What is Revelation?

What is revelation?What is Wahy? It is believed, not only in the Abrahamic traditions, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, that it is possible to obtain information directly from the Divine source, the Divine source of creation. And in order to understand what revelation is, we have to, first of all, review how we conceive of reality. And it has, for thousands of years, been understood that there are different levels to reality.

There is a single Origin for this creation. This is not a new idea to Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. And that those who are enlightened, those who can open up their consciousness, we could say, are sent to us from that Divine source.

If we are going to understand what is the Qur'an, as an example, why is it written in the way it's written? It's not a science textbook, it's not a poem, it's not a piece of literature, but it does use certain cultural conventions of its time because it was addressing the people of its time. And if you're trying to understand what the revelation is and what the Qur'an is, you need to, first of all, review how your thinking has been influenced by the day and age in which you live.

Are you trying to understand this text? Through your limited understanding of this day and age. For me personally, the Qur'an does not have a human voice, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't make use of certain types of language that were being used at the time. It gathers together images, tropes, concepts, words, texts that people would have been familiar with at the time because it is addressing those people at the time.

And as Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and his holy progeny, said, "I leave for you two precious things, the Qur'an and my Ahl ul-Bayt, people of the household, people of the Ka'aba, my Itra, my progeny, hold to those two and you will never go astray." Some people say, Why don't you just take the Qur'an on its own? As a text on its own, without any exegesis or commentary? But most texts require understanding through context.

If you pick up a newspaper article from 100 years ago, you are not going to understand exactly what it's talking about. So it's obvious that every text needs a context. Every text needs a commentary, and this is not unique to the Qur'an.

So if you want to try and understand what this message is, and how it works, how it is operating, then there are many things we need to understand. Not only what is existence, different levels of existence to which the Qur'an is connected, but we also need to understand the nature of oral communication, verbal communication and the nature of the way the languages were working at the time that it was revealed. This is just a starting point.