After the September 11th attacks on the U.
S.
, I wanted to deepen my understanding of Islam.
I took a class on Middle-Eastern political thought, and I read Abdullah Yusuf Ali's translation of The Quran.
The class was easy, but The Quran was hard.
I struggled through to the end of it without comprehending much of what I read.
Currently, I am rereading The Quran.
I am still struggling to understand it, though for different reasons than my struggles of ten years ago.
Today, I came across a note my younger self wrote in the margin next to Surah 18, Ayat 7.
The text says, "That which is on earth We have made but as a glittering show for the earth, in order that We may test them-as to which of them are best in conduct.
" Now, I don't know how I could have missed the fact that Allah refers to Himself in the plural through the first 17 Surahs, but my note in the margin finally asks the question, "Why 'We?'" This question is followed by a reference to Mark 5:9, which describes a host of devils who possess a man and say, "My name is Legion: for we are many.
" I was reading The Quran in order to understand the faith of Muslims, and I think I was sincere in that desire, but I was also negatively prejudiced against Allah.
I had some sort of sneaking suspicion that Allah might really be a host of demons possessing Muhammad.
At that time, I visited an Iranian professor.
I had taken a chemistry class from him, and he had gifted me The Quran that I was reading.
I asked him about the use of the term 'We' in reference to Allah.
The term really confused me because Allah constantly says that He is one God, and that He has no partners.
This professor explained to me the idea of the royal plural.
It is common for powerful individuals to use plural pronouns to refer to themselves.
The royal plural denotes excellence and dignity and may refer to one's relationship to the multitude they rule.
This morning--as I read The Quran from a less prejudiced point of view, at least I hope so--memories of what I have been describing came back to me, along with a related memory.
Around the same time that I first read The Quran, I was assigned by a teacher to read the Bhagavad Gita.
When I read of Arjuna's unwillingness to fight and kill his teachers and his kin, I felt warm and fuzzy inside.
I loved his sermon on family values and social order.
But I was soon dismayed, because Lord Krishna then tells Arjuna that killing his teachers and his kin is the right thing to do.
At that time, the only reason I could see for Krishna's command was that everyone would be reborn anyways.
I felt sure that Krishna must be a devil.
I didn't even continue reading the book, which is really a shame, because many years later, when I read the Gita at St.
John's College, I found Arjuna's vision of Krishna's Universal Form to be one of the most sublime things I had ever read.
Then again, it may not be a shame, because a person who sees no inconsistency in calling other people's divinities devils, while he himself overlooks the deviltries attributed to the God of the Old Testament, is probably not capable of appreciating what Krishna showed Arjuna.
I need to be careful though--it sounds like I might be prejudiced against people who have my former mindset.
Also, all of this sounds like a strange joke about Yahweh, Allah, and Krishna before St.
Peter, or, perhaps, walking into a bar.