Living The Quran
From Issue: 579 [Read full issue]
Mutual Knowledge
Al-Hujurat (The Chambers) Sura 49: Verse 13
"O people! Indeed We created you from a male and a female, and made you into tribes and nations so that you might know each other. The most noble of you in the sight of God is the one who is most God-fearing. Indeed, God is All-Knowing, Completely Aware."
We all have emotional scars, spiritual disabilities, and stubborn desires that make us less than perfect mirrors for God's divine light. This is why we need to live our faith in community with others - so they can help illuminate our flaws and support us in our spiritual growth. But our growth will be limited unless our communities reflect the diversity of human experience. Parochialism has been an inescapable reality for much of humanity since we first inhabited the earth. In our era, for most people who are not impoverished, parochialism is a choice. It is possible in an age of niche marketing and virtual communities, when we have email list-serves, webpages, radio and TV channels catering to narrow, special interests, to limit our contact to those who reflect our own perspectives and experiences and who do not challenge us to expand our frames of analysis. To do this violates the teaching of the Quran that diverse communities were created by God precisely for the purpose of mutual knowledge, which itself must lead to greater self-knowledge.
Compiled From:
"The Story of The Quran: Its History and Place in Muslim Life" - Ingrid Mattson, pp. 231, 232