Qurʼān – Epistemological Paradigms of Islam

Abstract

Qur’ān is the source of all knowledge in Islam (al-An‘ām, 38). It symbolises the living mind of Divine Omniscience. It is uncreated Word of God which is a symbol of the comprehensive precosmic Pen (kun!) by which God simulta­neously inscribes into ‘pages’ of Universe (Qur’ān al-āfāq), pages of sacred History (Qur’ān al-anfās) and, finally, ‘pages’ of human soul and heart (Kitāb marqūm) existentially (kalima al-kawn) and sapientially (kalima al-wahy). The content of Divine Word is intended for a man as God’s crowning creature, as substance of divine Being (mukhtasar of Wujūd) and as comprehensive being (al-kawn al-jāmi‘) who alone knows how to read revealed text of the Book under whose image God has condensed plenitude of His own wisdom, revealed Himself in a form of Book as the sign of His most perfect and most mature Self-expression. On the traces of this Book’s content human life has became ‘book for God’ through which qur’anic metahistory is realised, embodied by infinite number of individual human fates. God has clothed qur’anic content in literal linguistic expression (‘ibāra) of perfect Arabic language, so that reader/interpreter of Mushaf’s text could from ‘ibāra make ta‘bīr – ‘hermeneutical bridge’ to cross over to the other ‘bank’ of sacrolinguistic ‘river’ of Mushaf. In the vessel of Hidr’s ta’wīl on the waves of Mushaf’s ‘river’ sails the interpreter homo viator (sālik), reaches the very heart of every single thing and puts the smile of immortality on the ‘face’ of every cognitive capacity within him.