u/TexanLoneStar

Q. al-Ma'idah 5:14

>وَمِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا نَصَـٰرَىٰٓ أَخَذْنَا مِيثَـٰقَهُمْ فَنَسُوا۟ حَظًّۭا مِّمَّا ذُكِّرُوا۟ بِهِۦ

>We also took a pledge from those who say, ‘We are Christians,’ but they too forgot some of what they were told to remember,

1. What Christians (Nasara) in particular is this surah talking about? The disciples? The larger community during and shortly after the time of Jesus? The Christians after the Apostolic age?
2. What was this pledge?
3. What exactly is meant by them forgetting a part of what they were told to remember? This is exceedingly broad. From God? From Jesus? From the disciples? The disciples forgot things God told them? That Jesus told them? The larger community forgot what God and/or Jesus told them? The larger community forgot what Jesus and/or the direct disciples told them?... What was forgotten?

The only near direct citation off the top of my head is from the Psalms, but it seems like a sort of textual variant. Close enough.

A large part of the Qur'an, as a sentient book's, justification for it's own authority seems to come from it's claim that it's in a sort of continuity with it's previous Scripture. If this is the case, and the Qur'anic author and the Qur'an itself as a sort of quasi-sentient entity, wanted to convince the People of the Book to more easily convert why didn't it just bother to directly cite things, instead of giving a ton of ambiguities and "it's in there" without further elaboration? One claim I've from Muslims (not western academia) as to why this was done is "because it's poetry" but this explanation doesn't seem sufficient because if the author can do all possible things, what was preventing them from making it rhyme, using Arabic at max caliber, creating ring structures, and so on and so forth, all while giving direct citations? Clearly the author was able to do it at least once with the Psalm citation.

From St. Gregory of Sinai's work "How to Psalmodize"

>Some say that we should psalmodize seldom, others often, others not at all. You for your part should not psalmodize often, for that induces unrest, nor yet not at all, for that induces indolence and negligence. Instead you should follow the example of those who psalmodize from time to time, for moderation in all things is best, as the ancient Greeks tell us. To psalmodize often is appropriate for novices in the ascetic life, because of the toil it involves and the spiritual knowledge it confers. It is not appropriate for hesychasts, since they concentrate wholly upon praying to God with travail of heart, eschewing all conceptual images. For according to St John Klimakos, 'Stillness is the shedding of thoughts', whether of sensible or of intelligible realities. Moreover, if we expend all our energy in reciting many psalms, our intellect will grow slack and will not be able to pray firmly and resolutely. Again according to St John Klimakos, 'Devote-most of the night to prayer and only a little of it to psalmody.' You, too, should do the same. If you are seated and you see that prayer is continuously active in your heart, do not abandon it and get up to psalmodize until in God's good time it leaves you of its own accord. Otherwise, abandoning the interior presence of God, you will address yourself to Him from without, thus passing from a higher to a lower state, provoking unrest and disrupting the intellect's serenity. Stillness, in accordance with its name, is maintained by means of peace and serenity; for God is peace (cf. Eph. 2:14) beyond all unrest and clamor. Our psalmody, too, should accord with our mode of life, and be angelic, not unspiritual and secular. For to psalmodize with clamor and a loud voice is a sign of inner turbulence. Psalmody has been given to us because of our grossness and indolence, so that we may be led back to our true state.

>As for those not yet initiated into prayer - this prayer which, according to St John Klimakos, is the source of the virtues' and which waters, as plants, the faculties of the soul - they should psalmodize frequently, without measure, reciting a great variety of psalms; and they should not desist from such assiduous practice until they have attained the state of contemplation and find that noetic prayer is activated within them. [...]

>[...] According to the fathers, once you have tasted grace you should psalmodize sparingly, giving most of your time to prayer. But if you find yourself growing indolent you should psalmodize or read patristic texts.

As a western Christian what immediately struck me when reading this a few months ago is that it seemed, in a way, to be an eastern equivalent to St. John of Crosses' dark night of the senses; but rather than focus on mortification of the eyes, tongue, stomach, and hands this one seems to be mainly about prayer -- something which St. JotC doesn't really go into much. Is St. Gregory of Sinai essentially saying, at least in terms of the western contemplative tradition, that the ascetical practice of psalm-chanting should be kept up until one begins to experience, out of the blue, "mystical" or "infused" contemplation? Or is noetic prayer something else and not quite the eastern term for it?

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The Qur'an in multiple places challenges the reader to produce a chapter like it (2:23, 10:38, 11:13, 17:88, 52:33–34). The implication being, in most streams of Sunni thought (Ash'ari, Athari, Maturidi) that the actual contents of the Qur'an text itself is beyond the capability of human replication, and is thus divine in origin.

If we reverse this Qur'anic challenge we can rephrase it as such: "What in a surah can only God compose?"

For the purpose of this debate and challenge I would like to retain the challenge to Surah al-Ikhlas for several reasons: 1) because it's a surah I have personally memorized; 2) it's a powerful surah that gives a concise Islamic creed; 3) it arguably has intertexual allusions to the Shema and Nicene Creed, refuting Judaism, Christianity, and polytheism at the same time. 4) Because it's short, it's easy to work with.

Muslims: What in Surah al-Ikhlas can only God produce that a human cannot? That it rhymes? Impressive, but not a miracle or proof of divine origin. That it uses Arabic at the highest caliber? Impressive, but the former. That it is a powerful creed while simultaneously refuting other creeds? Amazing polemical rhetoric, but, again, that's not a miracle or proof of divine origin. That nothing in the world resembles the Qur'an? This I would (to the surprise of Muslims) actually largely agree with: that nothing else really resembles the Qur'an. But this something being it's own unique literary genre doesn't mean it's a miracle or divine in origin either.

The best answer I've gotten from Muslims is that "It's a cumulative case of these factors combined." -- fair enough, but this is an answer based on faith; not on any sort of demonstrative proof that there's something proper to Surah al-Ikhlas that only God alone can write.

What precisely can God alone write in Surah al-Ikhlas that a human cannot? Be specific.

Going from the Desert Fathers who talked about it (Abba Isaac in Conferences, Evargrius, etc.) to St. Maximos the Confessor I'm looking for a sort of good compilative book that talks about pure prayer and it's theological development. What's interesting is that in the western contemplative tradition it seems to have fallen into obscurity after the Benedictine Order (who doubtlessly hold it due to Conferences being on frequent reading per their monastic rule) began to progressively diverge from Middle Eastern and Byzantine ideas.

Sort of like mmm... how there's manuals out there post 1600s that go pretty indepth about the "levels of prayer" given by St. Teresa of Avila. Something similar.

Let's assume for the sake of the post the connection between Matthew 10 and Surah 61 is true.

Just trying to clarify something reading what I can from the paper:

1. The Qur'an, as per usual, is knowingly and purposeful "corrective retelling" of the Bible story by removing Matthew's attribution of Isaiah 42's servant applicated to Jesus; and now giving a new story in which Jesus now prophesies that same servant.

2. Another perceived "corrective retelling": it corrects "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" by replacing it with "Who does more wrong than the one who fabricates lies about Allah?" implicitly removing the claim of divinity to the Holy Spirit.

Am I on track here? Or is the Qur'an not giving any sort of corrective retelling like it does for a ton of stuff?

Luke 24

>Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

In the 7:157 when it speakes of the ummi prophet being written in the Torah and Gospel, there's been a shift in academic understanding to it being a lot less literal and more along the lines of the above: that it's a generic notion that the content and themes point towards a fulfillment of something. Clearly not all the prophets (Iddo, the unnamed "man of God", Amos) point to things in their brief or unrecorded oracles.

Now, for Luke (and the other canonical Gospels) it's a lot easier to discern what precisely the Scriptures its referring to; but for 7:157 its much more ambiguous.

Still, is this an apt comparison between both scriptures?

(PS sorry if this isn't worded the best, I am minorly sleep deprived an trippin because my room mates doing dumb stuff)