The Divine System: The Quran and Islam a Progressive View

By Iman Omeed Khan MD

The history of Islam as the faith of God has been buried and lost to antiquity, but the message in the Quran has been gaining renewed visibility as both a very negative and as a positive influence.
In spite of its growing visibility, there are baffling issues, as with all religions, whether the individual, in reality, adheres to the tenets of the Quran and the Faith. There is clearly a phenomenal misunderstanding prevalent about Islam and the Quran.
The author undertook a serious study of the Quran over several years and dispassionately stresses the importance and relevance of the text to contemporary times where heated arguments persist as to which is the 'better/true religion.
The author presents direct quotes from the Quran and provides explanations thereof based on textual commentaries and her personal understanding with the sincere hope that those who are interested in knowing the basic facts in the Quran get a clearer understanding of this preserved word of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503573451

Iman Omeed Khan MD

The Quran states that human beings attain maturity at age forty. This rings very true to me. As with the majority of Muslims in the world, I was born a muslim into a Muslim family. As the only girl in the family, I learned by following my mother’s example—praying, observing the fast, memorizing chapters/suras recited in prayer. All of us siblings learned to read the Arabic Quran at an Urdu school/madrasa, where we went early every morning before we walked to our regular European school, and generally followed traditions celebrated/commemorated by most Indian Muslim families. I am greatly indebted to my dear widely read and self-made father who had a wonderful collection of books, from which I have quoted, and also the English transliteration of the Quran by Marmaduke Pickthall. On many occasions, I tried in vain to understand what was being said in the Quran, but it seemed very disconnected and did not convey any meaning to my teenage mind. Prayers and few traditions were one constant after arriving in the USA and having to face various travails in life. I soon discovered the wealth of material available here, on Islam, in English. I would also read the Quran on and off, especially when my personal life went from bad to worse. I am sure most people who read the Quran read and understand it differently at different stages in their life, and so it was for me. In my forties, I turned to a serious study of the holy book, initially reading the Arabic (told that we had to read in Arabic) alongside the English transliteration. After few years, I decided to read only in English—to understand, as the Quran exhorts us to do. This led to the study of multiple recognized authors who had undertaken this task, the worldwide-acknowledged AbdullahYusuf Ali’s The Holy Quran being my base, along with Muhammad Asad’s The Message of the Quran. At this time, I also had the good fortune of coming across Concepts of the Quran by the late Fateh Osman of California. This erudite and modern scholar presented the chronology of the Quranic revelations, and this opened my mind to such a wonderful clarity and understanding that one evening I felt a eureka moment when I wanted to shout from the rooftops about the simplicity of what God wants of us mortals and how clear it had become to me. In his preface to the Holy Quran, Yusuf Ali, in all his wisdom, states that each of us should make every conscious effort to understand the word of God according to one’s own capacity. “If any one of us attains some knowledge or understanding of it by study, it is his duty, according to his capacity, to instruct others, and share with them the joy and peace which result from contact with the spiritual world.” After much debate with myself, being a laywoman and not a scholar of religion in any sense, I sincerely wanted to pen my understanding of the last incorruptible message of God, particularly to the youth, in the hope that it might form a basis of understanding for them and promote unity of thought and action within the larger Muslim community, thus this undertaking. It is my sincere prayer and hope that this brief ) and factual though personal view of the Word of God in the Quran will help all first generation Muslims whose parents left their homelands and settled in foreign, mostly Christian lands and those who are left confused by cultural and traditional accretions to the real faith. Even today, fractious cultural and ethnic baggage rules the day, with each group proclaiming their version of Islam as the absolute truth. How best can we live as Muslims in this society and generate a positive image without compromising any of the basic tenets of the faith? This dilemma has been terribly complicated and made more difficult by the ignominious deeds of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their ilk in recent times. Even the most scholarly of scholars have humbled themselves to our Creator, begging forgiveness if they have misjudged or misrepresented any fact in the Quran. Thus, it is with an awesome, reverent fear of having misunderstood any transliteration and commentary of the Quran that I beg forgiveness of the Almighty Creator. Anyone who may give my view even a cursory glance may not agree with me, but it is my hope that it may stimulate the reader to think for herself/himself, remembering that God states, “I have made this Quran easy for you.” The principles in the Quran are universal, immutable principles—the foundation upon which each succeeding generation must build their society’s needs. May God guide us to use our intellect and reason to understand His will. Iffat Zamani Khan, MD

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Copyright © 2015 by Iman Omeed Khan MD.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015908496

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-7343-7

                Softcover         978-1-5035-7344-4

                eBook               978-1-5035-7345-1

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Rev. date: 06/17/2015

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Contents

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Misconceptions and Misconstructs in Faith

Dedication

I am greatly indebted to my late father whose constant quest for knowledge spurred me to think for myself.

Preface

The Quran states that human beings attain maturity at age forty. This rings very true to me. As with the majority of Muslims in the world, I was born a muslim into a Muslim family. As the only girl in the family, I learned by following my mother’s example—praying, observing the fast, memorizing chapters/suras recited in prayer. All of us siblings learned to read the Arabic Quran at an Urdu school/madrasa, where we went early every morning before we walked to our regular European school, and generally followed traditions celebrated/commemorated by most families from the Indian sub-continent

I am greatly indebted to my dear widely read and self-made father who had a wonderful collection of books, from which I have quoted, and also the English transliteration of the Quran by Marmaduke Pickthall. On many occasions, I tried in vain to understand what was being said in the Quran, but it seemed very disconnected and did not convey any meaning to my teenage mind.

Prayers and few traditions were one constant after arriving in the USA and having to face various travails in life. I soon discovered the wealth of material available here, on Islam, in English. I would also read the Quran on and off, especially when my personal life went from bad to worse.

I am sure most people who read the Quran read and understand it differently at different stages in their life, and so it was for me. In my forties, I turned to a serious study of the holy book, initially reading the Arabic (told that we had to read in Arabic) alongside the English transliteration. After few years, I decided to read only in English—to understand, as the Quran exhorts us to do. This led to the study of multiple recognized authors who had undertaken this task, the worldwide, acknowledged Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s The Holy Quran being my base, along with Muhammad Asad’s The Message of the Quran.

At this time, I also had the good fortune of coming across Concepts of the Quran by the late Fateh Osman of California. This erudite and modern scholar presented the chronology of the Quranic revelations, and this opened my mind to such a wonderful clarity and understanding that one evening I felt a eureka moment when I wanted to shout from the rooftops about the simplicity of what God wants of us mortals and how clear it had become to me.

In his preface to the Holy Quran, Yusuf Ali, in all his wisdom, states that each of us should make every conscious effort to understand the word of God according to one’s own capacity. If any one of us attains some knowledge or understanding of it by study, it is his duty, according to his capacity, to instruct others, and share with them the joy and peace which result from contact with the spiritual world.

After much debate with myself, being a laywoman and not a scholar of religion in any sense, I sincerely wanted to pen my understanding of the last incorruptible message of God, particularly to the youth, in the hope that it might form a basis of understanding for them and promote unity of thought and action within the larger Muslim community, thus this undertaking.

It is my sincere prayer and hope that this brief and factual though personal view of the Word of God in the Quran will help all first generation Muslims whose parents left their homelands and settled in foreign, mostly Christian lands and those who are left confused by cultural and traditional accretions to the real faith.

Even today, fractious cultural and ethnic baggage rules the day, with each group proclaiming their version of Islam as the absolute truth.

How best can we live as Muslims in this society and generate a positive image without compromising any of the basic tenets of the faith? This dilemma has been terribly complicated and made more difficult by the ignominious deeds of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their ilk in recent times.

Even the most scholarly of scholars have humbled themselves to our Creator, begging forgiveness if they have misjudged or misrepresented any fact in the Quran. Thus, it is with an awesome, reverent fear of having misunderstood any transliteration and commentary of the Quran that I beg forgiveness of the Almighty Creator.

Anyone who may give my view even a cursory glance may not agree with me, but it is my hope that it may stimulate the reader to think for herself/himself, remembering that God states, I have made this Quran easy for you. The principles in the Quran are universal, immutable principles—the foundation upon which each succeeding generation must build their society’s needs. May God guide us to use our intellect and reason to understand His will.

Iman Omeed Khan, MD

Introduction

All quotes are from The Holy Quran by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, second edition copyrighted in June 1977, and The Message of the Quran by Muhammad Asad. Yusuf Ali’s transliteration of the Quran is acknowledged worldwide as the most authentic work and has been most popular among non-Arab Muslims. Recently, I came across The Koran by N. J. Dawood in my father’s collection and have found it easy reading in prose, with some references.

I have denoted the chapter and verses in the Quran by numbers, the first number being the chapter, and numbers following the colon mark denote the verses.

To facilitate a broader understanding of the divine system devised by our Creator, a few definitions and meanings of certain Arabic words are in order.

The first word is din, commonly denoted as religion. It is the divine system encompassing both social and spiritual guidance to humankind. Therefore, Muslims state that Islam is a way of life.

The word Allah—Arabic for God (al-elahi)—is neutral and genderless, although for the sake of grammatical correctness, it is addressed as He. There is no plural form of the word, nor is it a proper noun. Christian and Jewish Arabs also use the word Allah as their mother tongue is Arabic. God is not a creature—human or otherwise. God is an incomprehensible, omniscient positive power. In his thought-provoking article entitled The Convergence of Science and Religion in THINK, Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel Laureate for physics in 1966, states that what human beings address as God is a supreme, purposeful force. Note the similarity to the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, and the Aramaic word Elahi.

Shaykh Hamza Karamali, a Sunni Path Academy teacher, provides a detailed explanation for the usage of the pronoun He in the English transliterations of the Quran.

The attributes of God—of which ninety-nine are mentioned in the Quran—are in both the masculine and feminine gender.

Other terms used to address the Creator of the universe are:

Khuda – Shi’a Islam; God – Christianity; Yahweh/Elohim – Judaism; Eswar/Bhagwan – Hinduism; and Ahura Mazda – Zoroastrianism.

My view is that when Muslims speak about Islam to an English-speaking audience, they must use the word God rather than the Arabic word Allah, which most insist on doing, because they believe that no other word besides Allah conveys the full meaning of the majesty of our Creator! I have tried to explain why it is so important, but it generally falls on deaf ears. They do not seem to realize that they are providing fodder to the detractors of Islam and also shooting themselves in the foot. By doing so, they are aiding all those who want the lay, untutored individual to believe that the Muslim God Allah is not our benevolent God.

The first and most important imperative that all human beings must understand is that all scriptural revelations were and are meant to provide guidance to humankind in their earthly sojourn—to inform human beings what is involved in being good human beings to build strong moral character, being spiritual beings, and to realize that there was a much higher power in control of all the seen and unseen.

It is common knowledge that the region of present-day Iraq, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey, the rough centre of the globe is where the prophets of God who were given a Book by divine inspiration lived and transmitted the message of God to humankind. Besides this, the Quran states that over the ages, messengers/teachers were sent to every community in the world and that there are righteous people among those who follow the earlier Revelations 3:199. Chapter 13 verse 36 states that those to whom We have given the ‘Book’ rejoice at what has been revealed to you (Muhammad); but, there are among them those who reject a part thereof. Since Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus were recipients of books, namely the Torah, Psalms, and Gospel, their followers are addressed as people of the Book in the Quran. The Quran mentions Abraham as a recipient too, but there is no proof of this revelation in today’s world.

The word Islam is an Arabic word and is a generic word, which means submit/devote to, actively and willingly acknowledge and affirm the will of the One God. It is not racially or ethnically derived and is nonsectarian. It is unlike all other religions, which go by the name of their prophet/messenger. It is derived from the root s-l-m, meaning peace. Marshall Hodgson states that it is the inner spirituality of a person of conscience. (Venture into Islam, Volume 1.) It therefore follows that any synonym, in any other language, which conveys the same meaning as the Arabic word Islam is perfectly acceptable as the religion of God.

As an aside, note the similarity between the greetings Salam alaikum – Muslims; Shalom – Jews; and Namaste – Hindus—acknowledging one’s inner spirit of God (conscience) in peace. In everyday speech, the word peace is used to convey the meaning of the Arabic words of greeting. People in the USA are very familiar with the American Indian greeting of peace.

The word Muslim is also a generic Arabic word, a common noun meaning anyone who submits/devotes to and affirms One God and does not associate any partners in the Divinity. Abraham and all other prophets before the time of Prophet Muhammad are described as ones who bowed to the will of God, i.e., were muslim 3:67. The Quran also states, It is God who has named you muslims, both BEFORE and in this revelation.

The word muslim is first used in one of the earliest Suras to be revealed in 68:35 which asks human beings Shall we then treat one who has acknowledged the will of One God (i.e., a muslim) like the wrongdoers?

In 28:52–53, the Quran states that the believing Jews and Christians of that time do believe in this, and when it is recited to them, say ‘we believe therein, for it is the Truth from our Lord; indeed we have been muslims from before.’ These statements are made in the Quran after relating a part of Moses’s life so that the people of the Book in Mecca would not doubt its veracity. Moses declared that he was one who acknowledged one supreme God, i.e., was a muslim 7:143.

The disciples of Jesus declared, We believe in God, and bear witness that we are ‘muslims’ (3:52). Abraham is called a muslim (3:67) because he bowed his will to the will of One God, although his father and most people around him practiced polytheism, animism, or nature worship. He bears the title of father of mankind. The Quran clearly states that Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian—he was a muslim. Or do they say that Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, and the tribes were Jews or Christian? Do they know better than God" (2:140)? How could he be a Jew or a Christian when he lived thousands of years before Moses and Jesus? In 2:132–133, it states, ‘And this was the legacy that Abraham left to his sons, and so did Jacob; Oh my sons. God has chosen the Faith for you: then die not except as muslims.’

Cultural and social habits and modes of dress or names do not determine a muslim.

In their commentary, both Yusuf Ali and Muhammad Asad state that the popularized belief that the term Muslim applies exclusively