The Theme of Man in Qur’anic/Islamic Conscience—(1)

Last time, I purported that Man, and not God, is the center of the Qur’anic revelation. I also alleged that God is not an item among items; rather, He gives meaning to everything we perceive in this world. This does not negate that He is actually existent (although the form is intangible to Man), but his existence lies in His and not this world. His only existence here in this world is “within everything” here—that is what I previously called the “One-God Conscience”.

There has been much debate on what the axial nature of Man is. Is it the Mind/Intellect (2:31-33)? Or the Spirit (15:29; 38:72; 32:9)? Or the soul (nafss) (2:75; 91:7; 12:53)?

When one approaches the Qur’an in its relaying of the story of creation of Man/Adam, one can see that only two peculiar points stand out: (1) that God breathed in His own spirit into him (15:29; 38:72; 32:9), and (2) the fact that Man was the one and only among creatures who was able to “name things” (to describe their natures) spelling the disabled angels ( 2:31-33). It is actually quite important to think of these two peculiarities collectively—the ability to describe the nature of things cannot be exclusively intellectual; since when I describe something, I don’t actually tell how it truly is; but, rather, how I perceive it. In other words, my connection with the things of the world, which I describe, runs much deeper than a mere machinery ability to put labels on them. This process of describing the nature of things depends on your prior set of references, whether innate or acquired. For example, how I describe a lady depends on my very moral, aesthetic, intellectual and sentimental identities i.e. my Whole. This can range from erotic to beautiful, from insipid to funny, etc. And this is how I describe each and every thing.

But how does this relate to the story of God breathing His own spirit in Man? Well, strongly. But first, I may need to explain two terms frequently mentioned in the Quran—Qadar (to measure out) and Amr (command).

Qadar linguistically means “to measure out”. This is to be contrasted to the medievally-originated misinterpretation of the term as “divine predetermination of everything including man’s actions” (this topic is so demanding that it needs a whole post).And the idea is that while God alone is absolutely infinite, everything else bears the creaturely hallmark of “being measured”, i.e. having a finite sum of potentialities—even though the range of potentialities may be very great as in the case of Man. This measuring on the one hand ensures the orderliness of nature and on the other expresses the most fundamental, unbridgeable difference between the nature of God and anything else. It is precisely this belief in such sharing that is categorically denied by the Qur’anic doctrine of shirk—one has to be completely free from everything in this world when deciding on one’s set of references in life. Be it parental upbringing, social traditions, cultural influences, personal or social heritage, or financial references. Indeed, it is the freedom of Man from each and everything that essentially defines humaneness. It may be important to reiterate here what I said in the beginning—God cannot be considered as a restraint of Man’s will; God’s only existence in this world lies “within everything” including Man’s own conscience—that is what I previously called the “One-God Conscience” or primordial covenant with God (7:172). He is not an item among items but rather He gives meaning to everything. This perception of God can never get along with a tyrannistic/ authoritarian one. Indeed, this denotes lack of perfection since in this latter case, God is in need of satisfying Himself and He would get this from practicing authority on Man. Again, this externalizes God from Man, something I completely reject herein.

This idea relates perfectly to my discussion on the second term—Amr (Command). According to the Qur’an, when God creates a thing (khalq); He at the same time puts into it , in addition to its qadr, the laws of its behavior (amr , “command"). Again, this is not to be confused with laws imposed ON Man but, rather, laws ingrained IN him, what the Qur’an calls “fitra” (30:30).