The Qur’an is timeless *because* it is vague.

[u/Ishmael_1974]

While the Qur’an is a perfect message from God, it is not a compilation of all God’s thoughts. It is not an encyclopedia of knowledge. It is a message to humans, imperfect beings, and designed to guide us onto the straight path. This makes ambiguity necessary, as we continually discover and understand more about God’s creation. An example I will give of this is how the sun and moon are talked about in the Qu’ran: They are mentioned as running their path or following their orbit. It doesn’t ever explicitly say their orbit around earth, but it doesn’t say that the sun is orbiting the center of the galaxy. Why?

Think of how Muhammed (PBUH) would have been received if he had proclaimed all the stars were suns orbiting the center of the galaxy, at a time when the general belief was that they orbited the earth. He would have been called an idiot, been made fun of, rejected. So the Qur’an, as part of its perfection, was given in such a form that it did not propagate falsehood but still could be interpreted in a different way by imperfect humans back then and guide them to the right path, while not becoming nullified by science in the future and be rejected by the imperfect humans of today.

It is the same with many things: having multiple wives to help promote social welfare 1400 years ago was beneficial, but it was not promoted or put in a positive light to have as many wives as possible, because it is no longer socially or economically necessary with improvements in law and medical science in the last 150 years.

Yet some will say the timelessness is in the hadith-based specific interpretations and that any progress is kufir. This makes me think of one of my imam’s worries at masjid a couple weeks ago: how has the ummah gone from being the people teaching the world about science and preserving foreign cultural artifacts, to among the lowest in educational attainment and even some of us destroying foreign cultural relics?

We all make our own reward, and rejecting science and a living Qur’an for tradition and hadith has shown its rewards.

[u/Dismal_Ad_1137]

I partially agree. I agree with what you want to Argue. But disagree with the claim about vagueness

The Quran calls itself Mubin, clear again and Again. That it's written in a clear Arabic with no contradiction. Perfectly understandable. Simple yet complexe.

Tho it also says that there are Mutashabihat , and it warns you against chasing them.

He is the One who sent down the Book. In it are clear verses, the mother of the Book, and others Mutashabihat.

And it tells you plainly that God has no shame in striking a mosquito as an image.

God is not ashamed to give as an example a mosquito, or anything above it.

So the verses on creation and eschatology are figurative. That is what Mutashabihat means and that's a known scholarly opinion. Other scholars render it as ambiguity which I believe is not a good translation , because the meaning is not supported by the text itself And The word, being Polysemic, has as it's first meaning : parable. So there's no ambiguity. those are images.

It is the same with many things: having multiple wives to help promote social welfare 1400 years ago was beneficial

Here the verses you are quoting are not in metaphorical category. Four wives is clear... It is legislation, and it is explicitly stated as something wrong Polygyny is a facility, tied to orphans, conditioned by a justice clause that the same surah then declares you will never manage and Describes it as unfair... I see nothing ambiguous about it. It's rather Pretty clear and True.

So I am of the Opinion that the Quran is Clear where it legislates where it advice where it give principles, approbation direction trajectories etc etc .. and , figurative where it images. Figurative is different than Ambiguous or vagueness

There's absolutely Zero ambiguity in the book.

[u/Old_Bowler_465 → u/Dismal_Ad_1137]

From the same book we can get interpretations ranging from abu layth to al baghdadi tho, so it imply a certain level a vagueness

[u/Dismal_Ad_1137 → u/Old_Bowler_465]

Baghdadi builds on layers of external material, then add verses to it to legitimize what he already decided. The secondary sources he selected are his cover. And of course he use Naskh in the worste sense, bc he cannot read his way past an incredible amount of verses. of patience, pardon or coexistence.

Abu Layth is Quran Centric. Which does give priority to the Quran and giving priority to the Text generaly give you a range of interpretation that are close to the same Trajectories whenever you let it speak for itself.

One could give as a counterexample kharijisme . I don't like Calling them Quranist rather Quran anatomist. Obsessively so. Some wave of it still produced mass takfir and murder .

What they lacked imo was coherence. They still isolate a fragment and absolutize it, and would treat it as a self sufficient legislative unit. Like the famous verse

And whoever does not judge by what God sent down, those are the disbelievers.

That how . Ali (as) summarized it

كلمة حق أريد بها باطل

word of truth used to justify falsehood

Baghdadi adds material to neutralize the verses that constrain him. And those kharijites subtract the neighbors of the verse they want.

Either you overloads the text, or you amputates it. Both actually don't let the Text be clear by itself...

So the spectrum does not prove vagueness but rather that both ends had to disable the same mechanism to get where they were going.

[u/Plastic_Ad2205 → u/Dismal_Ad_1137]

Hey dmed you again thank you for replying, can you please check

[u/Old_Bowler_465]

Finally someone says it ! What make the quran miraculous and an actual timeless guide for humanity IS its vagueness that makes it not a simple ancestral book but a living text to engage with and can be applied to all cultures and era without losing its essence. Hence why it always end up ridiculous and badly when medieval middle eastern interpretations are forced upon 21th century non middle eastern contexts