Shakespeare's works, Plato's Republic, Odyssey are the landmarks of world literature. The ultimate products of human mind. However If you are a literature student you would know that literature is not objective. It is subjective. You say it's beautiful. I say it's ugly. You like that poem. I don't like that poem. You like that song. I don't like that song. Subjective.
We believe that Qur'an is the ultimate literature. Be it any language it is the ultimate literature. Qur'an is a communication and the purpose of a communication is to influence the audience. So we will judge what is better literature by what influence does it have? What impact does it have on the world? What change does it cause? How does it change people? How does it modify people's behaviour? How does it command over people? That will be the judge. That's a practical judge of the power of any speech or literature. You could say it's wonderful but I think it's just fiction or you could say it's wonderful and it has changed my life. If you study this fact historically, No society went through a transformation based on a single text the way in which the Muslims went through with the Qur'an. And in how many years did that society get transformed? 23 years. This is agreed by all even the orientalists. If you ask from the point of view of disbeliever In 23 years this man (pbuh) starts single handedly and by the end of these 23 years what change have these words and this speaker, and style of speech caused? What have they influenced?
The way people eat. Did that change?
The way people sleep. Did that change?
Did the way people deal with the family change?
Did the way people schedule their day change?
Did they way people speak to each other change?
Did the way they do business change?
Did the way they go to bathroom change?
Did they way they dress change?
Did the way they fought wars change?
The question isn't what changed. The question is what didn't change. Everything changed. Whenever there is a "revolution" in society It's either economic or it's political or millitary but the way people live on day-to-day basis does not change. They don't change the way they deal with their family depending on the Government changing or new system coming into power. That's still the same. But this change that the Qur'an brought is unparalled in the human history. What changed was not just societal. It wasn't just on macro level. It even changed the way people think. Changed everything from induvidual level to collective level and every spectrum in between. This in itself is the evidence of unparalled power of Qur'an.
*This is modified transcript of Nouman Ali Khan's Lecture "Divine Speech Prologue Part 1"
The lecture can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaS5NsvZ4yM
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