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And your Allah is One Allah. There is no god but He, Most Gracious, Most Merciful (Q2:163).Archive for unity
The Unity of the Quran
The Quran is like one verse, one word that is uttered by the Absolute Creator to His Creation[i]. One of the first aspects of this unity is that the Quran does not contradict itself in any way; it is universal, and it is the Truth for all time and space. The collection of verses into surahs, the order of the verses and the order of the surahs is not arbitrary, nor is it random. It is through the Wisdom of Allah that we have this Quran in the form that the Prophet left for all of humanity.
Each surah has a theme or core around which all other sub-topics revolve. This core is the integrating idea within each surah. The location of the surahs within the Quran is also important. The surahs before and after are instrumental in understanding and tracing the development of concepts throughout the Quran.
Similarly, the context of the verses that are analyzed is important. Spot picking verses out of their context is a common failing in the usage of the Quran. The verses before and after the verses of interest must be developed and understood; this must be within the context of the theme of the surah. It is only then that we can understand the meaning of the actual verses.
One more facet of this analysis is the linguistic and Quranic usage of terms. The Quran is the best tafseer for itself, and words and concepts can be traced throughout the Book. Each word with its root and all other derivative forms is used to understand the concept that lies behind it. The precision of the word usage and the depth of meaning carried through the concepts and associated words comprise part of the miracle and the unity of the Quran.
[i] Al Alwani, Taha Jabir. The Quran and the Sunnah: The Time-Space Factor, (The International Institute of Islamic Thought, Maryland, 1991), pg 5-26
