THE CONCEPT OF RELIGION

present century after the earliest period, and that for most of the intervening time the written legacy of the Ummah is devoid of it, this can only be taken as evidence of its own flaw rather than its perfection. The lexicons and commentaries compiled “in later centuries” are not just the intellectual efforts of later generations; they also serve as a record of early interpretations, offering continuity through which the ideas of early generations were passed down to later ones. If the early generations truly understood these terms the way modern scholars now interpret them, the subsequent generations, who carefully preserved the sayings and actions of the first, would have likely recorded this crucial understanding as well. If this interpretation does not appear in that written record, it suggests that this understanding might not have been theirs. In such a case, this claim of historical continuity is not an assertion of historical reality; rather, it is a psychological device to resolve an inner unease—namely: “If this is the correct understanding of the Quranic verses, why didn’t previous scholars understand them this way?” Before entering into a detailed discussion, I would like to make a brief general comment on this book to make clear the common nature of the error committed in