Podcast episode

April 18, 2025

Episode 204: Introducing the Qur’ān, Part II: Ambiguity and Esoteric Themes

This episode begins with a recitation of Surat al-Qadr. Our heartfelt thanks go to Seemi Ghazi of the University of British Columbia, who kindly allowed us to use her beautiful recitation. [Thanks, too, to the Corpus coranicum project, and to the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, for use of the image above.]

Having absorbed a bit of Arabic, we then turn to the question of the esoteric Qur’ān. We start with the broadest possible lens: every letter of the Qur’ān as an esoteric text with infinite possible meanings in esoteric Shi‘i and Ṣūfī exegesis. Narrowing things somewhat, we return to our chosen case-study, Sūrat al-Qadr, and use it as a window onto the irreducible ambiguity of many Qur’anic passages, especially the Makkan surahs. Next we examine the extraordinary Q 3:7, wherein we learn that the Qur’ān contains exoteric and esoteric ayāt, but that you shouldn’t try to come up with interpretations of the esoteric ones, unless you are of ‘those with understanding’, in which case Allah will give you the correct interpretation. We then discuss two important themes of hiding and revealing running through the Qur’ān – the pre-eminence of divine knowledge, and the polyvalent notion of the ghayb, or ‘unseen’ – and discover along the way that the normative Believer might be called upon by the Book itself to break the normative Believerish code, inasmuch as god’s wisdom transcends any such code.

We also discover the secret meaning of all the Abrahamic scriptures by means of esoteric exegesis of their first letter, and of the letter which comes before that letter.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Primary:

Plotinus: Enn. VI.9[9]11.1: Τοῦτο δὴ ἐθέλον δηλοῦν τὸ τῶν μυστηρίων τῶνδε ἐπίταγμα, τὸ μὴ ἐκφέρειν εἰς μὴ μεμυημένους, ὡς οὐκ ἔκφορον ἐκεῖνο ὄν, ἀπεῖπε δηλοῦν πρὸς ἄλλον τὸ θεῖον, ὅτῳ μὴ καὶ αὐτῷ ἰδεῖν εὐτύχηται.

[Ps-?]Ja’afar al-Ṣādiq: ‘The dot is the Imam, the Point of Truth (nuqṭat al-ḥaqq). The bāʾ is his manifest knowledge, and the Book is his speech. All return to him as all letters return to the dot.’ Translation based on Wladimir Ivanov. Umm al-Kitab. Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, Tehran, 1998. Reprint with French translation by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi; we cite p. 112.

Ibn al-‘Arabī: ‘The basmala is the totality of the Book, and the Book is its explication. The bāʾ is the totality of the basmala, and the dot is the totality of the bāʾ.’ Translation Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-‘Arabī. The Wisdom of the Prophets (Fuṣuṣ al-Ḥikam). Beshara Publications, Aldsworth, 1980. Partial translation with commentary by William C. Chittick, p. 50.

‘The bāʾ is the first manifest letter, the ‘container’ (ḥarf al-ḍamm) of creation. Its curved form embraces all existence, and its dot is the Point of Divine Unity (nuqṭat al-tawḥīd).’ Al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, II.67; Cairo ed., vol. 1, p. 120; See William C. Chittick. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination. SUNY Series in Islamic Spirituality. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1989,  pp. 52-55.

Al-Tustari’s tafsīr: We cite Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler, editors. Tafsir Al-Tustari: Great Commentaries of the Holy Qur’an. Fons Vitæ, Louisville, KY, 2011., p. xxvii.

Qur’ān:

• Our recitation can be found here. Thanks to the reciter.
• Mukamāt and Mutashabihāt: Q 3:7.
• The story of Adam’s creation, the angels’ reaction, and Iblīs’ rebellion: Sūrat al-Baqarah (2:30–34); Sūrat al-Aʿrāf (7:11–18); Sūrat al-Ḥijr (15:28–44); Sūrat al-Isrāʾ (17:61–65); Sūrat Ṣād (38:71–85).
• The story of Mūsa and the mysterious stranger: Sūrat al-Kahf, Q 18:60-82 [While the Qur’ān does not name the stranger, Sunni and Shiʿi ḥadīth identify him as al-Khiḍr, e.g., Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1:74, Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī on 18:65)].
• The ghayb: Q 6:59: ‘With Him are the keys of the ghayb; none knows them but He.’ Q 27:65: ‘Say: None in the heavens or earth knows the ghayb except Allāh.’ Q 72:26-27: Only Allāh reveals ghayb to chosen messengers. Q 3:44; 11:49: Stories of past prophets are ‘from ghayb’, revealed to Muhammad.

Secondary:

Thomas Bauer. A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam. Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2021.

Michael A. Sells. Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations. White Cloud Press, Ashland, OR, 1999; we cite the translations of Sūrah al-Qadr, p. 100 [and the abjād value of the letter qāf is 100; what the heck is going on with all these correspondences??? If you do this job, get ready for the Book and the World to start blending in weird ways].

Recommended Reading to Follow

Themes

‘Abd al-Qadīr al-Jilānī, al-Khidr, al-Tustarī, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Ibn al-'Arabī, Islam, Islamic Esotericism, Isma‘ilism, Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq, Lettrism, Pansemioticism, Perennialism, Qur'ān, Rabbinic Judaism, Shi‘ī Esotericism, Taṣawwuf