LECTURE 30
Islam and Scriptural Recitation .......................................................213
LECTURE 31
Holy Qur’an ....................................................................................220
LECTURE 32
Hadith and Sufism ..........................................................................228
LECTURE 33
Related Traditions—Baha’i Scriptures ............................................235
LECTURE 34
Abandoned Scriptures—Egyptian and Mayan................................243
Islam and Scriptural Recitation
Lecture 30
In 1352, Ibn Battuta, a native of Morocco, arrived in the West African empire of Mali, where he was impressed by the eagerness of his fellow
Muslims to memorize the Qur’an. It’s interesting to note that even in the 14th century, Islam was a universal religion that had crossed geographic and ethnic boundaries. (Today, it has some 1.6 billion adherents.) Memorizing the Qur’an has long been a celebrated act of devotion; even today, every year during the month of Ramadan, more than 100 students from 70 countries compete in a memorization contest in Cairo. In this lecture, we’ll discuss Muhammad, the Qur’an, and attitudes of Muslims toward this sacred scripture.
Muhammad and the Rise of Islam
• Muhammad was born about 570 C.E. in Mecca, a trading town in Arabia that was the site of an ancient shrine called the Kaʿba, said to have been built by Abraham but at that time housing images of hundreds of gods. After being orphaned at a young age, Muhammad worked in the caravan trade and eventually married his boss, an older widow named Khadijah. This gave him a measure of prominence and security, though he still felt spiritual yearnings and would regularly retreat to a cave in the hills outside of Mecca to pray and meditate.
• On one such occasion, when he was 40 years old, Muhammad heard a voice commanding, “Recite.” “Recite what?” he asked. The terrifying command was repeated twice more, and then the words came to him. With the verses etched into his memory, Muhammad came down from the hills and saw the angel Gabriel, who told Muhammad that he was the messenger of God. Afraid that he might be losing his mind, Muhammad went home to Khadijah, who told him she thought that his revelation was from God.
• The words continued to come: affirmations of the power and mercy of the one God, denunciations of idolatry and evil doing, warnings of the last judgment, commandments to live uprightly and treat others with kindness. After three years, Muhammad began to share these revelations with people outside his family, and he gradually gained a following.
• Trouble and persecution came when his preaching of monotheism threatened the livelihood of those who depended on the Kaʿba to bring religious pilgrims to Mecca; thus, when a delegation arrived in 622 from Medina, a town 250 miles to the northeast, inviting Muhammad to come and settle a dispute between clans, he jumped at the chance. His move from Mecca to Medina, now referred to as the Hijra, is the pivot of the Muslim calendar. Years are designated either B.H. or A.H.
• Muhammad became the spiritual and political leader of the community in Medina, and when conflict eventually broke into fighting with Mecca, Muhammad and his forces captured that city in 630; the Prophet lived there for the next two years until his death. His successors—not prophets but caliphs (“successors”)— continued to expand the realm of Islam militarily. From 632 to 661, under the first four caliphs, Muslim armies conquered Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia.
• A year after Muhammad’s death, a battle took place in which many of the original reciters of his words were killed. As a result, the first caliph, Abu Bakr, ordered the collection of all the revelations that had come to Muhammad in the 23 years from his first encounter with the angel Gabriel until his death. Around 650, under the third caliph, Uthman, these revelations were put into the standard form of 114 suras of the current Qur’an, and divergent copies were destroyed.
• Uthman’s Qur’an was something like the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; it presented the word of God in a fixed form, right down to mysterious, disconnected Arabic letters that appear at
the beginning of 29 suras. Most Muslims, however, believe that the Qur’an was not the product of human editing; rather, it came through an inspired process that re-created the Qur’an that existed in heaven before it was revealed to Muhammad.
• After the assassination of the fourth caliph, ʿAli, who was Muhammad’s son-in-law, the Muslim community split.
o The majority followed the lead of the Umayyad clan, who established a powerful empire that lasted from 661 to 750 and expanded the realm of Islam to North Africa and Spain. These were the Sunni Muslims. Others, however, believed that the leadership of Islam should stay within the Prophet Muhammad’s family line. These became known as Shia Muslims.
o Today, about 85 percent of Muslims are Sunni and 15 percent are Shia. There are, however, a few countries, such as Iran and Iraq, where the Shia are in the majority.
• All Muslims, whether Sunni or Shia, hold to the Five Pillars: (1) the confession of faith (“There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet”), (2) prayer five times a day facing Mecca, (3) fasting during daylight hours for the month of Ramadan, (4) charitable giving to the poor and needy, and (5) pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime, if possible. In addition, the Qur’an is revered by all Muslims; thus, it serves as a sort of foundation for the Five Pillars.
Significance of the Qur’an
• The Qur’an is what we might call “postcanonical scripture.” That is, Muhammad was well aware that Jews and Christians had sacred texts that had already been in circulation for centuries, which they claimed had come from the one God. What was the point of yet another book of scripture? What made the Qur’an different from, and superior to, the Bible?
• The first difference is that Muslims believe the Qur’an came by direct revelation. Jews had long accepted the Torah as revelation to Moses, but much of the rest of the Tanakh seemed to be the work of inspired poets, historians, and editors. The Hebrew Bible is the story of a relationship—the relationship of God and Israel; it isn’t a transcript of God’s utterances. And the New Testament is even farther removed—the gospels are collections of stories about Jesus, and the epistles are letters, written by Paul or John, not by God.
• A second difference between the Bible and the Qur’an is that the latter is regarded by Muslims as the complete and final revelation of God. One of the major themes in the Qur’an is that God had sent earlier prophets to humankind, but their words had been ignored or distorted.
o Four special messengers received heavenly books: the Scrolls was revealed to Abraham; Moses received the Torah; David, the Psalms; and Jesus, the Gospel (a book actually written down by Jesus himself, not the four gospels of the New Testament), but all of these were lost, corrupted, or misinterpreted.
o God gave the Qur’an to Muhammad as a corrective, a perfect text that could resolve all confusion and teach the truth clearly. This is the last word that would ever be needed; thus, Muhammad was the “seal of the prophets”—the final prophet and authenticator of all his predecessors.
• A third unique aspect of the Qur’an, again, according to Muslims, is the perfect beauty of its language. It is written in a rhythmic form of Arabic, with a great deal of alliteration, assonance, and end rhymes. In the centuries following Muhammad, Islamic thinkers developed the concept of the “inimitability” of the Qur’an, though the seeds of the idea are within the text itself.
• At a time when many believed that God’s messengers could be identified by the miracles they performed, Muslims held up the Qur’an as Muhammad’s greatest miracle, especially given that he was thought to have been illiterate or, at least, unacquainted with books. The elevated style and content of the Qur’an constitute a sign of its truth.
In a religion that strictly forbids graven images, calligraphy is a prestigious form of art; mosques are often decorated with Qur’anic calligraphy.
Reverence for the Qur’an
• Because the language of the Qur’an is inseparable from its content and because both come directly from God, a translation of the Qur’an is not the real Qur’an. For that matter, the real Qur’an is not the lines written on a page but, rather, the words as they are spoken and heard. The Qur’an as a book is merely an aid to memorization or recitation.
• In Muslim countries, the sounds of the Qur’an are everywhere, particularly given that the recitation of the Qur’an is a sophisticated and esteemed art form. The sacred words can be heard not only in mosques but on radio and television, in taxicabs and concert halls, and at weddings, festivals, and funerals.
• There are two basic forms of Quranic recitation: one with strict rules for ordinary study and practice and the other more freeform, featuring a great deal of melodic modulation and technical artistry, performed by trained experts.
• Memorizing, reciting, and listening to the Qur’an are ways of communing with God in a bodily fashion, perhaps something like taking the Eucharist in the Christian faith. But it’s not just a Sunday
or a seasonal thing. There is no tradition of separating church and state in Islam; thus, the Qur’an infuses everyday life, even in aspects that would seem political or secular to Westerners.
• And even though the Qur’an as a physical object is just a shadow of the true aural Qur’an, it is nevertheless a sacred object. It is kept apart from other books, with nothing placed on top of it. Many Muslims wash their hands before reading the Qur’an, and it is usually referred to not just as “the Qur’an” but as “the Glorious Qur’an” or “the Noble Qur’an.”
o The respect shown for the Qur’an may not be quite like that of the Sikhs for the Adi Granth, because Muslims do not treat the Qur’an as a living guru, yet it is higher than that shown for the Bible, which is widely distributed in hundreds of languages and is, at least as a physical object, regarded as a regular book.
o Further, the primacy of the spoken or chanted version of scripture is familiar from Hinduism, but unlike the Sanskrit of the Vedas, Arabic is still a living language, and the meaning of the Qur’an matters enormously to believers.
Suggested Reading
Cook, The Koran: A Very Short Introduction.
Mattson, The Story of the Qur’an.
Levering, ed., Rethinking Scripture.
Nigosian, Islam.
Ruthven, Islam in the World.
Sells, Approaching the Qur’an.
Questions to Consider
1. How does the relationship between Islam and the Qur’an differ from that of Christianity and the Bible?
2. Why is the recitation and memorization of the Qur’an (in its original Arabic!) so crucial to Muslim faith?
Holy Qur’an
Lecture 31
forward, particularly in their original context of 7th-century Arabia.
Basic Themes of the Qur’an
prefaced by the command “Say” from God.
invocation “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.”
heifer by the ancient Israelites.
• The first sura in the Qur’an, called “The Opening,” encapsulates the message of Islam in just seven verses. It is recited by Muslims multiple times each day as part of the five obligatory prayers and conveys the news that Muhammad brought to the world: that there is but one God, who is both just and merciful; human beings should worship him alone; and they should surrender themselves to him by following the path he has established. God will help those who call upon him, but those who reject God will incur his wrath now and at the day of judgment.
o Muslims have long classified suras as belonging either to the Meccan period (i.e., before the Hijra in 622) or the Medinan period. It is not always obvious which suras are which, and indeed, some passages within the same sura may have been revealed in different locations.
o The consensus is that “The Opening” was received in Mecca, and its emphasis on strict monotheism would have been revolutionary among the Bedouin tribes.
• Another startling teaching was the Qur’an’s insistence on the resurrection. According to sura 45, Arabs at the time did not believe in any kind of life after death, but the angel Gabriel brought to Muhammad the sura on resurrection (75). The sura concludes with the question of whether it is harder to believe in resurrection than in creation. If God created men and women, then surely, he could reassemble them after death.
Bible Stories in the Qur’an
• The earliest suras are short and lyrical, often using formulaic oaths to praise God’s majesty and mercy. But eventually, the revelations to Muhammad began to refer to past events, to earlier prophets that God had sent and what happened to those who ignored their warnings. There are also retellings of biblical stories, though the emphasis is on the meaning of events rather than narration of them. The Qur’an assumes that its hearers are already familiar with the stories, and it often adds dialogue and details that are not in the Bible.
o For instance, sura 20 tells the story of Moses in Egypt, but the parting of the Red Sea gets just two verses; what matters is not so much the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage as the confrontation between Moses and the unbelieving Egyptians at the pharaoh’s court.
o In sura 71, God tells Noah to warn the people and give them a chance to repent before he sends the flood. That episode is not in the Bible, nor is the observation that when Noah preached, people stuck their fingers in their ears so they couldn’t hear him.
o Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned frequently in the Qur’an, with nonbiblical details about her birth and early years. In addition, the Qur’an has a story about Jesus making birds out of clay and bringing them to life that is also found in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
o Scholars are often interested in tracking Muhammad’s sources in the Bible or in Jewish and Christian traditions that were circulating in Arabia in the 7th century. Most Muslims, though, view God himself as Muhammad’s sole source, and if there are similarities with what’s in the Bible, it’s because God was behind that book, as well.
• The relationship between the Bible and the Qur’an is not like that of the Old and New Testaments. Christians adopted the Hebrew Bible and consider it authoritative, even if some parts have been updated or made obsolete by the revelation in Christ. In contrast, Muslims regard the Bible as corrupted with additions and interpolations, such as the idea of God as a father, the Crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the divinity of Christ, or the Trinity. The Qur’an is a replacement for the Bible; it’s God’s final and complete word.
• In general, the Qur’an warns the world about the evils of polytheism and idolatry and about the need to turn to God and keep his commandments before the coming day of judgment, but a few passages give special attention to Jews and Christians.
o It appears that early on, Muhammad viewed Jews as natural allies and potential converts; after all, they, too, were monotheists and believed in prophets sent by God. Many of the early references to Jews in the Qur’an are rather positive. Yet when Jews didn’t convert as expected and after religious and even military confrontations, the Qur’an has a few strong words of condemnation.
o Nevertheless, for most of history, Muslims and Jews seemed to get along fairly well, at least by the standards of premodern societies and certainly better than Christians and Jews. Despite some tensions between the two communities, the Qur’an famously enjoins, “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (2:257).
Islamic Laws
• After Muhammad became both the political and the religious leader in Medina, he received revelations having to do with laws and regulations. These later, longer, more prosaic suras, which appear toward the beginning of the Qur’an, address such topics as gambling, marriage, inheritance, infanticide, property rights, criminal law, the rights of orphans, and so forth.
• Sura 2, “The Cow,” is a good example. Indeed, it is sometimes regarded as the Qur’an in miniature because it reiterates so many of the principles found elsewhere in the scripture. In relatively short passages, it moves through the topics of faith and disbelief; the creation, Adam, and Satan; Bible stories of Moses, the Israelites, and Jesus; polemics against Jews and Christians; Islamic practices and regulations; and more.
• Non-Muslims might assume that the Qur’an is something of a jumble, but Muslims see little distinction between sacred and secular matters in a life that is entirely devoted to God, and they regard it as a sign of God’s grace that the basic message of Islam is spread throughout the Qur’an. You can’t read more than a few pages without encountering references to the one God, his
Selections from the Qur’an
Sura 1 (“The Opening”):
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate, the Master of the Day of Doom. Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succour. Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who are astray. (Arberry, trans.)
Sura 75 (“The Resurrection”):
Yes indeed! I swear by the Day of Resurrection! Yes indeed! I swear by the soul that remonstrates! Does man imagine We shall not reassemble his bones? Indeed. We can reshape his very fingers! In truth, man wishes to persist in his debauchery; He asks when the Day of Resurrection shall come. When eyes are dazzled, and the moon is eclipsed, and sun and moon are joined together, Man that Day shall ask: “Where to escape?” No, there is no refuge! (Khalidi, trans.)
Sura 82 (“The Splitting”):
When heaven is split open, when the stars are scattered, when the seas swarm over, when the tombs are overthrown, then a soul shall know its works, the former and the latter. O Man! What deceived thee as to thy generous Lord who created thee and shaped thee and wrought thee in symmetry and composed thee after what form He would?
(Arberry, trans.)
Sura 24 (“Verse of Light”):
God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of his light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp; the lamp enclosed in glass. The glass as it were a brilliant star, lit for a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it. Light upon light! God doth guide whom he will to his light. God doth set forth parables for men, and God doth know all things. (Ali, trans.)
outreach to humankind, the straight path that he has set, and the coming judgment.
• Much attention has been given to laws in the Qur’an regarding women. There are several that seem discriminatory by modern standards: Men are allowed to have up to four wives, and a daughter receives only half the inheritance of a son. Yet in the context of 7thcentury Arabia, much of what the Qur’an teaches would have been regarded as progressive. Women had some inheritance rights, they were granted protections in divorce proceedings, and they were entitled to control of their own property, even if they were married. o In addition, the Qur’an strenuously condemned the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide and made it clear that women and men are equal in their relationship with God.
o Many of the traditions that we today associate with Islam arose after the Prophet Muhammad. For instance, the Qur’an urges both women and men to be modest, and it nowhere explicitly requires that women cover their heads or faces. The practice of veiling is more culture-specific; full veiling is rather rare, and most Muslim women live in countries where they can choose whether or not to wear a head scarf (hijab).
o Keep in mind, too, that Muslim women have, at some point, been elected to lead the three most populous Muslim countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
• Such laws and practices, of course, raise the question of interpretation. If all Muslims follow the Qur’an, how can they practice it differently in different countries? Who determines the rules?
o Consider, for example, the Qur’anic allowance of polygamy. Some have pointed out that polygamy was common in ancient societies, and limiting wives to four is better than no limits at all. Others, however, have noted a subtle discouragement of polygamy in the Qur’an (sura 4:129). At any rate, polygamous unions make up only 1 to 3 percent of Muslim marriages today, and most Muslims live in countries where such marriages are restricted.
o In general, women are treated with respect in the Qur’an, though they are not treated equally to men. It’s up to Muslims themselves to decide how best to interpret their sacred text, but the dilemma of how to implement the principles of an ancient document in the modern world is not unique to Islam.
• Most Muslims believe that reading and reciting the Qur’an has enriched their lives and made them better people—kinder, more moral, and closer to God. It is a custom among some Muslims to say this prayer after completing a recitation of the Qur’an: “O God, make the Qur’an a mercy for me, and set it for me as a model, a light, a guidance and a mercy” (Nigosian, 75). That seems like a noble sentiment.
Suggested Reading
Abdel Haleem, trans., The Qur’an: A New Translation.
Ali, trans., The Holy Qur’an with English Translation and Commentary.
Esack, The Qur’an: A User’s Guide.
Khalidi, trans., The Qur’an.
Lawrence, The Qur’an: A Biography.
Rippin, ed., The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’an.
Saeed, The Qur’an.
Sardar, Reading the Qur’an.
Siddiqui, How to Read the Qur’an.
Questions to Consider
1. How do the earlier revelations that Muhammad received at Mecca differ from those received at Medina?
2. What are the strong religious claims that the Qur’an makes concerning its origins and significance? Why is it such a self-referential text?
Hadith and Sufism
Lecture 32
For help here, Muslims turned to the Hadith.
Hadith: Stories of the Prophet
they provide a lens through which to interpret the Qur’an.
or his night journey. the isnad, or chain of sources, and the matn, or the story itself.
• One of the early collectors of Hadith, the 9th-century Persian scholar al-Bukhari, is said to have traveled all over the Middle East in search of stories about the Prophet.
o He interviewed 1,000 experts and heard some 600,000 Hadith (many of them variants of one another). Of these, he memorized 200,000 and finally came up with just 2,700 that he thought were unquestionably authentic.
o Bukhari published his collection in 97 sections, each devoted to a particular topic, such as faith, prayer, festivals, alms, sales, loans, gifts, war, marriage, and good manners, as well as Muhammad’s comments on specific suras from the Qur’an.
o Bukhari’s collection is highly regarded by Sunni Muslims. (The word Sunna means “well-trodden path,” and it refers to the example set by Muhammad.) Shia Muslims have different opinions about the reliability of early witnesses and have their own collections of Hadith. The term Shia means “faction” or
The Dome of the Rock, or perhaps the al-aqsa mosque next door, is thought to be the starting point for muhammad’s ascent to heaven.
“party,” and they are the 15 percent or so who believe that the leadership of Islam should have stayed within the Prophet’s family line.
• The Hadith are accepted as religiously authoritative, but they are not scripture in the same sense as the Qur’an. The Hadith are accounts of Muhammad’s actions and sayings, but the Qur’an is the direct revelation of God’s words; thus, the Hadith are never recited or used in worship. The relationship of Hadith to Qur’an is somewhat like Talmud to Torah. Both the Hadith and the Talmud are large collections of oral traditions that are intensely studied to determine rules and regulations for believers. However, the various Talmuds are records of legal debates, while the Hadith are raw materials for legal opinions.
Sharia
• Both Judaism and Islam have relatively small, closed canons, but the second tier of sacred literature is vast. Eventually, the analysis of Qur’an and Hadith produced Sharia, or Muslim law (“a path to be followed” or “the way”), yet this is not a single law code—it’s more of an ideal for a devout Muslim life—and the exact regulations are different in different countries.
• Islam has no hereditary or ordained priesthood; instead, leadership in the community comes from legal scholars who are expert in Sharia. Eventually, there arose four major schools of Islamic law. When faced with new situations or difficult cases, these scholars (ulama) would consult the Qur’an, the Hadith, and traditional interpretations of the Qur’an known as tafsir. From these sources— and applying the typical types of reasoning associated with one of the four legal schools—a correct judgment could be made.
o For instance, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 revolution in Iran and governed the country until his death, first came to prominence as an Islamic legal scholar.
o In 1984, a translation of 3,000 of his rulings on everyday life was published, called A Clarification of Questions. This work addressed such topics as flossing, artificial insemination, and organ donation.
Sufism
• The mystic strand of Islam, called Sufism, which developed in the 8th century, sought to experience God directly, by giving oneself entirely to him and, in return, being enveloped in his love. Early Sufis were often ascetics who gained a reputation for purity and used music, dancing, poetry, meditation, ecstatic trances, and recitation of the names of God as spiritual practices.
• In centuries when Islamic law was closely connected with the government and sometimes corrupt rulers, Sufi mystics gained popular followings and were crucial in the spread of Islam to Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Eventually, Sufis were organized into various orders or brotherhoods.
• Because Sufis emphasized the spiritual, emotive aspects of religion rather than the letter of the law, they were sometimes regarded as suspect by conservative authorities. Nevertheless, Sufi ideas and sensibilities are widespread throughout Islam, particularly in Shia communities. Sufis themselves stressed the importance of studying with a recognized master (something like Zen Buddhists), and they often emphasized the need to keep Sharia law as the basis for more advanced spiritual practices.
• Sufism is also popular in the West among non-Muslims, in part because of its sensuous allegorical love poetry and its willingness to overlook doctrinal differences in the belief that many paths lead to God, though whether Sufism can be separated from the Islamic profession of faith is an open question. The situation is somewhat similar to the way that Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama are regarded in the West, where they have a prominence out of proportion to their actual role in the tradition.
• The Qur’an and the Hadith are foundational sacred texts for all Muslims, just as the Tanakh and the Talmud are foundational for Jews. Yet Sufism, as an esoteric strand in the tradition, is probably more widespread in Islam than comparable forms of Jewish and Christian mysticism.
Celebrated Sufi Authors
• Even though Sufi classics are not scripture and are more highly regarded in some places than in others, Westerners studying Islam are likely to encounter some of them. Two of the most celebrated Sufi authors are Attar and Rumi, whose poetry has become an integral part of Iranian national literature.
• Farid al-Din Attar (1145–1221) was from Nishapur in northeast Iran. Attar penned a prose account of the lives and miracles of Sufi mystics called Memorial of God’s Friends, which is somewhat reminiscent of the tales of Zen masters. His most important work is The Conference of the Birds, a long allegorical poem about a group of birds who journey in search of a mythic bird king. The allegory points toward the various excuses people give for not seeking God, and each bird represents a human weakness. Throughout their journey, about 100 stories or parables are told.
o Of course, Sufis, like other Muslims, looked to the Qur’an for guidance, but they often practiced a type of allegorical interpretation called taʾwil, which sought for deeper, hidden meanings, in contrast to the plain sense and close readings of tafsir commentaries.
o We can see an example in The Conference of the Birds, where Attar suggests that, like Adam leaving paradise, “The man whose mind and vision are ensnared by heaven’s grace must forfeit that same grace, for only then can he direct his face to his true Lord” (40). Apparently, being too blessed, or even too religious, can sometimes hinder spiritual progress.
• Jalal al-din Rumi (1207–1273) is even more famous than Attar. Born in Afghanistan, his family migrated to Turkey, where he became a Sufi and a prolific poet, writing thousands of verses. He was also the founder of the Mevlevi order of Sufis, popularly known
as “whirling dervishes” for their distinctive devotional dancing. His masterpiece is the Mathnawi, an anthology of didactic poetry in six books, with about 25,000 rhyming couplets in all.
o The Mathnawi retells stories from the Qur’an, the Hadith, the Bible, and Persian folktales. Along the way, it teaches the principles of Sufism and interprets the Qur’an.
o In the Mathnawi, Rumi explores the themes of spiritual yearning and hope for union with God, returning again and again to the images of passionate love, intoxication, the ocean, and music.
Preserving the Sacred Texts of Islam
• Islam is a large, rich, and diverse religious tradition. It’s important not to judge it by the actions of a vocal, sometimes violent, antimodern, and antipluralistic minority.
• For many centuries, Timbuktu, in the West African nation of Mali, was a center of Islamic scholarship and learning. Prominent families there had preserved thousands of manuscripts of the Qur’an, commentaries, biographies of the Prophet, and prayer books, as well as works on secular subjects, such as astronomy, medicine, and poetry. Most of these manuscripts are in Arabic, with some dating back to the 13th century.
• When rebels and Islamist militias affiliated with al-Qaeda took over Timbuktu in April 2012, they instituted public floggings; banned music, dancing, and soccer; and destroyed the tombs of Sufi saints. Abdel Kader Haidara, the head of a private library, feared for the safety of the ancient manuscripts in the city’s libraries and research institute. He organized his friends and associates to hide away some 300,000 manuscripts to protect them from the Islamists.
• In January 2013, Timbuktu was retaken by a coalition of government and French troops, and retreating Islamists trashed the libraries and burned whatever they could find. Although it’s true that this destruction was carried out by Muslims, it’s also true
that it was Muslims who created the manuscripts in the first place, preserved them for centuries, and risked their lives to save them.
Suggested Reading
Attar, Farid ad-Din ‘Attar’s Memorial of God’s Friends.
———, The Conference of the Birds.
Brown, Hadith.
Burton, An Introduction to the Hadith.
Calder, Mohaddedi, and Rippin, eds. and trans., Classical Islam.
Dreazen, “The Brazen Bibliophiles of
Timbuktu.”
Jamal, ed. and trans., Islamic Mystical Poetry.
Rumi, The Masnavi, Book One.
Ruthven, Islam in the World.
Questions to Consider
1. Why are the Hadith—traditions about the life of Muhammad— considered authoritative but not scriptural by Muslims?
2. How does Sufism make room for alternative forms of religiosity in Islam, and why was that important in the spread of the faith?
Related Traditions—Baha’i Scriptures
Lecture 33
I
n choosing which sacred texts to explore, we’ve looked at religions with at least 2 million or so believers, religions that have continued through several generations and expanded beyond their native borders, and scriptures that have been translated into foreign languages. The most recent additions to the library of scriptures we have considered are from 19thcentury religions, including Mormonism and Tenrikyo. What might be the next faith traditions that would meet our criteria for study of their sacred texts? Candidates include Scientology, the Unification Church, Falun Gong, and Cao Dai. In this lecture, however, we’ll look at the Baha’i faith, the second most widespread religion in the world after Christianity in terms of its presence in different nations.
Background to the Baha’i Faith
• The Baha’i faith began in 1863, when Baha’u’llah (1817–1892) announced in Bagdad that he was the prophetic fulfillment of Babism, a 19th-century offshoot of Shia Islam.
• Shia is one of the two major divisions of Islam, and Shia Muslims believe that the leadership of the faith should have stayed within the family of Muhammad. Most Shia came to accept a succession of 12 legitimate imams, or divinely appointed leaders, from the 7th to the 9th centuries.
o The 12th imam was thought to have to have been hidden by God and will return someday as the Mahdi (the “Guided One”), along with Jesus, to usher in the messianic age of peace, justice, and Islamic law.
o Iran is one of the few countries where Shia Muslims are in the majority, and in 1844, Sayyid Ali-Muhammad Shirazi, a 24-year-old Iranian merchant, announced that he was the “Bab,” meaning “The Gate,” an intermediary between believers and the Mahdi.
o Later, he intimated that he was the Mahdi himself. The Bab gained tens of thousands of followers, called Babis, but he also made some powerful enemies and was executed by a government firing squad in 1850.
• Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri, who would later take the honorific title of Baha’u’llah (“Glory of God”), was an early follower of the Bab. Along with many other believers, Baha’u’llah was persecuted and imprisoned. In 1852, while he was jailed in a dungeon in Tehran (the famous “Black Pit”), he saw a vision of a maiden of heaven who told him that God had a special mission for him. After Baha’u’llah’s release and exile, he became a leader of the Babis.
• In his writings, the Bab had indicated that a future messianic figure was still to come, and in 1863, in the Garden of Ridvan, near Baghdad, Baha’u’llah declared that he was the promised one whose coming was foretold by the Bab. Over the next few years, most Babis became Baha’is, that is, members of the community that regarded Baha’u’llah as the inaugurator of a new religious dispensation and the fulfillment of the messianic expectations of all the world’s major religions.
• The Persian and Ottoman empires were not sympathetic to the Baha’i faith, and Baha’u’llah endured a long series of exiles, imprisonment, and house arrests. Shortly before his death in 1892, Baha’u’llah appointed his eldest son, Abdu’l-Baha (1844–1921), as his successor. The next leader of the Baha’i community was Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957), a grandson of Abdu’l-Baha. Since 1963, the highest authority in the faith has been the Universal House of Justice, an elected body of nine members headquartered in Haifa.
• Baha’is believe in the oneness of God, the oneness of religions, and the oneness of humanity. In other words, there is one all-powerful Creator who has spoken to different prophets (or manifestations of God) at various times and places. These messengers represent progressive revelations.
o All the major religions came from the same God, but they can be unified under the teachings of Baha’i. There may be future manifestations of God, as well, but not for at least 1,000 years.
o As the oneness of God and the oneness of religions are recognized, so also there should be a oneness of humanity, with all races and ethnicities being treated equally and seen as part of a great whole. Significantly, men and women should be equal, as well.
o Baha’is regard humanity as progressing and look to a future of increasing peace, justice, and unity.
• The message of Baha’i has not always been well-received, particularly in Iran, the native land of its founders. Although Baha’is consider their faith a distinct world religion, it comes from an Islamic background, much as Buddhism had its origins in Hinduism or Christianity, in Judaism. The Islamic elements of the faith have convinced some that Baha’is are apostate Muslims, and they have sometimes been harshly persecuted; in some countries, they face legal restrictions.
Baha’i Scriptures
• The Baha’i faith, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is very much a text-based religion, though technically, the Baha’i canon is much larger than those of the other three faiths.
o Baha’is believe that everything written by the Bab and Baha’u’llah should be accepted as revelations from God. In addition, the writings of Abdu’l-Baha are also regarded as scripture, along with his authenticated talks. The works of Shoghi Effendi are inspired interpretations. They are authoritative but not scriptural in the same way as the writings of the three founders. Official communications from the House of Justice are also considered authoritative but not scripture.
o Because the Bab, Baha’u’llah, and Abdu’l-Baha spent many years in prison or under house arrest, they wrote voluminously.
The Bab’s writings would probably fill 50 volumes, while Baha’u’llah is said to have written 100 volumes worth of books, tracts, prayers, and letters (called tablets). Abdu’l-Baha wrote several books and 27,000 letters, perhaps comprising 50 volumes in total. Not all of the writings of the three founders have been edited and translated, and Baha’is today tend to focus on a few particular books.
• The Bab is regarded as the forerunner of Baha’u’llah, much like Elijah or John the Baptist. As a result, his writings are not studied to the same extent as the writings of Baha’u’llah, at least not in English-speaking countries. The Baha’i’s Publishing Trust (the faith’s official press) has published a single volume of selections from the Bab’s writings, though some of his prayers and meditations are still in common use.
• The majority of sacred texts that Baha’is study regularly are from Baha’u’llah. Even before his 1863 announcement at the Garden of Ridvan that he was the Promised One, he was producing works that would later have the status of revelations.
o Around 1858, he wrote The Hidden Words, a collection of 153 wisdom sayings, about half in Arabic and half in Persian. These are spoken by God in the first-person and addressed to humanity in general.
o Sometime between 1857 and 1863, Baha’u’llah produced The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys, two short tracts that were written in response to the questions of Sufi mystics. The Seven Valleys represent the journey of the soul toward God, passing through the Valleys of Search, Love, Knowledge, Unity, Contentment, Wonderment, and finally, the Valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness.
o The last of the major pre-Rivdan scriptures is the Kitab-iIqan (“The Book of Certitude”), published in 1862. In this revelation, Baha’u’llah expounds the ideas of the oneness of God, progressive revelation, and the unity of the prophets.
He interprets key passages from the Qur’an, as well as a few from the New Testament, and sets the stage for his declaration at Ridvan by reinterpreting the Qur’anic verse on Muhammad as the seal of the prophets to allow for further messengers or manifestations of God.
• After Baha’u’llah had made public his identity as the Promised One, he continued to write. Probably the most important of the scriptures after 1863 was the Kitab-i-Aqdas (“Most Holy Book”), which sets forth guidelines for the organization and practices of the Baha’i community.
o In this text, Baha’u’llah appointed his son Abdu’l-Baha as his successor, outlined the future institutions of the guardianship (a position held by Shoghi Effendi) and the Universal House of Justice, and delineated the rules for Baha’is concerning prayer, fasting, houses of worship, pilgrimage, criminals, marriage, inheritance, and scripture.
o Some of the distinctive customs of Baha’is come from the Most Holy Book, including the rejection of congregational prayers (aside from a prayer for the dead), the requirement that marriages have the consent of parents, the requirement to write a will, the reciting of scripture both morning and evening, and daily obligatory prayer.
• Among the large number of revealed letters (tablets) by Baha’u’llah, the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf is especially noteworthy. This long letter is Baha’u’llah’s last major work, written to a fierce opponent of the Baha’is, and it offers a summary of the doctrines Baha’u’llah had been teaching for more than 30 years.
• A thematic compilation by Shoghi Effendi titled Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, first published in 1935, is often the first scripture that Baha’is encounter.
• The scriptural writings of Abdu’l-Baha include a 1908 publication, Some Answered Questions, that came out of conversations with
Selections from Baha’i Writings
World Order of Baha’u’llah (pp. xi–xii):
The Baha’i Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all forms of superstition and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-inhand with science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of poverty and wealth, exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace.
The Hidden Words, #34:
O Dwellers of My Paradise! With the hands of loving-kindness I have planted in the holy garden of paradise the young tree of your love and friendship, and have watered it with the goodly showers of My tender grace.
Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah:
Consider the past. How many, both high and low, have, at all times, yearningly awaited the advent of the Manifestations of God in the sanctified persons of His chosen Ones. How often have they expected His coming, how frequently have they prayed that the breeze of Divine mercy might blow, and the promised Beauty step forth from behind the veil of concealment, and be made manifest to all the world.
Short obligatory prayer:
I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth. There is no other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.
Epistle to the Son of the Wolf:
I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been.
Laura Clifford Barney. In this book, Abdu’l-Baha offers Baha’i perspectives on a number of issues in which Christians and other Westerners might be interested, including Jesus, baptism, life after death, and the Bible.
Baha’i Prayers
• One final scriptural text that is used extensively by Baha’is is a collection of prayers written by the Bab, Baha’u’llah, and Abdu’lBaha. These lovely meditations are arranged by topic; for example, there are prayers for divine aid and for one’s children, families, forgiveness, healing, marriage, praise and gratitude, protection, and unity. The volume begins with the three possible daily prayers. Believers between the ages of 15 and 70 must recite one each day, though they may choose among the short, medium, or long prayers.
• As an example of how Baha’i sacred texts might enrich and deepen one’s spiritual life, we can turn to Robert Hayden, who grew up in a Detroit ghetto and, in 1976, became the first African American poet laureate of the United States. He first encountered the Baha’i faith in graduate school and converted in 1943.
o Allusions to the revelation of Baha’i appear throughout his work, from the early poem “Baha’u’llah in the Garden of Ridwan,” in which he imagines the prophet’s state of mind at the time he declared that he was the manifestation of God, to “The Prisoners,” based on Hayden’s efforts to share Baha’i teaching with the inmates of Jackson State Prison in Michigan.
o Hayden’s “Words in the Mourning Time,” written at a difficult period in American history, laments the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well as the horrors of the Vietnam War. In the 10th section, the poet looks forward to a future of joy and peace promised in the revelation to Baha’u’llah.
Suggested Reading
Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions.
Baha’i Prayers.
Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah.
———, The Kitab-i-Aqdas.
———, Writings of Baha’u’llah.
Hatcher and Martin, The Baha’i Faith: The Emerging Global Religion.
Momen, The Baha’i Faith: A Beginner’s Guide.
Smith, An Introduction to the Baha’i Faith.
Questions to Consider
1. How might a new religion bring together all religions?
2. If all the voluminous writings of the two founders of Baha’i are considered sacred texts, what determines which ones receive the most attention within the faith?
abandoned Scriptures—Egyptian and mayan
Lecture 34
W
e’ve now completed our basic tour of the sacred texts of the world’s major living religions, but this by no means exhausts the category of sacred texts. A vast number of scriptures have been left behind
in the development of religious traditions—sacred texts that still exist today but are no longer connected to any contemporary faith communities. It’s interesting to consider how we interpret the stories from these texts with no commentaries, no records of social practices, and no one living who still holds to the values of these faiths. In this lecture, we’ll look at two such scriptures: the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Mayan Popol Vuh.
Is the Book of the Dead Scripture?
• When Napoleon’s army invaded Egypt in 1798, no one could read ancient Egyptian; indeed, all knowledge of the language had been lost since the 5th century C.E. One of the French soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799, which had the same text written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic (a simplified Egyptian script), and Classical Greek. This triple text was the key that ultimately enabled scholars to read ancient Egyptian.
• The decipherment of hieroglyphs was an astonishing scholarly triumph, and archaeologists started reading whatever they could find. Many of the texts they discovered had to do with religion, including funerary texts, hymns, ritual texts, and magical texts. One text that was commonly buried with mummies was what we today call the Book of the Dead, though for Egyptians it was the “Book of Coming Forth by Day.”
• The text is clearly religious in nature, consisting of spells that would bring about the resurrection of the deceased and guide his or her journey through the underworld to a happy afterlife. But does it count as a sacred text?
o Not all religious writings are scripture. Think, for example, of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, or the Book of Common Prayer. These books are seriously religious, well-respected, and loved by many, but they are not scripture. Was the Egyptian Book of the Dead more like Dante or more like the Bible?
o One of the insights of modern religious studies is that the concept of “scripture” is relational. As the religion scholar William Graham has noted: “No text, written, oral or both, is sacred or authoritative in isolation from a community. A text is only ‘scripture’ insofar as a group of persons perceives it to be sacred or holy, powerful and meaningful, possessed of an exalted authority, and in some fashion transcendent of, and hence distinct from, other speech and writing.”
o We often think of scriptures as containing revelations, sacred narratives, commandments, and doctrines, but in this course, we have seen examples of sacred texts that consist mostly of poetry or are primarily collections of sayings. Could a book of magical spells be considered scripture? It depends on how it is regarded or used by believers. But again, there is no contemporary community that still mummifies its dead or believes in the Egyptian gods; thus, we must piece together the evidence from archaeology.
• The Book of the Dead was obviously a popular work, given that several thousand copies have survived from the 15th through the 1st centuries B.C.E. Around 600 B.C.E., a standard edition emerged, with 192 spells in a set order. Clearly, people wanted to be buried with the Book of the Dead because repeating its words gave them power over gods and protection from specific dangers in their journey through the Other World.
• Western awareness of the Book of the Dead came about the same time as Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the East series. A German translation of one particular copy was done in 1842, and in 1886,
the Swiss scholar Édouard Naville published his three-volume Egyptian edition that compared several manuscripts. In 1895, E. A. Wallis Budge published his famous version, which featured a transcription of the Egyptian hieroglyphs with an interlinear English translation running beneath.
Contents of the Book of the Dead
• The Book of the Dead contains magical formulas for preserving the body from snakes or decay, for not having one’s heart or head taken away in the realm of the dead, and for reviving one’s mummy, thereby enabling it to eat, drink, and breathe.
• Throughout the text, there is an emphasis on knowing the names of various divinities in order to have power over them; traveling with Re, the sun god, over the expanse of the sky; and transforming oneself into animals and even into gods. Some of the spells are as short as a few sentences, while others extend to several pages.
• One of the lengthier spells that has received a great deal of attention is 125, which describes the judgment of the dead. The primary
Before about 600 B.C.E., copies of the Book of the Dead seem to have been individualized, with variations in the spells and illustrations selected.
illustration shows the weighing of the deceased person’s heart in a balance against maat, the principle of truth, morality, and justice, represented by an ostrich feather.
o The lists of sins and crimes in the spell (“I have not stolen,” “I have not slain sacred cattle”) provide a synopsis of commonly accepted moral principles in ancient Egypt. But did Egyptians really strive to live by these principles?
o On the one hand, the text is a spell, implying that by saying the right words at the right time, one can escape the consequences of sin.
o On the other hand, spell 17 promises protection and blessings for anyone who reads at least part of the Book of the Dead daily, long before they are face to face with the gods. Perhaps the Book of the Dead was meant to constrain behavior in this life after all.
• For living religious traditions, reading sacred texts can help us better understand the actions and thinking of believers around the world, and there’s always the possibility of conversion. But that’s not the case with lost traditions. Why, then, might we care about abandoned sacred texts?
o First, the Book of the Dead has great historical value. Ancient Egypt was a fascinating culture, and the Book of the Dead reveals much about religious beliefs and practices of the time.
o Second, the text may tell us not just about Egyptians but about humanity in general. Other people in different lands and eras have had similar hopes and fears about death and have wondered about the influence of gods and morality. A faith in the magical power of words, especially if pronounced at the right time and place, is something that we have seen in many of the world’s sacred texts.
o Third, reading the Book of the Dead gives us a chance to reflect on our own religiosity. Are my prayers ever attempts
to get God to do my bidding? Do I think that I can somehow escape the consequences of my mistakes by saying the right words? How much of my good behavior is done for the sake of a pleasant afterlife?
The Popol Vuh
• We have all seen images of magnificent ruins in Mesoamerica that were constructed by the Maya people in the period from 250 to 900 C.E. For unknown reasons, the civilization went into serious decline in the 9th century. Cities were abandoned, political structures collapsed, and the writing system was neglected, although Mayans still existed when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.
• The Maya produced books, now called codices, that were made of bark paper folded accordion-style, with hieroglyphs and detailed illustrations on both sides. Unfortunately, zealous Catholic priests burned as many codices as they could find, and only a few have survived, which means that we know much less about ancient Mesoamerican civilization than ancient Egypt.
• One codex, now lost, contained sacred stories of the Maya. Sometime between 1554 and 1558, an unnamed Indian rewrote that text into Quiché, a late form of the Mayan language, which he transcribed into the Roman alphabet. Sometime around 1701 to 1703, a Dominican friar, Father Francisco Ximénez, found that Quiché text and translated it into Spanish.
o Ximénez’s manuscript was discovered in 1854 by two European scholars visiting Guatemala City. Upon their return home, one published Ximénez’s translation, and the other published the Quiché version with a French translation.
o The French scholar had also stolen the manuscript itself, which eventually made its way to the Newberry Library in Chicago, where it was rediscovered once again in 1928 and finally published in English in 1950.
• The Popol Vuh (“Council Book”) recounts the origins of the world, the creation of animals and humans, the adventures of two sets of twins, the discovery of corn and fire, and a history of the Quiché branch of the Maya. It also includes guidelines for religious ritual and divination. The episodes are not related in strictly chronological order, and there is a great deal of doubling of characters, events, and phrasing.
o The most famous stories are of the hero-twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Their father and uncle, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu (also twins), were celebrated players of the Mesoamerican ballgame.
o The twins are clever tricksters, who manage to defeat the gods of the underworld; afterward, they ascended into the sky to become the sun and the moon.
o The Popol Vuh continues with a lengthy account of the creation of humans and the history of the Quiché Maya, then concludes: “Everything has been completed here concerning Quiché.”
• We don’t know whether the Popol Vuh was ever an authoritative text or how believers used it. However, the strange narratives in the text are clearly connected to the world of the Yucatan Peninsula; they mention calabash trees, chili peppers, and monkeys, as well as such customs as the ballgame and human sacrifice. And there may be more here than meets the eye. Some scholars have suggested that astronomical information is encoded in the progress of the herotwins through the underworld and in other episodes.
• As with the Book of the Dead, the Popol Vuh may contain some wise insights or universal truths, and it certainly offers a chance to reflect on the religious assumptions of our own culture. But the Mesoamerican text also has stories that can be analyzed in terms of plot, character, and theme and may have interesting things to say about human relationships, life and death, or the connection between the human and natural worlds.
• All sacred texts, even abandoned ones, deserve an extra measure of respect simply because so many people have held them in high esteem. They have often been primary elements in how individuals viewed themselves and the world, yet they can be puzzling. This leads us to one last reason to read them today: as a reminder of the incredible variety of human religious experience and a warning about how much we still don’t know.
Suggested Reading
Christenson, trans., Popol Vu: Literal Poetic Version.
Faulkner, trans., The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Graham, “Scripture.”
Johnston, ed., Religions of the Ancient World.
Kemp, How to Read the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Taylor, ed., Journey through the Afterlife.
Tedlock, trans., Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings.
Questions to Consider
1. How might we approach sacred texts for which there is no longer a living faith community?
2. Why is there such variety in sacred texts, with some primarily telling stories and explaining things and others providing liturgy by which the world or individuals are transformed?
Secular Scripture—U.S. Constitution
Lecture 35
I
n the last two lectures, we’ve speculated about which new religious writings are most likely to become part of the library of world scriptures in the future, and we’ve discussed sacred texts that are no longer supported by a faith community. In this lecture, we’ll continue to test our assumptions about sacred texts by turning the topic on its head: If it is really true that sacred texts are defined less by their specific contents than by the role they play in the lives of believers, is it possible to have writings that are basically secular in nature yet are treated as if they were scripture? Our test case will be the Constitution of the United States.
Informative Uses of Sacred Texts
• For a volume titled Rethinking Scripture, Miriam Levering used her fieldwork with Chinese Buddhist nuns to categorize different ways that scripture is received and used by believers, and she did so with an eye to comparative studies that might take into account different notions of the origins or contents of sacred texts. Levering outlined four “modes of reception”: informative, transactive, transformative, and symbolic.
• In the informative mode, it’s the ideas within the text that matter most. You will recall that the Mahayana canon is very large, and it is possible to devote one’s entire life to mastering just a portion of its contents. Some Buddhist nuns feel called to this work.
• In contrast, the Constitution is not long, yet thousands of people have also spent their lives analyzing, debating, and writing about every phrase it contains. Such efforts are justified because the words matter; they can spell the difference between retaining or losing property, exercising or being denied political rights, and more. The Constitution is a binding document that regulates not only the government but also the day-to-day lives of American citizens.
• There is obviously much more law than just the Constitution, but the Constitution holds a fundamental, paramount position. Other significant legal and historical sources may have second- or thirdtier status. For example, we might consider the 85 Federalist papers as something akin to the Muslim Hadith—not exactly scripture in the same way as the Qur’an but still a respected, authoritative source for its interpretation.
• Unlike most diverse religious traditions, there is a final authority to determine the meaning of the Constitution: the Supreme Court. Since 1790, the court has issued more than 30,000 opinions, and these, in turn, have been studied, cited, and argued about as binding documents. In another parallel with sacred texts discussed earlier in this course, the Supreme Court, like the Jewish Talmud, records and preserves its dissenting opinions.
Transactive Uses of Sacred Texts
• The second of the four modes sketched out by Levering is the transactive, which uses a text to make something happen. Levering describes how Buddhist nuns use the sutras in rituals intended for specific purposes, such as “to create merit” or “to offer devotion and praise.” With regard to the Constitution, legal professionals depend on it to make law, of course, but it is also used by the rest of us, particularly in ritual or ceremonial situations.
• The Declaration of Independence is more likely to be recited than the Constitution, particularly on the Fourth of July, a holiday created to honor its signing. On that day, students, politicians, and ordinary citizens often read the Declaration aloud at ceremonies or other gatherings. Our dispute with Britain has long since been resolved, but is it true that the words of the Declaration no longer matter?
o One sentence from the second paragraph may be the most important statement in American political culture: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
o From one perspective, the notion that all men are created equal is manifestly false, yet there is also a sense that these lines represent our highest values and aspirations: Everyone should be equal in dignity and worth and equal before the law. Intoning these words aloud, in public, has the effect of reinforcing our commitment to making our nation such a place.
• The Constitution is also used in ceremonial contexts. Every year, about half a million people from around the world fulfill the qualifications to become U.S. citizens. As part of the naturalization ceremony, they take an oath that they will “support and defend the Constitution,” similar to oaths taken by the president on inauguration day and members of the armed forces when they enlist.
• Many people can recite the preamble to the Constitution; they may know the
wording of the First or Constitution Day, September 17, is
commemorated by public schools with Second Amendments speeches, trivia contests, and other by heart; and activities focused on the U.S. Constitution. September 17—the
day the Constitution was signed in 1787—is a national holiday. The Constitution is something that keeps Americans together and binds us to our past, even if we are not intimately familiar with all of its articles and sections.
Transformative and Symbolic Uses of Sacred Texts
• Sometimes scriptures are used not to influence one’s relationships with others or to change the world but to transform oneself. Levering reports, “As Chinese Buddhists read, listen to, study and comment on sutras in order to become informed by their account of reality, they also seek … to be transformed in their personal capacity to experience wisdom and compassion.” Are there times when people look to the founding documents of America as a source of private insight or inspiration or see them as manifestations of larger truths?
• One of the most religious-like facts about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence is that we treat them as if they were icons or holy relics. Visitors can go to the National Archives in Washington, DC, and see original copies in a large bronze display case under bulletproof glass—similar to a shrine.
• Many famous lines from significant American documents and speeches are carved into monuments and buildings on the National Mall in Washington, including quotations from the Declaration of Independence on the Jefferson Memorial.
o Those who commissioned the monuments probably had transactive functions in mind, but those of us who walk through to read and reflect may find the experience transformative.
o Transactive, transformative, and symbolic aspects are combined when we display copies of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution on our walls.
Additional Religious Parallels
• We can point to additional parallels between the founding documents of America and the sacred texts of the world. For example, like the letters of Saint Paul, the Declaration and the Constitution were not written with the idea that they would someday be canonized, yet over time, their stature has grown.
o In 1816, Jefferson complained, “Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.” He well knew the arguments, horse-trading, and compromises that went into the creation of the Constitution. Jefferson went on to suggest that constitutions ought to change with the times.
o However, as early as 1796, George Washington included in his Farewell Address a plea that “the Constitution … be sacredly maintained.” Although the human origins of the Constitution are well documented, it is the latter impulse that has generally prevailed.
• Like the sacred texts of Confucianism, which were always regarded as the products of human effort, though done by sages, there has long been a temptation in the United States to regard the Founders as men blessed with preternatural wisdom and moral courage. A close look at their biographies and the transcripts of their deliberations quickly dispels assumptions of their near-divinity. Respect is due the oldest written national constitution still in force in the world, along with the men who crafted it, but it didn’t arrive immaculately from heaven.
• Another aspect of the Constitution that seems at least quasireligious is that there are different schools of interpretation, just as there are for the Vedas, the Bible, and the Qur’an. For the Constitution, these interpretive modes include textualism, which analyzes the exact meaning of the words; originalism, which looks to the intentions of those who drafted and ratified its provisions; and living constitutionalism, which prefers to read the document as having a dynamic meaning that can and should change to accommodate social and technological innovations.
• Sanford Levinson has written a fascinating book, Constitutional Faith, in which he identifies what he calls Protestant and Catholic strains in constitutional interpretation. This distinction may remind us of arguments over Protestant bias that we noted earlier. Some legal scholars and judges are more interested in origins than in developments, in the critical-historical analysis of the text rather than in later traditions, or in the legitimacy of individual as opposed to institutional determinations of meaning.
• Perhaps one reason that America has a text-based government is that it was largely settled by Protestants. Just as it seemed natural to them to look to a single volume of holy writ as the basis for religion, so also a government might have as its foundation a revered, authoritative political document. Further, America has always been something of an experiment—a nation created by a set of documents rather than a shared ethnicity, religion, or longstanding ties to the land. It’s not surprising that we regard our secular writings with almost religious-like devotion.
• Scholars have long debated the idea of “civil religion,” but some have now begun to talk about “constitutional idolatry,” wondering if we have gone too far in our deference to an 18thcentury document that is in some ways undemocratic, giving disproportionate political power to small states, rural districts, and the wealthy, and that sets up a divided form of government that has generally failed elsewhere in the world. “Idolatry” is a strong word, but it’s hard to imagine other political documents around the world being treated in the same way that Americans revere the Declaration and the Constitution.
• The Constitution, unlike most sacred texts, does not regard itself as having final authority but includes provisions for updating and amendments.
o Consequently, we end up with a document that resembles the Qur’an, in which some verses are thought to have been abrogated by later revelations, or the Bible, in which the New Testament explicitly rejects the requirements of the Law of Moses. Thus, the Constitution is not a closed canon.
o Indeed, it’s worth thinking about an even larger secular canon that might include Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech, the Seneca Falls “Declaration of Sentiments,” and others.
• A final piece of evidence about the equivalence of secular and religious sacred texts can be found in Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. One of the characteristics of sacred texts is that they often draw on earlier scriptures, and it is telling that King quotes from the Bible and the Declaration of Independence in much
the same way: He treats both as unfulfilled promises of better days to come.
Suggested Reading
Kammen, ed., The Origins of the American Constitution.
Levering, “Scripture and Its Reception.”
Levinson, Constitutional Faith.
Meier, American Scripture.
Rakov, ed., The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Ravitch, and Thernstrom, eds., The Democracy Reader.
Questions to Consider
1. If texts are made sacred in relationship to a community, is it possible for basically secular texts to have scripture-like functions within a nation? Is there such a thing as “civic religion”?
2. What American political texts are most likely to be memorized, recited on holidays, or even carved in stone?
Heavenly Books, Earthly Connections
Lecture 36
A
s we come to the end of this course, it might be useful to spend some time answering two questions: Where do we go from here, and what difference might the comparative study of scripture make in our lives? The first half of this lecture answers the first question by offering recommended readings for each of the major religious traditions we’ve studied. The second part of the lecture attempts to answer the second question by returning to the reasons we listed in Lecture 1 for studying other people’s scriptures. In particular, we’ll discuss how reading world scripture can help us better understand the lives of others and perhaps even provide greater insight into our own intellectual and spiritual commitments.
Readings from Early Religions
• If you read only one text from Hinduism, it should be the Bhagavad Gita. You might also try the Isha and Katha Upanishads, which provide a good introduction to Vedic literature.
• For Judaism, you might try something from each of the three sections of the Tanakh. From the Torah, you might sample Genesis, which includes some of the most famous stories in the Hebrew Bible. From the Prophets, read 2 Isaiah (chapters 40–55), which most scholars date to the 6th century B.C.E., during the Babylonian Exile. From the Writings, try the brief book of Ruth, a simple yet moving tale of ordinary people and extraordinary kindness.
o For those from a Christian background, it’s worth looking at the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanakh to see how Jews read their own sacred texts. As you recall, the entire Tanakh is regarded as holy, but the Torah is especially sacred and is read aloud in synagogues over the course of a year.
o Conservative Jews believe that the Torah was revealed by God to Moses, and some assert that it predated the world and was used as a blueprint for creation. Other Jews accept the results
of the historical-critical method and view the Torah, like the Prophets and the Writings, as the product of many sources edited and revised over centuries.
o Jewish tradition claims that Moses received not only the written Torah at Mount Sinai but also the oral Torah, which was eventually written down in the 3rd century C.E. as the Mishnah, then later expanded into the two Talmuds. If you’re interested in exploring this literature, a good place to start is the tractate Aboth (“The Fathers”) in the fourth division of the Mishnah. The Aboth is a brief collection of wise sayings and moral maxims from famous rabbis.
• One of the most beloved texts from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism is the Dhammapada, which sets forth the basic principles of Buddhist doctrine and morality. The canon of Mahayana Buddhism is vast, but one book considered by many to be the fullest expression of the Buddha’s teachings is the Lotus Sutra. Read the first four chapters, which include the parables of the burning house and the prodigal son. From Zen Buddhism, read the Mumonkan (“Gateless Gate”), which is a 13th-century collection of 48 koans in the form of brief anecdotes about Zen masters and their students.
• For East Asian religion and philosophy, read the Analects of Confucius and the Daodejing. The Analects are brief, fairly straightforward sayings of Confucius. The Daodejing was originally an anonymous collection of wisdom sayings that was later attributed to Laozi and eventually elevated to the status of a divine text.
Readings from Common Era Religions
• Recommended readings for Christianity include one of the gospels, perhaps Luke; the book of Acts, which offers a history of the early Christian movement; and something from Paul, either Romans or 1 Corinthians. If you’re curious about Christian sacred texts outside the Bible, you might start with the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, which offers 114 short sayings attributed to Jesus.
• As we saw, Muslims view their scripture, the Qur’an, as a miraculous transcript of a heavenly book. It is God’s primary revelation to humankind, given to Muhammad with the angel Gabriel as a mediator, and most Muslims believe that the Qur’an is co-eternal with God, uncreated. Thus, for Islam, the choice of which sacred text to read is obvious. But the Qur’an, with its 114 suras, is a bit long.
o Newcomers might want to start with some of the shorter, earlier, more lyrical revelations toward the end of the volume, then read a few of the longer suras that appear at the beginning (2, “The Cow”; 4, “Women”; and 5, “The Table”).
o If you’re coming from a Jewish or Christian background, it might also be interesting to read some of the middle suras that are named after biblical characters: 10, “Jonah”; 12, “Joseph”; 19. “Mary”; or 71, “Noah.” And some Muslims feel that sura 112 contains the essence of Islam: “Say: He is God the One, God the eternal. He begot no one nor was He begotten. No one is comparable to Him.”
o If you’re interested in the Hadith, or traditions about the Prophet, the best place to begin is with Al-Nawawi’s 13thcentury collection Forty Hadith, which has long been the most popular introductory anthology of Hadith.
• The Adi Granth is the paramount scripture of Sikhism. As you recall, it’s a collection of poetry by the Sikh gurus and some of their Hindu and Muslim predecessors that was designated by the Tenth Guru as the perpetual Guru of the community. Two recommended readings in this tradition are The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus, translated by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, and Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth, translated by Nirmal Dass.
• The best avenue into the scriptures of the Latter-day Saints is, of course, the Book of Mormon, which was thought to have been miraculously translated from ancient gold plates that were given to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni. Two recommendations here are
3 Nephi, which tells the story of the resurrected Jesus appearing to people in the Americas, and 1 Nephi, which gives a good sense of the narrative and characteristic themes of the book.
• Finally, if you’re curious about Baha’i, start with The Hidden Words—a collection of mystical sayings by Baha’u’llah. In addition, many have found the book Some Answered Questions to be a clear introduction to Baha’i teachings.
• In addition to reading some of the scriptures from this course, go on the Internet and look for examples of sacred texts in use, perhaps Vedic ceremonies, Buddhist sutra chanting, Qur’anic recitations, or the singing of the Adi Granth in a Sikh temple. Even better, try to attend a worship service of a religion that is not your own.
Concluding Our Study
• In our first lecture, we noted several good reasons to read other people’s scriptures: they’re easily accessible; they’re usually central to the faith tradition; they lend themselves to comparative study; they can be sources of wisdom, beauty, and awe; and they help us better understand the lives of others and perhaps even provide greater insight into our own intellectual and spiritual commitments.
• People often argue about religion, and scripture can sometimes be used as a weapon or a wedge, particularly because many sacred texts make strong, mutually exclusive claims about God, reality, and salvation. Yet reading scripture can also be a bridge between people with different ideas about God and reality. A sacred text may or may not contain the truth about unseen forces or other realms of existence, but it most certainly contains truths about millions of believers who have accepted the text as authoritative.
• If you want to understand what’s going on in the Middle East or in much of Africa, you need to read the Qur’an; many of the basic values of China and Japan will not make sense until you’ve considered the Confucian Analects and the Daodejing; and it’s impossible to grasp American politics and culture without a basic knowledge of the Bible. Reading sacred texts provides in-depth knowledge and takes you into the heart of various traditions.
• If you come from the background of a particular faith, it can be disconcerting or even threatening to realize that other people believe different things with just as much sincerity as you do and that from a certain perspective, all religions seem rather implausible. But it’s possible to remain true to one’s own faith tradition while acknowledging the good in others.
• Many people nowadays say that they are spiritual but not religious, perhaps because they are wary of the track record of religious institutions. This might lead some to pick and choose passages from the sacred texts of the world to create a unique, personalized faith. However, as personally satisfying as a few random verses might be, it is still important to read sacred texts in the context of their own traditions. Taking sacred texts seriously means appreciating their
The Scriptural Reasoning movement recognizes that Christians, Jews, and muslims may become aware of deep differences as they study one another’s texts.
role in communities that provide support and solace but also make demands on believers.
• In the 1990s, Peter Ochs of the University of Virginia and David Ford at Cambridge began the Scriptural Reasoning movement, which encourages small groups of believers from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to get together and read passages from their sacred texts. The point isn’t to disparage or convert but to understand and learn from one another. The model for interactions is hospitality—to be a gracious host when inviting outsiders to comment upon one’s own scriptures and an attentive guest when listening to insiders share their sacred texts.
• Scriptural Reasoning brings together adherents of the three Abrahamic religions, but an even broader vision of religious dialogue has been presented by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. In his book Toward a True Kinship of Faiths, he explores similarities and differences among Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, with constant attention to sacred texts.
o The Dalai Lama observes that an acceptance of religious pluralism does not necessarily undermine claims of exclusive truth. Even if all the major religions can’t be equally true, they can nevertheless be equally legitimate; they are worthy of respect because we can imagine why intelligent, moral people might choose to believe, even if we ourselves don’t share that belief.
o It seems true that reading other people’s sacred texts with empathy and understanding can make the world a better place. There will always be differences between religions that matter a great deal, but as we come to better understand and perhaps even admire those of different faith traditions, we can marvel at the religious diversity in the world and what those many traditions and scriptures mean in the human experience.
Suggested Reading
Gyatso, Toward a True Kinship of Faiths.
Ford, “An Interfaith Wisdom.” Smith, What Is Scripture?
Questions to Consider
1. Which sacred texts are most likely to reward reading by outsiders?
2. How can reading other people’s scriptures lead to greater harmony and understanding in the world?
3. What difference might the comparative study of sacred texts make in our lives?
Recommended Texts and Translations
Hinduism
Flood, Gavin, and Charles Martin, trans. The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012.
Miller, Barbara Stoler, trans. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War. New York: Bantam, 1986.
Olivelle, Patrick, trans. Upanisads. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Patton, Laurie L., trans. The Bhagavad Gita. London: Penguin, 2008.
Roebuck, Valerie J., trans. The Upanishads. London: Penguin, 2003.
Judaism
Danby, Herbert, trans. The Mishnah. London: Oxford University Press, 1933.
Neusner, Jacob, trans. The Mishnah: A New Translation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Note on the Bible: The New American Bible (Catholic), the New International Version (evangelical), the New Jerusalem Bible (Catholic), and the Revised English Bible (ecumenical) are all good translations, though the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is the most ecumenical and also the widely used version in academia. If you’re new to the Bible, the NRSV is recommended. For the Hebrew Bible, be sure to take a look at the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh.
Buddhism
Carter, John Ross, and Mahinda Palihawadana, trans. The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Hurvitz, Leon, trans. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (The Lotus Sutra). Rev. ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Roebuck, Valerie J., trans. The Dhammapada. London: Penguin, 2010.
Sekida, Katsuki, trans. and commentator, and A. V. Grimstone, ed. Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan and Hekiganroku. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1977.
Shibayama, Zenkei. Zen Comments on the Mumonkan. Translated by Sumiko Kudo. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
Watson, Burton, trans. The Lotus Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
East Asian Religions
Dawson, Raymond. Confucius: The Analects. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Ivanhoe, Philip J., trans. The Daodejing of Laozi. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002.
Lau, D. C., trans. Confucius: The Analects. London: Penguin, 1979.
———, trans. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching. London: Penguin, 1963.
Leys, Simon, trans. The Analects of Confucius. New York: Norton, 1997.
Mair, Victor H., trans. Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way. New York: Bantam, 1990.
Christianity
“The Gospel of Thomas.” In Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament, edited by Bart D. Ehrman, pp. 19–28. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Note on the Bible: The New American Bible (Catholic), the New International Version (evangelical), the New Jerusalem Bible (Catholic), and the Revised English Bible (ecumenical) are all good translations, though the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is the most ecumenical and also the widely used version in academia. If you’re new to the Bible, the NRSV is recommended.
Islam
Abdel Haleem, M. A. S., trans. The Qur’an: A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Ali, Maulana Muhammad, trans. The Holy Qur’an with English Translation and Commentary. 7th rev. ed. Lahore: Ahamadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, 2002.
———, trans. A Manual of Hadith. 2nd ed. Lahore: Ahamadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam, 1990.
Ibrahim, Ezzeddin, and Denys Johnson-Davies, trans. An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadith. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1997.
Khalidi, Tarif, trans. The Qur’an. New York: Penguin, 2008.
Newer Religions
Abdu’l-Baha. Some Answered Questions. Translated by Laura Clifford Barney. Wilmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1990.
Baha’u’llah. The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah. Translated by Shoghi Effendi. Wilmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 2003
Dass, Nirmal, trans. Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.
Hardy, Grant, ed. The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition. Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 2003.
Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur, trans. The Name of My Beloved: Verses of the Sikh Gurus. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1995.
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