5:48

A word about two interpretive options before I choose the one I prefer and use it to understand my life in light of verse 5:48 in the Quran. One can read a revelatory claim with reference to one’s experience, allow the verse to make a claim about what is (or rather what meanings are) disclosed in/through the experience, compare those meanings to my own knowledge/understanding of my experiences and choose the one that is more satisfactory, that brings the mind/heart to a state of ease, relief, peace and so on. But some find such priviliging of experience and subjective self-disclosure (even if done with alleged reference and deference to divine revelation) risky and problematic. The other option is to take the wisdom (again alleged) of the tradition and the fruits of the collective strivings of earlier minds/souls as one’s guide and foundation for engaging with “our” revelation and engaging in one’s religion (worhsip of God, community life, moral and legal norms) while also trying one’s best to give new life and vitality to those inherited truths, forms of life and so on. Crucially, for me at least, the second option is not well-suited to evaluating and then either accepting (to the extent one has evidence) or rejecting (to the extend one finds something false), truth claims (of others, of ‘revealed’ texts and/or God or tradition and so on). And so, with some sense of the risks associated with the first option, I nevertheless pursue that path (however imperfect and bitter the fruits of that pursuit may be at any given moment) for the thought that I am not saying yes to what I do not yet understand as truth and i am willing to say yes to and to seek it is sufficient consolation.

Now to the verse. I have wondered and I still wonder about how each human life is unique in many ways but also that some people ‘s experiences, questions, thoughts, ways of feeling and perceiving are more resonant with some and quite different from others. A grandmother in a village somewhere is milking cows to make butter and cheese for her family and another woman of her age somewhere else is dealing with the news of her husband’s infidelity or death or terminal illness. A man somewhere has worked hard all his life to save enough money to build a home for his family and another has just inherited mansions at his father’s death. One person has just acheived they had worked for and one person’s efforts have just failed to yield their desired outcome. One is falling ill or is ill. One has recovered from a long illness or has always been healthy.

When I look at my experience in light of the verse above, I am asked to see that whatever I see as ‘shared’ or ‘resonant’ between people (it could be two people who have a similar experience or are bothered by and pleased by a particular outcome that seems less crucial to someone else) is a reality created by God and He gives those people a way and a path to follow, which woud not be the same as the way that seems right and clear to others. All of them, I am told, are chasing after goods they can get if they judge by what God reveals and not by simply following their un-guided impulses. This claim that despite God’s ability to make everyone of a single kind, He has made people different in ‘where they stand’ (qawm) in life (not so much beings with some fundamentally different nature) and that each person or a group of similarly-placed persons is expected to see their way forward ‘from where they stand, helps me to not feel confused and alienated when I see people acting and walking in life in the way that I find strange and unrelatable. I am asked, unless there is clear indication to the contrary, to see that each pursues what they see as good and that I should focus on the good I see from where I stand (and with those who maybe be standing with me). I have found this reminder quite helpful for myself. Let me use an analogy. I think i was in a dark cave, for instance. And I saw a small beam of light coming from a tiny hole. This tiny hole gained immense importance for me. And I pursued a path that helped me get closer to that spot of light until I found myself out of the cave or in more light. Once there, I was naturally inclined to speak about the importance of tiny holes of light and how the only way into light is to be in the kind of cave I was in and to see the tiny light of the kind that I saw so that one could come to the kind of light I think I have come into. This all is both natural (does not need any revelation from my creator) but also agonizing because while some others agree with me, most people seem not to be relating to my path and have their own stories to tell about darkness and light and caves and how they came out or what keeps them in and what they see from where they are etc etc. The dizzying variety of human lives, the forms that human lives take and the differing options/paths they have to pursue the ‘goods’ are made meaningful for me by this verse. It brings a key matter into focus, something that I can verify if I wanted to: does my pursuit of what I like, without recourse to help from my maker about what criteria to use to decide what is worth for me to prusue/go after, good enough for me, ‘whatever life path I find myself in or on’ or is it not? Do i need to act and desire truthfully or can I ignore the question of truth and just run, eyes closed, into whatever i spontaneously feel like doing or fancy? It claims that if I were to stop to look for and consider what my creator wants me to consider before acting on my desire, I would find (and as would others whose lives are different and who are a different ‘ummah’), I would (and they would) see clearly what the truthful thing for them to do/feel is and the apparent divergences in the shapes of our lives and paths are united by the truth that would guide each one and united by the pursuit of the goods that are good ‘in light of the truth’ not good in light of each person’s spontaneous whims or impulses. God, which is truth, reveals what the really important differences in choices are (i.e. based in truths one understands and knows or in mere impulses, without any concern about their truthfulness). I find in this verse a quite satisfactory and truthful suggestion that my “community”, in the midst of all kinds of unsatisfactory, man-made claims about what makes a group of people a ‘community’, is actually all those people (whose lives might look entirely different than mine) who are faced with the choice between desire and truth and who try to choose truth over mindless desires, ignoring all concerns about what makes their judgments (about what is good to do or not etc) true or false. For me then, I am freed from arbitrary belongings (and equally arbitrary fears of not belonging) to this or that community. Differences among human beings are clearer and more meaningful to me, thanks to this verse.