A Comparative Reading
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Two authors, two books. One, Muhammed, claims divine inspiration, another, Rushdie, claims inspiration perhaps from his own creative powers. Both books are described as being in opposition.
This an effort to slowly read both books and learn from them in a comparative manner.
1. The Koran.
Surah al Fatiha. The Opening.
In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds.
Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Master of the Day of Judgement.
You we worship, Your aid we seek.
Show us the Straight Way.
The Path of those on whom you have bestowed your grace
not of those who have inspired your anger
those who have gone astray.
Composite rendering from translations by Saheeh International, Abdullah Yusuf Alli, Sayyid Abdul A la Mawdudi, as trans. by Zafar Ishaq Ansari, with some modifications by myself that do not change the content.
This opening needs to be listened to in powerful Koranic chanting to be adequately appreciated, even if one does not understand the language in which the chanting is uttered. Superb examples can be got online, with YouTube being a primary source.
The vocal rendering dramatizes with poignant force what it means to commit oneself to belief in a transcendent reality of all pervasive force, one way of describing the divine identity the opening salutes.
Travelling a long distance, parched with thirst, I came at last upon an oasis in the dry wilderness, a gleam of life in the deadly desert. Long prayer, month after month, sustained me in that cave, until the nourishing waters poured through. Voices in coming millennia will ask if I heard a divine voice or an imaginary one. The best I can do is testify.
So Muhammed may be imagined as testifying, using imagery of travelling in a desert, to the experience that led him to compose those opening lines which perhaps a countless number of people chant today in following his example.
Does Allah exist? Do any of the various conceptions of a creator and sustainer of the universe have any reality apart from the beliefs of those who hold those views?
I don't know.
How may one find out?
Perhaps by following the practices of those who hold such beliefs.
Does that mean that one must believe to know? I doubt it.
2. The Satanic Verses
Epigraph
Satan, being thus confined to a vagabond, wandering, unsettled condition, is without any certain abode; for though he has, in consequence of his angelic nature, a kind of empire in the liquid waste or air, yet this is certainly part of his punishment, that he is . . . without any fixed place, or space, allowed him to rest the sole of his foot upon.
Daniel Defoe, The History of the Devil
A description of Satan, the primary adversary of God, as described in the Bible. An angel, formerly lofty in heaven, but now homeless.
Does Satan exist?
I don't know.
Rushdie is a fiction writer, not a self-described prophet like Muhammed, so where could be going with this?
The unfolding drama of his first chapter should reveal that.
''Self described'' refers to Muhammed's self description, accepted by his followers. Some claim fiction writers may also be prophets but they often do not describe themselves that way.
Can both descriptions have value?
Muhammed was certainly a prophet, because he testified to values beyond the scope of most human beings.
Whether or not a particular imaginative writer is also a prophet may depend on how one interprets the depth of their message.
The creative sensitivities of both authors are evident in those contrastive openings.
This is so even though the openings refer to two total opposites, the creator of the universe and his former lieutenant, now turned rebel, Satan.
These spiritual identities occur in the same religious universe, the Abrahamic tradition represented by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Muhammed's own Koranic lines come through his own verbal expression, though attributed to divine inspiration.
Those of Rushdie are a quote from another writer, but a quote dramatizing powerful imagistic resonance, potent visual force, a vivid evocation of a tragic state.
Clearly, we have here two masters in the art of language, vivifying for us an invisible universe, since neither the creator of the universe or Satan are known as visible entities.
Muhammed projects this vivification through ideational rhythm, a musical balance of ideas, between mercy and wrath, between cosmic creativity and sensitivity to the individual human petitioner, the entire sequence shot through by profound emotional force in the face of the ultimate arbiter of existence, its creator, sustainer and judge.
Rushdie's quote from Daniel Defoe, on the other hand, is also elevated in ideational evocation, lifting the mind to engage the material world, air and other elements, in relation to a mighty but tragic spiritual identity, a creative projection scintillating in its expansion of the mind's imaginative force, its capacity to ''see'' through thought, but the picture generated is one meant to inspire caution and repellence, not identification, as in the Koranic opening.
Two authors, separated by centuries, by very different personalities and histories, in very different parts of the world, but both engaging similar subjects from very different angles.
Where is each of them going with this?
Background to this Post
''Everyone, Muslims and Non-Muslims, Should Read Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses'', Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
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