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evelation 127The Ambiguous VersesAgain for recapitulation, we said: The ambiguous book contains all‘ambiguous verses’ (§y§t mutash§bih§t) of the Book which reveal theuniversal laws given by Allah to His Prophet MuÈammad (ß). The‘ambiguous verses’ separate truth from falsehood. They representMuÈammad’s prophethood ( al-nubåwa). The ambiguous book isdivided into two parts: a) the seven oft-repeated and b) the majestical-qur"§n.Al-qur"§n (the Truth)Al-qur"§n contains ‘the truth’. It consists of those verses that revealwhat is reality and those that explain it. It embodies MuÈam mad’s(ß) prophethood and provides such deep insights into universal realitiesthat those who listen to it shout admiringly, ‘This is nothing butsorcery!’ The qur"§n’s ‘ambiguous verses’ occupy more space in theBook than those of the umm al-kit§b.The miraculous nature or inimitability ( al-i#j§z) of the qur"§n liesin its dual nature of expressing the truth in a total, comprehensive,and absolute manner, on the one hand, and of allowing the possibilityof understanding it in a relative, contingent, and subjective manner,on the other. This duality of containing both the totality of thequr"§n’s truth and the relativity of humans’ perception of it, is whatmakes the qur"§n both eternally valid and historically viable. Humanunderstanding of the eternal truth will always be relative, that is,short of the absolute. One may read the qur"§n from all possibleangles, philosophical, scientific, historical, linguistic, religious, andsuch, but human interpretations will always remain partial and relative.Therefore, the qur"§n is the subject of successive, continuous,and progressively improving rational interpretations ( al-ta"wÊl), incontrast with traditional verse-by-verse exegesis ( al-tafsÊr). Andbecause of its partiality and relativity, it is bound to attract a multiplicityof interpretations due to the sheer diversity of human perceptionand of the subjective ways to understand objective reality.The qur"§n consists, primarily, of narratives about the truth andits laws in reality. But it also weaves these together (note the etymologicalroot of q-r-n: ‘to bind together’) with narratives (ÈadÊth) aboutevents that occurred in human history (it never predicts or predestinessuch events but records them only after they have occurred). Itthus links (qarana) the laws and events of objective reality togetherwith the laws and events of human history. In its capacity as the