"And when they Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their progeny and made them bear witness concerning themselves, 'Am I not your Lord?' they said, 'Yea, we bear witness' - lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, 'Truly of this we were heedless,'
Quran, 7:172
There are many reasons why I really appreciate investing in Nasr's Study Quran, including the fact that I actually emailed him once and he responded kindly. I'm always amazed/pleased when someone who has no reason to be kind is, and saddened/disheartened when someone who has no reason to be unkind is. Essentially, Nasr is a very big deal and doubtless very busy and thus, I would argue, probably has the right to not respond to academic non-entities such as myself. Instead, he could not have been kinder.
Anyway, another reason is that it allows for deep study, and, truthfully, what's the point of faith if you're not working on it, and that includes study and questioning. For example, Nasr makes this point about verse 7:172: "This verse is in many ways the cornerstone of Islamic sacred history and anthropology . . ." Essentially, who knew? It would have been very easy to gloss over this passage, as with many passages in any sacred text (or any text for that matter) if you didn't have the scholarly context. Nasr continues, and explains that the verse "establishes that the fundamental relationship between God and all human beings is premised upon the simple, unmediated recognition of His Lordship at the moment of their pretemporal creation. The vent recounted in this verse is widely referred to as a pretemporal covenant (mithaq) or pact ('ahd) - although these terms do not appear in the verse itself - made by God with all of humanity prior to their earthly existence."
Anyway, it's fascinating and I'll talk more about it in the future, but my point today is simply that we should never simply be mouthing the words, whether we're struggling with Arabic or saying them in English (or any language in any faith) when there are worlds inside of worlds beneath the surface, but without the context we often miss the point because we don't know there's a point.
Quran, 7:172
There are many reasons why I really appreciate investing in Nasr's Study Quran, including the fact that I actually emailed him once and he responded kindly. I'm always amazed/pleased when someone who has no reason to be kind is, and saddened/disheartened when someone who has no reason to be unkind is. Essentially, Nasr is a very big deal and doubtless very busy and thus, I would argue, probably has the right to not respond to academic non-entities such as myself. Instead, he could not have been kinder.
Anyway, another reason is that it allows for deep study, and, truthfully, what's the point of faith if you're not working on it, and that includes study and questioning. For example, Nasr makes this point about verse 7:172: "This verse is in many ways the cornerstone of Islamic sacred history and anthropology . . ." Essentially, who knew? It would have been very easy to gloss over this passage, as with many passages in any sacred text (or any text for that matter) if you didn't have the scholarly context. Nasr continues, and explains that the verse "establishes that the fundamental relationship between God and all human beings is premised upon the simple, unmediated recognition of His Lordship at the moment of their pretemporal creation. The vent recounted in this verse is widely referred to as a pretemporal covenant (mithaq) or pact ('ahd) - although these terms do not appear in the verse itself - made by God with all of humanity prior to their earthly existence."
Anyway, it's fascinating and I'll talk more about it in the future, but my point today is simply that we should never simply be mouthing the words, whether we're struggling with Arabic or saying them in English (or any language in any faith) when there are worlds inside of worlds beneath the surface, but without the context we often miss the point because we don't know there's a point.
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