Of seas, and trees and ink: Allegory in the Quran

Why should the Quran be talking about oceans of ink, and all the trees in the world becoming pens and "the words of thy Lord" never being exhausted?

Before the answer, a brief preface: There are two types of verses in the Quran. Both are described in verse 7 Chapter 3 Aal – e – Imraan:

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This is Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation of the verse:

“He it is Who hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture wherein are clear revelations - they are the substance of the Book - and others (which are) allegorical.”

The first type of verses consists of the Muhkamaat. Pickthall has used the word “clear revelations” to describe this type. And he uses the word “allegorical” to describe the second type called Mutashabihaat.

The Muhkamaat are verses that are clear in meaning and are not generally open to alternative interpretations other than the literal meaning of the text. And these, as mentioned in the verse, represent the essence of the Quran.

The word Mutashabihaat, on the other hand, described by Pickthall as “allegorical” merits some further elucidation.

Mutashabihaat is the plural of the active participle of the verb tashabaha which means to look like or to resemble. As originally used it means a comparison between two things that closely resemble each other to the extent that it is difficult to tell them apart. And this connotation, of the difficulty of determining, which was which, led to a second meaning of the word. People started to use it to describe vague or ambiguous writing or speech. In other words, anything whose meaning was open to alternative explanations. And hence Mutashabihaat.

Of these Mutashabihaat, there are two mysterious and marvelous verses which speak of seas and trees and ink and "the words of your Lord". They seem to open a doorway to the infinite. I have translated both below:

Chapter 18, Kahf, verse 109:

??? ????? ????? ????????? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ???????? ????????? ?????? ??? ??????? ????????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????????? ???????

"Say (O Muhammad): If the sea were ink for the words of your Lord indeed the sea would have depleted before the words of your Lord are exhausted, even if We had added to it similar seas."

Chapter 21, Luqman, verse 27:

?????? ???????? ??? ????????? ??? ???????? ????????? ??????????? ????????? ??? ???????? ???????? ???????? ???? ???????? ????????? ??????????????? ??????? ??????? ???????

"If all the trees on Earth were pens and the sea with seven more seas added to it were ink the words of your Lord would not have been exhausted. Indeed, He is the Powerful, the Wise."

So, what are these “words” that the Quran refers to? An infinity of words, so many, that were all the oceans on Earth and more like them used as ink they would be depleted before the "words of your Lord” are exhausted.

The exegetists of the Quran, wise and learned men from by gone ages, who usually have much to say, seem here not to have an answer. They do not, in general, stray too far from the literal meaning of the verses

Today, from a perspective that was not available to the men of old, there may be some clues as to what the Divine allusion to an infinite number of “words” may refer to. Consider the human DNA. It is composed of a sequence of “letters” – words in a manner of speaking. There are 3.2 billion letters (base pairs) in human DNA. Each person has a unique DNA. And there are now 8 billion people on the planet. Add to that all the people, beasts and plants that have ever existed, and you begin to realize why the “words of your Lord” are inexhaustible.

The “words” then, in some sense, are the instruction sets, the programs – to use the language of computing – that power all of creation. The flight control systems of a modern airliner have several million lines of code. One would expect then that the systems that run the cosmos – the planets, all living creatures, the billions of stars and millions of galaxies - may well run into, by human measures, an infinite number of “lines”. So, the “words of your Lord” become inexhaustible even if all the oceans on earth and beyond were the ink to “write” them.

Those who seek to explain the verses of the Quran must always keep in mind the limitation of their vision and their knowledge. In the end we do not know, He alone knows.

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