The Qur’an Islamic beliefs about revelation

The Qur’an Islamic beliefs about revelation

Many students seem to avoid questions about the key issue of revelation in Islam, but this may not be possible in future exams. James Alexander offers some insights into this profound subject

James Alexander

The prophet speaking for God can be found across most shamanistic cultures and in all times. In the pre-exilic era the Hebrew prophets specifically critiqued the present order and promised a better world for the righteous. With the post-exilic prophets, this was engendered by the destruction of an ancient way of life and its familiarities and certainties. It is this latter-day vision of prophets such as Isaiah and Ezekiel on which Jesus appears to have based his message, and Islam seems to pick up from this, although stripping away any sense of divinisation of the Prophet.

Muslims and Christians would explain the parallels by suggesting that the Jewish prophets were indeed guided by God, but that their message had become corrupted, and Muslims would say the Qur’an offers the definitive reaffirmation. Scholars such as Malise Ruthven, however, argue for much more primal origins in shamanism generally, and the Arabian Kahin more specifically, as the archetype behind Jewish, Christian and Muslim prophets. Further parallels with Zoroastrianism also suggest the idea of the prophet, as well as the apocalyptic ideas that are so central to the Qur’an. One of its central teachings — resurrection and the day of judgement — can also be seen to predate both Islam and Judaeo– Christianity in Zoroastrianism.

What do Muslims believe to be the content of the revelation? Ruthven suggests that the seemingly random nature of the text itself actually means that the whole is often contained within its parts — thus, if you read just a few surahs you acquire a sense of the whole Qur’an.

Fatihah

This is especially true for the opening surah which arguably was put there as a deliberate introduction to the core ethos of the revelation of the shahadah. As Michael Cook writes: ‘If The Fatihah were all that we possessed of the Qur’an, we would still have some notion of what the book was about’ (2000).

The Fatihah introduces the main themes of what is revealed in the Qur’an, namely a single God, two kinds of people, and the relations between them. The ‘master of all the worlds’ is obviously God on the cosmic scale.

‘It might be thought that such a God might be too elevated to concern Himself with mere humans, but in fact…God relates very strongly to humanity, albeit in two distinctly antithetical ways, merciful and compassionate towards those who look for help and guidance, and wrath to ‘those against whom wrath is directed’.

Cook 20 00

The first verse reads ‘All praise to Allah, Lord the world’. Muslims must always praise God.

Provision is from Allah, therefore they must thank him every day of their lives, so as not to be among those ungrateful (kafarim), or hear those who ‘err’ (dalawin), and who will dwell in the hellfire.

It is arguably the part of the revelation that is most firmly established in Islam, since it is recited over five times a day in each prayer. It calls to mind Muslims’ dependence on God in their lives, and of the necessity to remind themselves of this through praise and worship: praise belongs to Allah’. This is combined with the importance of following the ‘sirat al mustaqim’ through the Qur’an and the Sunnah in order that Muslims may be among those who have God’s grace bestowed upon them (‘aladhin anaamat aleihim’). This is, in part, achieved by constant remembrance, perhaps through worship, on the day of judgement (yum al-din).

God is Lord not only of the world we can see, but all worlds, including where we may go after death also — hence, ‘thee alone do we worship, thee alone do we ask for help’. This is a reminder of the importance of grounding praise and worship in tawhid. For many Muslims the whole of the Qur’an can be summed up in the theme of tawhid.

Orthodoxy: the Ikhlas

For Muslims the Qur’anic revelations show the correct balance of emphasis between the extremes of orthodoxy (of which Christianity is seen to be an excess) and orthopraxis (of which Judaism is seen to be in error). However, if there is one key doctrine essential to being a Muslim then it is a firm grasp of the unity of God. The Surah al-Ikhlas makes it clear that tawhid demands faith in a God who cannot in any way be divided. To be specific, the ideas that ‘God is one’ (qul huallahwahad) and eternal (hu samad) mean he cannot give birth to a son, or be born of himself, since quite apart from being illogical it would make God effectively almost a subsidiary of himself since God would be divided. Having faith in a concept such as this is not to have faith in God (shirk), and hence quite useless. If one’s faith is not in the right God how could that wrong God save anyone, which although not quite how salvation works in Islam (as compared, perhaps, to Christianity), is part of it, since the shahadah and entering the fold of Islam (and hence akhirah), is a public confession of the commitment to the inner conviction that ‘laillahillaha’ (‘There is no God but Allah’). In Islam, faith in any trinity, however conceptualised, is shirk.

James Alexander is an examiner and former teacher.