The Message of The Quran
Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad
SYMBOLISM AND ALLEGORY IN THE QUR'AN
When studying the Quran, one
frequently encounters what may be described as
"key- phrases" - that is to say, statements which
provide a clear, concise indication of the idea underlying a particular passage
or passages: for instance, the many references to the creation of man "out
of dust" and "out of a drop of sperm", pointing to the lowly
biological origin of the human species; or the statement in the ninety-ninth surah (Az-Zalzalah) that on
Resurrection Day "he who shall have done an atom's weight of good, shall
behold it; and he who shall have done an atom's weight of evil, shall behold it"
- indicating the inelucctible afterlife consequences
of, and the responsibility for, all that man consciously does in this world; or
the divine declaration (in 38:27), "We have not created heaven and earth
and all that is between them without meaning and purpose (baatilan),
as is the surmise of those who are bent on denying the truth."
Instances of such Quranic key-phrases
can be quoted almost ad infinitum, and in many varying formulations. But there
is one fundamental statement in the Quran which
occurs only once, and which may be qualified as "the key-phrase of all its
key-phrases": the statement in verse 3:7 to the effect that the Quran "contains messages that are clear in and by
themselves (ayat-e-muhkamaat) as well as others that
are allegorical (mutashabihaat)". It is this
verse which represents, in an absolute sense, a key to the understanding of the
Qur'anic message and makes the whole of it accessible
to "people who think" (li-qawmin yatafakkarUn).
In my notes on the above-mentioned verse I have tried to elucidate the meaning
of the expression ayaat muhkimaat
as well as the general purport of what is termed mutashabih
("allegorical" or "symbolic"). Without a proper grasp of
what is implied by this latter term, much of the Qur~an
is liable to be - and, in fact, has often been - grossly misunderstood both by
believers and by such as refuse to believe in its divinely-inspired origin. However,
an appreciation of what is meant by "allegory" or "symbolism"
in the context of the Quran is, by itself, not enough
to make one fully understand its world-view: in order to achieve this we must
relate the Quranic use of these terms to a concept
touched upon almost at the very beginning of the divine writ - namely, the
existence of "a realm which is beyond the reach of human perception"
(aI-ghayb). It is this concept that constitutes the
basic premise for an understanding of the call of the Quran,
and, indeed, of the principle of religion - every religion - as such: for all
truly religious cognition arises from and is based on the fact that only a
small segment of reality is open to man's perception and imagination, and that
by far the larger part of it escapes his comprehension altogether.
However, side by side with this clear-cut metaphysical
concept we have a not less clear-cut finding of a psychological nature: namely,
the finding that the human mind (in which term we comprise conscious thinking,
imagination, dream-life, intuition, memory, etc.) can operate only on the basis
of perceptions previously experienced by that very mind either in their
entirety or in some of their constituent elements: that is to say, it cannot
visualize, or form an idea of, something that lies entirely outside the realm
of previously realized experiences. Hence, whenever we arrive at a seemingly "new"
mental image or idea, we find, on closer examination, that even if it is new as
a composite entity, it is not really new as regards its component elements, for
these are invariably derived from previous - and sometimes quite disparate - mental
experiences which are now but brought together in a new combination or series
of new combinations.
Now as soon as we realize that the human mind cannot operate
otherwise than on the basis of previous experiences - that is to say, on the
basis of apperceptions and cognitions already recorded in that mind - we are
faced by a weighty question: Since the metaphysical ideas of religion relate,
by virtue of their nature, to a realm beyond the reach of human perception or experience
- how can they be successfully conveyed too us? How can we he expected to grasp
ideas which have no counterpart, not even a fractional one, in any of the
apperceptions which we have arrived at empirically?
The answer is self-evident: By means of loan-images derived
from our actual - physical or mental - experiences; or, as Zamakhshari
phrases it in his commentary on 13:35, "through a parabolic illustration,
by means of something which we know from our experience, of something that is
beyond the reach of our perception" (tamtheelan li-ma ghaaba anna
bi-ma nushaahid). And this is the innermost purport
of the term and concept of al-mutashaabihaat as used
in the Quran.
Thus, the Qur~an tells us clearly
that many of its passages and expressions must be understood in an allegorical
sense for the simple reason that, being intended for human understanding, they
could not have been conveyed to us in any other way.. It follows, therefore,
that if we were to take every Quranic passage,
statement or expression in its outward, literal sense and disregard the
possibility of its being an allegory, a metaphor or a parable, we would be
offending against the very spirit of the divine writ.
Consider, for instance, some of the Quranic
references to God's Being - Being indefinable, infinite in time and space, and
utterly beyond any creature's comprehension. Far from being able to imagine
Him, we can only realize what He is not: namely, not limited in either time or
space, not definable in terms of comparison, and not to be comprised within any
category of human thought. Hence, only very generalized metaphors can convey to
us, though most inadequately, the idea of His existence and activity.
And so, when the Quran speaks of
Him as being "in the heavens" or "established on His throne (al-arsh)", we cannot possibly take these phrases in their
literal senses, since then they would imply, however vaguely, that God is
limited in space: and since such a limitation would contradict the concept of
an Infinite Being, we know immediately, without the least doubt that the "heavens"
and the "throne" and God's being "established" on it are
but linguistic vehicles meant to convey an idea which is outside all human
experience, namely, the idea of God's almightiness and absolute sway over all
that exists. Similarly, whenever He is described as "all-seeing", "all-hearing"
or "all-aware", we know that these descriptions have nothing to do
with the phenomena of physical seeing or hearing hut simply circumscribe, in
terms understandable to man, the fact of God's eternal Presence in all that is
or happens. And since "no human vision can encompass Him" (Quran 6:103), man is not expected to realize His existence
otherwise than through observing the effects of His unceasing activity within
and upon the universe created by Him.
But whereas our belief in God's existence does not - and,
indeed, could not - depend on our grasping the unfathomable "how" of
His Being, the same is not the case with problems connected with man's own
existence, and, in particular, with the idea of a life in the hereafter: for,
man's psyche is so constituted that it cannot accept any proposition relating
to himself without being given a clear exposition of its purport.
The Quran tells us that man's life
in this world is but the first stage - a very short stage - of a life that
continues beyond the hiatus called "death" ;
and the same Quran stresses again and again the
principle of man's moral responsibility for all his conscious actions and his behaviour, and of the continuation of this responsibility,
in the shape of inescapable consequences, good or bad, in a person's life in
the hereafter. But how could man be made to understand the nature of these
consequences and, thus, of the quality of the life that awaits him'? - for,
obviously, inasmuch as man's resurrection will be the result of what the Quran describes as "a new act of creation", the
life that will follow upon it must be entirely different from anything that man
can and does experience in this world.
This being so, it is not enough for man to be told, "If
you behave righteously in this world, you will attain to happiness in the life
to come" , or, alternatively, "If you do
wrong in this world, you will suffer for it in the hereafter". Such
statements would be far too general and abstract to appeal to man's imagination
and, thus, to influence his behaviour. What is needed
is a more direct appeal to the intellect, resulting in a kind of "visualization"
of the consequences of one's conscious acts and omissions: and such an appeal
can be effectively produced by means of metaphors, allegories and parables,
each of them stressing, on the one hand, the absolute dissimilarity of all that
man will experience after resurrection from whatever he did or could experience
in this world; and, on the other hand, establishing means of comparison between
these two categories of experience.
Thus, explaining the reference to the bliss of paradise in 32:17,
the Prophet indicated the essential difference between man's life in this world
and in the hereafter in these words: "God says, 'I have readied for My
righteous servants what no eye has ever seen, and no ear has ever heard, and no
heart of man has ever conceived"' (Bukhãri,
Muslim, Tirmidhi). On the other hand, in
[past]": and so we have the image of gardens through
which running waters flow, blissful shade, spouses of indescribable beauty, and
many other delights infinitely varied and unending, and yet somehow comparable
to what may be conceived of as most delightful in this world.
However, this possibility of an intellectual comparison
between the two stages of human existence is to a large extent limited by the
fact that all our thinking and imagining is indissolubly connected with the
concepts of finite time and finite space: in other words, we cannot imagine
infinity in either time or space - and therefore cannot imagine a state of
existence independent of time and space - or, as the Qur'~n
phrases it with reference to a state of happiness in afterlife, "a
paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth" (3:133): which expression
is the Qur'anic synonym for the entire created
universe. On the other hand, we know that every Qur'anic
statement is directed to man's reason and must, therefore, be comprehensible
either in its literal sense (as in the case of the dyãt
muhkamdt) or allegorically (as in the ayat-e-mutashaabihaat); and since, owing to the
constitution of the human mind, neither infinity nor eternity are
comprehensible to us, it follows that the reference to the infinite "vastness"
of paradise cannot relate to anything but the intensity of sensation which it
will offer to the blest.
By obvious analogy, the principle of a "comparison
through allegory" applied in the Qur~ãn
to all references to paradise - i.e., a state of unimaginable happiness in
afterlife - must be extended to all descriptions of otherworldly suffering - i.e.,
hell - in respect of its utter dissimilarity from all earthly experiences as
well as its unmeasurable intensity. In both cases the
descriptive method of the Qur'ãn
is the same. We are told, as it
were: "Imagine the most joyous sensations, bodily as
well as emotional, accessible to man: indescribable beauty, love physical and
spiritual, consciousness of fulfilment, perfect
peace and harmony; and imagine these sensations intensified beyond anything
imaginable in this world - and at the same time entirely different from
anything imaginable: and you have an inkling, however vague, of what is meant
by 'paradise'." And, on the other
hand: "Imagine the greatest suffering, bodily as well
as spiritual, which man may experience: burning by fire, utter loneliness and
bitter desolation, the torment of unceasing frustration, a condition of neither
living nor dying; and imagine this pain, this darkness and this despair
intensified beyond anything imaginable in this world - and at the same time
entirely different from anything imaginable: and you will know, however
vaguely, what is meant by 'hell'."
Side by side with these allegories relating to man's life
after death we find in the Qur'ãn
many symbolical expressions referring to the evidence of God's activity. Owing
to the limitations of human language - which, in their turn, arise from the
inborn limitations of the human mind - this activity can only be circumscribed
and never really described. Just as it is impossible for us to imagine or
define God's Being, so the true nature of His creativeness - and, therefore, of
His plan of creation - must remain beyond our grasp. But since the Quran aims at conveying to us an ethical teaching based,
precisely, on the concept of God's purposeful creativeness, the latter must be,
as it were, "translated" into categories of thought accessible to man.
Hence the use of expressions which at first sight have an almost
anthropomorphic hue, for instance, God's "wrath" (ghadab)
or "condemnation"; His "pleasure" at good deeds or "love"
for His creatures; or His being "oblivious" of a sinner who was oblivious
of Him; or "asking" a wrongdoer on Resurrection Day about his
wrongdoing; and so forth. All such verbal "translations" of God's
activity into human terminology are unavoidable as long as we are expected to
conform to ethical principles revealed to us by means of a human language; but
there can be no greater mistake than to think that these "translations"
could ever enable us to define the Undefinable.
And, as the Quran makes it clear
in the seventh verse 3:7, only "those whose hearts are given to swerving
from the truth go after that part of the divine writ which has been expressed
in allegory, seeking out [what is bound to create] confusion, and seeking [to
arrive at] its final meaning [in an arbitrary manner]: but none save God knows
its final meaning."