Channel 4’s – The Qur’an

Apropos Channel 4’s programme “The Qur’an” shown on Monday the 14th of July, the debate that is being stirred up by some orientalists around the text of the Qur’an takes place, predictably enough, in the context of a pseudo-science, orientalism, whose definitions of terms and axioms are horrendously anti-intellectual and, frankly, indefensible.
Nevertheless, at least by their own lights, one would have hoped for greater integrity when it comes to matters as significant as the Qur’an, and indeed we have known the informative and well-researched work of others such as respected father and son George and John Makdisi in other areas of orientalist study, but the puerile work of anonymous ignoramuses such as the daft Christoph Luxenberg, who had to fabricate totally baseless interpretations of the Qur’an from something called Syro-Aramaic because he did not have even an elementary knowledge of Arabic, such as is common among Egyptian secondary school students, and of the corpus of Qur’anic exegesis, would cause us to despair if it were not so risible. Although he makes some angry, yet we think Allah created him to give us a good laugh, so stupid is his work. Yet, how eagerly un-educated and gullible journalists, such as Martin Bright of the New Statesman, have seized upon the half-baked theories of careerist academics scratching in the earth for a few bones of controversy.
The idea that the Muslims have a naive understanding of the text and are in need of European ‘higher’ critical studies is preposterous since even averagely educated Muslims know the numerous traditions about the variant readings of the Qur’an and the manner in which the agreed Uthmani copy of the Qur’an was decided upon. Nothing the orientalists can dig up or fabricate can compare to this challenging and critical body of traditions.
But rooting around in the library for old texts is probably all that is possible for the heirs of the Judaeo-Christian-humanist tradition since that is the reality of their own situation: they have old texts of dubious provenance riddled with errors. The humanists’ discoveries of those errors put an end to Judaism and Christianity as serious religions in the 19th century and they, together with resentful Jews and Christians, are determined to do away with Islam in the same manner. But Islam is not a mere re-staging of Judaism and Christianity and they will need better tools if they want to engage in warfare with the Lord of the Worlds, although no tools will be much use here.
Another factor pertaining to the study of the text of the Qur’an that even Muslims sometimes forget to raise is that Qur’an means ‘recitation’. For the overwhelming majority of the billions of Muslims across the planet and throughout history their experience of the Qur’an is as it is recited by an imam in the prayer, five times a day, prayers often attended by enormous numbers of people even on everyday occasions at the early dawn or the last prayer of the night before sleep.
Add to that the attested tradition which dates from the very first community of standing in extra prayers in the nights of Ramadan behind an imam who usually recites the entire Qur’an in that month, a tradition that is unbroken in all the lands of Islam in all eras from the very first community.
Not to forget the hundreds of thousands of students who graduate in memorisation of the Qur’an every year all across the Muslim world from Morocco to Indonesia, and now with significant numbers emerging in countries such as the UK, among whom are an elite who memorise all the variant readings, heirs, all of them, of a tradition that dates back to the very first community.
Given all of that and given the anarchic and irrepressible nature of Muslims and the speed with which they will point out mistakes, un-awed by authority and political power, something which is evident from the earliest days of Islam, then the possibility of any mistake entering into the recitation is absolutely non-existent.
But there is a further element: the Qur’an is the un-created Speech of Allah, and this is something that all of the Muslims experience and have experienced throughout history. Not only was it revealed fourteen centuries ago, but it is still revelation today for anyone who cares to hear with a still heart. Every Muslim has some experience of that, and it is this experience that makes the connection between the Muslims and the Qur’an unshakeable.
In all of this we acknowledge the different variant readings, such as those of Hafs who learnt from ‘Asim of Kufa and Warsh who learnt from Nafi’ of Madinah, and even the known recitations that are inadmissible in recitation in the prayer, with quite surprising variant readings, which have nevertheless been treasured by Qur’anic commentators for the possible light they may shed on the meanings of verses and surahs.
This kind of orientalism simply reflects humanist-Judaeo-Christian society’s deep fear of and anxiety about Islam, and their envy of its clarity, simplicity and profundity. The commitment of the Muslims across the globe is rising and non-Muslims from occidental society continue to pour into Islam in huge numbers, in spite of the deluge of nonsense from the likes of Channel 4, among them a disproportionate number of distinguished intellects who easily see through this flimsy material.
So the orientalists may pore over old copyists’ mistakes and build mountains out of molehills but they will really have to do a lot better to have any affect on the Qur’an at all, because it is impossible. Far from being the ones to issue a challenge, they fail to respond to the real challenge issued by Allah, exalted is He, in His Book, for them to produce one Surah like that of the Qur’an, or even ten verses, or even a single verse. We take pity on them in this, because no one has ever been able to take up that challenge, not even to the extent of a single verse.