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The Color of GodWhitney Bodman Once and a while, reading through the Qur’ān, a particular phrase captures my attention. Recently it was a verse from Surat al-Baqarah, v. 138: “The color of God; and who is better than God with respect to coloring, and we are his servants.” Traditional commentaries read this as God’s embellishment of or influence on humanity, as a dye changes cloth. Commonly they refer to a Christian practice of dying babies yellow as proof of baptism. This last interpretation has led some to read the word sibghah itself as meaning “baptism.”0 I have found no evidence of this practice, but of nineteen translations that I checked, this is the rendering in five, including the very popular Yusuf `Ali. Other explanations treat sibghah as an active participle, God’s act of coloring humanity, not as the actual color of God.0 This is not the best reflection of the grammar, but is the rendering of six other translations. A more accurate translation is the above: “what is the color of God, and who is better than God with respect to color.” This, or equivalents, I found in seven translations.0 Can God have color? In one sense this violates a concept of God that asserts that God’s nature is beyond description and manifestation. But let me read the fuller account of Ali Ünal. Ünal inserts a significant amount of commentary within his translation in order to “make the meaning clear,” as he says in the Foreword: “(O Muslims, say: We take) the “color” of God (the “color” that He has put on the whole universe, not the color some party put upon themselves through some rites in the name of religion).” Who is better than God in coloring (and whose color is better than God’s)? And we are those who worship (as He is to be worshipped exclusively.” As you can see, there is a considerable amount of elaboration, and Ünal includes all three translations of color, as religious rite, as an active participle – the act of coloring, and as a noun – the color of God. `Ali Ünal’s translation of the Qur’ān is praised and recommended by Fetullah Gülen in his introduction to the work. Gülen is a leader in interfaith relations and the pursuit of tolerance among religions. All commentary about Gulen and all analysis presume the Qur’ān without which Gulen and his movement would be as nothing. To speak of Gulen and his movement is to speak of the Qur’ān. It is the Qur’ān in action. As an admirer of Gülen, I therefore read this translation with particular care and interest. I also read it as a Christian. This presents some hermeneutical problems that I want to address most specifically and at length, because it necessarily affects my reading of the Qur’ān. A premise: Any reading of the Qur’ān must take into account the Qur’ān’s own testimony about what it is and how it should be received. The Qur’ān, as a sacred book, demands to be read with utmost seriousness. This is not an expectation to be treated casually. It is as much of the substance of the Qur’ān as is its grammar or vocabulary. To read the Qur’ān is to respect its intention, which is to transform the reader, to induce the reader to become a muslim, in the sense of one who submits to God.0 Can we, Christians and others, read it correctly if we are not open to the possibility of such transformation? It is not necessarily that we must become Muslim, in the sense of an adherent of the religion of Islam, but we must enter into the space of the Qur’ānic world if we are to understand what the Qur’ān is trying to tell us.0 The Qur’ān is addressing us. Though the first intended readers were the Arabs of Arabia - the Qur’ān was sent down in Arabic (Q 16:103) to and through an Arab messenger (Q 41:44, 42:7), the Qur’ān is also addressed to wider audiences, to all of humanity (Q 39:41), even to multiple worlds (Q 81:27-28) of angels and jinn. In this light, all of us are its intended readership. Many might demure. We are Christians, Jews, Sikhs, and so forth, with our own holy books, central to our own communities of faith. It is through those books that we understand ourselves to be addressed religiously. In none of our communities is the Qur’ān the designated or even an acknowledged source of holy wisdom. It is not religious reading for us. But this is not the point. The Qur’ān is, in its own presentation, religious reading. Even if we do not recognize it as authoritative for us, it presents itself as authoritative for us. While it does not replace our own, religiously indigenous sacred literature, if we are making the effort to read the Qur’ān, we must read it (and the Bhagavad Gita, the Lotus Sutra, the Guru Granth Sahib and so forth) as sacred text. Frank Clooney has explored the implications of deep and patient reading of another tradition’s scripture in terms of Hindu texts. In his view, reading religious texts theologically is the foundation of comparative theology. Whether by intention or not, when we read the Qur’ān as it expects to be read, we are “doing” comparative theology. Clooney defines this as: a theology that remains rooted in one tradition while seriously engaging another tradition and allowing that engagement to affect one’s original commitments. As theological, it harkens back in some way or another to the basic features and requirements of theology as “faith seeking understanding,” as an inquiry which seeks knowledge of God as a meaningful and possible goal. As comparative, it locates both the possibilities and the obstacles in a context composed of more than one religious tradition.0 As we read a text from another tradition, we must be particularly conscious of our own role in the reading. Wolfgang Iser and others of the reader-response school of narratology remind us that meaning is generated not simply from the text but from the reader’s interaction with the text. The reader brings to the reading his or her own memory, experience, and expectation, a repertoire unique to each reader, that shapes every aspect of meaning-making.0 Iser examines in depth the process of meaning-making, which is interpretation. Each text allows for a range of interpretation, within which there is normally debate and contestation. The range of interpretation is not limitless. It is constrained by the text itself. Individuals and communities may themselves constrain the range of interpretation by bringing into the interpretive process other authoritative texts, which become part of their repertoire. In the case of the Qur’ān, the Sunnah normally fulfills the function of a limitation on the range of interpretation. As a muslim but non-Muslim, the Sunnah will have considerably less influence on my interpretation. However, my reading of the Qur’ān should take into account, but not be limited by, the corpus of Muslim tafsīr, which includes the Sunnah and more.0 I, a Christian, cannot read the text in the same way that any given Muslim might read the text. Schooled and practiced in reading and interpreting the Christian Bible, that experience inevitably and unavoidably shapes my reading of the Qur’ān. It will shape the tools I instinctively and habitually bring to reading, in particular Scriptural reading. There are traditions and practices of Scriptural interpretation, developed, adapted, reinvented and critiqued over centuries, to which I am heir and Muslims are not. The Qur’ān gives its own account of the proper consequence of reading by those who are not Muslim. A passage in Sūrat al-Mā’ida, refers explicitly to the Christians:
The Christians that the passage describes are, first of all, people of learning or spiritual advancement. Among them are priests and monks. They are informed readers. What we know about them is that: 1) they have love for those who believe, 2) they are in some way close to the believers, and 3) they are not arrogant. This description is not limited to a subset of Christians, but it is directed at all those who confess their faith, those who declare, “We are Christians.” They are not “among the believers” in the sectarian sense of the religion of Muhammad, but they are muslims, those who submit to God.0 The response to the reading or hearing of the Qur’ān is tears of astonishment. They already have some expectation, some yearning for truth- they are, after all, informed readers. They recognize that truth, and their response is a desire to be included among those who are witnesses. Note that the response is not that they become sectarian Muslims. They are already submitters to God. They are not converted from being Christians. This passage is associated by Muslim exegetes with a story concerning the Negus, the ruler of Abyssinia.0 When the Muslims of Mecca were under threat, a group of them sought refuge with the Negus. Hearing recitation of the Qur’ān he wept, and declared its words true to the Christian scripture. The sīra of Muhammad describes the conversion of the Negus to Islam. Many of biographies, Haykal and Lings for instance present contradictory information.0 The divergence of opinion on the matter of conversion is significant. In most of the Qur’ānic encounters with unbelievers, those who hear the testimony of Islam either convert or resist in hostile ways and thus are condemned. The Negus account falls into a different category. What does this suggest about a Christian reading of the Qur’ān, or rather what the Qur’ān expects of a Christian reading of the Qur’ān? The Qur’ān expects that Christians already have enough learning and enough belief to recognize the truth that is in the Qur’ān. The Qur’ān expects that the reading/hearing of the Qur’ān will be profoundly moving, even unto tears. A Christian reader of the Qur’ān, one who seeks to understand the Qur’ān as Muslims understand it, to comprehend the reverence that Muslims have for the Qur’ān, must be one capable and willing to be moved to tears. He or she must read with reverence. Paul Woodruff, a scholar of the Greek classics, describes the virtue of reverence as one that encompasses, orders, and modulates feelings of awe, shame and respect. He writes:
The nature of reverence not only explains reasons why we might be moved to tears through a reverent reading of the Qur’ān, that it awes and then humbles us, it also helps us to understand the relationship between reverential reading of a text from a different religious tradition and faithfulness to our own distinctive belief system. As Frank Clooney explains: When pluralism is more than a muted version of a Christian universalism or of a post-religious rationalism, it may be taken as a narrative strategy that speaks powerfully beyond what religious traditions have always said about themselves, in order to describe how the world coheres and has meaning when many religious traditions are noticed together within a new world narrative, and where all extant stories are subsumed into one greater story. …. But this option is more costly than it might seem at first. Given the deep commitments of religious communities to their own narratives, a pluralist narrative can well be taken as an aggressive act which religious communities are quite likely to resist.0 A reverent reading of the Qur’ān does not deny that there are significant differences between our religions. We do not ignore these dissents, but they do not inhibit a reverent reading. But what if we believe that the tradition in which we read is “untrue?” This still does not prohibit reverential reading, since essential to the nature of reverence is humility. The essence of reverence is the knowledge that we are not gods or God, hence our apprehension of truth (though not the existence of truth) is always hindered.0 We read reverently because we wish to understand this other tradition. Judgement on that other tradition, if one would wish to exercise such judgement, is a separate operation. The work of comparative theology to which Frank Clooney has introduced us has great potentials not only for Christian (or any other) understanding of Islam, but also for Christian understanding of Christianity – and, dare I say, for Muslim understanding of Islam. Fetullah Gülen, in his introductory comments on Ünal’s translation, emphasizes the importance of learning and knowledge of Arabic grammar, hadīth, tafsīr and other sciences for those who wish to interpret the Qur’ān. This raises obvious issues for most readers of the Qur’ān. Do we have a right to interpret? Do I have a right to suggest a novel interpretation of the sibghah Allah? I hold that, while the interpretations of scholars like Ünal ought to be held with deepest respect, as should the tafsīr tradition, there is merit in fresh approaches, even approaches that diverge significantly from traditional understandings. As Gülen states the Qur’ān can be interpreted only to the extent that a heavenly divine word can be interpreted by human perception.0 All interpretation of the Qur’ān is somewhat provisional, partial, continuously open to new human perception. Gülen goes on to say:
Gülen’s main concern is with Orientalist and hostile interpretation of the Qur’ān. What we are concerned with is reverent interpretation of the Qur’ān, but interpretation by learned, reverent Christians. Any interpretation is subject to the critique of the community of the reverent at large, and so must mine, so I offer an understanding of the sibghah Allah. God is pure light, which both has no color and contains all color. As Ünal translates it, with great subtlety, this is the color that God has “put” on the universe. However that light is refracted in the universe, so we see reds and blues and yellows, and there are colors beyond the visible range. We see the colors of God, but never the color of God, but there are no colors at all without the pure light from which it is emitted. This is not, however, a lesson in physics, but rather a lesson in humility, an essential component of reverence. Prior to this verse the Qur’ān speaks of the millah of Abraham, the creed of Abraham, which supersedes the multiplicity of subsequent sects. We Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, perhaps even Hindus and Buddhists, are all reflections of that original millah, colors emitted from a purer light that represents the standard by which our various islams, our diverse ways of submission to God, may be judged. These verses are also a lesson in shame, for they mention the tendency of various sects to claim too much for themselves, an exclusivity and superiority that insists for themselves the right to judge, a right that belongs only to God. V. 136 lists the prophets of God and ends with the assertion, “we do not differentiate in faith between any of them. Thus are we muslims, those who submit to God.” Gülen’s teaching of tolerance is a necessary remedy for the arrogance of sectarianism. But the third component of reverence is awe. For, as the text says, God is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. We know in part, but God knows completely. When we read the Qur’ān as muslims, people who submit to God, we read reverently, and thus are humbled, shamed, and awed. Perhaps we are brought to tears. But truly we are brought to God. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2011 2011 -> Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis 2011 -> Malevil Robert Merle 2011 -> The Elephant Keeper’s Children Peter Hoeg 2011 -> Jv packet •Mars Colonization Affirmative •Mars Colonization Negative 2011 -> Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) omb no. 1024-0018 2011 -> All America Looks Up to Virginia;” Virginia and the Declaration of Independence 2011 -> Rao bulletin 2011 -> Christopher Columbus was born between 25 August and 31 October 1451 in 2011 -> The Battle of Frenchtown (1855), Washington Territory: the Political and Demographic Context rev 9/4/11 2011 -> Seti aff •seti neg •Asteroids Aff Download 411.59 Kb. Share with your friends:
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