A CHRISTIAN READS THE KORAN
by Stanley Schade

Delivered to
The Chicago Literary Club
December 2, 2002

I first ought to explain that over the years I have made several attempts to read the Koran. In earlier years I used an older translation, first produced in French in the 18th century and later translated into English. At first I found the book to be incomprehensible. The many dense foot-notes in small print usually only increased my frustration.

I once attended a day long seminar on the Islamic religion which was given by a university professor. I came to the seminar with the Koran. Early in the discussion the professor noticed that I had a copy of the Koran and told the audience and me what I had already partially guessed, that one could not read the Koran from beginning to end. Its format and style simply did not allow for that kind of reading. I really should have known that anyway, for it is also true of the Bible.

During the summer of the year 2001 I worked with a Muslim physician from Jordan who practiced reading the Koran daily in Arabic. I drew on my feeble knowledge of its content to engage him in some conversations about the text, and that led me to read more of it. By now I had a newer translation by a man named N. J. Dawood. The text was clearer and the annotations brief.

Why did I bother? In my type of work as a physician there are not many theists. Actually, in my limited sample, practically the only theists I know are of the Islamic faith, readers of the Koran. In a way, I wanted to compare notes on the theistic experience.

After September 11, I inquired among more of my Muslim colleagues about the Koran and also did some more reading of Arabic history and the origin of the text.

Sometime in the early part of our seventh century, the words of the Koran came to the prophet Mohammad near a cave in the desert. The word, Koran, comes from an Arabic word meaning "to speak", and in a verse of the Koran Mohammad is told to "speak" the word of God, or Allah. Allah is the divinity, and Mohammad is his messenger to the Arab peoples

A characteristic of the other two large theistic religions, Christianity and Judaism is that the major figures in these religions were able to perform miracles. Their ability to perform these miracles was part of the evidence that they spoke for God. The Koran itself refers to miracles on the part of these figures, but it does not describe any miracles performed by Mohammad himself. Rather, to the Muslim, the miracle produced by Mohammad is the speaking of the Koran itself. That Mohammad, a member of a pagan tribe of the Arabic peninsula and an orphan, should be able to speak the Koran in the beautiful and meaningful type of Arabic that he did is the miracle itself.

Thus, for many of the Islamic faith it has long been believed that the Koran could not be translated in any satisfactory way. This is often said about works of art in other languages, but it seems to be peculiarly true of the Koran given its production through the rather direct intervention of God.

Despite this reservation, the Koran today is translated into many languages, and among my colleagues I found many who read it primarily in their native languages. But increasingly, if they do not speak Arabic, they read it in English, a natural second language for all of them. A common edition is from a translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, a native of India, born in the 19th century, who became fluent in both English and Arabic, and devoted many years to the attempt to provide a reasonable interpretation of the Koran's Arabic in English. His translation has been recently revised in 1989, and, together with his commentary, seems to be widely used by Muslims who do not speak the original Arabic.

Today one can listen to the Koran at any time simply by logging on to one of the Islamic web sites. There one can find any of a variety of translations and hear the Koran read in Arabic by a number of different preachers. Listening to the Arabic, one is aware of a tonal and melodic character which lends itself to a contemplative mode. Perhaps listening to the Koran in Arabic and actually understanding the sense of the words could give rise to an experience that for the listener might represent a kind of miracle.

The Koran is not organized in any chronological order. It is organized in Surahs, or chapters. The first is among the shortest. The remainder are organized in terms of length, with the first being the longest.

The first Surah is a prayer and reads as follows:
"Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds; Most Gracious, Most Merciful; Master of the day of judgement. Thee do we worship, and thine aid we seek. Show us the straight way, The way of those on whom thou has bestowed thy grace, those whose portion is not wrath, and who go not astray."
To the Christian, there is really nothing to object to in this prayer. For most theists, God is all-powerful, all good and present everywhere. Thus, he is the sustainer and cherisher of each of us and our many worlds. For the theist, recognizing this does carry with it the obligation or duty of worship, as the prayer brings out.

The second Surah, as mentioned above, is the longest. Much of it draws on the Hebrew scriptures, the Tanach, the old testament for the Christian. Surah 2 recounts versions of stories of Abraham, Moses, Saul, David and Goliath, and Jesus. It asserts that formal adherence to rules does not necessarily entail righteousness.

In many of these stories, the problem of war and the subject of Jihad comes up. For instance, verse 216 of Surah 2 reads: "Fighting is required of you, and you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and you know not." The message is expanded upon later in the Surah when the story of David and Goliath is alluded to and then interpreted. Apparently God has used one people to check another; otherwise, the earth would have been full of mischief.

This is a difficult message for most of us. It is true that most of us dislike war, but why would God ask for war from us. Of course, for the theist if God is all-powerful, then in some sense he bears responsibility for all our ills, including war, and in that sense it may be construed that he requires war of us. A verse a little later offers an explanation. This verse follows an assertion that Jesus, son of Mary, had come with clear signs that he was a messenger of God. Then, "If Allah had so willed, succeeding generations would not have fought among each other, but they chose to dispute, some believing and others rejecting." The key words here are: "but they chose to dispute," even though they had received clear signs about about what God desired. In other words, we have here a typical theistic explanation of evil in a world produced by an all powerful and completely good God. It is because God has given to man the gift of freedom and accepts even the bad choices that we make.

For many, the claims of the different theistic religions are in conflict with each other. What is it that makes one more right than the other? The Koran sometimes asserts the equal value of the various religions, at least those which envision a single creator God. It claims that Allah has sent many different messengers to the peoples of the world, and for each people that message suffices. Here is a characteristic passage from Surah 2:
"Those who believe in the Koran, and those who follow the Jewish scriptures, and the Christians and the Sabians, And who believe in Allah and the last day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."
This message indicates an acceptance of many religions. It pictures a God who has attempted to teach men at different times in history and in different locations the right way to live. The Koran is, however, not always consistent in this message as we shall later see.

When Mohammad was born, his society was pagan and tribal. He was born in the town of Mecca in one of the smaller clans. Mecca was a trading city along the Western coast of Arabia which provided a center for trading of wares and offering shelter and replenishment for caravans. Long years of war between the Byzantine and Sassanid empires had closed the more accessible sea routes, and Mecca had prospered as a site along a popular trading route through Arabia south to the Indian Ocean and from there by sea to lands further to the East.

Some in Mecca grew rich during this period of prosperity, while others fell on hard times. The tribal system that had provided in the past for individuals was failing. The Koran is filled with references to the need for and the obligation of charity. In Surah 2 one finds this passage: "They will ask you about almsgiving. Say: 'Whatever you bestow in charity must go to parents and to kinsfolk, to the orphans and to the helpless and to the traveler in need. God is aware of whatever good you do.'"

We are also reminded that Mohammad himself was orphaned at an early age. He was raised by an uncle, but only achieved status in the society at Mecca after his marriage to a widow who had property. While the source of the Koran's message of charity may be in the events of his early life as an orphan, or in the messages which he found in Christianity or Judaism, or in a message directly from Allah, it is a reality that the Islamic faith does see almsgiving as a key component to the Islamic way of life.

Miracles are a characteristic of theistic religion. They provide the evidence that the messenger of God is indeed the messenger of God. Miracles occur in the Koran; however, the Koran does not relate any miracles performed by Mohammad, but rather miracles performed by the messengers to other peoples, particularly Jesus and the prophets of Judaism.

Here is the Koranic version of one of the Christian miracles -- the birth of Christ.
"And you shall recount in the Book the story of Mary: how she left her people and betook herself to a solitary place to the east.

We sent to her our Spirit in the semblance of a full-grown man. And when she saw him she said: 'May the Merciful defend me from you. If you fear the Lord, leave me and go your way.'

'I am the messenger of your Lord,' he replied, 'and have come to give you a holy son.'

'How shall I bear a child,' she answered, 'when I am a virgin, untouched by man'

'Such is the will of your Lord,' he replied. 'That is no difficult thing for him. "He shall be a sign to mankind," says the Lord, "and a blessing from Ourself. This is our decree.'"

Thereupon she conceived him, and retired to a far-off place. And when she felt the throes of childbirth she lay down by the trunk of a palm-tree, crying: 'Oh, would that I had died and passed into oblivion!'

But a voice from below cried out to her: 'Do not despair. Your Lord has provided a brook that runs at your feet, and if you shake the trunk of this palm-tree it will drop fresh ripe dates in your lap. Therefore eat and drink and rejoice; and should you meet any mortal say to him: I have vowed a fast to the Merciful and will not speak with any man today.'

Carrying this child, she came to her people, who said to her: 'Mary, this is indeed a strange thing! Sister of Aaron, your father was never a whore-monger, nor was your mother a harlot.'

She made a sign to them, pointing to the child. But they replied: 'How can we speak with a babe in the cradle?'

Whereupon he spoke and said: 'I am the servant of God. He has given me the Book and ordained me a prophet. His blessing is upon me wherever I go, and He has commanded me to be steadfast in prayer and to give alms to the poor as long as I shall live. He has exhorted me to honor my mother and has purged me of vanity and wickedness. I was blessed on the day I was born, and blessed I shall be on the day of my death; and may peace be upon me on the day when I shall be raised to life.'

Such was Jesus, the son of Mary. That is the whole truth, which they still doubt. God forbid that he himself should beget a son! When He decrees a thing He need only say: 'Be,' and it is."
Much in this story resonates with the story of Hagar, the concubine of Abraham cast off by word of his wife, Sarah, and of the birth of her son Ishmael, from whom it is said the Arab people have their origin. In this story, the mother and child are preserved in the wilderness through God's miraculous intervention. In the story told in the Koran about Jesus, there are several miracles, including the unusual one of Jesus speaking mature words as a new born child.

Note also the immediate assertion that Jesus is not the son of God. In fact, Jesus in later passages in the Koran is careful to say the same thing, that he is not God's son.

In early Christianity there was much controversy as to the true nature of Jesus and his relationship to God. Some Christians saw Jesus as not fully equal to God, although given unusual powers by God. These Christians flourished in the Middle East for centuries. It is said that when the Islamic armies marched, they found some welcoming from these unorthodox Christians who shared in part Islam's view of Jesus, and who did not exist comfortably with orthodox Christendom's views. They were content to live under an Islamic rule which was more tolerant of them than the rule of the Byzantine emperor.

Time and again the Koran attacks "unbelievers." Particularly dangerous are the "unbelievers" who mask their disbelief by verbal agreement at times with Islam, but then speak against it when it suits them. Who are these unbelievers? Are they Arabs who remain adherent to pagan ways or desert Mohammad at critical times? Sometimes this seems to be the case, but other times unbelievers seem to be Christians or Jews who profess either religion, but do not really believe in it. Or unbelievers may be Christians who believe that Jesus is the son of God.

According to the Koran, Jesus himself disclaimed divinity. Thus, a real Christian, from the perspective of Islam, might be an unbeliever. The Koran might see such a person as an unbeliever because of his faith in the divine sonship of Jesus, a faith which for the Koran is a result of a distortion of the original Christian message.

Similarly, the Muslim might hold the Jew to be a disbeliever, since such a person believes the Tanack version of the Judaic tradition and not the version given in the Koran.

My own simple reading of the Koran tells me that the Koran brings a message to all peoples, saying in effect that each people has received his own messenger from God and that if each person adheres to the message as he or his family received it, then that person is following God's will.

However, it is easy to read the Koran from another perspective. From that perspective, the Christian religion and Jewish religion, and perhaps other religions, are faulty, in that they do not believe in the versions of their religion that are told by the Koran. It is the contention of the Koran, in this perspective, that Christian and Jewish tradition have distorted the original messages that they received from God. In this sense, only Muslims are true believer, all others are unbelievers. Thus, those of the Islamic faith may be tolerant, but only in a sense of the principle of tolerance that holds that our religion is the true one. Others can make do with theirs, and we will tolerate it, but we do not forget that ours is the true one. I do not claim, of course, that only Islam has this characteristic, for it has been true of many forms of Christianity as well, and is still true for some of them.

The Koran is unusual for a book of religious revelation in that it does offer the following warning about interpreting its contents:
"Some of its verses are decisive, and they are the basis of the book, and others are allegorical; then as for those in whose hearts there is perversity they follow the part of it which is allegorical, seeking to mislead and seeking to give it their own interpretation, but none knows its interpretation except Allah, and those who are firmly rooted in knowledge say: We believe it, it is all from our Lord. But only the wise take heed."
Time and again, in reading the Koran, I have taken a sort of refuge in this verse, which at least seems to give an allowance for metaphorical interpretation rather than the strictly literal. It is true that interpreters of the Hebrew texts, such as Philo in Egypt and Maimonides in Spain, as well as Christian interpreters, have viewed these texts as written allegorically, but I do not think that the primary texts ever made this type of reference to themselves.

The sympathetic historian looking at the Koran can point out that for its time it provides an amelioration for life in a violent, patriarchal and tribal community, particularly for its physically weaker members and for its women. For instance, female infanticide was a common practice for the tribes. At the same time, the tribes included many goddesses in their pantheon. The Koran says almost mockingly:
"They assign daughters for Allah (glory be to him), but for themselves they choose what they desire. When a new-born girl is announced to one of them, his countenance darkens and he is filled with gloom. On account of the bad news he hides himself from men: should he put up with the same or bury it in the earth? How ill they judge."
The historian can also point to other passages that can be seen as offering protection to women from some of the more malignant aspects of tribal life. However, from the perspective of our times, we might say that the Koran offered an improvement to the lives of women, but that there was still a long way to go. The same can also be said about the Hebrew scriptures and about the New Testament, particularly the well known restrictions in the writings ascribed to Paul on the life of women in the church.

Similar observations might be made about the place of slavery in the Koran. The Koran accepted, as did the other major religions, slavery in the life of the times, though the religious texts might have sought to ameliorate the life of a slave.

One of the more disquieting features of the Koran is the recurrence of frequent images of Hell, as well as the frequent warnings of eternal torments for unbelievers.

Here is one image: The believers have been placed in Paradise. Rivers flow near them; sheets of fire enfold those in Hell. They are told that an inseparable barrier divides them. Then, "the damned will cry out to the blessed: 'Give us some water, or some of that which God has given you.' But the blessed will reply: 'God has forbidden both to the unbelievers, who made their religion a pastime and an idle sport, and who were seduced by their early life.'"

The image is strikingly similar to one from a parable told by Jesus in which a rich man who has succeeded well in life dies and is placed in Hell, where he thirsts for water. He sees the poor man whom he knew in life, Lazarus, who is now in Heaven with Abraham. He asks Abraham that Lazarus might be allowed to dip his finger in water and that he might cool his tongue, for "I am in anguish in this flame." Abraham replies that the rich man received many good things in his life and Lazarus many evil things. Now, says Abraham: "He is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed." None can cross that chasm.

Hell is not a concept that we find in the Hebrew scriptures, although in some branches of later Judaism there is an afterlife with a Hell and a Heaven. Hell is mentioned in the New Testament, as in the above story from the Gospel of Luke, but it is not much emphasized. Hell is emphasized in Christianity a little later. A horrifying picture of it is presented by Tertullian in the third century after Christ. Most horrifying is the spectacle of the saints rejoicing in the suffering of the damned.

Perhaps the most vivid picture of Hell comes to us from Dante's portrayal of it in The Inferno from the thirteenth century. Critics tell us of its artistic beauty. To this reader, too many occupants of it are there for crimes we would consider relatively innocent today. Most awful, they are tormented for ever. That concept of Hell is difficult to reconcile with the concept of a good God, and not all Christian thinkers of later times would accept it.

A perceptive critic of the theistic religions, the German writer Nietzsche, found in them a disquieting resentment of the good, or the strong in his terms, by the bad. The bad developed their religion almost as a revenge upon the good, or at least as a means to control them and ultimately triumph over them, to the detriment of mankind as a whole. Nietzsche was prone to attack quite aggressively concepts that in other contexts he admired, or even honored, so one must be careful of Nietzsche's polemics. But his notion of resentment certainly resonates today, as we witness the growing wave of resentment from the Arab world. One can also visit certain sites on the Web which extol a sinister sense of racial privilege and resentment coming from a debased sort of Christianity. Such sites testify ironically to the perceptiveness of Nietzsche's critique.

The Koran frequently attests to the presence and the seducing works of Satan, a figure who is more prominent in the Koran than in the original texts of Judaism and Christianity. The Satan in the Koran creates for his worshippers many wonders and gives them great gifts of material wealth and pleasure. But these are delusive gifts, which ensnare and will ultimately destroy the wicked who follow Satan and not God. Today we can read in our newspapers the claim that there is a belief among some in the Islamic world that the Western world is dominated by Satan. According to this belief, the West represents a world of delusion and materialism which will ultimately be brought down.

I close with this reminder from the Koran. Be careful how you interpret this text. The perverse will derive from it what they desire. Treat it with wisdom and with caution.
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Dr. Stanley Schade is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Chief of the Hematology Section at the West Side Veterans Administration Hospital. He enjoys reading related to philosophy and religion and is an active elder in the Presbyterian Church in Riverside, Illinois where he has lived for the past 30 years.