A Transcending Loop

A transcending loop. 

As a book, the Qur'an stands out by the sheer amount of self-referential passages that are contained within it. This is one of it’s modern miracles. 

Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a Surah or Chapter within the Quran that does not begin, or end with, a reference to itself, in one form or another. Obviously there are exceptions, but these exceptions just draw more attention to it’s unusualness. 

In the Pulitzer winning  “Godel, Escher & Bach” Douglas Hofstadter argues that the key to self-consciousness, the I, is what he terms a strange loop. And he argues that such loops transcends themselves. 

He presents various examples to pad out his claim from the double helix of DNA, which transcends it’s being a simple replicating molecule, since parts of it code for the very colour of your eyes. To the Escher drawings with each of two hands painting one another, or monks ascending a never ending staircase which loops on itself. To a Bach symphony which gives us the impression of an ever increasing pitch whilst always remaining within hearing bounds. 

And then to Godel’s mathematical theorem in which he encoded theorems, in self-reference, within a numeric framework and proved that not all that we know to be true can be proven so. 

It is self reference that allowed this fact to be proven true that in any well defined language, not all that we know to be true (since it is self evidently true) can be proven true. Note the loop even here, on itself. *1

This self referential transcendentalism is also found within the very essence of our religion. 

Just think how grateful to God we should be that He has given us gratitude, and imagine if He left us as ungrateful fools. 

How gratitude is itself and unbounded blessing. 

Take a minute to let that sink in. 

That we should be grateful to God for choosing for us to be grateful. And when you contemplate it, you realise that it is impossible for your gratitude to compass what it should, and what it sets out to do in the first place. *2

Recall then the verse in the Quran in which God declares of Himself that He is the Most Grateful, the One who is independent of all, and in need of none. 

And that His gratitude can and does compass all that it should. 

Then contemplate the verse in Surah Nur, in which God describes Himself. The imagery whilst crescendoing to a summit is topped by the self referential “Nur ala Nur”. Light upon Light. Light over Light, in apparent reference to an unending loop, that has a meaning that transcends its very expression. Just as does the description of the olive oil that lights without even a flame touching it, and is neither of the East nor the West. 

The imagery is of God transcending light upon, or over, light. 

And now lastly consider our testimony of faith, that confirms us as Muslim in the first, and guarantees us Heaven in the last. 

A mathematician and logician of the calibre of Raymond Smllyan would be astounded by it. 

No gods except the God. 

There feels like there should be a loop here. And the apparent contradiction in the statement is astounding. It’s clear that something else is going on here which is very profound. And then you see what is really implied by the statement. 

No gods ergo the One God. 

Or if you prefer- 

No gods therefore the One True God. 

It is an outstanding statement. 

But still you feel that there is something missing, some loop missing from this statement until you realise that the loop is given by the first person, and it is that, that is also actually implied by the very statement. 

The Statement is God’s. 

And God declares its truth so many times in the Quran. 

Now the loop becomes clear. 

And the apparent contradiction is removed. And the statement actually transcends itself. 

(God declares) that there are no gods except the One True God. 

When you read the Quran and you come across a self referential verse, where the Quran, or Kitab, or Ayahs are mentioned know that there is a second meaning there that transcends the apparent and clear meaning. It’s beautiful to deliberate and contemplate on those other meanings. 

So for example one reading of V 2 of Baqara has this ostensible meaning:

That is the book about which there is no doubt.*3

But the other meanings of the same rendering could well be in reference to V23 of Baqara, and another could well be “so follow it”. 

In Surah Balad the self reference is beautiful in what it points to. 

And that is for you to find. 

And whenever you come across others contemplate them too. 

Knowledge is sought through study and contemplation. Not lectures, nor talks, nor this above. 

Shafees. 

NOTES

*1 this is an extension to the classic statement “this statement is false” which cannot take a specific truth value (it is neither true nor false, or perhaps both at the same time?). 

*2 that we should also be grateful that God enabled us for being able to be grateful for being grateful (ad infinitum). 

*3 a second reading is as follows. 

That is the book. No doubt a guidance for the pious. 

NOTE there was an error in the first draft. 

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