Research principles and methodology I (by Dr. Pooyan Changizi)
30 October 2016
À Propos de l’Auteur des Auteurs
Nun. By the pen and what they inscribe (68:1)
As to the question of “Who is your favorite author?”, I must admit I never had any for I have regarded every author according to their own capacity and the limited context they lived in which some may consider the result of the lack of enough deep study. It is the Author of authors whom I would like to name my favorite should I be asked to choose one. The author who could move his reader is the true author. Although by other authors’ works I happened to be moved, it is not anything like the extent to which I have been moved by God’s. In his final chef-d’oeuvre Quran, for instance, there is seen such a fluidity of expression and meaning mixed with a harmony of euphonious rhythms to please both the eager ears of those who are soothed by music, and to quench the thirst of those who indefatigably seek truth. Sometimes when God introduces a fact in Quran, He brings examples thereof, the like of which is seen in the following verse “And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all in an orbit are swimming” (21:33). The miracle, however, lies within some part of the very verse in Arabic ” ّکل فی فلك” which proves to be genuinely the same whether you read from right to left or left to right. If you refer to the meaning again, you understand the fact that everything being “in an orbit swimming” is practically shown and exemplified though the very miraculous Arabic part, meaning that even this minute collection of letters is not to be disregarded from the colossal cycle. That is, indeed, one amongst the numerous examples of such miracles when intertwined with the fluidity brought in Quran, some of which are yet to be discovered, thus the readers become first mesmerized and then moved thereby should they manage to unfold one. That is what some later defy by assuming it to be only an arbitrary happening overlooking all else, and some develop a deeper love for the Author of the fate and the Creator of the universe; It is the latter with whom I tend to identify more. Every time God had a book written through his scribes or messengers, the scribe’s tribe assumed themselves to be the sole recipients thus each book had its own audience until in the last one He says: “O you who were given the Scripture, believe in what We have sent down [to Muhammad], confirming that which is with you…” (4:47) making Quran the last and the authentic one, asking all the audience to unite and to be only the audience of the last one not in that there were problems with the earlier versions but due to the infiltrations made in the books by those tribes. He then promised to preserve the last book from any future infiltrations (15:9) (41:42). When He promises to do something, it is the highest promise in credibility to me. This fact makes me regard His works in a manner that is beyond looking at mere stories or novels. Irrespective of the fact that I still may feel inclined to be one of the audience, that does not make me any less obedient. The devotion to God is far beyond this petit enumerating of reasons on a paper. This devotion comes from known and unknown, listed and unlisted, seen and unseen, and conscious and unconscious sources some of which are easier to be overlooked yet some other leave a lasting impression which can soften the cruelest of hearts and bring tears to the eyes of almost anyone even the one who has a shallow understanding of what it bears. Best of such moving reasons are to be found or discovered in His books. All of this, indeed, leaves little or no place for any other authors except for the Author of authors.