Beginnings

For both the Bible and the Qur’an, it makes sense to read from the beginning. In both, the start of the book anticipates what is to come. Just as the early chapters of Genesis lay a foundation for the entire biblical worldview, so the opening sura of the Qur’an lays out the broad outlines of the worldview it reflects. And because the two introductory sections function in surprisingly different ways, reading the two together can help us understand the unique trajectory of each book.

The aim of Genesis is simple and ambitious:  It sets out to tell the story of how the world – not just humans, but the entire cosmos – came to be what it is, a tragic mixture of beauty marred by ugliness, good struggling with evil, life cut short by death. The first three chapters of Genesis also anticipate a solution in evocative ways that will then be echoed in other parts of the Bible. The first three chapters of Genesis sets up the problem to which every subsequent book of the Bible must in some way respond.  Everything that follows struggles with this problem, or points to its resolution. But Genesis presents this problem in the form of a story. The basic realities of the cosmos are laid out, not didactically, but as a narrative – the story of God’s good and perfect creation and the tragic de-creation (curse, sin, death) triggered by the first human couple’s tragic rebellion against God.

By contrast, the first chapter of the Qur’an, “The Opening”, is an invocation – an opening prayer. Like the Lord’s Prayer, this prayer serves both a liturgical and a teaching purpose, and it is just as well known to Muslims as the Lord’s Prayer is to Christians. It is short, its phrases are rhythmic, and the words are easy to memorize. A pious Muslim will recite the Opening multiple times during each of the five daily prayers, and by repeating these words he learns, affirms and repeatedly reaffirms foundational beliefs about God, the cosmos and the human condition. Muslim commentators, for good reason, treat this chapter as an encapsulation of the entire qur’anic message. The remainder of the Qur’an will repeat, elaborate, and illustrate this message, but the message will not vary in any significant way.

Christians might be able to better understand the structure and function of the first sura of the Qur’an in this way: Imagine that we took the Psalms to be the one clear and final scriptural revelation. And imagine that everything else in the Bible served to tell the story of why the Psalms are of ultimate importance and why we should constantly recite them, live by them, let their words pervade our lives. The first Psalm would then serve as an excellent introduction to the book as a whole – it would be read liturgically, as it in fact is read, and by doing so we would repeatedly reinforce many of the main lessons of the book.

This liturgical and didactic start to the Qur’an contrasts sharply with the narrative form of Genesis, and this difference is critical to understanding what follows. While the Qur’an does incorporate narratives, those narratives always serve a didactic purpose – they illustrate and teach, and they almost always teach the same lessons.  Almost all Qur’anic narratives will repeat the same basic plot line: human communities stray from worship of God and embrace idols; God in his mercy sends prophetic messengers and books to warn them; those communities and individuals who reject God’s guidance suffer judgment in this world and the next; those who submit are rewarded by God in this world and the next.  The names of the prophets and their communities vary, but the basic lesson to be learned never changes, and it is not difficult to see where this is going: Muhammad and the Qur’an, like all previous prophets and books, are God’s mercy to humankind;  those who reject them will be judged; those who submit will be rewarded.

Although the Qur’an contains stories and alludes to stories, it is difficult to think of the book as forming one unfolding story. By contrast it is easy and natural to read the Bible as one extended and complex story with one dominant protagonist, one major plot line within which hundreds of minor characters play roles and many subplots coalesce, and an ultimate resolution.  This is not a forced reading; most of the human biblical authors are themselves deeply conscious that they telling parts of a larger story of God and the people of God. Muslims do believe that the Qur’an is part of a story, but that story is external to the book itself.  For Christians, the Bible recounts the drama within which the revelation of God in Christ is the decisive act; for Muslims, the Qur’an itself is itself the culminating act, and the story, the “gospel” of Islam, is the story of Muhammad which is the subject of the next chapter.

Clearly we will need to ask different questions as we begin to read each book. In the case of the Bible it will make sense to ask “What is the story to which this serves as introduction, and where do we fit into that story?” In the case of the Qur’an, it will make better sense to ask, “What lessons are we being taught, and what does heeding those lessons demand of us?” One useful warning here for readers of the Bible, whether Christian or Muslim, is that when we read the Bible primarily looking for rules to live by, we are likely to miss its main point. For further development of that theme, look ahead to the chapter on Law. A practical suggestion for Christian readers of the Qur’an may be to approach it as we might approach reading the Psalms.