Zahir
Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
Continuing
seamlessly from where Part-II
left off, Mr. Spock probes deeper into the
question guiding this inquiry using his new nomenclature: Determinate
and Indeterminate. The key question guiding this inquiry is
restated:
What
are the inherent impediments for studying the message of the Holy
Qur'an which make the Book so amenable to self-serving
interpretation, socialization, and even bastardization by anyone?
The
purpose in Part-III is to illustrate the inherent
difficulties in comprehending the Speech of the Author of the Holy
Qur'an due to its Indeterminates,
and how to even begin to decipher the Message by logical reasoning
from the Holy Qur'an itself without resorting to any outside sources,
and without resorting to speculation and baseless interpretation that
fly in the face of the prima facie meaning of the verses.
Technically, this process of reasoning from the Holy Qur'an is
sometimes referred to as “tawil”
( تَأْوِيلِهِ
).
And
just like there is poor scholarship and outstanding scholarship,
there is also poor “tawil” which indulges in baseless
speculation and self-serving interpretation of the metaphorical
verses ( آيَاتٌ
مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ
)
and even the categorical verses ( آيَاتٌ
مُحْكَمَاتٌ
),
and outstanding non speculative “tawil” which confines
itself to the logical reasoning based on the prima facie meaning of
the verses as demonstrated by Mr. Spock. This is mandated by the Holy
Qur'an itself to the “men of understanding” (
أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
)
in Surah Aal-'Imran 3:7
for correctly deciphering the Determinates of
its Divine Guidance System.
Mr.
Spock will soon discover to what extent can that logical reasoning
process of deciphering the Holy Qur'an take the inquiry after which
matters become patently Indeterminate, and what
sensible lessons may be drawn from this conspicuous limitation of the
Divine Book that continually plagues all those among mankind who are
not the “Ar-Rasikhoon-fil-ilm”
( الرَّاسِخُونَ
فِي الْعِلْمِ
)
referenced in the Holy Qur'an (3:7,
4:162).
The
focus of exposition continues to remain the exploration of verses
that have fueled sectarianism. The text draws on Part-II when making
reference to verses already quoted, with the phrase “quoted
above”.
Being
a well-traveled science officer aboard the Starship Enterprise and
having visited many different worlds and civilizations in their
differing stages of sociological development throughout the
traversable universe, Mr. Spock is well aware that the general
knowledge of history and other sociological material can always lend
some context to any matter when it pertains to living creatures.
But
Spock is also well aware from the blood-drenched history of early
civilizations that history is typically written by the victors of
history. Only the works of those scribes typically survive in the
libraries or in the cultural memory of the majority of the people,
who either echo, or don't challenge, the core-axioms of the victors.
All narratives consequently harbor a germ of untruth and falsehood in
them even when they appear to narrate honestly, due to ingrained
biases, vested interests, loyalties, infidelities, and other
psychologically and sociologically induced tendencies of the living
authors. (This is explored in more depth in Part-IV.) Mr. Spock also
well understood that this characteristic was common to most if not
all species in the universe he had visited. Even the history of his
own planet, despite being all logic and event based, was not devoid
of falsehoods and power-plays of hidden motivations of his peoples –
for good and evil are merely tools for the superior intellect to
achieve its end. Whether an end is noble or not is merely the
moralizing semantics put on it by those who wish to see matters in
that light. Whereas, in reality, these have no a priori moral and
spiritual bounds put on them by creatures who lack the right-half
brain function to feel, to empathize, and
to moralize. (See Morality
derived from the Intellect leads to Enslavement!)
In
addition, human beings especially, are among the most subjective and
highly malleable of cognitive creatures. Mr. Spock well knows after
his lifelong sojourn among them that it is the race of mankind, more
than any other cognitive race in the vast expanse of the universe,
that most naturally espouses irrational feelings, uncalled for
emotions, loves, hates, anxieties, fears, wants, sense of belonging,
and are often driven by hidden subconscious motivations of which they
themselves remain cognitively unaware of.
These psychological forces and innate proclivity towards
partisanship, tribalism, ethnocentrism, and
ideological alliance shared with relevant
political community, etc., naturally color their perception of
events, epochs, and history which they record as its scholars, no
differently than those who sanction or orchestrate those events,
epochs, and history as the “history's actors”. No
scientist, historian, sociological commentator and scholar is immune
from these psychological forces.
Its
undesirable consequence to accurate
scholarship is that myths and falsehoods get easily amplified with
successive generation of historians just as much as unpopular truths
get easily attenuated. The
truth of these words is beyond doubt. It is in fact self-evident. It
can be witnessed in the scholarship of any people and any
civilization among mankind. Just the straightforward observation that
heroes of one civilization often turn out to be the villains of
another, and vice versa, is sufficient to create caution in the mind
of the non dogmatic student of both history and current affairs that
even the most scholarly narratives minimally have to be studied with
the forensic eye of scrutiny. Without awareness of psychological and
sociological forces, the human student seeking understanding of
history is as compelled to 'United We Stand' with the narratives due
to “group-think” as the narrators themselves. Mr. Spock
fortunately is not human.
For
the case at hand, Mr. Spock discovers that no written records exist
of the early period of the advent of Islam until after more than a
century of the death of its Prophet. Several generations until then,
as was noted by the first historians writing of that period some two
centuries later, had carried the Sunnah of the Prophet of
Islam, the Qur'anic directive “Obey the Messenger”,
in their cultural memories, or word of mouth, and passed them from
father to son, mother to daughter, generation after generation, due
to the tyranny of the Muslim rulers who were crafting dynastic
empires on Islam. These rulers, it was evident, had themselves
sanctioned historical narratives and compilations of Sunnah
which were not inimical to their own ruling interests.
Nevertheless,
Mr. Spock also realized that facts are facts. And so he began
searching the vast computer libraries of millions of books on Islam
beginning from its earliest primary written works in search of what
might be unarguable, reliable, and authenticated facts and events
pertaining to the epoch of the Messenger of the Holy Qur'an and those
that immediately followed, to lend some sociological context to his
study. To further identify what is a real fact vs. merely a narrative
which might or might not be true, Spock clarified his thinking
thusly. He took the most shocking example of a fact to delineate what
he considered incontrovertible fact vs. merely a historical
narrative.
The
following is an exemplar case study to illustrate the issues, the
difficulties, and the forensic approach to resolving indirections
using guidance from the Determinate verses of the Holy Qur'an
which has called itself: Al-Furqaan, الْفُرْقَانَ
(verse
25:1). Many other Qur'anic indirections and conundrums can similarly
be examined using this exemplary approach.
An
incontrovertible fact is of the following type: The historical
narrative indicated that a Muslim ruler in the Ummayad Dynasty, in
680 AD, slaughtered Hussein ibn Alī ibn Abī
Ṭālib, the revered grandson of the Prophet of Islam, along
with many other male members of his family including children. And
this act transpired despite the Author of the Holy Qur'an's
remarkable and explicit commandment to Muslims to both honor the
Author's Messenger, and to honor and love the Messenger's “near
of kin”, which obviously includes his progeny:
|
'Say:
“No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of
those near of kin.”' (Surah Ash-Shura 42:23)
|
قُل
لَّآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ
عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا
إِلَّا ٱلْمَوَدَّةَ
فِى ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ
ۗ
|
Evidently,
even to the untrained prima facie eye, never mind to the
super-trained mind of a forensic detective of history like Mr. Spock,
something major appeared to have gone systemically wrong after the
death of the Prophet of Islam. Only within the passage of a mere
sixty years, matters came to this criminal abhorrence of internecine
Muslim upon Muslim state violence inflicted upon the family of the
Messenger. And this despite the most lucid and clear-text commandment
of the Holy Qur'an to the Muslim polity: 'Say: “No reward do
I ask of you for this except the love of those near of kin.”'
Case
Study: What does the Holy Qur'an say about the Ahlul Bayt?
Does the Scripture identify their composition?
Does the Scripture identify their composition?
The
reasonable question arose in Mr. Spock's mind: why this commandment
to honor and love the Exemplar's progeny, his “zurriyat”,
those near of kin, فِى
ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ
?
What is so special about the Prophet of Islam's kin? And again, what
is the purpose for loving them? Note that in this verse there is no
command to obey them. It is to actually love them, ٱلْمَوَدَّةَ
,
with emotional content. Rather unusual to ask people to love someone
else's progeny. What is the context for showing such love and
faithfulness to them?
Indeed,
much preference and affinity is shown for the family of the Prophet
of Islam by the Author of the Holy Qur'an, by referring to them as
أَهْلَ
الْبَيْتِ ,
Ahlul Bayt. and sanctifying them with a وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
, a
thorough purification:
|
“And
stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display,
like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular
Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His
Messenger.
And
Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members
of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.” (Surah
Al-Ahzaab, 33:33)
|
وَقَرْنَ
فِي بُيُوتِكُنَّ
وَلَا تَبَرَّجْنَ
تَبَرُّجَ
الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ
الْأُولَىٰ
ۖ وَأَقِمْنَ
الصَّلَاةَ
وَآتِينَ
الزَّكَاةَ
وَأَطِعْنَ
اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ
ۚ
إِنَّمَا
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ
لِيُذْهِبَ
عَنْكُمُ
الرِّجْسَ
أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
|
Caption
Verse 33:33 Surah
Al-Ahzaab – the Verse of Purification, the Verse of Perfect Cleansing. Incredible
verse that hides a wellspring of semantics by employing the gender
sensitivity of Arabic grammar in its second
person pronoun to describe the composition of Ahlul Bayt.
Another reason for misunderstanding the Holy Qur'an – its
sophistication of using the Classical
Arabic language constructs to hide a wellspring of secrets that none
among the ordinary people seeking guidance from it shall fathom
except those who are capable of understanding أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
(see
verse 3:7) and having command of its unsurpassed natural language of
exposition بِلِسَانِ
قَوْمِهِۦ
(see
verse 14:4)!
Verse 33:33 is a categorical example of why the Holy Qur'an is simply
untranslatable, even syntactically, let alone semantically! Even the
“Orientalism” jaundiced
West is reluctantly forced to admit this characteristic of the Holy
Qur'an: “The miraculous rhetorical quality that the
Qur’an has for the reader is lost in translation, ...
mistranslation usually occurs when translators retain Arabic terms or
force a single meaning upon Arabic words.”
(http://tinyurl.com/Quran-Untranslatable-Harvard).
Why
is the Prophet's family so important to the Author of the Holy
Qur'an, persisted Mr. Spock? Why is the Prophet's Ahlul Bayt
given such preeminence based merely on their DNA, as it would appear?
Before
we proceed further in hot pursuit of that question, this remarkable
verse fragment of 33:33 ( إِنَّمَا
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ
لِيُذْهِبَ
عَنْكُمُ الرِّجْسَ
أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
)
bears closer examination as it is exemplary of the most commonly
misperceived verses of the Holy Qur'an, especially when read in
translation.
As
was only briefly alluded to earlier, Mr. Spock had already noted of
the difficulty of understanding the Holy Qur'an, that within a verse,
a verse fragment could be speaking of some entirely different topic
from the rest of the verse, as for instance in 5:3,
8:41,
and 33:33.
And that the profound subtleties of Arabic grammar and its gender
specificity, enabled changing the point of reference suddenly within
a verse by simply changing the gender of the verb, noun, pronoun,
etc., as for instance in the verse fragment of 33:33
which refers to the purification of the Ahlul Bayt.
Let's look at the complete verses preceding 33:33 which ostensibly
establish the overarching context for that Verse of Purification
of the Ahlul Bayt. But do they? Not if you read it in Arabic
and know Arabic grammar. Whereas, when you read it in translation,
you are easily misled unless the translator took the pains to
accurately capture the gender change of the pronoun in a footnote or
in parenthesis to clarify matters which
could not be translated in a non-gender sensitive language.
And, the publisher also continued to reprint the translation
with footnotes un-modified until the time you got hold of that
translation.[7]
The
savvy Mr. Spock trenchantly noted the games played in translations,
and also by publishers, for deliberate sectarian obfuscation of what
was plainly manifest in the Qur'anic Arabic. From his ship's vast
library collection, Mr. Spock compared editions of the same
translations from different publishers and warily noted the
remarkable dropping or subtle modification of the clarification
footnotes posthumously in some subsequent editions even when the
translator had taken pains to footnote the gender change and its
implication in understanding the verse accurately in his original
work.
The
following table captures the complete context of the topic under
discussion in Surah Al-Ahzaab, verses 33:28-34, using Yusuf Ali's
translation.
|
O
Prophet! Say to thy Consorts: "If it be that ye desire the
life of this World, and its glitter,- then come! I will provide
for your enjoyment and set you free in a handsome manner. (28)
|
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا
ٱلنَّبِىُّ
قُل لِّأَزْوَٰجِكَ
إِن كُنتُنَّ
تُرِدْنَ
ٱلْحَيَوٰةَ
ٱلدُّنْيَا
وَزِينَتَهَا
فَتَعَالَيْنَ
أُمَتِّعْكُنَّ
وَأُسَرِّحْكُنَّ
سَرَاحًا جَمِيلًا
|
|
But
if ye seek Allah and His Messenger, and the Home of the
Hereafter, verily Allah has prepared for the well-doers amongst
you a great reward, (29)
|
وَإِن
كُنتُنَّ تُرِدْنَ
ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ
وَٱلدَّارَ
ٱلْءَاخِرَةَ
فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ
أَعَدَّ لِلْمُحْسِنَٰتِ
مِنكُنَّ أَجْرًا
عَظِيمًا
|
|
O
Consorts of the Prophet! If any of you were guilty of evident
unseemly conduct, the Punishment would be doubled to her, and
that is easy for Allah. (30)
|
يَٰنِسَآءَ
ٱلنَّبِىِّ
مَن يَأْتِ
مِنكُنَّ
بِفَٰحِشَةٍ
مُّبَيِّنَةٍ
يُضَٰعَفْ
لَهَا ٱلْعَذَابُ
ضِعْفَيْنِ
ۚ وَكَانَ ذَٰلِكَ
عَلَى ٱللَّهِ
يَسِيرًا
|
|
But
any of you that is devout in the service of Allah and His
Messenger, and works righteousness,- to her shall We grant her
reward twice: and We have prepared for her a generous Sustenance.
(31)
|
وَمَن
يَقْنُتْ مِنكُنَّ
لِلَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ
وَتَعْمَلْ
صَٰلِحًا
نُّؤْتِهَآ
أَجْرَهَا
مَرَّتَيْنِ
وَأَعْتَدْنَا
لَهَا رِزْقًا
كَرِيمًا
|
|
O
Consorts of the Prophet! Ye are not like any of the (other)
women: if ye do fear (Allah), be not too complacent of speech,
lest one in whose heart is a disease should be moved with desire:
but speak ye a speech (that is) just. (32)
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يَٰنِسَآءَ
ٱلنَّبِىِّ
لَسْتُنَّ
كَأَحَدٍ مِّنَ
ٱلنِّسَآءِ
ۚ إِنِ ٱتَّقَيْتُنَّ
فَلَا تَخْضَعْنَ
بِٱلْقَوْلِ
فَيَطْمَعَ
ٱلَّذِى فِى
قَلْبِهِۦ
مَرَضٌ وَقُلْنَ
قَوْلًا مَّعْرُوفًا
|
|
And
stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display,
like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular
Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His
Messenger.
And
Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members
of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless. (33:33)
|
وَقَرْنَ
فِى بُيُوتِكُنَّ
وَلَا تَبَرَّجْنَ
تَبَرُّجَ
ٱلْجَٰهِلِيَّةِ
ٱلْأُولَىٰ
ۖ وَأَقِمْنَ
ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ
وَءَاتِينَ
ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ
وَأَطِعْنَ
ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥٓ
ۚ
إِنَّمَا
يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ
لِيُذْهِبَ
عَنكُمُ ٱلرِّجْسَ
أَهْلَ ٱلْبَيْتِ
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
|
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And
recite what is rehearsed to you in your homes, of the Signs of
Allah and His Wisdom: for Allah understands the finest mysteries
and is well-acquainted (with them). (Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:34)
(Tr. Abdullah Yusuf Ali)
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وَٱذْكُرْنَ
مَا يُتْلَىٰ
فِى بُيُوتِكُنَّ
مِنْ ءَايَٰتِ
ٱللَّهِ وَٱلْحِكْمَةِ
ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ
كَانَ لَطِيفًا
خَبِيرًا
|
Caption
Surah Al-Ahzaab, verses 33:28-34 – An illustrative case of how
a translation fails to capture the semantics of the Qur'anic Arabic
grammar accurately due to language limitations of English which does
not have gender-specific second person pronouns and possessive
pronouns. In this instance, it leads to the misperception that the
interspersed verse fragment purifying the Ahlul Bayt in 33:33
is referring to the Messenger's wives just
because the wives are being addressed by the Author earlier in that
verse, and also in the preceding verses, and in the succeeding verse!
This switch in topic for the verse of purification cannot be
captured in a translated language which does not have gender-specific
2nd person pronoun with the same semantics as the Classical Qur'anic
Arabic does, without explicit elaboration.
The
following table completely decomposes verses 33:33 and 33:34 word by
word. Please take a few minutes to study the switch in pronoun from
2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun when referring
to the houses of the wives, to 2nd person masculine plural object
pronoun when referring to the Ahlul
Bayt, and back to 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
when referring again to the houses of the
wives in 33:34:
- 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
- (33:33:3) بُيُوتِكُنَّ buyūtikunna your houses
- 2nd person masculine plural object pronoun
- (33:33:20) عَنكُمُ ankumu from you,
- (33:33:24) وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ wayuṭahhirakum And to purify you
- 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
- (33:34:5) بُيُوتِكُنَّ buyūtikunna your houses
The
significance of this switch in pronouns is not lost on the super
analytical Mr. Spock.
Having
become an instant grammarian of the classical Arabic language, Mr.
Spock knows that the 2nd person masculine pronoun كُمُ
“kum”,
and 2nd person feminine pronoun كُنَّ
“kunna”,
unambiguously represent the following semantics in order to be
grammatically correct in their usage:
- “kum” when used with a plural object or possessive case represents a composition that must contain at least one or more males, and may contain zero or more females (it is equivalent of 2nd person pronoun “you”, “ تم ” and “vous” in gender neutral English, Urdu, and French respectively) ;
- “kunna” represents an all female composition (it has no equivalent in English, Urdu, French, et. al.; consequently, the same 2nd person pronoun “you”, “ تم ” and “vous” are respectively re-used causing a loss in semantics in translation).
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Translation
|
Arabic
word
|
Syntax
and morphology
|
|
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CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
|
|
(33:33:2)
fī in |
|
P
– preposition
حرف
جر
|
|
|
N
– genitive masculine plural noun
PRON – 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
اسم
مجرور والكاف
ضمير متصل في
محل جر بالاضافة
|
|
|
(33:33:4)
walā and (do) not |
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
PRO – prohibition particle
الواو
عاطفة
حرف نهي |
|
|
V
– 2nd person feminine plural (form V) imperfect verb,
jussive mood
PRON – subject pronoun
فعل
مضارع مجزوم
والتاء ضمير
متصل في محل
رفع فاعل
|
|
|
|
N
– accusative masculine (form V) verbal noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
|
|
PN
– genitive feminine proper noun → Al-Jahiliyah
اسم
علم مجرور
|
|
|
|
N
– nominative feminine noun
اسم
مرفوع
|
|
|
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural (form IV) imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
|
|
|
N
– accusative feminine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
|
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural (form IV) imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
|
|
|
N
– accusative feminine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
|
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural (form IV) imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
|
|
|
PN
– accusative proper noun →
Allah
لفظ
الجلالة منصوب
|
|
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|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
N – accusative masculine noun PRON – 3rd person masculine singular possessive pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
اسم منصوب والهاء ضمير متصل في محل جر بالاضافة |
|
|
(33:33:16)
innamā Only |
|
ACC
– accusative particle
PREV – preventive particle mā
كافة
ومكفوفة
|
|
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V
– 3rd person masculine singular (form IV) imperfect verb
فعل
مضارع
|
|
|
|
PN
– nominative proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة مرفوع
|
|
|
|
PRP
– prefixed particle of purpose lām
V – 3rd person masculine singular (form IV) imperfect verb, subjunctive mood
اللام
لام التعليل
فعل مضارع منصوب |
|
|
(33:33:20)
ʿankumu from you |
|
P
– preposition
PRON – 2nd person masculine plural object pronoun
جار
ومجرور
|
|
|
N
– accusative masculine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
|
|
N
– accusative masculine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
|
|
N
– genitive masculine noun
اسم
مجرور
|
|
|
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 3rd person masculine singular (form II) imperfect verb, subjunctive mood PRON – 2nd person masculine plural object pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل مضارع منصوب والكاف ضمير متصل في محل نصب مفعول به |
|
 |
N
– accusative masculine indefinite (form II) verbal noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
|
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
|
|
(33:34:2)
mā what |
|
REL
– relative pronoun
اسم
موصول
|
|
|
V
– 3rd person masculine singular passive imperfect verb,
subjunctive mood
فعل
مضارع مبني
للمجهول منصوب
|
|
|
(33:34:4)
fī in |
|
P
– preposition
حرف
جر
|
|
|
N
– genitive masculine plural noun
PRON – 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
اسم
مجرور والكاف
ضمير متصل في
محل جر بالاضافة
|
|
|
(33:34:6)
min of |
|
P
– preposition
حرف
جر
|
|
|
N
– genitive feminine plural noun
اسم
مجرور
|
|
|
|
PN
– genitive proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة مجرور
|
|
|
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
N – genitive feminine noun
الواو
عاطفة
اسم مجرور |
|
|
(33:34:10)
inna Indeed, |
|
ACC
– accusative particle
حرف
نصب
|
|
|
PN
– accusative proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة منصوب
|
|
|
|
V
– 3rd person masculine singular perfect verb
فعل
ماض
|
|
|
|
N
– accusative masculine singular indefinite noun
اسم
منصوب
|
|
 |
ADJ
– accusative masculine singular indefinite adjective
صفة
منصوبة
|
Caption
Surah Al-Ahzaab 33:33-34
Word by Word syntactical decomposition. (Arabic syntax and
grammar courtesy of corpus.quran.com/documentation/grammar.jsp
; corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?chapter=33&verse=33
)
The
following table captures some prominent
English and Urdu translations of verse
33:33,
all of them spectacularly failing to capture the gender switch of the
2nd person pronoun from feminine to masculine form of the original
verse in Arabic when referring to the Ahlul
Bayt. Whether or not this
translated language limitation is footnoted in the original
printed editions by their respective translators to draw attention to
the significance of this switch in pronouns, is not known.
|
And
stay in your houses and do not display your finery like the
displaying of the ignorance of yore; and keep up prayer, and pay
the poor-rate, and obey Allah and His Apostle. Allah only desires
to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! and
to purify you a (thorough) purifying. (Muhammad Ali Habib Shakir,
House of Habib, Pakistan)
|
|
And
stay in your houses and do not display your finery like the
displaying of the ignorance of yore; and keep up prayer, and pay
the poorrate, and obey Allah and His Apostle; Allah only desires
to take away the uncleanness from you, O people of the household!
and to purify you a (thorough) purifying. (Maulana Muhammad Ali
MMA 1917 PDF)
|
|
And
stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment
of the Time of Ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and pay the
poor-due, and obey Allah and His messenger. Allah's wish is but
to remove uncleanness far from you, O Folk of the Household, and
cleanse you with a thorough cleansing. (Marmaduke Pickthall)
|
|
Remain
in your houses; and display not your finery, as did the pagans of
old. And perform the prayer, and pay the alms, and obey God and
His Messenger. People of the House, God only desires to put away
from you abomination and to cleanse you. (Arthur John Arberry)
|
|
Stay
at home, and do not deck yourselves with ostentation as in the
days of paganism; fulfil your devotional obligations, pay the
zakat, and obey God and His Apostle. God desires to remove
impurities from you, O inmates of this house, and to cleanse and
bring out the best in you. (Ahmed Ali)
|
|
And
stay in Your houses. and display not yourselves! with the display
of the times of former Paganism; and establish the prayer and
give the poor-rate and obey Allah and His apostle. Allah only
desireth to take away uncleanness from you, people of the
house-hold, and to purify you with a thorough purification.
(Abdul Majid Daryabadi)
|
|
And
abide quietly in your homes, and do not flaunt your charms as
they used to flaunt them in the old days of pagan ignorance; and
be constant in prayer, and render the purifying dues, and pay
heed unto God and His Apostle: for God only wants to remove from
you all that might be loathsome, O you members of the [Prophet’s]
household, and to purify you to utmost purity. (Muhammad Asad)
|
|
And
stay in your homes and do not go about displaying your
allurements as in the former Time of Ignorance. Establish Prayer,
give Zakah, and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah only wishes
to remove uncleanness from you, O members of the (Prophet's)
household, and to purify you completely. (Abul Ala Maududi)
|
|
Stay
in your houses and do not display your finery with the display of
the former [days of ] ignorance. Maintain the prayer and pay the
zakat and obey Allah and His Apostle. Indeed Allah desires to
repel all impurity from you, O People of the Household, and
purify you with a thorough purification. (Ali Quli Qara'i)
|
|
اپنے
گھروں میں ٹِک
کر رہو اور سابق
دور جاہلیت
کی سی سج دھج
نہ دکھاتی پھرو
نماز قائم کرو،
زکوٰۃ دو اور
اللہ اور اُس
کے رسولؐ کی
اطاعت کرو اللہ
تو یہ چاہتا
ہے کہ اہلِ بیتِ
نبیؐ سے گندگی
کو دور کرے اور
تمہیں پوری
طرح پاک کر
دے
(Abul Ala Maududi) |
|
اور
اپنے گھروں
میں بیٹھی رہو
اور گزشتہ زمانہ
جاہلیت کی طرح
بناؤ سنگھار
دکھاتی نہ پھرو
اور نماز پڑھو
اور زکواة دو
اور الله اور
اس کے رسول کی
فرمانبرداری
کرو الله یہی
چاہتا ہے کہ
اے اس گھر والو
تم سے ناپاکی
دور کرے اور
تمہیں خوب پاک
کرے
(Ahmed Ali) |
|
اور
اپنے گھر میں
بیٹھی رہو اور
پہلی جاہلیت
جیسا بناؤ سنگھار
نہ کرو اور نماز
قائم کرو اور
زکوِٰادا کرو
اوراللہ اور
اس کے رسول کی
اطاعت کرو -
بس
اللہ کا ارادہ
یہ ہے اے اہلبیت
علیھ السّلام
کہ تم سے ہر برائی
کو دور رکھے
اور اس طرح پاک
و پاکیزہ رکھے
جو پاک و پاکیزہ
رکھنے کا حق
ہے
(Syed Zeeshan Haider Jawadi) |
|
اور
اپنے گھروں
میں قرار سے
رہو اور سابقہ
زمانۂ جاہلیت
کی طرح اپنی
آرائش کی نمائش
نہ کرتی پھرو
(باہر
نہ نکلا کرو)
اور
نماز قائم کرو
اور زکوٰۃ ادا
کرو اور اللہ
اور اس کے رسول
کی اطاعت کیا
کرو۔ اے اہل
بیت!
اللہ
تو بس یہی چاہتا
ہے کہ تم سے ہر
قسم کے رجس
(آلودگی)
کو
دور رکھے اور
تمہیں اس طرح
پاک و پاکیزہ
رکھے جس طرح
پاک رکھنے کا
حق ہے۔
(Ayatollah Muhammad Hussain Najafi) |
Caption
various translations of Surah Al-Ahzaab verse 33:33 into English and
Urdu, the non-gender sensitive languages,
all spectacularly failing to capture the semantics created due to the
gender change from feminine to masculine form of the 2nd person
pronoun when referring to the Ahlul
Bayt. (Translations
are from the electronic versions at tanzil.net/trans/ ; MMA 1917 PDF
courtesy of aaiil.org ; Ali Quli Qara'i courtesy of
islamawakened.com/Quran/33/33/default.htm )
In
French, which is more gender sensitive than either English or Urdu
but less so than Classical Arabic, the translation of verse 33:33 is
given below. The 2nd person pronoun “vous” in French,
like its Urdu and English 2nd person pronoun counterpart “ تم
” and
“you” respectively, including the possessive case
variations thereof, are unfortunately gender neutral and unable to
distinguish between singular and plural object, leading to the same
loss in semantics.
|
Restez
dans vos foyers; et ne vous exhibez pas à la manière
des femmes d'avant l'Islam (Jâhiliyah). Accomplissez la
Salât, acquittez la Zakât et obéissez à
Allah et à Son messager. Allah ne veut que vous
débarrasser de toute souillure, ô gens de la maison
[du prophète], et veut vous purifier pleinement. (verse
33:33 Tr. Muhammad Hamidullah)
|
Caption
Translation of verse 33:33 into French. The second person pronoun
vous is gender neutral just like in Urdu and English, despite
French being more gender sensitive than either English or Urdu,
therefore leading to the same loss in semantics.
In
Spanish however, the matter is salvaged. Spanish enables expressing
gender sensitivity of the object by addition of either “os”
or “as” to the verb. Therefore, a correct semantic
translation of verse 33:33 from Arabic into Spanish is possible by
reflecting the 2nd person plural gender sensitivity
of the pronoun in Arabic, to the correct conjugated form of the verb
expressing the gender and plurality of the object. So, if “gente
de la casa” (Ahlul Bayt) was referring
to only the wives of the Messenger, the grammatically correct verb
conjugation of the root verbs 'librar' and 'purificar' in Spanish
would have been “libraras” and “purificaras”
instead of “libraros” and “purificaros”.
|
¡Quedaos
en vuestras casas! ¡No os acicaléis como se
acicalaban las natiguas paganas! ¡Haced la azalá!
¡Dad el azaque! ¡Obedeced a Alá y a Su
Enviado! Alá sólo quiere libraros de la mancha,
gente de la casa, y purificaros por completo. (verse 33:33 Tr.
Julio Cortes)
|
Caption
Translation of verse 33:33 into Spanish. The loss of semantics in
translation is prevented by reflecting the
2nd person plural masculine pronoun of Arabic on the correct
selection of masculine or feminine verb
conjugation, since both choices are available in Spanish to indicate
object composition and its plurality.
That
language limitation conundrum disclosed above, noted Mr. Spock, is
yet another source of misunderstanding the Holy Qur'an –
studying it in translation! The Holy Qur'an is simply untranslatable,
in any language. Which is why the famous translator Arthur J.
Arberry, in deep humility, called his
excellent rendition into English: “The Koran Interpreted”.
Even
the “Orientalism” jaundiced
West is reluctantly forced to admit this characteristic of the Holy
Qur'an: “The miraculous rhetorical quality that the
Qur’an has for the reader is lost in translation, ...
mistranslation usually occurs when translators retain Arabic terms or
force a single meaning upon Arabic words.”
(see http://tinyurl.com/Quran-Untranslatable-Harvard).
Furthermore,
a translation also lends itself easily to both Machiavellian as well
as inadvertent perception management of the public mind. We can see
this pernicious cognitive infiltration in the contemporary English
translation of the Holy Qur'an titled: The Sublime Quran (see
http://tinyurl.com/Critique-Laleh-Bakhtiar-Zahir
).
To
this day, countless generations of Muslims growing up in non Arabic
speaking Muslim countries do not perceive what has so
straightforwardly been demonstrated above, as the sophistication of
the classical Arabic language to mask its secrets from the unwary by
something so elegant as simply a gender change in its 2nd person
pronoun. The syntactic as well as semantic limitations of any
translation language in comparison to the intrinsic richness and
succinctness of Qur'anic Arabic requires much reframing for the
target language in order to preserve both literal as well as semantic
accuracy, which, as in the case of verse 33:33, simply cannot be
maintained without additional footnotes and parenthetical
annotations.
These
language limitations naturally create additional motivation to seek
sources of explanation and exegeses outside of the pages of the Holy
Qur'an, called “tafsir”,
especially for those who do not speak Arabic, which is approximately
90 percent of the 1.6 to 2 billion Muslim public spread throughout
the world in many different cultures and civilizations. That fact
automatically leads to the very paradox being explored in this
analysis: fallible hands, fallible minds, and fallible hearts, some
clean and some unclean, some competent and some incompetent, none of
them categorically known to be among the “Ar-Rasikhoon-fil-ilm”
( الرَّاسِخُونَ
فِي الْعِلْمِ
)
of verse 3:7
of the Holy Qur'an, expositing the
pristine text of the Holy Qur'an according to their own perception
and socialization bias – rather than the Word of its own Author
explain itself. (See a detailed examination of the
translation issue in: Critique:
Laleh Bakhtiar and The Sublime Quran
, http://tinyurl.com/Critique-Laleh-Bakhtiar-Zahir
)
At
least with respect to this verse fragment 33:33, the native Arabic
speaker has a leg-up on the non Arabic speaker. The former knows that
Ahlul Bayt is being referred to with a masculine pronoun and
therefore its composition, by definition, comprises one or more
males, and cannot comprise only females, and therefore the verse
fragment 33:33 is not necessarily referring to the wives, or even
just the wives alone. If that verse fragment was indeed referring to
only the wives, an all female group, then the feminine
form of the pronoun would have been used to refer to the Ahlul
Bayt as is done when referring to the
houses of the wives before and after that verse of purification.
But
that's also where the native Arabic speaker's advantage over the
non-speaker ends. Neither knows the actual composition of the Ahlul
Bayt beyond that prima facie information contained in that
sequence of verses 33:28-34 reproduced above, that it is a Household
of the Prophet, and comprises one or more males, and zero or more
females, and it may or may not contain the wives of the Prophet,
irrespective of the fact that the verse fragment is interspersed in
between where the Author of the Holy Qur'an is commanding the wives
of the Prophet of Islam what they are supposed to do. Whereas, in the
purification fragment of verse 33:33, the Author declares what
He Himself intends to do to the Ahlul Bayt. That change of
“actor” from the wives to the Author and back to the
wives is most conspicuous in the verse. In that interspersed switch,
the Author pledged some abstract “perfect purification”
to the Ahlul Bayt. What that “perfect purification” means
remains as foreign to the native speaker of Arabic as to the
non-speaker. It requires for both to indulge in much due diligence to
uncover. Mr. Spock was finding that the Holy Qur'an is hardly the
Book that is so easy to understand or so clear as claimed by its
Author.
Returning
to the thread of analysis before that closer look at verse 33:33, the
same verse fragment of “perfect purification” begs the
obvious question: Why are only the Ahlul Bayt chosen by the
Author of the Holy Qur'an and sanctified so specially with such a
profound divine benefaction: “Allah only wishes to remove
all abomination from you, ye members of the Family, and to make you
pure and spotless” (
إِنَّمَا
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ
لِيُذْهِبَ
عَنْكُمُ الرِّجْسَ
أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
),
and no one else is chosen for this benefaction from among the vast
number of respected companions and close familial ties of the Prophet
of Islam?
What
did this unusual “purification” actually mean in the
language of the Holy Qur'an such that it exclusively only applied to
the Ahlul Bayt?
How
should ( وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
)
be accurately understood from its cipher-text form? Having witnessed
the ease of straightforward obfuscation possible due to the
gender-specific Arabic grammar cleverly employed in this verse to
suddenly change the context, Mr. Spock is exceptionally vigilant for
correct and un-careless decoding of the cipher text of the Holy
Qur'an, and especially for this verse fragment which evidently is
hiding some secret. It appeared to be another one of those bedeviling
verses ( مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ
)
defined in verse 3:7 on the face of it. Perhaps it was an
Indeterminate, and
perhaps it wasn't. To further his understanding of what was meant by
“purification”, Mr. Spock therefore pushes onto the ever
growing evaluation stack the words “Tahira
kum Tathira”
( وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
)
of verse 33:33, and the related “Mutaharoon” (
الْمُطَهَّرُونَ
)
of verse 56:79
(see Surah Al-Waqia quoted above).
Perhaps
that held an important clue to the identity of who were being
purified if what “purification” actually meant in the
language of the Holy Qur'an could be correctly deciphered. Then its
purpose, the why, would become known, which would in turn perhaps
lead to the who, as in who could achieve that purpose. Even in the
prima facie meaning, it obviously was not an exoteric physical
purification, such as cleansing of the physical body. Rather, it
implied some esoteric “religious” purification just from
examining the verses 56:78
and 56:79
which a priori defined who could even access the Holy Qur'an: “In
a Book well-guarded, Which none shall touch but those who are clean
(purified).” (
الْمُطَهَّرُونَ
)
To
Mr. Spock's perceptive mind already attuned to different methods of
access control for managing hierarchical access to privileged
information, the concept of “purification” in the light
of verses 56:78-79 appeared akin to the Author of the Holy Qur'an
requiring a “security clearance” for access to His
Message in the “Book well-guarded”. And the Book
progressively revealing more and more of its inner secrets higher the
“security clearance” of the seeker of its Guidance.
Therefore, “perfect purification” would logically mean
the highest level of “security clearance” and the
complete revealing of all its deep secrets to those who possessed
that rank – the “Ar-Rasikhoon-fil-ilm” (
الرَّاسِخُونَ
فِي الْعِلْمِ
)
described in verse 3:7
(already quoted above). Thus, the Author of the Holy Qur'an choosing
the Ahlul Bayt
for “perfect purification” appeared to harbor a far
deeper context beyond what was superficially apparent from a careless
reading of verse 33:33 which was in outright error. The matter
demanded careful analysis and deeper study. The Holy Qur'an itself
demanded such due diligence by straightforwardly asserting: “Do
they not then reflect on the Qur'an? Nay, on the hearts there are
locks.” (see 47:24 quoted
below).
To
Mr. Spock's observant mind, preference for a choosing a particular
family and lineage, a particular strand of human DNA above all the
nations, and continuing to choose from that strand generation after
generation for the divinely appointed stewardship of man, لِلنَّاسِ
إِمَامًا ,
appeared to play a principal role in the overall provenance and
sequence of divine guidance by the Author of the Holy Qur'an:
|
“Surely
Allah chose Adam and Nuh and the descendants of Ibrahim and the
descendants of Imran above the nations.
|
إِنَّ
ٱللَّهَ ٱصْطَفَىٰٓ
ءَادَمَ وَنُوحًا
وَءَالَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ
وَءَالَ عِمْرَٰنَ
عَلَى ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
ذُرِّيَّةًۢ
بَعْضُهَا
مِنۢ بَعْضٍ
ۗ وَٱللَّهُ
سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
|
|
“And
when his Lord tried Ibrahim with certain words, he fulfilled
them.
He
said: Surely I will make you an Imam of men.
Ibrahim
said: And of my offspring?
My
covenant does not include the unjust, said He”
(Surah Al-Baqara, 2:124)
|
وَإِذِ
ٱبْتَلَىٰٓ
إِبْرَٰهِۦمَ
رَبُّهُۥ
بِكَلِمَٰتٍ
فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ
ۖ
قَالَ
إِنِّى جَاعِلُكَ
لِلنَّاسِ
إِمَامًا ۖ
قَالَ
وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِى
ۖ
قَالَ
لَا يَنَالُ
عَهْدِى ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
|
Caption
Verses of the Holy Qur'an laying out the Principle of Divine
Appointment of leadership bestowed upon Apostles, Messengers, and
Imams. The verses of Surah Aal-e-Imran 3:33-34, and Surah Al-Baqara
2:124, clearly and succinctly state that Allah chooses His Imams
above the nations as Divinely Appointed guides for the people whom
people can follow (the word “Imam”
لِلنَّاسِ
إِمَامًا
),
that these chosen people are offspring one of the other, and that
it is not a democratic selection by the people!
(See Principle of Inerrancy below as the co-requisite for Divine
Appointment of leadership)
So,
once again encountering a preference for a specific family, the Ahlul
Bayt, which Allah chose in 33:33 for a thorough purification, and
in 42:23 commanded the Prophet to tell the people to love his “those
near of kin”, was not unusual to Mr. Spock's
perceptive mind. It followed a consistent pattern, that the Author of
the Holy Qur'an chose whomsoever as His Messengers, Exemplars, and
Imams above all the other peoples. And verses 3:33-34 and 2:124
unambiguously and unequivocally indicated the Author's particular
preference for a very specific lineage starting from Prophet Adam,
“Offspring one of the other”, to choose Prophets
and Imams from among that lineage only, to bring His Divine Message
to all peoples among mankind (see verse 10:47 quoted above, and many
others like 16:36 “And verily We have raised in every nation
a messenger, (proclaiming): Serve Allah and shun false gods”).
The Author's preference for the Prophet of Islam's Ahlul Bayt
in verse 33:33 was from the same DNA strand of Prophet Ibrahim.
Which, according to verse 2:124, قَالَ
إِنِّى جَاعِلُكَ
لِلنَّاسِ
إِمَامًا ۖ
قَالَ وَمِن
ذُرِّيَّتِى
ۖ قَالَ لَا
يَنَالُ عَهْدِى
ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
,
was also going to spawn Imams of the people throughout the ages in
Prophet Ibrahim's progeny.
Mr.
Spock noted that verse 2:124 proffered an unambiguous criterion for
such appointment. That, if there were to be any divinely appointed
Imams among the people of Arabia, they had to emerge from the genetic
seed of Prophet Ibrahim only, as per the Author's Promise to Prophet
Ibrahim. That criterion was just as applicable to Muhammad, the
Prophet of Islam, as to his Ahlul Bayt. Mr. Spock ascertained
from the historical record that Prophet Muhammad was considered a
descendent of Prophet Ibrahim by the people of Arabia, coming from
the distinguished prophetic lineage of Bani Hashim who had
been the keepers of the pilgrims' structure called the Holy Kaaba for
generations. The Author of the Holy Qur'an too attested to the fact
that Prophet Muhammad was indeed a descendent of Prophet Ibrahim, by
the act of choosing him over all others in Arabia as His Messenger –
since the Author by His own admission only chose successive Prophets,
Messengers, and Imams, from a single lineage as per His proclamation
noted in verse 3:33-34.
Therefore,
if there were to be any additional Imams as per the promise in verse
2:124 to Ibrahim, reasoned Mr. Spock, these Imams had to carry the
seeds of Prophet Ibrahim or Prophet Muhammad in order to continue the
Author's self-proclaimed modus operandi for conveying His Guidance to
the people: “Offspring one of the other”.
Furthermore,
the Holy Qur'an attested to the fact that Muhammad was not a father
of any men among the people:
|
“Muhammad
is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Apostle
of Allah and the Last of the prophets; and Allah is cognizant of
all things.” (Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:40)
|
مَّا
كَانَ مُحَمَّدٌ
أَبَآ أَحَدٍ
مِّن رِّجَالِكُمْ
وَلَٰكِن رَّسُولَ
ٱللَّهِ وَخَاتَمَ
ٱلنَّبِيِّۦنَ
ۗ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ
بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ
عَلِيمًا
|
This
automatically meant, reasoned Mr. Spock, that if such leadership as
promised in verse 2:124 was to continue after the Prophet of Islam –
Muhammad being the last of the Messengers according to the bold
proclamation of the afore-quoted 33:40: رَّسُولَ
ٱللَّهِ وَخَاتَمَ
ٱلنَّبِيِّۦنَ
– as
it evidently did by virtue of the Qur'anic commandment of 4:59: “obey
the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you”,
the latter “those charged
with authority among you” could only emanate from
either Prophet Ibrahim's seed of which Muhammad was himself a
progeny, or Prophet Muhammad's own progeny.
The
fact that Muhammad had a progeny is testified by the Holy Qur'an in
the verse where its Author is evidently consoling His Messenger that
it is the Messenger's enemies who will be without progeny (and not
him):
|
“Surely
your enemy is the one who shall be without posterity.”
(Surah Al-Kauthar, 108:3)
|
إِنَّ
شَانِئَكَ
هُوَ ٱلْأَبْتَرُ
|
Therefore,
in order for the Holy Qur'an to not be falsified, verses 33:40 and
108:3 straightforwardly imply that Prophet Muhammad's progeny must be
through his female offspring only as “Muhammad is not the
father of any of your men”.
This
criterion, adduced directly from the Holy Qur'an, automatically
implied the composition of the Ahlul Bayt from which to search
for Imams, leaving the straightforward identification of “Offspring
one of the other” from the factual historical records by
seeking out the Prophet of Islam's female progeny. Provided of course
that such factual historical records are incontrovertible, reliably
documented. Fortunately, history documents to the same degree of
empirical veracity as it documents that Prophet Muhammad is a
real figure of history, that lady Fatima Zahra is Prophet
Muhammad's only seed to procreate, and her two sons, Hassan
ibn Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and Hussein
ibn Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, are her only two
male offspring, the latter being killed by the Muslim Ummayad ruler's
army as noted at the beginning of this section. All recorded
historical facts that remain incontrovertible.
However,
the precise identity of the progeny is still held as an unknown
variable in Mr. Spock's logical mind in this specific thread despite
being fully aware of the sociological context and documentation of
Muslim history. Because, as already noted, in this study Mr. Spock is
keenly interested in separating what the Holy Qur'an has itself
conveyed in the “criterion” of “no
doubt”, without confusing it with the historical records or
the narratives of doubtful scribes of history. The criterion, once
adduced from the Holy Qur'an and correctly understood, can always be
applied for extracting any valid signals from the partisan noise of
history to understand that history itself.
The
general problem Mr. Spock is wrestling with, in case the reader has
lost track, is the enigma that instead of applying the criterion
learnt from the Holy Qur'an to parse history recorded by fallible
scribes in order to improve its signal to noise ratio, history is
evidently necessary to understand the meaning of the text of the Holy
Qur'an due to its Indeterminates. That's
like putting the cart before the horse! Mr. Spock in
this forensic study is sensibly trying to adduce the criterion first
from the self-described “criterion” of “no
doubt” revealed by the
“Lord of the Worlds” on how to even go about
selecting valid signals from the doubtful penmanship of history which
could, in turn, perhaps enable deciphering the message of the Holy
Qur'an to some degree of objectivity when at all necessary. In order
to not lose sight of that primary motivation, Mr. Spock is explicitly
holding what is an Indeterminate as an explicit variable (that
is fixed from history by Muslims, often subjectively, based entirely
on their socialization biases and/or vested interests), and what is
Determinate as a known constant (which is lamentably often
ignored by Muslims).
That
is the main objective in Mr. Spock's search for identifying the Ahlul
Bayt from the Holy Qur'an, by understanding the criterion
established in the Holy Qur'an itself, the book that called itself
the “Criterion”, for their identification. Otherwise, if
Mr. Spock is to ask even a laity Muslim during any epoch at any
place, who the daughter of the Prophet of Islam and her children are,
the laity will unanimously rush to inform him with a single answer –
another incontrovertible fact of recorded history which unites all
Muslims in all civilizations across time and space. It is this
universal unity among Muslims on the fact of the identify of the
Messenger's progeny, just as their unity on
the fact of the text of the Holy Qur'an being un-tampered by the hand
of man, which lends more than just academic and existential veracity
to the historical record documenting both. It is a component of the
unshakable belief of a Muslim that has
continued to be so throughout history right from the time of the
Prophet of Islam.
Because
of this unusual empiricism, the enigma posed in this section of the
Prophet's grandson being killed so mercilessly by the Muslim Ummayad
army despite the clear-text Qur'anic commandment of verse 42:23
to love them, and the Muslims of the epoch clearly recognizing the
Messenger's progeny who weren't an unknown to the people, is being
examined in such great depth.
To
Mr. Spock's objective mind unsocialized
into the Muslim ethos, just the fact that this violence upon the
Messenger's immediate grandchildren could even transpire at the hands
of a Muslim ruler, and the Muslims of the time even permitted it to
transpire, is indicative that both, historiography
by partisans of power, and hagiography by partisans of victims of
that power, is the defining epistemology of Muslim
scholarship. And therefore, the latter had to be examined with an
acute forensic eye to improve its reality to myth ratio. It lent
further substance to the paradox Mr. Spock is grappling with that how
could the “perfected” ciphertext of the Holy Qur'an
require itself to be decoded by such an epistemology
of imperfect pens of history? This is taken up in more depth in
Part-IV.
Mr.
Spock, persistent in his study, continues to qualitatively observe
that the remarkable show of preference for the Messenger's Ahlul
Bayt was entirely self-consistent with the Author's overarching
narrative in the Holy Qur'an for choosing some over all others for
His special favors. This idea of granting special favors to some
people over all others during the period of providing guidance to the
people, Mr. Spock discovered, is almost over-emphasized by the Author
of the Holy Qur'an, as for instance in:
|
“And
this was Our argument which we gave to Ibrahim against his
people; We exalt in dignity whom We please; surely your
Lord is Wise, Knowing.” (Surah Al An'aam, 6:83)
|
وَتِلْكَ
حُجَّتُنَآ
ءَاتَيْنَٰهَآ
إِبْرَٰهِيمَ
عَلَىٰ قَوْمِهِۦ
ۚ نَرْفَعُ
دَرَجَٰتٍ
مَّن نَّشَآءُ
ۗ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ
حَكِيمٌ عَلِيمٌ
|
Caption
The Holy Qur'an elaborating upon the Principle of Divine Appointment
of leadership and disclosing the fact that the people are often
unhappy or jealous with such appointment! Verse
33:36
of Surah Al-Ahzaab (quoted
above) testifies to the pathetic existence of this fact even among
the Muslim believing companions of the Prophet of Islam! Surah
Al An'aam verse 6:83 further sets the principle that the Divine
Appointment by fiat by the Lord of the Worlds is even accompanied by
the Lord's Argument on behalf of His Appointee and against his people
that is given to the Appointee. This verse lays out a hint to search
in the Holy Qur'an for Divine Arguments when it comes to any question
of Divine Appointment – since the Holy Qur'an speaks in its own
explanation!
Mr.
Spock recognizes that the continuation of verse 6:83 of Surah Al
An'aam was further revealing of the Author's principal modus operandi
of choosing some over others for special favors, especially verse
6:87 “And from among their fathers and their
descendants and their brethren, and We chose them and guided them
into the right way.”
And
verse fragments 6:89-90 asserted a pertinent purpose which further
explained why “those charged with authority among you”
existed in addition to the Prophet of Islam: “We have
already entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in it.
These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance.”
|
And
We gave to him Ishaq and Yaqoub; each did We guide, and Nuh did
We guide before, and of his descendants, Dawood and Sulaiman and
Ayub and Yusuf and Musa and Haroun; and thus do We reward those
who do good (to others). (6:84)
|
وَوَهَبْنَا
لَهُۥٓ إِسْحَٰقَ
وَيَعْقُوبَ
ۚ كُلًّا هَدَيْنَا
ۚ وَنُوحًا
هَدَيْنَا
مِن قَبْلُ
ۖ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِهِۦ
دَاوُۥدَ
وَسُلَيْمَٰنَ
وَأَيُّوبَ
وَيُوسُفَ
وَمُوسَىٰ
وَهَٰرُونَ
ۚ وَكَذَٰلِكَ
نَجْزِى ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ
|
|
وَزَكَرِيَّا
وَيَحْيَىٰ
وَعِيسَىٰ
وَإِلْيَاسَ
ۖ كُلٌّ مِّنَ
ٱلصَّٰلِحِينَ
|
|
|
وَإِسْمَٰعِيلَ
وَٱلْيَسَعَ
وَيُونُسَ
وَلُوطًا ۚ
وَكُلًّا
فَضَّلْنَا
عَلَى ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
|
|
And
from among their fathers and their descendants and their
brethren, and We chose them and guided them into the right way.
(6:87)
|
وَمِنْ
ءَابَآئِهِمْ
وَذُرِّيَّٰتِهِمْ
وَإِخْوَٰنِهِمْ
ۖ وَٱجْتَبَيْنَٰهُمْ
وَهَدَيْنَٰهُمْ
إِلَىٰ صِرَٰطٍ
مُّسْتَقِيمٍ
|
|
This
is Allah's guidance, He guides thereby whom He pleases of His
servants; and if they had set up others (with Him), certainly
what they did would have become ineffectual for them. (6:88)
|
ذَٰلِكَ
هُدَى ٱللَّهِ
يَهْدِى بِهِۦ
مَن يَشَآءُ
مِنْ عِبَادِهِۦ
ۚ وَلَوْ أَشْرَكُوا۟
لَحَبِطَ عَنْهُم
مَّا كَانُوا۟
يَعْمَلُونَ
|
|
These
are they to whom We gave the book and the wisdom and the
prophecy; therefore if these disbelieve in it We have already
entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in it.
(6:89)
|
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ
ٱلَّذِينَ
ءَاتَيْنَٰهُمُ
ٱلْكِتَٰبَ
وَٱلْحُكْمَ
وَٱلنُّبُوَّةَ
ۚ فَإِن يَكْفُرْ
بِهَا هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ
فَقَدْ وَكَّلْنَا
بِهَا قَوْمًا
لَّيْسُوا۟
بِهَا بِكَٰفِرِينَ
|
|
These
are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance.
Say: I do not ask you for any reward for it; it is nothing but a
reminder to the nations. (6:90)
|
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ
ٱلَّذِينَ
هَدَى ٱللَّهُ
ۖ فَبِهُدَىٰهُمُ
ٱقْتَدِهْ ۗ
قُل لَّآ
أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ
عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا
ۖ إِنْ هُوَ
إِلَّا ذِكْرَىٰ
لِلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
Caption
Surah Al An'aam verses 6:84-90 elaborating upon the Principle of
Divine Appointment of leadership for the continued guidance of
nations among mankind from time immemorial.
Unless
Mr. Spock was erroneous in his analysis despite applying his best
reasoning and logic capabilities which had earned him the most
difficult position as the solo science officer aboard the Starship
Enterprise, application of straightforward logic to the study of the
Holy Qur'an had been incredibly revealing thus far. It was heartening
to Mr. Spock that the Holy Qur'an emphatically admonished the people
who did not reflect on its Message, or treated it as “just
foolish nonsense” ( مَهْجُورًا
see
verse 25:30 quoted above):
|
“Do
they not then reflect on the Qur'an? Nay, on the hearts there are
locks.” (Surah Muhammad 47:24)
|
أَفَلَا
يَتَدَبَّرُونَ
الْقُرْآنَ
أَمْ عَلَىٰ
قُلُوبٍ أَقْفَالُهَا
|
Whereas,
even rudimentary logical reflection on the آيَاتٌ
مُحْكَمَاتٌ
texts
of the Holy Qur'an, the categorical foundational verses which formed
the heart of the Holy Qur'an as per its Author's own declaration of
أُمُّ
الْكِتَابِ
,
automatically led the earnest detective to such inescapable logical
deductions as demonstrated in the aforementioned reasoning process by
Mr. Spock. But such reasoned
deductions also begged the layman's foolish question, for what
purpose? – As if it isn't already patently obvious by now.
Because,
after all, it could also be argued that verse 5:3 had already
categorically asserted that the Qur'an was completed in the Prophet's
own lifetime: “This day have I perfected your religion for
you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as
your religion.”
Therefore,
wasn't Qur'an alone sufficient? Mr. Spock recalled the rebuke
to Believers in Surah Al-Ahzaab
verse 33:36,
“It is not
fitting for a Believer, man or woman,
when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have any
option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and
His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path.” (quoted
above). It
takes no speculation to infer from this shocking verse the presence
of undercurrents of dissent and disputation with the Messenger among
some Believers. Such disputing could easily lead to the
suggestion that Qur'an alone is sufficient in order to suppress the
decisions of the Messenger not contained in the Holy Qur'an which the
Believers in his congregation did not like. Which, at least to Mr.
Spock's intelligent mind gave an explanation for why the first
Caliphs after the Prophet's demise forbid the documenting of the
Messenger's verdicts and statements, called Hadiths.
It
now becomes self-evident to Mr. Spock that:
- by the categorical statement of 4:59, that there existed some unnamed persons besides the Messenger, “those charged with authority among you” to whom obedience was made obligatory ;
- by the assertion of verse fragments 6:89-90 in full context that “We have already entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in it. These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance.”
- by the categorical directive of 5:35 to the Muslims: “O ye who believe! Do your duty to Allah, seek the means of approach unto Him,”
- and in the light of 5:3 that the religion of Islam had been “perfected” ;
there
was a pretty clear logical reason for the presence of “those
charged with authority among you” apart from the Messenger,
and to whom obedience was made as obligatory by the Holy Qur'an as to
the Messenger for all Muslims.
That,
by the commandment “those charged with authority among you”,
the Author of the Holy Qur'an had very clearly provided to the
early Muslims, additional temporal Exemplars, Imams, besides the
Prophet of Islam, “Offspring one of the other”,
who were meant to continue teaching to the people the “perfected”
religion which Prophet Muhammad had brought to them as the Messenger,
even after the Messenger was no longer among them. This is a
straightforward logical conclusion based upon its Author's own
statements. Otherwise, the Holy Qur'an is falsified by verse 4:59 if
there were no Imams after the Prophet of Islam!
That,
dereferencing the indirect pointers given in the Determinate
verses of the Holy Qur'an for the identity of these additional Imams:
- by the criterion of 2:124, that the Author promised to choose leaders and Imams only from the seed of Ibrahim after Ibrahim passed his “test”;
- by the fact that there is no verse in the Holy Qur'an to suggest that 2:124 is not an exclusive promise to the family of Ibrahim, quite the contrary, the assertion of 3:33-34 indicates the Author's sole criterion for choosing the Imams of mankind, from the limited subset of a single family: “Offspring one of the other” ;
- by the benefaction of 33:33, that the Ahlul Bayt were elevated above all others with a thorough spiritual purification ;
- and by the commandment of 42:23, that the people were asked to love (in its most superlative form) and honor the Messenger's near of kin ;
naturally
lead to identifying them as being only from the Ahlul Bayt.
The
above sensible reasoning applied to the verses of the Holy Qur'an to
accurately infer their meaning as a system of guidance bequeathed by
the Author to mankind, leads to the following straightforward logical
deductions:
- That, there appeared to be no other competing, or even plausible solution based on the Determinate verses of the Holy Qur'an, to decipher this inquiry in any other direction for the straightforward logic of the matter that these Imams “whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance” had to be “Offspring one of the other”, and also possess the same degree of knowledge and understanding of the Holy Qur'an as the Messenger in order to continue the Messenger's mission of divinely guiding the Muslims as his successor exemplars of the Holy Qur'an without any disagreement or conflict of opinion among each other or with the Messenger. The logic of 4:59 asserted that the three entities can never disagree with each other and in order for that to be true, the successors had to have the same degree of knowledge and understanding of the Holy Qur'an and compliance with it as the Messenger.
- That, it appeared to be a sophisticated bootstrap process of Islam whose legal texts had been perfected and completely revealed, to guide a stubborn pagan civilization that had inflicted so much physical warfare upon the Prophet of Islam during his entire tenure of Prophethood, onto the straight path for at least some additional time period after the Messenger had passed away.
- That, just as Surah Al-Fatiha verses 1:6 and 1:7 informed the Believers how to beseech the Author to show them how to seek the path of divine guidance, the very narrow separation pointed out in 1:7 between the straight path ( ٱهْدِنَا ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلْمُسْتَقِيمَ ) and wrong path ( غَيْرِ ٱلْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا ٱلضَّآلِّينَ ) of those who go astray – both paths being tread by Believers themselves and not the obvious unbelievers who were easily identified – was very clearly delineated for the early Muslims by bequeathing to them the Ahlul Bayt ( صِرَٰطَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ ) who alone were elevated above all others with a most unusual divine favor of perfect purification in verse 33:33 ( وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ تَطْهِيرًا ).
- That, the Ahlul Bayt was therefore the crucial differentiator as “The path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favors” of verse 1:7 given to the early Muslims to protect them from unwittingly following the other Believers who were reprimanded as “on a clearly wrong Path” (Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:36 ).
- That, it was indeed the same protocol for Prophet Muhammad's succession as it had been the Prophetic tradition of all previous Messengers of the Author, to leave designated successors behind to protect and carry-on their mission. Which, in that early bootstrap phase of Islam, was to protect and safeguard the journey of reaching the common goal of forming a single Muslim nation: “Our Lord! make of us Muslims, bowing to Thy (Will), and of our progeny a Muslim nation, bowing to Thy (will);” (Surah Al-Baqara 2:128 )
- That, the Ahlul Bayt construct was an additional divine favor given by the Author of the Holy Qur'an to the early Muslims as fulfillment of the prayer that the Author had Himself taught the Believers in Surah Al-Fatiha, and for which the Author also emphatically declared in verse 76:3 “Surely We have shown him the way: he may be thankful or unthankful.”
- That, these self-consistent conclusions when applied to empiricism explained reality as it had principally unfolded, most accurately. The goal of verse 2:128 obviously never transpired. The Muslims instead killed the grandson of the Messenger after a tumultuous ad hoc political succession process which tied a Gordian knot on the process of transformation itself. Unless verse 33:36 is wiped off the pages of the Holy Qur'an by some fiendish technology, it is in perpetual Testimony by the Author Himself that some Believers who challenged the Prophet's decisions existed during his own time. The path of these same people so emphatically condemned by the Author in 33:36 as “clearly wrong Path” must have indeed taken over after the demise of the Messenger instead of the path of the rightful heirs from among the Ahlul Bayt, in order for the empirical reality to become manifested as it did. Otherwise, the Holy Qur'an is falsified if it is asserted that the right path was followed in the succession. The empiricism of the slaughtered grandson of the Prophet of Islam is prima facie testimony that this abhorrent destination was reached by only following the “clearly wrong Path”! Because, if this abhorrent destination was reached by following the right path, than the Holy Qur'an lied that such was a good path of “whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance” in Surah Al An'aam 6:90, as it still ended in that same abhorrence. In order for the Holy Qur'an to not be falsified by empiricism, abhorrence can only be reached by following “clearly wrong Path”!
As
Mr. Spock well understands, empiricism is
the only reality for a left-brained scientist. Any analysis, any
model, any theory that goes against explaining reality is just
imaginary and useless. Unless the analysis presented here is shown to
be seriously flawed, the conclusions reached by the line of reasoning
employed by Mr. Spock from the Determinate verses of the Holy
Qur'an is remarkable discovery.
It
sure explains empirical reality coherently, but most importantly, in
self-sufficiency and self-consistency drawn solely from the Holy
Qur'an and no other source!
For,
as Mr. Spock ascertained perusing the historical record of early
Muslim rulers and empires, few Muslims among the masses living under
their dominions seemed to have been aware of this rather
straightforward logical deduction regarding the
Ahlul Bayt, despite knowing, respecting, and
also loving the progeny of the Prophet of Islam as some sort of
revered objects thought to bring them divine blessings if salutations
were continually showered upon them in
daily prayers. And despite the fact of this discovery being made only
from the Determinate verses of the Holy Qur'an in its آيَاتٌ
مُحْكَمَاتٌ
texts
requiring only a bare modicum of reflection to uncover the matter.
And despite their daily recitation of the same Determinate
verses of the Holy Qur'an with the most ardent religious fervor!
It
was almost as if, observed Mr. Spock, this logically derived
conclusion had been calculatingly masked off from the Muslim mind
under the ruling paradigms of caliphs and dynastic empires.
Even
today, lamentably, few Muslims are aware that this is a conclusion
adduced directly from the straightforward statements and simple logic
of the Holy Qur'an without making any recourse to vicarious outside
sources and doubtful human scribes.
And
that mass ignorance of the Muslim public, mused Mr. Spock, perhaps
also explained the context for the Messenger's prescient but strange
lament recorded in verse 25:30 of Surah
Al-Furqaan (quoted above) after the ascent of Islam as the
dominant religion of Arabia: 'Then
the Messenger will say: “O my Lord! Truly my people took
this Qur'an for just foolish nonsense.”'
What
more can be gleaned from other eligibility criterion established
in the Holy Qur'an to better comprehend the attributes and
characteristics of “those charged with authority
among you” that might
enable identifying them more precisely?
Method
of Reasoning it out from the Holy Qur'an itself – Taking
analysis one step deeper and further
The
Qur'anic eligibility criterion of 2:124 and 3:33-34 have come only
one step closer in the direction of identifying “those
charged with authority among you”. That eligibility
criterion had indicated to Mr. Spock that the only persons even
eligible for this divine appointment of leadership, “those
charged with authority among you” to whom obedience
is made as obligatory as to the Prophet of Islam, must come from the
Ahlul Bayt and no where else. Because, only that singular
family automatically includes both the seed of Prophet Ibrahim and
the seed of Prophet Muhammad, “Offspring one of the other”
as already reasoned by Mr. Spock. That reasoning also lends
sensible context to why the people are commanded to love the
Prophet's near of kin. Even the way it is propositioned to the people
by the Author of the Holy Qur'an, and the choice of Arabic word
employed which only loosely translates to “love” in
English but is the superlative form of love in Arabic, ٱلْمَوَدَّةَ
, is
revealing of its motivation: 'Say: “No reward do I ask of
you for this except the love of those near of kin.”'
The
Prophet is asked by the Author of the Holy Qur'an to demand the love
of his near of kin as a gratitude from the people – not as a
favor the people are asked to do the Prophet, but in return for the
favor done to the people by the Prophet of Islam of being God's
Messenger among them!
In
other words, it is an obligation put on the people to “love”
the Prophet's near of kin in the most superlative degree that the
semantic-rich Arabic language can convey for terms of endearment and
affection to other human beings!
The
logical connection among the many verses outlined above, and making
the love and affection of Prophet's near of kin an obligation upon
the people, thus making it psychologically easier for the people to
accept Exemplars from among the Ahlul Bayt, conclusively
indicated to Mr. Spock that “those charged with authority
among you” could only emanate from among the Ahlul Bayt.
But who among the Ahlul Bayt meets that criterion and
are also “Offspring one of the other”?
Mr.
Spock, solely on the anvil of pure reasoned logic applied to
al-Furqaan (see discussion of verse 25:1, Surah al-Furqaan
quoted above), could straightforwardly deduce still additional
eligibility and rejection criterion to further narrow down the field
for who could possibly meet the Qur'anic criterion to comprise the
set of “those charged with authority among you”.
That,
as per verse 4:59, any such persons to whom command obedience is
extended from the Prophet of Islam as an Exemplar of the Holy Qur'an,
must also be Exemplars of the Holy Qur'an themselves! That conclusion
is simply inescapable. Because, as Mr. Spock reasoned, they couldn't
be just any prominent persons occupying the throne or the pulpit, no
matter how learned or respectable, for in order to have command
obedience to them as per verse 4:59, they'd have to possess knowledge
and understanding of the divine message of the Holy Qur'an to the
same level of unerring comprehension as the Prophet of Islam!
Otherwise, they could possibly misinform and misguide the people
using their own interpretation (despite their best intentions to be
accurate). Which, of course, also
automatically implied that their teacher could be none among those
whom they have been divinely chosen to guide! The logic
of that sequence of impeccable deductions is also undeniable. Not
surprisingly, the deduction is directly underscored by the Holy
Qur'an itself, as in verse fragments 6:89-90 (quoted above): “We
have already entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in
it. These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their
guidance.” Allah is their teacher!
Therefore,
Mr. Spock continued to reason, these could only be persons who were
specially favored by the Author of the Holy Qur'an to also be
unerring like the Messenger. Unerringness
being the primary logical criterion to being an Exemplar of the Holy
Qur'an in order to faithfully convey the message of the Author who
claims to be the Creator of Mankind and the “Lord of the
Worlds”, to the people without any alterations, additions and
subtractions, in full and accurate context, in both letter and
spirit. This deduction is also simply logical and straightforward.
The verse of purification already analyzed in 33:33 arguably
conveys at least some sense of bestowing unerringness,
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
, by
keeping away all “rijis”, الرِّجْسَ
,
from the Ahlul Bayt.
Once
again, the Arabic words employed by the Author of the Holy Qur'an to
convey to the people what is being kept away from the Ahlul Bayt (all
abominations) and for what purpose (purification) are far richer in
semantics than can be captured straightforwardly in semantic-starved
translated English. As already discussed earlier, and pending further
discovery by Mr. Spock of the most accurate meaning of the concept of
“Mutaharoon” , الْمُطَهَّرُونَ
,
of verse
56:79
as the bearers of the
secrets of the Holy Qur'an, the reasonable metaphor of privileged
access control to those with “security clearance” implied
by that verse of Surah Al-Waqia (quoted above), also led to the
comprehension that perfect purification from “rijis”
of verse 33:33 would necessarily mean perfect unerring knowledge of
the Holy Qur'an – knowledge that is necessary and sufficient to
guide others only if the guides themselves are without error.
After
all, not given to error is a declared gift bestowed by the Author and
not an endeavor of man himself to acquire that state of perfect
knowledge. Only the Author can confer perfect unerring knowledge of
His Divine Message such that He can blithely command Muslims to:
“Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with
authority among you” on
par with His own Word because He has also declared in Surah
An-Najm: “Your companion does not err, nor does he go
astray; Nor does he speak out of desire. It is naught but revelation
that is revealed”!
|
I
swear by the star when it goes down. (53:1)
|
وَٱلنَّجْمِ
إِذَا هَوَىٰ
|
|
Your
companion does not err, nor does he go astray; (53:2)
|
مَا
ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ
وَمَا غَوَىٰ
|
|
Nor
does he speak out of desire. (53:3)
|
وَمَا
يَنطِقُ عَنِ
ٱلْهَوَىٰٓ
|
|
It
is naught but revelation that is revealed, (53:4)
|
إِنْ
هُوَ إِلَّا
وَحْىٌ يُوحَىٰ
|
|
The
Lord of Mighty Power has taught him, (Holy Qur'an, Surah
An-Najm 53:5)
|
عَلَّمَهُۥ
شَدِيدُ ٱلْقُوَىٰ
|
|
Verily
this is the word of a most honourable Messenger, (81:19)
|
إِنَّهُۥ
لَقَوْلُ رَسُولٍ
كَرِيمٍ
|
|
Endued
with Power, with rank before the Lord of the Throne, (81:20)
|
ذِى
قُوَّةٍ عِندَ
ذِى ٱلْعَرْشِ
مَكِينٍ
|
|
With
authority there, (and) faithful to his trust. (81:21)
|
مُّطَاعٍ
ثَمَّ أَمِينٍ
|
|
And
(O people!) your companion is not one possessed; (81:22)
|
وَمَا
صَاحِبُكُم
بِمَجْنُونٍ
|
|
And
without doubt he saw him in the clear horizon. (81:23)
|
وَلَقَدْ
رَءَاهُ بِٱلْأُفُقِ
ٱلْمُبِينِ
|
|
Neither
doth he withhold grudgingly a knowledge of the Unseen. (81:24)
|
وَمَا
هُوَ عَلَى
ٱلْغَيْبِ
بِضَنِينٍ
|
|
Nor
is it the word of an evil spirit accursed. (81:25)
|
وَمَا
هُوَ بِقَوْلِ
شَيْطَٰنٍ
رَّجِيمٍ
|
|
When
whither go ye? (81:26)
|
فَأَيْنَ
تَذْهَبُونَ
|
|
Verily
this is no less than a Message to (all) the Worlds: (81:27)
|
إِنْ
هُوَ إِلَّا
ذِكْرٌ لِّلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
|
(With
profit) to whoever among you wills to go straight: (81:28)
|
لِمَن
شَآءَ مِنكُمْ
أَن يَسْتَقِيمَ
|
|
But
ye shall not will except as Allah wills,- the Cherisher of the
Worlds. (Holy Qur'an Surah
At-Takwir (81:29)
|
وَمَا
تَشَآءُونَ
إِلَّآ أَن
يَشَآءَ ٱللَّهُ
رَبُّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
Caption
The Holy Qur'an establishes the Principle of Inerrancy very clearly
and most categorically for the Prophet of Islam in at least two
notable places in two Surahs. Surah An-Najm verses 53:1-5
unequivocally declaring the Prophet of Islam inerrant,
infallible, and whose speech is naught but revelation that is
revealed! And Surah At-Takwir verses 81:19-29 which similarly
corrects the misconception among the companions of the Prophet about
the utterances of the Messenger of Islam, unequivocally declaring
that the Prophet is invested with special power and rank by Allah,
that his speech are the words of a most honorable Messenger, and that
his words are a Message to (all) the Worlds, to benefit from if they
so choose to do so. Only on such categorical basis of inerrancy,
is obedience commanded to the Messenger on par with the Author of the
Holy Qur'an in verse 4:59 of Surah
an-Nisaa', the Verse of Obedience. This same
categorical inerrancy is extended to “those
vested in authority over you” ( أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ )
by the syntactical construction of verse 4:59. No Arabic language
linguist with any command of Qur'anic grammar can deny this most
profound construction of verse 4:59 which so succinctly extends the
semantics of inerrancy from God, to Prophet, both of whom are
commanded to be obeyed unequivocally, to some unnamed
أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ
.
The extension of command obedience to the latter is made via the
Prophet of Islam in verse 4:59, thus making the same characteristic
of inerrancy bestowed upon the Messenger, also available to the
“ulul-amar”. If not for the logic of this fact, the
أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ would
be subject to verse 16:25 of Surah
An-Nahl (quoted below), thus making a mockery of verse
4:59. Only “These are they
whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance” of
verse 6:90 of Surah Al An'aam can ever be exempt from the damnation
of verse 16:25! And only these inerrant
people whom Allah is asking Muslims to follow, for indeed these have
to be inerrant if Allah has directly guided them, can be the
“ulul-amar” of verse 4:59! For if these people are not
inerrant, then it creates a double jeopardy:
Allah is asking Muslims to follow them but since they can make
mistakes, foolish people without knowledge will also follow them, and
as per 16:25, these people whom Allah is commanding to be followed
will be damned! Since that is an absurdity, ergo, Allah can only
command inerrant people to be followed! This first subversive
hijacking of the religion of Islam, to deny this inerrancy
requirement so that anyone could acquire power to caliphate and
demand obedience from the Muslim public in the name of verse 4:59,
was not orchestrated by the “vulgar
propagandist” Bernard Lewis; it was fabricated by the first
Muslims themselves, aided and abetted by the Muslim pulpit, and
quietly accepted by the public. This first subversion continues to
this very day – and it quite pales everything else in
comparison that the hectoring hegemons and vulgar propagandists have
been able to wreck upon the Muslims!
Qualitatively,
observes Mr. Spock, the concept of inerrancy is most clearly, most
emphatically, and most unambiguously, asserted in Surah An-Najm
verses 53:1-5, and Surah At-Takwir verses 81:19-29 (both quoted
above). These are clearly Determinate
verses, notes Mr. Spock, self-sufficient,
clear, and without any indirections, allegories, and metaphors. To
Mr. Spock's mind, it is the most obvious and applicable meaning
behind “purification”, “Mutaharoon” ,
الْمُطَهَّرُونَ
,
of verse
56:79,
and is the underpinning of the
blanket command obedience to the Prophet of Islam on par with the
Author of the Holy Qur'an in Surah an-Nisaa' 4:59.
Surah
An-Najm 53:1-5 further preempts the questions: How is the Messenger
communicating the Author's Word unerringly to the people; How is the
Messenger being an unerring Exemplar of the Holy Qur'an; How can the
Messenger's companions know when to believe and obey the Messenger
and when to follow their own opinion on any matter?
Firstly,
verse 33:36 has already made it
clear that the Messenger's decisions have to be abided by at all
times: “It is not fitting for a Believer, man or
woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to
have any option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and
His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path.”
Secondly,
verses 53:1-5 categorically put to bed the capricious speculation
that the Messenger is only inerrant in some
speech and not in others and therefore people can follow their own
opinions in the latter: “Your companion does not err, nor
does he go astray; Nor does he speak out of desire. It is naught but
revelation that is revealed,”.
If
that absurd proposition were true, perceptively observed Mr. Spock,
it would create a logical conundrum: How could the Messenger's
companions ever know when is the Messenger errant and when is he
inerrant? They'd obviously have to rely on the Messenger's own word
to even know that in the first place. But if the Messenger is capable
of making an error, he is also capable of making an error in that
determination as well.
If
the Messenger is not inerrant in every
single matter, every single act, every single speech, every single
thought, then even one errancy is sufficient to put his entire
Messengership in doubt – due to transmission error for
instance. If not infallible, the Messenger
could have made an error in a hundred thousand different ways that
would remain undetectable by the people and they would be misled by
the Messenger masquerading his own fallible opinion for the Author's
infallible Word. The Messenger's own word for instance,
differentiating what is the Author's Words vs. his own word, could
itself be in error if the Messenger is ever capable
of even a single error – and that opens the Pandora's
box: Is the Holy Qur'an error-free from transmission errors of the
Author's Message?
One
must not forget that it is the Messenger who is ab initio introducing
the Holy Qur'an, and not vice versa. It is the belief of the peoples
in the Messenger's truthfulness upon which the Holy Qur'an itself is
predicated. Unless the Messenger of
the Holy Qur'an is infallible, it puts the words uttered by the
Prophet, who alone designated that the specified words belonged to
the Author of the Holy Qur'an and not to himself, into jeopardy.
The
logic implicit in the Verse of Obedience, verse 4:59, is
elegantly simple. Its “AND” conjunction,
وَ
,
to join the three entities to whom obedience is demanded, is at best
a sixth grade grammar composition question. The verse is that
straightforward in its syntactical parsing. Let's observe the
elegance of immutable logic implicitly embedded in its pithy
construction.
All
three entities in that Verse of Obedience must always agree in
order for the verse to not be falsified! The logic itself is
straightforward. If the Prophet can make an error, then his will can
differ from the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an. The Verse
of Obedience asserts that that outcome is impossible, by making
obedience to the Prophet of Islam akin, at the same precedence level,
to obedience to the Author of the Holy Qur'an. The two cannot
disagree or there will be a conflict as both must be obeyed; and if
they ever disagree then there is no divine religion as God and His
Messenger can't even agree on the Message! The same logical reasoning
extends to the third entity in verse 4:59, the “ulul-amar”,
who derive its authority from the authority of the Messenger due to
the way the verse is grammatically structured. The command “obey”
is not repeated again for the “ulul-amar”, but the clause
is concatenated with the previous “obey” of the Messenger
with the “AND” conjunction. If the will of “ulul-amar”
ever differs from that of the Messenger, there is again a conflict as
both are commanded to be obeyed. As per the semantics of the verse
4:59 implied from its straightforward syntax, the latter two cannot
disagree with the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an and therefore
the Messenger and the “ulul-amar” must also always agree.
Thus
it follows that if the Author of the Holy Qur'an is Error-Free, there
is no “Oops!” for Him, then so must His Messenger and
“ulul-amar” be just as free from their own “oops”;
they must not be touched by any “rijis” and always
reflect the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an in both letter and
spirit throughout their respective mission!
That
semantic property of the Messenger having his own will exactly
reflect the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an implicit in the
syntactical composition of verse 4:59, is explicitly confirmed in
Surah An-Najm verses 53:1-5, and Surah At-Takwir verses 81:19-29, by
the Author of the Holy Qur'an! This is complete closure. If the
reader is still unable to grammatically parse an “AND”
conjunctive clause in a sentence in any language correctly, he or she
better return to sixth grade – for that is the level of reading
skills necessary to parse the syntax of the Verse of Obedience.
It
is only after the trust in the Messenger's veracity and truthfulness
is established among his contemporaries, that the people are invited
to come to the Holy Qur'an. It is only at that point, after the
Messenger has already established his veracity among the peoples,
that the Holy Qur'an subsequently confirms, through the speech of the
Messenger itself and not via some other independent source, that the
Messenger does not even err, always exactly reflecting the Will of
the Author of the Holy Qur'an. To not err in his role as the
Messenger to mankind means that the Messenger is infallible! The
Author of the Holy Qur'an, speaking through the mouth of the
Messenger, explicitly confirms and extends the people's earlier
adjudication of Muhammad's integrity, by first swearing some
unexplainable oath: “I swear by the star when it goes down.”
( وَٱلنَّجْمِ
إِذَا هَوَىٰ
),
and then categorically confirming to the Messenger's contemporaries:
“Your companion does not err, nor does he go astray; Nor
does he speak out of desire. It is naught but revelation that is
revealed”!
“Fascinating”,
murmurs Mr. Spock to himself at the finesse
of this bootstrapping process for launching the Divine Guidance
System to mankind with an infallible human Messenger. Once the
delivery of the Guidance System is completed to perfection, the
Messenger is simply recalled! And man is left to his own devices
whether or not he is thankful (Surah Al-insaan 76:3, quoted above)
for all that is left behind for him (Surah Hud, 11:86, quoted below).
Mr.
Spock ponders on the obvious genius of this bootstrap process. If
there is no belief in the Prophet, there is no belief in the Holy
Qur'an! Once that belief is established, only then the Holy Qur'an
has any meaning. And only at that point does the Author of the Holy
Qur'an avers, putting no caveat to His Declaration of the Prophet's
infallibility, making His Proclamation unequivocal, categorical,
universal, not subject to any doubt or debate, affirming both the
success of Muhammad's Messengership of having accurately delivered
the Author's Message (Surah Al-Maeda 5:3, quoted above). And also
Muhammad's Exemplarship of having accurately explained the Divine
Guidance System to his companions and contemporaries for which
complete obedience to him was mandated for the believers so that the
Author's Message in its entirety would not get distorted or
questioned (verse 33:36, quoted above). The lamentable fact, now
preserved for all times in verse 33:36 in the Holy Qur'an, that not
all believers among his companions were happy with some of the
decisions the Prophet of Islam made, and for which they are
categorically chastised as being “on
a clearly wrong Path.”, makes the import of verse 5:3
increase in magnitude even further. That the Messenger completed his
mission to perfection despite not just the opposition from the overt
and hidden enemies of Islam respectively referred to as disbelievers
and hypocrites in the Holy Qur'an, but also
the undercurrent of opposition from among
the believers themselves!
Therefore,
returning back to the Verse
of Obedience, by extending that command delegation
authority of 4:59 from the Messenger to also obey “those
charged with authority among you”, and for the foolish
unthinking masses not ever to be misled by obeying them and the
“ulul-amar” be held liable for misleading them as per
verse 16:25 of Surah
An-Nahl (quoted below), the وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ must
logically share the same attributes, the same “security
clearance” so to speak, as the Messenger! There is simply no
escaping that equivalence logic.
Ergo,
it follows that the وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ of
the Verse
of Obedience must
also be inerrant like the Apostle. The Verse of
Purification cleansing the Ahlul
Bayt to “perfect
purification” now delivers some
meaningful context for its full understanding. Only the Ahlul
Bayt are explicitly being
favored with this most potent Divine Favor, of some blanket “perfect
purification” no less, وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
,
from all “rijis” as their spiritual conditioning for
being obeyed without equivocation!
According
to the Qur'anic criterion, only such specially favored “purified”
persons, who also are the offspring of Ibrahim or Muhammad, can even
be eligible to be the subsequent Exemplars, Imams, of the people,
لِلنَّاسِ
إِمَامًا ,
after the Prophet of Islam. Only these favored persons can guide the
Muslims immediately after the death of their Prophet on the Straight
path of Surah Al-Fatiha. The
logical analysis from the criterion established by the Holy Qur'an
now confirms that the أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ are
indeed from the Messenger's own Ahlul Bayt!
For how long should they continue guiding the people in the way of
the Messenger? The Holy Qur'an is silent on that question, making it
an Indeterminate!
The
successive application of Qur'anic eligibility criterions had
narrowed down the search considerably for Mr. Spock to get him closer
to identifying “those charged with authority among you”
solely from their Divine characteristics deduced from the Holy
Qur'an.
Remarkable
what could be learnt from even a convoluted law book when one begins
to decipher it accurately rather than rehearse it like a parrot or as
the unwitting victim of socialization and perception management! All
it had taken was a bit of reflection to tease it all out.
In
equivalent terms, Mr. Spock now had the legal definitions, and the
beginning of the understanding of what the letter and spirit of the
Qur'anic law actually is. That law now needed to be applied to the
empirical historical evidence in order to adjudicate, to separate the
chaff from the wheat, the usurpers from the legitimate owners –
which is the purpose of all law, both divine and man-made.
As
Mr. Spock knew, meeting a criterion only determines eligibility. It
does not necessarily indicate specific appointment – the
specific “choosing”, or “charged”, or
“entrusting”, as expressed in verses like: “We
have already entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in
it. These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow
their guidance. Say: I do not
ask you for any reward for it; it is nothing but a reminder to the
nations.” (6:89-90 quoted above). The specific
“entrusting” requires explicit evidence of appointment –
some empirical evidence – not merely the general statements of
law unless it specifically names the entrusted. Even the most logical
deductions from law is merely theory in the absence of empiricism.
Albeit, such reasoning of law and logic is surely necessary as a
qualitative criterion; it helps one legally, i.e., objectively,
without equivocation, exclude usurpers presumptuous enough to claim
false entitlements.
While
it may be argued by the learned doctrinaire that after everyone else
is excluded by the accurate application of the criterion,
those who remain standing are automatically selected as the bearers
of that “entrusting”, empirical affirmation as well as
commonsense of the laity both demand explicit evidence of specific
appointment and clear identification. Especially, when the matter is
made contentious and kept locked for centuries within the suffocating
ambit of empires which ruled in the name of “God”, and
which controlled all the dominant narratives and expositions on
Islam. To this very day when Mr. Spock took up the study of the Holy
Qur'an millennia later, their legacy evidently endured in the
socialization of the Muslim public across cultures and civilizations.
Thus
Mr. Spock pondered, if this matter is important to the Author, why
aren't the names of “those charged with authority among you”
explicitly mentioned in the Holy Qur'an? Why just give the
criterion to establish their identity – why not also their
names? How are people in subsequent generations to know their
identity without relying on the doubtful and partisan pens of the
scribes of history? Because, that is the only place to go seeking
empirical evidence of such “entrusting” in all subsequent
time and space!
Mr.
Spock reasoned that unless the Messenger had shirked his duty to the
Author of the Holy Qur'an, in which case verse 5:3 would not exist
affirming the completion and perfection of the delivery of the
message of Islam as a “deen” for mankind, the Messenger
must have categorically informed the people of Arabia, the first
Muslim generation, of all the unknowns noted above based on the
explicit authority delegated to him in 4:59: “Obey Allah,
and obey the Messenger,”. Specifically, the Messenger would
have informed the people who had the entitlement to be included in
that characterization of Ahlul Bayt, أَهْلَ
الْبَيْتِ ,
for whom “Allah only wishes to remove all abomination”,
and the exact identity of “those
charged with authority among you” whom the Muslims
had to obey on par with himself.
The
people of the time would have also naturally known who the
Messenger's near of kin were whom they were asked to love as a mark
of gratitude to the Prophet by divine commandment, by the simple
virtue of the fact that the Prophet of Islam and his family lived
among them his entire life. It is logical to presume, reasoned Mr.
Spock, that the Messenger would have been asked by new Muslims coming
from elsewhere, on hearing this verse, about the identity of who his
near of kin were, and who “those charged with authority
among you” were, and the Messenger of course would have
hastened to inform them personally in order to discharge his duty
faithfully as the Messenger.
How
are we to know all that today when new Muslims, un-socialized into
their new religion as an inheritance, similarly wish to inquire?
By
leaving all this knowledge out of the pristine un-tampered pages of
the Holy Qur'an, reflected Mr. Spock, why deny to subsequent
generations of Muslims that certainty of knowing about this possibly
momentous matter? What was the Author's wisdom in leaving them
pitifully at the mercy of the doubtful scribes of history, their
partisan pens, and cultural inheritance?
If
in fact this was not important for subsequent generations to know,
then why not just state so directly in the Holy Qur'an that this
matter was only of temporal significance during that early epoch and
not worth bickering about in subsequent times? And if it was
important, why not just give the names of “those charged
with authority among you” directly in the Holy Qur'an and
be done with it?
These
glaring omissions of the Author in the Holy Qur'an were evidently
responsible for the flourishing sectarianism millennia later. And all
indications still continued to lead to the same inescapable
conclusion already noted earlier, that these ambiguities were
deliberate and evidently well thought out by the Author as a system
design of Islam for divine guidance to all mankind.
Mr.
Spock muses how he could learn the precise identity of “those
charged with authority among you” without the ease of
reliance on the partisan narratives of history to which Muslims had
fallen victim. Having browsed sufficient sociological context, Mr.
Spock wanted to focus solely on what, and how much, did the Holy
Qur'an itself communicate on the question which appeared to be an
Indeterminate from the outset.
Were
there other straightforward verses in the Holy Qur'an which enabled
and assisted in their further identification? Without the correct
context for the verses which spoke in indirections and in unknowns,
as verse 4:59 did, how was one to even identify such verses that
spoke to their identity? Perhaps there were some other
incontrovertible facts in recorded history, despite the partisanship
of scribes and imperial craftsmanship – like the
incontrovertible fact of the slaughter of the Prophet's progeny by
the Ummayad army already cited above to which there can be no doubt
that it transpired in history – which assisted in unequivocally
affirming their identity? It persistently begged the question that
why had the Author of the Holy Qur'an relied on the doubtful scribes
of history to complete their identification – if that
identification was of any significance to subsequent generations
after the first crop of Muslim?
Mr.
Spock began to realize that this puzzle was almost akin to solving a
system of linear equations with several unknown variables, but which
could only be solved if the number of equations were at least equal
to the number of unknown variables. However, as already explored in
depth in Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization,
and alluded above by verses like:
- “One day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective) Imams”, (17:71) ;
- “If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.” (5:48) ;
- “And for every nation there is a messenger. And when their messenger cometh (on the Day of Judgment) it will be judged between them fairly, and they will not be wronged.” (10:47) ;
the
operative principle “so strive as in a race in all virtues”
arguably indicated many solutions, not just
one, which could satisfy these equations!
It
appeared to Mr. Spock that the Author had very astutely, and quite
sensibly, accounted for socialization biases by offering mankind the
core guidance: “so strive as in a race in all virtues”,
and the conflict resolution principle when they differed: “The
goal of you all is to Allah; it is He that will show you the truth of
the matters in which ye dispute.”
Mr.
Spock realized that he had made substantial progress already, and
thus makes the assumption that it must be true that this puzzle of
pertinent guidance is completely soluble by man in its cipher form,
taking the Holy Qur'an at its word. Otherwise, he reasoned, the
entire edifice of the guidance system to mankind proclaimed by the
Holy Qur'an falls flat on its face. It becomes relegated to mean
whatever anyone in power wants it to mean, or can write the dominant
narrative for it which survives through history.
As
per the first classification of the Holy Qur'an by Mr. Spock, as a
cipher message of the Author to mankind that had to be decoded
correctly, and therefore, was not open to individual interpretation
or the recovery of the singular plaintext could be in error,
Mr. Spock saw it being self-evident, that the correct meaning,
interpretation, and understanding of the verses of the Holy Qur'an,
in addition from the Prophet of Islam, and from the Holy Qur'an
itself, could only be taken from these designated but unnamed persons
as per the Author's declaration of obedience to them in 4:59. And not
from just any pretentious scholar gurgling Arabic, or legitimately or
illegitimately occupying the throne or pulpit of Islam.
This
logical conclusion, argued Mr. Spock, is most significant and the key
to the entire matter.
However,
if, “those charged with authority among you” had
been thrust aside or ignored after the death of the Messenger, their
guidance not sought, not recorded, and not followed, then all the
evil which followed from that first transgression of the first few
generation of Muslims fourteen centuries ago accumulated into the
greater whole of sectarianism and dynastic empires that have existed
ever since. In other words, their crime was not mere disobedience,
but a supreme crime as it contained within it the seeds of all the
evil that followed, leaving Muslims today, as yesterday, a pathetic
people mired in rituals, schisms, sectarian blood-shed, kingdoms, and
servility to empire.
The
fact that hardly anyone among the Muslim public outside of their
myopic socialization biases is even aware of there being some
specially designated (but unnamed) persons in the Holy Qur'an in
addition to the Messenger who are meant to be its Exemplars after the
Prophet of Islam, and obedience to them is made as obligatory as to
the Prophet of Islam, lends credence to the logical surmising that
“those charged with authority among you” must have
been shunted aside by those coveting the highest pulpit of Islam.
It
explains the empirical observation that today each Muslim understands
the same verses slightly differently. There are, and were, too many
“imams” interpreting and explaining the Holy Qur'an by
their own fancy and judgment, even vested interest, having lost or
ignored the explanation and interpretation by its authentic stewards!
Despite the plaintext warning to the people to be wary of such
“imams”: “One
day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective)
Imams” (see verse 17:71 quoted above). Mr. Spock
recalled with marvel the foresight of the Author of the Holy Qur'an:
“Surely We have shown him the way: he may be thankful or
unthankful.” (see verse 76:3 quoted above)
Given
the documented reality of the ensuing power-struggle immediately
after the death of the Prophet of Islam which pitted the family of
the Prophet of Islam against the first Muslim caliphs, and the
sociological context surrounding the events of power and its vile
inflection in the name of God which culminated in the slaughter of
the progeny of the Prophet of Islam and the emergence of the most
abhorrent dynastic empires that led the Muslim world to its seven
hundred years of unsurpassed global ascendency among much internecine
state violence, Mr. Spock realizes that objectively extracting
incontrovertible evidence of the appointment of “those
charged with authority among you” in order to establish
their clear identity from the historical records of imperial
craftsmanship and outright suppression for two hundred years, would
be akin to extracting a weak signal from a vast sea of background
noise in communication theory in electrical engineering!
Mr.
Spock recognizes that he would have to be a forensic detective in
order to recreate the fuller contexts for the understanding of the
largely contextless verses of the Holy Qur'an. He also recognizes
however that such a detective work would surely identify the
principal first cause of dissension among the Muslims which had led
to all the subsequent multiplication into sectarianism.
Identification and extraction of that principal first cause could be
key to uniting the Muslims once again as they once were under the
single banner of أُمَّةً
مُسْلِمَةً
during
the lifetime of the Prophet of Islam. Mr. Spock quickly pushes this
overarching puzzle on his evaluation stack.
Mr.
Spock's puzzle evaluation stack is growing rapidly with his
increasing understanding of the complexity of the issues... For,
indeed, the narratives which survived past those early period are
clearly partisan, with scribes and rulers taking sides as already
noted. Thus the richer context for the verses of the Holy Qur'an is
now deeply mired in this blood-drenched early history of the Muslims
and cannot be straightforwardly extracted merely by perusing the
early literature.
As
is the case for all such histories, even including the contemporary
history examined in this volume under the orchestration of the Mighty
Wurlitzer, myths get naturally amplified by successive generation
of scribes, and facts and factors inconvenient to their narratives,
or to their rulers, are naturally attenuated as already explained
above leading to a crippled epistemology for those who study
things on faith or without any forensic talent.
In
summation of the aforementioned discussion before embarking on its
impact analysis, so far, Mr. Spock, well-read in both the
sociological histories of empires and their social engineering of the
public, has recognized that all works outside of the Holy Qur'an
(including the Holy Qur'an itself) have been composed in sociological
contexts and not in an abstract or sterile vacuum free from the
influence of the ruling paradigms. And that these sociological
contexts are most essential to fully identify and perceptively
comprehend, especially when the early history of the advent of
religion of Islam after its Messenger's demise is soaked in so much
internecine state violence and obfuscation. To understand those
outside written works therefore, Mr. Spock ascertains that the full
sociological context under which all these books on Islam were
originally compiled, must first be understood – as facts in a
void can convey any meaning its compiler wants.
Therefore,
Mr. Spock decides that facts alone without the context that created
them will not be sufficient to establish clues to resolving the
Indeterminates of the Holy Qur'an. That it would also be
necessary to cradle facts in the rich sociological context and the
narratives of history which caused the strange paradoxical artifact:
that the Author of the Holy Qur'an chose not to protect its
Exemplar's Sunnah within the Holy Qur'an itself but to which
it issued command obedience as per 4:59.
Furthermore,
that such historical facts would have to be not just cradled, but
forensically cradled in the sociological realities of realpolitik
forces and often unrecorded motivations which gave birth to those
facts, and to their narratives, in order to fully comprehend them.
And
Mr. Spock immediately surmises that as the evidence of history in
every civilization indicates, these narratives too are invariably the
sectarian narratives of partisans taking sides. Historians,
compilers, exegeses writers, essayists and poets, all taking sides,
omitting and attenuating facts and contexts inconvenient either to
their narrative, or to their socialization bias, or to the sanction
of the rulers under whom they scribed, while amplifying myths and
opinions conducive to their narrative and socialization outlook
whereby the victors ruled creating the facts on the ground, and the
victims mourned exaggerating and perhaps mythologizing the
victimizing circumstances in cultural memory for centuries that might
pale the Homer's Iliad by comparison. This natural cause and effect
relationship of history, narrated by those most affected by it, on
either side of it, becoming the de facto source of exposition and
explanation of the Indeterminates of the Holy Qur'an as soon
as one stepped out of its boundaries to figure out the unknowns.
The
divine irony (or perhaps the divine comedy) poignantly strikes Mr.
Spock's analytical mind: Mortal fallible pens seemingly completing
a Book whose Author claims it is “Perfection”
(5:3) and “A Revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.”
(56:80).
To
Mr. Spock's mind, prima facie logic alone would dictate not to use
the fallible pens to parse the Infallible pen of the Author Who
claims Itself to be Perfection Incarnate and the “Lord of the
Worlds”. The Author of the Holy Qur'an is so assertive of the
perfection of His Word that He asserts repeatedly, as in verse 2:2,
that it is a Book in which there is no doubt, and a guidance to only
those pious of heart who earnestly seek it. So why then use the
fallible pen of scribes which is always full of doubt, to gain
comprehension of the Infallible Words of the Author for which the
Author asserts there is no doubt?
But
the same Author has also, evidently by design, practically
necessitated the very use of fallible pens by virtue of verses like
4:59 which create importance for the Sunnah of the Prophet of
Islam on par with the Qur'an and to the obedience to it, but not
recording those Sunnah within the pages of the Holy Qur'an and
leaving the verses of the Qur'an as Indeterminates. This is a
paradox in the Holy Qur'an.
This
is why, Mr. Spock logically concludes, the Muslims from the very
beginning had become preoccupied with the temporal, and often
reactionary sociological contexts, deliberately drowning the holistic
and timeless text of the Holy Qur'an by insisting on partisan
hadiths, tafseers, and narratives of history penned in the fallible
ink and cultural memories largely due to commandments like 4:59 which
made the Holy Qur'an subject to easy abuse.
The
Muslims, it became evident to Mr. Spock, through the subsequent
generations after the first, had paradoxically become its unwitting
victims because they had insisted on following the commandment 4:59
of the Holy Qur'an to the letter, without understanding its accurate
import in the larger context of the entire message of the Holy
Qur'an. And they used the scribes of history literally, along their
own socialization axis, becoming putty in the hands of rulers who
could trivially inflict internecine violence for political expediency
upon those who fell out of favor.
The
Muslims had not bothered to elevate themselves beyond the baggage of
their respective narrow socialization which often leads to
close-mindedness, and partisanship.
Their
collective understanding of Islam in the successive Muslim empires
and subsequent servile civilizations had therefore become ossified in
the imperial narratives of history expounded from the “Roman
pulpit”, and in reaction to it in its many “Protestant
movements”, rather than become progressive and egalitarian
based on the sublimity of its timeless doctrines principled in the
Holy Qur'an. What had been intended as a sublime force of
transformation for the evolution of societies from its barbarisms and
exploitations to an enlightened state of mankind's existence over
time, had become the force majeure for building absolutist enduring
empires instead.
The
Muslims had inexorably fallen victim to the same sort of corruption
which was emphatically admonished by the Holy Qur'an about their
cousins, the Jews and the Christians – the persistent
distortion of the Author's message delivered to the Abrahamic seed!
Except,
in the case of the Muslims, they continued to claim, in every epoch,
to possess the Author's Message in its unadulterated most pristine
cipher form. And demonstrably so. But Muslims could neither decipher
nor implement it effectively because of the hijacking that the Holy
Qur'an itself permitted by virtue of it being a cipher-text rather
than a straightforward plaintext!
Of
course, the aliasing of proper nouns in the Holy Qur'an into common
nouns had been, and continues to be, the most common and obvious
subversion of the Holy Qur'an by Muslims and Non-Muslims alike. For
example, as already discussed in Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization,
Muslims using the proper noun “Imam” as a common noun for
anointing anyone with it, whereas the Holy Qur'an explicitly used
لِلنَّاسِ
إِمَامًا to
anoint only the Author's own favored ones with that station of
leadership among mankind. Similarly, as also already deconstructed in
considerable depth in “Hijacking
the word 'Islam' for Mantra Creation”,
Western demagogues inimical to Islam, like Bernard Lewis and
Samuel Huntington, overloading the proper noun “Islam” to
designate a kitchen sink of semantics, whereas the Holy Qur'an used
الْإِسْلَامَ
دِينًا to
explicitly designate a “deen” which Allah “perfected”.
The
use of Indeterminates in the Holy Qur'an had only facilitated
such calculated hijacking, permitting the easy fixing of these values
by anyone. The brilliant could subvert it easily for their
power-interests to build empires. And the foolish remained socialized
in it to find justification for whatever sect they grew up in!
Even
its very first chapter, Surah Al-Fatiha, which Mr. Spock observed was
parroted daily by all Muslims who reverently bowed in prayer, was a
mini cipher (see its examination in Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization).
The
Holy Qur'an was certainly turning out to be nothing like the
plaintext Bible, the holy book of Captain Kirk of the Starship
Enterprise, lamented Mr. Spock. He recalled the fluency and the ease
with which his human captain sometimes quoted from it to teach him
interesting lessons in selflessness of the most sublime in human
endeavors. Mr. Spock had always found these lessons perplexing due to
his logic-only rational mind. It is interesting to footnote in
passing however, that in this 1960s' fable that was turned into
movies in the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Spock gave his own life selflessly
in one of these episodes to save his spaceship in the Genesis
project, making the rational irrefutable argument to his
captain's chagrin and intense grief that in order for the Starship to
continue its endless mission of discovery of the cosmos, the life
of one over the life of many is a purely logical decision.
In
any case, Mr. Spock pondered that how could this blatant
self-contradiction, a macro puzzle, a paradox of the Holy Qur'an, of
the Holy Qur'an ostensibly facilitating its own subversion, have
escaped the acumen of Muslim sages throughout the ages?
More
pertinently, why had it not been resolved all this time?
To
Mr. Spock's logical mind, if conundrums and paradoxes borne of pure
logic of the matter cannot be resolved with logic alone, they remain
perpetual conundrums, and therefore, always ripe for subjective
interpretation and harvesting for narrow interests. Here was the
principal reason, within the text of the Holy Qur'an itself, which
continually leads to seeking and following material outside the
confines of the Authorship of the Holy Qur'an. And no Muslim sage is
inclined to address it!
Perceptive
as he is, the motivation to not solve this paradox, especially during
the heyday of Muslim civilizations, is now readily apparent to Mr.
Spock. This persistent puzzle of the Holy Qur'an to Mr. Spock is
indicative of both, the deep sociological contexts which cradled the
message of Islam from its earliest inception to the present day, and
its pathological transformation into enduring empires. As Mr. Spock
dispassionately observed, the religion of Islam had been morphed into
an unsurpassed absolutist system for the exercise of imperial power
by Muslim rulers. Anyone on the throne and the pulpit could interpret
the verses of the Holy Qur'an any which way they liked simply by
making recourse to any outside text written by themselves, or by
their own favored scribes, or to their own favored narrative of
history. By thus fixing values of its Indeterminates to suit
their narrow self-interests, it was easy to hijack Islam to one's
primacy advantage.
The
intoxicating, almost mesmerizing, effect the Holy Qur'an has upon the
Muslim masses makes it especially easy to manipulate and control them
by distorting the largely contextless verses of the Holy Qur'an and
giving these any meaning that is expedient. Promising the masses
Heaven in After-life for their sufferance of hell right here
in this life. A messiah in the future who would free them of their
misery and establish justice and equity if only they were patient in
their afflictions and injustices here, and relegated themselves to
dutifully mind their religious rituals instead. And, instead of
challenging, either participated in, or suffered in silence, the
kingly opulence and tyrannical adventures of their rulers as it was
indeed God who had appointment them the absolute sovereign of the
lands. After all, didn't the Holy Qur'an unequivocally command
Muslims to obey: “those charged with authority among you”,
and “to be patient” in their suffering!!
While
musing this pathocracy of social control, Mr. Spock recalled a global
primacy strategist's rational observations of absolutist empires
which most aptly captured the global ascendence of these despotic
Muslim empires:
“The
earlier empires were built by aristocratic political elites and were
in most cases ruled by essentially authoritarian or absolutist
regimes. The bulk of the populations of the imperial states were
either politically indifferent or, in more recent times, infected by
imperialist emotions and symbols. The quest for national glory, "the
white man's burden," "la mission civilisatrice," not
to speak of the opportunities for personal profit—all served to
mobilize support for imperial adventures and to sustain essentially
hierarchical imperial power pyramids.”[8]
The
Muslim empires, with their absolute sovereignty ruthlessly secured in
the name of Islam's “God” from all domestic challenge,
became great patrons of the arts, the sciences, and the humanities.
They become the first to bring the translations of the works of the
Classical civilizations into Arabic, from where it reached the
Western shores centuries later. The enterprising and talented ones
among the Muslim populations labored under the parallel personal
motivations to impel empire forward as already explored in the Fable
of the Bees
for the modern contemporary times under Western empires. The
pertinent verses from the Holy Qur'an that encouraged astronomy, the
study of the cosmos, in fact the study of all creation (as in verses
67:3-4
of Surah Al-Mulk which were also quoted by Dr. Abdus Salam when
receiving his shared 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics and which precisely
underscores this very point), and indeed the boundless pursuit of all
forms of knowledge ( “and say: My Lord! Increase me in
knowledge.” Surah Ta-Ha, 20:114
, Arabic: وَقُلْ
رَّبِّ زِدۡنِىۡ
عِلۡمًا ),
helped propel Muslim civilizations to the forefront of global
supremacy on all fronts in their heyday just as it has done for
American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives in this day and
age. Except, in the development of political thought.
That
necessary re-discovery had to await the Renaissance during the
Middle Ages in the West, to finally end the reign of their own
pulpit-led supreme Dark Ages that had principally been seeded in the
hijacking of Christianity as the official state religion of the Roman
Empire centuries earlier (in approx. 300 AD under Emperor
Constantine).
Why
had such Renaissance against the Muslim pulpit's hijacking of
Islam likewise centuries earlier, right after the death of its
Prophet, similarly not transpired in the Muslim civilizations despite
their own un-challenged global supremacy of vast territories on Earth
for a period far exceeding the Roman Empire? Considering that the
Muslims were the first to be exposed to Greek classics and to their
Classical Hellenic culture of political self-empowerment (such as
republic, democracy), egalitarian ideas of social justice (such as
Solon's, considered among the ten greatest law givers of Athenian
antiquity according to Plutarch's Lives),
etc., for these socio-political ideas to have never taken root in
absolutist Muslim civilizations which likewise ruled dynastically
with an iron-fist in the name of Islam's “God”, while
they borrowed liberally from Hellenic math, sciences, and military
warfare methods to become the supreme empires of their time, is
revealing in and of itself. If one simply compares that state of
affairs to the political indifference of the learned in society
today, all matters become patently obvious.
Of
the hundreds of living Nobel laureates in the sciences and humanities
in America and the Western world, how many learned minds rose to
challenge the empire's narratives of 9/11, or called it for its prima
facie enactment, an inside job, or showed any skepticism when
BBC reported the destruction of WTC-7 the very same evening a full
twenty-five minutes before it nearly free-fall collapsed into its own
footprints with no airliner ever hitting it, or forensically
deconstructed the so called Catastrophic Terrorism of 9/11 to
uncover and publicly protest that it was to launch imperial
mobilization for one-world government?
These
most brilliant high achieving minds of America, like the rest of the
American masses caught between their daily bread and circuses,
watched their beloved Western world descend into police-states, lose
their vaunted civil liberties, stood meekly at airports first with
their own shoes in hands, and subsequently with their private parts
in TSA's hands, all in the name of outright idiotic and villainous
absurdities. To this scribe's last count as of the year 2012 AD,
exactly zero have arisen to call America's War on Terror for
what it is, or handed in their vaunted Nobel prize in protest to its
open barbarianism upon the 'lesser peoples'. This silence and show of
political indifference of the supposed “learned” of
Western society during the exercise and expansion of Western hegemony
is not a singularity. It is the norm under every empire from time
immemorial. One cannot stand tall against the tyranny of ruling
interests and thrive at the same time.
Mr.
Spock perceptively observed with the precision of a sociologist and
science officer, that a revolutionary religion, intended primarily
for the transformation of man – both men and women – into
the perfectman submitting wholly to its Creator “bowing
to Thy (Will)”, and society into the perfect egalitarian
system of social justice and sublime morality (as for instance had
been noted by Solon in Athens a thousand years before Islam (Ibid.),
and most succinctly outlined in Surah al-Asr, chapter 103 of the Holy
Qur'an), had been trivially transformed on the one hand into the
opiate of the people waiting for Allah, and on the other into
a natural force for imperial mobilization throughout the ages!
No
system of absolute rule, marveled Mr. Spock, has been able to surpass
this tortuous mass control of the public mind that could so trivially
persuade people to accept and enjoy their own servitude with just the
mere promise of the Hereafter which not even the rulers, but
their almighty God had undertaken to fulfill. The rulers got a free
ride with no promises of their own to keep! Whereas today, a lot more
sophistication and technical expertise, not to mention considerable
expense and talent, is brought to bear to achieve the same effect
under “democracy” (see The
Mighty Wurlitzer),
and a hell of a lot of bayonets under Stalinist like dictatorship.
This
has been the real prime-mover behind the villainous history of the
oft glorified Muslim empires of the past, where the first caliphate
came into existence after the death of the Prophet of Islam under a
cloud of dissent from the progeny of the Prophet of Islam, where the
first Ummayad Empire came into existence by killing the progeny of
the Prophet of Islam, where the follow-on Abbasside empire came into
existence on the pretext of rectifying the wrong done by the Ummayads
but then took over the imperial mobilization from where the
previous tyrannical empire had left off. The Mongols conquered
Eurasia, assimilated with the local population, and spawned the two
new Muslim Empires of the Ottomans in Central Asia, and the Mughals
in Persia and India. This is what Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in The
Grand Chessboard of their precursors, the Mongols' phenomenal
conquest of Eurasia which gave birth to these Muslim empires:
“To
find a somewhat closer analogy to today's definition of a global
power, we must turn to the remarkable phenomenon of the Mongol
Empire. Its emergence was achieved through an intense struggle with
major and well-organized opponents. Among those defeated were the
kingdoms of Poland and Hungary, the forces of the Holy Roman Empire,
several Russian and Rus' principalities, the Caliphate of Baghdad,
and later, even the Sung dynasty of China.
Genghis
Khan and his successors, by defeating their regional rivals,
established centralized control over the territory that latterday
scholars of geopolitics have identified as the global heartland, or
the pivot for world power. Their Eurasian continental empire ranged
from the shores of the China Sea to Anatolia in Asia Minor and to
Central Europe (see map). It was not until the heyday of the
Stalinist Sino-Soviet bloc that the Mongol Empire on the Eurasian
continent was finally matched, insofar as the scope of centralized
control over contiguous territory is concerned.
The
Roman, Chinese, and Mongol empires were regional precursors of
subsequent aspirants to global power. In the case of Rome and China,
as already noted, their imperial structures were highly developed,
both politically and economically, while the widespread acceptance of
the cultural superiority of the center exercised an important
cementing role. In contrast, the Mongol Empire sustained political
control by relying more directly on military conquest followed by
adaptation (and even assimilation) to local conditions.
Mongol
imperial power was largely based on military domination. Achieved
through the brilliant and ruthless application of superior military
tactics that combined a remarkable capacity for rapid movement of
forces with their timely concentration, Mongol rule entailed no
organized economic or financial system, nor was Mongol authority
derived from any assertive sense of cultural superiority. The Mongol
rulers were too thin numerically to represent a self-regenerating
ruling class, and in any case, the absence of a defined and
self-conscious sense of cultural or even ethnic superiority deprived
the imperial elite of the needed subjective confidence.
In
fact, the Mongol rulers proved quite susceptible to gradual
assimilation by the often culturally more advanced peoples they had
conquered. Thus, one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan, who had become
the emperor of the Chinese part of the great Khan's realm, became a
fervent propagator of Confucianism; another became a devout Muslim in
his capacity as the sultan of Persia; and a third became the
culturally Persian ruler of Central Asia.
It
was that factor—assimilation of the rulers by the ruled because
of the absence of a dominant political culture—as well as
unresolved problems of succession to the great Khan who had founded
the empire, that caused the empire's eventual demise. The Mongol
realm had become too big to be governed from a single center, but the
solution attempted—dividing the empire into several
self-contained parts—prompted still more rapid local
assimilation and accelerated the imperial disintegration. After
lasting two centuries, from 1206 to 1405, the world's largest
land-based empire disappeared without a trace.”
--- Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, pgs. 15-17
Leaving
behind their Muslim legatees, the Ottoman and the Mughal Empires.
Little changed with their assimilation by the conquered peoples, as
now these new absolutist regimes of the assimilated ruling class
exercised ruthless power in the name of the same “God” of
Islam, rather than formerly as the Central Asian Mongol barbarians.
The
Ottomans and the Mughals took imperial suzerainty from where the
Ummayads, the Abbassides, and the Fatimides had left off, abusing
Islam exactly as their predecessors, to inflict social control upon
the masses in the name of “God”, and to infect the public
with their own 'la mission civilisatrice' which supported imperial
objectives, now largely held in check by the burgeoning European
empire. And it is now, the contemporary history in the making of the
Anglo Saxon's drive for a world government empire.
All
principally enabled by the fracture lines among the Muslims
themselves because of their slightly different theological
understanding of the Holy Qur'an due to the open-ended interpretation
of the verses of the Holy Qur'an that is possible, leading to losing
the original message intended by the Author for the guidance to man.
Once the Author's message is lost to individual interpretation, all
the evil follows when the fault lines thus created fall into the
grubby hands of Supermen and Machiavelli
who know how to diabolically harness them in the name of “God”
and “imperial mobilization”.
One
can see perfect contemporary examples of the West's harvesting of
Islam in Zbigniew Brzezinski crafting the Afghan Mujahideens
in yesteryear as already examined in Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization.
And today, in the crafting of 'militant Islam' vs. 'moderate Islam'
Hegelian Dialectic, to create the “revolutionary times”
necessary to seed the transformation into one-world government empire
as already examined in The
Mighty Wurlitzer.
It
is only that, the abuse of the religion of Islam as an unmatched
force for absolute social control in the name of “God”,
and not its lofty purpose, concluded Mr. Spock, which led the Muslims
to dizzying heights of unsurpassed empires for over seven hundred
years, from 700 AD to 1400 AD. Muslim empires limped along, often in
the throes of mediocrity, in competition with the rapidly burgeoning
Western hegemony in Europe for another five hundred years, until they
were finally put out of their misery by an even more diabolical foe
that had now surpassed the dynastic Muslim rulers in the arts and
sciences of societal control and behavior manipulation.
The
authority of “God” was replaced with that of “Democracy”
(“We, the People”), and the pulpit by the Mighty
Wurlitzer (wily mechanisms for the perception-management of “We,
the People”).
Like
spiritual Christianity, spiritual Islam has
indubitably played a transformative role in the life of countless
individuals. As captured most ably by the
nineteenth century French novelist, Victor Hugo, for the metanoia
inducing power of the Christian faith in his novel Les Miserable,
the same narrative qualitatively captures the impact of Islam on the
spirituality of Muslim individuals as well. Overcoming one's own
inner demons, base desires, external tragedies and horrors that can
easily transform man into a remorseless soul, “zulamat”
in the Qur'anic language, is not only the purposeful guidance of the
religion of Islam, but also its lofty attainment in every epoch
Muslims have lived on earth. Despite living in the most enslaving
societies under the most tyrannical
governments made of despotic rulers and absolutist kings in the short
fourteen and half century history of Islam, the faith undeniably
created the bond of religious fraternity and socialization wherever
it spread, fostering a common ethos borne of common religious
rituals, giving different Muslim societies their distinctive common
tenor often called “Islamic” civilization.
But
that's not all there is to the religion of Islam. Why has the “deen”
as “perfected” and “completed” in verse 5:3
of the Holy Qur'an, pondered Mr. Spock, failed to transform any
Muslim society, without exception, into a just and egalitarian
society as is advocated in the Scripture, rather than be continually
hijacked by pious sounding despots for empire building and “imperial
mobilization”? Ad hoc caliphates to dynastic kingdoms lasting
centuries is also the undeniable official record of Muslim history.
An absolute ruler always ruled the dominions where Islam was
preached, with an iron-fist no less, and so long as his rule was not
interfered with, and people paid their taxes and obeyed the throne in
everything and anything it wanted, including making wars and peace,
it was fine to pursue social, cultural,
technical and scientific attainments by individuals. The throne even
patronized such activities. And Muslims excelled in these in their
seven hundred year dominance of earth, under full servitude to the
ruling “gods” in power!
Mr.
Spock recalled the statement of yet another twentieth century
sociologist and political scientist, a “leading Western scholar
of Islam”, professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University,
capturing the meteoric rise and dominance of “Islam” (see
Hijacking
the word “Islam” for Mantra Creation)
in the following words, and it puzzled Mr. Spock why all that was
even true despite there being no “empire” and no
servitude to “gods” in the Religion of Islam:
“It
is difficult to generalize about Islam. To begin with, the word
itself is commonly used with two related but distinct meanings, as
the equivalents both of Christianity, and Christendom. In the one
sense, it denotes a religion, as system of beliefs and worship; in
the other, the civilization that grew up and flourished under the
aegis of that religion. The word Islam thus denotes more than
fourteen centuries of history, a billion and a third people, and a
religious and cultural tradition of enormous diversity. ... For
more than a thousand years, Islam provided the only universally
acceptable set of rules and principles for the regulation of public
and social life. Even during the period of maximum European
influence, in the countries ruled or dominated by European imperial
powers as well as in those that remained independent, Islamic
political notions and attitudes remained a profound and pervasive
influence.” --- Bernard Lewis, Crisis of Islam – Holy War
and Unholy Terror, pgs. 1 and 13
The
key to that puzzle is in the text of the Holy Qur'an itself.
The
very concept of spiritual guidance in the Holy Qur'an is addressed to
a very narrow audience, those who approach it with a “cleansed
heart” (see detailed exposition in Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization).
The rest are destined to be misled, as per the many admonishing
proclamations in the Holy Qur'an.
But,
as Mr. Spock already understood by way of considerable empiricism, no
society, from time immemorial, possesses such wonderfully pious
public with a “cleansed heart” in the majority! “Hegemony
is as old as mankind”[9]; and so is its power to
corrupt and to co-opt: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute
power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”[10]
And their core instrument of extracting obedience from the public
mind is Machiavellian political science. That succeeds primarily
because, as is also an observed empirical fact, the general mass
intelligence among human beings is rather low, irrespective of the
civilization and epoch they belong to. A human philosopher had once
captured this empiricism with wit: “Most people would rather
die than think; in fact, they do so”.[11]
Therefore,
questioned Mr. Spock, how is this guidance of the Holy Qur'an which
is initially meant for only a small minority among the public who are
required to both reason and think, and also bring a “cleansed
heart” to bear upon the divine message, supposed to transform
the majority of the people in any society?
One
brimming with unbridled optimism may perhaps blindly speculate that
the first seeds of moral enlightenment among the minority will
eventually germinate and percolate to the rest of society – the
evolution of societies under Islam to their more egalitarian and
sublime state of equity, social justice, and spiritual ascendency –
just like it arguably was on such a transforming path in the most
backward piece of geography on earth at the time. In the desert of
Arabia, when the Prophet of Islam established his ruling state in the
small oasis called Medina during his own lifetime.
But
not Mr. Spock, who had in fact been quite bored reading Pollyanna
from the ship's library. He could already perceive that these are
wonderfully lofty ideals of Islam no doubt, just like its
predecessors' the Ten Commandments brought by Prophet Moses to the
'chosen peoples', and the 'love thy neighbor' Gospel brought by
Prophet Jesus to their legatees subsequently known as Christians.
None has transpired yet! But all have succeeded in leaving
high-minded platitudes on elevated bookshelves of over 5 billion
peoples who today claim to follow the Abrahamic creeds!
Practically
speaking, reasoned Spock, if the masses are mainly unthinking
creatures of habit, socialization, and driven largely by their own
narrow self-interests, what does transformation really mean, apart
from merely implanting new habits and rituals among the masses by
social engineering – no cleansed hearts needed for that.
Indeed, Islam had succeeded in mainly accomplishing the
transformation of rituals. The fact that dynastic kingdoms had
cropped up among Muslims within sixty years of the death of the
Messenger of Islam, and the Muslims had become embroiled in
internecine warfare within twenty years of his death, and even the
immediate aftermath of his death saw ad hoc political successions in
the rapidly developing new ruling state with the Muslim public
accepting any and all travesty in silence, including the heinous
killing of the family of the Prophet of Islam despite explicit
commandment in the Holy Qur'an to love them (Say:
“No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of those
near of kin.”, Surah Ash-Shura 42:23),
speaks of the Herculean task of reformation from darkness to light
taken up by the Holy Qur'an and its religion Islam. The empirical
record thus far appeared rather poor. And fourteen hundred years
after the advent of Islam, the Muslims appeared to have become the
most backward, the most easily manipulated, and the most easily
colonized people. Just the fact that the ubiquitous “war on
terror” in the twenty-first century is being waged at the
expense of Muslims and Islam to create world police-state with much
of the Muslim world bewildered at what's happening to them, brings
veracity to these words.
Mr.
Spock is well aware that according to sociologists' empirical study
of human societies still existing in the twenty-first century, at
best less than 2% of the people think, about 8% think they think, and
90% wouldn't be caught dead thinking! In fact, stupider the masses,
more gullibly they are led to any destination by the Machiavelli with
social engineering, and easily occupied with bread and circuses –
and that has been a fact from time immemorial. Islam failed to alter
that reality. That's just a fact, as unpleasant as it may be to
swallow for Muslims.
Moreover,
how can the Holy Qur'an even begin to counter that empirical reality
among the wider populations of human beings with its platitudinous
cleansed heart recipe? The way the Holy Qur'an is structured, that
recipe principally requires the ability to think and to reason, like
Mr. Spock's mind, while overcoming the chains of socialization and
indoctrination inflicted upon the public from birth, in order to
fully decipher the message of the Holy Qur'an.
But
if not more than 2% of any human society realistically has such
rational capacity at this stage of their human development on earth,
as is empirically visible, genuine heart cleansing can only remain
un-implementable. This automatically
implies that holding diversity of views and remaining fragmented is
the only practical outcome for such primitive societies, leaving the
incredible statements of the Holy Qur'an to ultimately prevail to
explain that empiricism:
- “If Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people,” ;
- “(His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.” ;
- “If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if ye do believe in Allah and the Last Day: That is best, and most suitable for final determination.” ;
- “Surely We have shown him the way: he may be thankful or unthankful.” ;
- “One day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective) Imams” ;
- 'Then the Messenger will say: “O my Lord! Truly my people took this Qur'an for just foolish nonsense.”' ;
- “This is a people that have passed away; they shall have what they earned and you shall have what you earn, and you shall not be called upon to answer for what they did.” (all cited above)
As
evidenced in the verses above, the Author of the Holy Qur'an asserts
to have fully empowered individuals, societies, and civilizations
from time immemorial with His Divine Guidance System whether they be
thankful or unthankful. And will hold all human beings to account for
its implementation in their own lives and their own times in the
company of their respective Imams. Be that as it may, the
implementation of the Author's Divine Guidance System is nevertheless
made even more impractical by the meta paradox of the Holy Qur'an,
that the hijacking of its understanding has been enabled by the Holy
Qur'an itself. Even the smartest minds in sophisticated societies
have to deal with the challenge of accurately deciphering the Holy
Qur'an due to its Indeterminates!
But
the twin of that paradox is still another
paradox – that perhaps it was this first paradox which enabled
the Holy Qur'an to even survive in its cipher form as a pristine
un-tampered text through the vicissitudes of empires built upon the
abuse of the religion of Islam as a force for social engineering, in
the first place. When Muslim power-mongers at the very inception of
Islam's ascendance did not hesitate from slaughtering the progeny of
the Prophet of Islam to occupy its highest pulpits despite the clear
Qur'anic commandment to Muslims that loving the Messenger's near of
kin in gratitude is a moral obligation put upon them, 'Say: “No
reward do I ask of you for this except the love of those near of
kin.”', the verses of the Holy Qur'an themselves would
surely not have survived un-tampered had they effectively got in the
way of imperial mobilization.
By
using open-ended statements and indirections in its verses, i.e., by
becoming a cipher, and by encouraging its verbatim memorization and
recitation on every occasion imaginable primarily as an oral message,
the Author has certainly been able to safeguard the text of the Holy
Qur'an from the villainy of human scribes and the vicissitudes of
time. And here is the twin paradox – but who can decipher that
pristine un-tampered cipher message of “no doubt” into
its singular plaintext today without any doubt? Albeit, the
Holy Qur'an has provided a cipher key for breaking this deadlock
condition, to approach its cipher with a “cleansed heart”
and all would be revealed: “In a Book well-guarded, Which
none shall touch but those who are clean (purified)”, Surah
Al-Waqia, 56:78-79, already quoted above.
Many
millenniums later, despite the indirections and the unknowns, the
pristine text of the Holy Qur'an has still enabled the solely
left-brained Mr. Spock to reason through the cipher using only the
Holy Qur'an itself as the criterion to adjudicate his reasoning. As
should be readily apparent to the reader, validating the broad claims
of the Holy Qur'an, Mr. Spock has certainly comprehended quite a bit
already.
But
the paradox of trying to comprehend in totality, the Infallible Words
of the Author from the fallible words of the scribes of history
persists. This paradox is deeply inherent in the Holy Qur'an and no
amount of rationalization of how pristine and un-tampered the
Qur'anic text really is, can wipe it way. While its words and verses
may be intact and pristine, the meaning of those words and verses on
the precise fault-lines of sectarianism is far from Determinate.
Mr.
Spock pushes this macro meta puzzle on the top of his evaluation
stack, realizing fully well that albeit a totality of understanding
may be difficult to acquire, a reasonable, even if ultimately
partial, understanding may still be achieved to finally resolve all
paradoxes with logical self-consistency once he has dug his way to
the very bottom of the Pandora's box.
Mr.
Spock has also insightfully realized that unlike peoples of other
religions, Islam and the Holy Qur'an evidently continue to play a
much greater role in the daily lives of Muslim nations on earth in
nearly all cultures and civilizations of the East. The West is also
not immune to its intoxicating grip upon the Muslim peoples living
there. The public's oral recitation of the Holy Qur'an, if not its
penetrating study, is ubiquitous among the Muslim masses and
comprises their essential Islamic ethos. It is a pathetic shame
therefore, muses Mr. Spock, that they each understand the same text
of their Good Book differently leading to needless fracture lines
among them that are always ripe for harvesting by the vile and the
villainous. Something really should be done about this –
despite the potential of the Prime Directive
adversely interfering with that lofty objective (Prime
Directive: a social Darwinian
concept to not have the highly evolved Star Trek folks in the fable
meddle with primitive war-mongering civilizations in the galaxy, to
instead afford them the opportunity to either evolve, or naturally
die away and be replaced by a better civilization more eager and able
to evolve).
Accurately
unraveling the principal first cause of disunity among Muslims from
which every schism, every empire, and every evil has followed,
logically surmised Mr. Spock, would minimally lead to eliminating all
sectarianism from among them; the Muslims already possess the common
text of the Holy Qur'an which they are all already united upon, and
mainly only differ in what it means. A rational elimination of these
now very powerful fracture lines, a happenstance of history, would
also eliminate the ease of abuse of Islam by rulers and empires who
thrive on historical obfuscation, on aiding and abetting internecine
violence, on fanning sectarian divides, pitting one narrative against
the other among the ignorant partisans to assert their own primacy
and its geostrategic imperatives. Eliminating just that singular
source of global threat to other worlds and other civilizations,
would be worth violating the Prime Directive for, reasons Mr.
Spock.
Because
of his long exposure to the exercise of hegemony and evolution of
primitive societies, Mr. Spock well understands that a society often
only evolves due to being conquered, or sometimes due to resistance
to being conquered, and rarely voluntarily without a motivating
force. Industrial and technological advancement had been a primal
force of social evolution – but rather than evolve the mental
styles of man, it had only principally evolved the living styles of
mankind. No spiritual advancement had taken place over at least 5000
years of mankind's existence despite
copious visitations by prophets. Therefore, Mr.
Spock recognizes that if Muslim societies now under dire existential
threat, are permitted or coached into evolving their comprehension of
the real meaning of Islam and the sublime guidance to mankind offered
in the Holy Qur'an, and if knowledge of this new egalitarian
understanding of the religion of Islam is encouraged to percolate
downwards to the Muslim masses and upwards to the Muslim pontiffs,
that:
- firstly, all such subversions for “imperial mobilizations” would automatically be thwarted (See exposition of Surah Al-Asr , Chapter 103 of the Holy Qur'an, to understand how the banality of evil is easily overcome once the implementation of Deen-ul-Haq is liberated from the clutches of pious rituals and pious mullahs) ;
- and secondly, the concomitant societal journey towards a progressive more egalitarian state of spiritual as well as equitable material existence would become naturally organic and automatic.
But,
Mr. Spock also lamentably ponders, which ruling class and threatened
interests among them would ever permit such a positive transformation
to occur on its own, without substantial use of a counter force, when
it would kill the golden goose which lays the imperial egg?
Especially, if such revolutionizing transformation could finally even
unite the Muslims into one enlightened people who would be next to
impossible to conquer for inimical interests.
However,
a bent tree can hardly ever be straightened without breaking it, as
Mr. Spock well knows. And that unfortunate empiricism may necessitate
that the religion of Islam, as preserved in its un-tampered
scripture, continually resuscitate itself in new cultures and new
civilizations, among new peoples, each time for a better
implementation of divine guidance, while leaving the corrupted and
hijacked nations to naturally decay away into oblivion. There is no
arresting, never mind curing, cancer in an already decaying society.
With
that as the overarching backdrop of the import of his study, Mr.
Spock decides to dig his electrified mind into a deeper more
penetrating examination of the Holy Qur'an. His mathematical genius
simply had to solve these puzzles and paradoxes of the enigmatic text
which appeared to offer some sensible guidance for mutual
co-existence in the stochastic process of mankind's existence –
a random process which seeds natural diversity among mankind via
socialization bias that only depends upon which side of the railroad
tracks people are born, but offering them a breathtaking unity of
purpose as expressed in Surah Al-Maeda 5:48.
As far as Mr.
Spock has been able to ascertain from his study of the Holy Qur'an,
there are no Imams (Guides, Leaders, Rulers to rule over the Muslim
nation after the Prophet of Islam) mentioned in the Holy Qur'an by
name, nor the fact of their number, as in how many, except for the
sole fact of the veritable existence of some unnamed وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ to
whom allegiance, obedience, is made as much compulsory for Muslims as
is allegiance and obedience to the Prophet of Islam. That latter fact
is categorical. The verse of obedience, 4:59,
is categorical, blanket, general, and most clear. It cannot be denied
(which is why, instead of denying it, the verse of obedience
is resemantified, distorted and misinterpreted by the anointed
experts from the clergy class to legitimize just about anyone's rule,
including their own). Nor can it be denied that logical deductions
from the verses of the Holy Qur'an have led Mr. Spock to the
conclusion that these could only be from the Ahlul Bayt
because of the requirement for being inerrant, infallible, if such
absolute obedience commanded to any mortal man is made equivalent to
obedience to God. And such perfect cleansing, from mistakes and
errors, has only been afforded to the Ahlul Bayt in the entire
Holy Qur'an, in the verse of perfect cleansing, 33:33
– and to no one else! The identity of who exactly comprise the
Ahlul Bayt is not specified in the Holy Qur'an. Nor is it
specified who these unnamed valih-e-amr ( وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ )
are. Their precise identity therefore, if pertinence demands knowing
who these are in future history, meaning outside of their own
respective lifetime, requires adjudication from empirical data.
Meaning, from the recorded pages of history, meaning going to sources
outside of the pages of the Holy Qur'an – the first-cause
source of pluralistic interpretations of Islam as already discussed
in the preceding sections.
Beyond
that, everything else on the subject of rulership of Muslims is
shrouded in metaphorical verses of the Indeterminates. These
are open to interpretation and historical fixing, and usually almost
entirely by socialization bias. Neither the names of the members of
the Ahlul Bayt, nor the names of the four Caliphs who took
power in temporal succession after the Messenger's demise, nor the
names of the Ummayad and Abbaside imperial rulers who came thereafter
to create the Muslim dynastic empires, nor the names of the famous
Hadith compilers and exegesis writers, nor the prominent
jurists who formed their schools of jurisprudence by which Muslims
identify themselves in sectarian affiliations, nor the names of any
of the companions of the Messenger, nor the names of his wives, are
mentioned in the Holy Qur'an. This silence is also a fact.
It
begs the obvious question: Why is the Holy Qur'an not explicit in its
own categorical verses on the question of Rulership of Islam after
the Messenger of Islam? Why is there not a single verse in the
Holy Qur'an which unequivocally identifies who precisely is to
succeed the Prophet of Islam in the rulership and imammate of the
nascent Islamic state after his demise? There is so much
repetition of the mundane matters, including bedroom etiquette, and
not one verse on guidance of how the Muslims are to be politically
governed after the Prophet, let alone who is to take up his political
and spiritual mantle? The Prophet of Islam, after all, had
established the first Islamic state. What were the rules of
successorship to be after him? And how were these to apply after that
epoch, in future times? Instead, there are verses after verses on the
concept of Imam, wilayat, valih, wasilah, etc., all forming a
multiplicity of riddles couched in indirections and Indeterminates
which must be solved, objectively and logically to say the least, in
order to extract the Message contained in the Holy Qur'an accurately.
What
bothers Mr. Spock is not that silence in preciseness itself, because
his logical mind straightforwardly discerns that fact of omission
itself to be part of the Message of the Holy Qur'an, and therefore
only to be deciphered correctly by its proclaimed adherents, but the
more fundamental question: Why is that question not asked by
Muslims themselves? Mr. Spock is more perturbed by their
illogical rush to the scribes and pages of history to assert their
own myopic inheritance as the principal message of Islam, often
exclusively by socialization bias, and of the sect and home each is
born into. Hardly the most sensible way to understand a Book as
momentous as the Holy Qur'an!
What
the Holy Qur'an has instead specified is exclusively the criterion by
which to judge, adjudicate, ascertain and affirm, all matters
pertaining to the religion of Islam in its categorical verses. Some
of these criterion have been used by Mr. Spock to figure out many
things, some shocking, like the admonishment that some Muslims in the
time of the Messenger were “on a clearly wrong Path”
(Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:36).
Similarly, on the topic which principally divides Sunnis and Shias
and from which all their other sectarian differences follow –
was there, or was there not, appointment of an Apostolic Successor by
Divine Decree and proclaimed by the Messenger? So judge by the
Determinate criterion of the Holy Qur'an alone, to your own
good heart's content, who is entitled to be وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ from
among the distinguished players of history. Mr. Spock's path to
understand the Qur'anic criterion is summarized in the Self Study
section at the end.
But also observe
that its relevance today is principally only of theoretical and
academic interest from the point of view of the Determinate
verses of the Holy Qur'an. Because, if it wasn't, these historically
entitled وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ would
have been identified in the Holy Qur'an by name and details about
them would be contained in the Determinates of the Holy Qur'an
for subsequent generations to follow categorically, until the end of
time. The reason they are not identified by name, is arguably because
they were clearly known to the peoples in the era they each lived in,
and were principally meant for. Whereas, the theologies surrounding
them which have reached Muslims some millennia later, are not to be
found in the Holy Qur'an except by way of interpretation of the
Indeterminates, largely drawn from the preferred penmanship of
history. What would have happened if none of these scribes existed,
or had written anything – just as nothing was written down for
more than a century after the demise of the Prophet of Islam? On what
logical basis, deduced from the criterion of the Holy Qur'an, are
these fallible scribes predicates to the understanding of the
infallible Holy Qur'an? Mr. Spock found no reference in the Holy
Qur'an mandating the existence of these scribes. There is no mention
in the Holy Qur'an of scribes who have been “perfected”
for this task of faultless preservation of historical narratives that
exist today as the primary written sources of Islam outside of the
Holy Qur'an.
Every
generation has the new opportunity to start afresh – for the
natural cyclical process of birth and death can also have a
beneficial cleansing effect upon the baggage of legacy. Why should a
new generation born into their own times be shackled by what went
before? Which is why the Holy Qur'an itself advocates starting afresh
for every man and woman rather than remain shackled by the holiness
of others who came before them:
“That
was a people that hath passed away. They
shall reap the fruit of what they did, and ye of what ye do! Of
their merits there is no question in your case!” (Surah
Al-Baqara, 2:134,
repeated again for emphasis in 2:141)
When
the Holy Qur'an so clearly vouches for that separation from the
people who went before without equivocation: “Of their
merits there is no question in your case”, then how can it
endorse the acceptance of their workmanship for you to follow for
your merit? That would create a contradiction!
Indeed,
the Holy Qur'an unequivocally confirms that
conclusion with the following explicit warning:
“(On
the day) when those who were followed disown those who followed
(them), and they behold the doom, and all their aims collapse with
them. And those who were but followers will say: If a return were
possible for us, we would disown them even as they have disowned us.
Thus will Allah show them their own deeds as anguish for them, and
they will not emerge from the Fire.” (Surah Al-Baqara,
2:166-167)
The
Indeterminates of the Holy Qur'an weren't meant to be filled
in by the imaginative scribes in pious robes, nor spawn Muslim
empires by subverting their meanings from the pulpit, nor the latter
day lucrative industry of madrassas, howzas, and seminaries which run
into unaccountable billions of dollars of annual zakat, khums, and
endowment funds. Like the financial secrecy enjoyed by the Papacy, no
one has any accounting for these funds. No nation demands it. No
accounting firm produces the balance sheet for the public for the
funds harvest from the public in the name of religion. This holy
industry feeds for lifetime, generations of savants who often cannot
be gainfully employed in any competitive sector of society. In
modernity, if you are a mental midget who cannot get into college, or
are too poor to feed yourself, you become an “alim”. If
you are more fortunate, you become a “revolutionary”, or
acquire a Ph.D. to “bring reform to Islam”. The religion
of Islam remaining in the clutches of the pulpit that feeds off of
it, for profit, power, or glory, can never stand up to the hectoring
hegemons. It becomes the stage for house niggers, useful idiots, and
mercenaries of empire to rally the public mind to its agendas. We
even empirically witness this in our own times. Caught between the
Hegelian Dialectic of “militant
Islam” and “moderate Islam”,
with “revolutionary Islam” soon to be added to its mix to
foment more “revolutionary times” of internecine
violence, the sectarian pulpit spells worldwide national suicide for
Muslims today.
Just
as the ancient scribes fixed the Indeterminates of the Holy
Qur'an to suit their narrow self-interests, we have the opportunity
to rationally unfix the Indeterminates
of their subversive bindings to suit our broader existential
self-interests. We have the same ability to de-emphasize
the Indeterminates in our religious ethos, or to treat them as
options not to be fought or disunited over, just as the earlier times
went in the opposite direction. We have the opportunity to actively
build on what is common ground so easily forged by the Determinates
of the Holy Qur'an, just as those who went before us differentiated
on the basis of the Indeterminates.
Only
that sensible path offers any coherent possibilities for Muslims to
finally stop being puppets on a string. Only that approach permits
the sectarianly divided Muslims to come
together against common global predators whose only real leverage
upon Muslims is their superior Machiavellian ability to divide and
conquer the simpleton public mind.
Muslims
in every new generation get the opportunity afresh to stop being
simpletons. That is why man is given his own little “zulfiqar”,
his intellect! But it is born dull just as man is born naked at
birth. And just as we don't go prancing about in our birth-day
clothes au natural for the rest of our lives just because we
are born naked, and if someone did they'd be simply locked away in an
asylum, those still prancing about in their birth-day mind au
natural, are just as simply harvested for fodder by the
Nietzschean superman.
Focussing
on the Determinates effectively checkmates the hijacking of
the religion of Islam from all pulpits. It helps overcome the
sectarian divide among Muslims without either requiring
anyone to give up their own socialization biases, nor requiring
anyone to accept any particular sect's supremacy
as the sole custodian of the religion of Islam some fourteen-fifteen
centuries later.
Just
acquiring that first crucial understanding, that Indeterminates
by definition seed diversity of viewpoints, and those viewpoints that
are inimical to the spirit of Islam expressed in its Determinates
will always sow discord, is sufficient for this coming together of
the Muslim public mind. Such common ground does not require a common
pulpit. It only requires reaching a common understanding of the above
principle so lucidly visible in the Holy Qur'an with even a modicum
of reflection. All else will naturally follow with the realization
that Muslims should abstain from building the core religious values
of their faith upon the narratives of the scribes of history who
fixed these Indeterminates according
to their own logic and motivations pertinent to their own epoch, when
today Muslims have the same pristine text of the same Holy Qur'an
untampered by human hand also available to
them to guide them in their own epoch!
Muslims
today have that momentous benefit denied all other peoples none of
whose sacred scriptures can stand that test of time. To then journey
voluntarily on the path that peoples of other religions are
involuntarily forced to adopt because they do not have such
un-tampered sacred scriptures, and that path lead to disunity and
infighting, is outright stupidity. Nay, asininity.
When such foolishness leads to internecine warfare, it is outright
criminal. And not to fight back that criminalist path when it perches
a people on the very brink of existentialism, a national suicide!
Who
can liberate the Muslim public mind so steeped in rituals, so
manipulated from the pulpit in every sect,
and so incestuously socialized into their respective sectarian ethos
generation after generation? How to bootstrap that transformation of
the Muslim public mind without wiping out that cultural history? How
to fight back that national suicide?
If
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk can ruthlessly
separate a domineering people from their 300 year old Muslim heritage
of Ottoman empire within a single generation to create Westernized
Turkey, if Ayatollah Khomeini can wipe out 2500 year old heritage of
monarchy in Persia in far less time than that to create a
Revolutionary theological Iran, it surely
can be done. But can it be done without bloodshed, internecine
violence, and a forced separation from who we are? Both those cited
transformations of the twentieth century came at the expense of that
forced separation of a people from their heritage; and much spilled
Muslim blood – mostly by Muslims themselves! Neither is
necessary nor desirable in order to end the
divisiveness of sectarianism.
All
it takes is pulpits in all sects to perceptively understand, and
judiciously promulgate, the concepts of Determinates and
Indeterminates to their respective flock. The rest will
naturally follow. That initial first step will surely take state
power to affect at national and international
levels – for, if the pulpit was ever so rational, it had the
choice of addressing the problem in the previous centuries on their
own. Just as it took state power to first preserve the Holy Qur'an,
it will also take state power to first push its common Determinate
meaning through. The rest will surely be organic once a new
generation grows up learning the new understanding. Other principled
measures can also be adopted by any state, such as mandating
Determinate verse 5:48
of Surah Al-Maeda as the overarching mission
statement of every Muslim sect under its suzerainty
in order for the sect to be accorded state recognition and
constitutional protection of rights as a legitimate Islamic sect.
There
is no fundamental political problem in sowing beneficial ideas by a
state irrespective of its national or ideological predicates –
popular atheist philosopher and novelist
Ayn Rand's twentieth-century theology of Objectivism
and individual selfishness notwithstanding. Holy Qur'an is inimical
to such ideas and therefore, to not accord ideas inimical to the
religion of Islam any protection in a Muslim dominated state is
rational and self-consistent with the theology that is espoused by
the people of that state. It is no different than the United States
not according space to Communist ideology in its state and global
sphere of influence. In the same vein, fraternal ideas the Holy
Qur'an engenders in its Determinate verses are both a
spiritual as well as political constitution to live by for Muslims
and therefore, there is no principal reason why certain key political
principles extracted from the Good Book not be adopted as governing
principles of a state even if it is a secular state. Just that one
simple fundamental measure, like its Biblical counterpart known as
The Golden Rule, will ensure that vitriolic sects whose entire
raison d'être is ominously
self-righteousness and exclusionary, declaring others “non-Muslim”
their axiomatic enactment of their philosophy (takfirism), get
naturally wiped out by making the soil infertile for their growth.
That soil conditioning ingredient is categorically provided in the
Holy Qur'an.
The
power of political sagaciousness and beneficial mutual co-existence
inherent in the Determinate verse
5:48 of Surah Al-Maeda both checkmates, and preempts, all internecine
warfare among Muslims. No outside or inside
Machiavelli can harvest Muslim cracks and lacunas with the universal
adoption of verse 5:48 as part of the state constitution
where diverse Muslim sects live in any substantial numbers and
permitted to practice their religion with state protection of their
rights. Those religious rights can be made contingent on the
directives of the very religion that is being accorded state
political rights. It is akin to making the Biblical Golden Rule
“Do unto others as you
have others do unto you” the cornerstone of all
nations' constitutions by international law.
This
line of reasoning is neither platitudinous nor theoretical. But
straightforward Qur'anic political science to defeat Machiavellian
political science. Take political science out of religion, out of the
moral calculus of governance, and all a people are left with is the
empty shell of banal rituals ripe for harvesting by Machiavelli to
create hell on earth. That's how the Religion of Islam was
principally hijacked, and that's also how it will ever be
un-hijacked! And as in all battles between good and evil, between
masters and slaves, between hegemony and servitude, between supremacy
and equitable co-existence, between international law and aggression,
this battle too needs to be fought. It needs its champions and its
powerbase no differently than primacy needs its champions and its
powerbase. Without their respective champions, neither side can
dominate. The reason primacy continually succeeds to dominate is
because it is not shackled by moral calculus and has instead made
itself adept at shackling all others. Qur'anic political science is
its antidote.
The
world might pay attention to this if they care to rid themselves of
the curse of the repeated diabolical harvesting of the religion of
Islam for “imperial mobilization”. The world might also
pay attention to the political evils spread in the name of “freedom”
that is nipped in the bud with such cautious political adoption –
even if it may sound exclusionary to the nihilistic advocates of
unlimited freedom. This includes the so
called avant-garde in political thought
who want freedom to spread political evil in the name of political
freedom, freedom to destroy with vile speech in the name of freedom
of speech, freedom to belittle others' religion in the name of
freedom of religion, and freedom to spread anarchy in the name of
freedom of individualism. No civilization can exist for long with
predators flourishing among them in the name of freedom and devouring
its every moral civilizational construct in the lofty guise of
liberté, égalité,
fraternité.
The
aforementioned solution-space is applicable even when the political
governance system that Muslims live in is a theological state of any
sectarian flavor. Today, these span the full gamut of defining
governance characteristics that are not to be found in the Holy
Qur'an but is presented as being part of the religion of Islam. Drawn
entirely from the Indeterminates, it spans the gamut of
extremes: from the strict orthodox Wahabi-Salafi
Sunni sect that rules Islam's holiest places as a private kingdom
named after their own ruling family which interprets ( وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ )
of verse 4:59 as anyone vested in temporal power by any means (amply
supported by their own preferred history's scribes and precedents);
to the “virtuous philosopher-king” model of the Iranian
Shia sect asserting a mandate for “Imammate by proxy”
also based on the same verse 4:59 (and also amply supported by their
own preferred history's scribes and precedents)!
The
Iranian Revolution of Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini (imam in the ordinary
sense of political and spiritual leader whom people followed, hence
lower case usage) however was somewhat more
creative and principled than the Wahabis pernicious takeover of
Islam's sacred soil under the banner of the House of Saud.
The
latter were largely an ignorant but locally powerful tribe,
cognitively infiltrated by the Wahabi sect invented by the British
empire as part of its ongoing subversive warfare upon the Muslim
Ottoman empire, and brought to state power in the Hijaz by the
interplay of victorious superpowers on the grand chessboard of the
early twentieth century.
Whereas,
the Iranian Revolution in the second half of the twentieth century
was led largely by well-read scholars and theologians. Ayatollah
(imam) Khomeini easily adapted Plato's “philosopher-king”
for his “governance of the faqih” (vilayat-i
faqih) model, seamlessly tying
it to the Shia jurisprudence principle of
“taqlid” to shepherd the flock.
The philosopher-faqih and stoic antagonist of the despotic American
imposed monarchy in Iran, equally easily sold the new franchise of
“revolutionary Islam” to the
Iranian public mind which had been readily primed for the revolution
through the good graces of the ignoble Shah's CIA trained SAVAK.
That, it was far nobler in the mind to be ruled by an enlightened
clergy in the name of God under Divine Rule as the perpetual enemy of
America (the Great Satan),
rather than by America's own Shahanshah in
his own royal name – without the conception of Hegelian
Dialectic ever becoming part of the discourse space. The arc
of crisis was lighted
simultaneously on the Grand Chessboard by
American President Jimmy Carter and his National Security Advisor
with diabolical opposites: revolutionary Sunnis in Afghanistan as the
sacred Mujahideens with “God is on your side”, and
revolutionary Shias in Iran as the infernal enemy.
See
respectively, “Selling the Carter Doctrine”, Time
Magazine, February 18, 1980 ; and “IRAN: The Crescent of
Crisis”, Time Magazine, January 15, 1979. Nothing is as it is
made to appear in current affairs where beliefs based on half-truths
and outright lies are diabolically implanted in the public mind –
virtually everything the public is made to believe in international
relations is myth. See “Unlayering
the Middle East War Agenda: Making Sense of Absurdities”
( tinyurl.com/making-sense-of-absurdities
). The same is true of the theological construct of valih-e-faqih
that draws upon Divine Mandate to make the public mind. It bears
closer scrutiny.
Is
it Determinate in the Holy Qur'an?
A
non hagiographic examination of the conception of vilayat-i faqih
in both Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini's book: “Islam
and Revolution”
(translated by Hamid Algar, 1981), and how it has been enacted in
post Revolutionary Iran, reveals that it is little different in terms
of absolutist governance than what it replaced: both autocratic rules
by those who ascribe to themselves the divine right of kings to rule
and consequently, absolutely intolerant of dissenting ideology and
dissenting politics. Both demonized their respective antagonists at
home (never mind abroad) with the absolute righteousness of divine
authority. Both asserting with unsurpassed oratory, and with the
power of the state backing their oration, that the chosen elite,
respectively themselves, is more entitled to govern the public than
the public itself. And that, like the king's rule, the
valih-e-faqih's rule too is absolute, with no limits, and no
checks and balances, so long as he rules “justly”. The
valih-e-faqih defines what is just and what isn't in all
matters, including political matters of the state, as the imam
(leader), and in theory can only be replaced if he leaves the bounds
of Islamic Sharia. The absolute rule by the valih-e-faqih as
the representative of the “hidden Imam”, is deemed by the
jurist to be an obligatory religious duty as an integral part of the
concept of “wilayah”, Divine Rule, prescribed by the
religion of Islam for ruling the Islamic state.
Meaning,
the Islamic state must be ruled by the jurist, and it is incumbent
upon the jurist to create the Islamic state for Muslims and to rule
it with absolute authority demanding absolute obedience just as the
Prophet of Islam and his designated successor ruled with absolute
authority.
In
a 6
January 1988
letter to Iran's president and Friday prayer leader Sayyed Ali
Khamenei on Determining the limitations of the authority of the
Islamic government under the valih-e-faqih's rule,
Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini addressing the president of Iran as “Hojjat
al-Islam Mr. Khamenei” (and not as “Ayatollah Khamenei”
as he is presently saluted and unquestioningly followed as the “marja
taqlid”), and while paying elegant lip-service to accepting
criticism as a “divine gift” in these pious words:
“And of course we should not assume that whatever we say and
do, no one has the right to criticize. Criticism, even condemnation,
is a divine gift for the growth of humans.”, unequivocally
asserted the principle of boundarylessness of “Absolute
Divine Rule” vested in the ruler of the Islamic state:
“I
must state that governance, which is a branch of the Absolute Rule of
the Prophet (PBUH), is one of the primary laws of Islam; and it takes
precedence over all secondary Laws, even prayer and fasting and the
hajj pilgrimage. The ruler can destroy a mosque or a house that sits
in the route for a road, and avoid the money to the owner. The ruler
can shut down mosques in times of necessity; and destroy a mosque
belonging to pretenders [zerar], if a resolution is not possible
without destruction. The government may unilaterally void
Sharia-based contracts that it itself has made with the people in
situations where that contract is contrary to the good of the nation
and Islam. And it can prevent any action – be it devotional or
not – that is contrary to the interests of Islam - as long as
it continues to be so. The government can temporarily prevent the
hajj pilgrimage – which is one of the most important divine
practices – in situations where it deems it to be contrary to
the interests of the Islamic country.” --- Translation via the
Iran Data Portal at Princeton University,
http://tinyurl.com/khomeini-letter-govlimits-1988
(link to Original
Persian Text)
While
one cannot vouch for the accuracy of this translation as it is the
habit of orientalists to deliberately mistranslate and misrepresent
the Iranian leadership, it is presumed to be accurate enough for the
purpose of this analysis as it is consistent with the ideas put forth
in “Islam and Revolution”.
All
the aforesaid determinations by Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini underline
the principle of Absolute Rule being the purview of the
valih-e-faqih. And evidently, it is made noble and legitimate
because these absolute determinations are in the name of Islam as
“divine guidance”. It begs the obvious question to the
discerning mind of Mr. Spock, that how is that absoluteness
qualitatively any different from the divine king's self-ascribed
right to absolute rule, absolute powers, absolute opinions, absolute
directives, and absolute wisdom as the vicegerent of his gods on
earth? The king does it to preserve his monarchy and makes recourse
to his god as having received a mandate. The valih-e-faqih does
the same thing to preserve his rule by making arguable reference to
mandate given to him by his God. Both employ the same means: absolute
control of the public mind, and absolute control of the state, both
demanding absolute obedience from the people. Absolute Rule is
evidently more endearing to the philosopher jurist of Islam if it is
in his God's name. Why is it philosophically so, even if one ignores
self-interest and conflict of interest – meaning, even if the
valih-e-faqih is obviously making a case for acquiring state
power and authority over the people of which he and his jurist class
are the prima facie beneficiary?
Harken
back to Plato and the “philosopher-king”. It is the
primary axiom upon which valih-e-faqih is principally based –
that the religious philosopher is closer to God than all the rest of
mankind, and hence closest to truth and justice than all the rest of
mankind, and consequently better able to (or more entitled to) govern
the republic and its masses with truth and justice than anyone else
among mankind!
Upon
that priceless axiom which remains conveniently hidden in the
prolific arguments made to dignify vilayat-i faqih, the verses
of “wilayah” in the Holy Qur'an, namely those verses
speaking of “wasilah”, “Imam”, and
“obedience”, are interpreted by the jurist as being
Exemplary of Divine Rule set forth in the leadership of the Prophet
of Islam as the first head of the Islamic state in Medina, and in the
short tenure of Imam Ali, the fourth Caliph, as the only legitimate
Divinely appointed successor head of the Islamic state after the
Prophet's death. Because they are both Exemplars of the Holy Qur'an
and the system of governance espoused in the religion of Islam for
all times, and not just for their own time, so argues the
valih-e-faqih, how is the Divine Rule to continue in other
times?
Specifically,
under the Shia theology, during the absence (ghaibat) of the “hidden
Imam”? The earth cannot be deprived of Divine Rule argues the
brilliant faqih, otherwise tyrants will rule by enslaving the masses,
and God's Guidance to mankind will remain un implemented,
constricted, “mahjoor” (see Surah Al-Furqaan 25:30
quoted above). The core argument is principally laid out by Plato in
The Republic to dignify state rulership by the virtuous
“philosopher-king”. Plato argued 2500 years ago, a
thousand years before the advent of the Holy Qur'an, that if the most
virtuous philosopher is not king, the masses will be ruled by
diabolical controllers who will enslave the public mind in far
constricting invisible chains of perception management than mere
physical chains can ever hold any man captive. These prisoners of the
mind will actually come to love their own enslavement, and resist all
attempts to be freed.
Plato
illustrated that idea most poignantly in his famous allegory titled
The Simile of the Cave. (See
http://tinyurl.com/Plato-Myth-of-the-Cave-Excerpt
) The philosophical etiology of virtually all discourses on
voluntary servitude, behavior control, mind control, virtuous
leadership, virtuous statism, shepherding the public mind, and even
Nietzsche's Übermensch
(see Morality
derived from the Intellect leads to Enslavement!),
ultimately anchor in Plato. As far as Mr. Spock can ascertain, none
have surpassed Plato in their own derivatives. Some scholars
are honest enough to acknowledge their ancient benefactor, while
others merely plagiarize from him. But the audience of these latter
demagogues does not know when Plato is being plagiarized in the garb
of new theory because the public mind is at best only familiar with
the name Plato, often in their own native language. Hardly anyone
among hoi polloi, even among the college educated professional
class, has actually read The Republic, let alone studied it
for the due diligence it deserves to comprehend that foundational
scholar of the Hellenic Civilization that became not just the cradle
of Western civilization, but Muslim scholarship as well. Muslim
scholars in Spain were the first to translate the Greek scholarship
into Arabic, from where the Western Crusaders got their source
material to translate into Latin and subsequently into English.
Today, the neo-cons for instance, are all Plato scholars. All
significant liars and aggressors today advocating military invasion
of Muslim nations under the pretext of defending themselves from the
tyranny of Islam also turn out to be Plato scholars in their
background. (See
http://tinyurl.com/Leo-Strauss-Noble-Lies-Excerpt
)
Plato's
characterization of mental chains through perception management from
birth to death is so powerful that the diabolical superman, the state
intelligence apparatuses, the military covert-ops, the Mighty
Wurlitzer, Machiavelli, all harnesses it for themselves (see
http://tinyurl.com/MightyWurlitzer).
Virtually every Western philosopher of the age of enlightenment and
onwards penning ideas on good and evil has borrowed at least
something from Plato. The famous quotable statement of Goethe, the
German philosopher, “None are more hopelessly
enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has
been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with
lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in
their eyes.”, owes a great deal of inspiration to Plato
just on the very face of it. It is a paraphrase from the Simile of
the Cave.
Anything
to do with deception and the control of the public mind, and
conversely, shepherding the public mind to higher enlightenment in a
virtuous state led by its most enlightened stewards, Plato expressed
its philosophy so comprehensively 2500 years ago that it is hard to
add anything new to its principles, or to the perceptive
understanding he displayed of the frailty of the human mind and how
it is harvested by unseen controllers in society. Edward Bernays,
known as the father of modern perception management, also called
advertising when selling soap, public relations when selling agendas,
and propaganda when selling lies, opened his 1928 Book titled
Propaganda, with these
famous words which are again mere corollaries of Platonic
description: “The conscious and intelligent
manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this
unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which
is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds
are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we
have never heard of.”
Muslim
scholarship borrowing fundamental notions and key ideas of
intellectualism for their own intellectual tradition when they were
the dominant superpower in the world for 700 years, not just from
Plato, but from the Hellenic culture of learning, is only to be
expected, and is indeed what happened.
The
entire realm of ilm al-Kalam, the wholly speculative
intellectual discourse on topics of the Holy Qur'an, is fundamentally
Platonic for instance, and is little different from Plato's Shapes
--- entirely immanent, non-falsifiable, without any empirical
reality-check possible. It is as rich as the human mind is fertile,
and is freed from any bounds of reality and verification – an
occupation of idle minds who do not have to strive to earn a living
and can sit around all day in their seminaries (or ivory towers)
eruditely discoursing important matters like how many angels
can dance on a pin-head and whether the Holy Qur'an, as the Word of
God, is created or uncreated! It is the contemporary Muslim
scholarship today which plagiarizes more than just borrow with
acknowledgment. The feeble intellectual mind unfamiliar with the
genesis and etiological significance of ideas presented to him by the
superman, never knows the difference. So forget about the
public mind being any more the wiser just because collectively they
are far greater in number. Plagiarized ideas can easily be ascribed
to anyone, including to oneself as its inventor which is typically
the case, but also to God to achieve some purpose. The latter takes
an exceptionally clever mind to pull it off. In this exclusive club
of the Übermensch, Nietzschean superman, one is
arguably dealing with a most superior mind. To dismiss it as
ignorant, short-sighted, or a stooge, is to not just not give the
devil its due, but to also not recognize the formidable enemy for
what it is. As Mr. Spock well knows, the sword of intellect can cut
both ways. He is undeterred as he systematically unpeels the many
layers of the question down to the very bottom of the Pandora's box.
As that legend goes, opening the Pandora's box initially opens a can
of worms but when you get to its very bottom, the entire mystery is
solved.
With
that overview of philosopher-king and the overarching impact of Plato
on the world of intellectual thought, the responsibility for
implementing Islam's Divine Rule too, it is argued, must consequently
fall to those philosophers and virtuous scholars of Islam who know
and understand Islam the best. Otherwise, the Muslim polity, as
history bears witness, will always be ruled by tyrants and usurpers.
Well, who is best fit for that leadership role of shepherding the
plebeian mind away from the wolves, but the pious jurist!
Thus,
Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini deemed his own clergy class the latter day
“philosopher-king” ruling class since they presume to
know Islam the best. They are closest to the mind of God, closest to
truth and justice, and consequently make the best executors of His
Divine Rule. The most capable jurist among this tiny coterie able to
stand up to tyrants and falsehoods, able to exercise political and
temporal leadership, is the “philosopher-king”. Ahem, the
“wasilah” (already covered in Part-II, see Al-Wasilah):
“O ye who believe! Do your duty to Allah, seek the
means of approach unto Him,”
(Surah Al-Maeda 5:35),
“These are they whom Allah guided, therefore
follow their guidance” (Surah Al An'aam 6:90),
the valih-e-faqih!
Since
the Prophet of Islam and his designated successor implemented that
Divine Rule with Absolute Authority, and since they demanded absolute
obedience from the public as per the verse of obedience, 4:59,
so must the valih-e-faqih who is only the heir to the third
entity in the verse of obedience, ( وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ ),
the “ulul-amr”, also referred to as “valih-e-amr”,
an unnamed third party to whom absolute obedience is also commanded
by the Author of the Holy Qur'an! The valih-e-faqih therefore
is only implementing God's prescription on his side of the elite
fence as his religious duty as the heir to the noble Prophet's
mantle, and the governed must implement its part and obey the noble
valih-e-faqih in absolute terms on its commoner's side of the
elite fence as its religious duty.
Here
is that most dreadfully interpreted Verse of Obedience once
again, from Part-II:
|
“O
ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those
charged with authority among you.
If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if ye do believe in Allah and the Last Day: That is best, and most suitable for final determination.” (Surah an-Nisaa' 4:59 ) |
يَا
أَيُّهَا
الَّذِينَ
آمَنُوا أَطِيعُوا
اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا
الرَّسُولَ
وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ ۖ
فَإِنْ
تَنَازَعْتُمْ
فِي شَيْءٍ
فَرُدُّوهُ
إِلَى اللَّهِ
وَالرَّسُولِ
إِنْ كُنْتُمْ
تُؤْمِنُونَ
بِاللَّهِ
وَالْيَوْمِ
الْآخِرِ ۚ
ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ
وَأَحْسَنُ
تَأْوِيلًا
|
Caption
Verse 4:59 of Surah an-Nisaa',
the Verse of Obedience, itself opening the door to sectarian
schism, the source of fundamental bifurcation between Sunni and Shia
sects during the Muslim expansion into world dominating empires after
the demise of the Messenger. The Verse of Obedience
specifically underwrites the Principle of Inerrancy as a requirement
for holding any Apostolic office that demands obedience from the
flock.
Once
the mantle of Absolute Rule is claimed by axiomatic assertion, it
inevitably leads to demanding absolute obedience as a self-evident
matter, which further leads to the inevitable corollary that no one
may even disagree with the valih-e-faqih once he has made up
his mind just as no one may disagree with, or disobey, the Prophet of
Islam once he has made up his mind as per verse 33:36
of Surah Al-Ahzaab “It
is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, when a matter has been
decided by Allah and His Messenger to have any option about their
decision: if any one disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he
is indeed on a clearly wrong Path.”
By extrapolating the proper noun Exemplar which
singularly refers to someone specific, to the common noun exemplar,
the same semantic construct in any language opens itself up to a
group membership of ordinary peoples such that to disagree or to
disobey this new plurality of exemplars of Divine Rule is also to be
“on a clearly wrong Path”. To disobey the
valih-e-faqih is to become a sinner! As a reminder to the
forgetful mind, the hectoring hegemons who hijack the religion of
Islam for waging world wars under the pretext of defending themselves
against the corrupted Islam and its barbarian followers, routinely do
the same resemantification: alias proper nouns into common nouns.
Professor Bernard Lewis extrapolated the word “Islam”, a
proper noun of the Holy Qur'an, into a common noun when he cunningly
resemantified it to mean a kitchen-sink of semantics in his book:
Crisis of Islam – Holy War and Unholy Terror (see Hijacking
the word “Islam” for Mantra Creation).
Here, a concept instead of a word is being aliased.
Indeed,
to not follow and obey some marja-e taqlid from that elite set
who deem themselves “worthy of emulation” – never
mind the pompous title incestuously awarded
among the clan by themselves under some unspecified and entirely
subjective secret calculus of who is more learned in esoterica –
is to be a sinner. To avoid that sin, an absurd set of restrictions
is put upon the believer such that in practice she has little choice
but to accept taqlid of someone from among that new divine set of
exemplars. It does not matter whom she chooses from that elite set
--- for she is now roped in for life into that church of taqlid and
will pay her religiously mandated donations into those unaccountable
coffers that run into sums higher than the GDP of many nations
combined. But more importantly, the voluntary obedience is the
foundational cornerstone of the fatwas
issued by the marja-e-taqlid which define the halal and haram
status not just in spiritual matters, but also in national,
political, and temporal matters that the follower is now obliged to
accept from her marja-e-taqlid.
The
valih-e-faqih who is a grade above that station is like the
Pope central, and his fatwa is binding upon
all over whom he is a guardian, vali. The valih-e-faqih's
canvas is far greater. He imposes upon the public mind of the
far larger audience space what is permissible and what isn't by way
of his own ijtihad at the threat of eternal damnation on the
follower for disobedience and salvation for strict obedience. He
defines and enacts national laws based on predicates of his personal
divine ijtihad and imposes legal entitlements for breaking the
law even in this life! Whereas the lower ranking marja-e-taqlid only
govern the reward and punishment in the Afterlife by exercising
behavior control of their flock in this life, the valih-e-faqih also
controls reward and punishment in this life. While all governments do
that too, define and legislate laws, and police them, none of them
have the chutzpah to draw their mandate from God, unless it is the
Jews in the Jewish state, and the Muslims in the Muslim states.
Christians seem to have overcome that phase of their spirituality
after their dark ages, with the Vatican today more an appendage of a
narrow elite mired in antiquated rituals than for exercising
spiritual or temporal control over its flock in comparison to its
other monotheist brethren.
“God”,
from time immemorial, has always entered the political realm of mass
behavior control through his proxy service providers. It is
irrelevant that these service providers can produce no “certificate”
from God in their own name. The topic of inquiry, as a reminder to
the reader, is not whether God exists, Prophets exist, Divine
Guidance exists, Divine Books exist (or not exist). That may be a
topic of examination for another day and is beyond the scope of the
present work. The topic of inquiry at hand is how is the religion of
Islam hijacked so easily for self-interests by Muslims themselves who
do believe in all the preceding presuppositions as an axiom of faith.
It is demanded in the Holy Qur'an which defines both itself and its
audience: “This is the
Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward
off (evil). Who believe in the Unseen, ...” (Surah
Al-Baqara 2:2-2:3). So how do Muslims fall prey to evil if their Holy
Book is only for those who ward off evil? In this instance, the
inquiry has reached the threshold of logic which begs the question of
where is the jurist's certificate from God as his holy emissary that
he can define halal and haram by his own ijtihad
and impose it upon the public mind not just as a spiritual matter,
but also a legal matter as the state ruler?
Just
making the claim however is evidently sufficient because there are
always followers. Orators and demagogues both attract followers
faster than trash bins attract flies. Human beings evidently find a
compelling need for emotional and psychological security blankets.
That natural need leaves the public mind wide open for any cognitive
infiltration that comes suitably wrapped in relevant security
guarantees by authority figures. The ancient man offered blood
sacrifices to appease his god's anger under dispensation from their
witch doctors. That was improved upon by the abstraction of an
Afterlife in monotheism. Belief in the Day of Judgment is an axiom of
faith required by the Holy Qur'an. Thus a successful jurist
marja-e-taqlid now dispenses the certificates of do's and
don'ts of daily life for essentially the same purpose as ancient
priests but for the Afterlife.
The
modern jurist no longer needs to sell God and its common axioms to
his masses as they already believe in these axioms fervently by way
of socialization and cultural acceptance. All the jurist has to do is
carefully interpose himself in the public's path to Afterlife by
drawing justification for his indispensability from the
Indeterminates of the Holy
Qur'an. With his learned confabulations in arcane subjects, he
gets away with it in front of the modern busy man unfamiliar with
ancient books that the jurist draws upon to impress the public mind.
The truth of this timeless observation of the frailty of human psyche
and how it is abused from time immemorial is without doubt. It is
self-evident. That human frailty to be a follower is open game for
anyone able to harness it. And especially because of the doctrine of
“taqlid” already in place for centuries, the
valih-e-faqih's mandate for Absolute Rule is made a practical
political reality under the banner of “revolutionary Islam”.
Just
as antisemitism has been the Zionist Jews best friend in founding the
Jewish state, and oppression upon the Muslims of India through the
Hindu-Muslim riots was the best friend of the Muslim League for
founding the divine state of Pakistan, oppression upon the Shia
Muslims is its latter day equivalent. Absolutely essential for the
founding of revolutionary Islamic state. These ideologies only thrive
under oppression of their own people and only come to fruition when
the oppression is perceived as reaching cataclysmic proportions –
whence divine help comes galloping on a white horse to end the
tribulation period and all the bloodshed of innocent masses is
justified and dignified as the reason for the new state. The people
rejoice – momentarily, while the diabolical Hegelian
Dialectic is birth-panged in Eurasia
as the absolute sworn enemy of Oceania
to carry on a perpetual war. One can't make this up except in a
fable, but one sees it being enacted on the Grand
Chessboard over and over again!
All the revolutions of the twentieth century started in blood, and
ended in blood, of innocent people. And they all exhibit the same
common template – the creation of an enemy to wage world wars.
The bibliography on this subject is vast indeed and it is not the
intent to rehearse what is already been written elsewhere except to
lend the aforesaid brief context. Here, Mr. Spock is keenly desirous
of treading new ground in logical pursuit of the question at hand,
suitably armed by the accumulated wisdom of what he has seen of man's
history of waging wars by way of deception for the control of the
public mind. From this first control, all evil naturally follows.
Conversely, from its liberation, all else naturally follows too:
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make
four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
The
brilliance of the argument for Absolute Rule by the valih-e-faqih
is without question. The political circumstances leading to it no
more unprecedented and no less conspiratorial than what led to the
creation of the Jewish state from partitioned Palestine and the
Muslim state from partitioned India. The natural arguments posited by
Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini for the raison d'être of an Islamic
state that implements the real religion of Islam, asserted as being
self-evident.
To
Mr. Spock's logical mind always searching for unstated axioms and
implicit presuppositions in supposedly “self-evident”
arguments presented as concentric proofs, the problem is glaring.
Apart from the despotism that absolute rule demanding absolute
obedience can take even the best of ordinary mortals to, the core
problem is also just as straightforward as it is glaring.
While
the Author of the Holy Qur'an both explicitly and unequivocally
vouched for the Prophet of Islam in that categorical verse of
obedience as an obligatory religious command on Muslims, and the
Prophet as the first head of the Islamic state which he founded in
Medina may have veritably vouched for the sole father of the source
of his prolific progeny, Imam Ali, as history books have recorded
thus establishing a chain of explicit vouching that directly connects
to the Author of the Holy Qur'an (even though that fact is not
explicitly recorded in the Holy Qur'an and has thus become a source
of partisan interpretation throughout the short history of Muslim
dominance of the world by its despotic rulers vying to establish
their Islamic legitimacy by employing the same clergy class to serve
their own imperial interests), who vouched for Ayatollah (imam)
Khomeini as the Divinely designated Imam sanctioned for Divine Rule?
On
what Qur'anic Determinates specifically did Ayatollah (imam)
Khomeini apply the verse of obedience to himself to legitimize his
own Absolute Rule as the “valih-e-amr”?
As
a most learned jurist and scholar of Islam, was the revolutionary
imam who so boldly altered the destiny of an entire nation, watered
its cemeteries with the blood of a generation of its finest youth in
the name of God without showing much compunction, unaware of the
logic of verse 4:59 which imparts certain implicit characteristics of
unerringness as already analyzed in Part-II? No jurist worth his salt
can be unaware of it if Mr. Spock can so trivially deduce it.
How
can Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini claim to be the “valih-e-amr”
of verse 4:59 with any more intellectual integrity and moral gravitas
than the autocratic House of Saud, or any of the other past claimants
to absolute rule demanding absolute obedience throughout the imperial
history of despotic Muslim rulers, all of whom having occupied the
seat of the Prophet of Islam with theological sanctions from the
self-serving pulpits drawing upon the same verse?
In
fact, the pulpit did not even shy from applying that verse of
obedience to the British colonial masters of India as the
Qadiani-Ahmadi pontiffs did at the turn of the twentieth-century;
Maulana Muhammad Ali, laying its diabolical foundations in his
seminal English translation of the Holy Qur'an, first in the Preface
under the heading: Reverence for authority, pg. xv wrote: “But
while teaching equality of rights, Islam teaches the highest
reverence for authority. ... By those in authority are meant not only
the actual rulers of a country, but all those who are in any way
entrusted with authority”, then elaborated it further in
his footnote number 593 for his English translation of verse 4:59
“The words ulul-amr, or those in authority, have a wide
significance, ... among those in authority are included the rulers of
a land, though they may belong to an alien religion,”! (see
MMA
1917 PDF).
Just
because someone else does the same gratuitous extrapolation, but
applies it a tad more narrowly to the more holier than thou
philosopher-king-jurist, and nominates himself as the vali-amr, the
valih-e-faqih-e-muslimeen, and does it in the name of the Ahlul-Bayt
because of his own convictions on the matter, and the people of Iran
show their approval with an applause, hardly makes the assertion any
more relevant, let alone applicable.
Is
the concept of Absolute Rule by Valih-e-Faqih demanding absolute
obedience even arguably sanctioned in the Determinates of the
Holy Qur'an? See the examination of taqlid below which is the
cornerstone of the theology of valih-e-faqih.
In
the case of Revolutionary Iran in 1979, the Iranian public evidently
did not think it necessary to ask for such a “certificate”
of divine sanction from Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini as the “ulul-amr”
of 4:59, never mind think of how they might have actually verified it
had he presented one. Just being against the Shah of Iran, against
the absolute tyrant working for the imperialist United States of
America, was sufficient certificate for ushering in everlasting
absolute rule by the valih-e-faqih in God's name; a divine
provenance even gloriously fulfilled with the triumphant return of
Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini to Iran on February 1, 1979, warming the
hearts of the Persian masses to the miraculous divine intervention.
The
Iranian people agreed to accept their new rebel imam's absolute rule
as the “valih-e-amr” designate of verse 4:59 in an
unprecedented public referendum which remains unsurpassed as a
willing choice exercised by a fed-up people to be eagerly ruled by
their clergy class brought to political power on a (Air France?) jet
airliner flying safely through America's NATO controlled French skies
to land in Tehran, instead of continuing to live under the suzerainty
of the most tyrannical and narcissistic King of kings who had
previously been brought to political power in Tehran by America's
CIA.
It
begs the patently obvious question: Why was the airliner carrying the
renegade Grand Ayatollah to power in Iran not shot down by NATO
military forces (and easily blamed on the Shah's military) if
revolutionary Islam was such a great threat to the Western hegemons?
Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini had been most vocal about his revolutionary
ideology and the rule of the faqih throughout his exile years. His
Shia ethos of Karbala was well-known. He had made no secret of the
fact that he hated the Great Satan and all those who sided
with her. It would have certainly nipped the problem in the bud for
the West. The Americans have shown no qualms about shooting down
passenger airliners, as they demonstrated a decade later by shooting
down Iranian passenger Airbus plane, Iran Air Flight 655, over the
Persian Gulf killing all 290 Muslim pilgrims aboard, “by
mistake” of course. They could have made the same “by
mistake” a whole decade sooner and spared the world a great
deal of Muslim on Muslim violence witnessed in the Iran-Iraq war. Not
only did the Western Alliance not do that, but the BBC gave away free
air time to the speeches of Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini broadcast to
Iran, the French government extended great hospitality to the imam,
even hosted the media circus which surrounded the revolutionary imam
for months until the very day he departed for his homeland after the
Shah's ignominious exit, and on and on and on. The list is long and
undeniable of how the West supported the revolutionary imam to power
against the interest of the Shah who had formerly been brought to
power as their own “policeman” of the Gulf.
The
Iranian public was shown their revolutionary savior repeatedly
calling for the overthrow of the despotic monarchy by revolutionary
means by the Western press. Why?
Why
did the West not support their own dictator as part of their
collective antagonism against the revolutionary Islam in their former
police-man's oil rich territory? Why was the Shah not setup in exile
and immediately recognized as the de facto government of Iran to
challenge and contain the threat of revolutionary Islam?
This
fact of reality which anyone can observe by simply back reading and
back watching the news coverage of the era, has put the entire
antagonism of the West against Iran in question as deliberately
manufactured, and Ayatollah (imam) Khomeini's own principled
antagonism to the Shah given great press coverage only for the
Iranian public's consumption to bring their new “enemy”
into power as part of lighting the “arc of crisis”
referenced above.
For
the public mind, enemy of my enemy is my friend indeed, and more so
when he claims an almost believable divine mandate for extracting
absolute obedience from the masses consistent with the shared
religious ethos of the people. The Catholic Pope and clergy draw on
the same quality of shared ethos among the Catholic Christian flock
to be accepted as their anointed spiritual leadership, and in not too
distant a past, before the Reformation period tore their state powers
asunder, also as their anointed political leadership. Shared ethos is
a common denominator and without it, such a voluntary servitude of
absolute obedience to the Popes of any religion cannot be implemented
without brute force. This also means forcing valih-e-faqih
upon non Shia Muslims who do not share that common ethos will only
lead to more “revolutionary times”.
This
is so obvious a political science truth that those who deliberately
wish to create “revolutionary times” going forward in
Sunni majority nations like Pakistan with a substantial Shia
minority, can find great utility in creating the tortuous conditions
of tyranny upon the Shia in which such a construct of “revolutionary
Islam” can find its natural raison d'être for existence
--- just as it transpired in Iran under the Shah with the help of his
American trained secret police SAVAK!
Revealingly,
the public in post Revolutionary Iran, just like in America, comes
out to vote periodically to elect from among its respective ruling
class who will govern them under their pre-established structures of
administrative power. These structures implement the sacred
ideologies and pre-determined state polices crafted by the real power
behind the scenes, the valih-e-faqih, making it quite
irrelevant whom the public elects as president in the much touted
elections no differently than it is in the United States of America
where its oligarchy holds all the key controlling cards.
The
categorical fact remains that irrespective of whether a public makes
their political choice with their ballot, or a “choice”
is foisted upon a public with the bullet, theology, “democracy”,
whatever, neither is “rule by kingdom” specified in the
Holy Qur'an, nor is “rule by clergy” specified in the
Holy Qur'an, and nor is “rule by parliament”, or “rule
by Western power puppets and fabricated enemies of any flavor
specified in the Holy Qur'an. A people are entitled to their choice
of governance, or whether they wish to resist an evil one foisted
upon them inspired by the moral platitudes, but they are not entitled
to call whatever government they choose as exclusively sanctioned in
the Determinates of the Holy Qur'an. Because it isn't.
There
is no method of governance commanded, specified, or even outlined in
the Holy Qur'an, at least not any that Mr. Spock has been able to
discover in its Determinate verses, except the platitudinous
guidance to build a righteous and just society in which no one takes
unfair advantage of another, and where people do not suffer tyrants,
false gods, exploitation, and pay their taxes on time. Mr. Spock
notes that the key characteristics of a noble governance system for a
just Islamic society are outlined as basic principles only, such as
in waging wars of self-defence to not transgress limits, to protect
the weak and the infirm, to manage state treasury for public good
instead of private gain, to abstain from usury, etc., whereas other
matters like its inheritance laws, moral code of conduct, rights and
responsibilities of parents, individuals, social and business
interactions, marriage rules, are spelled out in minute detail.
Corollaries and theorems are easily derived from these basic
principles which form the basis of what's come to be known as Islamic
Sharia. However, the implementation structures of governance, the
form and shape of government, the method of government, who rules, is
left unspecified.
It
is of course self-evident that intellectuals and scholars of Islam
ought to have a leading role in crafting any just society that is
based on the singular scripture of Islam, the Holy Qur'an, just as it
is for any system whose intellectuals and scholars play important
roles in defining their system. Scholars and intellectuals are the
bedrock of any enlightened society that draws its foundation from
intellectual and spiritual capital. Plato would of course have the
philosopher be the rulers. But the Holy Qur'an has left it
unspecified. Unarguably, the matter is left Indeterminate like
many other matters. Ostensibly, one may reasonably surmise, so that
the core principles of Divine Guidance remain timeless and people of
all levels of talent and expertise in every epoch are able to
implement these principles according to their own requirements and
social genius.
To
therefore speciously assert that the religion of Islam has given a
specific Divine mandate to rule solely to a particular class of
people, namely to the faqih, is to mislead the public mind. Yes the
capable faqih is just as much entitled to govern, and to provide
intellectual and spiritual capital, as any other capable person of
his time as a citizen of a state. What he is not entitled to is to
rule, claim to be the beneficiary of the verse of obedience, claim to
have special authority from God, and demand absolute obedience.
The
example of King David, Prophet Daud, an ordinary sheep herder who
came to lead his people as their Imam because of his unmatched
bravery in taking down “Jalut”, illustrates the point.
Daud became the ruler of his nation as vouched in the Holy Qur'an, as
a king no less, but he was hardly a theologian, or even an
intellectual by his profession. He was surely very intelligent to
have hit his enemy at his weakest point, and he ruled justly and with
courage. Those qualities evidently were his qualifications to be
anointed King of the Jews. This is quite contrary to Plato's
philosopher-king and it is the Holy Qur'an that is making that
assertion by retelling the story of Prophet Daud. As in all Qur'anic
stories and parables, there is wisdom that is being conveyed.
The
form of government is immaterial in the religion of Islam which lays
a great deal of emphasis in its many verses on veritable moral
principles as Divine Guidance to mankind. It is silent on what form
the government should take, or who should become the rulers in future
times.
The
Holy Qur'an instead affirms the lovely beatitudinous (from
beatitude: supreme blessedness; exalted happiness) promise:
|
“And
We desired to bestow a favor upon those who were deemed weak in
the land, and to make them the Imams, and to make them the
heirs,” (Surah Al-Qasas 28:5)
|
وَنُرِيدُ
أَن نَّمُنَّ
عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ
ٱسْتُضْعِفُوا۟
فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ
وَنَجْعَلَهُمْ
أَئِمَّةً
وَنَجْعَلَهُمُ
ٱلْوَٰرِثِينَ
|
|
“Allah
has decreed: "It is I and My messengers who must prevail":
For Allah is One full of strength, able to enforce His Will.”
(Surah Al-Mujaadila 58:21)
|
كَتَبَ
ٱللَّهُ لَأَغْلِبَنَّ
أَنَا۠ وَرُسُلِىٓ
ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ
قَوِىٌّ عَزِيزٌ
|
|
Before
this We wrote in the Psalms, after the Message (given to Moses):
"My servants, the righteous, shall inherit the earth."
(Surah Al-Anbiyaa 21:105)
|
وَلَقَدْ
كَتَبْنَا
فِى ٱلزَّبُورِ
مِنۢ بَعْدِ
ٱلذِّكْرِ
أَنَّ ٱلْأَرْضَ
يَرِثُهَا
عِبَادِىَ
ٱلصَّٰلِحُونَ
|
Caption
The Holy Qur'an's equivalent of the Biblical Beatitude: “the
meek shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5 Holy Bible KJV). Is
the Holy Qur'an proclaiming Divine Rule as the natural culmination of
Islam? Or, are these verses proclaiming that the ordinary human
beings among mankind will eventually prevail; they shall eventually
establish justice among mankind and reach the highest station of
creation in accordance with Divine Teachings that have been revealed
to mankind by messengers and prophets throughout the ages? The twain
are not the same propositions semantically – obviously –
despite the pious pulpits insistence upon the former interpretation
of these verses! If Divine Rule is to be implemented by God's own
appointed Imams, it is a tacit admission of failure of Islam to
transform man upon his own volition! Only a foolish human author
would set his own guidance system up for such an abject failure by
predicating that no matter what man will do, mankind will still need
divine intervention to reach Islam's culmination! Then what was the
point of Islam? God could just as well have created the perfect man
with Adam and Eve rather than the imperfect man who is destined to
reach perfection by seeking Divine Guidance revealed in Islam's
sacred scripture.
Straightforward
inspection once again reveals that all these verses often brought up
by the pulpits are prima facie Indeterminates.
Like verse 4:59, verse 28:5 “who were deemed weak in
the land,” is unknown.
Perhaps it can be similarly qualitatively reasoned from other verses
of the Holy Qur'an, but without specific context which is not in the
Holy Qur'an, it would either remain temporal, meaning applicable only
to the time of the Prophet when he was constantly under attack, or
metaphorical and strictly Indeterminate.
It can just as easily be argued by all oppressed to apply to
themselves to encourage themselves with hope to continue in their
perseverance! And it can also be argued by Machiavelli to apply to
the oppressed to foment manufactured revolutions. However, a closer
analytical examination also reveals that for the promise: “to
make them the Imams, and to make them the heirs,”
these heirs must logically also share common characteristics with the
Imams the Holy Qur'an has referenced elsewhere. For instance, in
Surah Al-Baqara verse 2:124
(already quoted above) where the Author proclaims that He alone makes
Imams by Divine appointment: “He said: Surely I will
make you an Imam of men. Ibrahim said: And of my offspring? My
covenant does not include the unjust, said He.”
When
the Author of the Holy Qur'an appoints Imams as per his covenant with
Prophet Ibrahim, the word “Imam” is used in a specific
sense from its common meaning as the proper noun expressing Divine
Appointment. The Arabic-English dictionary of the Holy Qur'an defines
the common meaning of the word “Imam” thusly: “Leader;
President; Any object that is followed, whether a human being or a
book or a highway”. That common meaning of the word “Imam”
for instance is prima facie evident in verse 17:71
of Surah al-Israa' (examined
in Part-II): “One day We shall call together all
human beings with their (respective) Imams”.
One word, two distinct meanings, by the very definitions present in
the Holy Qur'an in the semantics of the verse. The problem arises
when attempt is cunningly or perhaps unwittingly made to alias the
proper noun version as the common noun version.
As
Machiavellian as that aliasing is for successfully marginalizing
Islam, far greater damage is done when the Muslim pulpit and the
plentiful exegesis writers who become sanctified in history as the
source to go to for understanding the meaning of the Holy Qur'an, do
the same aliasing to serve their own narrow interests. And whether
they do it wittingly at the behest of their masters, or unwittingly
due to incompetence or bias becomes irrelevant, for the impact in
either case is resemantification of the verse and distortion of its
meaning. It is the easiest subterfuge – you can't change the
syntax and wording of the Holy Qur'an because that is protected by
systematic oral memorization of the entire Holy Qur'an by plain
ordinary Muslims from generation to generation beginning from the
very time of the Prophet of Islam, so change its meaning! Only the
very learned turbans can accomplish that most successfully.
Especially when the verses are even partly or fully Indeterminate.
But this travesty of the holy pen is plenty observable even for what
is Determinate and what is categorical in verses which does
not suit the ruling genius. The best example of this travesty is the
watering down of the Principle of Inerrancy as applied to the Prophet
of Islam by the holy scribes. Its idiotic resemantification is
visible in countless respected books of exegesis from antiquity to
modernity. These exegeses have misinformed generation upon generation
of Muslims who have reached for the Cliff notes on the Holy
Qur'an.
This
subversion of the Holy Qur'an is exactly identical to how the learned
Jewish rabbis caveated their Ten Commandments from their universal
form to exceptional form in order to claim moral exemptions for
themselves so that actually doing the universal refrains to the goy
was no longer forbidden to them. Thus, Thou Shall Not Kill,
the First Commandment for instance, was changed to Thou Shall Not
Kill (a Jew) in meaning. See Morality
derived from the Intellect leads to Enslavement!
for even more shocking contortions by the rabbis who superseded the
spirit of the Torah with the spirit of the Talmud. The scribes of the
Torah had already visited the same travesty upon the teachings of
Prophet Moses. The Talmuds just took it ten steps further in
perversity which today underwrites the Jewish ethos more than
anything Prophet Moses ever taught. And the world amply sees this in
Zionism which is but an expression of Jewish exceptionalism taught in
the Talmud. The unequivocal condemnation in the
Holy Qur'an of the Jews distorting their Good Book of Divine Guidance
to suit their whim and fancy, is but a clear warning to the believers
of the Holy Qur'an to refrain from doing the same. And yet, the
Muslim turbans have visited the same travesty upon the Holy Qur'an
and its religion Islam such that no two Muslims will necessarily
agree on what something means. Each will bring their respective
socialized understanding from the pens of these holy scribes to
assert its meaning. The truth of these words is empirical, and
without doubt. It is self-evident, except to those who are caught in
its trap.
Therefore,
keeping all that preceding clarity at the forefront of cognitive
thinking, in the specific sense of Imam appointed by the Author in
the context of 2:124, as opposed to just any ordinary leader that has
a following in the context of 17:71, obedience is made obligatory for
those for whom they are Imams, and the entire discussion of
وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ of
verse 4:59 in Part-II also carries over wherever and whenever
obedience is made obligatory to any man by the Author. As already
reasoned out in preceding sections, the Author of the Holy Qur'an
cannot make obedience obligatory towards anyone who can make an error
and not make a mockery of His Own divine Guidance System as the right
path. Imam, obedience to the Imam, and the Principle of Inerrancy
sort of go together as a package – in order for it to make any
logical and rational sense to demand obedience to a man and still
remain on the path of Divine Guidance which is proclaimed to be error
free, infallible. Which is why, in its resemantification to serve
self-interest, “ulul amar” is aliased as a common noun –
and voilà, just about anyone can be it who can get away with
it! That is the history of its corruption from the very day of the
death of the Prophet of Islam until today where anyone has been able
to become emperor, caliph, king, amir-ul-momineen, and today valih-e
faqih, by including himself in that set and insisting on his
entitlement by mere assertion and recourse to texts outside the pages
of the Holy Qur'an. Why do they have to go outside for proof of their
divine sanction? Precisely, because there isn't any in the
Determinate verses of the Holy Qur'an. All one finds in its
pristine pages is the categorical prohibition to being a follower,
without caveat, as one can witness in the deconstruction of Taqlid
below.
So,
if the word “Imam” is used in verse 28:5 in that specific
sense of 2:124, the verse is still only a Beatitude, an uplifting
promise of some future time. The brilliant ability to harvest that
theological concept for self-interest by the superman among
both: the Shia pulpit to orchestrate “Imammate by proxy”
to seed IRAN:
The Crescent of Crisis
as the birth of the uncompromising “Revolutionary Islam”,
and among the hectoring hegemons to orchestrate the fiction of
“Armageddon”, not withstanding. A contorted “doctrinal
motivation” on two opposing sides for synthesizing the fear of
“Clash of Civilizations” in order to continually lend
credence to the threat of “End Times”. It enables
manufacturing a brilliant Hegelian Dialectic which cannot be disputed
by those caught in its web – as it is already written in the
sacred books that more than half the world's population believes in.
It promotes the fiction of the existence of a global existential
threat, putting the entire world on perpetual crisis footing.[12]
And
if the word “Imam” represents the common meaning of 17:71
as an ordinary leader, it is exactly akin to the Biblical Beatitude:
“the meek shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5 Holy
Bible KJV). Once again no reason to obey the meek when they inherit
the earth – for they could become the next tyrants as was amply
witnessed in the French Revolution and in the military dictatorship
and conquests of Napoleon that followed.
Even
whether verse 28:5 is speaking of the Messenger's own contemporary
epoch when Prophet Muhammad finally prevailed over his own oppressors
of twenty three long years and conquered Mecca just before he died,
or of some future time, is Indeterminate. As is verse 58:21
affirming: "It is I and My messengers who must prevail";
and verse 21:105 similarly affirming: "My servants, the
righteous, shall inherit the earth". All remarkably akin to
the aforementioned uplifting promise in the Biblical Beatitude, and
all recipient of the preceding analysis in toto.
When
will such bliss transpire on earth is of course an ageless open
question. It has been the source of speculation and anticipation from
time immemorial, and the principal argument for Divine Rule since the
adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire. As far as the Holy
Qur'an is concerned, it is Indeterminate.
It
is of course also extraordinarily utilitarian for any believer or
their chief to claim that inheritance for oneself in any era –
mostly to survive with hope and dignity through dark periods of
tyranny – for who can challenge that presumption? No
certificates are required!
Especially
if one succeeds in acquiring state powers and engages a thousand
scribes and orators to extol one's divine rights to that inheritance
as the vilayat-i faqih. Since it is an Indeterminate,
it can be posited any which way one wishes to dignify it, limited
only by the fertility of one's imagination and foundation of one's
eruditeness. The beatitude cannot be disproved from the Holy Qur'an
because it is anchored as an Indeterminate! And it can
certainly be proved to one's own audience by drawing upon one's own
historical narratives that are collectively subscribed by the group.
It is the empirical principle which seeds both group-think,
conformity within a group, as well as diversity of thoughts and
beliefs among different groups in mankind each exercising its own
group-think.
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"That
which is left you by Allah is best for you, if ye (but) believed!
but I am not set over you to keep watch!" (Surah Hud, 11:86)
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بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌ
لَّكُمْ إِن
كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ
ۚ وَمَآ أَنَا۠
عَلَيْكُم
بِحَفِيظٍ
|
|
Say:
"Each one (of us) is waiting: wait ye, therefore, and soon
shall ye know who it is that is on the straight and even way, and
who it is that has received Guidance." (Surah Ta-Ha, 20:135)
|
قُلْ
كُلٌّ مُّتَرَبِّصٌ
فَتَرَبَّصُوا۟
ۖ فَسَتَعْلَمُونَ
مَنْ أَصْحَٰبُ
ٱلصِّرَٰطِ
ٱلسَّوِىِّ
وَمَنِ ٱهْتَدَىٰ
|
Caption
Is the Holy Qur'an proclaiming a Savior?
Verses
11:86 and 20:135 of the Holy Qur'an are intriguing examples of
Indeterminates along the same lines of allegorical Beatitudes,
but which directly fall on the Shia-Sunni sectarian divide on how
these are understood by the Muslim mind. One must in fact go to
sources outside the Holy Qur'an to even get an inkling of who or what
(the people in the past believed) is being spoken of by the Author:
بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌ
لَّكُمْ .
These exemplary verses, and a few more like these, are esoterically
proclaimed by some of these outside sources to be about Imam Mahdi –
the Awaited Savior of humanity who will rule in End Times ---
that entire eschatology itself being only in pages outside of the
Holy Qur'an. Why are these verses not categorical rather than
metaphorical if the knowledge of eschatology is of pertinence to
every people in every epoch? Speculation upon these verses is rife
with absurdities.
Whereas,
the prima facie meaning of verse 11:86 refers to some object (
بَقِيَّتُ
),
a nominative feminine noun, which can mean anything including persons
or thing or guidance, that Allah leaves for “you” (
لَّكُمْ
,
both male and female) as a gift or benefit or mercy that you need for
your divine guidance ( خَيْرٌ
).
Straightforwardly,
to the ordinary non doctrinaire mind, بَقِيَّتُ
can
represent the Holy Qur'an itself, which Allah has left those who
believe ( مُّؤْمِنِينَ
),
as being best for them. Or it could mean the أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ of
verse 4:59. Which one, if either, is not further disambiguated. The
remaining part of the verse indicates Allah is not going to shepherd
the believers beyond what He has already left them – it is
entirely up to the believers to run with the remnant of Allah,
بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ ,
and: “Surely We have shown him the way: he may be thankful
or unthankful.” (see verse 76:3 quoted above)
The
remnant of Allah, بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ ,
in this verse is just a common noun, a symbol, a placeholder variable
waiting to take on the instance of the object, or objects it
represents, and not the object itself. Surely the Messenger of Allah
must have explained what it means – but that explanation is not
contained in the Holy Qur'an itself.
Therefore,
verse 11:86 is prima facie allegorical, metaphorical, and not
categorical; it is آيَاتٌ
مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ
and
therefore Indeterminate. This verse, like all the other
مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ
,
as a cynic would surely surmise, evidently exist only to sow
confusion and discord among the Believers, perhaps to separate those
who think ( أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
)
from those who do not: “and none will grasp the Message
except men of understanding.” In addition, to
stochastically seed diversity of beliefs based on natural
socialization, tribe and nation that one is born into – which
it has also always succeeded in doing, in every era. That observation
is empirical. The veracity of these words is beyond doubt. It is
self-evident.
Notice
that the Sunnis and the Shias each fill in the variable according to
their respective sacred books. Being entitled to one's belief system
whatever it may be as the most basic human right, the Sunni Muslims
are not remiss if they think بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ might
mean the Holy Qur'an, or the Caliphate; and the Shia Muslims are not
remiss if they think it is the أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ of
verse 4:59. Since the latter today is the twelfth Imam, Imam Mahdi,
according to the dogma found in Shia Ithna Ashari books of
history, that's how that variable is fixed by them accordingly.
Whereas the Shia Ismaili Muslim aren't remiss if some among them
might believe بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ represents
their Hazir Imam, the Aga Khan.
Believe
whatever you want. However, unless it can be logically adduced from
the Determinates alone who or what is being referenced by the
Author in Surah Hud 11:86, it is categorically an Indeterminate.
The Determinate verses at times provide an unequivocal
rejection criterion for exclusion of what is willy-nilly fixed in the
Indeterminates even when these Determinates may be
silent on the acceptance criterion for the Indeterminates. The
rejection criterion though powerful when applied logically and
rationally, still leaves the door wide open for the acceptance of
whatever that can be plausibly passed off by the boundless
imagination of man in the Indeterminates! This
is an undeniable problem that the Holy Qur'an has faced at the hands
of the holy man. But it is a problem which it has itself enabled ab
initio by the very presence of the Indeterminates.
It is almost as if the Author of the Holy Qur'an wanted this to
happen – why else would He leave that door wide open for it –
thus laying the foundation of diversity of interpretations right
there in the religion of Islam's singular scripture that the Author
asserts he perfected: “This
day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon
you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.”
(Surah Al-Maeda verse fragment
5:3)
Well, if the Author perfected and completed the guidance system and
the system itself plays out among its own audience in multiple themes
using its own Indeterminates,
what else to make of it? Tell a child not to do something, and what's
the first thing he will do?
Similarly,
in the case of Surah Ta-Ha 20:135 where the Author commands, Say:
"Each one (of us) is waiting: wait ye,", the object
noun for “wait ye” is noticeably absent, making the verse
also an Indeterminate even on first reading. However, whatever
that “wait ye,” might be for, the verse avers that
it will unequivocally permit clear adjudication when that wait
eventually does expire: “soon shall ye know who it is that
is on the straight and even way, and who it is that has received
Guidance." Once again we are immediately besieged by more
imponderables. What does “soon” mean? How soon is soon?
Is that the final Day of judgment? Or is that the arrival of the day
of fulfillment of the promise made in the Qur'anic Beatitudes quoted
above? Is that perhaps also what بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌ
لَّكُمْ refers
to, the fulfillment of the divine promise which is the remnant of
Allah: “That which is left you by Allah is best for
you”?
Thus,
whichever way one examines it, بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌ
لَّكُمْ is
at best a metaphor whose semantics, never mind hidden meaning, is
known only to Allah, (and as per the alternate parsing of verse 3:7
of Surah Aal-'Imran already
discussed in Part-II) and to “Ar-Rasikhoon-fil-ilm”
( الرَّاسِخُونَ
فِي الْعِلْمِ
).
All
these inquiry questions are clearly Indeterminate, each one
leading to more questions than answers, and thus entirely speculative
to ponder upon. It is for this reason that these verses have been
speciously speculated upon throughout the ages – an occupation
of idle minds who perhaps never had to pursue a day's honest labor to
earn their keep in their lifetime of paid employment from public
funds as glorified theologians and scribes. The only function they
ended up serving is causing needless differentiation to arise among
Muslims based purely on speculative hearsay and verbal reportage
centuries downstream – the “he said she said” which
became known as the hadith literature – leading the foolish
public mind deeper and deeper into the sectarian quagmire. Integrated
over time and space, this socialized ethos has become a permanent and
virtually unshakable part of religious beliefs of virtually all
Muslims, in all sects.
Today,
the same public mind will comply in voluntary servitude under the
demand of absolute obedience to authority on matters entirely
Indeterminate and drawn from pages outside of the Holy Qur'an.
If its Author wanted the people in future times to know any matter of
religion of Islam not already covered in the Holy Qur'an, He would
have clearly stated it categorically in the foundational verses and
made it clearly Determinate, Mr. Spock sensibly surmises, so
that all peoples in all times would understand it straightforwardly
without juristic misinterpretation and chance of being misled by what
is erringly human, the pen of fallible man. The Holy Qur'an
unequivocally prescribes the accumulating fortunes of such imams in
Surah An-Nahl:
|
Let
them bear, on the Day of Judgment, their own burdens in full, and
also (something) of the burdens of those without knowledge, whom
they misled. Alas, how grievous the burdens they will bear!
(Surah An-Nahl 16:25)
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لِيَحْمِلُوٓا۟
أَوْزَارَهُمْ
كَامِلَةً
يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ
ۙ وَمِنْ أَوْزَارِ
ٱلَّذِينَ
يُضِلُّونَهُم
بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ
ۗ أَلَا سَآءَ
مَا يَزِرُونَ
|
Examining
the Question of Following the Jurist
Verse
of 16:25 of Surah An-Nahl quoted above is also stupendous in its
overarching import. It straightforwardly exposes core lies which have
become sanctified as “religion” in specious dogmas among
Muslims. For one, it exposes “taqlid”, the practice of
blind emulation and prescribed following of a jurist by the laity –
a practice equally prevalent in both Shiadom and Sunnidom – as
a master fraud for social control. Upon that master fraud is the
edifice of the entire conception of sectarian Sharia laws,
i.e., jurisprudence (religious legalisms that vary for each Muslim
sect based on the opinions of its dominant jurists who have appointed
themselves Interpreter of faith), constructed.
Expose
its very foundation as being based on a core lie – and the
entire sacred totem pole comes crashing down under its own weight!
The
Holy Qur'an which daringly calls itself “Al-Furqaan”
– the Author's Criterion by which to judge the truth or falsity
of any proposition (or understanding) pertaining to His Own Revealed
Guidance System for mankind ( مِّنَ
ٱلْهُدَىٰ
وَٱلْفُرْقَانِ
ۚ );
which He even asserts He “perfected” and “completed”
and named it “Islam” ( الْيَوْمَ
أَكْمَلْتُ
لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ
وَأَتْمَمْتُ
عَلَيْكُمْ
نِعْمَتِي
وَرَضِيتُ
لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ
دِينًا ۚ ),
and therefore there is no further room in its specification for
additions and subtractions – does precisely that.
(Verse
fragments from Surah Al-Baqara 2:185
and Surah
Al-Maeda 5:3
respectively,)
Even
a tiny bit of logical reflection on the concatenation of verses
pertinent to the Qur'anic Principle of Inerrancy already examined
previously with verse of 16:25 of Surah An-Nahl exposes “taqlid”
as a fabrication of the pulpit!
Perhaps
it is necessary to restate for the sake of completeness, that only
“These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their
guidance” (Surah Al An'aam verse 6:90 quoted earlier), can
ever be exempt from the damnation of this most electrifying verse
16:25 of Surah An-Nahl! Only the specific inerrant persons whom Allah
is commanding the believers to follow – for indeed these have
to be inerrant if Allah has directly guided them – can also be
the “ulul-amar” of verse 4:59 already discussed earlier.
No one else is permitted to be followed, and obeyed, in the religion
of Islam! With that singular exception of obedience to the inerrant
“imam” who is solely appointed by Allah (by His Own
Declarations in the Holy Qur'an already examined above) and is not
selected, elected, or anointed by the fiat of man, the entire concept
of “following” and “followers” is
unequivocally condemned in the Holy Qur'an. Most emphatically, in
Surah Al-Baqara verses 2:166-2:167 (already quoted above). Due to its
categorical significance, it is reproduced yet one more time to
remind the reader of what the Good Book itself says categorically, in
the clearest of terms, without caveats or exemptions:
|
“(On
the day) when those who were followed disown those who followed
(them), and they behold the doom, and all their aims collapse
with them.
|
إِذْ
تَبَرَّأَ
الَّذِينَ
اتُّبِعُوا
مِنَ الَّذِينَ
اتَّبَعُوا
وَرَأَوُا
الْعَذَابَ
وَتَقَطَّعَتْ
بِهِمُ الْأَسْبَابُ
|
|
وَقَالَ
الَّذِينَ
اتَّبَعُوا
لَوْ أَنَّ
لَنَا كَرَّةً
فَنَتَبَرَّأَ
مِنْهُمْ كَمَا
تَبَرَّءُوا
مِنَّا ۗ كَذَٰلِكَ
يُرِيهِمُ
اللَّهُ أَعْمَالَهُمْ
حَسَرَاتٍ
عَلَيْهِمْ
ۖ وَمَا هُمْ
بِخَارِجِينَ
مِنَ النَّارِ
|
So
how can “taqlid” of the fallible jurist be part of the
religion of Islam when the very concept of following itself, ab
initio, is not only most clearly deprecated, but Surah An-Nahl verse
16:25 also most clearly apportions culpability to those who are
followed?
If
“taqlid” of a fallible jurist was a part of the religion
of Islam, then the Author of the Holy Qur'an created an absurdity, a
foolishness; the Author commanded Muslims to follow an ordinary
mortal who is not infallible, but since the jurist is not inerrant,
and neither does any respectable jurist ever claim to be inerrant,
foolish and sheepish people among the masses, those without knowledge
and understanding, will also follow him. In point of fact and
reality-check, in actual sectarian practice of Muslims, obedience is
extorted from the public mind at the threat of eternal damnation –
otherwise why would the sheepish laity follow the anointed popes
except for that irrational fear which is continually cultivated and
harvested by the church of man?
If
“taqlid” of a fallible jurist was sanctioned by the
religion of Islam, then, as per verse 16:25, these persons whom Allah
is commanding to be followed will be apportioned their measure of
blame if they are followed in their errors and the people are misled!
That is a patent absurdity; a Kafkaesque double jeopardy: follow and
be damned (verses 2:166-2:167), don't follow and be damned
(“taqlid”), and the imam is damned because he is not
inerrant and is followed and obeyed as ordered even in his mistakes,
confabulations, distortions, half-truths, innovations, Indeterminate
fixing, etceteras, which of course no one can adjudicate or catch or
challenge because only the ignorant laity follows him (verse 16:25)!
This is the base reality of Muslim jurists and their blind followers
since the inception of the church of jurisprudence!
The
Author of the Holy Qur'an Who claims to be the most Just and the most
Wise Creator of all creation, cannot command “imams” to
be followed and obeyed, and when they are followed and obeyed as per
ordered, the “imams” are apportioned blame for their
blind following when they venture their fallible opinions dependent
solely on their particular bent of mind, proclivity, psychological
tendencies, socialization bias, natural talent (and un-talent),
ability to think and reason, knowledge, understanding, etceteras, in
their verdict! No two people think the same, never mind agree on any
matter --- and yet they are commanded to be followed!
Indeed,
if this absurd proposition of “taqlid” is true, then the
Author has made a mockery of His own Guidance System! Whereas the
Author is most sensitive about taking His Message lightly. He has
repeatedly Admonished mankind to not mock the Holy Qur'an: “Is
it such a Message that ye would hold in light esteem?”
(Surah Al-Waqia 56:81
quoted in Part-II); that: “Verily this is no less than a
Message to (all) the Worlds” (Surah At-Takwir 81:27 quoted
above); and: 'Then the Messenger will say: “O my Lord! Truly
my people took this Qur'an for just foolish nonsense.”'
(Surah Al-Furqaan 25:30).
After
all these straightforward admonitions to Muslims in the clearest of
terms to take the Scripture seriously, the Author then ventures to
mock His Own Message by mandating to the Muslim masses the “taqlid”
of fallible jurists, and subsequently hanging these jurists for
misleading the people because they are not inerrant and foolish
people have inevitably followed them as commanded?
What
a fickle-minded creator who damns if you do and damns if you don't
--- only in the mind of man!
By
reductio ad absurdum, when a proposition reduces to an
absurdity, the premise it is predicated upon is false.
Since
verses 2:166-2:167 and verse 16:25 are categorical, and presumed to
be true ab initio as an axiom of faith that the Holy Qur'an has not
been tampered with by the hand of man (no “tahreef”),
therefore, Taqlid must be false as presuming it to be true in the
presence of these verses leads to absurdity. If one still insists
Taqlid to be true, then one also has to accept the consequent fact
that the Holy Qur'an contains absurdities. No Muslim mind on planet
earth will accept that outcome. It's easier for it to accept Taqlid
as falsehood.
Checkmate!
Directly
from the Holy Qur'an.
Q.E.D.
Marja-e-taqlid:
right!
Blind
emulation, “taqlid”, of a fallible imam jurist who is
incestuously proclaimed Marja-e-taqlid by his coterie of equally
fallible peers in Shiadom, is an absurdity in the religion of Islam
in no less a measure than blanket obedience demanded to a fallible
imam caliph who is speciously anointed “ulul-amar” by the
shenanigans of political power around him, is in Sunnidom! Both are
weighty fabrications of the respective pious Muslim pulpits; vile
slanders upon the religion of Islam. It is categorically proscribed
in the Holy Qur'an. There is no room for any doubt or interpretation.
The veritable logic of Al-Furqaan, so clear and simple in
adjudication with its Determinate
verses that even a sixth grader can straightforwardly follow its
steps, coldly attests to that statement of fact. The previous
examination of the Principle of Inerrancy which unequivocally
established the singular prerequisite for complete obedience to
“al-Wasilah” from the Determinate
verses, also attests to that fact. “Alas, how
grievous the burdens they will bear!”
Which
is why, failing to find support in the Holy Qur'an, recourse is often
made to pages outside the Holy Qur'an to legitimize this absurdity.
Applying the same logic method of reductio ad absurdum
recursively to every argument and every evidence presented from
outside the Holy Qur'an, trivially demolishes them all. Sometimes
evidence is presented from a recorded act of history, such as the
Prophet or Imams of the Ahlul Bayt having appointed their own
representatives and mandating the people over whom they exercised
authority to obey their representatives on their behalf. Well, even
philosophically, the burden of the acts and decisions of a
representative ultimately still rests upon the one whom he
represents, and who is still ultimately in authority to rectify
matters if the need ever arose, to hear dissatisfaction, and to
adjudicate. This is self-evident by definition of “representative”
in this semantic context. Which is why it is a false argument of the
self-appointed valih-e-faqih (or appointed by a consultative
committee of self-styled holy jurists) for speciously conferring
legitimacy upon himself because one, he can produce no certificate of
such divine appointment, and two, he is now the highest authority
next to God. No one can challenge his authority even legally. A
throwback to the stone age to say the least, and no different than
any vanilla don or king, including the King of kings the
valih-e-faqih replaced with such fanfare in so much Persian blood
tribute. Absolute rule which went away in the Age of Enlightenment in
the West has been brought back with a new vengeance to the backward
Muslims to help shape world order as proxy service providers of the
West.
To
be vigilant of false friends, false guides, false imams making false
claims, is veritably underscored in Surah Al-Furqaan itself:
|
The
Day that the wrong-doer will bite at his hands, he will say, 'Oh!
Would that I had taken a (straight) path with the Messenger!'
25:27
|
وَيَوْمَ
يَعَضُّ الظَّالِمُ
عَلَىٰ يَدَيْهِ
يَقُولُ يَا
لَيْتَنِي
اتَّخَذْتُ
مَعَ الرَّسُولِ
سَبِيلًا
|
|
'Ah!
Woe is me! Would that I had never taken such a one for a friend!'
25:28
|
يَا
وَيْلَتَىٰ
لَيْتَنِي
لَمْ أَتَّخِذْ
فُلَانًا خَلِيلًا
|
|
'He
did lead me astray from the Message (of Allah) after it had come
to me! Ah! the Evil One is but a traitor to man!' 25:29
|
لَقَدْ
أَضَلَّنِي
عَنِ الذِّكْرِ
بَعْدَ إِذْ
جَاءَنِي ۗ
وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ
لِلْإِنْسَانِ
خَذُولًا
|
|
Then
the Messenger will say: 'O my Lord! Truly my people took this
Qur'an for just foolish nonsense.' Holy Qur’an, Surah
Al-Furqaan 25:30
|
وَقَالَ
الرَّسُولُ
يَا رَبِّ إِنَّ
قَوْمِي اتَّخَذُوا
هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ
مَهْجُورًا
|
Caption
Surah Al-Furqaan 25:27-30 The ex post facto lament on the Day of
Judgment by believers of having taken someone for a friend and being
led astray by them, in the language of the Holy Qur'an is a
categorical admonishment before the fact, referring to those who come
posing as friends and not overtly as enemies. This is a warning to
all peoples to be wary of their own kind betraying them, for one
usually takes those whom one knows and trusts as one's friends,
guardians, protectors, guides, and imams. Only friends can betray
because the concept of betrayal is tied to trust. In
other words, the Holy Qur'an, Al-Furqaan,
is warning the simpleton mind in every age to be wary of false
friends, false imams, Trojan Horse,
Machiavelli, who win
the public trust with cognitive infiltration,
and all the rest of the techniques of deception used in betrayal
where the ones being betrayed do not realize it then. The purpose of
the warning is obvious – so that the believers can shrewdly
protect themselves from that outcome rather than lament on the Day of
Accountability that they did not know.
If they still don't wakeup today to their false friends and false
imams who often come wearing the garbs and turbans endearing to the
public mind, then the Prophet of Islam's strong lament is also
recorded. Referring to the misled people as “my people”
to show his deep anguish, the Prophet of Islam cries out that they
did not take the Guidance in the Holy Qur'an seriously, shackling its
meaning down to idiocy, down to their own whim and fancy, making the
Deen-e-mubeen
“mahjoor”!
These
verses of Surah Al-Furqaan, 25:27-30, also unequivocally strike down
false notions fed to the masses to legitimize taqlid of the fallible
jurist that the follower may claim exemption from condemnation in
Afterlife if one's own intention is good and one followed an imam who
leads one astray by honest mistake of his ijtihad: “Ah! Woe
is me! Would that I had never taken such a one for a friend! He did
lead me astray from the Message (of Allah) after it had come to me!
Ah! the Evil One is but a traitor to man!”
Sadly,
no Muslim mind ever believes that these admonishments can ever apply
to it. These always only apply to all the other fools over there in
the other sects! The Sunnis believe this of the Shia with as much
divine conviction as the Shias believe this of the Sunni, both
opening the door wide open to Dr. Machiavelli to come rape them both.
This
characteristic of self-righteousness is itself an inherent part of
the religion of man. The fear and discomfort of cognitive
dissonance evidently inhibits its very occurrence. Without
experiencing cognitive dissonance, the psychological state of inner
mental conflict between two contrarian positions, no transformation
can transpire. Which is why, when faced with contrarian facts or
evidence, the degree to which a man violently resists giving up his
prior beliefs is directly proportional to his inner insecurities and
is an index to his desires (as philosopher Bertrand Russell observed
of the frailty of the human mind). Desires of which he may himself be
unconscious of, as its seat is in the subconscious mind. Freud
established this as an empirical fact of the irrational mind at the
turn of the twentieth century. It is what the multi-trillion dollar
global advertising industry is built upon. It is why masses of human
beings fall easy prey to anyone who can cater to their base desires
and insecurities – the sine qua non for the mass success of
both religion and marketing. Advertising professionals and
Machiavelli understand this human frailty better than the common
mind. It is the cornerstone of success for well-designed propaganda
as well as marketing campaigns. It is why the ministry of truth
(as Geroge Orwell termed it in Nineteen Eighty-four) all
around the world have come into existence to more effectively make
the public mind. So who is your imam now?
Which
is why, at the risk of stating the obvious once again, in the matters
of the straight path,
the Author of the Holy Qur'an is categorically making each human
being accountable for his every decision, including the decision to
follow or not to follow others, to have one's mind made or not made
by others. There is no exemption for “oops!” for anyone
as these categorical verses of Surah Al-Baqara 2:166-2:167 and Surah
Al-Furqaan 25:27-30 unequivocally assert. Neither in this life which
becomes hellish not just for oneself but also for others when one
follows false imams. Nor evidently in the Afterlife of Islam where
everyone is called to account in the company of the “imam”
they each followed: “One
day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective)
Imams” (Surah al-Israa',
17:71).
So if one followed a false guide and did not realize it, there is no
“oops!” exemption!
After
this analytical presentation, why should anyone still believe that
the holy marja-e-taqlid is exempt from the condemnation of verse
16:25? That those who follow him are exempt from the condemnation of
verses 2:166-2:167 and 25:27-30? Precisely, because of a socialized
culture of religion rather than of learning that dominates the public
mind.
If
one was born a Hindu instead of a Muslim, one would be shouting the
virtues of Krishna from the mandirs. Today, the Hindu mind is on
safer ground because Machiavelli has found little use for it in
fueling imperial mobilization. If for nothing else, then just for
that reason alone this subject is of grave public concern. The “arc
of crisis” like a spreading fire, as the world is continually
witnessing, spares no one in its path. To put it out effectively
takes getting the core fundamentals that are being harvested for this
purpose in the name of Islam, better scrutinized in the public eye.
Virtually all of these so called axioms of faith are the creation of
Machiavelli, are not supported in the Good Book, and hence are not
part of the religion of Islam expressed in it.
While
much has been stated about both “militant Islam” and
“moderate Islam” being alien to the religion of Islam,
the third part of the trifecta for the recipe of creating perfect
storm for Muslim on Muslim violence, “revolutionary Islam”
and its enabling axiom of “taqlid”, has escaped forensic
scrutiny by the more learned minds who surely have better “ma'rifat”
(deeper understanding) of the subject. The analytical mind that goes
on facts permits no room for absurdities and gratuitous assumptions
of faith. Things have to make logical sense given all the facts, and
all their linkages. Some linkages are directly visible, while others
are made visible by the logic of adding two plus two correctly equal
to four. This analytical deconstruction of “taqlid”
without prejudice by a layman, is the product of that basic
arithematic. A challenge directly to the valih-e-faqih du jour
to respond, explain, and refute if there is any Qur'anic truth on his
side. Silence is the domain of cowards. No one who claims Imam Ali as
his guide has even a passing acquaintance with cowardice.
The
controlling practice of “taqlid” as it has unfolded in
Muslim civilizations, the underpinning of sects that were
manufactured when the largely sheepish masses were encouraged to
follow the anointed imam of their natural socialization by birth thus
dividing into schools of thought, is a man-made divisive construct of
the church of man. Its purpose is predatory social control of man by
fellow man, be it among the Shia, the Sunni, the Ismaili, or any
other group-think composition, in any religion. Like Christianity,
the man of cloth as the interpreter of faith for the Muslims became a
useful tool.
Is
man so feeble minded, so inadequate in his talents, so corrupted in
his heart, that he needs a fierce looking bearded shepherd until
eternity to “Islamize” him? What an insult to God's
creation --- and to God, that He Created such an absurdity in which
imperfect man shall forever remain beholden to another imperfect man
for guidance. Such an absurd God can only exist in the mind of
Mephistopheles to enslave and control fellow man.
Any
place where fallible man is anointed as the interpreter of faith for
another, or obedience is demanded in the name of the divine, is a
place where social control is being practiced in the name of the
divine. Lift the pious robes and underneath one shall find, linked to
the predatory social control, a bountiful and easy harvest of
public's wealth being paid into the coffers of the pulpit, and
empire. Perhaps this is why it is often hard to find clergy who is
familiar with honest toil and labor. The bulging waist-lines alone
testify to the vulgar empirical truth of virtually all priestly class
living off of public donations in the name of religion.
The
superman rulers have
comprehended this vile modus operandi of social control far more
perceptively than the sheepish public they govern! And the clergy
class in every religion has served that ruling interest with an
iron-clad regimentation from time immemorial. (Superman
is reference to Nietzsche's superman
and not to the Marvel comic book hero; the ubermensch,
the uber alles, deems
himself above all the others, is beyond good and evil, tells noble
lies and thinks nothing of it, and strives with his own “will
to power” instead of superstitious religions to achieve
lordship over mankind who refuse to evolve past their sheep state.)
But when the clergy class has itself become the state, the public has
been reduced to intellectual servitude to fellow man in the name of
divine. To have done that damage to the pristine religion
Islam which its Author claims to have “perfected” as the
Divine Guidance System revealed to free man from the clutches of
fellow man, is an immodest and unpardonable travesty for which verse
16:25 of Surah An-Nahl plainly vouches: “Let them bear, on
the Day of Judgment, their own burdens in full, and also (something)
of the burdens of those without knowledge, whom they misled. Alas,
how grievous the burdens they will bear!”
Unsurprisingly,
no Muslim and his pope is going to give up their socialized
interpretation of religion anymore than a socialized Zionist Jew is
going to give up Zionism and a Brahmin priest is going to give up
racism. And it is not because they each don't know or realize that
their respective ideology is misanthropic and leads to the
enslavement of the 'lesser peoples'. Knowing this general fact of
obduracy about His Own Creation which, by His own Admission, “He
fashioned him in due proportion”
(see Surah As-Sajdah verses 32:07-32:09),
is perhaps why the Author of the Holy Qur'an proffered that
straightforward Admonition to people driven by self-interests and
socialization bias even when truth has clearly been made manifest
from error, of scores only being settled on the Day of
Judgment. That, in this life, to
wholeheartedly “strive
as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah; it is
He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.”
(Surah Al-Maeda 5:48)
Therefore,
as per the noble advocacy of this verse to eliminate conflict among
mankind, one may hastily conclude that if “taqlid”, or
any other harmonious system for that matter, leads to that wonderful
race in all virtues, all power to it. That is the point – that
any principled system can be made as virtuous in theory as it can be
made evil in practice. The choice is evidently left up to man in the
Holy Qur'an. The problem comes in when it is the latter and reduces
an entire nation in willing servitude to the whims and ideas of one
man, the self-anointed philosopher-king, with his subjects
loving their state of bondage in the name of the Divine.
For
those unfamiliar with the principal axiom of the Divine Guidance
System of the religion of Islam, the topic is covered in the tutorial
derived from this study: What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Taqlid - Blind Following the
Non-Infallible?
(http://tinyurl.com/what-quran-says-about-taqlid).
The axiom of inerrancy is also extracted into a tutorial due to its
enormous significance in understanding the exhortation to obey the
Messenger and which cannot be extended to anyone else but the
inerrant “ulul amar”: What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Inerrancy of Prophet
Muhammad?.(http://tinyurl.com/what-quran-say-about-inerrancy)
To
resume and reach respectable closure on the earlier thread on the
examination of Qur'anic Beatitudes and the pulpits' appeal to
divinely sanctioned rule in its many different formulations by fixing
the Indeterminates to
suit their socialization bias, we can now appreciate that there are
layers of meaning to these metaphorical verses not resolved by the
Determinates, and
hence are Indeterminate.
And unless these do become resolved by Determinates,
either by acquiring new understanding, or new knowledge that is
discovered over time that makes comprehending the Indeterminates
in the light of the Determinates better,
these categorically remain Indeterminate
and open-ended! Perhaps the Messenger had explained their hidden
meanings to his contemporaries. Those who believe they still retain
these explanations accurately in their socialization context, can of
course believe whatever they like – they are socialized, nay
entirely indoctrinated, into these belief systems anyway with little
real choice exercised by them.
Indeed,
the more honest ones among them openly proclaim their religion as an
inheritance, especially the descendants of the Ahlul Bayt. They
announce it publicly too --- by prepending
“Syed” and similar appellation
before or after their name to advertise to the world that their
lineage descends directly from the Prophet of Islam. The pontiffs
advertise it proudly too, by wearing the black colored turban tied in
a specific way to indicate their special status as the children of
the Prophet and his Ahlul Bayt. And the most open and bold admission
is of course by the Western educated Aga Khan IV, who avers that he
is the 49th continuous hereditary imam of
the Ismaili Nizari Shia Muslims. A global
imam without territory who exercises
complete control as well as full responsibility over his flock from
his one of a kind headquarters in France. He also represents the
best spirit of the pluralism of Islam among all Muslim sects by his
social welfare work worldwide, benefitting all peoples, as
principally advocated in Surah Al-Hujraat 49:13 (see below). No other
Muslim sect or imam can hold a candle to, or lay claims to, such
demonstrated pluralism. However, the proverbial pound of flesh has
equally been extracted from these long running hereditary
imams as well. Witness the Aga Khan's most unusual level of co-option
in working hand in glove with empire in: Ismaili
Muslims and Aga Khan's Doctrine of Neutrality
(http://tinyurl.com/Aga-Khan-Neutrality). And further witness the exhibition of banal self-righteousness that is little different from all the other Muslim sects' despite genuine attempts at pluralism, in: The Amman Message (http://tinyurl.com/Amman-Message-Aga-Khan). A pluralism when it is not in conflict with self-righteousness!
(http://tinyurl.com/Aga-Khan-Neutrality). And further witness the exhibition of banal self-righteousness that is little different from all the other Muslim sects' despite genuine attempts at pluralism, in: The Amman Message (http://tinyurl.com/Amman-Message-Aga-Khan). A pluralism when it is not in conflict with self-righteousness!
When
religion is an inheritance, and makes one
self-righteous, one can at best acquire mastery and scholarship only
upon one's inheritance.
We
observe that fact in practice. It is foolish to require anyone to
give up their inheritance --- it is what
defines us like our gender, it is who we are, the tribe and nation we
belong to.
|
O
mankind! Lo! We have created you from male and female, and have
made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the
noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct.
Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware. (Surah
Al-Hujraat, 49:13)
|
يا
أيها الناس
إنا خلقناكم
من ذكر وأنثى
وجعلناكم شعوبا
وقبائل لتعارفوا
ۚ إن أكرمكم
عند الله أتقاكم
ۚ إن الله عليم
خبير
|
That
empirical fact of the hard genetic structure which expresses itself
in the plurality of strains that is
mankind, has evidently been extended to its programming, i.e.,
religion, as well. That undeniable fact of empiricism too is
categorically recorded in Surah Al-Maeda, 5:44-48
(See Islam
and Knowledge vs Socialization,
http://tinyurl.com/Islam-Socialization)
However,
the men and woman of understanding among them, ( أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
),
must also force their pulpits to publicly acknowledge to their own
flock that their fixing of an Indeterminate is drawn from
sources outside the pages of the Holy Qur'an, from their respective
holy books and sectarian dogmas. If one is to stay within the pages
of the Holy Qur'an, one is forced to leave these matters as the
Author Himself counsels in verse 3:7,
as metaphorical, and therefore, Indeterminate.
Meaning, as unknowns, without feeling any inner compulsion to fix
their meaning at all.
Observe
that despite the arguable metaphorical allusions to divinely
sanctioned rule in its Indeterminates, the Holy Qur'an does
not categorically prescribe in its Determinate verses any kind
of governance, never mind specify who must rule apart from أُولِي
الْأَمْرِ of
verse 4:59 previously analyzed, and which is itself left as an
Indeterminate. It is arguably to transpire only in some
unknown and unspecified epoch whence all the Qur'anic Beatitudes
quoted above are finally realized: “It is I and My
messengers who must prevail”. Thus far, that allegorical
promise of both the Holy Bible and the Holy Qur'an have not been
realized. We still live in a world of tyranny run by vile Hectoring
Hegemons, now even more sophisticated than ever, employing diabolical
instruments and philosophies to continually corral mankind from one
misery to another under different Hegelian Dialectics. So who governs
in the mean time? Sensibly, the people have to govern themselves! The
Holy Qur'an has categorically prescribed its recipe that man must
willingly stand up to these usurpers and exploiters of mankind among
them (see http://tinyurl.com/Surah-Asr-Tafsir).
However, the Holy Qur'an has not prescribed in its Determinate
verses what such governance must look like that stands up to tyranny,
except for some desirable general characteristics of righteous
collectivism which it categorically prescribes for realizing the good
Islamic society that is the harbinger of justice for all mankind.
In
fact, these Qur'anic platitudes are not that much different in
principle from what Solon, the ancient Athenian law-giver, advocated
for social responsibility. When asked which city he thought was
well-governed, Solon said: “That city where those who have
not been injured take up the cause of one who has, and prosecute the
case as earnestly as if the wrong had been done to themselves.”
For
that matter, even the United States Constitution and its famous
American Bill of Rights are not inconsistent with the Holy Qur'an.
There isn't anything in that manmade republican governance principle
that is intrinsically in conflict with the Good Book. In fact, it can
be cogently argued to be implementing some of the principles of Islam
itself. Unlike others claiming the divine right to rule through 4:59,
the American Constitution however does not claim itself to be divine
– but Declares itself to be self-evident for the spelled out
inalienable rights of the people.
It
is a travesty that all these lofty platitudes on lovely parchment
have been instrumented in society with the same inimical zest for
justice and fairness as any other lovely words in any Sacred text
from time immemorial, including the Ten Commandments, and the Holy
Qur'an. This topic has been examined in depth in Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization
(see http://tinyurl.com/Islam-Socialization).
Rule
in the name of divine went away during Christendom's reformation
period. It was replaced by people choosing to govern themselves.
Whereas, it has been the principal raison d'être of governance
of all Muslim empires and Caliphates, including latter day Muslim
oligarchic states. None of which is to be found in the Determinates
of the Holy Qur'an itself; appeal is always made to its
Indeterminates in every era to justify and sanction man's rule
in the name of divine.
There
is surely no name more abused for narrow self-interests than the name
of Divine since the dawn of civilization. In the past it was to verse
4:59 that thirteen centuries of Muslim empires looked to justify
their rule. In the contemporary present, the principle of vilayat-i
faqih in the Islamic Republic of Iran has most imaginatively made
that appeal inter alia to both 4:59 and 28:5, asserting that its
clergy class are representatives of those inheritors of the promise
made in 28:5, and therefore must be obeyed as per 4:59. The
ubiquitous practice of “taqlid” (already examined above)
helped secure that blind obedience to religious authority from the
sheepish masses. While Iran today proudly boasts of being the only
Eastern nation which disobediently stands up to the Western hegemons
as the permanent enemy of the Great Satan, its majority public
meekly bows their head in blind obedience to their popes in full
conviction of eternal salvation.
One
can see that the Indeterminates permit open interpretation –
and that's the premeditated diversity engine of the religion of
Islam. When diversity based on the Indeterminates does not sow
discord, is in the spirit of Islam as categorically outlined by its
Determinates, then it is theologically not deprecated in the
religion of Islam as should be evident from all the preceding
discussions. It is the sowing of discord by interpreting what is
metaphorical and allegorical in the Holy Qur'an that is deprecated.
If interpretation was in fact not expected by the Author despite His
Counsel against it, arguably there'd be no Indeterminates in
the Book which claims itself a Divine Guidance for all mankind. The
ambiguity in its specification is prima facie evidence of its
sophisticated and pragmatic engine to seed diversity because man, by
the very nature of his construction (creation), will argue and
dispute, be socialized and group-think: “If Allah had so
willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to
test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all
virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah; it is He that will show
you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.” (Surah
Al-Maeda 5:48).
The Qur'anic guidance system endeavors to take man from that
disputative warring state of nascent creation, to willingly rising to
a stature in which he will come to excel the angels. Only the journey
on the road of “fuss-tabi-qul-khairaat” ( فَاسْتَبِقُوا
الْخَيْرَاتِ
),
“so strive as in a race in all virtues”, can take
a disputative, ethnocentric, tribalistic, nationalistic, and
fiqhilistic people to the heights of that station. It is
self-evident that part and parcel of striving “as
in a race in all virtues” includes standing up to
tyrants and creating social justice. All people are capable of doing
that. What further Divine intervention is needed?
To
even begin the process of transformation of coming together on the
Determinates of the Holy Qur'an, since no Muslim sect is going
to give up their emotional and theological attachments to their
historical legacy any time soon, if ever, the realities of the matter
and the dangers of fratricide facing Muslims, call for immediate
co-existence of sects as they are. Arguably therefore, so long as the
interpretations and fixing of the Indeterminates do not sow
discord among Muslims as per verse 3:7,
why should any particular fixing by one sect be deemed any more
holier than any other sect's? All fixing make recourse to material
outside the Holy Qur'an anyway --- whatever may be deemed to be its
sacredness by the socialization in the respective sect. It
is still not in the Holy Qur'an.
That
is the singular recognition which must finally be truthfully admitted
from every pulpit in order to form any kind of coherence among the
disparate Muslim sects.
The
abstractions Determinate and Indeterminate naturally
permit such realization to first be articulated, and then percolated
inwards, outwards, upwards, and downwards. A bold public admission of
just this reality of the actual sources of their beliefs, driven from
all Muslim pulpits, either voluntarily, or through state power
according religious rights to Muslim sects, is the first step of
coming together as one Muslim nation – without coercing anyone
to change their emotional attachments to their respective heroes of
history or come under the stewardship of any one sect's ideology.
Consequently,
regardless of which Muslim sect or political group defines their
nation's philosophical and national characteristics, if they employ
the Determinate verse
5:48
of Surah Al-Maeda as the cornerstone of their state's constitution ;
if they espouse the fairness expressed in the Biblical
Golden Rule: “Do
unto others as you have others do unto you”,
and adopt the powerful corollary that naturally falls out of it as
their force
majeure to preempt exploitation:
“no one shall
take unfair advantage of another”
; and make these worthy first principles of fairness and justice the
very foundation of their governance structures whereby all civil,
political, and religious rights are accorded to its citizens
irrespective of their own theological beliefs with equality and
without prejudice, both in theory and in practice, such a state would
be sufficiently Islamic to legitimately call itself an “Islamic
state” – even if it was entirely a secular state! It
would be irrespective of the rest of its colorful artifacts, whether
theologically drawn from the Indeterminates and
therefore not something to be sown discord over as verse 3:7
clearly avers, or a separation of state and religion in terms of the
philosophical outlook of the state itself! What does it matter to the
ordinary man and woman what type of state it is if the state gives
the public the liberty to better themselves in fairness, justice, is
not exploitive, does not usurp, does not plunder, is not a vassal of
foreign powers, and lends all its denizens the opportunity to believe
and practice as a community what they each commonly hold sacred?
As
one can immediately see, an almost infinite array of diverse
governance systems are possible under that enlightened rubric –
only limited by the creative energies of the people and their
enlightened stewards. The stony silence of the Holy Qur'an on the
governance structure, and its explicit categorical articulation of
the general social principles to enact among Muslims in its
Determinates, yields only this logical deduction, and no
other!
This
isn't a utopia. Many Muslim governments exist today – they can
just as easily adopt the political recommendations noted above to
eliminate fratricide and foster amity among Muslims in their own
nations. That would of course only be possible if these states were
themselves not part of this Machiavellian fratricide, state
sponsored, both nationally and globally, as surrogate vassals of the
hectoring hegemons.
Therefore,
if any presumptuously “Islamic” state sheds the blood of
Muslims in the name of Islam, sows discord, then it is clearly not an
Islamic state by definition of the religion of Islam – but a
tyrannical state no different than any other tyrannical state,
Islam's lofty symbols proudly adorning its national flag
notwithstanding.
What
is perhaps of utmost most significance however, is the recognition
that the Hectoring Hegemons not only perceptively understand these
matters concerning the religion of Islam, they also understand the
cracks, fissures, and lacunas among the Muslim sects, and how to both
tickle these further, and how to harvest the subsequent fruits. They
know how to invent new sects just as well as they know how to create
revolutions by harnessing the indigenous discontent which they ab
initio create in the first place.
As
in recent past, internecine warfare is the unnatural destiny that has
been planned for Muslims in the twenty-first century as well –
and they had better wizen up before it is enacted on the scale which
has been apportioned. To appreciate the urgency, and just how much of
an existential necessity it is to immediately overcome sectarianism
which continues to directly play into the hands of hectoring
hegemons, see the excerpt
from the political novel (or historical fiction) “Memoirs Of
Mr. Hempher, The British Spy To The Middle East”
(http://tinyurl.com/excerpt-memoirs-of-mr-hempher). It is sure to distress the naïve and the erudite mind alike to learn just how accurately the hectoring hegemons understand and exploit the cracks and lacunas among the two major sects of Islam comprising nearly 99 percent of the 1.6 to 2 billion Muslims on planet earth today.
(http://tinyurl.com/excerpt-memoirs-of-mr-hempher). It is sure to distress the naïve and the erudite mind alike to learn just how accurately the hectoring hegemons understand and exploit the cracks and lacunas among the two major sects of Islam comprising nearly 99 percent of the 1.6 to 2 billion Muslims on planet earth today.
This
case study set out to examine the question posed at the beginning:
What
are the inherent impediments for studying the message of the Holy
Qur'an which make the Book so amenable to self-serving
interpretation, socialization, and even bastardization by anyone?
If
the reader's mind hasn't been entirely asleep through this long
perusal, the discovery that the presence of Indeterminates in
the Holy Qur'an which necessitates going outside of its pristine
pages to resolve them, is primarily responsible for the paradox that
the Holy Qur'an has itself contributed to its subversion, must be
disconcerting to the honest mind. The Muslims, generation after
generation, have themselves contributed to this state of affairs by
remaining ossified in the narratives of history rather than
progressively evolving their understanding of the principles of Islam
as espoused directly in the text of the Holy Qur'an. That lamentable
fact has arrested their evolution as a people, mired them in rituals
and rites which dominate their socialization and their practice of
religion, and opened them to sectarian schisms which has made them
easy prey to the supermen and Machiavelli. The
unfortunate truth of these observations is straightforwardly
validated by the lamentable fact that even in today's modernity, one
which is run exclusively by superior intellects who use game theory,
psychology, social engineering, and political science to orchestrate
“imperial mobilization” under the primacy
imperatives of the new White Man's Burden for one-world
government, even the best among the Muslim scholars and
intellectuals, politicians and statesmen, poets and dreamers,
pressmen and prostitutes, remain nonetheless wiser. In fact, many
have become house niggers willingly carrying the White
Man's Burden. And like the Muslim masses, many also offer their
daily prayers on time, keep all their fasts, feed the poor, and
perform their Hajj, preferably multiple
times. And if one informs them that they are in fact destined for
hell, hell right here on earth, they confidently reply that they are
looking forward to Heaven elsewhere.
The
ease with which the masters of religion divided the Muslims since its
very inception, with even far greater ease the Muslims can become
united on the Holy Qur'an by acquiring intimacy with the abstractions
natural to the Holy Qur'an: Determinates
and Indeterminates.
The Muslims have been made victims by their own pulpits no
differently than the Christians. Neither the Sunni nor the Shia
pulpit is able to reason, nor logically prove their differentiating
theology from the Holy Qur'an directly, blanket assertions with
appeal to authority and historical sources being their only blunt
instrument of argumentation. This is clearly visible among both the
Shia and Sunni pulpits each of which have created their own sacred
axioms that they each swear by, based exclusively on the scribes of
history and selective fixing of the Indeterminates
to suit their respective socialization bias. That has led to the
senseless differentiation which is guaranteed to be irreconcilable
under any one sect's ideological banner, remaining perennially ripe
for a good harvest by Machiavelli in every era.
Adoption
of the Qur'anic abstractions Determinate and Indeterminate
in promulgating the understanding of the religion of Islam from both
the Shia and Sunni pulpits, permits a mutual co-existence with
greater amity and friendship among all the major Muslim sects. It
simultaneously raises awareness of the actual sources of their own
religion from which the Muslim mind draws its various beliefs. These
simple abstractions lend a vocabulary and nomenclature to even begin
sensible and rational discussions of matters that have previously
often been steeped in blind faith, shrouded in ignorance, clothed in
baseless assertions, and ripe for gratuitous cognitive infiltration
into the religion of Islam.
It
permits the Muslim mind to “legally” agree to disagree on
matters which are Indeterminate without calling each other
misguided or kafir, while automatically permitting rational
agreements to be forged on what is Determinate. This also
resolves forging agreement on matters that fall on the delicate
boundary between what is Determinate and what is
Indeterminate, as for instance is betrayed by the two
different parsing of verse 3:7 along the Shia-Sunni sectarian divide.
Which parsing is correct is itself an Indeterminate.
Therefore, what is not categorically deemed Determinate by
both pulpits is sensibly treated as Indeterminate by
definition, rather than sow discord. That approach is counseled by
verse 3:7 itself.
Only
under that singular categorical banner of the Determinates of
the Holy Qur'an, can Muslims ever forge themselves into one Muslim
nation. The Determinates also easily permit expunging
abhorrent ideologies, gratuitous doctrines, dogmas, and practices
which have vilely infiltrated the religion of Islam as amply
demonstrated by the examination of the question of “taqlid”
above. Self-interest of both the pulpit and the throne is clearly
brought to light in that examination because the question is a
Determinate question, most emphatically and straightforwardly
answered in the Holy Qur'an. Similarly, the Principle of Inerrancy is
stated so plainly in the Holy Qur'an that the self-interest of the
entire Sunni pulpit in asserting the contrary in service of the
caliphates and Muslim empires is most clearly visible. Without vilely
negating that first Determinate principle of the Holy Qur'an,
the very first Caliph after the death of the Prophet of Islam could
never have occupied the rulership of the nascent Muslims – and
perhaps the history may have unfolded differently! These are clear
examples of guile, deception, subterfuge, and hijacking, among both
Shiadom and Sunnidom. If it is so easy for power to subvert the
Determinates, just imagine how easy it is to fill the
Indeterminates! By the same yardstick, sympathetic power can
equally affect the alternate outcome. But why would power slaughter
its own prized goose that lays the golden egg in every epoch?
The
benefits of rational assemblage of the worldwide Muslim public mind
on the Determinates of the Holy Qur'an today is so obvious
that to even state it fourteen-fifteen centuries later sounds
entirely platitudinous; sort of like rehearsing the lofty Ten
Commandments in wonderment as if they were just revealed yesterday!
Only narrow self-interests of both the pulpit and the throne preclude
that assemblage!
Nevertheless,
the lead principle to drive this Muslim umma unification
process globally while retaining the rich diversity among Muslims, is
the verse of unification, verse 5:48 of Surah Al-Maeda of the
Holy Qur'an. Its rational adoption as the political and spiritual
mandate of all Muslim sects, tribes and nations in its myriad
civilizations from the East to the West, organically launches the
Muslim public mind on that road to political and spiritual recovery
without being under the headmastership of any sect and their specious
dogmas. The rest will happen naturally, over time, by the natural
system dynamics unleashed with the adoption and active promulgation
of that simple political science first principle from the Holy Qur'an
itself.
This
evolution of the understanding of the religion of Islam among the
Muslims is the only choice to survive in the coming age without both,
internecine warfare that is diabolically crafted by Machiavelli, and
losing the spirit of their religion further to the shell of empty
rituals.
The
Machiavelli in the meantime is active by way of divide and conquer to
spread the scourge of Secular Humanism in all civilizations to wipe
out all traces of theism. The religion of Islam, evidently, is its
most resolute obstruction (see
http://tinyurl.com/Islam-vs-Secular-Humanism
). It is foolhardy to not capitalize on one's natural advantage in
the art of war! The full spectrum capitalization of that asset is the
principal raison d'être of this report.
As
the first baby step towards better understanding their own
differences – the Shia and Sunni pulpits are invited to
proclaim their own beliefs at their own learned scholarly level,
using these new abstractions. Then let's sit together to examine what
each sect has itself determined to be Determinate
vs. Indeterminate on
matters that are differentiating between Shia and Sunni pulpits. It
will surely surprise them both! Just as it has surprised this scribe
how easy and straightforward the resolution is – its only
obstruction being the hectoring hegemons and their insidious vassals
throughout the Muslim world. It is perhaps for this insightful
realization that a pen awarded to this scribe's little boy a score
years ago by the Sunday School in California in the United States of
America, for Qur'an recitation on stage at age 4 or 5, had inscribed
on it the farsighted statement:
“Those
who differentiate between Shia and Sunni are neither of the Sunnis
nor of the Shias.”
Incestuous
self-reinforcement is the bane of objective scholarship. This is why
the scientific process came into existence to study any matter
objectively. Putting the data and its analysis before others to
scrutinize and adjudicate, enables defeating all forms of crippled
epistemology and ingrained bias which are often a consequence of
incestuous self-reinforcement. One has the opportunity to
examine the same data, and examine the analysis performed on that
data, conduct one's own experiments so to speak, and either
substantiate or refute the thesis and conclusions so reached. This
process, when honestly followed, itself advances not just the state
of understanding, but enables new discoveries.
But
the scientific process itself, carried out by human beings, is also
beholden to the limitations of the human being in his subconscious
ability to be perfectly objective on any matter. This means all the
natural forces of bias that the human mind is unconsciously
susceptible to that work their magic to co-opt the rational mind from
seeing matters, reality, existence, the way it actually is, have to
be overcome to ensure objectivity at the cognitive level and accuracy
in the pursuit of understanding by the scientific method. A faulty
method in implementation, or its deliberate corruption due to vested
interests, will only lead to faulty results and false conclusions in
the name of science and objectivity.
This
is all the more crucial in social sciences where subjectivity is
inherent and inescapable – the species is studying itself. And
also because the social sciences can be diabolically harnessed to
Machiavellianly foist unpopular political agendas on the public mind
disguised as science, or, by appeal to suitably co-opted scientific
authority, peddle propaganda and “religion” as science
(see “Disambiguating
Religion, Science and Psychological Warfare Operations”,
http://tinyurl.com/Human-Limits-Scientific-Method).
There are many examples that illustrate the truth of this statement
that span the gamut of engineering unpopular public policy, from the
eugenics movement in the early twentieth century to limit immigration
to selected races to global warming in the early twenty-first to
usher in carbon credit for limiting growth. All based on appeal to
pseudo science and deployed with the full force of perception
management of the public mind!
Religion
is the same way.
The
forces of subconscious bias infecting the human mind include (the
following breakdown is adapted from the more detailed examination of
the forces of co-option in “The
Art and Science of Co-option”,
http://tinyurl.com/art-and-science-of-co-option):
- (1) socialization bias (nurture, social programming, learning) ;
- (2) perception bias (nature, hardware, DNA, limits imposed by the five perception senses and the brain capacity, natural inclination, propensity, hardwired intellectual capacity to think and reflect, IQ or Intelligence Quotient, hardwired psychological bent of mind, EQ or Emotional Quotient, hardwired spiritual capacity to transcend materialism, proclivity toward transcendentalism, awareness, consciousness, animatism, superstition, etc., SQ or Spiritual Quotient) ;
- (3) data availability bias (what data is used, what books one reads for instance) ;
- (4) confirmation bias (how data is used to preselect a desired outcome, narrowing the scope of data, massaging the data to confirm an a priori conclusion) ;
- (5) presuppositional bias (culturally ingrained presumptions or prejudices or affinities, loves and hates, that transcend the individual and are rooted in the value system of the civilization one grows up in, such as: Orientalism – looking down upon the East, uber alles, master race, exceptionalism, superiority complex; and its opposites: inferiority complex, house niggers, Uncle Toms, Occidentosis – East looking to the West or to the white man for solutions thinking it superior; Triumphalism – aspiring to universalize one's own values and beliefs thinking all others inferior, Capitalism, Communism, Democracy, Christianity, Islam, Secular Humanism, Scientific Materialism, Dogmas of Science and Medicine, etc.).
All
these factors underwriting incestuous self-reinforcement
(reinforcing what is already believed whether consciously or
instinctively), create an inescapable mind-lock from which
cognitively escaping to objectivity and impartiality remains elusive
for most people. These largely un quantifiable factors contribute to
the formulation of one's worldview and instinctualize the
subjectivity in perspective that man is irreparably plagued with for
his fundamental loves, hates, beliefs, and sense of attachment that
may span the gamut from tribal to civilizational. This subjectivity
is hard to transcend as it colors the cognitive mind ab initio,
subliminally, subconsciously, and overcoming it is akin to performing
brain-surgery upon one's own brain. A self-referential problem that
requires a great deal of wherewithal to get a handle on, and to
attempt to rise to some level of objectivity by creating distance
from self. The hard problem of Epistemology, the human limits to
knowing despite the most accurate application of the scientific
method, is examined further in Part-IV.
The
question posed in Part-I is empirical and not rhetorical: “everyone
quotes their favorite verses to justify their own narrow positions;”.
However, has the author of this report done anything different, as
far as the alert reader is concerned, when the report inter alia
asserts in Part-III :
It
sure explains empirical reality coherently, but most importantly, in
self-sufficiency and self-consistency drawn solely from the Holy
Qur'an and no other source!
How
is the skeptical reader, and the seeker of understanding desirous of
being counted among those addressed as أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
in
the Holy Qur'an, to defend their levying that same charge of Part-I
against this report beyond their own knee-jerk emotional reaction
which the report is sure to induce in a Muslim?
Only
by following the scientific process! And by being aware of the
natural forces of bias infecting the human mind. This study is not
about faith, or about questioning faith. It is about epistemology
– how we know what we know. It is about rational examination of
data and its analysis akin to what one might pursue in any academic
science. Here, logical reasoning as the standard of analysis, “aqal
ki kassoti” as one might say in Urdu, and not faith, is applied
to the study of a complex Book whose author is named “Author”
in this examination. What is the Author specifying in His Own Words?
That is the primary yardstick driving this investigation of what the
Author means and wants to convey in his own Words.
This
endeavor of due diligence is as simple and as straightforward as the
effort expended for any honest book report written by a college, or
even high school, student, nay even elementary school student. The
student can cheat and read the Cliff notes, seek other
writers' opinions and commentaries, ask his parents, or he can
faithfully read the assigned book directly and see what its own
author is saying in her own words without projecting his own a priori
conclusions and presuppositions upon it. This is so basic an academic
value that even to state it in the classroom implies that there is a
basic need for making this statement --- because all the students in
the class are cheating! The Holy Qur'an itself condemns such short
cuts taken by the lazy mind, or the mind prejudiced by all the
artifacts of bias enumerated above, as not the best way of
understanding its Message: “Do they not then reflect on the
Qur'an? Nay, on the hearts there are locks.” (Surah
Muhammad 47:24)
That
minimal level of basic due diligence, the prerequisite to acquiring
“ma'rifat” on any subject, makes it apparent what the
Author of the Holy Qur'an in his own best wisdom has chosen to leave
ambiguous, metaphorical, open ended, temporal, timeless, accessible
only to the “Rasikhoon-fil-ilm” (3:7), and what He has
chosen to state categorically, straightforwardly, without being
colored by others projecting their own two cents worth on what the
Author means from the tunnel vision and co-opting constraints
of their own epoch, both time and space. For indeed, in comparison to
any author's own words for what he wants to convey, everyone else's
description of what that author wants to covey pale in comparison.
Own words always trump others' explanations of it. The truth of that
statement is universal and without doubt. It is self-evident. When
that is a truism for even ordinary authors, it is a grotesque
perversity and corruption beyond measure to not apply it sensibly to
the Author of the Holy Qur'an. The fact that one see this travesty
transpiring timelessly in virtually every Muslim microcosm where
pulpit is big business, is the state organ, or the state itself, is
its own self-incriminating condemnation.
The
lazy mind, the foolish mind, the socialized mind, the undisciplined
mind, the uninformed mind, the conformant mind, the parrot mind, and
societies that nurture them, all lose for the simple want of
individual due diligence. Co-option takes care of the rest who do try
to overcome these mental chains. Co-option is a pivotal and defining
constraint for not just honest intellectual scholarship, but also for
the ordinary individual seeking to do the right thing but deeming
“united we stand” the better part of valor. It permits
the continuation of the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness! See
The
Art and Science of Co-option
(http://tinyurl.com/art-and-science-of-co-option).
This
author, an ordinary engineer in Silicon Valley California in a past
life, well-versed in building systems that work and interoperate from
initially incomplete or ambiguous specifications or merely wish
lists, and in developing and writing specifications ab initio to
create systems which work and solve customers' problems and for which
customers paid real money to purchase, has explored the stated
inquiry question from that analytical perspective, of a systems
architect who is hypothetically tasked to engineer the system
specified in the Holy Qur'an. In order to do so, the Qur'anic
specification must first be understood by him. And understood in
terms of what its Author has specified, and not what this author has
imagined the Author has specified, interpreted, or what others have
thought what the Author has specified. Compliance testing reins in
the fertile imagination of an engineer to ensure that the
specification is followed rigorously and accurately:
- by “Functional Tests” (employing the electrical engineering parlance) which the Author will administer for pass or fail on the Day of Accountability (this means no interpretation, akin to understanding the DMV driver's manual correctly in order to pass the road test, or an engineering spec in order to build the product as specified by the authors of the spec);
- by seamless interoperability with others pursuing similar mandate (this means being constrained to the Determinates, akin to driving on the public roads in harmony and without causing fatal accidents or discord with all the other drivers).
This
study of the Holy Qur'an, and Part-IV that follows which looks at the
primary sources of understanding the religion of Islam outside of the
Holy Qur'an, have principally been conducted thus far with the
left-half brain, logic-only mind, of a practical scientist engaged in
existential battles like the metaphorical Mr. Spock (and not an
ideologue ensconced in some ivory tower who has never lived in the
real world, never competed for livelihood, never fought an enemy,
never stood up to Machiavellian power with courage and fortitude, and
never lived the hell on earth except on paper and on television).
Often
called upon to make urgent split-second factual analysis of weighty
matters – at times ambiguous with incomplete or probabilistic
data, at times concrete with accurate data, and at times cloaked in
layers of deception by the enemy where the data itself is misleading
– on which depend the life and death survival decisions of his
Captain, Mr. Spock cannot ever be wrong in his analysis, logical
deductions, and recommendations. But his recommendations may or may
not be acceptable to the Captain who steers his own decision making
process by more than just his own left-half brain. The Captain can
never refute Mr. Spock's analysis and deductions, and at times his
right-half brain led decisions appear illogical to Mr. Spock. And
yet, invariably turn out to be more effective in certain cases that
require gut-feel, intuition, insight, faith, spiritual know-how; all
esoterica that remain beyond the purview of empirical analysis and
logical reasoning. The limitations of Mr. Spock and this approach to
studying a divine text have already been addressed in the preamble of
Part-II.
The
fact that Mr. Spock classified the divine text as a ciphertext which
must be deciphered correctly to a single plaintext, i.e., uncover the
meaning intended to be conveyed by the Author of the Holy Qur'an as
in a law book or the DMV driver's manual, rather than as a book of
literature and poetry which may interpreted according to each
individual's bent of mind and proclivity, is the first axiom that
could itself be perceived as being in error by the right-brain
dominant human mind that feels more than it is able to think and
reason. Is the Holy Qur'an not intended as guidance for them too?
They can neither reason effectively nor think clearly – but who
is to say that they do not understand the spiritual essence of the
Divine Guidance better than those empiricists who can think and
reason? No reference decoding is available today to adjudicate! The
Messenger and those designated “ulul-amar” of verse 4:59
are no longer living among us to tell us who is right, and who isn't.
Which
is why a sensible and rational interpretation of remnant of Allah,
“That which is left you by Allah is best for you”?,
بَقِيَّتُ
ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌ
لَّكُمْ ,
inter alia, is the verse 5:48. It is the categorical best for all of
us: “so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you
all is to Allah; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters
in which ye dispute.” It works for both types of people,
those who think and analyze, and those unable to reason for
themselves and follow by faith, sect, emotionalism, socialization,
indoctrination, superstition, and whatever or whoever appeals to the
insecurities of their own subconscious mind.
More
importantly, as the rational protocol for understanding the message
of the Holy Qur'an demands, it permits staying within the pages of
the Holy Qur'an, solely referring to its Determinate verses
for guidance in understanding what its Indeterminate are
proclaiming, and therefore all sects and schools of thought among
Muslims can easily come to agree upon such a first order common
ground. These are the rational seeds for the making of the “Muslim
Ummah” – one people, though divided in geography, race,
culture, and civilization, wholly undivided in the core beliefs and
core values, basing them exclusively on the Divine Scripture they
each posses in common that they each unequivocally proclaim to be
un-adulterated by human hand.
Of
course, socialized Muslims following the schools of jurisprudence
that assert in their respective eschatological doctrines that it
refers to the Awaited Savior and the Last of the Divinely appointed
Imams – who, for the majority of Shias is Imam Mahdi (AS) who
is already born twelve centuries ago but in Occultation by
Divine Command and waiting patiently for the right conditions before
he reappears by the Will of God to fill the earth with justice; and
for the majority of Sunnis is also Imam Mahdi (RA) but who is yet to
be born in some future time by the Will of God for the same purpose –
will remain socialized in their own inherited dogmas regardless of
how rational, compelling, straightforward, natural, non convoluted,
non supernatural, and self-empowering the resolution is in the Holy
Qur'an itself when one let's it speak. This is why mullahs in every
sect, often indistinguishable from their more learned brethren who
call themselves “alim” and feel affronted if not given
due deference as the “signs of God” on earth, are able to
control the public mind so easily.
The
feeble quality of the public mind that Adolph Hitler spoke of in Mein
Kampf, and which he called for the press to exploit to engineer
the public's consent to their own enslavement in the name of national
education and enlightenment, is the same quality exploited by the
leaders of religion. But with far greater authority and effectiveness
due to the presumption of divine mandate!
Waiting
for Allah, not just in day to day affairs, but to intervene in
the Last Days to finally bring “haq”, justice, to
mankind, is a dogma that has usually only worked in the service of
primacy – and thus for good reason it cannot be found in any of
the Determinates of the Holy Qur'an. For, if “haq”
is only to be brought about at the End Time, and only through Divine
intervention of sending yet another emissary Imam to lead mankind to
institute justice among themselves, then what is the point of this
profound religion of “haq” preaching truth and justice to
mankind? That paradox alone invites reflection making the resolution
obvious: Why is the Holy Qur'an not categorical about this subject?
Why is it silent on this aspect of Eschatology? Why does it not use
“ayat-e-muhkamat” ( آيَاتٌ
مُحْكَمَاتٌ
),
the foundational verses as per verse 3:7
whose meaning is straightforward and clear, for this topic? The
answer really is obvious – except for socialization and the
attendant biases that accompany it!
Honest
intellectual pursuit of all these paradoxical questions taken up in
this study, with competence and wherewithal, “ma'rifat”,
permits exercising the left half-brain to counter the socialization
into religion by birth, which, lamentably, is often indistinguishable
from superstition. Where will that honest pursuit of reflecting on
the Holy Qur'an as the singular unadulterated Scripture containing
some Message by its Author, ultimately lead to --- it is foolish to
presuppose an answer as that would only be theoretical at this time!
Anyone can forge any theory of platitudes. The empirical reality is
that fourteen centuries into the Holy Qur'an, and mankind still lives
in the Age of Jahiliya. Progress today is empirically captured
by the record of the past one hundred years and can be summed up in
the great material progress, great world wars, great poverty, and
great misery for the majority of mankind.
Let
empiricism speak the loudest and with honesty for the Message of the
Holy Qur'an if its mission is to guide mankind. The scorecard as of
this writing, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, says
little of the collective acumen of Muslims. Drowning in a surfeit of
piety, they are subjugated, colonized, and bombed from continent to
continent. Villainy is cunningly perpetrated in the name of Islam,
from “militant Islam” and ISIS/ISIL on the one hand, to
“moderate Islam” and “reform Islam” on the
other, while the Muslim governments appear helpless before it all,
running helter-skelter between competing narratives crafted for them
by predatory minds far superior. That scorecard is not Mr. Spock's
gratuitous thinking, but merely an empirical observation of the stoic
validity until present, of the verse of the Holy Qur'an itself: “Then
the Messenger will say: 'O my Lord! Truly my people took this Qur'an
for just foolish nonsense.'” (Surah Al-Furqaan 25:30)
Thus
the import, nay mandate, for thinking afresh with new intellectual
tools to forge a new direction is clear. The traditional scholars of
Islam, both in the East and the West, have only taken us down the
past. They are ill-equipped to take us into a future that is
different for Muslims in a world as modern, sophisticated, and
complex as the one that mankind is living in today. Minimally
bringing the left half-brain to accurately decipher and comprehend
the message of the Holy Qur'an minus the incestuous
self-reinforcements, independent of what the mullahs, the
ayatollahs, the exegeses writers, the hadith compilers, and the
historical narratives penned a thousand years ago say it means, is
the first step to heed that aforementioned drastic Qur'anic warning
to Muslims.
One
useful way to think about this abstraction for those who possess both
half brains in some balanced non-zero quantity, might be:
- the right-half brain feels a compelling need to climb a specific mountain but does not know how except to extol the virtues of climbing that mountain in verse and oratory;
- the left-half brain comes up with the practical analysis for such a journey, the engineering and logistics plan to get there, and the battle plan to defeat the many anticipated obstructions lurking in the path including those that are unpredictable like the bad weather, flash floods, and robbers hiding in bushes;
- the right-half brain sustains the human spirit with faith and fortitude throughout that agonizing journey to finally be able to climb that mountain with any kind of engineered plan rather than to merely have dreamed of climbing it.
One
can no more engineer a plan with one's right-half brain than one can
imagine success with one's left-half brain in the face of
hopelessness and dark clouds. The reader's job is to verify the
engineered plan, which means to first understand the specification in
order to even be able to adjudicate, before he and she embarks on
that arduous journey to climb that mountain with nothing but faith
sustaining thine spirit, and nothing but shrewd planning guiding
thine little “zulfiqar”[13]. Just another way
to think about how to engage the human mind (intellect plus intuition
– respectively the left and the right half brains) to its
fullest potential.
Yet
another useful way to look at this abstraction of the human mind and
human intellect that encompasses both objective logic and subjective
insight, is to recognize that cognitive reasoning based on the five
perceptive senses that can be made fairly objective, and therefore
falsifiable, is the contribution of a functioning left-half brain to
human knowledge of the surrounding world. Intuitive reasoning, sense
of the abstract, sense of beauty, sense of harmony, sense of
insecurity, all of which is non-quantifiable and subjective, but
which enhances insight, wherewithal, wisdom, commonsense, shrewdness,
sophistication, street-smartness, deeper understanding, “ma'rifat”,
creativity, etc., and which transcend the available empirical data
and what is made visible to the five perceptive senses, is
contributed by the right-half brain to human awareness. One without
the other is incomplete. One can no more live without logic than one
can live without insight and foresight, love and feelings. Those who
do are reduced to being useful idiots and useless eaters.
Without a functioning right-half brain, the human mind is reduced to
a mere computational resource, devoid of any insight and feelings.
Without a functioning left-half brain, the human mind becomes steeped
in superstition and base desires; desires which may be unconscious,
but which drive beliefs and actions like voodoo, without rhyme
or reason.
The
rational analysis presented here therefore, to be of any use to
anyone, should be examined solely for what it is, and not with
religious sentiments, beliefs, and socialization bias (right-half
brain) interfering with the facts and logical analysis (left-half
brain). The logic of inquiry here is only on what is objective, or
can be made objective. Let the subjective insights be the reader's
own contribution to her own deeper understanding; to be built upon
what is objectively, and falsifiably (meaning, can be shown to be
either true or false), reasoned here.
For
the reader's convenience, the table below lists all the verses of the
Holy Qur'an which appear in the examination of the question: Why
it is easy to hijack the Holy Qur'an and the religion of Islam,
and upon which the analysis and deductions of this report are based.
But only to the best ability of this scribe who is obviously not Mr.
Spock, is as socialized into his own ethos, and is as limited in his
intellectual capabilities by virtue of being fully human, as anyone
else. The only difference from other earnest seekers of understanding
perhaps being, that this scribe has cognitively endeavored to rise to
the many challenges outlined in this report; to remain aware of his
own limitations in perfectly overcoming all the subconscious forces
of bias working against the cognitive mind, cradling it, cajoling it,
luring it, enticing it, towards comfort zones. The ancient adage:
know thy self to know the world, has never been more true than
in this endeavor to become objective about what pertains to one self.
Anyone with even a modicum of seriousness in their disposition can
surely rise to the same challenges of epistemology, how do we know
what we know, and better the analysis!
Minimally,
the profound scholar of Islam who claims a higher station by virtue
of greater learning, the “muballig”, the ayatollah, the
imam, the exponent of the religion of Islam as an authority figure
claiming to be the inheritor of the Prophetic mission and its
authority, is invited to demonstrate what he or she might believe is
in logical error. Silence is not just plain cowardice, but also a
bold admission of the inability of the pretenders who have seated
themselves comfortably on the pulpit of the noble Prophet of Islam to
engage intellectually once the aura of their untouchable robe is
stripped off. Silence of learned scholars is an equal admission that
“iss hammaam mein sub nungay hain” (every one is naked in
the bath hall)!
|
Aal-'Imran
3:7
|
Al-insaan
76:3
|
|
|
an-Nisaa'
4:59
|
al-Israa'
17:71
|
Muhammad
47:24
|
|
Al-Maeda
5:48
|
Al-Ahzaab
33:36
|
Al-Maeda
5:35
|
|
Al-Baqara
2:185
|
Al-Furqaan
25:1
|
|
|
Ibrahim
14:1
|
Maryam
19:97
|
Ta-Ha
20:114
|
|
Al-Ahzaab
33:35
|
Ibrahim
14:4
|
|
|
Al-Qasas
28:5
|
||
|
Ash-Shura
42:23
|
Al-Mujaadila
58:21
|
|
|
Al-Maeda
5:3
|
Al-Anbiyaa
21:105
|
|
|
Surah
Hud 11:86
|
||
|
Al-Baqara
2:128
|
Al-Baqara
2:124
|
Surah
Ta-Ha 20:135
|
|
Al-Ahzaab
33:40
|
Surah
An-Nahl 16:25
|
|
|
Al-Hujraat,
49:13
|
Al-Kauthar
108:3
|
Caption
Verses of the Holy Qur'an principally employed in Part-II and
Part-III to examine the question: Why it is easy to hijack the Holy
Qur'an and the religion of Islam. Click on verse number to
listen to the Arabic recitation by Shaykh Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary.
The verse in oral Arabic trumps the written version.
Given
that there are 6236 total verses in the Holy Qur'an, and it is itself
a deep bottomless ocean, this study has barely scratched the surface
of acquiring an analytical understanding of the singular Sacred
Scripture of Islam. But to the extent this study has dived into this
ocean, its discoveries just on this one narrow question are before
the reader to adjudicate, to validate, to refute, to enhance, or to
remain indifferent.
Continued
in Part-IV
About
The Author
Please
be advised that the author is not a scholar of Islam. Only its
student.
The
author, an ordinary justice activist, formerly an ordinary engineer
in Silicon Valley, California (see engineering patents at
http://tinyurl.com/zahir-patents
), founded Project Humanbeingsfirst.org in the aftermath of 9/11. He
was, mercifully, most imperfectly educated in the United States of
America despite attending its elite schools on both coasts. This
might perhaps explain how he could escape the fate of
“likkha-parrha-jahils” (educated morons) mass produced in
its technetronic
society with all his neurons still intact and still firing on all
cylinders. He is inspired by plain ordinary people rising to
extraordinary challenges of their time more than by privileged and
gifted people achieving extraordinary things. He chose his byline to
reflect that motivation: The Plebeian Antidote to Hectoring
Hegemons. Bio at
http://zahirebrahim.org.
Email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com.
Verbatim reproduction license for all his work at
http://humanbeingsfirst.org/#Copyright.
Footnotes
[7]
The contemporary and popular English translation of M.H. Shakir by
TTQ, New York, has dropped all his footnotes in their hard copy
edition (with posthumous apologies to the author!). The scribe
possesses the original first edition with
its sporadic footnotes intact. Similarly, the extensive footnotes in
the English translation of Yusuf Ali have been openly doctored in
posthumous reprints published by Amana
Publications, Saudi Arabia. The scribe also possess a copy of the
1934 first edition with the unadulterated
original footnotes intact.
[8]
Zbigniew Brzezinski,
The Grand Chessboard, 1997, pg. 24
[9]
Ibid. pg. 3
[10]
Lord Acton
[11]
Bertrand Russell
[12]
David Ben-Gurion had lucidly explained the utility of crisis creation
during the violent fabrication of the Jewish State in Palestine:
“What is inconceivable in normal times is possible in
revolutionary times; and if at this time the opportunity is missed
and what is possible at such great hours is not carried out – a
whole world is lost”. This diabolical political science
principle was reiterated some three score years and ten later by Rahm
Emanuel, American President Barack Obama's Jewish White House Chief
of Staff (January 20, 2009 – October 1, 2010), whose father was
part of the terrorist gang “Irgun” that had so
successfully utilized the Ben-Gurion principle for the creation of
Israel in Palestine. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Rahm
Emanuel emphasized: “you never want a serious crisis to go
to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that
you think you could not do before.” Watch the news clip
in: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tM5ZdO-IgEE
(at time 1m 3s)
[13]
Name of the legendary double-pincer sword of Imam Alī ibn Abī
Ṭālib before which no nemesis could stand for long in
mortal combat. Legend has it that the sword was given to Imam Ali by
the Prophet of Islam after (or during) the battle of Uhad in the
second year of the Hijra, 614 A.D. The intellect, given to every
individual in mankind by the Creator in varying amounts, called
“aqal”, is akin to that famous sword. One need only learn
to sharpen it, and to wield it with both skill and expertise, and no
hectoring hegemon can ever prevail with their weapons of mass
deception in any battle. It is the only effective antidote against
the villainy of perception management.
Credits
Arabic
Qur'an recitation by Shaykh Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary, audio courtesy
of Verse By Verse Quran, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://www.versebyversequran.com
Arabic
verses courtesy of the open source Qur'an Tanzil
Project, acquired 8/13/2011 from http://tanzil.net/download/
Most
(not all) English translation of Qur'an verses are by Yusuf Ali,
Shakir, and Pickthall,
acquired 8/13/2011 from http://tanzil.net/trans/
(archived Yusufali,
Shakir,
Pickthall).
French
translation by Hamidullah acquired 1/18/2013
http://tanzil.net/trans/fr.hamidullah
Spanish
translation by Cortes acquired 3/2/2013
http://tanzil.net/trans/es.cortes
Arabic
grammar decomposition courtesy of the open source Quranic Arabic
Corpus project at Language Research Group University of Leeds,
acquired January 24, 2013 from http://corpus.quran.com/
English
translation by Ali Quli Qara'i
acquired January 24, 2013 from http://islamawakened.com/Quran/
Reference
to Muhammad Hussain Tabatabai's parsing of verse 3:7 from
http://shiasource.com/al-mizan/
MMA
1917 PDF:
http://www.aaiil.org/text/hq/comm/muhammadalienglishholyquran1917/muhammadalienglishholyquran1917.pdf
With
most humble thanks to all!
Short
URL: http://tinyurl.com/Hijacking-Quran-pt3
Source
URL:
http://faith-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/08/islam-why-is-quran-easy-to-hijack-pt3.html
Print
URL:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/08/islam-why-is-quran-easy-to-hijack-pt3.html
First
Published Friday, August 19, 2011, 19th day of Ramadan in the US,
Muslim year 1432 | Extended April 2015 for 2nd Edition.
Last
updated April 17, 2015
06:00 pm
52087
Part-III
Islam: Why is the Holy Qur'an so easy to hijack? Zahir Ebrahim
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