There exists a prophetic teaching reported in several formulations, often cited as follows:
اقْرَؤُوا الْقُرْآنَ مَا ائْتَلَفَتْ عَلَيْهِ قُلُوبُكُمْ،
فَإِذَا اخْتَلَفْتُمْ فَقُومُوا عَنْهُ
Generally translated as:
“Read the Qur’an as long as your hearts are in harmony, and when your hearts diverge, then stand up and leave it.”
Here, I propose to offer an exegesis of this prophetic teaching through two complementary levels of reading:
a first reading rooted in the prophetic mission and the project of îmân,
and a second, more contemporary reading, attentive to inner experience, reason, and fitra.
These two readings do not oppose one another.
They illuminate two different registers of the same teaching.
First Reading
The Qur’an as a Regulator of the Space of Îmân
Every prophetic teaching must be understood within the prophetic mission itself.
It cannot be isolated from its horizon, nor from its human, social, and spiritual purpose.
The mission of the Prophet — Muhammad — does not consist merely in transmitting a text, rules, or prescriptions.
It aims above all to found, open, and preserve a space of îmân.
Îmân is not a simple doctrinal adherence nor an identity-based affiliation.
It is a living space of trust, both inner and collective.
A space in which human beings can coexist without destroying one another,
where difference does not activate hatred,
where divergence does not generate terror,
where hearts are not at war,
where the safety of each is not threatened,
and where respect remains the norm.
This space of îmân is deeply psychosocial and psychopathological-social.
It protects society from the projection of inner conflicts,
from the sacralization of violence,
and from the transformation of religion into an instrument of domination.
It is within this precise horizon that this prophetic teaching must be read.
A Word-by-Word Exegesis of the Teaching
اقْرَؤُوا – Iqra’û
The verb iqra’û does not merely mean to recite mechanically or to produce a sacred sound.
It refers to a living reading, an act of receiving meaning, an encounter with a word that acts.
Reading engages the heart, the intellect, and responsibility.
Reading is never neutral: it transforms the one who reads and affects those around them.
الْقُرْآنَ – al-Qur’ân
The Prophet is not speaking here of a fixed text, but of the Qur’an, that is, a word meant to circulate, to be transmitted, to be shared.
The Qur’an is by nature relational.
It brings hearts into resonance.
This is precisely why it can become either a factor of unification,
or—if poorly received or poorly transmitted—a factor of fracture.
مَا ائْتَلَفَتْ عَلَيْهِ قُلُوبُكُمْ – as long as your hearts are in harmony
The criterion here is not uniformity of opinions nor ideological agreement.
The term i’tilâf designates a living harmony, an inner consonance.
Differences may exist without turning into conflicts.
What is at stake here is not the plurality of readings, but the state of the hearts.
قُلُوبُكُمْ – your hearts
The Prophet speaks neither of abstract reasoning nor of intellectual systems.
He speaks of hearts.
The heart is the place of trust, vulnerability, and relationship.
When mentioned in the plural, it designates a collective reality.
👉 Îmân is not only individual: it is a shared space.
Every reading of the Qur’an therefore has a social impact.
It can build a climate of trust or generate an atmosphere of tension.
فَإِذَا اخْتَلَفْتُمْ – and when you diverge
Here, ikhtilâf does not refer to legitimate intellectual disagreement,
nor to interpretive plurality,
nor to the richness of debate.
It refers to the moment when reading activates rivalry, hardness, ego, and the battle of hearts.
The moment when the Qur’an ceases to be received and begins to be used.
فَقُومُوا عَنْهُ – then stand up and leave it
The Prophet does not say: close the book.
He says: stand up.
This is a change of state, an exit from an inner posture.
An invitation to leave a relationship with the Text that has become toxic,
in order to preserve the space of îmân before it is destroyed.
The Qur’an as Transmission and Ethical Responsibility
The Qur’an is transmission.
And every transmission depends on the state of the heart of the transmitter.
Do not transmit meaning from:
-
a heart filled with hatred,
-
contempt for others,
-
an intention to attack or disqualify,
-
a desire for domination.
Transmit from:
-
a heart in harmony with the mission,
-
a heart that seeks neither conflict nor controversy,
-
a heart responsible for social peace and human harmony.
Transmission requires maturity and responsibility.
“Qûmû ‘anhu”: Returning to the Essential
When reading becomes obsessive, conflictual, or instrumentalized,
when it becomes a source of fear, hatred, or contempt,
then one must stand up.
But stand up—to go where?
Toward a sound human fitra.
Toward the essential that hearts already recognize.
The Qur’an may be:
-
a fertile field of intellectual production,
-
a space of rational flourishing,
-
a garden in which multiple readings bloom,
but it must never become a battlefield.
It is in this sense that another prophetic teaching supports this reading:
لا تضربوا كلامَ اللهِ بعضَه ببعض
“Do not strike the Word of God with the Word of God.”
Do not fight one another using the divine message.
For too often, the desire to be right outweighs the search for the common good and for deep meaning.
If the Qur’an Adds Nothing to You…
It is essential to dare to state this clearly.
The Qur’an is meant to add to you.
It is meant to elevate you, to help you grow, to humanize you more deeply.
It is meant to make you better human beings.
But if, at a given moment, reading the Qur’an
does not make you more just,
does not make you more sensitive,
does not make you more responsible,
does not make you more human,
then at the very least, let it take nothing away from you.
Let it not deprive you of:
-
your fundamental goodness,
-
your basic moral sense,
-
what you already know, deep within, of what is good and just,
-
what your human and maternal education has transmitted to you,
-
what your heart already recognizes at its deepest level.
For the Qur’an is meant to open access to new knowledge,
not to cause human regression.
If access to this new knowledge is not yet possible,
if meaning has not yet opened,
then let reading not become a cause of losing what is already there:
decency, compassion, justice, the sense of good.
The revealed message cannot legitimately have the effect
of making you less human than you already were.
If a reading of the Qur’an removes your kindness,
if it strips you of delicacy,
if it causes moral or relational regression,
then it is not the Qur’an that is acting,
but a faulty reception, a faulty mediation, or an instrumentalization of meaning.
It is precisely here that the injunction “fa-qûmû ‘anhu” takes on its full significance:
to stand up in order to preserve the human,
to withdraw from a reading that no longer adds,
so that Revelation never becomes a factor of dehumanization.
A Prophetic Rule for Preventing Religious Violence
If this interpretation has been developed with care, it is for a precise reason:
to show that the Prophet was deeply attentive to the risks of religious violence.
This is not a simple spiritual recommendation.
It is a prophetic golden rule for preventing violence:
violence in the name of religion,
violence justified by the Text,
violence born from the sacralization of conflict.
This hadith establishes a crucial distinction, too often ignored:
the difference between divergence of hearts and divergence of opinions.
A Text Too Often Misused
This teaching has unfortunately been used as a moralizing and guilt-inducing text,
serving to stifle fertile and creative thought.
It has been mobilized as a blockade against ijtihâd,
against the art of reading the Qur’an in a rational, living, and responsible manner,
against the possibility of deriving new rules adapted to human realities.
It has also been used as a brake on philosophical exegesis,
and as a disguised invitation to literalism and the preservation of a superficial meaning,
simply because it reassures and stabilizes.
Yet this principle is extremely dangerous.
Preventing divergence of opinions never prevents divergence of hearts.
On the contrary, it impoverishes intellectual fertility,
stifles spiritual creativity,
produces a fragile and temporary peace,
but does not produce îmân.
Îmân Is Not a Fixed Calm
The prophetic project is not a project of mere order maintenance.
Îmân is not a static state of imposed tranquility.
Îmân is a dynamic.
A movement.
A work.
An art.
The Prophet did not come to make us guardians of peace,
charged with monitoring, controlling, and neutralizing differences.
He came to make us artisans of peace.
The difference is immense.
The guardian of peace maintains external stability.
The artisan of peace builds an inner and relational harmony capable of welcoming complexity.
Al-Mu’min is the artisan of peace.
Al-Îmân is the project:
the project of building a universal peace—living, fertile, and evolving.
Second Reading
A Singular and Modern Reading: The Inner Art of Reading and Reciting
Alongside the first reading—collective, social, rooted in the prophetic project of îmân—another reading has emerged more recently.
A much more modern reading, found in certain contemporary manuals, and one that I myself have adopted in several past writings.
This reading rests on a subtle shift:
although the prophetic injunction is expressed in the plural—iqra’û—and inscribed, in its spirit, within a collective dynamic, it is proposed that it may be conjugated in the singular.
In other words, iqra’û may also be received as:
read, you.
Not in order to deny the collective dimension of the message,
but to remind us that each person is responsible for their inner posture toward the Text.
A Reading Born in Reaction
It must be stated clearly:
this reading is modern—very modern indeed.
It emerged in a specific context, in reaction to a rigid and widespread interpretation according to which this hadith would mean:
you have no right to differences of opinion.
In this rigid reading, all divergence was perceived as a danger,
and Qur’anic reading had to be unified, homogeneous, totalizing,
at the risk of becoming authoritarian and guilt-inducing.
In response, some sought to:
-
preserve the relevance of the prophetic message,
-
safeguard the Text without rejecting it,
-
defend the modern value that has become central: difference of opinion.
Thus this singular reading emerged:
the text would not address the community as a community,
but individuals gathered together, each responsible for their reception.
We have already shown, in the first reading, that it is possible to preserve the collective dimension of the text without prohibiting divergence, simply by clearly distinguishing divergence of hearts from divergence of opinions.
But let us now take the time to explore this modern reading for what it is:
a possible, intelligent, fertile reading, even if it slightly forces the text beyond its original spirit.
Reading as an Encounter with Meaning
In this reading, it is essential to recall that we are always speaking of reading, not of mere mechanical recitation.
Reading here means:
-
receiving meaning,
-
encountering a text,
-
allowing a word to resonate within consciousness.
The rule then becomes both simple and demanding:
continue reading as long as your heart is in harmony with the meaning you receive.
If you reach a point where meaning deeply disturbs you,
where it unsettles your conscience,
where it produces inner tension,
then stop.
Not by rejection.
Not by intellectual superiority.
But by humility.
To say:
I do not wish to force a door that is not yet open.
Stopping is not a spiritual failure.
It is wisdom.
Stopping as a Strategy of Clarity
Stopping here means:
-
giving yourself time,
-
meditating,
-
reflecting,
-
asking questions,
-
without panic,
-
without obsession.
This principle is well known in science, art, and creation:
when the mind saturates, the solution appears not through force, but through distance.
Fertile distraction—walking, breathing, sleeping, creating, living—
often allows meaning to mature.
Stopping thus becomes a strategy of clarity, not an escape.
A Reading That Trusts Reason and Fitra
This modern reading is particularly important because it trusts:
-
reason,
-
human feelings,
-
sound human nature.
When there is a contradiction between:
-
the meaning available at a given moment,
-
and the fundamental human values recognized by fitra,
then it is right to stop.
Do not swallow the text dogmatically.
Do not say to yourself:
even if this shocks my values, I must accept it anyway.
This is not humility.
It is violence done to conscience.
The Qur’an addresses beings who understand.
Meaning must reach the heart with a sense of assurance and trust.
If discomfort arises from:
-
a faulty translation,
-
a shift in meaning,
-
a rigid interpretation,
-
an impoverished literalist reading,
then stand up.
Seek another reference.
Let time do its work.
Perhaps in a few hours,
in a few years,
or even across generations,
a deeper meaning will emerge,
one that reunifies heart and mind
and restores a serene state of trust.
Another Declination: Recitation as a Space of Presence
This singular reading has also been articulated in a more ritual perspective, centered on presence.
Here, the teaching becomes:
recite as long as your heart is present.
When recitation becomes mechanical,
when the tongue recites but the heart is elsewhere,
when the act becomes endurance, performance, or forced discipline,
then stop.
The divine message is not meant to be endured.
It is a grace.
A grace is not endured.
It is received.
Let recitation never become:
-
a personal project of achievement,
-
a numerical objective,
-
a spiritual performance.
The Qur’an is not a tool for self-discipline.
There are other spaces for discipline.
The Qur’an is a space of encounter,
a companionship,
and that companionship is with the Divine itself.
The Context of Ramadan
This is why this reading, though not the most central theologically,
may be the most relevant today, as Ramadan approaches.
In a context saturated with discourses that are:
-
performative,
-
sentimental,
-
mixing religion with personal development,
-
obsessed with “doing more,” “finishing,” “succeeding,”
it reminds us of something essential:
do not force the space of the Qur’an.
Read what comes to you.
Recite what you can receive.
Let the Qur’an never become:
-
an object,
-
a technique,
-
an instrument of spiritual self-violence.
Conclusion of the Second Reading
Reading Without Self-Violence, Reciting Without Hardening
In this second reading, the Prophet — Muhammad — does not regulate the city.
He teaches the inner art of relationship with the Text.
Reading or reciting the Qur’an is neither a trial,
nor an exploit,
nor a goal to be achieved.
It is an encounter.
When reading nourishes inner peace, it is just.
When it becomes heavy, guilt-inducing, or obsessive,
stopping becomes an act of respect.
Respect for the Text.
Respect for the heart.
Respect for fitra.
Especially as Ramadan approaches,
the Qur’an is not a program to be completed,
but a space of grace.
One enters when the heart is available.
One leaves when it is saturated.
And one returns without fear, guilt, or obsession.
For a grace cannot be forced.
It is received.
General Conclusion
Reading to Preserve the Human, Transmitting to Help It Grow
The two readings proposed do not contradict one another.
They simply address different levels of reality.
The first situates this prophetic teaching within its foundational mission:
to preserve a space of îmân,
to prevent religious violence,
to ensure that the Text does not become a weapon between hearts.
It reminds us that the Qur’an can never be the legitimate cause of hatred,
nor of terror,
nor of the destruction of human bonds,
and that any reading that fractures îmân betrays the very purpose of the prophetic mission.
The second reading, more interior and modern,
teaches the art of personal relationship with the Text:
a reading without violence toward oneself,
a recitation without hardening,
a reception of meaning grounded in trust, patience, and fitra.
Where the first protects the community,
the second protects the conscience.
Where the first regulates the collective space,
the second educates inner posture.
Together, they outline a single demand:
that the Qur’an add to the human,
that it elevate without breaking,
that it transform without dehumanizing,
that it foster peace without suffocating truth,
and that it remain a space of meaning, trust, and maturation.
For the Qur’an is neither a battlefield,
nor an object of performance,
nor an instrument of domination.
It is a transmission.
And every authentic transmission presupposes a living heart,
a respected intelligence,
and an assumed ethical responsibility.
Perhaps it is here, in this double fidelity—
fidelity to îmân as a collective space of trust,
and fidelity to fitra as an inner compass—
that the justness of our reading of the Qur’an is decided today.
