to be investigated and understood. This was what it meant for me to have a personal experience of the Qur’n. Assisted only by my dictionaries, lexicons, and concordances, I wanted to plunge deep into every word and retrieve everything that I could before proceeding to the next. I wasn’t so naive to think that I could capture the meaning of the Qur’n in some absolute, authoritative sense that transcended my own abilities and resources, nor did I share the Salaf confidence in language that could allow such a fantasy. At most, I hoped for an encounter with the Qur’n that was my own.
This emphasis on content is not the only way to approach the Qur’n. It’s not necessarily the same experience that I would have while reciting the Qur’n in prayer, with or without drugs; or struggling to program large portions of the Qur’n into my memory without prioritizing comprehension; or visually experiencing the Qur’n as calligraphy on the wall of a mosque, stylized and abstracted to the point of virtual unreadability; or writing the Qur’n on cloth, washing the ink away, and then drinking the water as a means of physically ingesting the Qur’n. Treating the Qur’n as an intellectual project resonated with my youthful conception of Islam: a religion determined by divine instructions that have been made easily available to us in book form. If someone were to say the word Qur’n, I would first imagine a book, and specifically a modern book, a mass-printed paper artifact of commerce. This itself might be a more radical departure from the origins than I can appreciate.
Before attempting to read and interpret, my first question was whether the Qur’n encouraged or even allowed interpretation of itself. I turned to a contested verse on the matter, the seventh verse of the third sra:
It is he who sent down the Book to you. In it are clear verses—they are the foundation of the Book—and others unclear. As for those in whose hearts is deviation, they will follow that of which is unclear, seeking discord and seeking an interpretation. And no one knows its interpretation except Allh. And those firm in knowledge say, “We believe in it. All of it is from our lord.” And no one will be reminded except those of understanding.
The “you” to whom the book was sent is expressed with the singular masculine suffix ka, which designates its addressee as male. The Qur’n makes frequent shifts in perspective: The man who has been addressed as “you” in this verse is referred to as “he” in others, while the divine “he” who has sent the book in 3:7 is sometimes “we” and occasionally “I.”2
Verse 3:7 informs me that the Book’s umm, its foundation or basis (or “mother”), consists of the mukamt, the clear verses. Mukamt comes from the same -k-m root as terms associated with wisdom and judgment. The words used in reference to “unclear” verses, mutashbiht and tashbaha, could also be translated as “allegorical.” The clear verses are the wise and authoritative, while the obscure can say one thing but mean another. According to this verse, trying to interpret the unclear verses produces discord. The word used here for “discord,” fitna, would become the paradigmatic Muslim term for mischief and infighting; the violent power struggles that devastated early caliphates and left the Muslims forever divided are described as the Fitnas, and charges of fitna are employed to this day to shut down conversations that threaten the status quo. The word for “interpretation,” ta’wl, comes from the same a-w-l root as awl, “first”; to interpret means that we seek a return to the origins.
This verse warns that obsessing over the obscure can only cause deviation and chaos, but then renders itself obscure, as ambiguities in the Arabic allow for two radically opposed translations for a segment of the verse:
1. No one knows its interpretation except Allh. And those firm in knowledge say, “We believe in it. All of it is from our lord.”
2. No one knows its interpretation except Allh and those firm in knowledge. They say, “We believe in it. All of it is from our lord.”
Both versions offer precise and “literal” translations, despite the dramatic difference in their consequences. The Qur’n’s orality comes into play here: Though it sometimes refers to itself (as in this verse) as al-Kitb, “the Book” or more precisely “the Writing,” its more recognized self-identification is of course al-Qur’n, “the Reciting” (in contrast to the Bible, which is always called al-Kitb). Because the Arabic script does not have periods or commas, sound holds as much power as sight in producing the Qur’n’s meaning: When I recite this verse in Arabic, pausing to breathe can change the message. Depending on a full stop after
