Journal of Islamic Science (Editor of the Journal also gave the author opportunity to explain the objections. His comments are included here ..)
June 1998
Desperately seeking logic by Gail Boxwell
'The Ultimate Revelations' by Jamshed Akhtar (Delhi: International Books, 1996)
The Ultimate Revelations is a novel that pertains to explain the mystery of the Qur'an in scientific, numerical terms by means of an analysis of the Arabic text. In an attempt to demonstrate the power, wisdom and beauty of this 'ultimate message' to mankind Akhtar discusses the arrival of the Qur'an, the characteristics of the language of the holy Book, and the answers to all mankind's problems to be found in its revered pages. His book fails in three respects: firstly because his knowledge of Arabic is virtually non-existent; secondly, he is so intent on proving the existence of a mathematical code that he fixes his results, overlooks exceptions to his 'rules' and totally ignores any linguistic aspects of the text in the hunt for numerical clues; thirdly, and more seriously, his book is also offensive because it is a demonstration of the worst form of Eurocentrism. The Qur'an - according to Akhtar - is now 'understood' only because clever Western people have invented computers thus enabling Muslims to at last unlock the secrets of the text. Centuries of Islamic thought count for nothing compared to the marvels of the West.
Picture it: The world is on the brink of total destruction; a new ice age is advancing, mankind is on the verge of annihilation. International conferences are rapidly drawn up to brainstorm ideas that may prevent the slow but steady onslaught of deadly ice. Dramatically, the Qur'an is presented as 'a message from the stars' - a message from an extra-terrestrial intelligence, which holds the only hope for the future. The man who delivers this message is Hamza, a young scientist who gradually comes to understand the meaning of the great Muslim text by means of his dreams. His dreams tell him about the prophets in the past; they also point him to the future and to the secret code that lies within the heart of the text.
All quite exciting... except it really doesn't work. Akhtar claims to be writing a book about the mystery of the Qur'an, and yet, as one reads, it becomes patently clear that he is merely re-constructing other writers' ideas, and doing it rather badly. One of the main flaws in this book is the inaccuracy concerning Arabic. The whole point of Akhtar's book is that the Qur'an be understood correctly. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic, and this is what the 'mystery' and the 'message' is supposed to be about. The Arabic language is therefore the central theme of Akhtar's book. Yet Akhtar destroys any confidence the reader may have in him by getting his facts totally wrong. He even gets languages mixed up; a mistake that may have been regarded as an oversight in any other book becomes incompetence in this one.
Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, yet when describing the letters of the alphabet, Akhtar does not describe Arabic at all, but Urdu. He appears to be ignorant of basic differences between the two languages, describing the Urdu alphabet and labelling it 'Arabic'. It is very much like a Spanish being described as English. The two may well be related, but they are not the same. They may have some letters in common, but there are intrinsic differences between the languages that cannot be ignored. For example, he writes that there are three 's' sounds, and four 'z' sounds in the 'language of the message'. (P.159) This may well be true of Urdu, but it is definitely not true of Arabic which has only two 's' sounds, and only one 'z' sound. For the reader who knows any Arabic, it immediately becomes clear that the very foundation of the book is flawed. This in turn leads the reader to be suspicious of the contents of the book as a whole.
Fortunately for Akhtar, this section appears in the middle of the book, following the descriptions of Hamza's dreams. The reader is encouraged and enticed by a fairly promising story, only to be disappointed by the 'proofs' that follow.
Akhtar tries to prove the 'wonders' of Arabic by demonstrating that the 'Combination of letters in its roots is also peculiar. When similar letters are combines, they denote generally different shades of meaning of the same idea.' Some examples will be given below because it is necessary to demonstrate quite how inaccurate Akhtar is when he discusses Arabic. At this point, it is worth mentioning that (and Akhtar gets this right) Arabic verbs are triliteral; they consist of a
'root' of three letters. From this basic root, several verb forms and nouns are constructed. This structure is discussed by Akhtar in some detail. The problem is, Akhtar tries to impose too much order on a language that does not always act in an orderly way. He looks for patterns where, in fact, there are none.
Languages do not always 'behave' logically - they exist in the realm of passions too. Unfortunately, Akhtar is searching for rules which he can impose on a moving, living system - the Arabic language. He is so keen to discover some scientific order that he misses the meaning of the text altogether; in looking for patterns, he ignores exceptions to 'the rule' and thus misses the stinging irony or humour of the Arabic text.
An example of 'order', according to Akhtar, can be found in these words which have similar roots: Khafar which means to escort or safe conduct, ghafar which means to cover or conceal and kafar which also means to cover or conceal. (p.153) So far, so good. It can be seen that by changing the first letter, but by using letters with similar sounds - gh,kh,k- (of course, some linguists would argue that these are not at all similar sounds, but let us bear with Akhtar for a moment), words with similar meanings can be discovered. Unfortunately for Akhtar this is not as simple as he would have the reader believe. Arabic verbs can present a huge variety of meanings. ghafar can also mean to forgive, whilst kafar is the origin of the word kafir; or infidel. An Arabic verb may present up to ten forms, and one form alone can have several meanings. A good example of this is 'ada which can mean any of the following in its first form alone: to return, to be traceable, to give up, to resign to accrue, to grow, to yield, to do something no more or no longer. One of my favourites that involves several forms of the verb is malla, which can mean to become weary or bored, to be boring or irritating, to dictate or, finally, to embrace a religion. Take your pick.
True, verbs usually have a common theme, but this is by no means always the case. What is the connection between being boring and being religious? Or to leave, to stink, to intervene, to be pleased, and to have a break (some of the verbs derived from the verb ruh)?
Akhtar then steers into even more uncertain territory when he looks for links between nouns constructed from these verbs. The example he gives is laban, which means milk. He gives examples of the other nouns that have a similar root (l,b,n). Several of the words he lists do not appear in Arabic dictionaries at all e.g labain, lab'an. The words that do appear have different meanings to the ones he allocates to them. For example, malban, which he claims means milk vessel (The Hans Wehr dictionary says it means a sweet made of corn starch - we are not told which dictionary Akhtar uses). Another example that he places in the same list of words does not even derive from the same triliteral root - malainat does not share the root letters l,b,n. Yet it is given as an example of how the root system works (p.155). The use of a word from another root is patently absurd in this case, because the whole point of this section is to prove how Arabic words with the same root are related. If the reader was uneasy with the mistakes concerning the alphabet, these further errors totally undermine any confidence in Akhtar's authority to be discussing the mystery of the Arabic in the Qur'an. It is quite clear he knows very little about it at all.
Akhtar's approach, apart from being inaccurate, is actually unnecessary. The Qur'an can be seen as a book that does not need any 'defence'. It can stand as it is; full of mystery and beauty. For Muslims, the Qur'an is valid and true with or without any mathematical proofs. Defending a religious belief or text in the way Akhtar has done, involves an acceptance of Western secularism, and the worldview that accompanies it. Secularism in this case is held up as the yardstick by which reality is measured, and no counter-reality exists. (1) Thus, in this case, it is seen necessary to find logic at any cost, along with numerical patterns within the text, in order for the Qur'an to be taken seriously and therefore 'proven' to be sound. Another worldview would accept the Qur'an as a holy text that is not in need of what appears to be a mad scrabble for demeaning 'proofs'. The glory of the Qur'an in this worldview lies in the raw power of the words which need no defence. They can be analysed, discussed, and even questioned (honest disbelief and questioning are not considered crimes in an Islamic system of belief) but the concept of a need to 'prove' anything according to another worldview and its standards would not even be considered. In an alternative approach to the text, students of Qur'anic studies would marvel at the subtle irony and sense of play that appears in its pages (2). For example, in Sura 78 the root system of Arabic verbs is used with great effect precisely because the nouns have no correlation with each other, yet have contrasting meanings. Full-breasted maidens/companions of equal age (atrab) in paradise closely follow images of death and hell, they also contrast with the dust of the grave (turab) in the last verse. The root t,r,b acts as a thread linking disparate passages together. The effect is outstanding the reader's mind is packed full of images, which seduce, taunt, deride, and promise. He is taken to the pinnacles of heaven, then cruelly cast to the torments of hell. Earth is described as being created as 'a place of rest' or 'a bosom'; night as our covering; mankind made in pairs; the earth full of abundance. Love and sex, procreation and abundance are woven within the tapestry of the text through the use of the Arabic language and play on words. If there were any miracle, any mystery in the text, it would be this: the sheer outstanding beauty of the language of the Qur'an. The ability it holds to move a man to tears, then to shock him with a sudden jolt of joy. The message in Sura 78 is clear; it is not withheld needing some computer expert to decipher it as Akhtar argues in the final section of his book. It is this: we will all taste be fruit of our deeds in the hereafter, and we have all been warned about this fact. Sura 78 is one of thousands of such examples within the Qur'an. The text merely has to be approached with an open mind.
The second major flaw in this book is Akhtar's obsession with the mathematical structure of the Qur'an. Again, he and several others seem to believe that unless something can be 'proven' scientifically, it is not worth much. The Qur'an is forced into a numerical slot, regardless of the fact that it does not fit that slot, and never will. He believes that once enclosed, it becomes 'real' and acceptable to the West (and, sadly, to some Muslims too); it is at last recognised for the scientific marvel that it is. He ignores a couple of verses here and there, and a few words that don't quite fit, and present and reader with a scientific, logical mathematical 'marvel'. Now, at last, he holds, the world will listen. The Qur'an is so complicated that only a computer can decipher the code. Real logic was under Muslims' noses all the time, they just weren't sophisticated enough to understand it.
The numerical 'proofs'- the culmination of the book - are found towards the end (pp. 336-362). This section is headed 'The Miracle', and is supposed to prove beyond doubt that the Qur'an is a numerical mystery. There is supposed to be a 'superhuman structure hidden in the text' (p. 336). Numbers, letters, words and chapters are all supposed to be part of a mathematical code based on the number nineteen. This is a miracle that 'anyone, anywhere in the world, could witness with the help of a computer'. (P.336) There are two problems here; first, the code is only accessible to people with computers so, if you don't have one, tough - the miracle is not accessible to you. You can only read or recite the holy book (or listen to it being recited) , and never really witness the true depths of the text. The other problem here is the same as in the linguistic section; if something doesn't fit - and a lot doesn't, even with the help of a computer - Akhtar ignores it. 'The miracle' lies in the number nineteen and only with the number nineteen. Letters appear in multiples of nineteen, Sura numbers plus the sum of their verses add up to multiples of nineteen, too. Words that appears nineteen times are boldly put forward as examples of the miracles. Words that don't quite fit are not mentioned (e.g 'ilm' knowledge), which appears 105 times, or nabi (prophet) which appears 75 times). Suras which have verses, or letters that add up to multiples of nineteen are described with relish, those that don't are ignored. (P.338-9) The 'code' is merely an exercise in mathematical acrobatics. It would be interesting to see a similar thing done to 'Pride and Prejudice' or a Shakespearean Play. They would then, presumably, be labelled as extra-terrestrial messages too. Akhtar devotes pages to demonstrating the mathematical code. This section of the book is difficult to read or follow. The columns from tables at the back of the book are added, multiplied and mixed in various intricate ways in order to come up with the number nineteen. This 'proof' is not well presented, and I found myself battling against fatigue when reading it. In some parts, it was presented as a remarkable fact that numbers multiplied by nineteen result in a number that is a multiple of nineteen. This is hardly the stuff miracle are made of.
In fact, the 'miracle' of the number nineteen is something that has been seen before and has been analysed and rejected by serious scholars (3) and Muslims alike. The original protagonist of the theory, a Dr. Rahad Khalifa eventually became deranged, believing that he alone could interpret the Qur'an correctly, and that the prophet Muhammad had no role to play in islam (4).
Finally, it needs to be stressed that Akhtar's whole conceptual frame work is actually western, orientated, and not Islamic. This is demonstrated not only in his search for mathematical proofs but also in his view of mankind as a whole. He is a firm believer in the 'advancement' of humanity. We have, according to him, developed from 'primitives' and 'tribes' and are still developing. He writes that people of the nineteen century were not as 'mature' as we are today. (p.p.48,64) 'Animism' is described as 'the first stage in the evolution of religion' , and was the religion of 'the isolated tribal'. Higher forms of religion are polytheism, and, finally monotheism. He seems to have swallowed darwinism unquestionably, and applies it to the development of religion. I find it hard to believe that people who live in tribal structures such as Native Americans, Africans or Bedouin are 'primitive' , in fact, the opposite can be claimed to be the case with Americans beginning to realise how much they could have learned from the original inhabitants of the land so long ago had they held a different worldview. Interestingly, the Qur'an nowhere describes any people as 'primitive'. It is held that there is only one God, and that worshipping idols is wrong. People on the last day be judged according to what they knew when alive, and how they reacted to that knowledge (for example, Sura 17.71). Akhtar however, leaves the reader in no doubt that he is acting within the Western worldview, believing firmly in the mechanistic view of society as an advancing developing machine. Whilst decrying evolution in the book (p.116) Akhtar is actually working within the system of belief that it created. He even goes so far as to say that the Black Death was a positive thing because it led to the world domination by Western powers. He calls this a 'positive aspect' of the tragedy of so many deaths. (p.117) It is astounding to read that Akhtar holds this view in an age when even the West is feeling remorse about the horrors prepetrated during the brutal colonial period. F. David Peat, a scientist who is interested in Native American culture, writes in his book Blackfoot Physics that, after contact with the West, 'We see a dying people trying to find meaning in the terrible punishment that had been imposed upon them. We see them struggling in the face of explorers and settlers who bring with them alien worldviews and values. Thus, a people who had obligations to renew the land met people who believed in land ownership. A people who believed in balance and the renewal of time met those who believed in progress, control, accumulation, and linear time. Those who had based their lives on consensus met treaties and hierachical government. Those to whom justice was the return of harmony of the whole group met adversarial trial and punishment.' (5) Western civilisation is not seen as the peak of mankind's development but as a source of the senseless annihilation of countless peoples. Nowadays this worldview is also considered to be responsible for the steady destruction of the planet as a whole. It is therefore ludicrous that the Qur'an is seen as only being finally understood from within this Western, totally non-Islamic, and frequently aggressive system. The West is seen by Akhtar to be the culture that provides Muslims with the means to crack the code. The only concession to Islam is that a Muslim, Hamza, is delivering the message to the world.
The book fails as an explanation of the Qur'an's mysteries because it is written by someone who finds it necessary to put the Qur'an into a logical 'slot', forcing it to conform to Western proofs and numerical codes. It is also clear that a man who does not know much Arabic should not be writing a book about the wonders of the language, and the mysteries it holds. The Qur'an itself needs no defence, least of all from a system of values and beliefs that are totally alien to it, and which may just as easily reject it when some new scientific theory comes along. Finally, even if Akhtar were correct, and the numbers did in fact add up, making the Qur'an scientifically 'proven' and 'sound', it would make no difference to the lives of millions of ordinary Muslims who thrill to its sounds daily. The true miracle of the Qur'an lies in the powerful emotional and spiritual effect it has on mankind. The following passage is a moving example of the effect the Qur'an had upon an illiterate woman. It is beyond science, beyond numbers and even beyond words:
For a long time she would allow her eyes to rest on the two open pages before her. The letters in green ink from right to left, row beneath row, each shape mysteriously captivating, each dot above or below a letter an epitome of the entire scripture, each assembly of letters a group of dervishes raising their hands in zikr, each gap between two enigmatic shapes a leap from this world into the next, and each ending the advent of the day of Resurrection. She would thus see a thousand images in the procession of that script and would move from vision to vision.
After spending much time in just looking at the open book, she would then, with a strange light glowing on her face, lift her right hand and with the right finger start touching the letters of each line, then another line, to the end of the page. What transpired between the book and that touch, and what knowledge passed, without any meditation of conscious thought, directly into her soul, only the Qur'an and the strange reciter could know. The entire world stood still at this amazing recital without words, without meaning, without knowledge. With that touch a unity was established between her and the Qur'an. At that moment she had passed into a state of total identity with the word of God. Her inability to read the scripture was her ability to hear once again: Read! Read, in the name of thy Lord. (6)
Notes
(1) Ziauddin Sardar and Merryll Wyn Davies Distorted Imagination (London: Grey Seal Books 1990) p.6.
(2) Mustansir Mir, 'Humour in the Qur'an', Muslim World vol. LXXXI July-Oct 1991, no. 3-4 pp. 179-193.
(3) Ziauddin Sardar, Explorations in Islamic Science (London: Mansell Publishing Ltd 1989) pp. 37-42.
(4) Ibid. p. 40
(5) F David Peat, Blackfoot Physics (London: Fourth Estate Ltd 1994) p. 124.
(6) Hasan Askari, Alone to alone, 113, quoted in Discovering the Qur'an by Neal Robinson (London: SCM Press Ltd 1996)
Gail Boxwell is currently writing her PhD thesis on Qur'anic Arabic at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, the University of Leeds, U.K.
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Author replies
Immaturity and ignorance makes a person unnecessarily aggressive. Although Ms. Gail's review highlights both, I must thank her for at least making an effort of going through the book. She may not have been able to comprehend the contents fully, still she seems to have tried.
As far as her critical comments are concerned, she has accused me mainly on three basic points:
'His book fails in three respects: firstly because his knowledge of Arabic is virtually non-existent; secondly, he is so intent on proving the existence of a mathematical code that he fixes his results, overlooks exceptions to his 'rules' and totally ignores any linguistic aspects of the text in the hunt for numerical clues; thirdly, and more seriously, his book is also offensive because it is a demonstration of worst form of Eurocentrism. The Quran - according to Akhtar - is now 'understood' only because clever western people have invented computers thus enabling Muslims to at last unlock the secrets of the text. Centuries of Islamic thought count for nothing compared to the marvels of the West.'
Eurocentrism or Qurancentrism?
'Clever western people' and 'the marvels of the West' indeed - the only thing I believe one can marvel at is the aggressive absurdity of this sentence. In this book, over twenty thousand words spread over 58 pages have been used exclusively to point out how Quran has helped in the collection, translation, and assimilation of existing knowledge of the world, how it had guided and inspired philanthropists, scientists, workers and other men of knowledge - to produce creative works, establish learning centres, observatories, paper mills, hospitals, libraries and other infra-structure, to make the environment conducive for learning and development, and what was the extent and diversity of creative work that followers of Quran produced getting inspiration from it. Ibn Khaldun is specifically quoted (p. 263) as having claimed that 3000 subjects had already been derived from the Quran by 13th century. Moreover, I have also shown why this development stopped, what were the myriad factors and components of the interpreting machinery of Quran, the inherent safeguards in it that were ignored, and how the outstanding works of Muslim scientists of that era became the basic structure on which the present edifice of science has been built. The aim of this presentation was to show how Quran had guided the humanity from the time of its arrival, and how it is still guiding the world, directly and indirectly, involving an intricate pattern of chaos and order. One may or may not agree with me, but to the best of my ability, I have avoided using abstractions, generalities and element of faith as the basic premise. Wherever possible, concrete examples have been provided to remove innumerable misunderstandings, and the veils of prejudices that hinder a non-believer from turning towards Quran. Now, after a decade long effort on this subject, I would have accepted her criticism gladly if she had accused me of Qurancentrism, but her allegation of Eurocentrism has totally stumped me. It is almost bizarre.
Problems with Arabic language?
Another point, in elaboration of which she is quite rude, aggressive and woefully ignorant, pertains to the Arabic language.
'The Arabic language is the central theme of Akhtar's book. Yet Akhtar destroys any confidence the reader may have in him by getting his facts totally wrong.. For the reader who knows any Arabic, it immediately becomes clear that the very foundation of the book is flawed. This in turn leads the reader to be suspicious of the contents of the book as a whole..'
Ms Gail seems so intent on demolishing the book with the little knowledge of Arabic she possesses, that she does not realise that Arabic is not the central theme of the book. The book lays down almost three hundred and fifty arguments for Quran being the last message as well as the last non-human messenger and the probability of 'further guidance' emerging from the same text in different eras of the future. Out of these three hundred and fifty arguments, less than twenty arguments pertain to Arabic language. These arguments present several new insights regarding this language, explaining why this particular language was chosen as an ideal medium of communication for this Message. But all new insights, by being inherently different from established views, are bound to attract conflicting opinions. A healthy debate on this topic is always welcome. Unfortunately Ms. Gail's criticism is a bit too ridiculous for any serious researcher's taste.
'Arabic is the language of the Quran, yet when describing the letters of the alphabet, Akhtar does not describe Arabic at all, but Urdu. He appears to be ignorant of basic differences between the two languages, describing Urdu alphabets but labelling it 'Arabic'. It is very much like a Spanish being described as English..'
This comment, coming from a person who is working for her PhD in Arabic, is simply outrageous and shows the entire Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies of Leeds University in very poor light. The only thing to be appreciated in this regard is her superb sense of composition as within four compact sentences she was able to show that she neither knows Arabic, nor Urdu, nor Spanish.
The alphabets I have described are Arabic. The three alphabets with 's' sounds - Seen, Se and Saad and the four alphabets with variations of z sounds zal, ze, zo and zwad are all common to Urdu and Arabic. The difference between Arabic and Urdu alphabets is that Urdu contains seven more alphabets that are not present in Arabic. These Urdu alphabets are pe, Te (It is different from te where 't' is pronounced with a French or Italian accent instead of British accent), che, Daal (This alphabet is also different from daal where 'd' is pronounced with a French or Italian accent), Rhe (In English you cannot pronounce it correctly), zhe (This alphabet is also difficult to pronounce and is rarely used e.g. Izhdeham), and gaaf. Some foreigners, unable to pronounce the variation of 's' sound in Se correctly, write it as th (as in Othman), but that does not make it a rule. Moreover, out of four alphabets with 'z' sounds, only zwad is pronounced by some as 'dhwad', but that again does not reduce the number of alphabets with 'z' sounds to one. Before firing off this review, she should have checked the number and asked herself a question - what was the crying need to have four alphabets in a language with only one identical 'z' sound, unless these alphabets have subtle variations of pronunciations understandable to natives of the language only.
Ironically her utter ignorance corroborates and explains the Theory of Homonyms by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar, whose work I have quoted in this book. As per his claim, foreigners to Arabic language, unable to differentiate between subtle differences in pronunciation, unintentionally created homonyms in their own language by importing verbs, starting with similar sounding alphabets but having different meanings. Mr. Mazhar's work is very extensive. He has compiled a dictionary of almost six hundred words, tracing roots of verb from English, French, German, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Greek, Russian, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi and Chinese to Arabic.
He is so keen to discover some scientific order that he misses the meaning of the text altogether; in looking for patterns, he ignores exceptions to 'the rule' and thus misses the stinging irony or humour of the Arabic text.
Ms Gail forgets one thing. Exceptions to the rule exist everywhere and on the basis of exceptions patterns are neither identified nor rejected. Arabic verbs do present a variety of meanings but one must not forget that for one thousand years these people were ruling over three continents, trading and interacting with diverse populations and situations. The 'words' in such situations acquire connotations. But if one studies closely, the relation between different meanings of the same word becomes obvious. Take for example the two words ghafar and kafar which means to cover or conceal, and which she has cited as an example to prove that there is no pattern. She has alleged that 'ghafar' can also mean to forgive, whilst kafar is the origin of the word kafir or 'infidel'. Now if one observes closely one can realise that covering or concealing someone's fault is also forgiving and kafir is the one who does something against the directive, covering and concealing the guidance reaching up to him. Thus kafar is the most suitable root word in this regard, showing that God is not unjust. He will make a man accountable only with respect to the guidance reaching him. And since, only God knows how much guidance exactly reaches a person (as innumerable factors like environment, intelligence, life's conditions and nature's predisposition etc., all given by God Himself, affect this exercise), He is the best judge regarding how much a man indulges in kufr or covers and conceals the guidance.
True, verbs usually have a common theme (Here she is contradicting herself), but this is by no means always the case. What is the connection between being boring and being religious?
The connection is obvious to anyone with a little humour and imagination. Evil has a temporary attraction and that is why there is the concept of accountability. Any man of religion who tries to keep someone away from this temporary attraction, citing accountability in a life after this life which he has yet to encounter, will surely be termed boring by non-believers.
Akhtar then steers into even more uncertain territory when he looks for links between nouns constructed from these verbs. The example he gives is laban, which means milk. He gives examples of other nouns that have a similar root (l,b,n). Several of the words he lists do not appear in Arabic dictionaries at all e.g. labain, lab'an. The words that do appear have different meanings to the one he allocates to them. For example, malban, which he claims means milk vessel..
I am at a loss to understand which dictionaries our young researcher has consulted. Leave alone standard dictionaries, even a simple one like 'A Learner's Arabic-English Dictionary' by F. Steingass, contains these words. The reason why I did not mention any dictionaries is because the examples have been taken from the authoritative book 'Arabic, The Source of all languages', mentioned in the Bibliography.
'Another example that he places in the same list of words does not even derive from the same triliteral root - malainat does not share the root letters l,b,n. Yet it is given as an example of how the root system works. The use of a word from another root is patently absurd in this case, because the whole point of this section is to prove how Arabic words with the same root are related. If the reader was uneasy with the mistakes concerning the alphabet, these further errors totally undermine any confidence in Akhtar's authority to be discussing the mystery of the Arabic in the Quran. It is quite clear he knows very little about it.'
Had Ms Gail not been blinded by her urge to criticise the work so vehemently and viciously, she herself would have realised that a typographical error has turned malbinat (sharing the same root letters l,b,n) into malainat, specifically since the word's meaning has also been given along with. Secondly, she should also remember that the discussion involves two different languages, and pronunciation of an Arabic word into English cannot be translated precisely by each and every compiler of dictionaries. Slight variations are likely to be encountered. And thirdly, her contention that verbs of the same root do not have any relation in meanings to each other, is totally absurd. I had mentioned only seven words, while more than twenty words from the same root, exist in the dictionaries related to the same theme of 'milk'.
Problems with the mathematical structure?
There are two problems here; first, the code is only accessible to people with computers so, if you don't have one, tough - the miracle is not accessible to you?
This objection is again absurd. Computer has been used only as a tool to analyse mathematical correlation in words and alphabets of the text. Once a mathematical structure has been identified, it can be seen by anybody, unlike strange phenomena associated with the past messengers, which were witnessed by only those that were present close by. It is only to cross check it that a computer will be required again, as paper and pencil were required to check those indexes that listed the number of times important words had occurred in Quran and which were compiled by men using only paper and pencil.
The other problem here is the same as in the linguistic section; if something doesn't fit - and a lot doesn't, even with the help of a computer - Akhtar ignores it. Words that appear nineteen times are boldly put forward as examples of the miracle. Words that don't quite fit are not mentioned. The code is merely an exercise in mathematical acrobatics. It would be interesting to see a similar thing done to 'Pride and Prejudice' or a Shakespearean play. They would then, presumably, be labelled as extra-terrestrial messages too.?
Her second objection is as invalid here as it was in the linguistic section. It should be understood clearly that a mathematical structure is identified on the basis of statistical regularity only, which can exclude the element of chance by a large margin. It is not necessary that each and every alphabet of the Arabic language should conform to the pattern, as it would be an impossibility. A hidden structure, emerging from an old text, dictated orally over twenty three years, is not an impossibility, it is only beyond a man's capability, specifically since the number is a big prime number and is not randomly selected. The Quranic text mentions it, fixing it as a trial for unbelievers, in order that the People of the Book may arrive at certainty, and the Believers may increase in faith, and that no doubt may be left for the People of the Book and the Believers.. Regarding a similar thing being done to 'Pride and Prejudice' and labelling it as extra-terrestrial, my answer is, why does not she do it, why presume only? It will be the surest way to discredit this demeaning proof.
Why this structure was rejected by Muslims and why I included it in the book:
Rashad Khalifa's assertion regarding two verses of the Quran; his claim of being the latest messenger; his outright rejection of Sunna as Satanic innovations, his attempts to authorise interpretation of Quran, his backtracking on several issues coupled with problems in the identification of Arabic alphabets like aliph, and the discovery of some manipulation in the structure, all these factors led to the rejection of this otherwise brilliant structure. But it was done without realising the gravity of its non acceptance, and its influence as an objective argument par excellence. My purpose of including it in the book, is the belief that this structure with all its benefits, can be re-established by removing manipulations, explaining anomalies and countering all assertions of Rashad Khalifa plausibly. And my belief is that Ulema of the community are taking extremely heavy responsibility upon their shoulders by detaching it from the very obvious hint, mentioned in the text. Besides, the structure should not be treated naively as a scientific marvel only, meant to convince the west. Among its many potential uses mentioned in my book, it can also solve a long standing problem related to the existence of variant readings, which has always been used by non-believers, to attack the integrity of Quran. The structure used in conjunction with Qirat-e mutwatira and ancient manuscripts, like the one at Tashkent, can solve this problem once for all. But, for all this to happen, a positive approach is needed to analyse the structure. Without involving the antagonism towards Rashad Khalifa, a great researcher who fell later into the satan's trap, the structure needs to be checked extremely thoroughly by statisticians and linguists of repute and intelligence, to see what is the truth.
Some other objections of Ms Gail
He is a firm believer in the advancement of humanity. We have according to him, developed from primitives and tribes and are still developing.
Yes, I am a firm believer in the advancement of humanity and tribes did exist initially instead of the present structure depending upon rural and urban centres. But she misquotes me when she says we developed from 'primitives'. On the contrary, I have specifically mentioned that Adam was given at his birth, the concept of the basic religion, an ability to communicate, and the basic structure of a language.
He writes that people of the nineteenth century were not as mature as we are today. (pp. 48,64)
It is true. Pick-up randomly the literature published in nineteenth century and compare it with the present, you will yourself realise that with increasing information and easy communication, the humanity is now better able to see each other's view point.
Animism is described as the first stage in the evolution of religion, and was the religion of the isolated tribal. Higher forms of religion are polytheism, and finally monotheism. He seems to have swallowed Darwinism unquestionably, and applies it to the development of religion.
As a reply to this accusation, I can only say that her knowledge of English seems to be at par with her knowledge of Urdu, Spanish and Arabic. The statements she mentions are part of a dialogue where an expert on religion explains the evolutionary theory of religion, propagated by those who do not believe in the Creator factor and Divine origin of revealed guidance. How can these thoughts be understood as belonging to me when my whole book is an effort to prove the existence of Creator factor?
'Quran can be seen as a book that does not need any defence'; 'glory of Quran lies in the raw power of words' - such statements sound pleasing to the ears, but, one must never forget that conflicting perspectives are a reality and result in lot of misery around the world. Army of persecutors in Bosnia, Palestine, Burma, and Kashmir, are not students of Quranic studies who can marvel at the subtle irony and sense of play appearing in its contents, but their leaders and other men of intellect, who have influence in the world affairs, can be convinced logically about the truth of Quran and futility of working at cross purpose with God. With the present ease of communication and the level of maturity, such a goal can be realised, however distant it may look. But it is not a simple exercise.
There are barriers after barriers, of prejudice, ignorance, and misunderstandings, related with every aspect of Quran. This book was envisaged as an attempt to bring those queries and their answers under one roof, in an interesting format and in the language which would be comprehensible to a majority. It was not written to satisfy one's ego or to convince Arabic speaking Muslims that Quran is Divine. It was primarily written to invite those men towards Quran who are not convinced about its Source being God, and thus miss out on the benefits that could accrue from 'The Light' which is the greatest gift of the Creator to humanity.
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June 1998
Desperately seeking logic by Gail Boxwell
'The Ultimate Revelations' by Jamshed Akhtar (Delhi: International Books, 1996)
The Ultimate Revelations is a novel that pertains to explain the mystery of the Qur'an in scientific, numerical terms by means of an analysis of the Arabic text. In an attempt to demonstrate the power, wisdom and beauty of this 'ultimate message' to mankind Akhtar discusses the arrival of the Qur'an, the characteristics of the language of the holy Book, and the answers to all mankind's problems to be found in its revered pages. His book fails in three respects: firstly because his knowledge of Arabic is virtually non-existent; secondly, he is so intent on proving the existence of a mathematical code that he fixes his results, overlooks exceptions to his 'rules' and totally ignores any linguistic aspects of the text in the hunt for numerical clues; thirdly, and more seriously, his book is also offensive because it is a demonstration of the worst form of Eurocentrism. The Qur'an - according to Akhtar - is now 'understood' only because clever Western people have invented computers thus enabling Muslims to at last unlock the secrets of the text. Centuries of Islamic thought count for nothing compared to the marvels of the West.
Picture it: The world is on the brink of total destruction; a new ice age is advancing, mankind is on the verge of annihilation. International conferences are rapidly drawn up to brainstorm ideas that may prevent the slow but steady onslaught of deadly ice. Dramatically, the Qur'an is presented as 'a message from the stars' - a message from an extra-terrestrial intelligence, which holds the only hope for the future. The man who delivers this message is Hamza, a young scientist who gradually comes to understand the meaning of the great Muslim text by means of his dreams. His dreams tell him about the prophets in the past; they also point him to the future and to the secret code that lies within the heart of the text.
All quite exciting... except it really doesn't work. Akhtar claims to be writing a book about the mystery of the Qur'an, and yet, as one reads, it becomes patently clear that he is merely re-constructing other writers' ideas, and doing it rather badly. One of the main flaws in this book is the inaccuracy concerning Arabic. The whole point of Akhtar's book is that the Qur'an be understood correctly. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic, and this is what the 'mystery' and the 'message' is supposed to be about. The Arabic language is therefore the central theme of Akhtar's book. Yet Akhtar destroys any confidence the reader may have in him by getting his facts totally wrong. He even gets languages mixed up; a mistake that may have been regarded as an oversight in any other book becomes incompetence in this one.
Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, yet when describing the letters of the alphabet, Akhtar does not describe Arabic at all, but Urdu. He appears to be ignorant of basic differences between the two languages, describing the Urdu alphabet and labelling it 'Arabic'. It is very much like a Spanish being described as English. The two may well be related, but they are not the same. They may have some letters in common, but there are intrinsic differences between the languages that cannot be ignored. For example, he writes that there are three 's' sounds, and four 'z' sounds in the 'language of the message'. (P.159) This may well be true of Urdu, but it is definitely not true of Arabic which has only two 's' sounds, and only one 'z' sound. For the reader who knows any Arabic, it immediately becomes clear that the very foundation of the book is flawed. This in turn leads the reader to be suspicious of the contents of the book as a whole.
Fortunately for Akhtar, this section appears in the middle of the book, following the descriptions of Hamza's dreams. The reader is encouraged and enticed by a fairly promising story, only to be disappointed by the 'proofs' that follow.
Akhtar tries to prove the 'wonders' of Arabic by demonstrating that the 'Combination of letters in its roots is also peculiar. When similar letters are combines, they denote generally different shades of meaning of the same idea.' Some examples will be given below because it is necessary to demonstrate quite how inaccurate Akhtar is when he discusses Arabic. At this point, it is worth mentioning that (and Akhtar gets this right) Arabic verbs are triliteral; they consist of a
'root' of three letters. From this basic root, several verb forms and nouns are constructed. This structure is discussed by Akhtar in some detail. The problem is, Akhtar tries to impose too much order on a language that does not always act in an orderly way. He looks for patterns where, in fact, there are none.
Languages do not always 'behave' logically - they exist in the realm of passions too. Unfortunately, Akhtar is searching for rules which he can impose on a moving, living system - the Arabic language. He is so keen to discover some scientific order that he misses the meaning of the text altogether; in looking for patterns, he ignores exceptions to 'the rule' and thus misses the stinging irony or humour of the Arabic text.
An example of 'order', according to Akhtar, can be found in these words which have similar roots: Khafar which means to escort or safe conduct, ghafar which means to cover or conceal and kafar which also means to cover or conceal. (p.153) So far, so good. It can be seen that by changing the first letter, but by using letters with similar sounds - gh,kh,k- (of course, some linguists would argue that these are not at all similar sounds, but let us bear with Akhtar for a moment), words with similar meanings can be discovered. Unfortunately for Akhtar this is not as simple as he would have the reader believe. Arabic verbs can present a huge variety of meanings. ghafar can also mean to forgive, whilst kafar is the origin of the word kafir; or infidel. An Arabic verb may present up to ten forms, and one form alone can have several meanings. A good example of this is 'ada which can mean any of the following in its first form alone: to return, to be traceable, to give up, to resign to accrue, to grow, to yield, to do something no more or no longer. One of my favourites that involves several forms of the verb is malla, which can mean to become weary or bored, to be boring or irritating, to dictate or, finally, to embrace a religion. Take your pick.
True, verbs usually have a common theme, but this is by no means always the case. What is the connection between being boring and being religious? Or to leave, to stink, to intervene, to be pleased, and to have a break (some of the verbs derived from the verb ruh)?
Akhtar then steers into even more uncertain territory when he looks for links between nouns constructed from these verbs. The example he gives is laban, which means milk. He gives examples of the other nouns that have a similar root (l,b,n). Several of the words he lists do not appear in Arabic dictionaries at all e.g labain, lab'an. The words that do appear have different meanings to the ones he allocates to them. For example, malban, which he claims means milk vessel (The Hans Wehr dictionary says it means a sweet made of corn starch - we are not told which dictionary Akhtar uses). Another example that he places in the same list of words does not even derive from the same triliteral root - malainat does not share the root letters l,b,n. Yet it is given as an example of how the root system works (p.155). The use of a word from another root is patently absurd in this case, because the whole point of this section is to prove how Arabic words with the same root are related. If the reader was uneasy with the mistakes concerning the alphabet, these further errors totally undermine any confidence in Akhtar's authority to be discussing the mystery of the Arabic in the Qur'an. It is quite clear he knows very little about it at all.
Akhtar's approach, apart from being inaccurate, is actually unnecessary. The Qur'an can be seen as a book that does not need any 'defence'. It can stand as it is; full of mystery and beauty. For Muslims, the Qur'an is valid and true with or without any mathematical proofs. Defending a religious belief or text in the way Akhtar has done, involves an acceptance of Western secularism, and the worldview that accompanies it. Secularism in this case is held up as the yardstick by which reality is measured, and no counter-reality exists. (1) Thus, in this case, it is seen necessary to find logic at any cost, along with numerical patterns within the text, in order for the Qur'an to be taken seriously and therefore 'proven' to be sound. Another worldview would accept the Qur'an as a holy text that is not in need of what appears to be a mad scrabble for demeaning 'proofs'. The glory of the Qur'an in this worldview lies in the raw power of the words which need no defence. They can be analysed, discussed, and even questioned (honest disbelief and questioning are not considered crimes in an Islamic system of belief) but the concept of a need to 'prove' anything according to another worldview and its standards would not even be considered. In an alternative approach to the text, students of Qur'anic studies would marvel at the subtle irony and sense of play that appears in its pages (2). For example, in Sura 78 the root system of Arabic verbs is used with great effect precisely because the nouns have no correlation with each other, yet have contrasting meanings. Full-breasted maidens/companions of equal age (atrab) in paradise closely follow images of death and hell, they also contrast with the dust of the grave (turab) in the last verse. The root t,r,b acts as a thread linking disparate passages together. The effect is outstanding the reader's mind is packed full of images, which seduce, taunt, deride, and promise. He is taken to the pinnacles of heaven, then cruelly cast to the torments of hell. Earth is described as being created as 'a place of rest' or 'a bosom'; night as our covering; mankind made in pairs; the earth full of abundance. Love and sex, procreation and abundance are woven within the tapestry of the text through the use of the Arabic language and play on words. If there were any miracle, any mystery in the text, it would be this: the sheer outstanding beauty of the language of the Qur'an. The ability it holds to move a man to tears, then to shock him with a sudden jolt of joy. The message in Sura 78 is clear; it is not withheld needing some computer expert to decipher it as Akhtar argues in the final section of his book. It is this: we will all taste be fruit of our deeds in the hereafter, and we have all been warned about this fact. Sura 78 is one of thousands of such examples within the Qur'an. The text merely has to be approached with an open mind.
The second major flaw in this book is Akhtar's obsession with the mathematical structure of the Qur'an. Again, he and several others seem to believe that unless something can be 'proven' scientifically, it is not worth much. The Qur'an is forced into a numerical slot, regardless of the fact that it does not fit that slot, and never will. He believes that once enclosed, it becomes 'real' and acceptable to the West (and, sadly, to some Muslims too); it is at last recognised for the scientific marvel that it is. He ignores a couple of verses here and there, and a few words that don't quite fit, and present and reader with a scientific, logical mathematical 'marvel'. Now, at last, he holds, the world will listen. The Qur'an is so complicated that only a computer can decipher the code. Real logic was under Muslims' noses all the time, they just weren't sophisticated enough to understand it.
The numerical 'proofs'- the culmination of the book - are found towards the end (pp. 336-362). This section is headed 'The Miracle', and is supposed to prove beyond doubt that the Qur'an is a numerical mystery. There is supposed to be a 'superhuman structure hidden in the text' (p. 336). Numbers, letters, words and chapters are all supposed to be part of a mathematical code based on the number nineteen. This is a miracle that 'anyone, anywhere in the world, could witness with the help of a computer'. (P.336) There are two problems here; first, the code is only accessible to people with computers so, if you don't have one, tough - the miracle is not accessible to you. You can only read or recite the holy book (or listen to it being recited) , and never really witness the true depths of the text. The other problem here is the same as in the linguistic section; if something doesn't fit - and a lot doesn't, even with the help of a computer - Akhtar ignores it. 'The miracle' lies in the number nineteen and only with the number nineteen. Letters appear in multiples of nineteen, Sura numbers plus the sum of their verses add up to multiples of nineteen, too. Words that appears nineteen times are boldly put forward as examples of the miracles. Words that don't quite fit are not mentioned (e.g 'ilm' knowledge), which appears 105 times, or nabi (prophet) which appears 75 times). Suras which have verses, or letters that add up to multiples of nineteen are described with relish, those that don't are ignored. (P.338-9) The 'code' is merely an exercise in mathematical acrobatics. It would be interesting to see a similar thing done to 'Pride and Prejudice' or a Shakespearean Play. They would then, presumably, be labelled as extra-terrestrial messages too. Akhtar devotes pages to demonstrating the mathematical code. This section of the book is difficult to read or follow. The columns from tables at the back of the book are added, multiplied and mixed in various intricate ways in order to come up with the number nineteen. This 'proof' is not well presented, and I found myself battling against fatigue when reading it. In some parts, it was presented as a remarkable fact that numbers multiplied by nineteen result in a number that is a multiple of nineteen. This is hardly the stuff miracle are made of.
In fact, the 'miracle' of the number nineteen is something that has been seen before and has been analysed and rejected by serious scholars (3) and Muslims alike. The original protagonist of the theory, a Dr. Rahad Khalifa eventually became deranged, believing that he alone could interpret the Qur'an correctly, and that the prophet Muhammad had no role to play in islam (4).
Finally, it needs to be stressed that Akhtar's whole conceptual frame work is actually western, orientated, and not Islamic. This is demonstrated not only in his search for mathematical proofs but also in his view of mankind as a whole. He is a firm believer in the 'advancement' of humanity. We have, according to him, developed from 'primitives' and 'tribes' and are still developing. He writes that people of the nineteen century were not as 'mature' as we are today. (p.p.48,64) 'Animism' is described as 'the first stage in the evolution of religion' , and was the religion of 'the isolated tribal'. Higher forms of religion are polytheism, and, finally monotheism. He seems to have swallowed darwinism unquestionably, and applies it to the development of religion. I find it hard to believe that people who live in tribal structures such as Native Americans, Africans or Bedouin are 'primitive' , in fact, the opposite can be claimed to be the case with Americans beginning to realise how much they could have learned from the original inhabitants of the land so long ago had they held a different worldview. Interestingly, the Qur'an nowhere describes any people as 'primitive'. It is held that there is only one God, and that worshipping idols is wrong. People on the last day be judged according to what they knew when alive, and how they reacted to that knowledge (for example, Sura 17.71). Akhtar however, leaves the reader in no doubt that he is acting within the Western worldview, believing firmly in the mechanistic view of society as an advancing developing machine. Whilst decrying evolution in the book (p.116) Akhtar is actually working within the system of belief that it created. He even goes so far as to say that the Black Death was a positive thing because it led to the world domination by Western powers. He calls this a 'positive aspect' of the tragedy of so many deaths. (p.117) It is astounding to read that Akhtar holds this view in an age when even the West is feeling remorse about the horrors prepetrated during the brutal colonial period. F. David Peat, a scientist who is interested in Native American culture, writes in his book Blackfoot Physics that, after contact with the West, 'We see a dying people trying to find meaning in the terrible punishment that had been imposed upon them. We see them struggling in the face of explorers and settlers who bring with them alien worldviews and values. Thus, a people who had obligations to renew the land met people who believed in land ownership. A people who believed in balance and the renewal of time met those who believed in progress, control, accumulation, and linear time. Those who had based their lives on consensus met treaties and hierachical government. Those to whom justice was the return of harmony of the whole group met adversarial trial and punishment.' (5) Western civilisation is not seen as the peak of mankind's development but as a source of the senseless annihilation of countless peoples. Nowadays this worldview is also considered to be responsible for the steady destruction of the planet as a whole. It is therefore ludicrous that the Qur'an is seen as only being finally understood from within this Western, totally non-Islamic, and frequently aggressive system. The West is seen by Akhtar to be the culture that provides Muslims with the means to crack the code. The only concession to Islam is that a Muslim, Hamza, is delivering the message to the world.
The book fails as an explanation of the Qur'an's mysteries because it is written by someone who finds it necessary to put the Qur'an into a logical 'slot', forcing it to conform to Western proofs and numerical codes. It is also clear that a man who does not know much Arabic should not be writing a book about the wonders of the language, and the mysteries it holds. The Qur'an itself needs no defence, least of all from a system of values and beliefs that are totally alien to it, and which may just as easily reject it when some new scientific theory comes along. Finally, even if Akhtar were correct, and the numbers did in fact add up, making the Qur'an scientifically 'proven' and 'sound', it would make no difference to the lives of millions of ordinary Muslims who thrill to its sounds daily. The true miracle of the Qur'an lies in the powerful emotional and spiritual effect it has on mankind. The following passage is a moving example of the effect the Qur'an had upon an illiterate woman. It is beyond science, beyond numbers and even beyond words:
For a long time she would allow her eyes to rest on the two open pages before her. The letters in green ink from right to left, row beneath row, each shape mysteriously captivating, each dot above or below a letter an epitome of the entire scripture, each assembly of letters a group of dervishes raising their hands in zikr, each gap between two enigmatic shapes a leap from this world into the next, and each ending the advent of the day of Resurrection. She would thus see a thousand images in the procession of that script and would move from vision to vision.
After spending much time in just looking at the open book, she would then, with a strange light glowing on her face, lift her right hand and with the right finger start touching the letters of each line, then another line, to the end of the page. What transpired between the book and that touch, and what knowledge passed, without any meditation of conscious thought, directly into her soul, only the Qur'an and the strange reciter could know. The entire world stood still at this amazing recital without words, without meaning, without knowledge. With that touch a unity was established between her and the Qur'an. At that moment she had passed into a state of total identity with the word of God. Her inability to read the scripture was her ability to hear once again: Read! Read, in the name of thy Lord. (6)
Notes
(1) Ziauddin Sardar and Merryll Wyn Davies Distorted Imagination (London: Grey Seal Books 1990) p.6.
(2) Mustansir Mir, 'Humour in the Qur'an', Muslim World vol. LXXXI July-Oct 1991, no. 3-4 pp. 179-193.
(3) Ziauddin Sardar, Explorations in Islamic Science (London: Mansell Publishing Ltd 1989) pp. 37-42.
(4) Ibid. p. 40
(5) F David Peat, Blackfoot Physics (London: Fourth Estate Ltd 1994) p. 124.
(6) Hasan Askari, Alone to alone, 113, quoted in Discovering the Qur'an by Neal Robinson (London: SCM Press Ltd 1996)
Gail Boxwell is currently writing her PhD thesis on Qur'anic Arabic at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, the University of Leeds, U.K.
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Author replies
Immaturity and ignorance makes a person unnecessarily aggressive. Although Ms. Gail's review highlights both, I must thank her for at least making an effort of going through the book. She may not have been able to comprehend the contents fully, still she seems to have tried.
As far as her critical comments are concerned, she has accused me mainly on three basic points:
'His book fails in three respects: firstly because his knowledge of Arabic is virtually non-existent; secondly, he is so intent on proving the existence of a mathematical code that he fixes his results, overlooks exceptions to his 'rules' and totally ignores any linguistic aspects of the text in the hunt for numerical clues; thirdly, and more seriously, his book is also offensive because it is a demonstration of worst form of Eurocentrism. The Quran - according to Akhtar - is now 'understood' only because clever western people have invented computers thus enabling Muslims to at last unlock the secrets of the text. Centuries of Islamic thought count for nothing compared to the marvels of the West.'
Eurocentrism or Qurancentrism?
'Clever western people' and 'the marvels of the West' indeed - the only thing I believe one can marvel at is the aggressive absurdity of this sentence. In this book, over twenty thousand words spread over 58 pages have been used exclusively to point out how Quran has helped in the collection, translation, and assimilation of existing knowledge of the world, how it had guided and inspired philanthropists, scientists, workers and other men of knowledge - to produce creative works, establish learning centres, observatories, paper mills, hospitals, libraries and other infra-structure, to make the environment conducive for learning and development, and what was the extent and diversity of creative work that followers of Quran produced getting inspiration from it. Ibn Khaldun is specifically quoted (p. 263) as having claimed that 3000 subjects had already been derived from the Quran by 13th century. Moreover, I have also shown why this development stopped, what were the myriad factors and components of the interpreting machinery of Quran, the inherent safeguards in it that were ignored, and how the outstanding works of Muslim scientists of that era became the basic structure on which the present edifice of science has been built. The aim of this presentation was to show how Quran had guided the humanity from the time of its arrival, and how it is still guiding the world, directly and indirectly, involving an intricate pattern of chaos and order. One may or may not agree with me, but to the best of my ability, I have avoided using abstractions, generalities and element of faith as the basic premise. Wherever possible, concrete examples have been provided to remove innumerable misunderstandings, and the veils of prejudices that hinder a non-believer from turning towards Quran. Now, after a decade long effort on this subject, I would have accepted her criticism gladly if she had accused me of Qurancentrism, but her allegation of Eurocentrism has totally stumped me. It is almost bizarre.
Problems with Arabic language?
Another point, in elaboration of which she is quite rude, aggressive and woefully ignorant, pertains to the Arabic language.
'The Arabic language is the central theme of Akhtar's book. Yet Akhtar destroys any confidence the reader may have in him by getting his facts totally wrong.. For the reader who knows any Arabic, it immediately becomes clear that the very foundation of the book is flawed. This in turn leads the reader to be suspicious of the contents of the book as a whole..'
Ms Gail seems so intent on demolishing the book with the little knowledge of Arabic she possesses, that she does not realise that Arabic is not the central theme of the book. The book lays down almost three hundred and fifty arguments for Quran being the last message as well as the last non-human messenger and the probability of 'further guidance' emerging from the same text in different eras of the future. Out of these three hundred and fifty arguments, less than twenty arguments pertain to Arabic language. These arguments present several new insights regarding this language, explaining why this particular language was chosen as an ideal medium of communication for this Message. But all new insights, by being inherently different from established views, are bound to attract conflicting opinions. A healthy debate on this topic is always welcome. Unfortunately Ms. Gail's criticism is a bit too ridiculous for any serious researcher's taste.
'Arabic is the language of the Quran, yet when describing the letters of the alphabet, Akhtar does not describe Arabic at all, but Urdu. He appears to be ignorant of basic differences between the two languages, describing Urdu alphabets but labelling it 'Arabic'. It is very much like a Spanish being described as English..'
This comment, coming from a person who is working for her PhD in Arabic, is simply outrageous and shows the entire Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies of Leeds University in very poor light. The only thing to be appreciated in this regard is her superb sense of composition as within four compact sentences she was able to show that she neither knows Arabic, nor Urdu, nor Spanish.
The alphabets I have described are Arabic. The three alphabets with 's' sounds - Seen, Se and Saad and the four alphabets with variations of z sounds zal, ze, zo and zwad are all common to Urdu and Arabic. The difference between Arabic and Urdu alphabets is that Urdu contains seven more alphabets that are not present in Arabic. These Urdu alphabets are pe, Te (It is different from te where 't' is pronounced with a French or Italian accent instead of British accent), che, Daal (This alphabet is also different from daal where 'd' is pronounced with a French or Italian accent), Rhe (In English you cannot pronounce it correctly), zhe (This alphabet is also difficult to pronounce and is rarely used e.g. Izhdeham), and gaaf. Some foreigners, unable to pronounce the variation of 's' sound in Se correctly, write it as th (as in Othman), but that does not make it a rule. Moreover, out of four alphabets with 'z' sounds, only zwad is pronounced by some as 'dhwad', but that again does not reduce the number of alphabets with 'z' sounds to one. Before firing off this review, she should have checked the number and asked herself a question - what was the crying need to have four alphabets in a language with only one identical 'z' sound, unless these alphabets have subtle variations of pronunciations understandable to natives of the language only.
Ironically her utter ignorance corroborates and explains the Theory of Homonyms by Muhammad Ahmad Mazhar, whose work I have quoted in this book. As per his claim, foreigners to Arabic language, unable to differentiate between subtle differences in pronunciation, unintentionally created homonyms in their own language by importing verbs, starting with similar sounding alphabets but having different meanings. Mr. Mazhar's work is very extensive. He has compiled a dictionary of almost six hundred words, tracing roots of verb from English, French, German, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Greek, Russian, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi and Chinese to Arabic.
He is so keen to discover some scientific order that he misses the meaning of the text altogether; in looking for patterns, he ignores exceptions to 'the rule' and thus misses the stinging irony or humour of the Arabic text.
Ms Gail forgets one thing. Exceptions to the rule exist everywhere and on the basis of exceptions patterns are neither identified nor rejected. Arabic verbs do present a variety of meanings but one must not forget that for one thousand years these people were ruling over three continents, trading and interacting with diverse populations and situations. The 'words' in such situations acquire connotations. But if one studies closely, the relation between different meanings of the same word becomes obvious. Take for example the two words ghafar and kafar which means to cover or conceal, and which she has cited as an example to prove that there is no pattern. She has alleged that 'ghafar' can also mean to forgive, whilst kafar is the origin of the word kafir or 'infidel'. Now if one observes closely one can realise that covering or concealing someone's fault is also forgiving and kafir is the one who does something against the directive, covering and concealing the guidance reaching up to him. Thus kafar is the most suitable root word in this regard, showing that God is not unjust. He will make a man accountable only with respect to the guidance reaching him. And since, only God knows how much guidance exactly reaches a person (as innumerable factors like environment, intelligence, life's conditions and nature's predisposition etc., all given by God Himself, affect this exercise), He is the best judge regarding how much a man indulges in kufr or covers and conceals the guidance.
True, verbs usually have a common theme (Here she is contradicting herself), but this is by no means always the case. What is the connection between being boring and being religious?
The connection is obvious to anyone with a little humour and imagination. Evil has a temporary attraction and that is why there is the concept of accountability. Any man of religion who tries to keep someone away from this temporary attraction, citing accountability in a life after this life which he has yet to encounter, will surely be termed boring by non-believers.
Akhtar then steers into even more uncertain territory when he looks for links between nouns constructed from these verbs. The example he gives is laban, which means milk. He gives examples of other nouns that have a similar root (l,b,n). Several of the words he lists do not appear in Arabic dictionaries at all e.g. labain, lab'an. The words that do appear have different meanings to the one he allocates to them. For example, malban, which he claims means milk vessel..
I am at a loss to understand which dictionaries our young researcher has consulted. Leave alone standard dictionaries, even a simple one like 'A Learner's Arabic-English Dictionary' by F. Steingass, contains these words. The reason why I did not mention any dictionaries is because the examples have been taken from the authoritative book 'Arabic, The Source of all languages', mentioned in the Bibliography.
'Another example that he places in the same list of words does not even derive from the same triliteral root - malainat does not share the root letters l,b,n. Yet it is given as an example of how the root system works. The use of a word from another root is patently absurd in this case, because the whole point of this section is to prove how Arabic words with the same root are related. If the reader was uneasy with the mistakes concerning the alphabet, these further errors totally undermine any confidence in Akhtar's authority to be discussing the mystery of the Arabic in the Quran. It is quite clear he knows very little about it.'
Had Ms Gail not been blinded by her urge to criticise the work so vehemently and viciously, she herself would have realised that a typographical error has turned malbinat (sharing the same root letters l,b,n) into malainat, specifically since the word's meaning has also been given along with. Secondly, she should also remember that the discussion involves two different languages, and pronunciation of an Arabic word into English cannot be translated precisely by each and every compiler of dictionaries. Slight variations are likely to be encountered. And thirdly, her contention that verbs of the same root do not have any relation in meanings to each other, is totally absurd. I had mentioned only seven words, while more than twenty words from the same root, exist in the dictionaries related to the same theme of 'milk'.
Problems with the mathematical structure?
There are two problems here; first, the code is only accessible to people with computers so, if you don't have one, tough - the miracle is not accessible to you?
This objection is again absurd. Computer has been used only as a tool to analyse mathematical correlation in words and alphabets of the text. Once a mathematical structure has been identified, it can be seen by anybody, unlike strange phenomena associated with the past messengers, which were witnessed by only those that were present close by. It is only to cross check it that a computer will be required again, as paper and pencil were required to check those indexes that listed the number of times important words had occurred in Quran and which were compiled by men using only paper and pencil.
The other problem here is the same as in the linguistic section; if something doesn't fit - and a lot doesn't, even with the help of a computer - Akhtar ignores it. Words that appear nineteen times are boldly put forward as examples of the miracle. Words that don't quite fit are not mentioned. The code is merely an exercise in mathematical acrobatics. It would be interesting to see a similar thing done to 'Pride and Prejudice' or a Shakespearean play. They would then, presumably, be labelled as extra-terrestrial messages too.?
Her second objection is as invalid here as it was in the linguistic section. It should be understood clearly that a mathematical structure is identified on the basis of statistical regularity only, which can exclude the element of chance by a large margin. It is not necessary that each and every alphabet of the Arabic language should conform to the pattern, as it would be an impossibility. A hidden structure, emerging from an old text, dictated orally over twenty three years, is not an impossibility, it is only beyond a man's capability, specifically since the number is a big prime number and is not randomly selected. The Quranic text mentions it, fixing it as a trial for unbelievers, in order that the People of the Book may arrive at certainty, and the Believers may increase in faith, and that no doubt may be left for the People of the Book and the Believers.. Regarding a similar thing being done to 'Pride and Prejudice' and labelling it as extra-terrestrial, my answer is, why does not she do it, why presume only? It will be the surest way to discredit this demeaning proof.
Why this structure was rejected by Muslims and why I included it in the book:
Rashad Khalifa's assertion regarding two verses of the Quran; his claim of being the latest messenger; his outright rejection of Sunna as Satanic innovations, his attempts to authorise interpretation of Quran, his backtracking on several issues coupled with problems in the identification of Arabic alphabets like aliph, and the discovery of some manipulation in the structure, all these factors led to the rejection of this otherwise brilliant structure. But it was done without realising the gravity of its non acceptance, and its influence as an objective argument par excellence. My purpose of including it in the book, is the belief that this structure with all its benefits, can be re-established by removing manipulations, explaining anomalies and countering all assertions of Rashad Khalifa plausibly. And my belief is that Ulema of the community are taking extremely heavy responsibility upon their shoulders by detaching it from the very obvious hint, mentioned in the text. Besides, the structure should not be treated naively as a scientific marvel only, meant to convince the west. Among its many potential uses mentioned in my book, it can also solve a long standing problem related to the existence of variant readings, which has always been used by non-believers, to attack the integrity of Quran. The structure used in conjunction with Qirat-e mutwatira and ancient manuscripts, like the one at Tashkent, can solve this problem once for all. But, for all this to happen, a positive approach is needed to analyse the structure. Without involving the antagonism towards Rashad Khalifa, a great researcher who fell later into the satan's trap, the structure needs to be checked extremely thoroughly by statisticians and linguists of repute and intelligence, to see what is the truth.
Some other objections of Ms Gail
He is a firm believer in the advancement of humanity. We have according to him, developed from primitives and tribes and are still developing.
Yes, I am a firm believer in the advancement of humanity and tribes did exist initially instead of the present structure depending upon rural and urban centres. But she misquotes me when she says we developed from 'primitives'. On the contrary, I have specifically mentioned that Adam was given at his birth, the concept of the basic religion, an ability to communicate, and the basic structure of a language.
He writes that people of the nineteenth century were not as mature as we are today. (pp. 48,64)
It is true. Pick-up randomly the literature published in nineteenth century and compare it with the present, you will yourself realise that with increasing information and easy communication, the humanity is now better able to see each other's view point.
Animism is described as the first stage in the evolution of religion, and was the religion of the isolated tribal. Higher forms of religion are polytheism, and finally monotheism. He seems to have swallowed Darwinism unquestionably, and applies it to the development of religion.
As a reply to this accusation, I can only say that her knowledge of English seems to be at par with her knowledge of Urdu, Spanish and Arabic. The statements she mentions are part of a dialogue where an expert on religion explains the evolutionary theory of religion, propagated by those who do not believe in the Creator factor and Divine origin of revealed guidance. How can these thoughts be understood as belonging to me when my whole book is an effort to prove the existence of Creator factor?
'Quran can be seen as a book that does not need any defence'; 'glory of Quran lies in the raw power of words' - such statements sound pleasing to the ears, but, one must never forget that conflicting perspectives are a reality and result in lot of misery around the world. Army of persecutors in Bosnia, Palestine, Burma, and Kashmir, are not students of Quranic studies who can marvel at the subtle irony and sense of play appearing in its contents, but their leaders and other men of intellect, who have influence in the world affairs, can be convinced logically about the truth of Quran and futility of working at cross purpose with God. With the present ease of communication and the level of maturity, such a goal can be realised, however distant it may look. But it is not a simple exercise.
There are barriers after barriers, of prejudice, ignorance, and misunderstandings, related with every aspect of Quran. This book was envisaged as an attempt to bring those queries and their answers under one roof, in an interesting format and in the language which would be comprehensible to a majority. It was not written to satisfy one's ego or to convince Arabic speaking Muslims that Quran is Divine. It was primarily written to invite those men towards Quran who are not convinced about its Source being God, and thus miss out on the benefits that could accrue from 'The Light' which is the greatest gift of the Creator to humanity.
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