REPETITION IN THE QURAN
Coherent with Nature
READING the Quran one finds that it repeats itself on some themes. The Quran is believed to be the book of God. If God had wished He could have made every verse deal with a separate theme; but instead certain topics have been stressed over and over again. This has been done in order to engrave the message of the Quran in the minds of its readers. Its opponents, however, have seen this in a different light and made this repetition a basis for derisive propaganda against the revealed word of God:
And they say, "It is just fables of the ancients, which he has had written down. They are dictated to him morning and evening.” (25: 6).
As Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Uthmani has noted in his Urdu commentary of the Quran, opponents of Islam used to say: “Muhammad has just noted down some stories from the People of the Book, or some people of the sort: these same stories are recited to him again and again, morning and evening, and then reproduced in a different style. That is all there is to the Quran.”
There is repetition in order to engrave the message of the Quran in the minds of its readers.
It is only people who are insincere in the search for truth who say such things. Those who are sincere realize that this ‘repetition’ is in fact fulfilling an instinctive need of man. There is no one who does not repeat something or the other in this world. Look at smokers or teadrinkers.
Do they not repeat the same action time and again? Does a mother not repeatedly kiss her beloved child? A music lover—does he not listen to the same song over and over? If a person is attached to something he repeats it time and again without even being aware of the repetitiveness of his action. It is only natural that one should repeat something one loves or enjoys. If, however, one is not attracted to something then repetition of it will bore one; one will be averse to hearing it even once, let alone many times.
The Quran wants people to reach this state of attachment with the word of God. It repeats themes so that people may be drawn to the source of the Quran; so that they should not pay attention to the fact that things are being repeated but be aware of the fact that what is being said is from God and feel that repetition is required to instil the importance of what is being said, as one forgets things easily. This is the type of individual that the Quran is seeking to mould—one who is attracted to the divine world as people normally are to this world; one who finds that the word of God grows on him the more he hears it; one for whom the Quran becomes food for the soul, more welcome than any food with which one nourishes the body. Such people will not be averse to repetition of the words of the Quran, for every repeated word will bear for them a new meaning.