The Man Himself

I was just about to start this blog entry on another subject entirely when my professor, Jafar Mahallati, swept into the room. I immediately titled it, wrote the first sentence, and closed the laptop. This is just that kind of class. In fact, every class this semester is that kind of class, and I figure it's high time to tell y'all about them, starting with Mahallati's.

It's an intro to the Qur'an class, and we've read maybe a dozen surahs and chapter upon chapter of exegesis. I am enjoying it more than I thought I would, which is saying something -- I was looking forward to this class. I see my God in Allah. I don't mean that they are historically, according to the Muslim tradition, the same God. That's part of it, but it's not it. The scripture resonates like an echo in an infinite room. The translations have preserved only fragments of the poetry of the original Arabic, but it is enough. Qur'an can be roughly translated as "recitable," and it is meant to be memorized and internalized. Reading it in English is beautiful; hearing it recited in the original Arabic is transcendent.

Perhaps I will delay explanation of my other classes and instead obey my own title. Mahallati was Iran's ambassador to the United Nations at the end of the 1980s and helped push for peace between Iran and Iraq. (Of course, he didn't tell us that -- we've been snooping.) His first lecture was an hour-and-a-half long summary of pre-Islam Arabian culture and the prophet's life. He used no notes. Since then, the lectures have gotten more abstract and wandered freely between the centuries, as we fiercely scribble down concepts and occasionally thumb through our Qur'ans. I wish I knew Arabic, so that I could write down the terms in their original forms as well as in phonetic transliteration. The Arabic is much more elegant.

Anyway, I might add a nice little conclusion paragraph later but now I've got to go help cook. Life and theology are both messy this way so maybe I'll leave it be.