The external history of a religious tradition often seems divorced from the raison d’etre of faith. The spiritual quest is an interior journey; it is psychic rather than a political drama. It is preoccupied with liturgy, doctrine, contemplative discipline, and an exploration of the heart, not with the clash of current events…Very often priests, rabbis, imams and shamans are just as consumed by worldly ambition as regular politicians. But all this is generally seen as an abuse of sacred ideal. In Islam, Muslims have looked for God in history. Their sacred scripture, the Quran, gave them a historical mission. Their chief duty was to create a just community in which all members, even the most weak and vulnerable, was treated with absolute respect…A Muslim would meditate upon the current events of his time and upon past history as a Christian would contemplate an icon, using the creative imagination of the external history to discover the hidden divine kernel.
—Karen Armstrong, Islam: A Short History
THIS CONTINUED JOURNEY INTO the Qur’an (volumes 1 through 3 to date) is intended for two audiences: (1) Muslims, especially the young and the restless who cannot seem to obtain reliable, discussion-oriented, context-driven, and actionable sources of information for understanding the essence of Islam in the context of their language, time, and environment and (2) others who want to increase their understanding of Islam and are willing to forge a global alliance of goodwill and common humanity. It is my firm belief that until we can bring the world of diverse faiths and ethnicities into a common framework where we can uncover our common ground from our diversities and can celebrate and appreciate our shared values and cherished differences so that every person can exercise his or her free will and express his or her uniqueness, we will not succeed as a species, and we will not fulfill God’s will as His representatives on this earth.
I am truly fortunate to be able to complete this volume 3 as I continue the journey into the Qur’an and continue to evolve in my faith in God and to understand His message to humanity. To those who have already read volumes 1 and 2, I welcome you to this volume, which covers chapters (surah) 5, 6, and 7 of the Qur’an. Volume 1 covered chapters 1 and 2. Volume 2 covered chapters 3 and 4. I welcome your comments, observations, and suggestions; you can email me at rashed@rashedhasan.com and/or visit the book website at www.rashedhasan.com to share your thoughts, ideas, and questions.
In selecting Social Consciousness as the title for this volume, I wanted to establish a basic framework of how faith and goodness evolve in human societies and certainly in the minds of people as we progress through our lives. In volume 1, Deciphering Faith without Ritual, in the context of the first two chapters (surah) of the Qur’an, I was trying to drive at the important notion that in all our rituals and religious practices, as well as our social, political, and corporate activities, intentionality and purposefulness have to dominate and be sustained while one performs those rituals and activities. Too often the process and the ritual become the focal point and soon degenerate into a set of mindless activities, and we derive satisfaction from a job done but fail to achieve the results that motivated the acts. This is like getting consumed in the act of driving and failing to arrive at the destination. In volume 2, Free to Choose, in the context of chapters 3 and 4 of the Qur’an, I wanted to convey the universal truth and basis for human creation and human dignity in one’s ability to make informed choices through knowledge and wisdom. Our individual and collective responsibility to create social norms and environments requires unfettered freedom to make such choices, in all areas of human endeavors, wants and aspirations, faith and its expression, livelihood, and political systems within the framework of truth and justice. In choosing the tile for this current volume, Social Consciousness, I wanted to highlight the constant theme in the Qur’an of social consciousness, without which we can neither make the right choices nor devise the right mechanisms to achieve the intended results of those choices.
Why Initiate This Conversation?
Please refer to the prefaces in volumes 1 and 2 to find an exposition as to why I have been driven to undertake this work and continue to this day as an explorer into the world of the Qur’an, a gift to mankind from God, our Creator, as He gifted previous generations with the Bible, the Torah, and other Books of Revelations, many of which no longer exist in their original form yet contain wisdom and divine connections that a set of discerning eyes can easily see.
Volume 1 (published in 2015), volume 2 (published in 2017), and this current volume are a continued representation of my modest attempts to initiate a vigorous conversation and offer a contextual commentary on (as opposed to a pure translation of) one of the greatest books on earth for the benefit of Muslims, whose faith is centered around the guidance from the Qur’an and the examples of great prophets such as Mohammad, Jesus, Moses, and Abraham. But this endeavor is also for people of other faith groups and people without faith but aspiring to human goodness so that we can reestablish our common faith and the human goodness in all of us.
This series is intended for all of us, since the Qur’an is for all humanity, and it has been commented on with that goal in mind. One of the earliest revelations in the Qur’an declares, “Truly, this is nothing but a reminder for all of mankind!” (“The Pen,” 68:52). The Prophet of Islam delegated every person of faith to convey the message of God and His teachings and values to the next generation. I believe that the Qur’an needs to be commented on and explained for every generation by every generation to facilitate better and more accurate understanding of Islam’s teachings and values in the contemporary language and in the context of contemporary culture, politics, and social norms; failure to do so will only reflect our own inability and lack of commitment as people of faith to make a difference in our world. It is a generational responsibility that we cannot and should not rely solely on previous generations to achieve, nor can it be delayed for the next generation.
The first two volumes have generated interesting conversations among people of different faiths and among neighbors. These have afforded Muslims in particular opportunities to attempt to understand their faith through a new prism—a prism of contemporary world affairs and the current state of human knowledge and social norms. It has enabled our Christian and Jewish neighbors and friends to reinvent the deep connection that exists in our faiths and in the contents of our revealed texts—The Torah, The Bible and the Qur’an, that each group tried to lay claim as their own, instead of acknowledging that each of these revelations has helped advance the cause of our ever-expanding understanding of our purpose and connection to our Creator.
The successions of these revelations are no different than perhaps the way physics evolved through Galileo, Newton, and Einstein’s writings and experiments. While revealed texts have been inspired directly by God to His designated prophets, human beings of extraordinary spiritual, social, and intellectual prowess and endowments, so have human sciences as God inspired gifted human minds from all generations and from all ethnicities to contribute to collective human knowledge and experience. Accepting Einstein’s theory of relativity in no way negates Newton’s theory of motion or his contribution to gravity, nor does it diminish Galileo’s attempt to infer that the earth is round and rotates around the sun. On the contrary, it magnifies the enormous challenges that previous scientists had faced and the awesomeness of their discoveries and understanding of the natural world with limited tools in the face of intense and life-threatening opposition, especially from Christian churches, not to mention from fellow scientists. The constant friction between Christian churches and the scientific community led to an adversarial relationship between science and religion—a blanket mind-set that is not true in the context of Islam in particular and in many other world religions that are deeply rooted in exploring the natural world as one of the ways to understand and appreciate God’s work and His presence.
The reading of the Qur’an is in many ways an advancement and confirmation of what is already in the Torah and the Bible—without taking anything away from these Books of Revelations, as they are all inspired by the same God. When my Christian neighbor asks me whom I worship, my answer is simple—I worship the same God that Jesus and his apostles worshipped. When my Jewish colleague asked me whom I worship, my answer is similarly simple—I worship that same God Who spoke to Moses.
Muslims in general should have a better understanding and appreciation of other faiths, especially if that faith is grounded in One God and better appreciation of human sciences, since the Qur’an constantly calls for unity of faith and unity of Godhead and calls for deeper attention to the natural world and human societies, including other creatures that cohabitate the earth with us. In our contemporary world, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, though, where corrupt political leaders and misguided religious clerics have inspired some people to violate the basic tenets of Islamic faith regarding the sanctity of life and property and commit horrifying injustices in the name of God and faith. Unfortunately, so has been the case in other faith groups and the atheists (a.k.a. communists) that manifested in Holocaust, the carnage of two world wars, and untold human atrocities by communists in Russia and China, to cite a few examples. There has been a genocide against Muslim minorities in Myanmar by the otherwise pacifist Buddhist majority, and there are confirmed UN reports of over a million minority Uighur Muslims thrown into concentration-style camps in China as I write this volume.
As I quoted at the beginning of the preface from Karen Armstrong, someone I personally admire, valuing her thoughtful exposition of the world of faith as it is and not how it is presented by some members of each faith group, is something that we all need to endeavor to rise to, as we discuss our own faith and the faith of others, since all faiths originated from the same God, and we will all go back to the same God on our death. “It is to Us [God] is your return, and it is on Us [God] to ensure your accountability” (“The Overwhelming Event,” 88:25–26).
I encourage you to continue to make this journey with me into the Qur’an and let your inner conscience be a party to the journey—use not only your physical self and your outer senses but develop a mindful intimacy and a conversation with God and His message so that you can have an inner discourse with yourself and reassess your current understanding of faith and human purpose.
Part of the proceeds from this Qur’anic commentary will be directed to a nonprofit organization, MyLLife Inc., (www.myllife.org) which is dedicated to bringing people of all faiths together for our common vision of human dignity and peace for all. We hope that you will contribute to this cause as well as benefit from this commentary. If you would like to make contributions to MyLLife Inc., please go to our website at www.myllife.org or send contributions to the following address:
MyLLife Inc.
PO Box 22460
Alexandria, VA 22304
USA
May God help us in our sincere endeavors to be better human beings and to help our fellow beings achieve a higher platform of performance and position, as was intended by God when He asked the Angels to bow before Adam, the first person to receive the gift of knowledge from God, a gift that continues for every generation of human beings. I pray and sincerely hope that each one of us strives hard to achieve that goal and remembers God’s call: “Mankind, you have to engage in a deliberate and sustained effort [for goodness] toward your Sustainer [God] until you meet Him” (“The Sundering,” 84:6).