The Presence of God in the Quran, Abdal Hakim Murad

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The Quran: Dr. Timothy Winter (Sheikh Abdal-Hakim Murad)

According to the 2011 edition of the 500 Most Influential Muslims, Dr. Timothy Winter (Sheikh Abdal-Hakim Murad),

is Britain’s leading Muslim scholar and one of the most well-respected Western theologians in the Muslim World. He has written on various topics including British Muslim history and theological discourse. Winter teaches theology at Cambridge University and is the director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College in Cambridge…He is the director of the Sunnah project, which has published the foremost scholarly Arabic editions of the major Sunni Hadith collections.

Notes from Abdal Hakim Murad’s Talk on the Quran

8:15

Abdal Hakim Murad discusses the uniqueness of the Quran’s self-reflection.  The Quran is aware of itself as a book.  He discusses one of the titles for the Quran – Al-Furqan which means “The Differentiator” or “The Criterian”,

Furqān, a word of non-Arabic origin, means “that which sets apart or distinguishes,” and is usually translated as “distinction” or “criterion”. In Quran 8:41, the word designates the battle of Badr because it clearly marked off the party of truth from the party of falsehood. In Quran 21:48 it is used for the Torah, and in Quran 25:1 (also Quran 2:185), for the Qurʾān. According to Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī, the revealed scriptures are called furqān in four senses: first, they offer a detailed account of the divine commandments and injunctions; second, they distinguish between truth and falsehood, and between the lawful and the unlawfu; third, they are absolutely clear as to their intent and purpose; fourth, they afford human beings the wisdomthat enables them to go through life with a full understanding of the distinction between good and evil, and between right and wrong” (Mustansir Mir, “Names of the Qurʾān.” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, [Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005], CD-ROM version).

9:55

Abdal Hakim Murad says the Quran has had more impact on human history than any other book.  The Quran stands at an important juncture in history and is the reason for that juncture.  Abdal Hamkim Murad talks about the transformative power of the Quran.

17:17

Abdal Hamkim Murad says one of the puzzles for the modern world is why the Quran, which is so hard to read, is being listened to by so many people and produces great civilizations and is written all over the world’s great works of art: from the Alhambra to the Taj Mahal.

Abdal Hamkim Murad  thinks there is clearly something to the Quran that is missing in the West.  Westerners are tone deaf when it comes to the text.  Tuning in to find out what the Quran is saying is important for understanding the modern world and why so many people continue to be hypnotized by the Quran’s message.

The Quranic concept of mankind’s problem is not sin as it is in Biblical teaching (Plato vs. Paul)

19:00

The Quran differs from the Bible in its assessment of the human predicament.  The Bible speaks of sin and the need to be saved from sin, while the Quran diagnoses the human predicament forgetfulness.  The Quran is a “remembrance” (dhikr).

This is key for Islamic hamartiology (doctrine of “sin.”).  Every soul, sometime in the past, has already witnessed and confessed Allah but has forgotten (Sometimes called the “Day of Alastu”).  Mankind’s main problem therefore is not sin but forgetfulness.  There is something innate in mankind that has been lost/forgotten that is found/remembered in the Quran.

Dr. Abdal Hakim Murad discusses Surah 7 in the Quran where it talks about a time before time when all souls were summoned before the presence of God and bore witness – in a primordial covenant – that God is to be adored,

And (remember) when your Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed (or from Adam’s loin his offspring) and made them testify as to themselves (saying): “Am I not your Lord?” They said: “Yes! We testify,” lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection: “Verily, we have been unaware of this.” (Quran 7:172, Muhsin Khan)

Muslims believe that before our souls had body we all made the above covenant with God and that we will be held accountable for this covenant on the Day of Judgment.  The Quran gives repeated warnings to mankind to remember this covenant their souls made in the primordial past,

And remember Allah’s Favour upon you and His Covenant with which He bound you when you said: “We hear and we obey.” And fear Allah. Verily, Allah is All-Knower of the secrets of (your) breasts. (Quran 5:7, Muhsin Khan)

Shall he then who knows that what has been revealed unto you (O Muhammad SAW) from your Lord is the truth be like him who is blind? But it is only the men of understanding that pay heed. Those who fulfill the Covenant of Allah and break not the Mithaq (bond, treaty, covenant); (Quran 13:19-20, Muhsin Khan)

Verily, Allah enjoins Al-Adl (i.e. justice and worshipping none but Allah Alone – Islamic Monotheism) and Al-Ihsan [i.e. to be patient in performing your duties to Allah, totally for Allah’s sake and in accordance with the Sunnah (legal ways) of the Prophet SAW in a perfect manner], and giving (help) to kith and kin (i.e. all that Allah has ordered you to give them e.g., wealth, visiting, looking after them, or any other kind of help, etc.): and forbids Al-Fahsha’ (i.e all evil deeds, e.g. illegal sexual acts, disobedience of parents, polytheism, to tell lies, to give false witness, to kill a life without right, etc.), and Al-Munkar (i.e all that is prohibited by Islamic law: polytheism of every kind, disbelief and every kind of evil deeds, etc.), and Al-Baghy (i.e. all kinds of oppression), He admonishes you, that you may take heed.
And fulfill the Covenant of Allah (Bai’a: pledge for Islam) when you have covenanted, and break not the oaths after you have confirmed them, and indeed you have appointed Allah your surety. Verily! Allah knows what you do. (Quran 16:90-91, Muhsin Khan)

Abdal Hakim Murad compared the Islamic view of the soul with Plato’s “River of Forgetfulness.”  He says Islam is closer to this Platonic idea than the biblical concept of Original Sin.

Abdal Hakim Murad discusses “How do we remember”?

22:26

How do we remember?  How do we bridge the gulf between Creator and creature?

Muslims believe the Quran bridges this gulf.

Abdal Hakim Murad speaks about approaching the text of the Quran and quotes Rumi,

The Qur’an is like a bride. Although you pull the veil away from her face, she does not show herself to you. When you investigate the Qur’an, but receive no joy or mystical unveiling, it is because your pulling at the veil has caused you to be rejected. The Qur’an has deceived you and shown itself as ugly. It says, “I am not a beautiful bride.” It is able to show itself in any form it desires. But if you stop pulling at its veil and seek its good pleasure; if you water its field, serve it from afar and strive in that which pleases it, then it will show you its face without any need for you to draw aside its veil.

Abdal Hakim Murad gives three stories illustrating traditional Muslim piety and how God’s presenced is experienced in the Quran

The Quran is experienced by Muslims as God’s presence.  Abdal Hakim Murad relates three stories to illustrate God’s presence in the Quran for three different people.

#1 The experience of God in a teacher/pupil’s relationship to the Quran

The first story comes from Hamidou Kane, “Ambiguous Adventure” and is about a teacher teaching the Quran to a stellar student ,

Once more, trembling and gasping, he repeated the flashing sentence.  His eyes were imploring, his voice was fading away, his little body was burning with fever, his heart was beating wildly.  This sentence – which he did not understand, for which he was suffering martyrdom – he loved for its mystery and its somber beauty.  This word was not like other words.  It was a word which demanded suffering, it was a word come from God, it was a miracle, it was as God Himself had uttered it.  The teacher was right.  The Word which comes from God must be spoken exactly as it has pleased Him to fashion it.  Whoever defaces it deserves to die. [NOTE: Abdal Hakim Murad skipped this last sentence!]

The child succeeded in mastering his suffering, completely.  He repeated the sentence without stumbling, calmly, steadily, as if his body were not throbbing with pain.

The teacher released the bleeding ear.  Not one tear had coursed down the child’s delicate face.  His voice was tranquil and his delivery restrained.  The Word of God flowed pure and limpid from his fervent lips.  There was a murmur in his aching head.  He contained within himself the totality of the world, the visible and the invisible, its past and its future.  This word which he was bringing forth in pain was the architecture of the world – it was the world itself. [NOTE: Abdal Hakim Murad stopped here, but the story goes on to talk about the boy’s teacher torturing him with a burning stick so that he correctly recited the Quran.  What does this say about the Muslim belief in God’s presence in the Quran: those who deface it are worthy of death; little children who recite it incorrectly are worthy of torture?!). ¹The story continues where Abdal Hakim Murad left off, and the torture becomes more evident and disturbing,

The teacher, who was now holding a burning faggot from the hearth very close to the child, was looking at him and listening to him.  But while his hand was threatening, his eager gaze was full of admiration, and his attention drank in the words the little boy spoke.  What purity!  What a miracle!  Truly, this child was a gift from God.  In the forty years that he had devoted himself to the task – and how meritorious a task it was! – of opening to God the intelligence of the sons of men, the teacher had never encountered anyone who, as much as this child, and in all facets of his character, waited on God with such a spirit.  So closely would he live with God, this child, and the man he would become, that he could aspire – the teacher was convinced of this – to the most exalted levels of human grandeur.  Yet, conversely, the least eclipse – but God forbid!  The teacher was driving this eventuality from his mind with all the force of his faith.  Still looking closely at the child, he made, mentally, a short prayer: “Lord, never forsake the man that is awaking in this child.  May the smallest measure of Thy sovereign authority not leave him, for the smallest instant of time…”

As he intoned the sacred text the little boy was thinking, “Lord, Thy word must be pronounced as Thou hast spoken it…”

The blazing faggot was scorching his skin.  He jumped up, gave a spasmodic shake to the ligh shirt he was wearing, and sat down again, his legs crossed, his eyes lowered to his writing-tablet, some steps away from the teacher.  He took up his verse once more, and rectified his error.

“Here, come close!  When vain thoughts distract you from the Word, I shall burn you…Pay attention: you can do that.  Repeat with me, ‘God, give me attentiveness.’”

“God, give me attentiveness.”
“Again.”
“God, give me attentiveness.”
“Now go back to your verse.”

Trembling and submissive, the child took up the impassioned intoning of the incandescent text.  He repeated the verse over and over  until he was close to losing consciousness.

The teacher, his equanimity restored, had plunged into prayer.  The child knew his lesson for the morning.

Next, Abdal Hakim Murad quotes from a short story by the writer Hasan Askari about how the Quran represented God’s presence for an illiterate Indian woman,

After lighting the lamp, she would give a quick glance towards the window which was already bright with the first light of the oncoming day.  She knew that the sun was not yet above the horizon, for the lamp still shone with a keenness of its own.  The night was still lingering in the room unwilling to part company with a conscious soul. To light a small lamp in one’s room as an act of prayer at the commencement of each day is what a woman in India would do day after day. That is a beautiful custom.  When all lamps are put out at sunrise there are some who light a lamp at daybreak as a sign for another light without which the day would be darker than the night.  She would then spread the prayer-mat, a beautiful soft Persian piece, its direction towards the East.  She was now going towards the corner in the room where wrapped in green silk lay the Qur’an.  She would take out the Qur’an and hold it to her heart.  Her eyes then were full of tears.  She was holding a book which she loved and respected so much and yet she was unable to read.  She would then recall, crying like a child, that moment when the Voice repeatedly said to the Prophet in the cave of Hera:  Read, Read in the Name of the Lord.  And the Prophet had said in utter helplessness:  I cannot read.

Then she would return to the prayer-mat lifting the Qur’an above her head, saying as though:  O Book!  You are above my understanding.  My head is nothing more than a place whereupon you rest.

Having sat down not occupying the entire prayer-mat but a part of it, for to occupy the whole of the prayer-mat was to her an act of arrogance, she would open the book knowing only to keep the right side up, and to begin where she had left the previous day.

For a long time she would allow her eyes to rest on the two open pages before her.  The letters in green ink from right to left, row beneath row, each shape mysteriously captivating, each dot below or above a letter an epitome of the entire scripture, each assembly of letters a group of dervishes raising their hands in zikr, each gap between two enigmatic shapes a leap from this world to the next, and each ending the advent of the day of Resurrection.

She would thus see a thousand images in the procession of that script and would move from vision to vision.

After spending much time in just looking at the open book, she would then, with strange light glowing on her face, lift her right hand and with the right finger start touching the letters of each line, then another line, to the end of the page.  What transpired between the book and that touch, and what knowledge passed, without any mediation of conscious thought, directly into her soul, only the Qur’an and that strange reciter could know.  The entire world stood still at this amazing recital without words, without meaning, without knowledge.  With that touch a unity was established between her and the Qur’an.  At that moment she had passed into a state of total identity with the word of God.  Her inability to read the scripture was her ability to hear once again: Read!  Read, in the Name of thy Lord.

The Quran, even in its written calligraphic form, has a transcendent meaning for Muslims literate or illiterate.

#3 A young convert’s experience of God as the Quran is recited

Abdal Hakim Murad then discusses how the presence of God is experienced in the spoken form of the Quran.  He quotes from Isabelle Eberhardt,

The place was cool and dark as I wen tin, and a handful of oil lamps were the only source of light.

A feeling of ancient Islam, tranquil and mysterious.

Stood for a long time near the mihrab.  Somewhere far behind us, a clear, fresh,high voice went up, a dreamlike voice that took turns with that of the elderly imam standing in the mihrab where he recited the fatiha with his quavering voice.

Standing next to each other, we all prayed as we listened to the exhilarating yet solemn exchange between those two voices. The one in front of us sounded old and hoarse, but gradually grew louder till it was strong and powerful, while the other one seemed to come from somewhere high up in the mosque’s dark reaches as it sang triumphantly in regular intervals of its unshakable, radiant faith in Allah and his Prophet … I felt almost in ecstasy, my chest tightening and my heart soaring up towards the heavenly regions that the second voice seemed to becoming from in a tone of melancholy joy, utterly convinced and at peace.

Oh, to lie upon the rugs of some silent mosque, far from the mindless noise of city life, and, eyes closed, the soul’s gaze turned heavenwards, listen to Islam’s song forever!

 “The Word made book” and “The Word made flesh“

Abdal Hakim Murad contrasts Islam: “The Word made book” with Christianity: “The Word made flesh.” He says that Word made flesh is consumed/experienced by Christians in the Eucharist while the Word made book is ingested by Muslims through their ears and sight.  This difference is important and has been pointed out by others,

Much misunderstanding between Christians and Muslims has arisen from the assumption that the Qur’an is for Muslims what the Bible is for Christians.

It would be truer to say that the Qur’an is for Muslims what Christ is for Christians. (Andrew Walls, The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History, 29)

Abdal Hakim Murad overlooks another difference that is rooted in the Creator-creation distinction.  In Christianity, Jesus took upon Himself flesh and blood to redeem us from our sin.  Mankind has fallen short of God’s glory and it is Jesus Who is able to bridge this gap (Romans 3:23-26).

This highlights the fundamental impotence and imperfection of the Quran.  The Quran cannot help Muslims to remember in  a way that is worthy of God Who is infinite and eternal.  The Quran cannot empower Muslims to obey in a way that is worthy of God (cf. Quran 16:90-91).  Unlike the Quran, Jesus is worthy and able to make His people worthy of God.

The Quran speaks, Jesus does.

Abdal Hakim Murad discusses how the Quran is God’s Uncreated Speech

44:05-48:54

Abdal Hakim Murad winds up his discusses reiterating how important the Quran as God’s presence is at the heart of Muslim piety.

48:55-51:37

The idea of fundamentalists imposing religion on everybody is not the true story.

My comments about Abdal Hakim Murad’s talk on the Quran

Abdal Hakim Murad clarified for me the Islamic view of mankind’s problem compared to the Christian view.  When Christians talk about sin, they think in terms of a Redeemer: Jesus. When Muslims talk about sin, they think in terms of a book calling mankind to remember a past covenant: Quran.

The Quranic concept of mankind’s “sin problem” is closer to Greek Platonic thought than Hebraic.

The Islamic concepts of sin, covenant breaking, remembering, and forgetting are very different from the Bible.  Islamic salvation is not to be found in a Redeemer who has kept God’s covenant, conquered death, and Satan.  Rather, Islamic salvation is when a person acknowledges/remembers what their soul had promised in the primordial past.  Each soul is his own representative and only the individual can stand as his own representative before God.

Memorization of the Quran takes on a different meaning for Muslims – they are remembering and reciting what their souls had covenanted to in the primordial past.