The gunaah/sawaab fixation

Many Muslims develop in early childhood this obsession with gunaah and sawaab, which they are rarely able to outgrow. It is easy to blame the elders for the way they teach religion to the youngsters; but they have generally been indoctrinated the same way. It is the general failure to encourage critical thinking that is the cause, in each generation, of much confusion and/or opinions that are as rigid as they are ill-founded.

The gunaah/sawaab mentality tends to pervade everything, including the way a man thinks about the Quran and how/why to read it. The result is that although the Muslims arguably read the Quran more than they read anything else, the last thing in most readers’ mind is what the Quran has to say on important matters of life and death. They have also developed elaborate etiquettes for reading the Quran, and their reverence for the book is unquestioned. That is commendable, of course, but a lot of consideration must go into the question of whether a certain attitude towards the Quran does indeed benefit the reader. For it is very easy to go overboard in this respect.

The tradition of blind recitation, where one reads without really reading anything, is as strong as ever. Technology has opened many avenues for developing an understanding of the Quran, but few are interested. What technology has managed to achieve instead is that it has made earning of ‘blessings’ even easier: the Quran is played on a mobile phone or a computer; and while the recording plays in the background it is business as usual whether it is a shop, kitchen, or a living room. While the ‘blessings’ flow, nobody pays any heed to what is being recited – and why would they when nobody understands a word of it? The fasting month usually sees a peak in this sort of activity.

A friend, who used to be a government official, once narrated an interesting anecdote. In Ramadan, he instructed a subordinate to revise a draft before the end of the day. The subordinate replied that she would not be able to do it because she had yet to read her quota of the Quran for the day. My friend told her that she was hardly exempt from her office commitments during the fasting month. This was too much for her, as she was visibly upset before breaking down in tears. Realizing that he was on shaky ground (in more ways than one), my friend chose not to press the issue. While one does not doubt the piety of the lady, it is a safe bet that she did not understand a word of what she was wont to so religiously reading, or her attitude towards her work would surely have been different.

In the same vein, one often comes across individuals who are very concerned about the correct pronunciation and punctuation in the Quran. They hold that failing to pronounce the words correctly or pausing (or not pausing) at appropriate places alters the meaning of what is being recited. Here, one must agree with them because they are right. What is curious and would be funny if the matter were not as serious as it is, is that most of them have no idea what they are reading in the first place.

Just the other day an acquaintance suddenly realized that he had never performed sajda while reading the ‘sajda verses’ of the Quran. He was referring to the fifteen places where it is customary to put a sajda sign in the border beside the verse. He was perturbed because having lost count of the number of times he had read the Quran he was at a loss as to how he was ever going to atone for his negligence. For the record, this man solely reads the original text, although he does not understand a word of Arabic. Review of some history is in order: The so-called sajda verses contain exhortations of prostrating before God or references to arrogant refusal by some people to do it. It is known that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) used to perform a sajda whenever he recited these verses. But it should be borne in mind that he and his companions used to read the Quran as a living book – in an active way, replying and responding to it whenever any such occasion arose. For instance, when they recited the verse, ‘Is not Allah the best of judges?’ they would exclaim: ‘Surely, we bear witness to that!’ or words to that effect. Performing a sajda when some group was being reprimanded for not doing so (for example) was in that spirit – a beautiful symbolic expression for submitting to Allah. For that, quite obviously, one needs to understand what one is reading. Without that, it is but a ritual, which is blind to the spirit of the whole exercise.

In the same vein, one often comes across individuals who are very concerned about the correct pronunciation and punctuation in the Quran. They hold that failing to pronounce the words correctly or pausing (or not pausing) at appropriate places alters the meaning of what is being recited. Here, one must agree with them because they are right. What is curious and would be funny if the matter were not as serious as it is, is that most of them have no idea what they are reading in the first place. Think about it: they are concerned about the change in meaning when the correct and incorrect readings are equally alien to them as far as their meanings are concerned!

The Quran is a discourse, not a collection of magic formulas that heals the ills of man by its sound alone. It must therefore be understood. That is not to say that everybody must become an expert in Arabic or even develop a working understanding of the Quranic Arabic – that would be asking too much of the average man. Multiple translations are available in every language (and I dare say in every home), so there is no excuse provided a will to understand what one is reading. But the project is a non-starter without first getting rid of the sawaab/gunaah mindset.