“In the creation of the Heavens and the Earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are indeed signs (âyât) for all those endowed with insight.” Quran 3:190 The Heavens and the Earth, night and day, space and time, testify to the presence and infinite generosity of the One who has laid out the Universe like an open book pervaded with “signs” offered to peoples minds and hearts. The notion of “signs” (âyât, sing. ayah) is essential and from the very beginning it establishes a correspondence between orders. What has been translated as “verses” in European languages—on the basis of the “verses” in Biblical versification—has quite a different meaning in Arabic. The exact translation, which is most significant here, is “sign,” which means that the revealed text is made up of “signs” exactly as the surrounding Creation is a Universe of signs that must be grasped, understood, and interpreted. Signs tell of meaning?…?and the signs in the Universe therefore reveal that the latter is fraught with meaning. One finds this even in Abû Hâmid al‐Ghazâlîs profound reflections about the “outspread book” (al‐kitâb al‐manshûr), the Book of the Universe, which is the theological as well as physical mirror of the Quran, the “written book” (al‐kitâb al‐mastûr). This theme was common in early renaissance European literature and gradually changed the outlook of the world, which was seen as a space to be deciphered, interpreted, and understood: a horizon open to reason, learning, and science. Tariq Ramadan- Radical Reform
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 11:43:33 +0000
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