"you see in the Qur'an only what you yourself are"

 

 I was really moved by this Facebook post of Kamran Pasha's:

The non-linear nature of the Qur'an is a major stumbling block for some people. It confuses them and leads them to wrong interpretations, devoid of context. But for Muslims, the non-linear nature of the Qur'an is actually a reflection of the non-linear nature of God's mind. Since God exists beyond time and space, past, present and future are meaningless from God's point of view. So the Qur'an jumps around every few verses in flow with Divine consciousness, like a diamond flashing as it is held up to the light. You'll have a story in the Qur'an about Jesus, then it will flash back to Moses, and then forward to the Day of Judgement, and then to a contemporary historical situation facing Prophet Muhammad, and then flash back to Abraham, and so forth.

The idea is that through reading the Qur'an, your soul has to make the connections between these disparate tales intuitively. When approached with a spiritual outlook, the effect is wondrous and magical. But when approached from a negative or hostile mindset, the end result is quite the opposite. The Qur'an itself says that one's own character is intensified when one reads the Qur'an -- those seeking a positive interpretation will find it, and those seeking a negative interpretation will find it, as the reading of the Qur'an is simply a mirror into one's own soul -- you see in the Qur'an only what you yourself are. Mystics find love, scholars find knowledge, and hatemongers find violence.

That is why scholarly commentary on the Qur'an is so critical to balance the whispers of the soul. It makes sure that your interpretation is not just wild fancy and folly, as we often see today among both Muslim fanatics and anti-Muslim bigots who quote a few verses of the Qur'an out of context in order to justify the negative vision of Islam they wish to present. They literally cannot see any other interpretation of the Qur'an any more than they can see a different face when they look in the mirror.