A fatwa on the disposal of the Qur’an by fire

We have news for the poor creature. He cannot burn the Qur’an. It is impossible. The Qur’an is the uncreated word of Allah. When a Muslim asks another Muslim to hand it to him he does not say, “give me the Qur’an” but rather “give me the Mus-haf.” That is to say , “give me the copy.”

[ … ] The Qur’an is the uncreated word of Allah. That is why it is unassailable. Of course, we treat the Copy with respect. However this unbalanced peasant preacher, in copying Mao and The Red Guards simply displays his ignorance. “Allah uses the enemies of the Deen to advance the Deen.”

When word came to a remote Muslim village in China that Mao’s Revolutionary Guards were coming to burn their Mus-hafs, the Imam assembled all the children and began to teach them to recite the Qur’an. When the Guards finally arrived they were met by smiling villagers in front of a pile of Copies. As the Guards set fire to the books the sounds of a hundred children came from the Mosque reciting the blessed words of the Qur’an.

The subtleties are always more interesting than the barbarities — which is why a scholarly approach to such enthusiastically contested issues is so important.

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FWIW, I’ve come at this topic before, and found myself in some neat conversations — see Burning scriptures and human lives, also Of Quantity and Quality I: weighing man against book, and more recently On fire: issues in theology and politics – ii.

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