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A PERSUASIVE
RESPONSE TO THE OBJECTIONS
ABOUT THE
REITERATIONS IN THE QURAN
The Quran
aims at the guidance of the
whole of mankind
from the time
of its revelation to the end of
time
The Quran
is a discourse issuing from,
first of all, the greatest and
most comprehensive rank of the
universal Lordship of the
Eternal Speaker, and is
addressed, first of all, to the
comprehensive rank of the one
who received it in the name of
the universe. It aims at the
guidance of the whole of mankind
from the time of its revelation
to the end of time, and contains
entirely meaningful and
comprehensive explanations about
the Lordship of the Creator of
the universe and the Lord of
this world and the Hereafter,
the earth and the heavens, and
eternity, and about the Divine
laws pertaining to the
administration of all creatures.
This discourse is so
comprehensive and elevated, and
therefore so inclusive and
miraculuous, that even the
apparent and simplest level of
its teaching directed at the
understanding of common people
who constitute the great
majority of its addressees,
perfectly satisfies those of the
highest level of understanding.
It addresses and is revealed to
every age and all levels of
understanding and learning as a
collection of not only
historical stories to give
lessons but also universal
principles. While describing the
calamities visiting the peoples
of ‘Ad and Thamud and Pharaoh,
for the wrongs they did, and
with its severe threats against
wrongdoers, it warns the tyrants
and criminals of every age,
especially of this age, against
the consequences of their
tyranny and wrongdoing. By
mentioning, on the other hand,
the final triumphs of the
Prophets like Abraham and Moses,
upon them be peace, it consoles
the wronged believers.
However
frequently the Quran is
recited, it does not bore or
fatigue
The Quran
of miraculous expression revives
all past time which, in the view
of heedlessness and misguidance,
is a lonely and frightful realm
and a dark, ruined cemetery, and
transforms all the past, dead
ages and centuries into each a
living page of instructions, a
curious, animated realm, under
the direct control of the Lord,
a realm which has significant
relations with us. Like the
motion pictures, by either
taking us over to those times or
bringing them over before us and
showing them to all, the Quran
gives us its lessons in its
elevated miraculous style and
again in the same style it
changes the universe, which is,
in the view of misguidance, an
unending, lifeless, lonely and
frightful place rolling in decay
and separations, into a book of
the Eternally Besought-of-All, a
city of the Most Merciful One, a
place of the exhibition of the
works of the Lord’s art, where
lifeless objects become animate
beings doing their particular
duties and helping one another
in a perfect system of
communication. For sure, this
most glorious Quran, which
enlightens angels, jinn, and men
and most pleasingly instructs
them in Divine Wisdom, will have
sacred distinctions like these:
each of its letters brings ten
or a hundred or a thousand or
thousands of merits; if all the
jinn and men banded together to
produce a like of it, they would
not be able to do that; it
speaks to the whole of mankind
and the universe in the most
proper way, and is continuously
inscribed easily and pleasantly
in the minds of millions of
people; however frequently it is
recited, it does not bore or
fatigue; despite its sentences
and phrases which might cause
confusion, children can easily
commit it to their delicate,
sensitive minds; and it gives
pleasure and tranquillity to the
ill and those who are in the
throes of death, for whom
listening to even a few other
words causes great discomfort.
The Quran causes its students
to gain happiness in both
worlds.
Observing the
unletteredness of the one who
communicated it, upon him be
peace and blessings, and without
giving itself unnecessary
trouble and becoming pretentious
or ostentatious, it preserves
the fluency and purity of its
styles and always considers the
simplest level of understanding
of common people, who are the
majority of mankind. Also, it
instructs people in the wisdom
and extraordinary miracles of
Divine Power lying under all the
familiar events in the heavens
and the earth, and thereby
displays a fine aspect of
miraculousness within the grace
of its guidance.
The Quran
demonstrates itself also to
be a book of supplications
and invocations, and a call
to eternal salvation and
declaration of God’s
Unity, all of which require
reiterations
The Quran
demonstrates itself also to be a
book of supplications and
invocations, and a call to
eternal salvation and
declaration of God’s Unity,
all of which require
reiterations. Therefore, through
agreeable reiterations, it
offers in a single sentence or a
story, numerous different
meanings to many different
groups or categories of its
addressees, and treats with
compassion even the smallest and
most slight things and events
and includes them in the sphere
of its will and control. Indeed,
there are universal principles
it aims to present through the
attention it gives to the
particular events related to the
Companions which relate to the
establishing of Islam and
legislating its laws, and like
seeds, those events produced
numerous important fruits. All
this together constitutes
another aspect of its
miraculousness.
Satisfying
recurring needs requires
reiteration
The
repetition of needs requires
reiterations. Also, the Quran
answers many questions
repeatedly asked during twenty
years of its revelation and
seeks to satisfy all levels of
understanding and learning.
Again, in order to prove that
all things particular or
universal from particles to
stars are at the free disposal
of a Single One Who will utterly
destroy the whole universe to
exchange it with the wholly
extraordinary world of the
Hereafter, and in order to
establish in minds a mighty and
all-comprehensive revolution
which will demonstrate the
Divine wrath in the name of the
results of the creation of the
universe, in the face of the
injustices and wrongdoing of
mankind which make the universe,
the earth and the heavens angry
and bring them to fury, the Quran
repeats some sentences and
verses which are the conclusions
of innumerable proofs and have
as great weight as thousands of
conclusions. So, making
repetitions for the purposes
mentioned, rather than being a
defect, must be, and indeed it
is, an extremely powerful aspect
of miraculousness, an extremely
elevated virtue of eloquence,
and a beauty of language in
conformity with the requirements
of the subject matter.
Establishing
truths in minds requires
reiteration
For example,
the phrase In the Name of
God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate, which comes
at the beginning of every sura
(except one) and-together with
that in the sura al-Naml-is
repeated one hundred and
fourteen times in the Qur’an,
is a truth which links the earth
to God’s Supreme Throne and
all the spheres of the universe
together, and illuminates the
universe, and which everybody
always needs, so that it is
worth repeating millions of
times. We need it not only every
day like bread but also at every
moment as we need air and light.
Again, the
sentence Surely Your Lord is
He Who is the Honorable,
All-Mighty, the
All-Compassionate, which has
the strength of thousands of
truths, is repeated eight times
in sura al-Shu’ara’,
in which the final triumph and
salvation of the Prophets and
the ruin of their rebellious
peoples are narrated. If, on
behalf of the results of the
creation of the universe and in
the name of the universal
Lordship of God, and in order to
instruct people therein, while
the Might and Dignity of the
Lord require the ruin of
wrongdoing peoples, His
Compassion demands the triumph
and salvation of the Prophets,
this sentence were repeated
thousands of times, still there
would have remained need for it
and it would have been a concise
and miraculous aspect of the Quran’s
eloquence.
Also, the
verses, Which of Your Lords
bounties will you two deny?,
and Woe on that day to the
deniers! which are repeated
several times in sura al-Rahman
and sura al-Mursalat
respectively, exclaim before the
earth and the heavens and the
ages, and in the face of men and
jinn, their ingratitude,
unbelief and wrongdoing, and
their violation of the rights of
all other creatures, which bring
the heavens and the earth to
rage, spoil the results of the
creation of the universe, and
indicate contempt and denial of
the majesty of Divine
Sovereignty. If in a universal
teaching which is related to
thousands of issues these two
verses were repeated thousands
of times, still there would
remain need for them and it
would be a conciseness in
majesty and a miraculousness of
eloquence in grace and beauty.
Again, Jawshan
al-Kabir is a well-known
supplication of the Prophet,
derived from the Quran, which
consists of a hundred sections.
Each section concludes with Glory
be to You! There is no god but
You, the Protector, One in Whom
refuge is sought, save us from
the Fire! Since this
sentence contains the
affirmation of God’s Unity,
which is the greatest truth in
the universe, and one of three
mighty duties of the created
towards the Lord, namely
glorification, praise, and
holding Him to be All-Holy and
free from every kind of defect
and exalted above what
polytheists attribute to Him
wrongly, and a supplication for
man to be saved from eternal
punishments, which is man’s
most vital problem, and an
aspect of man’s servanthood to
God, which is the most necessary
result of man’s helplessness
before God, if it were repeated
thousands of times, still it
would be insufficient.
Thus, it is
because of certain essential
needs and realities such as
those that the Quran makes
reiterations. Sometimes it even
happens that as occasion
requires, eloquence demands, and
to facilitate understanding, it
expresses the truth of Divine
Unity twenty times in a single
page explicitly or implicitly.
It causes no boredom; rather, it
enforces the meaning and gives
encouragement.
The Makkan suras,
and those revealed in Madina are
different from each other in
eloquence and miraculousness,
and with respect to elaboration
or conciseness. This is because,
since those the Quran
addressed in Makka were mainly
the polytheists of the Quraysh,
it would have to use a forceful,
eloquent and concise language
with an elevated style and make
reiterations to establish its
truths. The Makkan suras
repeatedly express the pillars
of faith and the forms or
categories of the Divine Unity
in a forceful, emphatic, concise
and miraculous language, and not
only in a page or a verse or a
sentence or a word, but also in
a letter or in changing places
of the words in a sentence or in
using definite articles or
omission of articles, or
mentioning or omission of
certain words or phrases or even
sentences, they prove the
beginning and the end of the
world, the Divine Being and the
Hereafter in so powerful a way
that geniuses of the science of
eloquence have been amazed at
it.
As for the suras
revealed after the Hijra in the
second phase of Islam, they
address foremost the believers
and the Peoples of the Book-the
Jews and Christians-and as the
circumstances require, and
guidance and eloquence demand,
they explain to their addressees
not the pillars of faith and
elevated principles of the
Religion, but the laws and
commandments of the Shari‘a in
a simple, clear and detailed
language. In a unique, matchless
style particular to the Qur’an,
they usually conclude their
explanations with a sentence or
phrase related to faith, Divine
Unity or the Hereafter, which
makes the laws of the Shari‘a
universal and secures obedience
to them through belief in God
and the Hereafter. If you would
like to know what an elevated
aspect of eloquence and what
sorts of merits and subtleties
there are in the conclusions of
the verses, like Surely God
is All-Powerful over all things;
Surely God knows all things;
He is the All-Mighty, the
All-Wise; He is the
All-Mighty, the Most
Compassionate, you may refer
to where they are discussed
above.
The Quran
being both a book of law and
wisdom and a book of creeds,
belief, reflection,
invocations, prayer and call
to the Divine Message
require repetition or
reiteration
Indeed, while
explaining the secondary
principles and social laws of
Islam, the Quran abruptly
draws the attentions of its
addressees to elevated,
universal truths, and from the
lesson of the Shari‘ah to the
lesson of Divine Unity, and
changes from a plain style to an
elevated one, thus showing
itself to be both a book of law
and wisdom and a book of creeds,
belief, reflection, invocations,
prayer and call to the Divine
Message. By offering its aims of
guidance on every occasion, the
Quran displays in its Madinan
suras a brilliant
miraculousness of eloquence and
purity of language different
from the styles of the Makkan suras.
It sometimes occurs that in two
words, for example, in the Lord
of the Worlds and your Lord, it
declares the manifestation of
God’s Names in all creatures,
and their manifestation in a
single being respectively; it
expresses the former within the
latter. Sometimes it even
happens that where it fixes a
particle in the pupil of an eye,
it fixes with the same ‘hammer’
the sun in the heaven and makes
it an eye of the heaven.
For example,
after the verse beginning with He
it is Who created the heavens
and the earth, it concludes
the verse He causes the night
to enter into the day and the
day to enter into the night with
He has full knowledge of what is
in the breasts (al-Hadid,
57.4-6).
It thereby
means, ‘Together with the
magnificent creation and
administration of the earth and
the heavens, He has full
knowledge of what occurs in the
hearts’, and changes its
simple style of speech aimed at
the level of understanding of
common people to an elevated and
appealing address for the
guidance of all.
A question
Since a
significant truth may
sometimes remain hidden from
superficial minds and the
reason for concluding the
narration of an insignificant,
ordinary event with either a
universal principle or a
principle or aspect of Divine
Unity cannot always be known,
such style of the Qur’an
might be fancied to be a
defect. For example, after
narrating how the Prophet
Joseph, upon him be peace,
contrived to detain his
brother with him (see, sura
Yusuf, 12.69-76), it mentions
a very exalted principle:
Above every man of knowledge
there is one more knowing,
which seems unfitting to the
occasion with respect to
eloquence. What is the reason
for this?
Answer
Since by
virtue of being, for example,
both a book of faith, reflection
and invocation, and a book of
law, wisdom and guidance, the
Quran’s nature comprises
numerous books and contains
innumerable instructions; since
by virtue of expressing the
all-comprehensive and
magnificent manifestations of
Divine Lordship, it is a kind of
copy and recitation of the great
book of the universe, the Quran
pursues lots of aims in most of
its long and medium-length suras,
each of which is like a small
Quran, and in each of its
pages and in all its discussion.
Therefore, together with
following many other of its
aims, the Quran gives
instructions on every occasion,
in knowledge of God, the aspects
of Divine Unity and the truths
of faith, and where occasion
occurs, however insignificant in
appearance it is, it gives other
instructions, thus making that
occasion significant and adding
to its eloquence.
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