Is the Qur’an ‘fully detailed’?

       Is the Qur’an ‘fully detailed’?

 

The Quranist claim that that the Qur’an is the only source of law is based on the notion that the Qur’an is “fully detailed.”  The notion is based on Dr. Rashad Khalif’s teachings. For the Quranists this means that the Quran has everything needed for both the theological and practical aspects of islam.  This is opposed to the traditional notion in which the Quran and the prophetic teachings are sources of religious legislation. What does the Qur’an mean when it says it is “fully detailed”?   How does Dr. Khalifa’s view square with modern scholarship on the term fusillat? We will see that the common Quranist assumption about the Qur’an being “fully detailed” is based on an error in which Dr. Khalifa failed to distinguish the revealed Qur’an from the heavenly writ.

Dr. Rashad Khalifa was the first person to use the argument, that the Qur’an is fully detailed as matter of theological doctrine. Dr. Khalifa presented this notion three times in his translation of the Qur’an (6:114, 7:52, 10:37,12:111 41:3) either by using the term “fully detailed” or giving a translation that implies having all the details placed together.  The precise notion of the Qur’an being fully detailed continues with Dr. Khalifa’s adherents and other people among Quran-only currents.  They often quote Surah anam:

[6:114] Shall I seek other than GOD as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed?* Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt. (Rashad khalfa)

 

The argument that the Quran is “fully detailed” comes up in discussions between Quranists and their opponents.  The former proclaim the Qur’an to be the only source of information relevant to Islam. The Quranists argue that since the Quran is “fully detailed” there is thus no reason to use any source but the Qur’an. How could someone argue that there is a source of law outside the Qur’an if the book is fully detailed? But what does the Qur’an mean when it says it’s fully detailed? Is “fully detailed” the best meaning for the passages in question?  Does the actual arabic meaning convey what the Quranists want it to mean?

 

Our first step in the enquiry is to find out what exactly do the Quranists mean when they say the Qur’an s fully detailed?  Referring back to Surah anam 6:114, Dr. Khalifa translates “Shall I seek other than God as a source of law when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed?..” The translation makes it appear evident that the Qur’an considers itself only as a source of religion because anything sought elsewhere as “a source of law” contradicts the fact that the holy writ is “fully detailed.”  How could anyone look to the hadith as a “source of religion” when the Qur’an says so clearly that everything is limited to it?  Dr. Khalifa adamantly proclaims in a footnote to 6:113, “Upholding any source beside the Quran reflects disbelief in the Quran.” If using anything outside the Qur’an is disbelief then we better have a good reason to ignore what appears so self-evident!

So far we saw that Dr. Khalifa’s translation of 6:114 apparently justifies the Quranist conception but what exactly is the Qur’an trying to say about itself being fully detailed? The footnote above refers us to Appendix 18  (Quran: All You Need For Salvation) of the Final Testament  in which warns about “religious regulations not specifically instituted in the Quran” which we assume means things that contradict the Qur’an being fully detailed. The followers of Dr. Rashad Khalifa however good a direct explanation about the meaning of fully detailed on the page “Quran- Fully detailed scripture” located on Submission.org.  In reference to 6:114 the web site  writes, “The Quran is fully detailed for religious law. “ So we know that 6:114 is supposed to refer to religious law. So we would expect all the details of religious law to be in the Qur’an and not the other traditional sources. Edip Yuksel shares the understanding that the Quran is “fully detailed” on religious legislation when he writes , “Quran is proclaimed by God as the ONLY divine, fully detailed and infallible source of laws and guidance that contains everything we need for our salvation.”(Sunni Arguments 19.org.)  By claiming the Quran is the “only…source” “fully detailed” he is obviously relying on Dr. Khalifa’s translation. The late Dr. Aisha Musa (and follower of Dr. Khalifa) also sets the legislative tone for 6:114 but more on that later (The Quranists Dr. Aisha Musa 19.org.)

 When we say something is “fully detailed” it means that the object in question has all the details needed to fulfill the purpose of the item.  The term “fully detailed” is applied to instruction manuals to indicate that all the information is contained which is needed for someone to read and apply. A picture of construction plans would be “fully detailed” to describe each item in the building project for example.  Because the instruction manual is fully detailed  we would not necessarily expect to see a subsequent manual with additions. But this is often far from the truth since manufactories often include other instructions needed for operation.  Even in domain of religion with Judaism and it’s oral tradition as an example the Talmud has it’s own addition called the Tosefta.  But the difference is the Qur’an is the ultimate authority for Muslims and the perfection attributed to it must override the use of other competing sources. The traditionalists and Quranists would agree but differ on the extent to which the Qur’an would override other sources (or be overide itself by those secondary sources God forbid!) The question at this point is whether the Qur’an can be “fully detailed” in the sense the instruction manuals are in the example above.

We know there is a problem with the conception that the Qur’an is “fully detailed” the way the Quranists say because not all the details of our religion are in the Qur’an.  Dr. Khalifa seemed to contradict himself on the issue but he did not take the stance of his followers to claim “everything is in the Qur’an.”  Dr. Khalifa argued that the details of prayer and other religious obligations came from Abraham and did not need to be elaborated in the Qur’an. So with this in mind already there is a limit to how we can understand “fully detailed” from Dr. Khalifa’s point of view.

One can perhaps judge Dr. Khalifa’s translation in light of other known translations. Dr. Rashad Khalifa’s translation of  the arabic word “”mufassilan” as “fully detailed” is almost unique. We say almost unique because only Dr. Khalifa, a few little known translations in addition to one obvious student translation use the term “fully detailed” in the English of 6:114. Most of the other well known translations will say “fully explained” (Pikthall)”spelling out the truth (Asad) or “explained in detail”(Yusuf Ali.)   But are “fully detailed” and “fully explained” saying the same thing? In many cases yes but the answer depends on the context. If we take a generic instruction manual as an example would there be a difference between saying something is fully detailed and fully explained? Absolutely. An instruction manual could be fully detailed but not have all the explanations needed. Likewise, an instruction manual could be fully explained but necessitate an accompanying detailed set of plans. When trying to understand what the Qur’an is trying to tell us we need to see what English phrase would best suit the Arabic.

 Does “fully detailed” convey the original Arabic sense of the meaning in 6:114 and other passages? The Corpus Quran website is an excellent tool for one to obtain a general idea of the meaning (but not necessarily each individual word.) The origin of the word mufasilat is the trilateral root “f-s-l.”  Occurring in 6:114, the word is an active participle but the only  other participle form  convey the sense of deciding something. Dr. Khalifa writes “Judge” in 6:57” and in fact Judgement is used many times to translate the noun Fasl which also shows why translators would use “yafsilu” to write “will judge” which is implied in the first verb form listed on the website. But the second verb form which applies to out discussion uses terms like “yufasillu” or “yufisilat” to imply something being explained or made clear. The idea that something is “detailed” would be in the second verb form.   As we stated above in our discussion of the popular translations, there is a difference between explaining something and providing full details. In our case this minimal nuance could create huge theological differences.

Does the original arabic of “fully detailed” convey the actual sense of “fully” detailed in all cases? If Dr. Khalifa is correct in his unique “ fully detailed” translation then we would expect his other translations of the original Arabic to comply with his writing consistently. We can only figure out how accurate Dr. Khalifa is if we do a pan—textual analysis of the Arabic used.  We can start with 6:114 where we already learned that mufasilat was a passive participle to translate “fully detailed.”  When we get to the verb form of f-s-l Dr. Khalifa continues to basically write the same meaning. So in 7:52 Dr. Khalifa writes "fully detailed"  in the second verb form just as he does in 10:37 (the second verb-noun form.) In the second verbal noun form, Khalifa consistently writes either "details of everything" or "explained in detail."  Dr. Khalifa takes more liberty of translation in the second verbal form of f-s-l (when we use Corps Quran as our reference.) On the one hand we see the boring English nouns used such as "fully detailed (7:52) , detailed (6:119) or "complete details (13:2) for the original Arabic verb. But for the same verbal form Dr. Khalifa often translated from Arabic that God explained the revelations (6:126, ; 7:32, ;7:174,; 9:11, ; 10:5,24; and 13:2.) or "explained everything" (17:12)In other cases God clarifies..(6:97,98.) Dr. Khalifa even gets fancy and says God "elucidates (11:1)

 What can we surmise from the different ways Dr. Khalifa translated the variants of the arabic tri-lateral root f-s-l? The English read show know that the translation of “fully detailed” is based on the same root and is not based on two different words.  By examining the different uses of the root f-s-l there is nothing in the word itself to imply “fully” detailed. Something could be “fully” detailed” or “partially” detailed and still have the same word used.  The choice of adjectives would depend on the context of the passage.  Moreover, Dr. Khalifa does not always use “fully” or “complete” details as translations for all the passages. He sometimes uses simply “clarify” “explain” or “elucidate. The act of explaining something or elucidating is not the same thing as just giving details of an item.  There is thus a small level of inconsistency that Dr. Khalifa may not have been conscious of.

But we reach an anomaly in when we get the Surah Fusilat, the very same name that comes from our enquiry into Dr. Rashad’s translation.  The word fusilat occurs twice in the Surah. The first time the verb “fusilat” was translated by Dr. Khalifa as  noun form of the term “complete details”(41:4.) But Dr. Khalifa apparently ignores the word fusilat in the other part of the surah: [41:44] If we made it a non-Arabic Quran they would have said, "Why did it come down in that language?" Whether it is Arabic or non-Arabic, say, "For those who believe, it is a guide and healing. As for those who disbelieve, they will be deaf and blind to it, as if they are being addressed from faraway."

We saw no reference to something resembling the word “fusilat” in 41:44 when we read Dr. Khalifa’s translation.  Let us compare Dr. Khalifa to  other popular translations of the phrase in question from  41:44: “Why is it that its messages have not been spelled out clearly”(Asad) “Why are it’s verses not explained in detail?(Yusuf Ali) “If only it’s verses were expounded (Pikthall.)  Even among the Quranist adherents we see the phrase ,” "If only its verses were made clear!" for 41:44 in both Edip Yuksel’s “reformist translation and the Monotheist Group” book.  But Dr. Khalifa did not say anything like “fully detailed” or “explained” for 41:44. He thus provided a translation that was correct and provided a general meaning of the text.  However he did not attempt to  provide a more specific meaning for some reason. But why?

Surah 41:44 is addressing claims of the disbelievers and the Qur’an is telling the believers what the disbelievers would argue if God handled things in a different manner than already taken in the course of the Divine prerogative. If the Qur’an was revealed to humanity in Chinese the Arabs would use that as an excuse to disbelieve in it.  The Arabs would ask essentially why it was not revealed in their own language? The point of course for the Qur’an is to show that people would come up with any excuse not to believe in it.  Dr. Khalifa’s translation , unlike the popular ones or even the ones from his followers is not literal. There is nothing wrong with providing a non-literal meaning.  Dr. Khalifa often provides general meanings and even translations so off mark that is hard for the reader to see why he chose those words. But Dr. Khalifa often translates “fusilat” directly but did not do so here. 

Why did Dr. Khalifa not translate “fusilat” in 41:44 just as he did in every other passage that used the variant of the word? I am convinced that Dr. Khalifa saw there was a problem with trying to translate “fusilat” in a consistent manner when he came to Surrah 44. But instead of trying to address the problem he simply ignored it by giving a very general meaning.  But before we can explain why Dr. Khalifa left the passage alone the way he did, we need to elucidate more on how Quranists understand the Qur’an generally and also how academics approach the specific translation of the term.

What does it means when the Qur’an is “fully detailed” according to the Quranists? Earlier we saw how Quranists are convinced that the Qur’an is fully detailed about law. Bu how true is this? We do not need to go over the old debate between the Traditionalist who ask the Quran-only adherent ,”how do you know how to make salat and perform other activities if the Qur’an is ‘fully detailed’ about law?  Are we sure that ‘law is what the Quran’ has in mind?

The late Dr. Aisha Musa noted that the Quran being “fully detailed” was among  a few arguments used as proof against using any source outside of the Qur’an. (The Quranists 19.org) Dr. Musa that Dr. Khalifa used verses as proof for his assertion that everything outside the Qur’an was wrong. “Among the  verses used to  support his assertion that the Qur’an is complete and fully detailed are 6:38–39: ‘We did not leave anything out of this book…’  (Khalifa 1982, p. 10).”   Rashad Khalifa’s translation of 6:1114 “‘Shall I seek other than God as  a source of law, when He revealed this Book  to  you fully  detailed” is the most common argument that only Qur’an is the source of law.    So the Qur’an being the “only source of law” and the Quran not having “anything (left) out of” it appears to prove the case of the Quranists.

Do the passages cited above claim what Dr Khalifa and Aisha Musa want them to claim? But then Dr. Aisha Musa says something very interesting about those two passages: “The translations are those of Khalifa, and these differ from more mainstream translators.”   If the passages differ from the way other translate them then we must ask why? Dr. Musa does not tell us the answer.  Dr. Khalifa’s translation of 6:114 is however very unique. The first phrase in 6:114 according to Dr. Khalifa is ,”Shall I seek other than GOD as a source of law..”   Dr. Khalifa wants us to believe that the Qur’an is the only source of law obviously. But other translations say ,” "Shall I seek for judge other than Allah?”(Yusuf Ali.) Almost every other translation says something similar to Yusuf Ali by using Judge or judgment. (I could only find one non-popular translation that agreed and perhaps copied Dr. Khalifa.) Even Edip Yuksel’s translation differed from Rashad’s.   Law of course is related to judgement but it’s not by definition the same thing!

So whose translation is closer to the truth? The arabic of 6:114 asks  "Afaghayra allahi abtagghi hakaman..?" This roughly means, "Then who other than God do I seek as a judge (hakaman)?.." Every translation translates the literal word hakaman into judge (or judgement) but only Dr. Khalifa translates the arabic into “source of law.” Depending on the context translating the concept of “judge” into English as “law” may be okay but it is definitely a very long stretch from the truth of the matter.  A “source of law” is something static from which rules derive. But a Judge is an active entity and is much more than a “source.” A Judge actively makes decisions based on His prerogative.  A person that carries out judgements actively weights different choices and decides which is the correct or preferable choice. A Judge is thus not simply a “source” of law in the same way as  legislator or King is.  The passage of 6:114 is not even discussing “law” to begin with but is engaging in a discussion with the disbelievers about faith.  The Qur’an is not making the claim here that is it the “only source of law” but it is claiming that God is the only the Judge we should seek who has manifested His will in the Qur’an.  We would not know that if all we had was the out of context translation provided by Dr. Khalifa.

The Qur’an as manifesting God’s will as a Judge produces a very different meaning from the Qur’an being some sort of legal  encyclopedia the way some Qur’an only adherents present it.   The Qur’an as a “Judge” of course goes together with the qur’’ans other description of itself as the Furqan (The Criterion, standard.)  But Dr. Khalifa mistranslates “Furqan” to as “statute book.”  So in both cases Dr. Khalfia reduced the Qur’an’s role from being an active participant in weight truth (Furqan) and making judgements (Hakaman.) Instead the Qur’an is only a law book with no active role to believe in the actual guidance of humanity. But if the Qur’an  the “only source of law”  simply a “statute book” then there is nothing else to judge or for the Qur’an to be a Criteron for. The Qur’an is this rendered useless by Khalifa gross reductionism. This misconception of the Qur’an is what Dr. Khalifa needs to create his “Quran only” ideology.

 What do we do with the other passage quoted from Surah anam “We did not leave anything out of this book” (6:38)? Dr. Aisha Musa apparently consents to Dr. Khalfia’s view that the meaning of the passage is that God did not leaving any law outside of the Qur’an. Dr. Khalifa writes in the footnote, “6:38 All information relevant to our eternal life of the Hereafter is contained in the Quran.” But Dr. Aisha quote the full text “[6:38] All the creatures on earth, and all the birds that fly with wings, are communities like you. We did not leave anything out of this book.** To their Lord, all these creatures will be summoned.” The text is not referring to the Quran when it says “book” but is in fact referring to the transcendental kitab which is the Heavenly Writ, not the early one!

Do Dr. Musa and Khalifa believe that “all the creatures.. birds..” are mentioned in the Qur’an?  Dr. Khalifa argued that 6:38 was in reference to the Qur’an revealed to Muhammad but neither him not Dr. Musa attempted to explain why.  But the Qur’an does not talk about everything  in existence such as the animals and plant life or nature. Even Dr. Khalifa implicitly acknowledges that the Quran only has  all “information relevant to our eternal life of the Hereafter..” in the footnote. But again if the information in the Qur’an only has “relevant” information related to the hereafter (the Qur’an has more than that!) then how could Dr. Khalifa translate with the notion that “nothing was left out” of the Qur’an specifically?

 Dr. Musa followed Dr. Khalifa’s mistake. The “kitab” in 6:38 is not referring to the Qur’an  but to the Heavenly Writ.  Sometimes the Qur’an refers to the heavenly writ from which God sends down revelation as the “kitab” or the Lawhul Mahfuz. Academic scholarship  has elaborated much on the difference between the “kitab” and the Quran. But even traditional Muslim scholarship has pointed out Dr. Khalifa’s silly error in his translation! Dr. Khalifa could only support his assertion that the Qur’an has “everything” if he mistranslated the “kitab” of 6:38 as the revealed Quran.

The difference between the earthly Qur’an and the transcendental kitab is a talked much about in academia.  But what is the relationship between the Qur’an and it’s heavenly source which the Qur’an refers to as the kitab? The relationship is important for our discussion of “fully detailed” because the words translated as such by Dr. Khalifa come from the same tri-lateral root f-s-l. Dr. Khalil Andani points to existing scholarship on the meaning of tafsil to show that the best rendering in English of the arabic is "adaptation." (Andani,Khalil Revelation in Islam: Qur’anic, Sunni, and Shi?i Ismaili Perspectives. Pg. 73.) The point of the discussion is that there is some change must occur for the transcendental kitab  to manifest as the Qur’anic revelation.  But this process of revelation is not a copy and paste of words in heaven onto a stone tablet like the one Moses obtained in the film the “The Ten Commandments.”  There was a transformation process at work.  Dr. Angelica Neuworth describes the final product of the revelatory process as being akin to a paraphrasing.  (Andani ibid pg. 75.)

A process of transformation must take place for the transcendental kitab to make way for the Qur’an but we cannot confuse the one with the other.  The reason for the process is for the simple fact we humans generally  do not have access to heaven or the knowledge to understand the world from which revelation derives. Only prophets and other recipients  are able to obtain access to heaven via revelation.  But the revelation must come down in a way for humans to understand it. This Torah, Gospels and other revelatory dispensations had to be ‘adapted’ to the particular level of knowledge of the prophets and their respective communities for the kitab to be accessible.  We will compare the translations of Dr. Khalifa and Dr. Andani to demonstrate the point:

(khalfia)[41:44] If we made it a non-Arabic Quran they would have said, "Why did it come down in that language?" Whether it is Arabic or non-Arabic, say, "For those who believe, it is a guide and healing. As for those who disbelieve, they will be deaf and blind to it, as if they are being addressed from faraway."

 (andani) If We had made it a non-Arabic qur’an, they would have said, ‘Why are its signs not adapted (fu??ilat)? What, a non-arabic (recitation) and Arab (messenger)?’ (Q. 41:44)

 Dr. Khalifa almost consistently translated the verbal form tafsil as “fully detailed.” If he was consistent in 41:44 he would have wrote ,”Why did it not come down in a” fully detailed language?”  The language would not make sense according to the context however!  As  the academic scholars explained there is a transformation process. The Qur’an was rendered into arabic from a source that is not in a human language. In order for the Qur’an to be understood by it’s readers, the revelations were ‘adapted’ into Arabic, just as the Torah was adapted into Hebrew and so on.  For Dr. Khalifa, the “detail” process is a matter of simply putting down facts on a “statute book.”  But in 41:44 we cannot use the adjective “fully detailed” to describe what is happening because there is something greater going on. It is clear from 41:44 that something was changed  (not merely enumerated.)  Dr. Khalifa must have saw the problem with using his ideological based “fully detailed” in application to 41:44 and just choose to deliberately ignore it. He could not have missed it by mistake because the very chapter title of 44 surah is called “detailed ‘fusilat’” and he already translated 41:3 as providing “complete details.”  Dr. Khalifa had to have consciously chose to ignore this fact.

Dr Khalfia this did a bad job in translating 6:144 and Dr. Andani’s more informed translation reads: What, shall I seek after any judge but God? For it is He who sent down to you the kitab well-adapted(mufa??al). (Q. 6:114) (Andani ibid pg. 73.)

Dr. Aisha Musa acknowledged the fact that Dr. Khalifa’s translations of 6:114 and 6:38 were different (or at least understood differently in case of 6:38) but she never bothered to argue why her or Rashad’s beliefs were justified.  There is no mention on how the opponent translations are wrong.  If Dr. Khalifa himself was honest about his methodology he would have spent more time providing justification. Or perhaps his short-lived life prevented him from doing so.

 One of course could dismiss the explanations of the academics and stick with “fully detailed.” But the question remains is what is the Qur’an fully detailed about? It would be difficult to say the “law” because even Dr. Khalifa acknowledged that details of the prayer were preserved via the inherited practices of Abraham. It would be better to understand this conception in the line of Surah 7” [Quran 7:52] We have given them a scripture that is fully detailed, with knowledge, guidance, and mercy for the people who believe.” So the Qur’an has elucidated knowledge, guidance and God’s mercy to us in a substantial way.

To say the Qur’an is “fully detailed” is not wrong in itself but it begs the question of “what do you mean?” What is the Qur’an “fully detailed” with?  Dr. Khalifa tried to translate the tri-lateral arabic root f-s-l to demonstrated the Qur’an is “fully detailed” in the sense that it has all the laws needed and that outside sources (hadith sunnah) were prohibited because the Qur’an is conceived as “fully detailed.”  But Dr. Khalifa was consistent neither in his translation approach or conceptional approach to the issue. Dr. Khalifa did not translate the “tafsal” verb in a consistent manner.  Yet he refrained from translating the arabic plain-meaning in one case when it clearly did not match his conception. This is despite the fact Dr. Khalifa translated the term in every other case!  Despite all this, Dr. Khalifa was not consistent in his conceptions of Islamic law. On the one hand he argued the Qur’an was “fully detailed” “only source of law” but on the other hand Abraham had the details of the prayers.  Modern scholarships understanding of the term tafsal may help us understand the message of the Qur’an better in this regard.