What leaves us powerless (the Miraculous) is the picture of the Book

If some theologians or philosophers in Sweden were to come together and issue a challenge about what they consider to be the Qur'an's contradictions and the invalidity of its claim to be revelation, there would be nothing, nothing at all, that Muslims could say. On the contrary, the Qur'an itself invites such a challenge. People who believe in the Qur'an are never disturbed, and should not be disturbed, by the discussion of the Qur'an's content, or by unbelievers expressing in every way their reasons for not believing.

It is the Holy Qur'an itself that challenges: "Bring your proofs!" Whatever does not suit your reason, whatever you call contradiction, whatever reasons, ideas and arguments lead you to think that this book does not tell the truth, bring them, and let us discuss. If a Muslim has believed having come to know the Book, if he believes it as it deserves, he is brimming with this self-confidence. The Qur'an is an address, a letter, not only to Muslims but to all people.

Of course, it guides only the God-fearing (muttaqin). That is, those who believe in the unseen, perform the prayer properly, spend from the sustenance God has given, and believe in all of God's books and in the Day of the Hereafter. Before it is a book of guidance, of course, it is a warning message. A message that tells the human being about himself, reminds him, reminds him of his situation in this world, the truth of his existence, his neediness which he forgot by falling into heedlessness, his debt, his origin and his destination. In fact, perhaps, a reminder-warning that draws the human being's attention to the truths that lie right at hand for knowing and understanding. In this respect it is a book of healing, a messenger, a message for everyone, for Paludan, for all Europeans, and for all other people.

By burning the messenger that has come to him, what does Paludan say, and to whom? Those who send an invitation to their own catastrophe by killing the messenger who invites them to salvation, who wishes them well, who has come to give them life, are of course not limited to Paludan. Today everyone who remains indifferent to the Qur'an loses a great deal. Those who burn it, moreover, only display their own ignorance. They do not challenge the Qur'an or, through the Qur'an, Muslims; they only express their grudge, hatred and enmity and, in addition, show their aggression. Otherwise, not a single verse of the Qur'an can be covered up by burned pages of the Qur'an. What emerges is only a pitch-dark jahiliyya, with a self-proclaimed claim to enlightenment.

From the Europeans, famed for their so-called Enlightenment, we would have expected a more dignified challenge to the Qur'an. Perhaps a debate that would draw Muslims in as well, in which they could put intelligence, science and knowledge to work. A challenge of that kind, at whatever level, could have been regarded as "freedom of thought and expression." No one would have objected. These reactions displayed here against the Qur'an, which have no intellectual basis whatsoever, show nothing but "powerlessness." Is not powerlessness precisely the Qur'an's most habitual, most familiar effect on those who object to revelation: i'jaz, leaving powerless? When they resist further and begin to talk nonsense beyond the realm of ideas, the i'jaz effect turns into an effect of leaving them wretched.

As it ceases to be a matter of expressed ideas and moves toward being only emotions, there may also be a likelihood of its spreading in Europe. The famous emotional reactions of the European against religion in general, against God, against his own being, without being acquainted with the content of the Qur'an at all. The European, who thinks he has killed God, reacts as if he had seen a ghost when, in the Qur'an, he hears a voice of God addressing him, and one whose effect he feels more with each passing day.

NEITHER THIS NOR THAT, OR BOTH THIS AND THAT

That the reactions shown to this incident, or some of the comments made, are cut off from knowledge and logic seems to show that the subject has increasingly become a matter of emotions beyond knowledge and logic.

A social media message by Sinan Canan, whom I know not to be actually distant from either the Qur'an or Islamic knowledge, is of the kind that can be assessed in just such a context. Canan wrote: "Muslims who are concerned not with the burning of the papers on which the text of the Qur'an is printed but with the Qur'an's not being read, not being understood, being misunderstood, being made a tool for personal gain, being turned into a song... Never mind, I gave up."

Is he saying with this, "let them burn, let them strike, let them insult as they wish, and let us carry on with our lives as if nothing had happened"? A strange approach, truly. Is what we call life, what we call personality, something shaped only in our own sterile environment? Is it not, most of the time, shaped by our interactions with others in our social relations?

Thanks to our friend İsmail Kılıçarslan, who put the inherently ironic nature of this attitude very well by saying "The infidel burns, the Turk watches."

Let us continue the sensitivity displayed toward the pages of the Qur'an with a sensitivity directed at reaching the meaning of the Qur'an, at not leaving the Qur'an in the lurch, at living it as it deserves. I made this recommendation in my previous article too. But why should this second sensitivity cost an insensitivity regarding the first?

Why are we left among "either this or that" options? Why can we not say "both this and that"; what is it that prevents us? Setting that aside, if you do not see that, when you say "this is more important, not that," you lose both, how much can you understand the Qur'an, what kind of precaution can you take against its being made a tool for interests, and how can you read it?

Unfortunately, this attitude has lately been thrust roughly in front of all Islamic claims or sensitivities. In front of any claim Muslims make on any subject, by saying "the real immorality is this, not that," both immoralities are made legitimate.

For example, you say LGBT, they say corruption. You say honor, they say theft of labor. As if those who say these things tolerated corruption or the theft of labor. In fact there is no seriousness, no sensitivity, no cause that cannot be watered down by saying "this, not that."

Let us move on from these; looking for logic is in vain, for the logic you are looking for is already the captive of blind, dull emotions.