"'And I did not do this upon my own command. This is the meaning of that which thou couldst not bear patiently.'"
Quran 18:82
We've come to the end of the brief section dealing with Khidr (the "Green One") that plays such a key role in surah 18, al-Kahf, "The Cave." As I said a few days ago, I love this surah and it definitely changed my perception of the Quran and of Islam when I first read it years ago. Again, all too often there is a perception outside that Islam is a painfully literate faith, and the Quran is chock full of angry rules, when, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it is a religion that emphasizes love and toleration, and the Quran is rich and complex and highlighted my beautifully metaphoric passages.
In this concluding verse, as Nasr reminds us, "Khidr affirms that he did not act upon his own command, indicating that he was acting upon the Command of Will of God, which remains inscrutable to the human mind, even the mind of a prophet like Moses, without an explanation of the hidden meaning (ta'wil) of phenomena, such as Khidr provides here." (p. 756)
Yesterday I made the point that that exchange between Moses and Khidr shows the importance of both the exoteric (Moses) and esoteric (Khidr) aspects of faith. I then proposed that since Moses went to Khidr to learn does that mean that the internal aspects of the faith are more important than the external (while recognizing that both are necessary)? And this would be time for my normal disclaimer that, as we know, I always side with the internal over the external, and believe that most of the more unpleasant if not destructive aspects of my religion and any religion are based on our human attachment to a misreading of the external.
What would Nasr tell us (keeping in mind, obviously, that he's one of the world's leading experts on Sufism, which would lead us, in this case incorrectly, to think that he would downplay the external when nothing could be further from the truth; in the Skype sessions last year he made it clear that the external aspects of the faith are essential)? On page 756 in the commentary he writes:
"Al-Razi comments that the judgments of the prophets are necessarily based upon the outward aspect of phenomena and events, citing the hadith of the Prophet: 'We judge according to the outward; and God is responsible for the inward [or secrets, sara'ir]'; by contract, Khidr's judgments were based upon the true purpose of the phenomena and events. Yet after Moses had perfected the state of knowledge of the shari'ah - that is, the Divine Law, as applied to outward phenomena - God sent him to Khidr in order to teach him knowledge on a more perfect, inward trajectory for religious knowledge if for people to move from a mastery of the science of shari'ah, or Divine Law, which orders and judges according to the outward aspect of phenomena, to the science of the inward, which apprises on of the true realities of things (haqa' iq al-umur)."
Quran 18:82
We've come to the end of the brief section dealing with Khidr (the "Green One") that plays such a key role in surah 18, al-Kahf, "The Cave." As I said a few days ago, I love this surah and it definitely changed my perception of the Quran and of Islam when I first read it years ago. Again, all too often there is a perception outside that Islam is a painfully literate faith, and the Quran is chock full of angry rules, when, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it is a religion that emphasizes love and toleration, and the Quran is rich and complex and highlighted my beautifully metaphoric passages.
In this concluding verse, as Nasr reminds us, "Khidr affirms that he did not act upon his own command, indicating that he was acting upon the Command of Will of God, which remains inscrutable to the human mind, even the mind of a prophet like Moses, without an explanation of the hidden meaning (ta'wil) of phenomena, such as Khidr provides here." (p. 756)
Yesterday I made the point that that exchange between Moses and Khidr shows the importance of both the exoteric (Moses) and esoteric (Khidr) aspects of faith. I then proposed that since Moses went to Khidr to learn does that mean that the internal aspects of the faith are more important than the external (while recognizing that both are necessary)? And this would be time for my normal disclaimer that, as we know, I always side with the internal over the external, and believe that most of the more unpleasant if not destructive aspects of my religion and any religion are based on our human attachment to a misreading of the external.
What would Nasr tell us (keeping in mind, obviously, that he's one of the world's leading experts on Sufism, which would lead us, in this case incorrectly, to think that he would downplay the external when nothing could be further from the truth; in the Skype sessions last year he made it clear that the external aspects of the faith are essential)? On page 756 in the commentary he writes:
"Al-Razi comments that the judgments of the prophets are necessarily based upon the outward aspect of phenomena and events, citing the hadith of the Prophet: 'We judge according to the outward; and God is responsible for the inward [or secrets, sara'ir]'; by contract, Khidr's judgments were based upon the true purpose of the phenomena and events. Yet after Moses had perfected the state of knowledge of the shari'ah - that is, the Divine Law, as applied to outward phenomena - God sent him to Khidr in order to teach him knowledge on a more perfect, inward trajectory for religious knowledge if for people to move from a mastery of the science of shari'ah, or Divine Law, which orders and judges according to the outward aspect of phenomena, to the science of the inward, which apprises on of the true realities of things (haqa' iq al-umur)."
No comments:
Post a Comment