- On guidance and blessing
It’s always disturbing when a fellow Muslim, apparently in all sincerity, says things that are explicitly prohibited by the Quran. For example, the Quran makes it abundantly clear that it’s not the label that people wear, but their attitudes and actions that will decide their fate in the Hereafter. Still, many Muslims insist that no non-Muslim will enter Paradise. Similarly, the Quran tells its readers that while God may rank one prophet above another and another one above the first one, it’s no business of the Muslim to make any distinctions between prophets. They should all be treated with the same respect. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop many enthusiasts from glorifying some prophets at the cost of others – all with the best of intentions, of course. It’s not that these people deliberately violate Quranic instructions. Instead, they are mostly unaware of what the Quran has to say in the first place. Not because they don’t read the Quran – the religious folks do so profusely – only they don’t understand a word of what they are reading.
The Muslims who started travelling to the West in the twentieth century for employment or education noticed something similar. They often wondered, and asked their Christian friends, why it was that they held certain beliefs while the Bible preached quite the opposite. It is simple: very few among the Christians read the Bible privately. What they know of it they know from what their pastor tells them. And each pastor, in turn, has certain pet topics that he keeps repeating.
Instead, they are mostly unaware of what the Quran has to say in the first place. Not because they don’t read the Quran – the religious folks do so profusely – only they don’t understand a word of what they are reading.
Muslims, on average, read the Quran much more than that. But an overwhelming majority of them don’t speak Arabic. They know how to read it, but they don’t understand it. They keep at it because they have heard the prophetic tradition that promises 10 blessings (rewards) for each letter recited. Even if this narration is accepted as true, most people miss the point that the immediate addressees of it were Arabs who didn’t have a problem understanding Arabic. So, while this is a poor argument by way of justification for reading the Quran without understanding a word, it hasn’t stopped many Muslims from having their religion nicely compartmentalized: They get their ‘blessings’ from reciting the Quran, while their beliefs are based on hearsay and what comes from professional clerics. The clerics, for the most part, are either equally unfamiliar with the contents of the Quran or have vested interests that discourage them from telling their congregations what the Quran really has to say.
The amount of reverence the Muslim gives the Quran is unrivalled. He believes it to be the verbatim word from the Creator of the universe Himself. This makes it all the more amazing how so few of them are curious to find out for themselves what their Creator wants to tell them. So, the Quran while being arguably the most widely read book in the world, also remains as probably the only book that is read without even an effort on the part of the reader to understand it. This is not to say that every Muslim must first learn Arabic. There are multiple translations available in all languages; and a man who is curious to know God’s instructions should find ample material. That’s where the true blessing of the Quran is found: in the guidance contained therein that has the potential to transform lives.
Of course, there are those who maintain that reading the Quran in Arabic gives them comfort and solace even if they don’t understand the contents. There’s no disputing this statement, which is obviously subjective in nature. For one person it’s the reading of the Quran, for another it could be sitting beside a river that brings relief. There’s no arguing with that sort of thing. My argument is with the person who, on the one hand, claims that the Quran is a guidance; but, on the other hand, insists on reading it without understanding it.
Gary Miller once narrated an episode in the USA which should be very familiar to most Muslims. An Arab man was sitting in a mosque when he heard something like the buzz of a bee. A little inspection revealed that the sound was emanating from a non-Arab man sitting close by with a Quran open in front of him. Upon asking what he was doing, he replied that he was reciting the Quran. The Arab man told him: ‘Look, I speak Arabic, and I didn’t even know it was Arabic that you were reading. Slow down.’ To which the man replied, I read fast because I want to reach the end sooner, so that I can start over. The man tried to reason with him that it wasn’t how many times he read the Quran as much as how much time and effort he spent understanding it that was important, but to no avail. The man started again, hundred miles an hour.
The verse that prohibits praying while being drunk (4:43) tells men not to approach their prayer until they know what they are saying. How can one know what one is saying unless one understands it? The Quran, in its own words, is a guidance. Now, if there is any meaning of guidance that doesn’t involve understanding, I am unaware of it. And it can’t be found in any dictionary either, I dare say. That this is even a point of contention is a very sad commentary on the so-called rational animal.
