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Immanence, Self-Experience, and Transcendence in Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein and Karl Jaspers

Immanence, Self-Experience, and Transcendence in Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein and Karl Jaspers

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Publisher: www.researchrepository.ucd.ie
English

This book is corrected and edited by Al-Hassanain (p) Institue for Islamic Heritage and Thought

Immanence, Self-Experience, and Transcendence in Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein and Karl Jaspers

Dermot Moran

(University College Dublin)

Table of Contents

Phenomenology and Transcendence: The Problem   4

Immanence and Transcendence in Husserl’s Phenomenology  8

Transcendence in Husserl’s Ideas I (1913) 11

Karl Jaspers on Transcendence 16

Edith Stein’s Starting-Point: Natural Experience 19

Phenomenology and the Meaning of Being  21

Edith Stein and the Recognition of the Eternal at the heart of the Finite 22

Notes 26

In memory of Gerry Hanratty

Phenomenology and Transcendence: The Problem

Phenomenology’s relationship with the concept of transcendence is not at all straightforward. Indeed, phenomenology, from its inception, has had an ambiguous, uneasy relationship with transcendence, with the wholly other, with the numinous. Phenomenology, as the French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion has recently emphasised, ispar excellence the philosophy of givenness, reflecting specifically on the ‘givenness’ of the given, on what Husserl speaks of as the ‘how’ (Wie ) or ‘mode’ (Art ,Weise ) of givenness.[1] Phenomenology deliberately restricts itself to describing carefully and without prejudice whatever isgiven to experience in the manner in which it is so given. Marion frames the essential question of phenomenology as: ‘Can the givenness in presence of each thing be realised without any condition of restriction?[2] But, if phenomenology is restricted to givenness, what becomes of that which is withheld or cannot in principle come to givenness? As such, and from the outset, then, theepoché of Husserlian phenomenology brackets the transcendent, and, specifically, traditional metaphysical or ontotheological conceptions of God as a transcendent being outside the world. Is, then, the relation between phenomenology and transcendence always one of distance and renunciation, or is another way of relating possible?

In this paper[3] I want to re-examine the role of the concept of ‘transcendence’ in phenomenology, focusing explicitly on the work of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Edith Stein (1891-1942), but I shall also refer briefly to the German philosopher of existence Karl Jaspers (1883-1969),[4] precisely because he made transcendence a central theme of his philosophy, and because of his influence on Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).[5] Heidegger’s conception of the transcendental and of transcendence appears to have come from hisAuseinandersetzung with his mentor Husserl,[6] but also from his close personal relationship during the 1920s with Karl Jaspers, the medic turned philosopher, who himself was greatly influenced by Kierkegaard and existential philosophy. Following a discussion of the Husserlian problematic of transcendence, I shall examine Edith Stein (1891-1942), specifically her work attempting to relate phenomenology to Thomistic ontology. Here I shall be concentrating on her understanding of being asfullness and of theego as the primary sense of being, as somehow encapsulating the mystery of being. Stein sees a way of combining the insights of Husserlian eidetic phenomenology with traditional Thomistic talk about the divine, to find a new way of articulating transcendence. What unites Husserl, Stein, Jaspers, and Heidegger is that they all accord a special place to the transcendence of the self, the transcendence of human existence, or the transcendence of Dasein. The paradox at the centre of their philosophies is that the most immanent self-experience is precisely that which reveals transcendence.

Transcendence means literally ‘going beyond’. In one sense, transcendence refers to the region of ‘otherness’, whatever lies beyond or is other, especially other than one’s self.[7] In this regard the French phenomenologist Natalie Depraz has claimed, for instance, that phenomenology isthe philosophy of otherness.[8] But, in Husserl’s

phenomenology, transcendence as going-beyond is intrinsically related to a deeper experience of selfhood or ‘self-experience’ (Selbsterfahrung ) such that, paradoxically, genuine transcendence has to be discovered in immanence. The original transcendence, for Husserl, is the living ego itself, in that it is directly experienced, and is temporally constituted and hence never completely capturable in a totalising view. The self is essentially self-transcending. Heidegger makes this ‘transcendence of Dasein’ into an essential part of existential analytic of human existence.

Both Husserl and Stein begin, as do in their own ways Saint Augustine and Descartes, with one’s own first-person experience of one’s own being. Self-experience, as Husserl argues in theCartesian Meditations [9] has to be the starting point and the measure for all other experiences if these experiences are to be captured purely under theepoché . Of course, that is not to say that self-experience ought to be considered as self-enclosed and solipsistic. Quite the reverse. Husserl and Stein both saw subjectivity as a one-sided abstraction from the interrelated nexus of concrete intersubjectivity. On the other hand, it would be phenomenologically inaccurate to deny that experience is deeply ‘egoic’ and first-personal in its core originary nature.

Stein received her doctoral training under Edmund Husserl, and was intimately involved in the theory and practice of Husserlian phenomenology (at Göttingen); but she later moved to embrace Catholicism, and in her mature writings offers a very original and independent re-conceptualisation of the Thomistic heritage illuminated by her phenomenological background. This work of synthesis between phenomenology and Thomist metaphysics receives its fullest articulation in herEndliches und Ewiges Sein (Finite and Eternal Being , 1936)[10] , a book written, as she said echoing Husserl’s own view of himself as a phenomenologist, ‘by a beginner for beginners’ (FEB, p. xxvii), to explain Thomistic philosophy for the modern mind. In this work, Stein explicitly acknowledges that she wants to use Husserlian phenomenology as a way of gaining access to Thomistic or ‘scholastic’ thought (FEB, p. 12).Finite and Eternal Being , a vast compendium of speculative commentary on key Aristotelian and Thomistic concepts, including a kind of new cosmology, is at its core a very deep appreciation of the experience of being asfullness , a concept that unites Husserl and Aquinas, albeit that Husserl is attempting to approach being precisely from its experiential meaningfulness as given.

Husserl’s own leanings towards empiricism and his suspicion of Hegelian invocations of the absolute led him to distrust metaphysical speculation that was not grounded phenomenologically. Furthermore, when he embraced the Kantian critical and ‘transcendental’ approach, he further distanced himself from naïve discussions of the transcendent. But transcendence is problematic for Husserl for an even more essential reason, namely because of the methodological strictures phenomenology imposes on itself with regard to the importation of speculative assumptions. Indeed, it is one of the explicit functions of Husserl’s ‘bracketing’ or ‘suspension’ (epoché ) to exclude consideration of the transcendent, at least in the sense of that which may in principle be considered apart from consciousness. If there

is to be transcendence, for the mature Husserl, then this is always transcendence under theepoché ; it is ‘transcendence-within-immanence’ hence not pure ‘transcendence’. As Husserl says in his programmaticIdeas I (1913)[11] , the eidetic attitude of phenomenology after the reduction ‘excludes every sort of transcendence’ (Ideas I § 86, p. 209; III/1 178). Yet, paradoxically, as Husserl will attest in hisFormal and Transcendental Logic (1929)[12] , it is an essential part of phenomenology’s brief to explore ‘the sense of transcendence’ (Sinn der Transzendenz , FTL § 93c, p. 230; Hua XVII: 237), that is, the manner in which we have experience of an objective world as such.

While Husserl always insisted that phenomenology proceeds in immanence, in an important essay on the relation between Thomism and phenomenology, Edith Stein points out that Husserl was seeking a region ofgenuine immanence in the sense of a region of immediate, inviolable self-givenness, from which all doubt is excluded, but no matter how much he attempted to transcendentally purify his starting point, ‘traces of transcendence showed up’[13] . Stein maintains this is because Husserl’s ideal of knowledge is in fact divine knowledge, where knowing and being are one and where there is no transcendence (a version of the ‘view from nowhere’), where knowledge is simply disclosure of the given without mediation or obstruction or slant. In other words, for Stein in her critique of Husserl, his philosophy of pure immanence cannot escape transcendence. The finite and determined has to open up to the infinite, undetermined and indeterminate.

In thinking of ‘transcendence’, Husserlian phenomenology begins by rejecting thinking of transcendence framed in Cartesian terms, paradigmatic in modern epistemology, whereby the central question is how totranscend the closed sphere of subjectivity in order to attain to an ‘external’ objectivity beyond the subject. This conception of trancendence as objectivity opposed to subjectivity is precisely what comes to be challenged in Kantian critical philosophy. Consider the question famously formulated by Immanuel Kant is hisLetter to Markus Herz of 21 February 1772 (translated in Zweig, 1967, 70-76), a letter written some years before the First Critique but still considered to express the essentials of the transcendental turn. Kant asked:

What is the ground of the relation of that in us which we call “representation” [Vorstellung ] to the object [Gegenstand ]? If a representation is only a way in which the subject [subiect ] is affected by the object, then it is easy to see how the representation is in conformity with this object, namely, as an effect in accord with its cause, and it is easy to see how this modification of our mind canrepresent something, that is, have an object. … In the same way, if that in us which we call “representation” were active with regard to the object [des obiects ], that is, if the object itself were created by the representation (as when divine cognitions are conceived as the archetypes of all things), the conformity of these representations to their objects could be understood. … However, our understanding, through its representations, is not the cause of the object (save in the case of moral ends) nor is the object [Gegenstand ] the cause of the intellectual representations in the mind (in sensu reali ). Therefore the pure concepts of the understanding must not be abstracted from sense perceptions, nor must

they express the reception of representations through the senses; but though they must have their origin in the nature of the soul, they are neither caused by the object [vom Obiect ] nor bring the object [das obiect ] itself into being. (Zweig, 1967, 71-2)[14]

Kant is the source of most twentieth-centurty worries about transcendence (in so far as ‘things in themselves’ transcend every possibility of being meaningfully cognised) and his recommendation of a transcendental turn, whereby we reflect on the subjective conditions that make transcendent objecthood possible, has dominated post-Kantian philosophy.

But Kant also recognises the inalienability of the human desire for transcendence, and this recognition inspired philosophers such as Jacobi to attempt to find again a place for a faith that grasped the transcendent in a way inaccessible to reason. As Hegel comments in his ‘Faith and Knowledge’ essay:

Reason, having in this way become mere intellect, acknowledges its own nothingness by placing that which is better than it in afaith outside and above itself, as abeyond [to be believed in]. This is what has happened in thephilosophies of Kant, Jacobi, and Fichte. Philosophy has made itself the handmaid of a faith once more.

Husserl actually tries to find a new way to understand transcendence, not by assigning it to a suprarational faculty or to faith, but rather by rethinking it from within the concept of phenomenologicalgivenness , as we shall see.

Both senses of transcendence (as that which cannot be attained but also as that which must be sought) found in Kant continue to play a significant role in Husserlian and especially in post-Husserlian phenomenology (Levinas, Marion, Henry). Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), for instance, speaks of the desire for the absolutely ‘other’,Autre But this tendency in Levinas and recent phenomenology is somewhat at odds with Husserl and Stein who begin with self-experience. Let us now examine Husserl in more detail.

Immanence and Transcendence in Husserl’s Phenomenology

There are a number of concepts of transcendence at play in Husserl’s thought and it is not clear that these different senses of transcendence ever get fully resolved in his writing. The term ‘transcendence’ does not occur in the First Edition of theLogical Investigations (1900-01). It appears in his writing more or less simultaneously with his discovery of the reduction (c. 1905) and is prominent inThe Idea of Phenomenology lectures of 1907.[15] As Stein puts it, Husserl’s ‘absolute starting point’ for phenomenology is theimmanence of consciousness to which is contrasted the transcendence of the world.[16] But in fact this only a first sense of transcendence. In his mature publications beginning withIdeas I, Husserl explores a deeper sense of transcendence, as we shall see, whereby corporeal things are transcendent because their essence contains a kind of infinity that is never intuitable in a completely adequate and fulfilled way. Every thing is graspable only through a manifold of ‘adumbrations’ (Abschattungen ) and ‘aspects’ (Aspekte ), which can never be fully actualised by a finite cognising mind. Even the corporeal thing, then, is in essence what Husserl calls a ‘Kantian idea’, a manifold of infinite perspectives.

As the French phenomenologist Michel Henry has recognised, one of the first places where Husserl tackles the issue of transcendence and immanence is in his 1907Idea of Phenomenology lectures.[17] Husserl begins with the classic epistemological problem – how do I know that I know? How do I know that my knowledge is secure? Husserl characterises this classic epistemological problem as the problem of transcendence (IP, p. 28; Hua II: 36). The ‘riddle’ of knowledge is put in Kantian terms as the possibility of its contact with the transcendent (IP, p. 33; Hua II: 43). Nothing transcendent can be taken as pre-given; as Husserl writes: ‘The transcendence of the thing requires that we put the thing in question’ (IP, p. 38; Hua II: 49)

According to Husserl, the very nature of thecontact (Triftigkeit - a phrase inherited from Kant) with the transcendent is precisely what the traditional epistemologist cannot master. Some philosophers have abandoned the possibility that knowledge can be in contact with the transcendent and, at that point, what remains to be explained in how the prejudice has arisen whereby it is assumed that human knowledge does reach the transcendent. For Husserl, it is Hume who took this latter route. For Husserl, on the other hand, the epistemological reduction must be performed whereby every transcendence is excluded, and intentional connections of meaningfulness are revealed.

Overcoming the probematic of traditional epistemology, Husserl defines a new kind of givenness -- ‘absolute givenness’ -- which he attaches to the very act of conscious experiencing itself, to every ‘thought’ or cogitatio. This leads Husserl to declare in the Second Lecture of the Idea of Phenomenology:

Every intellectual experience, indeed every experience whatsoever, can be made into an object of pure seeing and apprehension while it is

occurring. And in this act of seeing, it is an absolute givenness. (IP, p. 24; Hua II: 31 )

The stream of experience given in reflection has ‘absolute givenness’. Husserl goes on to discuss the manner in which the given is immanent in our experience while at the same time emphasising that there is no actual thing present or immanent in the actual occurringErlebnis . This leads to a double meaning for transcendence:

…it can refer to the fact that the known object is not really [reell ] contained in the act of knowing (IP, p. 27; Hua II: 35)

But

…there isanother sense of transcendence , whose counterpart is an entirely different kind of immanence, namely,absolute andclear givenness ,self-givenness in the absolute sense . (IP, p. 27; Hua II: 35)

This absolute self-givenness consists in ‘an immediate act of seeing and apprehending the meant objectivity itself as it is’. Only the immanentcogitatio is given. The problem now becomes for Husserl how to safeguard the purity of the phenomenon of thecogitatio from contamination by our prejudices including the psychological reading of thecogitatio (as a psychological fact, a datum in space-time, and so on). This purification for Husserl goes beyond the epistemological reduction and he calls it the ‘phenomenological reduction’ (IP, p. 34; Hua II: 44) whose aim is to purify the ‘psychological’ phenomenon into the absolute givenness of pure phenomenon. Husserl contrasts this absolute givenness of the immanent with the ‘quasi-givennesses’ (Quasi-Gegebenheiten , Hua II: 45) of transcendent objects. The pure phenomenon contains an intentional referring beyond itself but that must be treated precisely as it is given in immanent seeing and this brings us squarely into the phenomenological perspective, or as Husserl puts it, ‘and thus we drop anchor on the shore of phenomenology’ (und so werfen wir schon Anker an der Küste der Phänomenologie , IP, p. 34; Hua II: 45).

Continuing the metaphor Husserl warns that this shore has its share of rocks, is covered by clouds of obscurity and threatened with the gales of scepticism. We have what is given absolutely and purely in immanence:

On the other hand, the relation to something transcendent, whether I question the existence (Sein ) of the transcendent object or the ability of the relation to make contact (Triftigkeit ) with it, still contains something that can be apprehended within the pure phenomenon. The relating-itself-to-something transcendent (Das sich-auf-Transzendentes-beziehen ), to refer to it in one way or another, is an inner characteristic of the phenomenon. (IP, p. 35; Hua II: 46)

It is worth rehearsing Husserl’s first tentative uncovering of the transcendent at the heart of the immanent in these lectures as a guide to what is the relation between phenomenology and transcendence. Not every transcendence is excluded; there is a genuine transcendence recognised that is the counterpart of the pure immanence of absolute givenness. But about this genuine transcendence Husserl has little to say in these years other than to point to the subject-transcending nature of validity, truth and other values.

From out of the ‘Heraclitean stream ofErlebnisse (IP, p. 36; Hua II 47) comes a consciousness of unity, of identity, of transcendence, objectivity, and so on. How is that possible? Husserl furthermore acknowledges that the mere apprehension of thecogitatio in itself is of little value, what matters is the turn towards theeidos . Indeed, the possibility of the critique of knowledge depends on the recognition of forms of givenness other than the singularhic et nunc . We already move beyond thesecogitationes themselves when we make judgements about what is true, valid, and so on.

The first genuine transcendence within immanence is then the intuition of theeidos . In later works, specificallyIdeas I andCartesian Meditations , Husserl is particularly interested in the manner in which the givenness of the world transcends the imperfect type of evidences that display it (CM § 28 Hua I: 61-2) and no imaginable synthesis can bring the world to adequate evidence. The being of the world necessarily transcends consciousness; nevertheless the world is inseparable from transcendental subjectivity.

Transcendence in Husserl’s Ideas I (1913)

InIdeas I (1913), transcendence is again discussed in a number of places from different points of view. As inThe Idea of Phenomenology lectures, the transcendence of the physical thing is contrasted with the ‘immanence’ of the conscious experience apprehending it (Ideas I § 42, p. 89; Hua III/1: 76). This transcendence is not merely the fact that the thing is not ‘inside’ the conscious experience. There is also the eidetic insight that a physical thing can never be captured by anyErlebnis and this distinguishes it essentially from any episode of consciousness. This is not the same as the transcendence in which another person’s conscious experiences are recognised in empathy, Husserl says.

The physical thing is said to be, in itself, unqualifiedly transcendent. (Ideas I § 42, p. 90; Hua III/1: 77)

There is an essential contrast between the ‘mode of givenness’ (Gegebenheitsart ) of something immanent and that of something transcendent. A physical thing is adumbrated while a mental process is not. For Husserl, is almost an article of faith that what is absolutely given in immanent consciousness cannot in principle be given in profiles or adumbrations.

However, it is at this point that Husserl’s idealist commitments enter the picture because he goes on to talk about the merely ‘phenomenal being’ of the transcendent as opposed to the absolute being of the immanent ((Ideas I § 44). A physical thing is ‘undetermined’ (unbestimmt ) as to its hidden sides, but it remains infinitely ‘determinable’ (bestimmbar ). The thing is graspable in a highly regulated series of possible perceptions but there always remains a ‘horizon of determinable indeterminateness’ (ein Horizont bestimmbarer Unbestimmtheit ,Ideas I § 44, p. 95; III/1 81). No God can alter that, Husserl remarks. In this sense, the physical thing is really an ‘Idea in the Kantian sense’ (Ideas I § 143, p. 342; III/1 297-8). The idea of a physical thing has ‘dimensions of infinity’ included in it (III/1 § 143, p. 360; 313).

As Christian Lotz has shown[18] , Husserl applies the language of regulative ideas in a rather loose manner, namely, to the constitution of perceptual objects , to the unity of theErlebnisstrom (Ideas I § 83, p. 197, III/1: 166), to the world as such (Hua VII: 276; CM I: 98), to essences of exact types (Hua III/1: 6; also § 74, p. 166; Hua III/1: 138), and, finally, in a certain sense, to his own philosophy and the infinity of the phenomenological task. There are therefore many transcendencies in Husserl but a central intuition is that the experience of time is intimately wrapped up with the experience of the transcendent (Ideas I § 149).

Essentially correlated with the notion of givenness is the notion of a possible consciousness perceiving it (Ideas I § 142). Husserl more and more wants to examine the nature of the transcendental ego as that which is there to apprehend the givenness of thr world. The primary infinity, for the mature Husserl, is the transcendental ego itself, which he calls the most basic or ‘original concept’ (Urbegriff, Hua XXXV: 261) of phenomenology. Moreover, as he will put it in theCartesian Meditations , the science of

transcendental subjectivity is the sphere of ‘absolute phenomenology’ (CM § 35), the ultimate science (FTL § 103). Thus, in 1927, Husserl could write:

The clarification of the idea of my pure ego and my pure life - of my psyche in its pure specific essentiality and individual uniqueness is the basis (das Fundament ) for the clarification of all psychological and phenomenological ideas. (Hua XIV: 438, my translation)

Husserl’s analysis of the ego widened to include a range of related issues: the unity of consciousness, the nature of self, subjectivity, and personhood, the ‘communalisation’ of the self (Vergemeinschaftung , Hua I: 149) with the ‘open plurality of other egos’ (FTL§ 104), amounting to the whole ‘intersubjective cognitive community’ (FTL § 96), or what Husserl in his ‘reconstruction’(Hua XV: 609) of Leibniz, callsmonadology (see CM § 55).

FromIdeas I onwards, Husserl characterises the ego as an ‘I-pole’ (Ichpol ) or ‘I-centre’ (Ich-Zentrum ), ‘the centre of all affections and actions’ (IV 105). It is a ‘centre’ from which ‘radiations’ (Ausstrahlungen ) or ‘rays of regard’ stream out ortowards which rays of attention are directed. It is the centre of a ‘field of interests’ (Interessenfeld ), the ‘substrate of habitualities’ (CM Hua I: 103), ‘the substrate of the totality of capacities’ (Substrat der Allheit der Vermögen , Hua XXXIV: 200). This I ‘governs’, it is an ‘I holding sway’ (das waltende Ich , Hua XIV: 457) in conscious life (IV 108), yet it is also ‘passively affected’. In its full concretion’ (Hua XIV: 26), it is aself with convictions, values, an outlook, a history, a style, and so on: ‘The ego constitutes itselffor itself in, so to speak, the unity of a history’ (CM IV, p. 75; Hua I: 109). It is present in all conscious experience and ‘cannot be struck out’ (undurchsteichbar ). It is more than a formal principle of unity (in the sense of Kant’s unity of apperception), since it has a living, growing, unifying nature. It is also grossly misunderstood if it is treated as a ‘piece of the world’; it is not a ‘thing’ orres at all, rather it both asanonymous source of all meaningfulness and as a growing, developing self, with a history and a future, in relation to other selves, possessinglife in the fullest sense of the word. The transcendental ego covers ‘the universe of the possible forms of lived experience’ (CM § 36).

Husserl sees the ‘self-explication’ (Selbstauslegung XXXIV 228) of the transcendental ego as a set of ‘great tasks’ (CM § 29), but it is beset by paradoxes such as: How can the ego be that which constitutes the world and also that which is concretised, mundanised and corporealised in the world? How can the transcendental ego, the source of all meaning and being, inquire into itself as a meaning- and being-constituting entity? Part of the complexity stems from the very self-referentiality of the ego’s self-knowledge. How can I inquire into what founds me as a self? When I as investigator turn to examine the ego, I am in factdoubling back on myself, inquiring into what constitutes meas functioning self. This necessarily involves a ‘splitting of the ego’ (Ichspaltung ), and is extraordinarily difficult to carry out without lapsing into various forms of transcendental illusion. Indeed, Husserl acknowledges, even to say that I who reflects is ‘I’ involves a certain equivocation (VI 188). Yet, there is both identity and difference in this I. The reflecting ego is in a different attitude and different temporal

dimension from the ego reflected on, yet there is a consciousness of the unity or ‘coincidence’ (Deckung ) of the two.

Husserl’s transcendental idealism claims that the objectivity of the transcendent real world outside of us is an achievement of ‘transcendental intersubjectivity’. This is already articulated in his 1910/1911 lectures (e.g. Hua XIII: 184) but it is constantly reiterated in later works, e.g. the 1928Amsterdam Lectures :

Transcendental intersubjectivity is the absolute and only self-sufficient foundation (Seinsboden ). Out of it are created draws the meaning and validity of everything objective, the totality of objectively real existent entities, but also every ideal world as well. An objectively existent thing is from first to last an existent thing only in a peculiar, relative and incomplete sense. It is an existent thing, so to speak, only on the basis of a cover-up of its transcendental constitution that goes unnoticed in the natural attitude.[19]

Everything we experience as transcendent has the ‘value’ written on it ‘valid for all’,für Jedermann . Everything I experience outwardly is in principle what someone else could experience. This is the very meaning of objectivity (note that Husserl reconstrues the assertions of ideality of LU into the language of intersubjective constitution in later works). The world of spirit coheres into a unity, for Husserl. It is a goal-oriented, rational, communicative world, a ‘community of monads’ (Monadgemeinschaft ), a ‘world of development’ (eine Welt der Entwicklung ), where, according to one lecture, as in Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy, everything takes place for the sake of the Good.[20]

According to Husserl, the discovery of the transcendental brings with it a responsibility to live life on a new level. One remains a ‘child of the world’ (Weltkind , VIII 123; XXXIV 12), but one is also a disinterested spectator grasping this natural life as the unfolding work of the transcendental ego. The meditator must live thereafter in the very splitting of consciousness brought about by theepoché . There is no going back from theepoché , no healing of the split in consciousness. Genuine transcendental idealism requires livingboth in the natural attitude and in the transcendental philosophical attitude, and somehow achieving a ‘synthesis’ of these two attitudes (Hua XXXIV: 16-17). For Husserl the adoption of the transcendental attitude is like a person born blind who recovers his sight as a result of an operation (Hua VIII: 122). The newly disclosed world looks completely new and one cannot rely on any of one’s previous habits and convictions with regard to this entirely new landscape. We have left behind the childhood of naïve natural existence and have entered, to invoke Husserl’s own frequent religious imagery, ‘the kingdom of pure spirit’ (Reich des reinen Geistes , Hua VIII: 123).

In theCartesian Meditations it is precisely the realisation that all being and sense comes from the transcendental ego that provokes the profound meditation in the Fifth Meditation on the meaning of the experience of the other. How can the other in principle show itself within the horizons of my self-experience? Husserl here talks of an ‘immanent transcendence’ (CM V, § 47):

Within this “original sphere ” (the sphere of original self-explication) we find also a “transcendent world”… (CM § 47, pp. 104-5; Hua I 135).

The puzzle is that the objective world, the ‘first transcendence’ is always already there for me as fully formed, but at the same time it is somehow a result of constitution by the transcendental ego.

As I mentioned at the outset, one of phenomenology’s tasks is to explore ‘the sense of transcendence’ (Sinn der Transzendenz , FTL § 93c, p. 230; Hua XVII: 237). Again:

If what is experienced has the sense of ‘transcendent’ being, then it is the experiencing that constitutes this sense, and does so either by itself or in the whole motivational nexus pertaining to it and helping to make up its intentionality. (FTL § 94, p. 233; XVII: 240).

Husserl makes the very important point inFormal and Transcendental Logic § 99 that nothing (neither world nor any existent) comes to me ‘from without’ (he uses the Greek adverb:thúrathen ) Rather

Everything outside (Alles Aussen ) is what it is in this inside (in diesem Innen ), and gets its true being from the givings of it itself (Selbstgebungen ), and from the verifications (Bewährungen ), within this inside - its true being, which for that very reason is itself something that itself belongs to this inside: as a pole of unity in my (and then, intersubjectively, in our) actual and possibile multiplicities (Mannigfaltigkeiten ), with possibilities as my abilities, as ‘I can go there’, ‘I could perform syntactical operations, and so on. (FTL § 99, p. 250; XVII 257)

Transcendental phenomenology, according to theCrisis of European Sciences (1936)[21] even expresses the inner essence of religion (Crisis § 53, Hua VI: 184) and provides Husserl as a deeply religious in unconventional Christian - with the only philosophically justified basis for comprehending God, given the ‘absurdity’ of thinking of Him as an item in the factual world (seeIdeas I § 51Anmerkung ). As he puts it in FTL:

Even God is for me what he is, in consequence of my own productivity of consciousness. (FTL § 99, p. 251; Hua XVII: 258).

Husserl goes on to insist that this does not mean that consciousness ‘makes’ or ‘invents’ (erfinde ) God, this ‘highest transcendence’ (diese höchste Transzendenz , XVII 258).

As we have seen, the concept of the transcendent in Husserl is multifaceted. In his mature writings it is most often encountered in relation to discussions of transcendental philosophy. InCrisis § 14 for instance, Husserl contrasts traditional objectivism in philosophy with what he calls ‘transcendentalism’. Here he defines transcendentalism as follows:

Transcendentalism, on the other hand, says: the ontic meaning of the pregiven life-world is a subjective structure [Gebilde ], it is the achievment of experiencing, pre-scientific life. In this life the meaning and the ontic validity [Seinsgeltung ] of the world are built up - of that particular world that is, which is actually valid for the individual experiencer. As for the “objectively true” world, the world of science, it is a structure at a higher level, built on prescientific experiencing and thinking, or rather on its accomplishments of validity (Geltungsleistungen ). Only a radical inquiry back into subjectivity - and specifically the subjectivity which ultimately

brings about all world-validity, with its content, and in all its prescientific and scientific modes, and into the “what” and the “how” of the rational accomplishments - can make objective truth comprehensible and arrive at the ultimate ontic meaning of the world. (Crisis , p. 69).

Husserl sees the traditional, Cartesian problematic of epistemology as the problem of transcendence (CM IV, p. 81; I 115): how can the certainties I arrive at in the immanent stream of my conscious life acquire objective significance? (CM IV, p. 82; I 116). How can evidence claim to be more than a characteristic of consciousness and actually build up to the experience of an objective world as a whole? What the reduction shows is that this is a non-question because all transcendence is constituted within the domain of transcendental subjectivity:

Transcendence in every form is a within-the-ego self-constituting being-sense. Every imaginable sense, every imaginable being, whether the latter is called immanent or transcendent, falls within the domain of transcendental subjectivity, as the subjectivity that constitutes sense and being. (CM IV, p. 83-84; Hua I: 117, trans modified).

The transcendental ego is the ‘universe of possible sense’ and hence to speak of an ‘outside’ is precisely nonsense (CM Hua I: 117).

Section 1: The Qur’an Contains Signs From the All-Wise

Surah Yunus - Verse 1

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful

الر تِلْكَ ءَايَاتُ الْكِتَابِ الْحَكِيمِ

1. “Alif ‘A’, Lam ‘L’, Ra ‘R’. These are the verses of the Book of Wisdom.”

It is noteworthy that six consecutive suras of the Qur’an begin with abbreviated letters which are recited: Alif, Lam, Ra. These Suras are: Yunus, Hud, Yusuf, Ar-Ra‘d (with an exception, of course), ’Ibrahim, and Al-Hijr. Each of these letters is an indication to the Names of Allah or to some other things which have been explained at the beginning of Surah Al-Baqarah.

The Arabic word /tilka/ refers to the verses that are found in this Surah.

The objective meaning of the Qur’anic phrase /al kitab il hakim/ is the “Protected Tablet” or the Qur’an. Since it contains wisdom and teaches by means of wisdom, it is therefore Wise.

In other words; the Qur’an has a high rank, because the Holy Book itself is Wise. Simultaneously, while it contains both teachings of wisdom and is wise in content, it is a judge and an arbitrator as well. It remains intact from hostile elements and history and the passage of time can leave no impact upon it. It is “the Book of Wisdom”.

Surah Yunus - Verse 2

أَكَانَ لِلنَّاسِ عَجَباً أَنْ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَي رَجُلٍ مِنْهُمْ أَنْ أَنذِرِ النَّاسَ وَبَشّرِ الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا أَنَّ لَهُمْ قَدَمَ صِدْقٍ عِنْدَ رَبّهِمْ قَالَ الْكَافِرُونَ إِنَّ هَذَا لَسَاحِرٌ مُبِينٌ

2. “Was it a wonder to the people that We revealed to a man from among themselves that he should warn mankind and give good tidings to those who believe that they have before their Lord the rank of Truth? (While) the unbelievers say: ‘This is indeed an evident sorcerer!’”

The verses of wisdom of the Qur’an are composed of the same letters and sounds that are just like Alif, Lam, and Ra.

Their differences with other statements lie in the fact that they are intermingled with divine wisdom, the sort of which is so encompassing that it exposes the truth, and drags mankind to guidance, but the people do not believe this fact that a man, selected from among themselves, can receive revelations from Allah.

This matter is not surprising, since the aim of revelation is to warn the people and give glad tidings to the believers notifying them of the high esteem in which they are being held with their Creator. If they believe firmly in Him, He guides them and rewards them accordingly1 !

The verse says:

“Was it a wonder to the people that We revealed to a man from among themselves that he should warn mankind and give good tidings to those who believe that they have before their Lord the rank of Truth?…”

The idolaters, however, said that “this man” (meaning the Prophet (S), must have obviously been a sorcerer and a magician since he brought something that could not be brought by others.

The verse continues saying:

“…(While) the unbelievers say: ‘This is indeed an evident sorcerer!’”

The disbelievers considered prophecy as sorcery and, because of their short sightedness, dark heartedness, and lack of understanding, they could mostly not grasp the truth and distinguish the difference between miracles and the work of magicians.

Surah Yunus - Verse 3

إِنَّ رَبَّكُمُ اللّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ ثُمَّ اسْتَوَي عَلَي الْعَرْشِ يُدَبِّرُ الاَمْرَ مَا مِن شَفِيعٍ إِلاَّ مِنْ بَعْدِ إِذْنِهِ ذَلِكُمُ اللّهُ رَبُّكُمْ فَاعْبُدُوهُ أَفَلاَ تَذَكَّرُونَ

3. “Verily, your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the Earth in six Days. Then He established Himself on ‘Arsh (the Throne), directing the affair. No intercessor can there be except after (obtaining) His leave. This is Allah your Lord; Him therefore worship you: will you not remember?”

The objective meaning of ‘Six Days’ is six periods of time in the course of creation.

The ‘throne’ (‘arsh) alludes to power and omnipotence. When one says someone was enthroned or overthrown, he implies that he was elevated in power or stripped of his power. Allah’s comprehensive authority extends all over existence both before the creation of the earth and the heavens and after their creation.

The Qur’an says:

“And His ‘Arsh (throne) was over the water.”2

Even next to the end of the world and during the Resurrection, Allah’s omnipotence over all existence will remain intact, too.

The Qur’an says:

“…and above them eight shall bear on that Day your Lord’s ‘Arsh (throne).”3

Messages

1. Acquiring knowledge about Allah (s.w.t.) should precede worshipping Him.

2. Worship must be kept exclusively for Him Who has the power to create and administer all the affairs of creation and to no one else.

3. The creation of the world has been accomplished according to a plan and an arranged program, (in six days). When there are pre-ordaining plans for all beings in the system of creation, how can one think of human beings, who are the outstanding achievements of the creative process, to be without any planned destiny?

The verse says:

“Verily, your Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the Earth in six Days. Then He established Himself on ‘Arsh (the Throne), directing the affair. ...”

4. Allah has created the entire existence and is in full command, administering it with wisdom while leaving no one in charge of any part without His prior approval.

5. Any effort at mediation by any being must meet with His approval. Thus one, such as idols, cannot be unduly appointed as an intercessor.

The verse says:

“…No intercessor can there be except after (obtaining) His leave...”

6. Extremists might try to introduce the Creator as Allah, nevertheless they consider themselves as competent policy-makers and able to separate religion from politics.

It says:

“…This is Allah your Lord; Him therefore worship you:…”

Man believes in his Creator. He only needs to be reminded.

The verse concludes:

“…will you not remember?”

7. Deity is not separate from Lordship.

Surah Yunus - Verse 4

إِلَيْهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ جَمِيعاً وَعْدَ اللّهِ حَقّاً إِنَّهُ يَبْدَؤُ الْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُ لِيَجْزِيَ الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ بِالْقِسْطِ وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَهُمْ شَرَابٌ مِنْ حَمِيمٍ وَعَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْفُرُونَ

4. “To Him will be your return, all together. The promise of Allah is true. Verily He originates the (process of) creation, then He causes it to return, that He may reward with justice those who believe and do righteous deeds; but those who disbelieve, for them shall be a drink from the boiling fluids and a painful chastisement for what they used to reject.”

This verse puts forth both the principle of Resurrection (to Him will be your return), and its probability,

(…He originates the (process of) creation, then He causes it to return…).

This meaning is just like verse 19 of Surah Al-’A‘raf, No. 7 which states:

“…As He brought you forth in the beginning, so shall you return.”

And it also refers to the aim of Resurrection which involves punishment and reward.

The verse continues saying:

“…that He may reward with justice those who believe and do righteous deeds; but those who disbelieve, for them shall be a drink from the boiling fluids and a painful chastisement for what they used to reject.”

Therefore, those who are believers and have done good deeds will be rewarded in a just manner, leading them to Paradise. The share of the unbelievers will be a burning liquid made of boiling water that will torture them painfully and they will be kept in Hell forever.

Surah Yunus - Verse 5

هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَآءً وَالْقَمَرَ نُوراً وَقَدَّرَهُ مَنَازِلَ لِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ مَا خَلَقَ اللّهُ ذَلِكَ إِلاَّ بِالْحَقِّ يُفَصِّلُ الاَيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ

5. “He it is Who made the sun a radiation and the moon a light, and determined it by stations, that you might know the number of years and the reckoning (of time). Allah did not create that save in truth. (Thus) does He explain the Signs in detail, for a people who know.”

There are words used in the Qur’an for the sun, such as /siraj/ and /diya’/, which signify a strong and intensive light. As for the moon, the words used are /nur/ and /munir/ which signify even dim light as well.

From among the tokens of Allah’s designs in the world of existence and His absolute command over the universe, one can name the wise order spread throughout the entire cosmos. Do you not behold what a heat and what a light He has given to the sun?

They change with the changes of the sun in the morning and during the day, and manifest themselves in the variety of the seasons of the year. It varies at dawn and midday, not exceeding the limits at any extreme.

If the sun’s heat exceeds what it already is, all the earth would be incinerated, and if it decreases from its present temperature, the earth and what ever is in it will freeze, and in both cases, life will terminate in its totality.

If the light of the sun was extinguished you would no longer be able to see the moon for it borrows its light from the sun. It spreads its light at nighttime over the earth, residing temporarily in its different stages: as the full moon, as a crescent and occasionally disappearing altogether.

Through observing the regularity of these changes mankind can keep track of their days, months and years, organize their work and make plans with a schedule.

That is, it is an accurate natural calendar that can benefit both the sage and the illiterate for keeping track of the rhythm of their work in their daily-lives. This privilege of the moon is besides the light that it gives us.

The verse says:

“He it is Who made the sun a radiation and the moon a light, and determined it by stations, that you might know the number of years and the reckoning (of time)...”

Then the Qur’an implies that this process of creation and the revolution and rotation of the sun and the moon are not to be dismissed as trivial matters.

The verse continues saying:

“…Allah did not create that save in truth...”

The cloud and the wind, the moon and the sun move in the sky that you may earn your bread, and you should not eat it without being aware of your Provider.

At the end of the verse, the Qur’an emphasizes that Allah explains His verses for those who comprehend them although those who are ill-sighted and unaware overlook all these verses, not understanding the slightest thing from them.

It says:

“…(Thus) does He explain the Signs in detail, for a people who know.”

Surah Yunus - Verse 7

إِنَّ فِي اخْتِلاَفِ الَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ وَمَا خَلَقَ اللّهُ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ لاَيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَتَّقُونَ

6. “Verily, in the alternation of night and day, and all that Allah has created in the heavens and the earth, surely there are signs for a people who keep from evil.”

Allah has designed the universe in keeping with His Own magnificence and wisdom, the cycle of night and day, the overarching heavens, the fixed and moving stars, the animals, plants, inanimate objects, and all the rest of provisions and bounties provided in the earth are proofs and evidences upon His Oneness and Glory for those people who avoid committing sins and disobeying Allah for the fear of His punishment.

The fact that He only mentions the pious as those who reflect upon His Signs is an indication that it is only such people who take lessons by observing the worldly phenomena. The rest of mankind are blinded by their own negligence and ignorance; no phenomenon can affect on their hearts; thus, they cannot grasp the objectives of creation.

Incidentally, the word ‘alternation’ /’ixtilaf/, mentioned in the holy verse, signifies coming and going as well as variation. Thus the night and the day are different in some respects:

A. They alternatively substitute for each other. Allah says:

“… The sign of the night have We made to pass away and have We the sign of the day manifest...”4

B. Night is pre-ordained for tranquility and the day for the hustle and bustle of struggle.

Allah says:

“And We made the night as a covering,”

“And We made the day for (seeking) livelihood.”5

C. The decrease and increase in the number of daylight hours in the different seasons of the year.

D. The change in the hours of the day and the night in various regions of the world.

The verse says:

“Verily, in the alternation of night and day, and all that Allah has created in the heavens and the earth, surely there are signs for a people who keep from evil.”

Question: Why is it that some scientists are atheists?

Answer: In itself, science is not sufficient. The approach to truth must stem from intentional and purposeful people and the motive must originate from those who honestly seek the truth and reality. Thus sins and pollutions from sin leave a negative impact upon one’s analysis and cognition.

Surah Yunus - Verses 7 - 8

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ لاَ يَرْجُونَ لِقَآءَنَا وَرَضُوا بِالْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَاطْمَاَنُّوا بِهَا وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ عَنْ ءَايَاتِنَا غَافِلُونَ

اُوْلَئِكَ مَأْوَاهُمُ النَّارُ بِمَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ

7. “Verily those who do not expect the meeting with Us, but are pleased with the life of this world and are satisfied with it, and those who are neglectful of Our Signs,”

8. “These! Their abode is the Fire for what they used to earn.”

From this verse on, there is also a description concerning the Resurrection and the destiny of people in the Hereafter.

At first, the verse says:

“Verily those who do not expect on the meeting with Us, but are pleased with the life of this world and are satisfied with it...”

Then it refers to those who are neglectful of the revelations of Allah and do not meditate upon them so as to be thoroughly awakened and feel responsibility. The verse continues saying:

“…and those who are neglectful of Our Signs,”

Both of these two groups will have their abode in the Fire for the evil actions they have committed. The verse says:

“Their abode is the Fire for what they used to earn.”

The Messenger of Allah (S) said:

“He who loves meeting Allah, Allah also loves meeting him.”6

In fact, the direct result of the lack of belief in the Resurrection is this very love unto this limited life, of worldly position and a confidence and reliance upon it.

Also, negligence from the revelations of Allah, is the origin of separation from Allah which in turn is the origin of the lack of sympathy and, consequently, falling into pollution, mischief, and sin whose ultimate result cannot be aught but Fire.

Surah Yunus - Verse 9

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ يَهْدِيهِمْ رَبُّهُم بِإِيمَانِهِمْ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهِمُ الاَنْهَارُ فِي جَنَّاتِ النَّعِيمِ

9. “Verily those who believe and do righteous deeds, their Lord will guide them by their Faith: beneath them rivers flow in gardens of bliss.”

Then the Qur’an refers to the state of another group who behave opposite of the two groups mentioned before.

The holy verse says:

“Verily those who believe and do righteous deeds, their Lord will guide them by their Faith:...”

This beam of light of Divine guidance which has its origins in their faith enlightens every aspect within the entire horizons of their lives. They are so enlightened by that light that they will never submit themselves to the falsity of the materialist schools, satanic fancies or the false glamour associated with sin, wealth and power, and they never pave the path of astray.

As for the Hereafter, the Creator (s.w.t.) establishes them in palaces and Gardens underneath which Rivers flow.

The verse continues saying:

“…beneath them rivers flow in gardens of bliss.”

Surah Yunus - Verse 10

دَعْوَاهُمْ فِيهَا سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَتَحِيَّتُهُمْ فِيهَا سَلاَمٌ وءَاخِرُ دَعْوَاهُمْ أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبّ الْعَالَمِينَ

10. “Their cry therein (will be): ‘Glory be to You, O Allah!’ and ‘Peace’ will be their greeting therein. And the close of their cry (will be): ‘(All) praise is (only) Allah’s, the Lord of the Worlds’.”

The faithful will lead their lives in an environment full of peace, kindness, love unto the Lord, and blessings of various kinds. Whenever they contemplate these things and reflect upon His Essence and qualities, in their speech and prayers in Paradise they will invoke their Lord, and as the verse says:

“Their cry therein (will be): ‘Glory be to You, O Allah!’…”

And whenever they encounter each other, their talk will be of peace and friendliness. Their greetings are exclusively /salam/.

The verse continues saying:

“…and ‘Peace’ will be their greeting therein...”

And finally, whenever they enjoy the various blessings of Allah in Paradise, they will start thanking Him, and end their words with gratitude.

The verse says:

“…And the close of their cry (will be): ‘(All) praise is (only) Allah’s, the Lord of the Worlds’.”

Explanations

“Peace” is the word uttered by the people in Paradise and the atmosphere of Paradise is filled with /salam/ (peace). It comes from different sources, such as from Allah:

“Peace: a word from a Merciful Lord”7 ,

and which comes from the angels saying:

“Peace be upon you, you shall be happy;”8 .

It also is uttered by all those who reside in Paradise.

“Only the saying: ‘Peace, Peace’.”9

The holy phrase “(All) praise is (only) Allah’s” is the saying of the prophets and saints. Hadrat Noah (as), after being released from the unjust people uttered these words, and ’Ibrahim (as) also, saying them, thanked Allah in his old age for He had bestowed him Ishmael and Ishaq.

Some Islamic tradition indicate that the People of Paradise, by uttering /subhaanaka ’allahumma/ will call up the hosts of Paradise, who in turn show up immediately and fulfill their wishes.10

Notes

1. In Islamic quotations, whether those of the Sunnis or those of the Shia‘h, the Prophet of Islam (S) has been known as the Propagator of Truth. (See the of Qurtubi and Al-Borhan).

2. Surah Hud, No. 11, verse 7

3. Surah Al-Haqqah, No. 69, verse 17

4. Surah Al-’Isra’, No. 17, verse 12

5. Surah Naba’, No. 78, verses 10, 11

6. Tafsir-ul-Furqan

7. Surah Yaseen, No. 36, verse 58

8. Surah Az-Zumae, No. 39, verse 73

9. Surah Al-Waqi‘ah, No. 56, verse 26

10. The Manhaj-us-Sadiqin

Section 2: Ingratitude of Men

Surah Yunus - Verse 11

وَلَوْ يُعَجِّلُ اللّهُ لِلنَّاسِ الشَّرَّ اسْتِعْجَالَهُم بِالْخَيْرِ لَقُضِيَ إِلَيْهِمْ أَجَلُهُمْ فَنَذَرُ الَّذِينَ لايَرْجُونَ لِقَآءَنَا فِي طُغْيَانِهِمْ يَعْمَهُونَ

11. “And if Allah were to hasten on for men the ill (they have earned) as they would hasten on the good, surely their term would already be decreed unto them. But We leave those who do not expect the meeting with Us, in their contumacy, wandering blindly.”

This verse also deals with the subject of punishment and reward meted out to the evildoers. First, the Qur’an implies if Allah punished the evil-doers swiftly in this world and hastened on their punishment at the same speed in which they are after the good things of this world and their own interests, that would be the end of the world and no traces of them would remain.

The verse says:

“And if Allah were to hasten on for men the ill (they have earned) as they would hasten on the good, Surely their term would already be decreed unto them...”

However, as Allah’s grace encompasses all His servants, even the evildoers, idol worshippers, and non-believers, He does not hasten on their punishment lest they wake-up and repent and be lead straight.

At the end of the verse, He says that punishment is for those who do not believe in the Resurrection and the Meeting with Him; they are left alone so that they may stray and remain in confusion, not knowing the truth from “untruth” and the right path from the wrong.

The verse says:

“…But We leave those who do not expect the meeting with Us, in their contumacy, wandering blindly.”

Surah Yunus - Verse 12

وَإِذَا مَسَّ الإِنْسَانَ الضُّرُّ دَعَانَا لِجَنْبِهِ أَوْ قَاعِداً أَوْ قَآئِماً فَلَمَّا كَشَفْنَا عَنْهُ ضُرَّهُ مَرَّ كَأَن لَمْ يَدْعُنَآ إِلَي ضُرّ‌ٍ مَسَّهُ كَذَلِكَ زُيِّنَ لِلْمُسْرِفِينَ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ

12. “And when an affliction touches a man, he calls Us (while reclining) on his side, or sitting, or standing. But when We remove from him his affliction, he passes on, as if he never called Us to an affliction that touched him. Thus is made fair seeming to the extravagant that which they have been doing.”

Then the Qur’an refers to the existence of the light of monotheism in man, which emanates from the depth of his soul. It indicates that when man suffers from the loss of something, and he is helpless on all sides, he seeks Allah’s help by stretching his hands towards Him, calling Him in whatever state he is whether lying on his side, sitting or standing.

The verse says:

“And when an affliction touches a man, he calls Us (while reclining) on his side, or sitting, or standing...”

Yes, the positive aspect of the difficulties and painful incidents is that they unveil the true character of human beings and, though it may last merely for a while, the light of monotheism eventually shines forth.

Then the Qur’an implies that these people, however, are so in capacious and unwise that as soon as their troubles are removed they once more become so immersed in oblivion that it is as if they had made no supplications at all, and He had not given them any assistance.

The verse says:

“…But when We remove from him his affliction, he passes on, as if he never called Us to an affliction that touched him. Thus is made fair seeming to the extravagant that which they have been doing.”

It is this very ingratitude and negligence that has made the indecent acts of the mischief makers seemingly beautiful for them.

Surah Yunus - Verse 13

وَلَقَدْ أَهْلَكْنَا الْقُرُونَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَمَّا ظَلَمُوا وَجَآءَتْهُمْ رُسُلُهُم بِالبَيِّنَاتِ وَمَا كَانُوا لِيُؤْمِنُوا كَذَلِكَ نَجْزِي الْقَوْمَ الْمُـجْرِمِينَ

13. “And certainly We destroyed the generations before you when they were unjust, and their messengers came to them with clear arguments and they would not believe. Thus do We recompense the guilty people. ”

In this holy verse, Allah informs us of the calamities which were inflicted upon previous nations and warns the present nations against the descent of those calamities which may fall upon them.

The Qur’an announces that Allah exterminated former nations by means of kinds of punishment when they inflicted injustice upon themselves by revolting, becoming disobedient, and after sending prophets to them with obvious miracles and clear proofs.

The verse says:

“And certainly We destroyed the generations before you when they were unjust, and their messengers came to them with clear arguments and they would not believe...”

This verse carries this message that the secret of their eradication was that if they had been to remain existent, they definitely would not have believed in their prophets and the Books. Which were sent to them.

In the future, too, Allah will inflict calamities upon those unbelieving people who do not reform themselves in spite of offering them proofs for completing arguments, and with the full understanding that they are well-informed as to the consequences and that they will not believe.

The verse continues saying:

“…Thus do We recompense the guilty people. ”

Surah Yunus - Verse 14

ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ خَلآئِفَ فِي الأَرْضِ مِنْ بَعْدِهِمْ لِنَنْظُرَ كَيْفَ تَعْمَلُونَ

14. “Then We made you successors in the earth after them to see how you behave.”

Allah expresses more explicitly the matter in this verse, implying that, after destroying them, He substituted you on the earth in their place so that He may observe the way you behave.

The verse says:

“Then We made you successors in the earth after them to see how you behave.”

From the sentence “and they would not believe:”, mentioned in the previous verse, it is understood that Allah exterminates only those whose situation leaves no hope that they will even be probable believers in the future, for those who may become believers in the future are not involved in this category for such punishments.

Surah Yunus - Verse 15

وإِذَا تُتْلَي عَلَيْهِمْ ءَايَاتُنَا بَيِّنَاتٍ قَالَ الَّذِينَ لاَ يَرْجُونَ لِقَآءَنَا ائْتِ بِقُرْءَانٍ غَيْرِ هَذَآ أَوْ بَدِّ لْهُ قُلْ مَايَكُونُ لِي أَنْ اُبَدِّ لَهُ مِن تِلْقَآئِ نَفْسِي إِنْ أَتَّبِعُ إِلاَّ مَا يُوحَي إِلَيَّ إِنّي أَخَافُ إِنْ عَصَيْتُ رَبّي عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ

15. “And when Our Clear Signs are recited unto them, those who do not expect the meeting with Us, say: ‘Bring us a Qur’an other than this, or alter it.’ Say: ‘It is not for me to alter it of my own accord, I follow naught but what is revealed unto me; verily, I fear, if I were to disobey my Lord the Penalty of a Great Day (to come).’”

The Occasion of the Revelation

This holy verse and the next two verses had been revealed concerning several idol-worshippers when they came to the Prophet (S) and said:

“Whatever this Qur’an says about abandoning the worship of our great idols namely Lat, Uzza, Manat, Hubal and its disrespect of them is not acceptable and bearable to us. If you want us to follow you, get us another Qur’an which is free of this criticism, or, at least change such ideas in this present Qur’an.”

These holy verses, following the previous verses, are all concerned with ‘Origin and End’.

First, The Qur’an alludes to one of the great mistakes of the idol-worshippers.

It says:

“And when Our Clear Signs are recited unto them, those who do not expect the meeting with Us, say: ‘Bring us a Qur’an other than this, or alter it.’...”

These ignorant people did not want the Prophet (S) to guide them as a leader; they rather invited him to follow in the footsteps of their own superstitious conjectures.

The Qur’an explicitly enlightens them regarding their grave mistake, ordering the Prophet (S) to tell them that it is impossible for him to alter the Divine revelation by himself.

The verse says:

“…Say: ‘It is not for me to alter it of my own accord...”

Then, to articulate further, he should add that he would only follow what was revealed to him, and that not only he could not make any alterations in that heavenly Revelation, but, also he feared the punishment of that Great Day (Resurrection) if he would disobey the Command of the Lord.

The holy verse says:

“…I follow naught but what is revealed unto me; verily, I fear, if I were to disobey my Lord the Penalty of a Great Day (to come).’”

Surah Yunus - Verse 16

قُل لَوْ شَآءَ اللَّهُ مَا تَلَوْتُهُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَلآ أَدْرَاكُمْ بِهِ فَقَدْ لَبِثْتُ فِيكُمْ عُمُراً مِن قَبْلِهِ أَفَلاَ تَعْقِلُونَ

16. “Say: ‘Had Allah so willed, I would not have recited it to you, nor would He have taught it to you. Indeed I have lived amongst you a lifetime before it. Have you then no sense?’”

In this verse the Qur’an brings a reason for the Divine order by commanding the Prophet to say that his ideas do not have the slightest role in this Holy Book, and had Allah wanted, he would not have read the Qur’an to them and they would not have been made aware of it.

The verse says:

“Say: ‘Had Allah so willed, I would not have recited it to you, nor would He have taught it to you...”

I have lived among you a long time before this. It provides reason for what I claim, for you have never heard me saying such things before.

If the verses had come from me, you should have heard me saying them during the past forty years as they would have been at the tip of my tongue, or at least parts of it might have been heard by someone in the past. How can you not notice such an obvious matter?

The verse continues saying:

“…Indeed I have lived amongst you a lifetime before it. Have you then no sense?’”

Surah Yunus - Verse 17

فَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّنِ افْتَرَي عَلَي اللَّهِ كَذِباً أَوْ كَذَّبَ بِايَاتِهِ إِنَّهُ لا يُفْلِحُ الْمُـجْرِمُونَ

17. “Who is then more unjust than he who forges a lie against Allah, or belies His Signs? Verily the guilty ones will never prosper.”

In order to emphasize the point, the Prophet (S) adds that, being well aware that the worst kind of evil is that someone falsely attributes a lie to Allah, how could he then commit such a sin on the earth?

The verse says:

“Who is then more unjust than he who forges a lie against Allah, or belies His Signs?...”

And he who denies the Divine verses, his action is also the most cruel and unjust of all actions. If the unbelievers are unaware of the scope and volume of the severity and greatness of the sin of forging a lie to the Divine verses, the Prophet, on the contrary, is not so unaware. At any event, this action of theirs is a grave offence and those who perpetrate it will never be saved.

The verse says:

“…Verily the guilty ones will never prosper.”

Surah Yunus - Verse 18

وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ مَا لا يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلا يَنفَعُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ هَؤُلآءِ شُفَعَآؤُنَا عِندَ اللَّهِ قُلْ اَتُنَبِّؤُنَ اللَّهَ بِمَا لا يَعلَمُ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَلا فِي الأَرْضِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَي عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ

18. “And they worship, besides Allah, what can neither hurt them nor profit them, and they say: ‘These are our intercessors with Allah.’ Say: ‘Will you inform Allah of what He knows not either in the heavens or in the earth?’ Glory be to Him! High be He exalted above what they associate (with Him).”

The issue of monotheism is also continued in this verse by negating the claim that these idols are associated with divinity, and it has been proved as groundless by offering clear reasons. They used to worship icons and idols which neither did any harm to them nor any good.

They were neither feared by the idol worshippers nor did the idols provide them with any profit so that they were worshipped for gaining benefit thereof.

The verse says:

“And they worship, besides Allah, what can neither hurt them nor profit them...”

The Qur’an deals with the groundless and unfounded claims of the idol worshippers when it implies that they claim that these idols serve as mediators between them and Allah which was one of the motives for worshipping them.

The verse says:

“…and they say: ‘These are our intercessors with Allah.’…”

The Qur’an, in response to such a way of thinking, tells the Prophet (S) to ask them a question, as follows:

“…Say: ‘Will you inform Allah of what He knows not either in the heavens or in the earth?’...”

Allusion is here made to the fact that if the Almighty had such mediators who would protect them, and wherever on the earth or in the skies they might have existed, He would have been well aware of their existence.

At the end of the verse it stresses emphatically on the fact that Allah is pure and superior to those partners whom they envisage for Him.

The verse says:

“…Glory be to Him! High be He exalted above what they associate (with Him).”

Surah Yunus - Verse 19

وَمَا كَانَ النَّاسُ إِلآَّ اُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً فَاخْتَلَفُوا وَلَوْلاَ كَلِمَةٌ سَبَقَتْ مِن رَّبّكَ لَقُضِيَ بَيْنَهُمْ فِيمَا فِيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ

19. “And mankind were only one community, then they differed, and had not a Word already gone forth from your Lord, their differences would have been judged between them.”

This verse refers to the monotheistic nature of all human beings, alluding in part to the previous verse in connection with negating unbelief and idol worshipping. It implies that in the beginning, all human beings were of a single nation, and, with no exception, all were monotheists.

The verse says:

“And mankind were only one community...”

This monotheistic nature, that was untouched at the beginning, because of shortsightedness and some satanic attitudes, underwent changes. With the passage of time, some went astray from the monotheistic path and became the adherents of polytheism. Thus the human society spitted into two groups: Monotheists and Polytheists.

The verse continues saying:

“…then they differed...”

Therefore, polytheism is in fact a deviation from what is innate in human nature, and its roots lie in some baseless ideas and conjectures.

One might raise the issue at this point as to why the Almighty does not hasten to eradicate the origin of such differences by the speedy punishment of the polytheists?

The Qur’an immediately gives an answer to this question implying that if Allah’s command in regard to the absence of their speedy punishment had not been already issued, arbitration would have been administered and their differences would have been judged, then all of them would meet their painful fate.

The verse says:

“…and had not a Word already gone forth from your Lord, their differences would have been judged between them.”

Surah Yunus - Verse 20

وَيَقُولُونَ لَوْلآ اُنزِلَ عَلَيْهِ ءَايَةٌ مِن رَبِّهِ فَقُلْ إِنَّمَا الْغَيْبُ لِلَّهِ فَانتَظِرُوا إِنّي مَعَكُم مِنَ الْمُنْتَظِرِينَ

20. “And they say: ‘Why is not a Sign sent down to him from his Lord?’ Say then: ‘ Verily the Unseen is only for Allah (to know). Wait you then, verily I, also with you, will be of those who wait’.”

Once again, the Qur’an deals with the pretexts of the polytheists for evading belief and faith in Islam. It indicates that the disbelievers complain about a miracle not being sent down from Allah to the Prophet (S).

The verse in this regard says:

“And they say: ‘Why is not a Sign sent down to him from his Lord?’...”

They meant, of course, that any time they demanded a miracle they desired, the Prophet (S) should have acted immediately and accordingly1 to fulfill their demands. It was forthwith revealed to the Prophet (S) that the invisible world and supernatural affairs, (miracles relating to the invisible and metaphysical world), belong to Allah alone.

The verse says:

“…Say then: ‘ Verily the Unseen is only for Allah (to know)...”

Therefore the Prophet (S) should tell them he could not perform miracles according to their wishes, which they would later deny and which would not convince them to become believers. In the final analysis, they refrained from believing regardless of the pretext.

At the end of the verse, from his tongue, the Qur’an, in a threatening tone implies that if they did not stop being obstinate, they should expect divine punishment whilst, on the other hand, the Prophet (S) should expect victory.

The verse says:

“…Wait you then, verily I, also with you, will be of those who wait’.”

Notes

1. Some commentators state that Allah is aware of the world of Unseen and whatever stands in the way of divine miracles to be sent down is itself invisible, none is aware but Allah.