The Immutability of Divine Texts

I. Introduction Divine texts are the common heritage of human beings. They cultivate human spirituality. Too much time is spent finding faults with divine text and too little attention is paid to understanding their unity of purpose. While doubters question the authenticity of divine texts and while factions set one divine text against the other, divine texts are munificent in establishing the truth. The Hebrew Bible warns that among nations gone astray from the patii of God, "the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac."1 The Qur'an affirms: "We have sent thee revelation, as We sent it to Noah and die Messengers after him: We sent revelation to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, to Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron, and Solomon, and to David We gave the Psalms."2 The New Testament declares, "All scripture is God-breathed."3 The Buddhist Dhammapada proclaims, "Blessed is the devotion of those who dwell in unity."4 The Bhagavad Gita's call to unity is no less vivid when Krishna proclaims the following words: "As men approach me, so I receive them. All paths, Arjuna, lead to me."5 Hindu, Buddhist, Hebrew, Christian, Muslim, and other divine texts originate from the same source, what the Qur'an calls ommu al kitab, the mother book.6 All divine texts are revealed to guide the peoples of the world. No divine text can be confined to any one nation, language, time, or space. Divine texts constitute one universal series. In addition to cultivating human spirituality, divine texts forge manifold relationships with law. Divine texts themselves furnish laws. From time immemorial, divine texts have shaped diverse legal systems. Even in our own times, divine texts continue to inform national and international legal orders. In several Islamic countries, the Qur'an and the Sunna are the supreme law of the land and manmade laws incompatible with these texts are declared invalid. In secular legal systems, which have officially separated church and state, divine texts continue to inform the normative order. When a secular state allows the free exercise of reugion, divine texts continue to supply additional, and sometimes more effective, norms for individual and social behavior.7 When a legal system strictly draws away from divine texts, believers continue to follow scriptures in their personal and communal lives. An ideological system, such as that of the former Soviet Union, which deems divine texts to be incompatible with state ideology, may itself fail to survive. From all corners of the world, history testifies to the everlasting influence of divine texts. Divine texts exercise influence via human languages. They rarely offer images or diagrams. They consist of words. It is not necessary, however, for divine texts to be in writing; a divine text may be an oral text. The Qur'an, for example, was revealed as an oral text and not as a written text. The oral form of a divine text almost always precedes its written form. Even after a divine text has been committed to writing, its written form may or may not supplant the oral form. The Qur'an continues to be an oral as weU as a written text. Ever since its revelation, at any given point in time, hundreds of persons in Muslim communities memorize the entire Arabic text of the Qur'an, syllable by syllable. Known as hafizeen, they can orally recite the entire text of the Qur'an.8 The tradition of oral memorization reinforces the immutability of divine texts. The immutability of divine texts takes two distinct forms: linguistic immutabiuty and substantive immutabiuty. The two forms are not mutually exclusive since a divine text may be immutable in both language and substance. Linguistic immutability is tied to the language in which a divine text is revealed. Linguistic immutability means that the original language of the divine text cannot be lawfully altered. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic, the native tongue of Prophet Muhammad. The Arabic text of the Qur'an is immutable. …