Islamic Article |- How to be benefited bythe Holy Qur'an

Now that you have got acquainted with the subjects and the objectives
of the Divine Book [the Qur'an], you will have to take into
consideration an important point, as by doing so the door of being
benefited by it will be opened to you, and the passage to knowledge
and wisdom will be wide open to your heart. This point is to look at
this Glorious Book as an educational one, a teaching book by which you
should be benefited, regarding it your duty to learn fromit. By
learning, teaching, benefiting and being benefited we do not mean its
different literary syntactical and morphological aspects,nor its
eloquence and rhetoric and other stylistic points, nor being
interested in its stories, tales and episodes from the historical
point of viewin order to get information about the past nations. None
of these is included in theobjectives of the Qur'an , and they are,
infact, far away from the main objective of this divine Book. The fact
that our advantage from this great Book is quite small is because we
usually do not take it to be a book of teaching and education. We
recite the Qur'an just for its reward. So, we pay attention only to
our intonation when reciting it. We want our recitation to be perfect
and correct so as to obtain its reward,then we stop at that and feel
satisfied with it. Thus, we spend some forty years reciting the Qur'an
without being benefited by it, except the reward for recitingit. If we
do look at its teaching and educational side, we concern ourselves
withits eloquence and syntax and its miraculous aspects, or even
somewhat higher, we engage ourselves with its history, the occasions
of the revelation of the ayahs, the times of their revelation, which
surah or ayah was revealed in Mecca and which in al-Madinah, the
differences in recitations and in the exegeses of the Sunnis and the
Shiites and other secondary affairswhich are outside the main
objective and they themselves cause us to be barred from the Qur'an
and to neglect remembering Allah. Even our great commentators of the
Qur'an are very much concerned about one or another of the said
affairs, without opening the door of learning to the people.
The writer believes that so far no "tafsir" [exegesis] has yet been
written to the Book of Allah. Generally, to write a"tafsir" for a book
means to explain the objectives of the book and to draw the attentions
to what its author wants to say. This noble Book, whichAllah, the
Exalted, testifies to be a book of guidance and teaching, and the
light of the road of man's journey, its exegete should find in each
oneof its stories, or even ineach ayah, a directive guiding to the
invisibleworld, so as to show tothe learner the road to happiness, to
knowledge and to humanity. A "mufassir"[commentator or exegete] is the
one who tells us what was the "objective" of the revelation, not
the"occasion" of the revelation as is explained in the exegeses. In
the very story of Adam and Eve and their affairs with Iblis, from the
very moment of their creation till their descent to the earth, which
story is repeated by Allah several times in the Qur'an, there are so
many overt and covert teachings [ ma'arif ] and admonitions, and it
reminds us of so many of spiritual faultsand Satanic characters,as
well as many perfections of the soul and human knowledgewhich it
introduces to us, whereas we still disregard them.
In short, the Book of Allah is a book of knowledge and ethics, and an
invitation to happiness and perfection. So, its exegesis should also
be a book of gnosticism and ethics, explaining the gnostic and ethical
points of view, and other aspects of inviting to its happiness [
sa`ada ] . The commentator who neglects these points, disregards them
or attaches no importance to them, is,actually, neglecting
theobjective of the Qur'an and the main aim of revealing the [divine]
books and sending the messengers. This is a grave mistake which has
prevented the ummah, for many centuries, from being benefited by the
Glorious Qur'an, and it has blocked the road ofguidance in their
faces.We have to learn the objective of the revelation of the Qur'an
-disregarding the intellectual and argumentative aspects, which show
us the goal by themselves-from the Qur'an itself. The author of a book
knows better his own objective. So, let us have a glance at what the
author of this BookHimself says concerning the affairs of the Qur'an.
He says: " This is the Book, wherein is no doubt, a guide for the
muttaqin [those who fear Allah]". [299] He describes His Book as being
a book of guidance. In a short surah He repeats saying: " We have made
the Qur'an easy for remembrance, but is there any one who will mind?"
[300] He says: "...We have revealed to you the Remembrance that youmay
explain to mankind what has been sent down to them and that haply they
will reflect," [301] and "A Book We have revealed to you, blessed,
that they may ponder over its ayahs and that men of understanding may
remember," [302] and many other noble ayahs, to restate whichwould be
lengthy.
This opinion of ours is not intended to criticize the tafsirs, as
every one of their authors has taken great pains and strivenhard in
order to write a noble book, so, may Allah bless them and grant them
good reward. We intend justto say that the door must be open before
the people to be benefited by this Book,which is the only one leading
to Allah and the only one for educating the souls with the divine
disciplines and laws, the greatest means of connection between the
created and Creator, the strong handle and the firm cord of adhering
to theMight of Divinity. Let the scholars and commentators write
Persian and Arabic exegeses with the aim of explaining the gnostic and
ethical teachings and instructions, showing the way of connecting the
created to the Creator, and expounding the migration from Darul Ghurur
[the House of Conceit = this world] tothe Darus-Surur wal Khulud [the
House of Pleasure and Eternity], according to what has been deposited
in this noble Book. The authorof this Book is not as-Sakkaki or the
Shaykh, whose objectives were eloquence and rhetoric, nor is He
Sibawayh or al-Khalil, whose objectives weregrammar and syntax, nor is
He al-Mas'udi or Ibn Khillakan, whose objectives revolved around the
history of the world. This Book is not like the stick of Moses or his
White Hand, nor is it like the blow of Christ who could raise the dead
[by Allah's permission], to have been sent down only as a miracle to
prove the true prophethood of the Holy Prophet. This divine Book is,
as a matter of fact, a bookof enlivening the hearts with the
everlasting life of divine knowledge. It is Allah's Book which invites
to divine affairs. So, the commentator has to teach these divine
affairs to the people, and the people have to refer to his commentary
to learn those affairs, so that they may attain its advantage: "And We
reveal of the Qur'an that which is a healing and a mercy to the
believers, and it adds only to the perdition ofthe wrongdoers." [303]
Which perdition is graver than that we keep reciting the Divine Book
for thirty or forty years and referto the exegeses, and yet we do not
get its real objectives? "Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If You
do not forgive us and have not mercy upon us, we shall certainly be of
the losers."