Mary Desmond | Staff Writer
Islam is a diverse and fluid faith. Its history of growth across geographical boundaries — and invisible cultural lines — catalyzed the creation of a variety of views related to water, Ali Asani said.
On Thursday,
Mary Desmond | Staff Writer
Islam is a diverse and fluid faith. Its history of growth across geographical boundaries — and invisible cultural lines — catalyzed the creation of a variety of views related to water, Ali Asani said.
On Thursday, in the fourth Interfaith Lecture of the Week Four series themed “Water: Life Force/Life Source,” Ali Asani examined the role of water within the Islamic tradition, through an analysis of sacred texts including the Quran and the Hadith. He also explored the role of water in the mystical writings of Muslim poets in a lecture titled “Water as Substance and Symbol in Islam.”
Asani is a professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic religion and cultures at Harvard University.
Asani commenced his lecture by focusing on the use and nature of water in the Quran, the holiest text of the Muslim faith. Muslims view the Quran as the word of God incarnate, Asani said. To discuss water in the Quran, it is necessary to understand that it was written in seventh century Arabia, an area that is notoriously arid, Asani said.
“Water is a gift from and an instrument of God, who wills it to fall upon the arid earth and bring forth vegetation,” Asani said.
In the Quran, water and other natural elements are called Ayahs, which is the same term used to describe a single verse of the Quran. That means that, like the words of God written as verses in the sacred text, nature and water specifically are signs of God on which people are called to meditate.
“Viewed from this perspective, nature is a scripture that surrounds us, which we must learn to read and interpret, just as we read and interpret explicit scriptures that God has revealed, such as the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran,” Asani said.
The Quran also promotes the idea that water and nature are trusts given to man by God to protect and respect. Water deserves such respect, because it is one natural feature that predates creation, Asani said. In the Quran, it is written that the “throne of God rests upon waters.” The Islamic tradition teaches that water sustains life — and life originated from water.
“All living things, including humans, were created from water,” Asani said. “Water is indispensable to Quranic descriptions of heaven. The rivers there provide fruit and life for its inhabitants, similar to rain in the mortal realm.”
Almost every description of heaven, paradise or Eden within the Islamic tradition is characterized by an abundance of water, Asani said.
“Water is almost always a positive force in the Quran and might be contrasted with fire — the connotations of which are almost always negative.”
Though water is characterized in a positive light, the Quran does not ignore its destructive and powerful nature. For example, the story of Noah and the flood illustrates the connection between the divine, power and water. Additionally, the story of the egotistical pharaoh of Egypt shows the true authority of God over water and sources of water, Asani said.
In the story of the pharaoh, the ruler claimed that the force and root of his power sprung from his control of water. Later in in the story, that same pharaoh was ruined by water and forced to submit to God, Asani said.
One of God’s most prominent characteristics in Islam is his mercy. In many parts of the sacred texts, rain signifies divine mercy. The prophets are connected to the idea of mercy, and in the Quran, Muhammad is told, “and we God, did not send you except as the mercy to the world,” Asani said. Muhammad’s title is often translated to mean a mercy of the world, Asani said.
“In one Hadith, Muhammad compares himself to rain in that both his prophetic knowledge and the rain, stem from God. He adds that just as rain affects different soils differently, so too his message affects people in distinct ways,“ Asani said.
Mohsin Kakorvi, a well-known Muslim poet who wrote in Urdu, once compared the Prophet to a raincloud that showered grace onto earth, Asani said.
In the Muslim tradition, there are also many recorded experiences where the Prophet Muhammad performed miracles associated with water. In one instance, it is written that during a time of drought, a Bedouin asked the prophet to call on the Lord to provide rain. Muhammad reached to the empty, cloudless sky and drew water; so much came for days on end that it almost flooded. The water did not stop until Muhammad called on God to stop it, Asani said.
In other stories from the Hadith, it says that water would pour from Muhammad’s fingers for ablution. It is written that at one time, after performing his own ablution with little water, he created enough water for an army of hundreds of men, Asani said. Stories of miracles with water paralleled stories of other prophets and water, Asani said.
“Establishing a connection with prophets of the old would have been important for Muhammad, who emphasized the continuities between his prophethood and that of his predecessors, specifically Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus.”
The Hadith, a collection of