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The Outward and Inward Aspects of the Qur'an - Al-Shia The Scientific and Cultural Website of Shia belief The Outward and Inward Aspects of the Qur’an 2022-11-03 462 Views The Holy Quran , Inward Meaning , Outward Meaning It has been explained that the Holy Qur’an elucidates religious aims through its own words and gives commands to mankind in matters of doctrine and action. However, the meaning of the Qur’an is not limited to this level.

Rather, behind these same expressions and within these same meanings there are deeper and wider levels of meaning that only the spiritual elite who possess pure hearts can comprehend. The Prophet, who is the divinely appointed teacher of the Qur’an, says: “The Qur’an has a beautiful exterior and a profound interior.” He has also said, “The Qur’an has an inner dimension, and that inner dimension has an inner dimension up to seven numerous references to the inner aspect of the Qur’an”.

The main support of these assertions is a symbol which God has mentioned (1). In this verse divine gifts are symbolized by rain that falls from heaven and upon which depends on the life of the earth and its inhabitants. With the coming of the rain, floods begin to flow and each riverbed accepts a certain amount of the flood, depending on its capacity. As it flows, the flood is covered with foam, but beneath the foam, there is that same water which is life-giving and beneficial to humankind.

As is indicated by this symbolic story, the capacity for comprehension of divine sciences, which are the source of man’s inner life, differs among people. There are those for whom there is no reality beyond physical existence and the material life of this world which lasts but a few days. Such people are attached to material appetites and physical desires alone and fear nothing but the loss of material benefits and sensory enjoyment.

Such people, taking into consideration the differences of degree among them, can at best accept the divine sciences on the level of believing in a summary fashion in the doctrines and performing the practical commands of Islam in a purely outward manner without any comprehension. They worship God with the hope of recompense or fear of punishment in the next world.

There are also those who, because of the purity of their nature, do not consider their well-being to lie in attachment to the transient pleasures of the fleeting life of this world.