The Qur’an is composed of words and some approach it as words like other words - but some approach it as “a revelation from the Lord of all worlds” (Qur’an 26:192) - as God’s commanding and guiding words that entered in substance into the heart of the Prophet, expressed themselves encoded into the form of speech upon his tongue, and in the form of ink upon paper. We see its reality remotely, through glimpses and fleeting glimmers, through word and sound, it’s landscape distant as a mountain concealed in haze - the haze of our own minds and hearts, our veil of distracted thoughts. Like this, it still has beauty, the beauty of a distantly observed but awe inspiring height - and we are as tourists, viewing it from safe and comfortable mental vantage points. We are not those who labor on the slopes, hearts pumping, struggling to make the ascent, drawn upward by capitulation to beauty, by a divine attraction.
Those whose hearts are thus captivated, who “sell their selves (nafs), moving towards the pleasure of Allah” (Qur’an 2:207) comprehend that the Prophet’s heart is a sacred place, the container of tremendous truth - the receptacle, the place of manifestation of God’s Word - that same Word which would shatter mountains had it descended upon them: “Had We sent down this Qur’an on a mountain, you would certainly have seen it falling down, splitting asunder because of the fear of Allah.” (Qur’an 59:21)
Post a Comment