REVELATION

In religious language, revelation means the uncovering of answers to essential human questions. The human being is able to reflect and to ask:

Where do I come from?
The answer to this question determines the human self-understanding and the corresponding expectations.

Where am I going?
The answer to this question provides orientation for one's life.

What is the meaning?
This question is at the same time the question for an overall view of existence, its meaning and the place of the human being in it.

These questions are behind all human philosophical and religious efforts; in the latter case they are also connected with the quest for the divine, for the ultimate source of being. There have always been mythological and philosophical attempts to find answers, and there has always been the quest for God in prayer, meditation, fasting, discipline etc., and even where the external forms can be very different, the human attempt to build up a link is well known in all religions.

According to Islamic teaching, the human being is not let to him/herself with this quest. God is near and answers. He does not just permit to be found but takes the initiative Himself. Beside the doctrine of God's unity (tawhid), another central doctrine of Islam says that God teaches human beings. Already the earliest passage of the Qur'an states,

The fact that God teaches has an immediate relevance for the creation of the human being and his task in the world:

As God's representative on earth, the human being is a creature with a special potential and a special responsibility. The unique liberty connected with this potential enables us to design our own life and, moreover, to influence the lives of our fellow human beings and other creatures both in a useful and in a harmful manner. It is therefore essential for us to cultivate the link with our creator. This is done through prayer and invocation:

So we can see, on one side, that God teaches, and on the other side that He answers to human search and call. In this dialogue it is now important for human beings to know how God speaks to them and to undertand what is said. Since God is invisible, this does not happen the same way it is done in human communication:

When asked about divine revelation, it has become a habit among Muslims to think of the Qur'anic term wahy, here translated as inspiration, which they immediately identfy whith prophetic revelation. This reaction was originally and quite logically caused by the desire to draw a line against false theological claims, but there is the risk to lose sight of other aspects of divine revelation like e.g. the messages contained in His signs in nature, as well as other aspects of the word wahy as used in the Qur'an. I would like to explain, with the help of this verse, different aspects of revelation.

Several commentators have seen everything that is said in this verse as referring to prophecy and derived a phenomenology of prophetic revelation in which the messenger mentioned in this verse (rasûl; this Arabic word is in most other cases used for human messengers of God) is identified with the angel delegated to transmit revelation to a prophet. However, since the text explicitly talks about human beings, and since, according to the Qur'an, God does speak to human beings who do not have an obvious prophetic task, I prefer to understand the verse as referring to the general experience of God talking to human beings, in some cases through a human prophetic messenger. To my understanding, this verse describes various degrees of this experience that I am going to discuss in an order opposit to the one given in the text, progressing from more familiar human experiences to that kind of experience that is special for prophetic persons.

I   The Messenger

Human beings learn trough observation, imitation and experience as well as their conclusions from it. Besides, they learn from the teachings and examples of human teachers. The latter is important because the abundance of impressions and information demands a perspective. In the course of human history there have repeatedly been wise teachers, most important of them the founders of the world religions but also other enlightened prophetic persons. We call the most important of them messengers of God because in Islamic thought everything that is good for creation is referred back to the Creator, especially when it opens a way towards Him. A messenger of God is first of all a human being capable to be a teacher and a model for other human beings, who can understand and encourage them. In Muslim theology the human nature of a messenger of God is emphasized because too much idealizsation would alienate them from the sphere of human exemplariness and solidarity and place them in a dangerous borderline position to idolatry. A prophet's task is outlined in the following prayer by Abraham (a):

The term signs (âyât) of God is nowadays often understood in a restricted sense as verses (of the Qur'an or other Holy Scriptures). However, signs are messages in a much wider sense. They are marks that guide us on our way through the life in this world. In religions based on a Holy Book the text does have a central meaning for spiritual and ethical orientation for it preserves the essence of the original teaching, but it does not exist in a vacuum. The signs of the Scripture are meant to be keys for other signs of God in creation as pointed out by the Qur'an.

Again and again the Qur'an refers to God's signs in nature, in human society and history and in the human mind, stimulating us to investigate, to reflect and to come to conclusions both for our life on earth and for the life to come. Observation and research lead to insights with an infathomable value. Consequently Muslims, responding to this stimulation and encouraged by it, have at times made considerable contributions to the sciences. The knowledge of God's signs in creation lies at the very basis of civilization, and beyond its usefulness in practical life it leads, on a deeper level of reflection, to a better knowledge of the Creator.

In religions based on a Holy Book the Scripture, regardless its history, has a central position. But Scripture (Kitâb) means more than a written or printed book. It also means pre-scription in the sense of law. Obviously there is a network of laws operative in nature. Human beings are integrated into that network, only their situation is much more complicated because they can consciously take initiative and make decisions with a wide range of implications and consequences. Human beings therefore need ethical guidance concerning the relationship among themselves, with each their own inner self, with other living beings, with creation as such and last, but not least with the Creator. The teachings of the messenger in theory and practice help to recognize values and to realize them in order to harmonize the relationship in all these directions.

Religion is generally related to the future. Thus it is more than a question of promoting harmony for the time being. Therefore the prophetic person does not stop at the presentaation of the laws operative in the system of creation (kitâb) but brings a vision that gives a perspective to all that knowledge so that values can be differentiated, the development can be judged, and a promise for the future can be envisaged. This means to teach wisdom (hikmah) which helps to see the proportions of things and provides the ability to make decisions that lead to valuable, lasting ends. Therefore a messenger is both a teacher and a model.

But the messenger's task does not end here. He purifies people inwardly so that they can develop an understanding that goes far beyond cognitive learning. In fact it is nearly an act of creation where the prophetic person shapes and refines the "raw material" of a human being with sympathy and loving guidance. This is the hidden meaning of the Qur'anic story of Jesus (a) who shapes birds out of clay and breathes life into them with God's permission (Surah 3:49): he teaches his disciples and purifies them until they have reached a state of refinement and lightness in which they can fly to greater spiritual hights.

A prophetic person has already achieved the purity that makes it possible to be shaped and refined by God Himself. That is why we are taught that God sends angels as messengers to the prophets, or that they, other than ordinary human beings, can see angels. Among the examples there are the messengers sent to Abraham (a) to announce the birth of Isaak (a), and afterwards to Lot (a) to save him from the destruction of his city (Surah 11:69-83) as well as the angels that speak to Mary (a) (Surah 3:42-46). Angels (Arab. malâ'ika) are energies in the service of God that fulfil various tasks within creation. Among them there is the Holy Spirit (rûh al-qudus) who is, however, not understood as a "hypostasis of God" as in Christian trinity but as an energy closely connected with God, the spirit of revelation who, in its personified aspect, is identified with the angel Gabriel.

II   The Veil

Depending on how tight a veil is, it can hide or reveal what is behind it. In his book Mishkat al-Anwar, al-Ghazzali (d. 1111 C.a.) talks about seventy thousand veils of light and darkness behind which God is hidden and which are lifted step by step depending on a person's state of purification. This image is found again and again in mysticism.

The tightest veil consists of the phenomena of creation if they are understood in their superficial, material meaning only. In this case, all those things described as "God's signs" in the Qur'an are nothing but "world" and can be judged as useful, annoying or dangerous as the case may be, or they can be simply ignored, but their spiritual dimension is not perceived. The materialist observer will be able to exploit them for some technology, but he will hardly be able to see them in connection with responsibility and ethical demands, not to mention God's voice speaking through them.

The perception of natural phenomena, social and historical experiences or one's own inner voices as God's signs and an increasing knowledge the world and God in this sense begins with the serious question for the meaning and the understanding of contexts.

Thus the result of our observation and reflection is not only the science of nature, history etc. but an insight into the background of existence. Many a scientist who used to be a materialistic atheist discovered this path. This is the context in which stories are told of wise people who could understand the language of the animals and plants. Mystics finally, having practised a disciplin of inner purification, experience God's activities and His presence everywhere, only a very thin veil separating them from the ultimate Light.

In Qur'an commentaries, the most popular examples for veils through which God speaks to prophetic persons is the Burning Bush through which He calls Moses (a) (Surah 20:9-14; 28:39-30 etc.) or the palm tree to which Mary (a) clings during her labour (Surah 19:23-26).

III   Inspiration

In Qur'anic language, the word wahy is not yet the technical term that is nowadays used for prophetic revelation but denote various kinds of inspiration from different sources including negative ones:

Divine inspiration is a creative act:

It can also be an act of decision and revival as in the following passage on the Day of Judgement:

Knowing the source of an inspiration and whether it is light or delusion is a matter of self-knowledge and inner purity and sincerity. Therefore we are recommended to discuss extaordinary experiences that seem to go into this direction with a competent teacher. It needs a great deal of inner clarity and a sincere relationship with God to understand His inspiration. God says to Moses (a),

A prophetic person understands God's speech clearly, even in the sense of a verbal understanding. We read at the end of a passage that resembles the Biblical Decalogue:

At first, this experience is alarming. That is why it needs to be explained to the Prophet Muhammad (s) who is informed that it is the same experience as that or former prophets:

Later authors had every reason to discuss the differentiation between genuine religious experience and divine inspiration on one side and inspirations from doubtful sources, delusions, megalomania and presumption on the other. This is how, as mentioned before, the word wahy gradually developed into a technical term for prophetic revelation while other words were used for other experiences, e.g. ilham for the inspiration given by God to human beings who are close to Him without being prophets, or kashf, the uncovering of hidden truths as experienced by mystics. Inspirations by evil powers were termed waswâs, whispering. In mystical literature, there are detailed discussions both of these experiences and of different psychological and spiritual states including the question of the standards for the genuinness of an extraordinary religious experience. Even though ordinary modern Muslims are hardly familiar with these discussions, partly due to the necessity to cope with challenges from outside, partly due to certain trends where questioning is considered dangerous, they still take place, sometimes even in a dialogue with the mystical traditions of other religions.

A lot of work is left to be done in systematic theology. Apart from reflections on words like prophet and messenger in modern terminology, the Qur'anic term khâtam an-nabiyîn (Seal of the Prophets) for the Prophet Muhammad (s) needs to be discussed both in the light of the Qur'anic insights into revelation and with an outlook on a theology of religions. According to the consensus of the Muslims, khâtam an-nabiyîn means that Muhammad (s) was the last prophetic messenger of God, but the implications of this doctrine are not always clear and definite. Muhammad (s) is certainly the only messenger who explicitly confirms all messengers before him including those oudside the Abrahamic tradition. He is also the only one whose life history is accessible in such a way that his habits, intentions and perspectives can be reconstructed to some extent, giving Muslims not only a key to the understanding of important ethical and spiritual matters but also an outlook towards the possibility of a constructive coexistence of a national and religious variety of people in relationship with the One. Therefore it often happens that Muslims intuitively express the conviction that the Qur'an deals with all questions of human life. On the other hand, whenever there is a crisis or a loss of orientation, there appears the hope for an "Imam Mahdi" or a longing for a great leader who can take the role of an eschatological saviour or a new prophet. These phenomena have not yet sufficiently thought about theologically because Muslims have often avoided to investigate how exactly God guides people in a post-prophetic age, and if and how He speaks to human beings even today.