The Qur'an, the Sunnah and repetition

Let us continue where we left off, saying that in the month of Ramadan, which we should experience as the month of the Quran, we should go on thinking and knowing about the Quran as the center and source of Muslim subjectivity.

The Quran is a Book that was revealed over 23 years, intertwined and in dialogue with a social life that took shape through its birth and development, the formation of a political power in Medina, its wars, its peace, its conquests, and its family, economy, education, worship and sociology. Undoubtedly, this dialogue with living life attracts thoughts about the historicity of the text. As we said before, the dimension of the text that answers particular events has also brought to mind the idea of its contingency. That is, as if, had the incidents that led to the revelation of some verses not occurred, that verse would not have been revealed, or had other events occurred, had other questions been put to the Prophet, the content of the text would have been different.

Of course, this thought, first of all, overlooks that a verse was not revealed on every incident that occurred over the 23 years. Otherwise, we would of course be facing a much more voluminous book.

Second, most verses and surahs cannot be associated with any event or question. For most of these too, there is only some information about the date and setting of their revelation; there is no event or question that could be described as an occasion (esbab).

Third, the assumption that this dialogical quality of the Quran makes it historical is a very naive and simple understanding. It fails to see the nature of the universal, which is immanent precisely within historical events. Indeed, we may recall here that all quality texts that have become classics and still tell us something today are written in just such a dialogical style. For example, it is true that Plato's famous dialogues, which he attributes to Socrates, give important historical information about ancient Greece, but those texts draw their power largely from this dialogical style. The dialogue stems not only from the method by which the text was written but also from philosophy being presented through interaction with the people addressed. The one who asks Socrates the questions has often asked precisely what comes to the reader's mind. There the text proceeds as a dialogue into which the reader is immediately drawn, and of course, however simple and particular the question asked, with the answers given it turns into a universal exemplary case belonging to the human condition as a whole.

It has even been said that this dialogical structure of the Quran distances it from being a systematic book in the modern sense. Indeed, some Islamic modernists have taken even this systematic deficiency as a sign of the book's historicity, in keeping with books of ancient times. The signs of the systematic deficiency are the seemingly random transitions between topics, jumping from subject to subject, and the differences among the sizes of the surahs.

Of course, one must see that the Quran, a book of life, thereby gives the most perfect and powerful response to this topical scatteredness, intertwinedness and fluctuation that exist in life itself. The human being is not made of pure reason alone that he should be addressed with pure reason. What we call reason is also not pure reason but a faculty intertwined with feelings. Trusting that the One who knows best what He has created will also speak the word that addresses it best is undoubtedly the most basic condition of believing. When a person listens with the ear of the soul, he receives what he is to receive from that which addresses both his reason and his feelings, without needing to tell them apart, without it even crossing his mind.

Part of this perception of systematic deficiency is also related to the Quran's chronology of revelation. As is known, the Quran as a Mushaf is not arranged in the order in which it was revealed. Indeed, the first surahs to be revealed are located in the last juz of the book. The surahs or verses revealed last were placed at the beginning. Undoubtedly, when examined carefully, it is possible to find a logic in this, and the commentators have indeed tried at length to explain its logic as the wisdom (hikmet) of the Mushaf having been arranged in this way. Of course, at the end of every explanation of wisdom, without giving up the caution of "God knows best."

In response to these explanations, there are also approaches that establish the Quran by order of revelation and propose reading it this way as well. First, it must be noted that within the framework of the Quranic sciences every piece of knowledge about the Quran was meticulously compiled and recorded, and that the answer to such a question was in some way set aside as well. That is, both the order of revelation of the Quranic verses and the source and wisdoms of the difference of arrangement in the Mushaf have been dwelt on considerably. However, we can see that in the modern period there is a distinct interest in rereading the Quran by order of revelation. Undoubtedly, the reasons for this interest also need to be thought about.

It is also said that such a reading can help us better understand the Prophet's sira directly on the basis of revelation. That is, the desire to follow and register the Prophet's life through the Quran. Thus, wrong narrations that may have mixed into the sira would be sifted out or brought into a certain order. There is no doubt that this is an approach that grows stronger in proportion to the increase in skepticism toward hadiths. Of course, it is debatable.

Another reason is the thought that it may be more suitable for understanding better today the birth experience of an Islamic community and even for repeating it in its most authentic form. The effort to try to understand the moment of birth is of course understandable, but one must stop before the desire for "repetition." What are we repeating, how are we repeating it? Is following the Sunnah a repetition? How can an experience be repeated in the same way by others?

It is precisely this repetition, that is, the quest for such a reading of the Quran in order to relive exactly the birth experience of the first Muslim community, that I think explains why the Quran was not arranged by order of revelation.

How so? So we will continue.