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evelation 143the general qur"§n. Instead, it works within the limits of the laws andconditions set by the qur"§n majÊd. As it is said in the verse: ‘when hehas ordained something, He only says, “be”, and it is!’ [Al-An"§m6:47]. This connectivity between the general laws of the universeand the particular manifestations in nature and human historydefines the core of al-qur"§n (= the one which ‘connects’—qarana).The Ambiguous Nature of al-qur"§n ( al-tash§buh)Allah represents the totality of objective reality. His knowledge isabsolute. He neither requires further knowledge nor needs any formof guidance. But human beings, in their attempt to apprehend Allah’sabsolute knowledge, can only do so within the limits of their relative,historical understanding. Allah took this partiality in human understandinginto consideration when He decided to impart His knowledgeto humankind.An analogy to this would be the case of a father who wants toteach his five-year-old son the things he has learned about theoreticalphysics. The father is a trained physicist and an international authorityon the subject, whereas his son knows nothing about it yet. Heteaches him his expertise in a piecemeal manner over a long periodof time, that is, by considering his son’s age and by proportioningthe amount he can teach according to what his son has alreadyunderstood. This approach requires that father and son are in constantcontact with each other and that the father never stops teachinghis son until he fully understands the entirety of his father’s knowledge.Or, alternatively, the father gives his son a text to read whichencapsulates an ultimate summary of his knowledge and never againchanges what he has written. Since the son would initially not understandmuch he will be required to come back to the text year afteryear and every time absorb a little bit more of it. In this case, eventhough the text remains fixed and unchanged, its content changesinsofar as the son will develop a gradual understanding of it. It isthis quality of a text, where the form remains fixed but its contentmoves, that we define as the text’s ‘ambiguity’, or tash§buh.Like in the example of father and son, Allah communicated withhumankind in two ways: at first, constantly, repetitively, and over along period of time, but after that only by one single instance. UntilHis revelation to MuÈammad (ß), Allah repeatedly returned tohumankind to renew His message. After the revelation of the Torah,for example, He sent down the Gospel, and after the revelation of