Quranism: Difference between revisions

Many verses lack any clear meaning without further context, a few (of many) are given below. For example it is impossible to know what the following verses are talking about by themselves (tafsirs generally link them to angels, though the third verse is sometimes also linked to humans reciting the Quran).<ref>''[https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Jalal/37.1 Tafsir Jalalayn on verse 31:1].'' Al Jalalayn / Jalal ad-Din al-Maḥalli and Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti. Published in 1505.</ref><ref>''[https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Kathir/37.1 Tafsir Ibn Kathir on Verse 37:1-5]''. Ibn Kathir d 1373.</ref>{{Quote|{{Quran|37|1-4}}|“By those ranged in ranks.  

Certainly, We have created man (to be) in hardship.}}Archer (2024) summarises many of the issues, looking at {{Quran|96|8-10}} and others.<ref>''The Prophet’s Whistle: Late Antique Orality, Literacy, and the Quran. pp. 64–67.'' 2024. Archer, George</ref>

 

 

Imagine we were to read this passage cold, without any previous knowledge of the Quran, Muhammad, or Islam. What are the pronouns telling us? We have “your Lord” (rabbika, using the singular possessive your). Who is the you implied here? The whole audience being spoken of but in the singular? The narrator speaking about himself in the second person? Someone in the audience who already affirms this single God as their own? Is this the same “you” implied by “Have you seen” (araʾayta) in the following verse? Does this mean a particular singular person has literally seen a servant who isn’t allowed to worship freely? Does it mean that the narrator of the Quran has seen this happen? Does it mean generally that one sees this sort of thing happen? Likewise, is “the one who” (alladhī) a particular person, and the audience knows exactly who this is? Is this one in the audience? Did the narrator’s eyes dart toward them when he said this, or toward their house? Or is this a general discussion of a type of person? And then who is the “slave” (ʿabd): a slave of God, so any of God’s servants? Slaves or other lower-class people generally? A certain slave whom everyone in town knows? The narrator himself (now in the third person)? <br> These questions can go on, and most of them can be at least partially resolved using contextual clues and later Quranic commentaries. Indeed, one of the major functions of so much classical Islamic writing—prophetic epic-biographies, anecdotes, and commentary literatures—is to give the Quran context. But we aren’t asking here who is implied by these sorts of pronouns, conjugations, and possessives; we are asking why there are so many ungrounded implications in the first place. The weight and excess of such indeterminate personal or place markers, without names or even much detail, tells us that the Quran in its early manifestations is quite oral. The divine speech is embodied and conversational. A passage like Q 96 makes no sense without contextualization. The Prophet thought this passage was going to be spoken on a particular date and in front of particular people. The context of the passage is thus assumed. Oral performances must do this; pure literature doesn’t (and often can’t). You are reading or hearing this right now. I have no meaningful idea about who you are, and you don’t know where I am writing this passage. But when the Quranic narrator says, “No, I swear by this land and you are a lawful resident in this land,” the listener knows they personally are “you,” can see the “I,” and are standing on the “land.”⁸ This kind of speech is entirely situational; it only makes sense in a very precise context.}}