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The Well-Preserved Tablet
Dec. 2nd, 2005 10:48 amAn old SAT-style analogy:
Back in the comments to my post on Orthopraxy, I began wondering how Muslims understand the article of faith that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved but that the other books revealed by God haven't been.
In other words, Islam teaches that the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospels and the Qur'an were all divinely revealed by God, but that the first three became corrupted over time and are therefore no longer reliable records of God's will. The Qur'an, on the other hand, God promised to preserve from corruption for all time. So my question was: given that God can preserve God's revelation from corruption, why not preserve the Torah, Psalms and Gospels as well? Why, according to Muslims, did God allow error to creep into the other revelations?
I put this question to a student recently, while she was talking to me about the Qur'an. (Conversion attempts are rather ubiquitous here.) I thought her answer was very interesting. She said that it really wouldn't have made a difference if God had preserved those earlier revelations, because none of them was the complete revelation. I had been assuming that if God had preserved, say, the Torah, then from the Muslim perspective humankind would have had the Word of God for an extra 2000 years. But the student explained that no, even if God had preserved the earlier messages the Qur'an still would have been necessary, because only the Qur'an is the complete embodiment of God's message to humanity. So even though she believes the Torah, Psalms and Gospels were (in their original form) divinely revealed, she still believes they were lesser revelations than the Qur'an. They are from God, but not the Word of God.
I wanted to ask her why God would send incomplete revelations, and what made seventh century Arabia uniquely qualified to receive the full Word of God. Why not just send the Qur'an itself in the first place? But I suddenly realized that these are questions I've asked of my own religious tradition, too, because that student's feelings about the Qur'an being sent to humanity "in the fullness of time" (to quote Galatians 4:4) were completely parallel to what countless Christians have felt about the advent of Jesus. So the questions I had for her are exactly the questions I've asked of the traditional interpretation of Christianity: why would God send incomplete revelations before Jesus, and what made first century Palestine uniquely qualified to receive the full Word of God? Why would God choose that moment to reveal God's will to us, whether in the form of the Qur'an or in the form of Jesus?
The conversation brought home the familiar saying in comparative religion that, while one might be tempted to draw parallels between the Bible and Qur'an and between Jesus and Mohammed, in actuality the better analogies are between Jesus and the Qur'an -- each understood as the Word of God incarnate (inlibrate?) -- and between the Bible and Mohammed, revered (but never worshipped) for their role in bringing us that Word. The correct answer was (d), in other words.
| JESUS : CHRISTIANITY :: _________ : Islam (a) Mohammed (b) Jibra'il (c) Caliph Ali (d) the Qur'an |
Back in the comments to my post on Orthopraxy, I began wondering how Muslims understand the article of faith that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved but that the other books revealed by God haven't been.
In other words, Islam teaches that the Torah, the Psalms, the Gospels and the Qur'an were all divinely revealed by God, but that the first three became corrupted over time and are therefore no longer reliable records of God's will. The Qur'an, on the other hand, God promised to preserve from corruption for all time. So my question was: given that God can preserve God's revelation from corruption, why not preserve the Torah, Psalms and Gospels as well? Why, according to Muslims, did God allow error to creep into the other revelations?
I put this question to a student recently, while she was talking to me about the Qur'an. (Conversion attempts are rather ubiquitous here.) I thought her answer was very interesting. She said that it really wouldn't have made a difference if God had preserved those earlier revelations, because none of them was the complete revelation. I had been assuming that if God had preserved, say, the Torah, then from the Muslim perspective humankind would have had the Word of God for an extra 2000 years. But the student explained that no, even if God had preserved the earlier messages the Qur'an still would have been necessary, because only the Qur'an is the complete embodiment of God's message to humanity. So even though she believes the Torah, Psalms and Gospels were (in their original form) divinely revealed, she still believes they were lesser revelations than the Qur'an. They are from God, but not the Word of God.
I wanted to ask her why God would send incomplete revelations, and what made seventh century Arabia uniquely qualified to receive the full Word of God. Why not just send the Qur'an itself in the first place? But I suddenly realized that these are questions I've asked of my own religious tradition, too, because that student's feelings about the Qur'an being sent to humanity "in the fullness of time" (to quote Galatians 4:4) were completely parallel to what countless Christians have felt about the advent of Jesus. So the questions I had for her are exactly the questions I've asked of the traditional interpretation of Christianity: why would God send incomplete revelations before Jesus, and what made first century Palestine uniquely qualified to receive the full Word of God? Why would God choose that moment to reveal God's will to us, whether in the form of the Qur'an or in the form of Jesus?
The conversation brought home the familiar saying in comparative religion that, while one might be tempted to draw parallels between the Bible and Qur'an and between Jesus and Mohammed, in actuality the better analogies are between Jesus and the Qur'an -- each understood as the Word of God incarnate (inlibrate?) -- and between the Bible and Mohammed, revered (but never worshipped) for their role in bringing us that Word. The correct answer was (d), in other words.
