Salam ade_cool,
Because it is concealed? So that only purified ones can understand?
[56:77] It is an honorable Quran.
[56:78] In a concealed Book.
[56:79] None can grasp it, except those purified.
Because it is so heavy?
[73:4] Or a little more, and arrange the Quran in its arrangement.
[73:5] We will place upon you a saying which is heavy.
That so much amount of ink will be needed to elaborate His Kalimah?
[31:27] And if all the trees on the earth were made into pens, and the ocean were supplied by seven more oceans, the words of God would not run out. God is Noble, Wise.
Maybe.
But:
2:185 The month of Ramadhan, in which the Qur'an was sent down as a guide to the people and a clarification of the guidance and the criterion. Those of you who witness the month shall fast therein; and whoever is ill or traveling, then the same count from different days. God wants to bring you ease and not to bring you hardship; and so that you may complete the count, and magnify God for what He has guided you to, and that you may be thankful.
6:105 It is thus that We dispatch the signs and that they may say: "You have studied," and We will make it clear for a people who know.
Etc.
According to
https://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=byn#(2:185:9), you have 35 times the occurrence of bayyanu (بَيَّنُ) / to make clear, or 71 times the occurrence of bayyinat (بَيِّنَة) / clear signs, or 119 times the occurrence of the word mubīn (مُّبِين) / clear.
So the lexical field of clarity is overwhelming in Qur'an compared to the other few verses you have exhibited.
So either the few verses you have exhibited have a different meaning than the one you have in mind. Or they were written by someone else.
And regarding verse 31.27, please also note that you don't need a full ocean of ink to write the entire Qur'an but only a small bottle one.
Yup, this is a privilege that we have in this era with the advance of science and technology ...but people in the past also had their own privilege that we don't have ...
Everyone has different background and is guided differently.
Somebody with expertise in geology might be able to better understand verses that touch the subject.
Somebody with expertise in archaeology might be able to better understand verses that touch the subject.
Somebody with expertise in quantum physics might be able to better understand verses that touch the subject.
Somebody with expertise in astronomy might be able to better understand verses that touch the subject.
Somebody with jews background might be able to better relate verses regarding Moses.
Somebody with christian background might be able to better relate verses regarding Jesus.
This is called concordism, i.e. trying to match ancient Scriptures with recent scientific discoveries.
Concordism happens when religion is losing ground to science and reason.
Jews and Christians did it a lot in 19th and 20th centuries. Some continue to do it in a lesser extent but most of them have acknowledged that it leads to nowhere and is just bad hermeneutics.
Muslims have started to do it with Qur'an in the 70s and beyond, probably to imitate evangelical Christians.
And by "Muslims", I include Qur'an-alone people and alike, since for that matter, they share the same mindset.
Buddhists and Hindus do concordism also.
It should be noted that when the Muslim civilization was at its apogee, never did ancient Muslims feel the need to read Qur'an in a concordist way as modern Muslims do. On the contrary, they felt that science or philosophy were going nowhere and that divine truth and knowledge were only in Qur'an.
I am not sure if I understand regarding "this leads to pure non-sense".
I said:
It leads to pure non-sense, similar to what we hear in traditional Islam, that the true "tawrat" of Moses or the true 'injeel" of Jesus have been irremediably corrupted by Jews and Christian and thus, not available anymore. While, on the contrary, there is no proof that the Bible we know today has been corrupted since the 7th CE.
Well, I mean topics like these:
https://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9610829.0https://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9609253.0https://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9609757.0https://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9609226.0All these imply some sort of answers like the Torah or Gospels we have are corrupted from their original versions.
In Genesis chapter 37, Joseph narrates his dreams to his brothers, while in Qur'an verse 12.5, his father asks him to not tell the dream to his brother.
Still, in Genesis chapter 37, Jacob does not understand the dream of Joseph. But in Qur'an, he does.
Then, why is their a divergence between Pentateuch and Qur'an there ?
Aren't both supposed to come from God ?
If the story of Joseph in Qur'an comes from God but the one narrated in Pentateuch does not come from God, then where does the story of Joseph in Pentateuch actually come from ?
I mean, why was the original "true" story of Joseph, supposed to be identical to the one narrated in Qur'an, not preserved since centuries or millennia before Qur'an by Jews or Christians ?
Or why is that the canonical Gospels say that Jesus was crucified and Qur'an says Issa ben Mariam was not ?
To these, if you have a different answer than usual Muslim argument "Jews and Christians or scribes have corrupted their Scriptures given originally by God, and Qur'an has come to correct the false Bible", then I would be interested to know it.
I am sorry I don't get what you are trying to say here ...can you elaborate please?
I said
While Qur'an invokes a lot of times Biblical figures, Abraham, Moses, and here Joseph, etc, it is hardly that the assertions of Qur'an about them are compared to the Jewish and Christian traditions, as if Qur'an mentioned biblical figures by coincidence and without any reference to the Jewish tradition.
It sounds as if the stance attributed to Umar ibn Khattab “As for the books you mention, if there is in it what complies with the Book of God, then it is already there and is not needed and if what is in these books contradict the Book of God there is no need for it. And you can then proceed in destroying them.” were still to be applied.
This is simply severing the text from its native roots.
Probably, people believing in Qur'an alone interpretation consciously cut Qur'an from its roots because, since they believe the text is directly authored by God Himself, it must eternally valid in any situation, whether in the past, in present, or in future, and therefore it must not be tied to any historical context.
Surely when a text has no root, you can plant it anywhere, then unfold it and plant it elsewhere again, right ?
The root cause of the problems in understanding Qur'an that I exposed above arises from the this specific belief: that Qur'an should be a text to speak of God, to reveal who is God, to call (especially polytheists) to pure monotheism and to correct mistakes made by previous monotheist people Jews and/or Christians.
This kind of (erroneous) belief has the clear advantage that you don't need any historical context for Qur'an: whatever is God, it is supposed to be the same in the past, in the present, in the future.
If He called to pure monotheism in the 7th CE, then He will do the same in the 21st CE, and since He did that with this "most perfect" Scripture we call "Qur'an", there is no reason for another Scripture in the 21st CE that would add nothing more than Qur'an, right ?
And by the way we don't really need science anyway, right ?
Because either science confirms Qur'an and then it's fine but fairly useless by itself unless it is apologetic.
Or it refutes Qur'an but then science is deluded, not Qur'an.
This is why Muslim belief, including Qur'an-alone belief and alike (God-alone and so on), has to make Qur'an void from historical context.
Or, alternatively, a context that reflects this belief. The asbab an-nuzul were clearly made, forged I would say, to reflect this belief that Qur'an was purposely made for calling to pure monotheism.
But the truth is that Qur'an was never written to call to pure monotheism, this is an erroneous reading.
Qur'an only calls to pure monotheism in
a polemical way with its 7th CE adversaries.
It was customary for authors on those times to call their opponents idolaters, and Qur'an is not an exception in this view.
But it is a mistake and a misreading to read that what is at stake in Qur'an is monotheism.
What is at stake are the terms and conditions of salvation.It is only because according to Jewish and Christian beliefs and Scriptures idolaters (whatever they meant by that) are doomed to damnation that ancient authors, including Qur'an, called their opponent "idolaters" or alike, even though those shared the same Scriptures.
Qur'an says the same as me by the way, read verse 2.113:
2:113 And the Jews say: "The Nazarenes have no basis," and the Nazarenes say: "The Jews have no basis," while they are both reciting the Book! Similarly, those who do not know have said the same thing. God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection in what they dispute.So in order to understand Qur'an, you need to understand first what is "salvation" in the preceding Scriptures, how Jews or Christian understood it, how they reflected upon it, and so on.
Salvation in the Scriptures and in the Jewish/Christian/Gnostic belief is much more than believing in God-alone according to Muslim understanding of Qur'an, and includes concepts like the Messiah, the signs of the coming of the Messiah, the end of times, the world to come, the height of the ordeal or trial, the destruction and restoration of the Jerusalem Temple, the entry of the pagan nations into the Alliance with God, etc.
You don't plainly understand Qur'an until you properly understand salvation in the previous Scriptures and Qur'an.
