This project started 3 years ago. As a special interest reading group, we meet once a month, read a section of the Qur’an and a psychoanalytic paper, and discuss ideas that emerge from the readings
The reading:
Surat Al-Ma’edah: 1-11
1- O you who have believed, fulfill [all] contracts.1 Lawful for you are the animals of grazing livestock except for that which is recited to you [in this Qur’ān] – hunting not being permitted while you are in the state of iḥrām.2 Indeed, Allāh ordains what He intends.
2-O you who have believed, do not violate the rites of Allāh or [the sanctity of] the sacred month or [neglect the marking of] the sacrificial animals and garlanding [them] or [violate the safety of] those coming to the Sacred House seeking bounty from their Lord and [His] approval. But when you come out of iḥrām, then [you may] hunt. And do not let the hatred of a people for having obstructed you from al-Masjid al-Ḥarām lead you to transgress. And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression. And fear Allāh; indeed, Allāh is severe in penalty.
3- Prohibited to you are dead animals,1 blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allāh, and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars,2 and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. This day those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. This day I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islām as religion. But whoever is forced by severe hunger with no inclination to sin – then indeed, Allāh is Forgiving and Merciful.
4- They ask you, [O Muḥammad], what has been made lawful for them. Say, “Lawful for you are [all] good foods and [game caught by] what you have trained of hunting animals1 which you train as Allāh has taught you. So eat of what they catch for you, and mention the name of Allāh upon it, and fear Allāh.” Indeed, Allāh is swift in account.
5- This day [all] good foods have been made lawful, and the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you and your food is lawful for them. And [lawful in marriage are] chaste women from among the believers and chaste women from among those who were given the Scripture before you, when you have given them their due compensation,1 desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse or taking [secret] lovers. And whoever denies the faith – his work has become worthless, and he, in the Hereafter, will be among the losers.
6- O you who have believed, when you rise to [perform] prayer, wash your faces and your forearms to the elbows and wipe over your heads and wash your feet to the ankles. And if you are in a state of janābah,1 then purify yourselves. But if you are ill or on a journey or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself or you have contacted women2 and do not find water, then seek clean earth and wipe over your faces and hands with it. Allāh does not intend to make difficulty for you, but He intends to purify you and complete His favor upon you that you may be grateful.
7- And remember the favor of Allāh upon you and His covenant with which He bound you when you said, “We hear and we obey”; and fear Allāh. Indeed, Allāh is Knowing of that within the breasts.
8- O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allāh, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allāh; indeed, Allāh is [fully] Aware of what you do.
9-Allāh has promised those who believe and do righteous deeds [that] for them there is forgiveness and great reward.
10-But those who disbelieve and deny Our signs – those are the companions of Hellfire.
11-O you who have believed, remember the favor of Allāh upon you when a people determined to extend their hands [in aggression] against you, but He withheld their hands from you; and fear Allāh. And upon Allāh let the believers rely.
Paper: The seminars of Jacques Lacan XIV.
Whenever we start a new chapter in the Qur’an, I like to do a recap or a mind map of what I got to so far in terms of understanding the logical sequence of the chapters. Very briefly, this is what I have retained so far:
Surat Al Fatiha (The Opener), is the opening conversation, man bringing himself as a subject of God, asking God for guidance.
Surat Al-Baqara (The Cow), is the taking on board of the request of the subject and the contracting but God and his subjects.
Surat Al-Imran is a compassion focused approach to stabilize anxiety,
Surat An-Nisa (Women), is the introduction of the social and people’s rights and duties. It starts with a call to mankind, O Mankind.
Now we are about to start reading surat Al-Ma’edah, the first verse starts with “O you who have believed.”
This is a specific call to people who have entered into a relationship with God. The question is what kind of relationship is this? What defines it?
In emphasising belief as central to this call, “O you who have believed” God is reminding us and focusing his subjects’ attention to the contract of faith; to submit to His will, to strive in the way of God so that we receive guidance, teaching and direction.
The reason why I suggested a reading of Lacan with this section of surat al-Ma’eda is that the verses pointed to a relationship with the transcendent in the context of Lacan’s thinking of the “the name of the father or the nos of the father.”
Of course, Islam immediately rejects any likening of this relationship to a father/son relationship and this is a pivotal point in this presentation. In verse 11 of Surat Al-Shura, Allah is defined as “There is nothing like Him.” The relationship we are learning about, is not in the realm of object relations, but non-object relations, it is, in Lacan’s idiom, of the order of the symbolic before being signified.
Interestingly, in God’s final message to humanity, he chose to address mankind in Arabic via the Qur’an. He chose language as a signifier to communicate with us because it is our medium of communication and provides us with a text of the order of the symbolic, that keeps regenerating to match our development. But this is a topic for a different day.
Today, my focus is on verses 1 to 11 of Surat Al-Ma’edah which give out commands but conclude with a description of an attribute of God. For example, verse 1: there is a command to fulfill covenants, then rules about consumption are introduced, the verse ends with a reminder that God decrees what he wills. Verse 2: there is a command for piety, mutual assistance, and a prohibition of aggression and violation of sacred markers. The verse then ends with And be mindful of God; indeed, God is severe in penalty; and so on.
I wondered how this could be understood. This is where Lacan’s theory came to be very useful. According to Lacan, The subject is inherently divided (\$) because they are born into a Symbolic Order (language, culture, Law) that forever separates them from their original, imagined completeness. In other words, the Subject’s Bar (\$) is the feeling that something is always missing. The Law (the Big Other) is stable because its source is ungraspable by the subject. The Law is founded on an empty set—a structural Lack that must be preserved. To fix the place of lack and reach stabilization means to accept this eternal division and the Law’s fundamental, empty source. The bar (\$) is what makes the subject, not what un-makes them.
What it suggests is that from the moment we are born, we lose a sense of perfect completeness (like the baby feeling totally one with its mother). As we learn language and rules, we realize we can never truly express everything we feel, or get everything we want. So, we are permanently divided, part of us is the person we are, and part of us is a “Hole” (Lack) that we spend our whole life trying to fill. Society (The Law) doesn’t try to fill this hole; it just gives the hole a name and a permanent address. And this is a point of divergence with the Islamic perspective of the human condition.
The Islamic concept, derived from the core doctrine of Tawhid (the Oneness of God), offers a fundamentally different resolution to the problem of the divided subject than the Lacanian framework. The verses that are core statements of Tawhid in the Qur’an (Surat Al-Ikhlas, 112:4, and Surat Ash-Shura, 42:11), “There is nothing like Him.” Are the foundation of Islamic monotheism (Tawhid) and function to stabilize the subject by rejecting division and fragmentation at the most fundamental level.
The verse “there is nothing like Him” asserts that God is unique, incomparable, and Absolute. He is the Singular Source of all authority, purpose, and existence.
In contrast to the Lacanian Law, which is stable due to the emptiness of its source (the Law is built on a Lack), the Islamic Law (Sharia) is stable due to the Absolute Unity and Fullness of its source (the oneness of God).
The Muslim subject does not seek to grasp an empty source; they seek to understand the attributes and will of an Absolutely Real and Full Source. The Subject’s sense of Lack and Division in Islam is not innate to their structure, but rather a product of Shirk (polytheism or attributing partners to God) or excessive devotion to worldly objects (dunya). A relationship with God is hence a relation that transcends object relations. If the Subject places their ultimate hope, fear, and desire in multiple, conflicting, or finite objects (money, power, other people), they become fragmented and anxious. This is the state of the “unstable” subject.
The antidote, or stabilising factor, is Tawhid; an act of recentering all ultimate desires, fears, and loves onto the One, incomparable Reality. By submitting to the singular, absolute Law, the Subject finds a unified purpose and a fixed identity as the subject of God. This submission resolves the inner conflict and existential anxiety, the subject is no longer divided between competing, limited “gods.”
In essence, Lacan’s stabilization requires the acceptance of a structural, permanent bar (\$), an empty, untouchable core that we can never figure out or control (permanent feeling of “Lack” is what guarantees the Law’s permanent power.) Lacan wants us to accept that stability comes from accepting that the ultimate answer is an unreachable permanent nothing.
On the other hand, Islam’s stabilization requires the elimination of all inner bars and divisions (Shirk) by affirming the single, absolute, and incomparable reality of God (Tawhid). Stability comes from accepting that the ultimate answer is an absolute, incomparable ONE. (God’s Oneness)
In both cases, stability depends on something unreachable, but one is an empty core and the other is a singular, full core.
If we go back to the examples of the verses stated above, we can understand that the attributes offered at the end of the verses (fawasil) are the stabilising factors that enable the subject to carry out the commands despite the anxiety accompanying the task.
Verse 1: God decrees what He wills is stabilises the subject by establishing that the Law is not arbitrary or open to human revision; it is rooted in Absolute Divine Will. This removes the Subject’s temptation to question the wisdom of the rule or assume a position of co-authority with the Lawgiver.
Verse 2: “And be mindful of God; indeed, God is severe in penalty”, justice and retribution stabilizes the Subject’s adherence to the command by invoking accountability.
In essence, Islam stabilizes the symbolic order by stopping the infinite regression of the subject. The subjective contradiction, or the problem exposed by Russell’s Paradox, is one of infinite regression or circularity. If the Law (the Big Other) is based only on human language, then the Law itself is flawed and incomplete, leading the subject to endlessly question its foundation: “Why should I obey this Law?”
If all sets are defined by sets, where does the definition start?
If all signifiers are defined by other signifiers, where is the ultimate meaning?
The Quranic Solution comes in the verse “There is nothing like Him” which asserts an Absolute Origin that is not dependent on, or comparable to, the human Symbolic network. It acts as the final, unquestionable Axiom that terminates the chain of questioning. It says: “The Law comes from here, and ‘here’ is defined as being beyond comparison.” This prevents the human mind from dissolving the Law into an endless, self-contradictory logic game.
Islamic Perspectives, Psychoanalytic Understanding 