Verbum Dei: The Words of God Revisited

According to the traditional belief of Muslims, al-Qur’an is the words of God revealed to the earth trough Gabriel, the angel, unto the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). This doctrine is seemingly fixed as accepted to be one amongst the six pillars of Islamic faith (Rukun Iman). Some social scientists addressed questions to this belief clarifying about what does God’s revelation actually mean. In fact, this question is not addressed only to Muslims, as it is also addressed to other religions holding the idea of “scripture” as God’s revelation.

However, the problem is more complicated for Islamic theology which regards al-Qur’an as the prominent manifestation of that divine revelation. It is not like some Christians—for instance—who believed that the revelation of God is manifested prominently by the birth of Jesus, not by the canonic book namely “the Bible”. The Bible—for some Christians—is not the ultimate form of God’s revelation. Therefore, they are not really bothered theologically when they found some scientific mistakes or historical errors in their scripture.

On the contrary, Muslims believe that the core meaning of God’s revelation is reflected by the existence of Al-Qur’an itself, it is not reflected by the flesh of Muhammad PBUH. It is an excuse for Muhammad to do some mistakes in his life, because he is only a human being regardless of his divine mission as a prophet. But it’s never acceptable that Muslims find errors in al-Quran, since God is never wrong. Furthermore, Muslims believe that al-Qur’an with all of its text and its arabicity are the biggest miracle of Muhammad. They believe that those 114 chapters of al-Quran; all of them are the holyVerbum Dei; The Words of God.

“When in time that God actually said those words? In what occasion he said so? Did he use that Arabic language to speak? If God has a language, does it mean that he is bounded by temporal-spatial limitations like his creatures? Then how to understand the contradiction about the transcendence of God, which is already believed by Muslim’s theology as a completely different Being (Mukhalafah Lil Hawadits)?

Nobody can answer that question satisfactory. Therefore, those logical questions lead many social scientists to their statements that al-Quran is not more than just a worldly product; despite of its extraordinary meanings and inspirations which most Muslims may regard them as coming from the Divine.

Many scientific approaches to the Qur’an have been done by scholars; ranging from the discipline of history, anthropology, social linguistic, psychology and so forth in order to rationalize this doctrine and make it more intelligible. Some of these scientific assumptions come into deadlock, and turn into the idea of deconstruction, throwing a conclusion saying that actually “there is nothing such God’s revelation at all”. Many Muslim scholars in the past history of Kalam [theology] intruded Islamic faith with philosophical arguments by which they made some apologetic answers to that conflict. Some of them are satisfied, but many others consider the answers as even more problematic. A large number of Muslims just believe in the idea of Verbum Dei regardless of the unanswered questions, insisting their belief and defending what they hold as an unquestionable “creed”.

Contemporary religious studies and Interdisciplinary approaches then try to bridge religion and science and moderate the tensions by proposing a way of thinking in which both interests may come along without negation. It is a way that we may see the truth of al-Qur’an in a crystal analogue, in which the sparkling colors of it are many and they may be seen not only from only one perspective and dimension. It means that when some body believes in al-Qur’an as the divine words of God, he expresses one truth of it from only one angle. Also when somebody else tells that al-Qur’an is the words of Muhammad, he is also true because he is looking the other truth from different angle. Both truths are not contradictive at all, because like a sparkling-colorful crystal which has many projections of the colors, the many truths of al-Quran are seemingly similar

Many truths; How?
From the crystal analogue, a point that we should be sure before answering the question of whether the Quran is transcendent or profane, is to be sure about which dimension or perspective we are going to depart to throw the answer?” If we are talking about the historical authenticity based on material evidences (historical approach), we should not be bound to say that al-Qur’an is the words of Muhammad PBUH, because that’s all what history can provide report to us. History is right when it can only find that the first subject of al-Qur’an was only Muhammad. History is also honest when it couldn’t find any divine beings (i.e Allah or Gabriel) within the miraculous Qur’anic chronology. What we called “history” is merely a collection of material data, which can not trace its limit to report some thing beyond that material. For me, It is even too much to expect that history should report about God and Gabriel if the history itself is limited to be always based on the question about “when” (time) and “where” (space)?

In his book The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue (2000), Leonard Swidler said that one function of History, psychology, anthropology and sociology is to provide raw materials for the philosophy of religion, so it can attempt to relate the data to one another and explore their meaning and significance.

That’s why if some one is unable to say that al-Qur’an is the words of God because of her/his historical approach, there is no problem with it. It is rational to understand that as a tool, history cannot provide material data about God; where he said? When he revealed? Which language he talked? And so on. The furthest contribution of history to the doctrine of al-Quran as the words of God is not by providing chronological evidences, but meanings and significances by which believers can relate them

An aged theological sect of Islam namely “Asy’arite” had been tried to answer questions related to the problem of God’s words by saying that God said by ‘his own language’ (divine language) or what they called as “kalam maknawi” (un-verbal language). Muslims consider and appreciate such effort. However many subsequent questions seem to block the effort from its success. The questions remain hanging on the tops of logic, such as “how to understand God’s un-verbal language? Was Gabriel who translated that un-verbal language into Arabic before he transferred the revelation to Muhammad? Then how Gabriel would understand God’s? Did God and Gabriel have same language for communication…etc.?

Again, history always entails these kinds of material data and questions to be proceeded. History does not even need only the data; it also needs some technical requirements to relate particular data with another; to make it vocal into accurate meanings and significances. Therefore, our argument is that the mere historical approach to the al-Qur’an is limited not to prove it as the words of God.

What I prefer to underline here is that our above mentioned judgment is not absolute at all, because through different lens and point of view, we can justify the divinity of al-Quran as normatively the words God. However, when I said “normatively” it does not necessarily mean it is irrational, because what rationality is never singular. There many forms of rationality as what William Placher (1948-2008), who wrote his book Un-Apologetic Theology, said that there is no such thing called universal standard of rationality.

Every culture and religion has its own rationality. Some anthropologists like Evan Pritchard (1902-1973) or Bronislaw Malinowsky (1884-1942) for instance, when they analyzed magic, witchcraft and oracle, they said that those things might look irrational for some scientists, but they are rational for the Azande, the tribe in south Sudan and for people at Trobriand islands. Here we can compare that the doctrine of al-Qur’an as believed by Muslims as the divine words of God should not be judged as irrational, because Muslims have their own form of rationality so that they believe in it.

The rationality of al-Qur’an as the words of God
The question is how Muslim’s rationality of al-Qur’an as the words of God might look like? Here is just an example amongst many of how Muslim scholars have always been trying to understand the doctrine of the Verbum Dei rationally. An approach is called “Phenomological approach” contributes a lot of results in understanding religious doctrines. Dr. Amin Abdullah, the former rector of UIN Yogyakarta—for instance—accounted this approach as a variety of the improvement project of Islamic studies.

“Phenomenologists try to intuit the essence of religious phenomena and, in doing so may, insert too many of their own normative and subjective conclusions. But the Phenomenologists has contributed greatly to the general study of religion by stressing the importance of a sympathetic understanding for religious phenomena, an empathy with the alleged religious experience, and an appreciation of religious claims”

Some Muslim scholars on Quranic studies like Malik Ibn Nabi, who is used to be a sociologist at the same time, wrote a book titled “al-Dzahirah al-Qur’aniah” (The phenomena of al-Qur’an /The Qur’anic Phenomenon). He invited Muslims to understand al-Qur’an as a divine book by understanding the phenomena which were happening surrounding this holy book. Beginning with a demonstrative analysis of the history of the Muhammad, Malik bin Nabi built the rationality of the Qur’anic revelation by webbing the “stories” of revelation and the facts that are shown by the history.

Below are some phenomological points he made to assist Muslims construct their rationality so that they can believe in al-Qur’an as the words of God

a. Muhammad never lies: The historical narratives saying that Muhammad never lies in his whole life indicate about his highest morality especially that is related to honesty. This historical “facts” may support the belief that Muhammad is true when he says that the revelation was really happening to him
b. Muhammad was not the first one: A lot of prophets with the same concept of revelation have already come before him, such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others. This fact should make Muslims easy to understand the concept of revelation and the Quran—amongst other books—as the Verbum Dei
c. Muhammad was Illiterate: It is written in the history that in fact Muhammad could not read or write any thing (even some historians said that it was only in the first time because Muhammad could write some thing before he died). The question is then “from which source he got the whole text of Al-Qur’an, which has a lot of similarities with the previous teachings of the previous prophets? History could not even find any data that Muhammad had been learned about it?
d. Independence of God vision: The belief says that Muhammad did not have any intervention in the formation of Al-Qur’an as a text. The history even said that Muhammad experience the vacuum of revelation (fatrah) for about a year after the first revelation had been done. Historians called “Futur al-wahy” (the vacuum era of God vision), as Muhammad needed to wait the true information about the gossip of A’isyah (Hadith al-ifk) for a month completely…etc. All these historical narratives may serve as supporting rationality and logic that the Quran didn’t reveal by the will of Muhammad.

There are numbers of such historical arguments which might be useful to build the rationality of this Qur’anic doctrine as the words of God, which is not actually my point for this writing. As further references, there are Muslim scholars who build their rationality of their belief in Al-Qur’an by applying such phenomological approaches. Dr. Abdullah Dirraz, Dr. Subhi Saleh, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd are three amongst others. When Nashr Hamid Abu Zayd stated that “Al-Qur’an is a cultural product”, for instance, we know that his statement does not bother his faith, especially when he admitted in the preface of his book that he still believes in Al-Qur’an as the words of God.

All in all, the most idea that I would like to stress here is how to understand al-Qur’an as an object of different views. Hence, al-Qur’an is multi-dimensional. It was the words of God when it is looked from one view, and it is also the words of Muhammad when it is viewed from another point of view. Again, both perspectives are not contradictive at all, because each is only based on facts and its limitedness. Muslims should strive to understand their belief by reconciling some logical conflicts and build their own rationality to support his faith.