Appreciating the Revelation
Liaquat Ali
4/24/2002
The "Qur'an As It Explains Itself" Project
http://www.qaiu.org

One cannot appreciate the true value of the Revelation until it is revealed to him/her the same way it was revealed to the Beloved Prophet (SAW). That is the only way to get unwavering commitment behind the Islamic ideology. Islam is not a followers' religion, it is an actors' system of life. Of course, significant differences exist between a Prophet, and a regular person. God Almighty directly taught the Beloved Prophet (SAW), whereas regular people are not taught that way. The Qur’an was revealed on him in piece-meal, we have the whole Book. There are numerous others differences. The point I am trying to make is that unless people get intimate with the Revelation, they will never be able to appreciate the Power of the Mighty Qur’an that the Beloved Prophet (SAW) and his companions (RA) were working with. The Power that made them the leaders of the know world.

The selection of the title of the “Qur’an As I Understand” project was a deliberate attempt to; first, tell people that it is not THE understanding, but merely A understanding. The second reason was to put people on the path of self-discovery of the Qur'an. Our future projects will include educating our readers on the minimum amount of classical Arabic that they must know to appreciate the Book, and to know why other work on the Qur'an sounds different from ours.

We spent some time on the title, then borrowing from the title of Dr. Shabbir Ahmed's recent book, "Islam As I Understand", we chose QAIU. We are more interested in the intellectual honesty in the project than telling people as to how great we are or how great our understanding is. Since every generation must embark on its own understanding(s) of the Scripture, our work will be useful only until someone does a better job related to their times and circumstances.

QAIU will always be "work in progress". We have no illusions in our minds that we will ever be able to reach the ultimate understanding of the Book of Allah.