"Structure & Quranic Interpretation: Symmetry & Coherence" - Raymond Farrin

[MileStone]

"Structure & Qur’anic Interpretation: Symmetry & Coherence"

Interest in the structure of the Qur’an has its beginnings in the ninth century CE with Muslim scholars. Since that time, Muslim and Western scholars have debated the coherence of the Qur’an’s structure. Raymond Farrin, professor of Arabic at the American University of Kuwait, opens his newest book, 'Structure and Qur’anic Interpretation: A Study of Symmetry and Coherence in Islam's Holy Text' (White Cloud Press, 2014) with a historical synopsis of the views adopted by the two primary camps regarding the structure of the Qur’an and the development of the study of the Qur’an’s constitution.

Following in the footsteps of Muslim scholars and Western scholars of Islam who acknowledged and demonstrated patterns of connectivity between verses and chapters, Farrin argues that the entirety of Qur’an is organized according to three common patterns of symmetry: parallelism, chiasm, and, the most ubiquitous of three, concentrism.

As the reader moves form chapter to chapter, Professor Farrin explores how these patterns of symmetry are found in the individual chapters, chapter pairs, groupings of chapters, systems of chapters, and then the entire corpus. This structural analysis provides Farrin the opportunity to explore the overall connectivity of messages throughout the Qur’an. Accompany this study, Farrin provides multiple appendixes providing structural analysis of selected chapters, a complete listing of chapter pairs and groups, a “Reading Group Guide” of revelations mentioning prophets, and a chronological listing of chapters based on the work of Nldeke. Professor Farrin’s work is a significant contribution to the field. It is of great value to scholars of Islam but written in terms accessible to all interested in exploring the Qur’an.

Source: http://newbooksinislamicstudies.com...uranic-interpretation-white-cloud-press-2014/

Link to purchase the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...ap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

 

[Mr Justice]

Must be an interesting read.

 

[Mughal1]

No study of the quran by any muslim or nonmuslim is in actual fact based upon the quran itself save by a few muslims. The first one is sir syed after a very long time who studied the quran objectively and then farahi and then iqbal and later parwez. They laid down some basic foundations as to how to study the quran properly. This does not mean any of these studies are complete because they are not but they laid down a solid foundation for it for future scholars.

What is wrong with whatever people say about the quran? The basic thing wrong with all studies of the quran is lack of peoples' understanding of origin and development of language itself. All people base their studies on interpretations of imperial mullahs and the mullahs have misinterpreted and misrepresented the quran to start with so any study of the quran which is based on their works can never lead to the right conclusions about the quran.

One has to ask the very basic question when one talks about such a study of the quran which is, why the argument started over coherence or incoherence of the quran? Who said the quran was incoherent to begin with that all this hell broke loose? It were imperial mullahs and they did it out of their ignorance for getting deen of islam out of the way of rulers, money lenders and mullahs so that imperialism could become firmly rooted in the name of deen of islam so that the advantaged or powerful people could use the rest abusively at will for their own ends in the very name of deen of islam.

This is why if anyone wants to know what the quran actually says then one has to spend a lot of time on language of the quran itself to see where the words in the quran came from and what were the mechanism where by they were given the meanings and what meanings one should accept and leave the rest and why? Why is this of fundamental importance? It is because if you get the meanings of the words wrong then all you do based on the wrong meanings will never be right. This is why the language of the quran and its foundational concepts are of fundamental importance to begin with.

If a word has many meanings and one only knows a couple of them and even that just due to their most usage then one is not really properly equipped for study of any old text never mind the quran. This problem becomes yet bigger if the words also have opposing or contradictory or conflicting meanings which is definitely the case with all root based languages eg hebrew or arabic etc etc. This is why mullahs' interpretations of the quranic text are full of nonsense, contradictions and flaws and that is why they have nothing at all to do with actual study of the quranic text in its proper context.

This is how mullahs ended up making the quran look incoherent and stupid that is why people started raising objections against the coherence of the quran and that is how these like debates came about which led ummah more and more away from the quran as time went on. This is why masses need to leave mullahs alone who are merely story tellers of this ummah because they have not bothered with learning and teaching of the quran properly. They have reinforced and instilled religious nonsense in minds of masses rather than helping people learn the quran properly. Darse nizaame never had anything to do with deen of islam other than memorising of the quran and the hadis texts. For which I have to give them credit and I do.

It is very important that people try and study the quran on its own with help of rules of wisdom rather than relying on others blindly who themselves have no idea what they are talking about. For better understanding things about the quran one will find ample material HERE and HERE.

 

[Mughal1]

Why did iqbal make statements like the one in the following link? Was it for making mullahs angry with himself? No. He made it knowing what the message of the quran actually is from which ummah has been misled by mullahs due to their ignorance.

 

[MileStone]

E.g. The first part of Ayat Kursi is related to last part. 2nd part is related to 2nd last and so on. Professor Farrin tried to find the similar symmetry in every Surah, and every Surah has its own pattern, and he also tried to find the symmetry of the whole Qur'an, being Surah Qaaf being the middle Surah.

 

[MileStone]

Professor Farrin started his study of Arabic language Poetry and the symmetry in poetry verses, and after sometime started studying the classical arabic and came across Qur'an and thought of it as another Arabic Poetry book. But the symmetry he found in Qur'an and the Perfectness of the noble Qur'an made him believe that this can not be the word of a man, and it is from Devine and word of God. Then without any Daw'ah, he came in the fold of Islam about 8 years ago, based on his research on Qur'an.

 

[atensari]

from 54:25

from 17:00

 

[Mughal1]

Professor Farrin started his study of Arabic language Poetry and the symmetry in poetry verses, and after sometime started studying the classical arabic and came across Qur'an and thought of it as another Arabic Poetry book. But the symmetry he found in Qur'an and the Perfectness of the noble Qur'an made him believe that this can not be the word of a man, and it is from Devine and word of God. Then without any Daw'ah, he came in the fold of Islam about 8 years ago, based on his research on Qur'an.

Dear MileStone, peopel say they have studied classical arabic etc but in actual fact they have not in the sense of its origin and development. What they study is how arabs at the time used to use the language to a very limited degree. It is because they use books and book writers can never cover all the needed angles of the language in their books. If anyone thinks that dictionaries we have so far of any language cover all the meanings of words in a language nothing can be further than reality than that. Language is a sea without bounds. This is why it is absolutely necessary for scholars to start getting into nitty gritty of human language. Once they do that then they will discover what language really is about and why or how it works. For undertaking study of the quran knowing the very basic or foundational stuff is of utmost importance. Many muslim linguists have written odd things about arabic in detail but their studies do not go deep enough or wide enough. I have studied things in some detail which should be obvious from my posts for people who are interested in knowing things. People who are stuck in baseless aqeedah prison and follow nonsense of mullahs blindly have no basis and they are not interested in finding out much. They are happy the way they are. I am not bothered much with people like that but I learn things for myself and do whatever I can to impart knowledge and anyone interested can benefit and whoever ignores it, it is up to him/her. I cannot force people to learn if they do not want to for whatever reasons they may have.

As for authors of books about deen of islam it is between them and God and humanity. If they will do good things for good ends that will be good but if they will do thing for ulterior motives then results are always out for people to see for themselves. Many nonmuslims become involved on works on deen of islam some siding with one side and the other with the other side and then make money by fooling muslim ummah. So we should not be fooled by anyone regardless one claims to be a muslim or nonmuslim because iof we know facts they will speak for themselves. Even mullahs deserve credit for looking after sources of deen of islam be it for their own vested interests. If mullahs and madrassas were not there may be we will not have any information about deen of islam in its original form today. After all Allah protects information about his deen by using various ways and means at his disposal so he used mullahs and madrassas as well for this purpose. I am only against mullahs because of their misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the quran to humanity and then insisting on their nonsense to be accepted as the actual message of the quran, which it is not. That is all. They hold this ummah back from research and exploration which has turned this ummah into stupid people by a huge majority. This is why instead of leading the human world we are being led by the rest of human world and we are not even that good followers of that either because we are lagging behind at a great distance which is increasing with passing time. THhis is why we need to take control back from our rulers, money lenders and mullahs and let ummah have the control by helping each other to educate ourselves with help of each other. If we do nothing, mullahs will rule us for another 1400 years or more and deen of islam will not see the light of the day for even longer.

regards and all the best.

 

[Mughal1]

E.g. The first part of Ayat Kursi is related to last part. 2nd part is related to 2nd last and so on. Professor Farrin tried to find the similar symmetry in every Surah, and every Surah has its own pattern, and he also tried to find the symmetry of the whole Qur'an, being Surah Qaaf being the middle Surah.

Dear MileStone, please try and understand the points I am making about the coherence and incoherence of the quran. I am not saying to find out various strange phenomena in the quran is a wrong thing to do. After all dr khalifah came up with number nineteen idea and others have discovered many other things about the text of quran, that is all fine. However the proper understanding of the quranic text is of utmost importance. It is because the quran is revealed so that we understand it properly and follow it faithfully otherwise it serves no purpose if we lead people away from that very goal into things of lesser importance. If you listen to the video you have posted brother farrin is telling us the reason why he carried out this study ie to prove coherence of the text of the quran. However can anyone tell me how can one prove coherence of the quranic text by leaving aside the context of the quranic text? The quran is consistent and this is what my project is about. Only by proving the quran consistent in its message one can prove the coherence of the quran, which only and only the people I mentioned above did. I know this for a fact because that is exactly what I am doing as well.

The coherence of the quranic text means the quran is free of contradictions within and with respect to self evident facts and it is objectively consistent that all things it talks about are consistent and well knit together with each other. Mullahs have attributed many wrong things to it therefore it looks full of all kinds of contradictions and flaws. This is why all people need to read what I have explained about the quran and deen of islam. If people equip themselves with knowledge to such degree there is none who could intellectually oppose them about the quranic message in the entire human world. This will pick minds of people in a big way and not let them sleep till they accept the truth and follow it. This is way to bringing about the ummah the quran talks about. Not the mullah way that is why people who change their religions get nowhere with deen of islam because they are not accepting islam as a deen instead they remain religious with a label of deen of islam like rest of us. What have we achieved so far to show by being followers of mullahs' religious islam? Nothing much and for centuries. We will have nothing to show for centuries to come if we do not realise what the actual deen of islam is.

regards and all the best.