Iqra

22Aug07

“Read!”96:1 

 

Out of all the words He taught Adam, God chose “Read!” as His first command to Muhammad (p). The importance of the first words of Revelation should not be taken lightly. This choice is crucial in realizing how important it is to perfect the process which we refer to as ‘reading’ before we can truly understand, apply, and benefit from the text.

 

Before reading the Qur’an, it’s incredibly important to learn ‘how’ to read first. Learning the ‘how’ does not mean re-taking Kindergarten; rather it includes (1) learning about the text and (2) establishing the appropriate relationship with the text.

 

“Read! In the name of your Lord who created. Created man from a clot.  Read. And your Lord is the most generous.  Who taught by the pen. Taught man that he knew not.” 

96:1-5

 

Now, this is the text: 5 lines. How does one read it? At first, it seems as though the text is only a direct command. But, there is far more within the command. It includes (1.) a description of how to perform the command…

“In the name of your Lord who created.” 

and (2.) a description of the ‘Writer’ and the ‘reader’

 

“…your Lord is the most generous.”

 The Lord is the Creator. Man is created.

 

and (3.) the relationship necessary to understand or correctly read the text.

 “…your Lord… Who taught… taught man that he knew not.”

 

So we have learned that we need to read in the name of our Lord who created. This means, the reading can only be done after the reader has confirmed that it is the Lord that has created him/her. The text is very blunt about this. To be a true reader, one must testify that a Lord exists. Basically, one must witness the existence of God to properly perform God’s first command. You must accept the Commander, before carrying out the command. And we’re not talking about commandments like ‘Thou shall not lie”… this is a commandment to read.

 

Next, we learn from the text that the appropriate relationship between this text and the reader is one of a teacher and a student.

“And your Lord is the most generous. Who taught by the pen. Taught man that he knew not.” 

This means that the reader must also establish that the Lord is the teacher and man is the student—the Writer is the Teacher and the reader is the student. Now, a teacher is the one with knowledge and the student learns from whatever the teacher offers of his respected knowledge. Here, the affirmation must be made that the student knows nothing outside of what the teacher tells him. Meaning, you don’t have five different courses and professors this semester. There is only one course, one professor, and one term. In this case, God has already revealed the world as we know it: the sky, the moon, the night and day, food, people, animals, etc. He is now teaching us more about it through the Qur’an… the Revelation… His pen. The pen is used as a metaphor for Revelation: everything that is created–life as we know it. The point God is making here is that all of creation is Revelation and we would not know of it if it wasn’t taught to us by his generosity in assigning us the role of the student. In fact this is one of the ways God separates us between the Angels and the Jinn; God taught man the names and through His generosity He favored man. The mere fact that anything exists around us is to mean that God is teaching us. He is allowing us to see, hear, smell, feel, touch, and know or be aware of His work, including oursevles. The product of teaching is learning and learning here does not mean memorizing commands and performing. What it means is to truly understand the lessons in all their complexities. To relate the lessons to all of existence and to oneself. The question a reader of the Qur’an must ask his self  is ‘what am I gaining as a student from what is being taught to me?” Are you merely gaining information? Or are you learning? For example, when we learn the alphabet, are we just memorizing letters? Or are we learning the letters and their attributes so that we may be able to use them to further our knowledge? When reading the Qur’an, one must be asking himself ‘how is God furthering my knowledge with this ayah?’ Instead of saying, ‘I must perform in this way because God says so.’ When God proclaims that He is most generous in teaching, He is referring to His choice of teaching rather than commanding. Indeed, God could have most certainly stopped the Revelation at ‘Read!’ and not taught us how to.

 

Nursi, Said. Epitomes of Light.

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Tags: belief, faith, God, life, Quran