur’an does not seem to be addressing us, it remains a wonder that this interaction between our Lord through the angel Gabriel, and the prophet Mohammad, is preserved precisely as it happened.

The very words our prophet heard we too hear, and see, each time we read from the Qur’an. That first Revelation, from the depths of history, is alive as it repeats itself with each reading of the holy Qur’an, and will keep repeating, those moments from centuries ago will continue to echo and resound through our world until its ending.

Indeed, from these words, we also know what the Prophet himself spoke, even without reading the Hadith (the records of the sayings of the Prophet). In Ayahs that begin with Qul- the command, in Arabic- “say!”, we see what God commanded the Prophet to speak, and so Mohammad obeyed, and thus even those teachings are precisely preserved for us to read.

{Say: “I do no more than invoke my Lord, and I join not with Him any (false god) } [ 72:20 ]

{Say: “I know not whether the (Punishment) which ye are promised is near, or whether my Lord will appoint for it a distant term} [ 72:25 ]

{Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; } [ 112:1 ]

{Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn; } [ 113:1 ]

{Say: I seek refuge with the Lord and Cherisher of Mankind} [ 114:1 ]

And so the Prophet said- and so too we must follow in example and say.

Indeed:

(This is) a book sent down to you. Therefore, your heart must not be straitened because of it. (It is revealed to you) so that you may warn through it, and it may be an advice for the believers.

[Al-A’araf, 7:2]

The Qur’an is revealed unto the Prophet Muhammad to warn the believers through it- and its words, all of them, are in of themselves, advice for those who believe.

Therefore, in a world essentially composed of uncertainty- where the present truth is ephemeral, to say nothing the truth of ages passed, there is in the Qur’an- if one accepts it to be the Truth and to be unblemished as per God’s promise- a certainty found nowhere else on this earth. It is a Revelation that lives on in its words each time they are read, and which speak to their reader, and speak for themselves.

The Past and the Future in the Quran

And so, once we accept its perfection, its truth, and God’s pledge that He will protect it, the Qur’an also presents us with what might otherwise have been unimaginable: not just the moments of Revelation, but also episodes from a distant, lost past, revealed for us in full detail that we could not otherwise have known. This is alongside, also, episodes from the future- episodes which have not yet taken place, by our reckoning of Time, but which are here for us, pre-recorded in the Quran as they will happen.

The Quran says:

{That is from the news of the unseen which We reveal to you, [O Muhammad]. You knew it not, neither you nor your people, before this. So be patient; indeed, the [best] outcome is for the righteous} [11:49]

And indeed we see much revealed that would otherwise have been unseen and unseeable, such as:

{Were ye witnesses when death appeared before Jacob? Behold, he said to his sons: “What will ye worship after me?” They said: “We shall worship Thy god and the god of thy fathers, of Abraham, Isma’il and Isaac,- the one (True) Allah: To Him we bow (in Islam).”} [2:133]

Though neither Mohammad’s people- nor we- were witness to that event, its recording in the Qur’an presents us with an episode from an otherwise unreachable past, and there are many more like it- be it the lives of prophets of the past or the people who lived in the world and grappled with the same questions we do regarding God and the nature of existence.

But it is not only the past that we can see brought forth to us by God, but so too the future- such as that most visceral and yet ethereal of futures that is the Day of Judgement. The Qu’ran allows us to witness episodes from that day before it has even comes to pass:

And they [in Heaven] turned one to another, inquiring

One among them spoke: “Indeed, I had an close companion [on the Earth]

Who used to say “Are you truly one of those who believe?”

“That, when we die and are dust and bones, we can truly be brought to book?”

(A voice said) “Would ye care to look?”

And so he looked and saw him in the depths of Hellfire

And he said “By God, You almost ruined me”

“If not for the favour of my Lord, I too would have been among those brought [to that doom]”

“Shall we then not die-

Except our first death, and are we not to be punished?”

“Indeed, this is the triumph supreme”

“For its like let all strivers strive”

[37:50-61]

For all we know, it may be one of us who read these words who will have this conversation- in the far distance of this future, which we cannot yet begin to imagine. Many of us have had these discussions, with our companions who do not believe, and have heard them question our faith. Indeed, most likely the person who will have this conversation, will have read those words, before saying them him or herself, in the Qur’an whilst upon earth- and they will find themselves conducting it again, word-for-word, in this unseen future, if so God wills.

Let us be sure: here we see the future: fully, in detail; a conversation that shall take place, and which in every recitation of the Qur’an has been taking place for nearly a millennium and a half- and only God knows how many more times it shall be recited before it comes to pass.

Time and Timelessness in the Qur’an

But there is more to these particular verses than even this. When the Qur’an speaks of the Day of Judgement, it does so in all three tenses- the past, present and future. This has troubled commentators in the past, and has generally been explained merely as an artistic flourish, an idiosyncrasy of the Arabic language and its usage in the Quran.

This is, to me, not only a lacking explanation, but one that in fact refuses to take the opportunity provided by the Qur’an to explore the meaning of Time and its passage.

In fact, tense (past, present or future) seems so inconsequential (especially when the Day of Judgement is discussed), that it changes within the same narrative:

Surely the Day of Verdict was a thing appointed

A day when the trumpet shall be blown so you will come forth in multitudes

And the heavens were opened and were as gates

And the mountains vanished and became as a mirage

Surely, Hell was lying in wait

For the transgressors a destination

Dwelling therein for ages. [78:17-23]

This is neither a shortcoming, nor an accident, nor merely an artistic or literary touch- but rather, it reflects not only the nature of the Day of Judgement but the very nature of Time in the Qur’an.

Our present lives are set in a linear motion, moving ever forwards in time, from one point to another. That which passes, every second, becomes the past- and that which is yet to come, to our minds, is the future, and the very moment we are in is our present.

But we know that Hereafter is Eternal, and that God is Eternal.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that His words, sent to mankind, transcend the linear human notion of time.

Eternity does not mean time that passes forever: rather, Eternity is the absence of Time.

The Day of Judgement itself is a time set- a fixed date, which to us and with our understanding, is in the future. But as the Qur’an presents it, it is something that has happened, is happening, and will happen- on a plane beyond ours, not constrained by time.

Therefore, this Timeless event, from a realm beyond our own, when it is compressed into our human understanding, can take on terms indicating that it is in the past, in the future and in the present, simultaneously. By our human reckoning and from within our human perspective, it is a time set, a day ordained- but the Qur’an comes from a realm which transcends Time, and from its perspective, the notion of a fixed date is meaningless: past, present and future are all one and the same.

When Eternity is flattened into a narrative fit for our human perception, it can be spoken of in either of the three tenses. The Qur’an is not, like we are on earth, fixed within the constraints of Time- it transcends them, and thus when its words are necessarily flattened into human form, for human understand, this Eternity is flattened into all of past, present and future- all of which are used to describe the Day of Judgement, which in its true form, is all three of those and none of those- it is beyond Time.

Thus, the Qur’an allows us a glimpse of that which we presently cannot fully comprehend: Timelessness.

It is, as the word of God, not something that is bound in time- but which exists outside of it, as God Himself most surely does.

Closing Notes

This notion- of the Timelessness of the Qur’an- is something I will return to in the second part of this discourse, insha’Allah, where I will pick up where we left off, and take this course of thinking further still, if God wills it. In that, I plan to build upon the work within this section in order to demonstrate how Timelessness functions within the Qur’anic narrative, and beyond that, to understand our position as human beings bound by Time- in contrast with the Qur’an, which comes from a realm outside of Time.

We have seen, otherwise, in this article, how the Qur’an functions as more than a mere book, by which term we reckon other books. It has no real start, middle or end- you can read from any part of it you open to. Indeed, those in the habit of constantly performing khitmahs (full readings of the Qur’an), are not akin to those who read any other book over and over: upon finishing their first reading, they do not find themselves back at the same starting point, but rather, to continue the Qur’an again from the first Surah is instead a continuation of the journey embarked upon the first time one began to read. It is not repetition, but rather, further reading. In this sense, one can read the Qur’an an endless number of times, without feeling like they are passing through the same narrative from start, to finish, to a new start- but rather, are reading one continuous, endless whole.

This is among the many miracles that are contained within the structure of the Qur’an itself- even before one delves into the endless layers of endless meaning found within the words- and these are the miracles which concern me here, in this series. I have spoken of some in this article today, and more are yet to come, God-willing.

One of these miracles that I have explored today is the Qur’an being in a state of Ongoing Revelation, with words and meanings continuing to reveal themselves on a personal level to any individual who opens it- and thus, opens up his or her own personal discourse with it. The words, though they are an immaculate record of the initial Revelation to the Prophet Mohammad- are by no means dead, but very much alive, and come flowing back to life whenever any of us open our hearts to them.

So too we have seen how the Qur’an preserves episodes from the past, and presents us with episodes that, from our earthly points of view, are yet to occur. Furthermore, we have even seen that Time, in our human understanding of it, has no impact on the words of the Qur’an, which discusses the same events seemingly with no consideration for when they happened- and the precise reasons for this utter disregard for time and its flow is where I shall God-willing pick up next time.

For the time being, it is for us to open our minds to the true nature of the Qur’an, and to see it as not a book among other books, but rather as, to see it as being beyond a book: The Book, that was revealed by God and continues to be revealed to our souls. In doing so, we will come then closer to appreciating the true majesty of the Qur’an when we read from it, and thus allow it to permeate our souls, and bring us piety, serenity, spiritual comfort and joy both earthly and heavenly.

References:

Lang, J. (1997). Even angels ask: A journey to Islam in America. Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications.