Human beings have this weakness of viewing themselves in any story as the good guys, and those whom they do not care for in real life as the bad guys. Unless caution is exercised therefore, every story has a way of leaving them even more convinced of their undeniable virtues and of the wickedness of others. What an individual takes home from a play, short story, novel or film, therefore depends a great deal on his mental discipline or lack thereof.
This is not confined to works of fiction alone; it applies equally to news and real-life incidents as well; and even to the Quran. In fact, the last-mentioned explicitly warns its reader that he will find in it exactly what he is interested in; that is, it will guide him or lead him farther astray depending on how he approaches it. If it happens to be the latter, it can have some very serious implications considering the fundamental nature of the issues that make up the subject matter of the Quran.
Unfortunately, none of us is immune from this sort of error. Striving to face reality as it is, as opposed to what is convenient or comfortable, is therefore a life-long battle. Those who hope to find material that confirms their biases and opinions tend to find in the Quran plenty that appears to them to answer to that description. Those, on the other hand, who are genuinely interested in finding out the Quran’s verdict on any given issue are apt to find all the guidance they require.
It is a pity that very few bother to read the Quran with a view to learn what it has to say. But even those who do, often end up extracting from it what they have always believed to be true anyway. The key, then, is to read the Quran with a mind that is not already made up. That is easier said than done though, because human beings from very early on rarely have the luxury to suspend judgement. Instead, they operate and survive by taking positions based on whatever data they happen to possess at any given time. Therefore, by the time anybody is old enough to pick up any text, along with the sound stuff there is a great deal of mental junk that has also inevitably been accumulated along the way. This cannot be helped; what must be done however is to continuously strive to separate the wheat from the chaff. Which requires enough flexibility to be able to consider the possibility of being wrong, and a willingness to revise prior beliefs in light of any evidence that warrants the revision.
The mess is sure to follow because as soon as any outside source is used to give a specific meaning to any part of the Quran, that source becomes the governing authority, not the Quran. This goes against the explicit verdict of the Quran that declares that the latter is meant to be the last word– the final authority– on all matters of religious belief. All the context needed for any part of the Quran is right there in the text itself. The Quran does not need anything from outside in order for anybody to understand its message. In fact, relying on extra-Quranic context is the surest way to misconstrue the message of the Quran.Â
The possible sources of the religious worldview imprinted on an individual’s mind at any given time are many: certain prophetic narrations; a particular set of jurisprudential opinions; influence of parents, teachers and friends; books and magazines; the individual’s own notions of how things ought to be; or any combination of these. When (if) one sits down to read the Quran, all this typically provides the context for whatever verse or passage it happens to be on that occasion. Any wonder then if one gets confirmation from the Quran of what one already believes? Another person, with a different context, is apt to get something completely different from the very same verse or passage. In fact, there can be as many interpretations as there are contexts– hardly the guidance one would expect from a Divine text. The real difficulty here is that those who err in this way typically do it subconsciously. Sincerely believing that their attitude and conduct are above board, they fail to realize that they are reading into the Quran what it does not say.
This is the bad news. The good news is that there is a simple and failsafe way to find out if one has been guilty of imposing one’s own will on the Quran. The litmus test is to see whether one has brought the context for any Quranic verse or passage from outside the Quran. Because if one has been careless enough to do so (no matter how ‘obviously true’ it may be as far as one is concerned), one has absolutely nobody else to blame for the mess that is certain to follow.
The mess is sure to follow because as soon as any outside source is used to give a specific meaning to any part of the Quran, that source becomes the governing authority, not the Quran. This goes against the explicit verdict of the Quran that declares that the latter is meant to be the last word– the final authority– on all matters of religious belief. All the context needed for any part of the Quran is right there in the text itself. The Quran does not need anything from outside in order for anybody to understand its message. In fact, relying on extra-Quranic context is the surest way to misconstrue the message of the Quran.
