Statistics And The Meaning Of Islam
by Bill Warner (Nov. 2008)
The Koran and Sunna are the only sure and certain basis of Islam. Islam is based upon the Trilogy.
Let us be clear here that the very best way to obtain the complete meaning is to edit (edit does not mean change the meaning, but to order, rearrange and collect) the texts and proceed from the edited text. The Koran is famously difficult. However, if the necessary editing is done, the Koran is a very straightforward document. The first editing steps are to put the Koran in order with respect to time. In this way when you turn the page, you advance in time, just as you would a history book. This time order has been known since the first days of Islam. The next step is to collect all of the variations of the same story. As an example, the story of Moses and the Pharaoh is told 39 times. So if they are all collected under one category, then the Koran is easier to read and less boring.
But we still have a problem. We need to be able to discuss the Koran with those who do not have access to edited Korans or who would not read them anyway. We need to be able make meaningful summary statements. Picking your favorite verse is not the way to make a summary statement.
We need a method of macro-analysis, not micro-analysis. We need to be able to talk about the big picture, the complete meaning of Islam. There is a problem in trying to summarize Islam as it is filled with contradictory statements. So how do we deal with the contradictions while looking at the big picture?
This is born out further by noticing that the Koran does not contain enough information to practice even one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Only the Sunna (primarily the Hadith for religious practice) tells the Muslim how to worship. So the statistical measure shows that Islam is quite properly referred to as Mohammedanism.
Another statistical conclusion: Islam is primarily a political doctrine, not a religion.
Well, the Hadith of Bukhari gives us all of the tactical details of jihad. Using a simple counting method shows that 3% of the hadiths are about the inner struggle, whereas, 97% of the hadiths are about jihad as war. So is jihad the inner struggle? Yes, 3%. Is jihad the war against kafirs? Yes, 97%.
This leads to a very important concept. Islam is based upon contradictory statements. How do we sort them out to get the complete meaning? We measure the amount of text devoted to each side of the dichotomy. That is what we did with the question of which jihad is the real jihad. It gives a complete statistical answer.
There is nothing new here. Only single value state ideas can be measured by one number. Multi-state ideas must be evaluated by statistics that measure every state of the variable. If an idea has different manifestations, then instead of arguing which is the right manifestation, just measure all of the manifestations.
There is an exact analogy to the measurement of the state of the electron in an atom. Quantum physics does not give a single answer about the energy and position, but gives us the statistical probabilities of each possible state. The same is true about Islam. We need to know its total state, not something about one category.
In conclusion, the use of statistics is a superior way to gain complete knowledge of the texts of Islam. Statistics allows us to explore Islam in its totality. Remember the old story of the blind men feeling the elephant? One said the elephant was like a rope, another a tree, a wall and so forth. Was each man right? Were any of them wrong? No. But none of them were completely right. Statistical analysis cannot tell us the qualitative story but it allows us to remove the blinders of only looking at one category and forces us to look at the total picture.
[1] Some say that Islam is founded upon Koran, Hadith and Sharia (Islamic law). There is truth to that, but Sharia is derived from the Trilogy and, by definition, is derivative. Some also say that the Sira is instructional but is not fully authoritative. This is wrong. It is the Sira that allows us to understand time in the Koran. Without the Sira, the Koran cannot be understood. Abrogation (knowing which contradictory verse is the ruling verse) is impossible without knowing which verse is later and abrogates the earlier verse. So the Sira is fundamental as a timeline and is, therefore, foundational.
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