the Qur'an shooter

The US military has officially apologized for the actions of a sergeant who used the Qur'an for target practice.

The incident was earlier strongly condemned by al-Hashemi and the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents many of Iraq's mosques.

"This heinous crime shows the hatred that the leaders and the members of the occupying force have against the Quran and the [Muslim] people," it said.

It added that it held both the US military and Iraqi government responsible for the incident.

The US army earlier said the staff sergeant, who fired bullets at the Quran and wrote graffiti inside it, had already been removed from Iraq and was to be disciplined.

A heinous crime? good grief. Personally I think that it's literally impossible to demean the Qur'an - the most anyone can do is destroy a copy, but that's an impotent gesture indeed. What need have we of apologies such as these? Why should the empty symbolism of an unbeliever concern us?

If anything is an insult to the Qur'an, it's this compulsive obsession with how the exterior of the physical book is treated rather than what's inside.

UPDATE: President Bush will also make a personal apology.

The nature and style of the Qur'an

For those of you who don't know, the Guardian has started a new blog on the Qur'an. Blogging the Qur'an is being written by Ziauddin Sardar with help from Madeleine Bunting. The approach by the Guardian is based on Slate's Blogging the Bible.

The latest post by Sardar is on the style and nature of the Qur'an, which inevitably raises the point made by Bunting in her response: why is the Qur'an so difficult to read?

I can't offer any particularly unique insights into the structure of the text, but for the purposes of debate and discussion (and for those interested) I would like to link and cite something from Mustansir Mir's "Is the Qur'an a Shapeless Book?", which was first published in the Pakistani English-language Islamic journal, Renaissance:

The completion of the arrangement of the Qur'an was conterminous in time with the completion of its revelation. In respect of order and sequence, therefore, the Qur'an as it was compiled was different from the Qur'an as it was revealed. In other words, the Qur'an had two arrangements, one revelatory and the other compilatory. The question is, why was the revelatory arrangement abandoned in favour of a compilatory arrangement. Was the latter adopted without any special reason? If so, why was chronology not considered a sound enough basis for arranging the Qur'an? And is one today at liberty to discover, if possible, the chronological arrangement of the Qur'an and recite the Qur'an according to that arrangement? Or, if chronology was not an acceptable guide, why was not some rule, that for example of dividing the Qur'an into surahs of about equal length, employed. Nor does the principle of the progressive diminution of the size of surahs go very far because the diminution is not so progressive: We frequently find that long surahs are followed by shorter surahs which are again followed by long surahs and so on. The question continues to stare one in the face: Why a different arrangement?

Mir then goes onto briefly describe the ideas of Hamiduddin Farahi and his student Amin Ahsan Islahi, two scholars from the Indian subcontinent, who detailed an approach in which the arrangement of the Qur'an formed an important part of interpreting the text. The Qur'an for them was an organic whole, and different sets of chapters were interconnected with some overall theme. Those interested in pursuing the Farahi-Islahi approach to the Qur'an should read Mir's Coherence in the Quran or Neal Robinson's Discovering the Qur'an (the only two English-language sources I know of that have discussed Farahi-Islahi interpretive method in detail; Mir's work is largely supportive, while Robinson takes a critical view).

Islahi is interesting because he was a friend of Sayyid Abu A'la Maududi, considered one of the 'fathers' of Islamism -- Islahi parted ways with Maududi on the structure and nature of an Islamic state. Islahi was also the teacher of the somewhat controversial Pakistani scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, who is often associated with more 'liberal' pronouncements on Islamic law.

four principles

I affirm the right of all people to live in freedom and dignity, and the freedom of the individual conscience: to change religions or have no religion at all. In doing so, I invoke the Qur'an:

"To you, your religion and to me, mine" (109:6)

"if they turn away from you, your only duty is a clear delivery of the Message." (16:82)

"There is no compulsion in religion" (2:256)

as well as numerous other verses that emphasize that the Prophet is not a "keeper", his only duty was to preach and deliver the Message, but whether the Message is accepted is solely between the individual and Allah (see: 6:107, 4:79-80, 11:28, 17:53-54, 24:54, 88:21-22, 39:41, 64:12, 67:25-26 for starters).

I also affirm the equality of dignity of women and men, again invoking the Quran:

"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female." (49:13)

"O Mankind! Reverence your Guardian-Lord, Who created you from a single person, created of like nature his mate, from them scattered countless men and women. Fear Allah, through whom you demand your mutual rights and reverence the wombs (that bore you), for Allah ever watches over you." (4:1)

"Never will I waste the work of a worker among you, whether male or female, the one of you being from the other." (3:195)

and finally, I affirm the right of all people to live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion, with the Qur'an:

"Fight in the path of God those who fight you, but do not aggress. Surely God does not love the aggressors. And fight them where you come upon them, and send them out from where they have sent you out, for persecution is a worse thing than fighting. And do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque (in Mecca) unless they fight you there, but if they fight you, then fight them back. That is the reward of the rejectors. Then if they cease, so God is All-Forgiving, Gentle. And fight them until there is no more persecution and the religion is for God. But if they cease, so let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers." (2:190-193)

"Whosoever kills an innocent human being, it shall be as if he has killed all mankind, and whosoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (5:32)

I imagine that my affirmations above won't meet with these folks' endorsement, however, since I am amd will always be utterly and implacably opposed to the suggestion that Islam needs to be "reformed" or the Qur'an needs to be edited. To those who believe that the solution to islamic extremism is less Islam, rather than less extremism, I only say, good luck with that. To your way, yours, to me, mine.

beyond fasting

It's well into Ramadan now and by now most of us have acclimated to the fast. The body adapts, so that the afternoon isn't a complete write-off in which we amble about like the walking dead, but instead are actually able to get some work done (distractions like blogging aside). The low-grade rumble of hunger remains omnipresent, no matter how much you stuff yourself at sehri; now to save on precious sleep we are actually eating a bit less in the predawn. The hunger comes; we accept it now and bear it without too much additional thought.

Now is the time to look beyond the fast. While the fast gets all the attention from the outside, inwardly it is the Qur'an that is the central axis of Ramadan. The most basic aspect of Ramadan piety is to read the Qur'an daily, for the religious benefit of doing so is amplified during this month. Many people set goals for how much of the Qur'an they intend to complete in this time; those with lesser skill (such as myself) might aim to finish a few chapters (juz). Completing an entire juz requires reading at least 5 pages a day or so, which in my case takes me about 15 minutes (I am quite slow). Others with more skill can even finish the entire Qur'an (one khatam), which means they read an entire juz every single day. This is a feat to be respected. It must be noted that the Qur'an is written in an archaic Arabic script, and reads like poetry, with its own internal structure. The art of recitation is called tarteel, and has very specific rules. The greatest qaris (reciters) of the Qur'an, such as Shaikh Mahmood Al Husary and Husain Saifuddin, are masters of tarteel and their recitation of the Qur'an fills my home in Ramadan (in convenient mp3 audio).

But beyond recitation of the Qur'an comes the even more obligatory function, that of memorization. Those who have memorized the entire Qur'an (hafiz al-Qur'an) often take years of dedicated study to do so. However, the 30th juz (in which most of the smaller surats reside) is one that can be readily memorized, with practice. These are the same surats often used in daily prayer so most muslims have a fraction of this juz committed to memory to begin with. The typical memorization routine begins backwards, from Surah al-Nass and then proceeds backwards towards Surah al Balad and beyond to the very end (beginning) of the juz. There are numerous publications, CDs, and online resources to assist the muslim who desires to hifz in this manner.

All of this represents a pace of commitment that is difficult to maintain during the entire year. But Ramadan is a time of renewal, and thus an opportunity, to return to basics.

inerrancy

Shadi Hamid at eteraz.org writes that there is a difference in belief between muslims and christians about the inerrancy of the religious texts:

Muslims believe that the every word of the Quran is the literal, unaltered word of God. It is this fact which distinguishes Islam from the two other monotheistic religions. Post-enlightenment, the vast majority of Christians and Jews no longer believe in the inerrancy of their own scripture and this is seen as part of a natural, necessary progression.

I replied, chastising this view in a comment:

Is the premise that Christianity and Judaism (European observances in particular) are not inerrant faiths accurate?

It is dangerous for anyone not of a faith to presume knowledge about it. I think we rightly get annoyed about this behavior when directed at Islam. We shouldn't be so hasty to do the same to other faiths. The issue of the Bible or Torah's inerrancy is, of course, rather more complicated than you paint it to be here in this piece.

The truth is that there is a rationalization process for inerrancy itself. How do muslims explain inerrancy in light of the caliph Omar's compilation of the "official" text? How do Christians justify the translation by King James? How does the Torah survive translation into written tradition from the oral? There are reasonable and rigorous answers to these questions posed from within each of these faiths. It is incumbent on you to make the effort to address the complexity of the issue from within the faith's internal perspective before attempting to draw sweeping generalizations about fundamental clashes of perspective.