Is the Qur'an a book ? A look at Rashad Khalifa's conception vs Academic analysis

  Is the Qur’an a book?

A look at Rashad Khalifa's conception vs Academic analysis 

 

The event that happened during the Prophet Muhammad’s first revelation of the Qur’an is a subject discussed by believers and academic historians.  Was the Qur’an given to prophet all at once? The belief that the prophet was given a Qur’an in the form of a “book” is wide spread. Yet, the belief that Muhammad was provided with the Qur’an over a 23 year period of time is also wide spread. Dr. Rashad Khalifa shared in this assertion. These are two contradictory assertions that scholars have come up with different ways to reconcile.  Modern scholarship has put the tradition of the full Qur’an’s one-time descent into doubt.  The very idea that the Qur’an is a “book” is questioned as well. The perspective we get from studying Islamic literature in the critical-historical way inevitably puts doubt on Dr. Khalifa’s own’s claims about the Qur’an revelation.

 

All authorities agree that the Qur’an was given to the Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years. There have been no traditionalists or academics that have challenged this position (as far as I am aware. Of course academics will deny revelation but I cannot recall a historian doubting the production of the Qur’an during those 23 years.  The only contrary possibility is a book by a non-historian who questioned the existence of the Prophet Muhammad.. an assertion beyond our point.)  But the Qur’an was also believed to be revealed all at once to Muhammad during the first revelation. This is a contradictory assertion on face but we are not concerned with how traditionists reconciled these claims.

 We begin our enquiry into the mater by asking the question: What happened during the first revelation of the Qur’an?  Most authorities believe that the sending down of Surah 96 Alaq via Gabriel constituted the essence of the revelatory event. Everyone has heard the story of Muhamamd, pbuh, being in a cave meditating at age 40 when he was confronted by Jabriel. The reaction of the Prophet, consultation with Khadija and his subsequent transformation are all well known.  Generally when things are taught as children there are questions we forget to ask. Surah Alaq is believed to be the first  Quranic revelation that descended upon the Prophet during that fateful encounter with the Angel.  The biographical accounts reveal a prophet who received revelation over the next 23 years of his life. The revelations of the Prophet Muhammad occurred in different circumstances and occurred in response to different events of his life.  So far nothing in the above has been disputed.

 But the belief of the Qur’an being revealed all at once to Muhammad at the cave in Hira enjoys just as widespread favor compared to the revelation of Surah Alaq? But which story is more factual? Did Muhammad receive the whole Qur’an all at once or was the revelation of the Qur’an limited to Surah Alaq? If the whole Qur’an was revealed at once then how could the Prophet Muhammad receive the Qur’an over a 23 period life span? Did Muhammad forget the Qur’an he was given initially?  Perhaps the whole historical narrative needs to be questioned so that the Prophet never received revelation subsequent to Surah Alaq.  If the Prophet Muhammad received the whole Qur’an at Hira and then again several times piece meal, we have to ask why the Qur’an was revealed in that manner. The question has bothered academics and others.

 Dr. Rashad Khalifa was of the view that the Qur’an was revealed all at once but he also believed it was revealed piecemeal.  We will quote from his Appendix 28 to Rashad’s  Qur’an translation : Muhammad Wrote God's Revelations With His own Hand.

 

“On the 27th night of Ramadan 13 B.H. (Before Hijerah), Muhammad the soul, the real person, not the body, was summoned to the highest universe and the Quran was given to him (2:97, 17:1, 44:3, 53:1-18, 97:1-5).

 

Subsequently, the angel Gabriel helped Muhammad release a few verses of the Quran at a time, from the soul to Muhammad's memory. The Prophet wrote down and memorized the verses just released into his mind.”

 

Dr. Khalifa’s claim that Muhamamd’s soul traveled to the heavens during the night of the first Quran revelation is problematic just as the notion the event occurred in the 27th of Ramadan 13 BH. Those questions have been dealt with by us elsewhere. For now we will focus in the giving of the Qur’an according to the doctor. In Rashad’s view the Quran was somehow “given to him”(the prophet.) How was the Qur’an given to Muhammad? Rashad  does not provide an adequate explanation.  However, we are told that Gabriel had role to play in the revelatory process afterwards. The angel helped the prophet, “release a few verses of the Quran at a time.” Afterwards, Rashad noted that the Prophet Muhammad wrote the verses down.  What were the Quranic ayats “released” from? According to Rashad the verses came from the Prophet’s own memory.  (We have also addressed Rashad’s bad argument that Muhammad wrote the verses down elsewhere.)

So according Rashad Khalifa’s theory, the revelation of the Qur’an was a one-time event.  The Qur’an was only given all at once to the Prophet at Hira.  Dr. Khalifa’s own view about revelation is obscure but there was no revelation of the Qur’an in the sense of descent as there was during the first revelatory encounter with Jibreal. The angel was employed only remind the prophet so to speak, by extracting the Qur’an out of the soul of the Prophet.  There is also the question of what we call “revelation” but this is beyond our scope too. But we could certainly call Jibrael’s relationship to the Prophet, according to Dr. Khalifa’s theory as “revelation” in the traditional sense, but it would not the same type of revelation as the Qur’an obviously.

It would be interesting to ask Dr. Khalifa how such a process of “soul extraction” would work. In what sense ca new say a person has knowledge in the soul but not in the actual mind?  Those are just questions for Dr. Khalifa which we would expect him to answer as he is the one making claims counter to tradition.   Of course there is interesting literature about revelation as inner work from the soul. The metaphysical writings on initiation by such people as Henri Corbin, Carlos Castenda, could be used to write an explanation  of the soul’s revelatory process. But Dr. Khalifa’s own scholarship was in different league compared to those guys, to put it mildly.

 But more important for us is a bigger question  of the apparent revelation after Hira. The Qur’an and biographical accounts of the Prophet Muhammad concur that revelation was both piecemeal and responsive. If the Prophet Muhammad encountered a difficulty and ask God for assistance, Quranic ayats were provided in response.   But the narrative hardly makes sense if the Qur’an was revealed all at once earlier to the prophet.  There is no point for the Prophet to pray to God if he already had the knowledge of the Qur’an and only needed an intermediary to extract it. Questions like these may be overlooked by most believers but academic scholarship on the Qur’an was attentive to the issue.

 Dr. Rashad Khalifa shared the traditional dichotomy opinion about the Qur’an’s one time origin and 23 period revelation. His own modification was to add the Qur’an was written down by him after the Angel “released” the Quranic memory  from his soul.  Dr. Khalifa’s understanding of the Qur’an as a time-time revealed event was important for his thought. Dr. Khalifa and his successors believe the Qur’an is a “book” in the same sense that any other paperback or hardback is book, excluding the issue of divine authorship.   The notion that the Qur’an is a “book” is necessary for the “miracle of 19” math that Dr. Khalifa advocates.  So the “miracle” of the Quran is contingent upon the Quran being a “book” and “written” by the Prophet’s own hand according to Khalfia. Furthermore, the Quran being a book with an “physical” miracle of math, is contingent upon the Qur’an being provided in a one time event.  If the Qur’an was delivered through revelatory dispensation piecemeal, then the “math miracle” of the Qur’an makes little sense. To be brief, Dr. Khalifa needed the traditional opinion that the Qur’an was revealed all at once to add weight to his own claims. 

 A serious student of Dr. Khalifa may ask why Rashad’s holds a traditional opinion about revelation (despite the modifications) in the fist place? Is this consistent with his Qu’an only thought?  Would a Qur’an- only position reveal a Qur’an mythos which is consistent with Dr. Khalifa’s claims. 

 The Dr. Khalifa, Quran-only groups like to employ academic scholarship to bolster their claims on the inauthenticity of hadith, and I have no problem joining them in that endeavor. Dr. Khalifa himself quoted modern scholarship just once and it was in relation to the critical study of the Qur’an in a book by Von Deffner. However, Dr. Khalifa’s followers like to quote non-Muslim historians to put doubt on tradition, which is all well and good.  But would Qur’an only groups be willing to take some of those ideas to their conclusions? Does the academic scholarship on the Qur’an help or hurt the traditional opinion, shared by Dr. Khalifa, that the Qur’an was sent as a one time event?

How do we understand the way the Qur’an was revealed? If we are going to take a Qur’an only approach then we must start with the Qur’an itself. Dr. Khalil Andani does this in a presentation he gave at April of 2017: (Lecture: Revelation in Sunni & Ismaili Islam by Khalil Andani

https://www.khalilandani.com/post/lecture-revelation-in-sunni-ismaili-islam-by-khalil-andani) Dr. Andani asks what the Qur’an says about itself. How does the document talk about it’s own nature and origins?  Dr. Andani uses questions like these to build an approach to provide a critical understanding of Islamic history.  Perhaps surprisingly to some, the Qur’an denies that it is “book” sent from the sky. : (4:153)”The people of the scripture challenge you to bring down to them a book from the sky! They have asked Moses for more than that, saying, "Show us GOD, physically." Consequently, the lightning struck them, as a consequence of their audacity. Additionally, they worshiped the calf, after all the miracles they had seen. Yet, we pardoned all this. We supported Moses with profound miracles.”    

 

The disbelievers used to argue with the Prophet that he could not be who he claimed to be. They assumed a Prophet would come with a miraculous book. But the Prophet Muhammad was only receiving revelations just as any other prophet did in the bible. The Jews believe that the whole Torah (never mind the oral part!) was given on Mount Sinai, and there basis is from a few verses that apparently refer to the 10 commandments. But they managed to make  story of a book being given to Moses. The Muslims copied such traditions and figured the Qur’an must have been given the same way. Yet, the Qur’an itself denies that it is a “book from heaven.” Ironically, Dr. Khalifa and unenlightened traditional scholars, understand the Qur’an in the same manner of the disbelievers who challenged the Prophet!

Modern scholarship challenges the notion that the Qur’an was revealed all at once to the Prophet Muhammad. Academics and those who study the Qur’an seriously hold that the notion of a “one-time” Quran event was a belief developed by Sunni Islamic theologians at a later date in time. So the belief in the Qur’an as a one single revelation is not part of an original islam. This is why academics speak of “Qurans” in the plural form and not one “Quran” book.  Qur’ans were considered revelations from God but they were not considered to be one single product in the way a modern book is one single volume.  In fact the Qur’an was not considered the only revelation either, but that is for a discussion later.  Dr. Khalil Andani sums up the existing scholarship on the critical method of Quran studies in his PHD Thesis : (Andani, Khalil. 2020. Revelation in Islam: Qur’anic, Sunni, and Shi#i Ismaili Perspectives. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.)

Dr. Anandi spends time in the video presentation and his thesis going over the word “Kitab” as found in the Qur’an. Space will not allow us to elaborate on what the reader can see in Andans thesis. But the notion that the Quran is equivalent to the kitab is problematic at best.  Previous scholars and Andani himself took a pan-textual approach to understanding the relation between the Qur’ans mention of “quran” and the relation to “book.”  (We promose to provide more on this when we discuss Dr. Khalifa’s concepts of “fully detailed” at a later date, God-willing.)

What happened during the first revelation at the cave of Hira is important and the notion that the whole Qur’an was given at once is not accepted by modern scholars. Again,  Dr. Khalil Andani provides a short summary of earlier scholarship in his PHD Thesis in the section:( 2.1.5 Early Accounts of Muhammad’s Revelatory Experience in ?adith, ibid.)  Andani brings down the work of Gregor Schoeler to discuss the specific traditions on the first revelation and how Schoeler breaks down the traditional accounts. Schoeler notes the differences between Ibn Is?aq version and the Zuhri version of events. To make a long story short, Dr. Andani notes a development in how revelation (wahi) is conceived and that the changes in understanding the first revelatory account reflect these changes.  According to Andani, the notion that the Qur’an was given verbally to Muhammad by an angel reflects a later development of an earlier understanding based on non-verbal revelation. In any case the notion that the Qur’an is a single document given at one time is not back up by modern scholarship.

 

Orthodox theologians of all stripes tend to stay away from the critical methods employed by academia. The critical-method can hurt or help, depending on what one is trying to do. As believers we should not fear academic scholarship but also understanding it’s limitations. However, we should not use tools scholars in a hypocritical fashion.

 

Dr. Andani and other academics dismiss the story about the Qur’an being sent down at one time due to the inconsistency the story has with the Qur’an itself but also the analysis of historical accounts of the first quranic revelation. Of course we cannot ultimately know what really happened anywhere unless we could speak with the eyewitnesses themselves.  Although it is evident to me that the traditional account of a one time-revelation is flawed, that does not mean we should dismiss the account off hand.

 

As believers in the Quranic revelation we must ask ourselves if it is possible that the Prophet Muhammad received the “Quran” as a whole in some way. Using the Qur’an as our primary source of information, we are told that God sends revelations through various means. Dreams and visions are many of the ways that God reveals knowledge to mankind. The Islamic sources contain stories of many dreams experienced by the Prophet and his companions.  The Prophet Muhammad went to the Cave of Hira on a constant basis prior to the revelation of the qur’an but during his time, he was subject to many intense dreams. Not every dream attributed to the prophet or his companions occurred. But it would be unacceptable for a believer to dismiss all the dreams both the because the Qur’an accepts dreams as a medium of information and for the very fact the readers here experience such phenomena as well.

 

The progenitors of modern psychology like Carl Jung did not dismiss the fantastic claims of his patients. Even the ones that claimed alien abduction, Jung would find it a real reflection of something inside a person, if the doctor believed the patient was abducted himself.  For us it would be irresponsible to dismiss a claimed experience because it does not fit our categorical understanding of the world. We should be like Jung and apply this method to the accounts of prophets and saints, before dismissing their claims, and this is where some of us would part ways with the “critical methods.”

 

So did Muhammad experience receiving  whole Qur’an?  Perhaps he did, but not in the way later theologians acknowledged.  The Prophet Muhammad was blessed with many dreams and visions so it would be in the real of feasibility that he had a dream of  book called the Qur’an. This book the prophet Muhammad saw was probably a future edition of the same mushaf that we see on the shelf at the masjid.  This would be totally in the realm of feasibility even if a mushaf was never compiled during his lifetime.  But assuming the most lucid dream possible, perhaps awake vision even, could we conceive of the Prophet having “received “ knowledge into his soul of the Qur’an?  We could not conceive of such a possibility  any more than we could conceive someone memorizing any book in real life.

Perhaps the Prophet did have a revelatory encounter with a msuhaf of the Qur’an. The validity of such an event would serve to initiate the prophet into his role as the receptor of future Qurnaic revelations. But the concept that the Qur’an was “received” by the Prophet in the same way that a computer file is downloaded onto a hard drive is only a myth for scholars and serious students of the Qur’an. Such a notion contradicts the findings of modern scholarship, which starts with the Qur’an itself.  The late Dr. Khalifa or his various ideological disciples may use modern scholarship to dismiss the things they do not like such as the validity of hadith in general, but they would be upset to know that modern scholarship that does not back up their notion of the Qur’an as being a single “book” given during one event in time.