When Muslims speak of faith and belief they mean what is conveyed by the Qur’anic term, ‘iman’. However, what is conveyed by the term ‘iman’ is not quite similar to what is conveyed in English the terms ‘faith’ and ‘belief’.
Iman and Islam are synonyms in the sense that both are acts of submission, the former refers to the submission of the soul, the mind and the intellect, the latter refers to the submission of the body in the form of practice.
Iman specifically refers to the state of the soul where peace and tranquility prevail as a result of the knowledge and certainty.
The person who has iman is called a Mu’min. According to the Qur’an, a Mu’min must necessarily be a Muslim, but a Muslim is not necessarily a Mu’min.
So faith according to Islam is not an idle belief. It is not founded upon human fancy and imagination.
A Muslim’s faith in God is based upon what God Himself has described about Himself in His own words, the Qur’an. The Muslim community, despite their cultural and political differences, believe in the same word. A Muslim, by definion, is one who believes in the Qur’an, i.e., it is the word of God which was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. The Qur’an gives the Muslims their identity, defines their duties and responsibilities in this world, and foretells what awaits them in the Hereafter.
In short, the Qur’an, tells mankind to whom they belong, to whom and why they must submit their selves, how this submission is to be enacted, and what would be the fate of every individual upon their ‘return’ to their true master.
Nothing less than that which would yield certainty in the soul would be accepted as answers to these questions. Hence the Qur’an assures those who are sincerely seeking answers to these questions that it (the Qur’an) contains no doubt, and hence it could guide them to their true destiny.
Of course what the Qur’an claims about itself can always be examined and verified by those who care and are concerned about Truth. The duty of the Muslim community, from the very beginning, is to preserve ‘Truth’ for all mankind. And that entails utmost care being given to preserving the authenticity of the text of the Qur’an from the day of its revelation. The Muslims however, realized that preserving the text alone is not adequate. The true meaning of every word of the Qur’an must also be preserved; hence efforts to compile dictionaries and lexicons, and to write down the rules of the Arabic language have been done.
Again, we submit that all these claims may be examined and verified. All that needs to be known is whether the Muslims have done enough to justify their claims that the Qur’an they hold today is the same Qur’an revealed to Prophet Muhammad. The Muslims may indeed claim that their method of preserving the authenticity of the Qur’an is unprecedented in human history. Hence we must acknowledge that their confidence in the authenticity of the Qur’an is not without good reason; on the contrary, it is based upon a very solid epistemological foundation.
Be that as it may, it is always possible to create doubt. There have been efforts to create doubt in the authenticity of some of the Qur’anic verses with the ultimate hope of creating doubt in the integrity of the whole Qur’an. But reasonable people will always know the difference between reasonable doubt unbridled confusion. Until now, efforts to produce ‘a critical edition’ of the Qur’an has not been successful. That notwithstanding, we are not worried at all because the Qur’an itself assures us that will never happen.
To those who have been made to believe that the Qur’an is just like any other text, they one which may be understood the help with hermeneutics. The fact that this method has been employed betrays the fact this the person no longer has faith in the integrity of the Qur’an as the word of God. By implication one who holds such a belief cannot be sure whether or not he or she is a Muslim because the very word by which the command to submit is being made is of dubious nature. Therefore such a person would be creating more and more doubt.
Realizing the fact that it is impossible to separate the Muslims from the Qur’an, attention now is being given to the way in which the immutable Word of God is understood and interpreted by mortals. Again, this new effort is aimed at creating doubt in the accepted and established interpretation so that the Muslims may be ‘liberated’ from their past and become free to explore their future and realize their full potentialities. Hence the call to reinterpret the Qur’an.
Basically anybody can give his or her interpretation of the Qur’an but not everybody can give a correct interpretation. This is an undeniable fact. Nevertheless this very fact is under attack now when every interpretation is reduced to subjective opinion.
By virtue of the fact that the Qur’an, was revealed in Arabic, it camnnot be property understood except by one who understands the language. One’s interpretation of a particular word ultimately boils down to the root of the word and the shades of meaning projected by it. There is no way that one can simply insert an alien meaning without causing inconsistencies, deviation, and self-contradiction in the final analysis. Falsehood would ultimately be discovered and exposed by those who know.
The eagerness to ‘reinterpret’ the Qur’an must not necessarily be coupled with wild accusations against the old interpretation because it would not in any way make the new one valid and authoritative. What a genuine interpreter needs to do is to prove that a particular interpretation is totally wrong, or partially wrong, or inadequate, Therefore there is a need for more elaboration and further clarification. In this way we may ensure the continuity of the tradition, rather than a disruption.
The real issue should refllect the reason why a particular interpretation is preferable over an other. It should be because it is correct and sound, not because it is new. We should not repeat the fatal mistake of Aladdin’s wife who, out of ignorance, exchanged the old magic lamp with a new shiny one!