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evelation 133tissues, and organs of the human body, and just as the natural sciencescorrelate more and more the different signs of changes in theweather, climate, and human habitats, so does a contemporary readingof the Book. The One who created the human body and naturein such a complex manner will do the same with His revealedwords—to perceive the Book in a simpler way would not do justice toGod’s power.Remembrance ( al-dhikr)We have, without doubt, sent down the [remembrance] 15 [ al-dhikr];and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption). ( Al-\ijr 15:9)They say: “O you to whom the [remembrance] [ al-dhikr] is beingrevealed! Truly you are mad (or possessed)!” ( Al-\ijr 15:6)‘§d. By the qur"§n, containing the remembrance [ al-qur"§n dhÊ ’l-dhikr].(‘§d 38:1, AA)If we now turn to the term al-dhikr (the remembrance) which, as inthe two verses of Al-\ijr above, is stated in its definite form, as theremembrance, we notice that in verse 1 of Sårat ‘§d, al-dhikr is thepossessive attribute of al-qur"§n, connected to it by the conjunctiveparticle dhå (of ). It means that the qur"§n possesses ‘remembrance’. 16But what exactly is remembrance?15YA’s rendering of al-dhikr as ‘message’ does not fully convey MS’s interpretationof it, unless one qualifies this message by saying that it is a message in humanlanguage so that human beings can remember it. Consistent with their previous renderingsof al-dhikr are AA: ‘wherein is your Remembrance’ and AB: ‘containing yourReminder’ but not AhA: ‘which has a reminder for you’ and MP: ‘in which is yourReminder’, which both here render it as ‘reminder’, and MF: ‘in which there isadmonition for you’, who dropped his rendering as ‘reminder’ elsewhere. Again,AH: ‘a Scripture to remind you’ regards the genitive construct (38:1) or the adverbialclause (kit§ban fÊhi dhikrukum) in 21:10 as attributive clauses stated in order to describethe function of the Book/Scripture, not its set up as MS intends it. Lane (Book I), givesthe meaning of dhikr also as Remembrance and adds ‘the presence of a thing in themind’, also termed dhikr bi’l-qalb to distinguish it from dhikr in the sense of telling,saying, mentioning, i.e. dhikr bi’l-lis§n. It seems that MS tends—albeit not in theirmystical interpretations within the Sufi-tradition—towards the former and intends toconvey a ‘presence of the Qur"an in people’s minds’ (as an Arabic text) in his interpretationof al-dhikr.16The idea of such a subjective genitive of possession is supported by severaltranslations, e.g., AB: ‘By the Qur"an holding the Remembrance’; AA: ‘By theKoran, containing the Remembrance’; MF: ‘By the Qur"an which contains theReminder’; to a lesser degree by AH: ‘By the Qur"an with its reminding’, but understoodin an entirely different way by MP: ‘By the renowned Qur"an’, also AhA:‘I call to witness the admonishing Qur"an’— al-dhikr is usually rendered as eithera) reminder or b) admonisher, sometimes interchangeably because the Qur"an has