The In-Between

In God’s speech we find the Arabic word “ayah” simultaneously used to mean the signs that point to the Most Gracious within the Cosmos, and then also the constituent verses of the Speech itself. 

Indeed when the Messenger (saw) recited the Qur’an it is said that he paused after each Ayah. That the Qur’an therefore is a collection of signs, much like the Cosmos itself. *1

In Surah Rahman, like many other Surahs, God draws our attention to the Cosmos and our place within it. 

And it is as if a similitude is being drawn for us between it and the Quran. 

“Ar-Rahman”

The Most Merciful. 

Quraysh complained that there was no such word, because they rightly thought that the true nature of Mercy is weakness, and that Ar-Rahman makes something strong out of something which is essentially weak. 

And that was precisely the point. 

That this nature of God, is unlike anything else. That His Mercy here is powerful. 

Indeed if anyone of us, including the greatest king *2, is merciful to someone then that mercy can easily be thwarted by another with malicious intent. 

That our mercy cannot guarantee anything because of its essentially weak character. 

But God’s true Mercy, here, can never be thwarted. That is the Mercy of Ar-Rahman. It is powerful and all encompassing and can never be thwarted, nor eclipsed. 

“taught the Quran”

This is a phenomenal verse that follows on from drawing our attention to God’s powerful mercy. 

Referencing the powerful ongoing miracle of the Quran -this I had explained on a recent Instagram video- constantly collected within the hearts of the believers, and explained by God when those that deliberate think deeply *3. 

 

But the deep thought here has much to do with the unfolding similitude. 

“Created Mankind”

And the defining characteristic of our nature that is being drawn to us here is…

“He taught clear intelligible speech”

Follows then the verses that draw our attention to the Cosmos. 

Indeed the Cosmos is marked by great distances of void. And it is in the spaces of our speech that meaning exists. 

What is it that causes the stars and the trees to bow in humility?

*************think deeply about this before reading further*************

And even as God expands the Heavens exerts a break and pulls them back. 

And Cosmologists know that the gravitational constant is too precise. 

That an infinitesimal movement either way means the non-existence of existence itself. *4

And it is a power that exerts within the great voids of space. *5

Indeed Physicists now know that reality is mostly space. Even my hand, and this screen that I write on is also mostly space. 

Indeed it is the power that exists within even those minuscule space that is the most telling. 

And that too is the miracle of the Quran. 

It is the meaning that exists within and more importantly between the verses that is the most telling. 

For that is where its power lies. 

In the connections between the verses, and at times within a single verse, and what is ostensibly left unsaid, but is implied. 

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

*1 When we do that, and follow his example, then something extraordinary happens. See for example the layers of depth of meaning that can be found in Al-Fathihah, the opener and the mother of the book. 

*2 that even the greatest king is subject to convention, and the vagaries of heresay. 

*4 This dilemma they call *The Cosmological Problem*. 

*5 it is likewise the same force that makes the Moon punctual. 

See Pickthall translation.  

*3 not that is by ruminating on the intricacies of the Arabic language, for the Quran was relayed in simple Arabic to make it easy for the people. But rather it is in the spaces of what is left unsaid that it’s power lies.