Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

114 t CHAPTER FIVE
The Quran Reads Itself:
Abrogation, Emendation, Elaboration?
It is a commonplace belief in the three monotheistic communities
that Scripture interprets itself, that later verses sometimes elucidate
and explain earlier ones. The latter books of the Bible often revert
to the Torah, and the New Testament constantly reflects on the
Old. Paul’s later letters revisit earlier ones to enlarge and clarify
matters. Matthew and Luke “read” and edited Mark, and Mark
himself, it has been argued, was revising the earlier Pauline “gospel”
by supplying it with a narrative framework. The Quran too is
its own primary exegete, though it represents a somewhat different
case from the other Scriptures. It has been suggested, for example,
that the Medina suras, which differ markedly in style and manner
from what preceded them, are already a kind of “reading” of the
“primary” revelation contained in the suras sent down during
Muhammad’s twelve years at Mecca.
To divide the Quran into a “primary” and a “secondary” stratum,
even if both are called revelation, does violence to the Muslim
tradition, but no one would deny that the work is the output of a
single individual over some twenty-two years. There was no lack
of opportunity, then, for that same individual, to offer revisions,
emendations, or elaborations to what had already been promulgated.
There is internal evidence that this is indeed what happened.
In some early suras—74:31 is a good example—the internal rhythm
and assonance scheme of the prose-poetry is abruptly interrupted
by an intrusive prose passage that appears to be a later
interpolation to explain a problematic word or concept in the preceding
line, after which the original rhyme and rhythm resume.
The Quran introduces, however, a radical form of scriptural reinterpretation.
The notion of inspiration, coupled with the conviction
that God is both omniscient and unchanging, strongly argues
that God’s Words are totally and simultaneously true, and the
three monotheistic communities have generally regarded them as
such. But where there were apparent contradictions or inconsistencies
between two passages, these could be ironed out by careful
application of a harmonizing exegesis. But at two points in the