LEARNING TO ASK QUESTIONS
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PART ONE
Among other things, the Quran is a call to ask questions. The first believers in the Quran's message were the ones who could break the shell of complacency and question the legacy of their forefathers. The questions that the Quran invites its reader or hearer to ask are "simple" questions. These questions are meant to penetrate the thick veil of carelessness and familiarity that covers our eyes so that we see the world under a fresh light. It is through these questions one comes to the threshold of faith or moves up the ladders of certainty in faith. I will name this questioning to which the Quran repeatedly calls us: "primary" questioning.
There are also questions mentioned in the Quran as accounts of certain people's questions. Some of these are 'bad' questions, which are asked by "wrongdoers," and others seem to be 'good' questions, asked by messengers of God or believers in some context of tension. When Jesus' disciples or Abraham ask for a sign of resurrection, they are granted it, but when the potential or actual unbeliever asks about how God resurrects the dead he is told that a boundless suffering is prepared for him. The aim of this essay is to try to see what makes a certain question a right one in the Quranic discourse. My thesis is that the questions asked without due attention to the primary questioning are 'bad' ones, while questions asked in due order, i.e. after reflecting on the existential questions stirred up by the Quran, are deemed good questions. It is as if certain underlying questioning practices should be cultivated before other questions could be asked. In this sense, I think, the aim of the Quran is not to eradicate questioning but discipline it, and to teach us how to ask questions. After very briefly treating the 'primary questioning' in the Quran, I will take the questions of Noah and Abraham in the Quran as sample cases of asking questions the right way. Before I move into my discussion, however, I would like to clarify some of my assumptions in reading these Quranic passages.
Rules for Reading the Quran
There are several general rules that were helpful in my reading of these Quranic passages.
First is the idea that to whom the Quran is speaking is no less important than who is speaking in the Quran. In other words, when reading these scriptural passages a Muslim keeps in mind not only that its author is Divine, but also that the Divine is talking to us , the creature. This is also named as tanazzulat al ilahiyya, i.e., God's speaking on the level human being [at the time of the revelation] can understand. So the question is not simply what God means in a given passage, but what God means to communicate to me there.
Another rule that is deemed crucial is to read a given Quranic passage in the perspective of maqasid al Quran, or the overall purposes of the Quran. In other words, a faithful reading of the Quran comes through reading a piece from it in the view of the whole. Traditionally there have been slightly different views of what these overall aims of the Quran are. In general, however, it is agreed upon that the Quran is about faith in one God, and human life in connection to and in response to this God known with different attributes, such as mercy, power, wisdom. The idea is that the aim of the Quran is to get across these major motifs even when it is addressing a minor narrative detail or a 'natural' phenomenon. In anything the Quran speaks of, from a woman's complaint about her husband, to a bee making honey, to financial contracts the Quran's aim is to make God more known to us. Its primary aim is not about giving technical information about history or nature, nor to provide literary entertainment (hence the Quran's insistence that it is not "poetry.") In B. Said Nursi's words, the Quran does not talk about the things for their own sake but for the sake of their signification of God to us.
Another hermeneutical rule, which plays a crucial role in the works of major traditional exegetes, such as al Tabari (d. 923), al Tha'labi (d. 427), and al Razi (d. 1210), is the idea that the Quranic verses can have more than one meaning. Their conviction that the word of God cannot be exhausted justifies a rule of polyvalence in the exegetical tradition: any interpretation that does not undo the plain sense is an aspect of intended meaning of the given verse. Al Ghazali insists that the individual reader of the Quran should not be misled to think that Quran signifies only those meanings that have been handed down from early Quran authorities. The criticism on the part of some modern scholars that often there is no one interpretation agreed upon by Muslim commentators may be taken as a compliment. [8]
Finally, a word on extra-Quranic sources. Traditional exegesis often provides background to Quranic verses. Not surprisingly, the main source is the narrations of sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, (p), which is also considered a form of Revelation, though distinct from the Qur'an. They are often very helpful in interpreting a given passage. There is also a body of information with varying degrees of authenticity called "circumstances/occasions of revelation," ( asbab al nuzūl ). It talks about the historical situation in which a given verse was revealed. Next, there are other sources derived from bible and Jewish folklore, which are used to help to "fill in" the details especially when the passage is a narrative piece. These details, termed as Israiliyyat , were traditionally deemed helpful or at least not harmful as long as it did not contradict the plain sense of the Quran. However, in using Israiliyyat , there is also the danger of over-explaining the unmentioned details of a story, and especially in the modern exegesis there is a complaint that these details included in traditional commentaries often cloud the message of the Quranic passage. This tendency I share to some extent; additional information given in some commentaries was not very helpful for the questions I bring to these passages.
Part 1: The Call to Ask Basic Questions
Familiarity has risks. We may be often unappreciative of a valuable thing simply because we have had it repeatedly. Through the lens of familiarity many great things seem unimportant to us. It is this veil of familiarity (ulfat ) that the Quran seeks to render aside. Everything from the simple glass of water to a 'normal' bird is in fact a miracle- not because we cannot "explain" them "as yet," nor because they are rare, but because despite our intense familiarity with them and our ability to develop hydraulic or thermodynamic rules about them, they are still wonderful. As Charles Mathewes rightly notes, in directing all our interest to technical knowledge, we miss a very crucial part of being human: to wonder and ask questions. It is precisely this shell of clichéd explanations that the Quran seeks to break open through its invitation to ask questions: "how many a sign is there in the heavens and on the earth which they pass by [unthinkingly,] and on which they turn their backs."
Here is one passage among many in which the Quran invites people to stop and think about things that they have taken for granted without much thought.
It is We who have created you, why, then you do not accept the truth? Have you ever considered that [seed] which you emit? Is it you who created it or are We the source of its creation?
We have indeed decreed that death shall be [ever-present] among you: but there is nothing to prevent Us from changing the nature of your existence and bringing you into being [anew] in a manner unknown to you. And, [since] you are indeed aware of the [miracle of your] coming into being in the first instance why, then, do you not bethink yourself?
Have you ever considered the seed which you cast upon the soil? Is it you who cause it to grow or are We the cause of its growth? [For,] were it Our will, We could indeed turn it into chaff, and you would be left to wonder [and to lament], "Verily, we are ruined! Nay, but we have been deprived [of our livelihood.]"
Have you ever considered the water you drink? Is it you who cause it to come down from the clouds or are We the cause of its coming down? [It comes down sweet-but] were it Our will, We could make it burningly salty and bitter: why, then, do you not give thanks? (Qur'an 56:57-72)
And, again:
Do they not look at the sky above them how We have built it and made it beautiful and free of all faults? And the earth we have spread it wide, and set upon mountains firm, and caused it to bring forth plants of all beautiful kinds, thus offering an insight and a reminder unto every human being who willingly turns unto God. (50:6-8)
Among the first hearers of the Quran there were those who just could not understand how the mention of simple tiny things, (for the Quran even mentioned small creatures like ant, spider and bee) could be reconciled with eloquence of the Quran.The Quran insists, however, that:
Behold, God does not disdain to propound a parable of a gnat, or of something [even] less than that. Now, as for those who have attained to faith, they know that it is the truth from their Sustainer - whereas those who are bent on denying the truth say, "What could God mean by this parable?" (2:26)
To reiterate, the fact that we keep seeing a certain event and can even trace, name and describe it, does not mean that the event does not deserve our awe anymore. The different colors of plants (Quran 16: 78), or the formation of the baby in mother's womb (see: Quran 16: 13, 69; 35:28) are wonderful , even if we "explain" them with fancy names, such as 'photosynthesis' or 'tropoblast differentiation.' In this sense the Quran's call is not about faith in extraordinary events but rather about the faith in the maker of the "ordinary." This must be one reason why Muhammad often redirected the requests of people for extraordinary miracles to reflection on creation. He was sent primarily to teach how to read the "ordinary" signs of God, rather than to perform extraordinary miracles. In this respect, the traditional insistence that even though Muhammad did perform miracles, his major miracle was the Quran is very meaningful: the greatest miracle is the one which shows that everything is a miracle. According to the Quran, this is not just Muhammad's task, but rather is the task of all messengers. We turn now to two of these messengers, Noah and Abraham to see how this basic questioning becomes a framework for all other questions.
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