METHODOLOGY FOR STUDY OF THE QUR'AN
by Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein
The Qur’ān – the fountain of all Knowledge
The dominant characteristic of Maulānā’s religious thought was his insistence on recognition of the Qur’ān as the fountain of all knowledge. Indeed he held the view that Muslims rose to greatness through the Qur’ān, and hence it would only be through the Qur’ān that they could ever extricate themselves from the present sorry mess, and rise again to greatness.
He spent his entire life studying the Qur’ān and teaching the Qur’ān in such wise that he could demonstrate that it was the fountain of all knowledge. When Maulānā wrote The Qur’anic Foundations and Structure of Muslim Society (QFSMS) he singled out one verse of the Qur’ān to be placed at the very beginning of each of the two volumes, and it was a verse which declared of the Qur’ān that it explained and clarified all things:
“… in as much as We have bestowed from on high upon you, step by step, this divine scripture, to explain and to clarify all things, and to provide guidance and grace and glad tidings unto all who accept (the ‘ truth’ in this Qur’ān).”
(Qur’ān, al-Nahl, 16:89)
It was precisely because of his recognition of this unique status of the Qur’ān that he responded to secularism’s epistemological challenge to revealed knowledge by deriving from the Qur’ān the complete code of life – political, economic, social, religious and spiritual, etc. – for the establishment of a happy, stable and successful society. QFSMS was his multi-dimensional response from the Qur’ān to the challenge of modern secular godless western thought, and to the godless western model of society which had emerged from that thought.
I recall, as vividly as yesterday’s rain, the very first lesson he taught me as a student at Aleemiyah. He taught that we must first use our rational faculty to respond to the claim of the Qur’ān that is the Word of the One God. Either the Qur’ān is divinely-revealed ‘truth’, or it is not! Once we accept the Qur’ān as the revealed Word of the One God, we must submit to divinely-revealed ‘truth’ totally, and without reservations of any kind. Once it is recognized to be divinely-revealed truth, the human mind cannot sit in judgment over such ‘truth’. Whether we understand what is in the Qur’ān or we do not, whether we are comfortable with what is in the Qur’ān or we are not, faith requires that we first submit to all that is in the Qur’ān – understanding can come later. We cannot accept ‘part’ of the Qur’ān as ‘truth’, and reject, or reserve our acceptance, of another ‘part’.
I learnt from Malcolm X something which could be added to this first lesson, namely, once we recognize ‘truth’ and accept it, – once we are convinced that it is ‘truth’, we must proclaim it as ‘truth’ without regard for consequences. That is the essential Sunnah (or way of conduct) of Nabī Muhammad (s). Had he not proclaimed the ‘truth’, he would not have had to make Hijrah (i.e., to migrate) from his native Makkah to the city of Madīna that was located hundreds of miles away from Makkah.
to be continued .....
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