"This is the Book in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the reverent, who believe in the Unseen and perform the prayer and spend from that which We have provided them, and who believe in what we sent down unto thee, and what was sent down before thee, and who are certain of the Hereafter."
Quran 2:2-4
This is the beginning, after the separated letters we've discussed before, of the second surah, al-Baqarah, always referred to as "The Cow," the longest surah in the Quran, You could teach an entire class simply on this surah and not fully get to the end of all the crucial material covered. For that matter, this opening verse contains worlds within worlds. At this point I'm just focusing on the third verse, which opens "who believe in the Unseen . . ." At several points in the Quran we're instructed to believe in the Unseen and the seen, and, no, there's no mistake in my capitalization, nor would you expect there to be.
As Nasr tell us: "Unseen (ghayb, lit. 'absent') refers to realities absent from the perception of the ordinary senses, such realities as God, Paradise, Hell, and the Day of Judgment. These include realities that are invisible in principle because they are beyond ordinary sense perception, such as God, as well as those that are part of the Unseen because they cannot be known except by God, such as the time of the Day of Judgment." (Nasr, Study Quran, p. 15)
I know this is the very definition of a "well, duh" statement, but isn't this the most difficult part of faith: to believe in something that, by definition, we can't see. We all know the story of how Muhammad, who obviously believed in God, was still terrified when the angel Gabriel conveyed God's message to him. I suspect that most of us would be equally terrified if God, either directly or through some intermediary, actually spoke to us, and either doubt our senses or not share the experience with anyone. Still, we are instructed to believe what we can't see or could possibly understand if we did see. So, is it more important to believe in the Unseen than to understand the Unseen? Or, for that matter, for the Unseen even to exist? To believe in the Unseen means that we believe in something, which means that we are living, or at least trying, to live a life of purpose. As I point out repeatedly, these are only my ideas, and I'm probably the last person to ask about these questions. My sense of the divine is, and I guess I would argue always has been, a quiet sense of the connectedness of all things, and the kindness and compassion and beauty at the heart of everything (at least until we are taught to ignore them).
Quran 2:2-4
This is the beginning, after the separated letters we've discussed before, of the second surah, al-Baqarah, always referred to as "The Cow," the longest surah in the Quran, You could teach an entire class simply on this surah and not fully get to the end of all the crucial material covered. For that matter, this opening verse contains worlds within worlds. At this point I'm just focusing on the third verse, which opens "who believe in the Unseen . . ." At several points in the Quran we're instructed to believe in the Unseen and the seen, and, no, there's no mistake in my capitalization, nor would you expect there to be.
As Nasr tell us: "Unseen (ghayb, lit. 'absent') refers to realities absent from the perception of the ordinary senses, such realities as God, Paradise, Hell, and the Day of Judgment. These include realities that are invisible in principle because they are beyond ordinary sense perception, such as God, as well as those that are part of the Unseen because they cannot be known except by God, such as the time of the Day of Judgment." (Nasr, Study Quran, p. 15)
I know this is the very definition of a "well, duh" statement, but isn't this the most difficult part of faith: to believe in something that, by definition, we can't see. We all know the story of how Muhammad, who obviously believed in God, was still terrified when the angel Gabriel conveyed God's message to him. I suspect that most of us would be equally terrified if God, either directly or through some intermediary, actually spoke to us, and either doubt our senses or not share the experience with anyone. Still, we are instructed to believe what we can't see or could possibly understand if we did see. So, is it more important to believe in the Unseen than to understand the Unseen? Or, for that matter, for the Unseen even to exist? To believe in the Unseen means that we believe in something, which means that we are living, or at least trying, to live a life of purpose. As I point out repeatedly, these are only my ideas, and I'm probably the last person to ask about these questions. My sense of the divine is, and I guess I would argue always has been, a quiet sense of the connectedness of all things, and the kindness and compassion and beauty at the heart of everything (at least until we are taught to ignore them).
No comments:
Post a Comment