THE UMMAH IN THE QUR’AN AND THE UMMAH TODAY

Abstract

This article primarily examines lexical and semantic meanings of the word Ummah (Islamic community) and it provides contextual situations in which the word Ummah appears in the Qur’an. The article states that, according to the semantic research of the Qur’an, the word Ummah has nine different contextual meanings. The article goes on to explore the meaning of the Qur’anic syntagm “ummeten wasatan”, found in the 143rd Ayah (Verse) of the Al-Baqara (Cow) Surah (Chapter), which serves as a kind of a motto for this article. The examination of meaning of this syntagm has been conducted based on various classical and modern Tafseer (Commentaries) of the Qur’an. The article then talks about the Ummah as a political union of Muslims. The basic conclusion of this part points to the far-reaching and grave consequences of replacing the transnational concept of the Ummah in the Muslims world’s political order with the concept of national Muslim states, which is still dominant. After pointing out to some of the characteristics of the Muslim Ummah, based on the aforementioned analysis, the author ends the article by calling on to the contemporary Muslim thinkers and Ulema (Muslims Scholars) to engage in a wide inter-Muslim debate about the idea of Ummah-nizing the Muslim Ummah. The author holds that the revival of the idea of the Ummah is very important religious and political issue for the Muslims’ present and future and is, therefore, necessary to talk more about this idea at all levels.