CHAPTER X / An Arrangement Pointing Out the Author
An Arrangement Pointing Out the Author
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When we consider carefully the timing of the revelation of the Qur’anic passages and surahs and their arrangement, we are profoundly astonished.
We almost belie what we see and hear. We then begin to ask ourselves for an explanation of this highly improbable phenomenon:
is it not true that this new passage of revelation has just been heard as new, addressing a particular event which is its only concern?
Yet it sounds as though it is neither new nor separate from the rest.
It seems as if it has been, along with the rest of the Qur’an, perfectly impressed on this man’s mind long before he has recited it to us.
It has been fully engraved on his heart before its composition in the words he recites.
How else can it unite so perfectly and harmoniously parts and pieces that do not naturally come together?
Why has the person receiving these passages not left them separate as they were initially revealed?
And when he decided to group them together, why has he not made of them a single set?
Or put them in equal or similar sets? What basis has he followed in their collation, distribution and arrangement in the present fashion, before they were complete in full or in part?
Can all this be by mere coincidence? Certainly not; for each situation is clearly intended as it is.
The deliberate intention is also clear that every group of passages or verses should be joined together in a separate unit of a particular length and arrangement.
Or is it possible that all these arrangements, intended as they may be, do not follow a predetermined order,
but have come about as a result of an experiment that follows a spontaneous thought? That could not be the case.
When each part was put in its position, the one who placed them never had a new thought or introduced any modification or rearrangement.
How then could he have determined his plan? And how could he have made his intention so clear in advance?
That is the line of questioning that we may ask ourselves.
When we listen attentively to the logical answer, it will have to run in the following fashion:
A person who dares to make such a detailed and perfectly planned design must be either a deeply ignorant one or one who has perfect and absolute knowledge that transcends human logic.
There can be no other alternative.
If he is one who has completed its perfect system of composition and arrangement before he has had complete and confirmed knowledge of the reasons behind the composition of each passage,
its purpose, objectives and what it entails, then he merely resorts to guesswork and random preference.
Such a person is a shameless impudent who dares to claim for himself what he does not have.
His vain boasting will soon prove to be otiose.
You only need to leave him alone for a while and the fallacy of his position will be made clearly apparent.
It is not possible that ignorance should give birth to a solid system that lasts and flourishes.
If, on the other hand, this person has made his design on the basis of infallible knowledge,
placing every verse and every passage in its perfectly designed position, then the system he comes up with must be unquestionably perfect and splendidly beautiful.
But then the designer cannot be that human being, unless it has been imparted to him by a source well beyond his highest horizon.
How is it possible for a human being, subject as he is to the effect of time, to be in control of the nature of time?
When a human being is completely ignorant of the causes and preliminaries of his action, can he be well aware of the details of its results and consequences?
Can he be completely unaware, yet perfectly aware, of the one and same thing?
Is it possible that he should be subject to, and in control of, the same thing, at the same time?
Has anyone ever seen or heard that a poet or a man of letters was able at the start of his literary career to collect all that he would ever say or write of poetry or prose on all future occasions right to the point of his death.
He would then devise a plan for his future edition of his complete works which does not merely predict their themes and chapters,
but perfectly estimates the number of poems and articles that each theme and chapter will include and defines for each future poem and article its exact position in the ultimate edition.
Then when in his future life the time arrives for any such work to be produced,
he would put it in its pre-defined position without question.
What is more is that his plan would score an unqualified success, showing the wisdom of his planning and fulfilling his dreams.
His system will appear to all and sundry to be perfect, putting all his future works in their respective pre-arranged positions, changing nothing and modifying nothing.
If such a hypothesis can ever be true of anyone, it will be true of the Prophet who delivered the Qur’an. But man remains what he is.
A human being who is totally unaware of future events in his life that will prompt him to express his thoughts in prose or poetry...
is less likely to be aware of the actual text of what he will say, and further unlikely to know the merit of each text.
Indeed, when a person feels the urge to compose something, he will choose one of two options.
The first is to leave his thought as he has expressed it.
He does the same with what he writes or says on subsequent occasions.
When he has composed enough material, he goes back to what he has written, putting like with like...
separating what needs to be put apart, classifying and arranging his work in a suitable and coherent order.
The second option is to gather these texts according to their chronological order.
There is a third option, which is to leave them in groups.
He will then work on each group separately, putting its parts together in a rigid and haphazard way, not allowing any piece to be shifted from its original place.
He will still hope that in this way, he will come up with a well ordered and classified work, perfectly arranged into parts and chapters.
What is more is that his work will show an unusual degree of coherence that puts every sentence, word and particle in its right place.
Such an option will only produce the opposite of what one desires.
Page IV
Perfect Unity of Whole and Part
We have seen how human beings work when they try to produce a coherent whole out of separate parts...
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