Page 18 - How Do The Unwise Interpret The Qur'an ?
P. 18
HOW DO THE UNWISE INTERPRET THE QUR'AN?
wisdom. The verses contain meanings that may be apparent,
hidden, inter-woven or overlapping. They also produce countless
other meanings when they interact with other verses. There are
times when a single verse can take a whole book to explain. That
is why, in order to be able to interpret the Qur'an correctly and
take in all of its contents, one must be capable of grasping it in its
entirety and must also be skilled in all the required interpretation
techniques.
One significant technique consists of analyzing a verse
according to its context in the Qur'an. The meaning of a Qur'anic
verse can often be explained according to the theme around it.
The way a verse begins and those verses which follow it help to
clarify its meaning. This topic is referred to in Islamic literature as
the verse's "Sibaq u Siyaq" or "the whole context of a word". This
is the reason why many of the verses can be misinterpreted if they
are taken out and translated only in terms of the words they
consist of and without any regard to their entire context.
Such misinterpretation of the Qur'anic verses throughout
history, whether due to ignorance or perverted intent, has
resulted in misunderstanding of the Qur'an, and certain groups
with ulterior motives have even slandered it.
Another important method is to interpret the words that
make up the verses by taking their context in that particular verse
into consideration. Much Qur'anic vocabulary has specially
intended meanings. The meaning of one Qur'anic word often
derives from the way it is used in another part of the Qur'an. Time
and again a word can have more than one meaning. So the meaning
of such a word is to be deduced from the manner in which it is
used in a different section of the Qur'an. Just looking the word up
in a dictionary and applying the first meaning we come across can
16