Coherence In The Quran – Difference Of Opinion Between Farahi And Islahi
As I motioned earlier Islāḥī and Ghāmidī have further developed this model of Qur’ān tafsīr. It would therefore be useful to briefly explain their contributions. Islāḥī’s understanding of the ‘umūd of the sūrahs is identical to that of his teacher. He has however modified the overall structure of the Book as understood by his mentor. He holds that there are seven groups of the sūrahs instead of nine. He believes that all sūrahs, with few exceptions, have been put in pairs. He has established the seven-fold division of the Holy Qur’ān by pleading to the Qur’ān itself. He holds that in each group the Makkan and Madinan sūrahs constitute distinct blocks, the former preceding the latter. Farāhī, however, did not stress on this aspect of internal arrangement of groups. Islahī believes that each of the seven sūrah groups treats all the phases of the Islamic movement as led by Muhammad in Arabia, though emphasis in each groups is on different themes of the movement. Farāhī does not assign specific themes to each group of sūrahs. As to Ghāmidī’s contribution to the concept of nazam he makes valuable additions to the elaborateness of the overall structure ofthe Holy Qur’ān while keeping alive emphasis on the internal nazam of the sūrah. Asif Iftikhār has summarized Ghāmidī’s concept of Qur’ānic nazam in the following words. “The basic theme of the Qur’ān is a description of the Prophetic indhār (admonition) to his people, the Banū Ismā‘īl–more specifically the Quraysh. Prophet Muhammad, according to Ghāmidī, belonged to a specific category of the messengers of God who were sent to specific peoples as God’s final judgment on them. The Qur’ānic term for such messengers is rasūl (plural: rusul). Unlike some other messengers, termed as anbiyā’ (singular: nabī), whose basic purpose is to prophesize the coming of a rasūl and who are sometimes killed by their own people, the rusul always triumph. A rasūl’s people are always given Divinepunishment on denial after a stipulated time period and rewarded with a special privilege in this world if they accept his messageand the authority. In Prophet Muhammad’s case, his prophetic mission of doing indhār went through different phases, whichcan be categorized as general admonition (indhār-I ‘ām), culmination of the conclusive argument (itmām-i hujjat), the abandonment and migration (barā’at and hijrat), and the reward and punishment (jazā’ and sazā). A depiction of these themes is given in the Qur’ān in seven distinct groups, each group consisting of a set of Makkan and Madīnan sūrahs. (An excerpt from Exordium to Coherence in the Qur’ān An English Translation of Muqaddamah Niẓām al-Qur’ān Ḥamīd al-Dīn Farāhī Translated by Tariq Mahmood Hashmi)