Rethinking the Qur'an: Towards a Humanistic

Hermeneutics

Rede
uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar vanwege de
humanistische stichting Socrates bij de Universiteit voor Humanistiek
op het gebied van'Humanisme en islam, in het bijzonder met betrekking tot
mensenrechten, burgerschap en samenleving'
op 27 mei 2004
door
prof. dr, Nasr Abri Zayd
 Introduction

The world has already become, whether for good or for bad, one
small village in which no independent closed culture, if there is any,
can survive. Cultures have to negotiate, to give and take, to borrow
and deliver, a phenomenon that is not new or invented in the mod­
ern context of globalization. The history of the world culture tells us
that the wave of civilization was probably born somewhere around
the basin of rivers, probably in black Africa, Egypt or Iraq, before it
moved to Greece, then returned to the Middle East in the form of
Hellenism. With the advent of Islam, a new culture emerged absorb­
ing and reconstructing the Hellenistic as well as the Indian and
Iranian cultural elements before it was handed to the Western New
World via Spain and Sicily.
Shall I mention here the name of the Muslim philosopher Ibn
Rushd, known as Averroes in the Latin environment and the impor­
tance of his writings in constructing synthesis of both the Aristotelian
and the Islamic legacies, thus, transfusing new intellectual light to the
European dark ages?
I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to
the Humanist Foundation 'Socrates', the Humanist Development
Organization, HIVOS, and the Board of Governors of the University
of Humanistics for the very significant initiative to establish an
Academic Chair for Islam and Humanism in the Arabic name 'Ibn
Rushd' instead of the Latin Averroes. I am so honored to be the first
scholar to occupy the Chair, and in the vein of Ibn Rushd's thought I
hope not only to present my lecture today, but more to contribute to
the process of building solid bridges between Islam and Humanism.

7
NASR A BO ZAYD

Why is it now so vital for Muslims to rethink the Qur'an? Besides the
present context of Western Islamophobia, especially after the t�auma
of September 1 1th and the aftermath terrorism operations every­
where in the Muslim as well as the non-Muslim World, which
reduced Islam to be radical, violent and exclusive, o ne should empha­
size the importance of this invitation to 'rethink the Qur'an' for
Muslims in general, and for Muslims living in Europe in particular. I
am not here claiming any missionary task to formulate a specific
Islam, but rather situating my hermeneutical position.
The process of 'rethinking tradition' as well as negotiating the
'meaning' of the Qur'an in the Muslim World has been, however, an
ongoing development since the eighteenth century. I would like to
argue not only for the continuation of this process of rethinking but
for moving it further toward a constructive method for Muslims,
wherever they are, to be actively engaged in formulating the 'mean­
ing of life' in the world in which they live.
In the year 2000 I was honored with the Cleveringa rotated Chair
of Law, Freedom and Responsibility, especially Freedom of Religion
and Conscience by the Chair's curatorium at the University of Leiden.
In my inaugural lecture on Monday 27 November 2000, exactly three
and a half years ago, I presented the concept of the Qur'an as a space
of Divine and Human Communication. Under the title 'The Qur'an:
God and Man in Communication', I attempted a rereading, and there­
fore re-interpretation, of some basic principal assumptions contained
in the classical disciplines, known as 'the sciences of the Qur'an' ,
'ulum al-Quran in Arabic, especially those sciences which deal with
the nature of the Qur'an, its history and its structure.
In such rereading, and re-interpretation, I employed some
methodological apparatus, such as semantics, semiotics as well as his­
torical criticism and hermeneutics that are not generally applied, nor
appreciated, in the traditional Qur'anic studies in the Muslim World.
I focused in my analysis on the Vertical dimension of revelation,
wahy in Arabic, i.e., the communicative process between God and
the Prophet Muhammad that produced the Qur'an. As these vertical
communications, which lasted for more than 20 years, produced a
multiplicity of discourses (in the form of verses, passages, short chap­
ters) these discourses had a chronological order.

8
 R ET H I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MANISTIC H E RM E N EUTICS

In the process of canonization, from which the canonized scripture

emerged as mushaf, this chronological order was not preserveJ; it was
replaced by what is now known as the 'recitation order' while the
chronological is know as the 'decadence order'. According to the
orthodox view, the Qur'an was perfectly preserved in oral form from
the beginning and was written down during Muhammad's lifetime or
shortly thereafter when it was "collected" and arranged for the first
time by his Companions. The complete consonantal text is believed to
have been established during the reign of the third caliph, ' Uthman
(644-56), and the final vocalized text in the early 4th/lO th century. It
is important, even if we uncritically adapt to the Orthodox view, to
realize another human dimension present in this process of canoniza­
tion, which entailed the early rearrangement and the late application
of signs of vocalization to the only consonantal script.
Today, I would like to develop my thesis about the human
aspect of the Qur'an one further step, moving from the vertical
dimension towards the Horizontal dimension of the Qur'an. By the
horizontal dimension I mean something more than the canonization,
or what some other scholars identify as the act of the prophet's grad­
ual propagation of the message of the Qur'an after receiving it, or the
spread of the message through the 'interpretive corpus', according to
M. Arkoun. I do mean the horizontal dimension that is embedded in
the structure of the Qur'an and was manifest during the process of
communication itself. This horizontal dimension could only be real­
ized if we shift our conceptual framework from the Qur'an as a 'text'
to the Qur'an as 'discourse'.

1- The Qur'an as 'Discourse'

Recently, Muhammad Arkoun and others! rightly distinguish

between the phenomenon of the Qur'an, the recited discourse, and
the Mushaf, which contains what Arkoun identifies as the 'Closed
Corpus' or Scripture through the process of canonization explained
See Muhammad Arkoun, Rethinking Islam, common questions, uncommon
answers, translared hy Robert D. Lee, Westview Press, 1994, pp. 35-40; The
Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought, Saqi books & rhe Institute of
Ismaili Studies, London 2002, p. 99. See for the views of Hasan Hanafi my Naqd
al-Khidb ai-Dint (Ctitique of Religious Discourse), Cairo, second edition, p. 187.

9
NASR ABU ZAYD

above, which transformed the recited discourse into scripture or a

'text'. Today I would like to bypass this historical moment o( trans­
formation known in the history of every religion. Since that histori­
cal moment Muslim scholars of the Qur'an, though theoretically
aware of the impact of this transformation and occasionally return
back to the pre-text structure of the Qur'an, never were able to recap­
ture the living phenomenon, the Qur'an as a 'discourse' .
Modern scholars of the Qur'an share the concept of the Qur'an
as a 'text' despite the different paradigm of 'meaning' each tries to
grasp and deduce from the Qur'an. Dealing with the Qur'an as only
a 'text' enhances the possibilities of interpretation and reinterpreta­
tion but allows as well the ideological manipulation not only of the
meaning but also of the 'structure', following the pattern of polemic
interpretation of theologians.
I was one of the propagators of the textuality of the Qur'an
under the influence of the literary approach initiated by the modern,
and still appreciated, literary approach2 . I recently started to realize
how dealing with the Quean as a text alone reduces its status and
ignores the fact that it is still functioning as a 'discourse' in everyday
life. 3 The volume entitled ' The Qur'an as Text', which presents the
proceedings of the symposium held in 1 993 in the Oriental Seminar
of the University of Bonn, enjoyed so many reprints4, because it
introduces the shift to which Stefan Wild refers, at least in the
Western Qur'anic scholarship, from the paradigm of the 'genesis' of
the Qur'an, whether Jewish or Christian, to the paradigm of textu5
receptu5.
It is true that the Qur'anic textu5 receptu5, the Qur'an as a text
contained in the mU5haf, shaped and shapes the religious convictions
of Muslims and is, more the central cultural text in so many Islamic

2 Sec for example my Mafhum al-Nass: drasa fi ' ulum al-Qur'an (The Concept of
the Text: study in the Qur'imic sciences, Beirut and Casablanca, first published
1990, fourth reprint 1998 and other later publications. For more about the liter­
ary approach see my 'The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur'an', in
ALI}� Journal of Comparative Poetics, the American University Cairo (AUC), No.
23, Literature and the Sacred, 2003, pp. 8-47.
3 lowe this realization ro the research for writing a long article about 'the Qur'an
in Everyday Life' to the Encyclopaedia of the Qur'fm, Brill Leiden (henceforth
EQ), vol. 2 (2002), pp. 80-98.
4 Stefan Wild (ed.l. E.J, Brill, Leiden, first print 1996.

10
 RET H I N KIN G T H E QUR'AN: TOWA RDS A H U MA N I STIC H E R M E N E UT I C S

cultures.5 But this is true only when we limit our definition of 'con­
victions' and 'cultures' to the high level, the 'convictions', and 'cul­
tures' of the elite. On the lower level of 'cultures' and 'convictions, on
the level of the masses, it is more the recited Qur'an, the phenome­
non of the Qur'an as discourse, that plays the most important rule in
shaping the public consciousness.
For Muslim scholars the Qur'an was always a text, from the
moment of its canonization till now. It is time now to pay close atten­
tion to the Qur'an as discourse or discourses. It is no longer sufficient
to re-contextualize a passage or some passages when it is only needed
to fight against literalism and fundamentalism or when it is needed
to wave away certain historical practice that seems unfit in our mod­
ern context. It is also not enough to invoke modern hermeneutics in
order to justifY the historicity and, therefore, the relativity of every
mode of understanding claiming in the meantime that our modern
interpretation is the more appropriate and the more valid. These
insufficient approaches produce either polemic or apologetic
hermeneutics.
Without rethinking the Qur'an, without re-invoking its living
status as a 'discourse', whether in the academia or in everyday life no
democratic hermeneutics can be achieved. Why it has to be demo­
cratic? Because it is about 'meaning of life' it has to be democratical­
ly open hermeneutics. If we are sincere in freeing religious thought
from power manipulation, whether political, social, or religious in
order to return the formulation of 'meaning' back to the community
of believers, we need to construct open democratic, humanistic
hermeneutics.
The empirical diversity of the religious meaning is part of our
human diversity around the meaning of life in general, which is sup­
posed to be a positive value in our modern living context. In order to
re-connect the question of the meaning of the Qur'an to the question
of the meaning of life it is now imperative to indicate the fact that
the Qur'an was the outcome of dialoguing, debating, augmenting,
accepting and rejecting, not only with pre-Islamic norms, practice
and culture, but with its own previous assessments, presupposition,
assertions etc.
5 Ibid., p. viii in the introduction.

11
NASR A B O ZAYD

It might be surprising to claim that - in the early Muslim era, before

the Qur'an was fully canonized, and definitely before Islam wa� fully
institutionalized - the differentiation between the Qur'an, the still alive
discourse, and the mushaf, the silent text, was explicated against an
invitation to politicize the Qur' an. This moment needs to be remem­
bered.

2- The Qur'an versus the Mushaf: the spoken and the silent

I would like here to start with a statement related to the Fourth caliph,
'All, the cousin of Muhammad and his son-in-law, in which he
described the mushafas silent; it does not speak, but humans speak it
out. The context in which this statement emerged is important, because
it could shed a lot of light on the present situation in which the politi­
cal manipulation of the meaning of the Qur'an is hardly cancelled.
It was in the context of 'All, the legally chosen Caliph, fighting
against Mu' awiyya, the governor of Syria who did not recognize
'Ali's authority, in the battle of Siff'in in 657. Mu'awiya's star seemed
to be sinking, when his collaborator ' Amr b. al-'As advised him to
have his soldiers hoist copies of the Qur'an on their lances. This ges­
ture, famous in Muslim history, did not imply surrender; by this
means Mu' awiya invited the combatants to resolve the question by
consultation of the Qur'an. Weary of fighting the two armies laid
down their arms. ' All was forced by his partisans to submit the dif­
ference to arbitration, as proposed by Mu' awiya, and further to
choose the arbitrator for his side fro m among the "neutrals". So sure
were his followers that they were in the right! In these decisions the
qurrli ', those who memorize the whole Qur'an by heart and are the
professional recitors, played a large part. The mission of the arbitra­
tors was to consult the Qur' an "from the first to the last sura" and, in
default of clear indications in the sacred Book, the sunna of the
Prophet, excluding what might give rise to divergences. In the
absence of a clear definition of subject of consultation, certain indi­
viduals had protested against recourse to arbitration with the cry iii
hukma illli ii'lllih, literally "no arbitrator but God". The phrase
implied that it was absolutely improper to apply to men for a deci­
sion since, for the case in dispute, there existed a divine ordinance in

12
 -

RET H I N KI N G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MA N I S T I C H E R M E N E UTICS

the Qur'anic verse 49:8-9: "If two parties of the Believers fight with
one another, make peace between them, but if one rebels - (baghat)
against the other, then fight against that one which rebels (allati
tabghi), until it returns to obedience to God , . . ". The dissidents main­
tained that it was ' Ali's duty to continue to fight against Mu' awiya, as
no new fact had intervened to alter the situation. 6
In response to such a cry 'Ali made the differentiation between
the silent mushaf, the text, in one hand, and the vocalized Qur'an by
the people on the other hand. This statement of ' Ali, which is heavily
quoted by modernist Muslim scholars merely to indicate the multiple
possibilities of interpretation, as well as the possibility of political
manipulation of the Qur'anic meaning, has more implications than
has been realized. The vocalization of the Qur'an, whether in liturgy,
in everyday life, in any social, political or ethical dispute, carries with
it certain mode of interpretation and re-interpretation by ways of into­
nation and appropriation? The Qur'an is a living phenomenon, like
the music played by the orchestra, whereas the mushaf, the written
text, is analogous to the musical note; it is silent. A humanistic
hermeneutics of the Qur'an must take seriously the living phenome­
non and stop reducing the Qur'an to the status of solely a text.
The modern political Islamist movements whether radical or
moderate agree on God's absolute authority in determining and stip­
ulating the regulations of the detailed behavior of the individual as
well as the laws that govern the society as a whole. In modern polit­
ical hermeneutics such a claim of the absolute Divine source of legis­
lation, is based on the similar claim of the protestors against arbitra­
tion. While the protestors of the seventh century cried 'no arbitrator
but God' by interpreting the Qur'anic vocabulary yahkum as to j udge
or arbitrate the modern political protestors understand the same
word as to rule by way of legislation.
This political and ideological manipulation can also be found in
the classical era of Islam. Based entirely on an explicit assertion that
the Qur'an is only a text, its manipulation continued.

6 Cf. article 'Ali b. Abu Talib, the Encyclopedia of Islam, E. Brill (henceforth El),
Leiden, 2ed edition, vol. 1, p. 381ff.
7 For examples of different ways of intonations and appropriations of the Qur'[Link]
verses see the article 'Everyday life, Qur'an in' EQ, vol. 1 1, op cited.

13
N A S R A B O ZAYD

3- The 'Text' Reconstructed and Manipulated

When I started to examine the different methods of interpretation

applied to the Qur' an as a 'text' in traditional Islamic theology in my
first book (1982),8 I investigated the emergence of the concept of
"metaphor" that was introduced to Arabic rhetoric at the beginning
of the 9 th century by the rationalist school of theology, known as the
Mu' tazilites, through their effort to explain the anthropomorphic
images of God in the Qur'an, on the one hand, and the verses that
seem to support a doctrine of "predestination", on the other. The
Mu' tazilites employed the concept of "metaphor" as a linguistic tool
to interpret those types of verses of the Qur'an that they considered
"ambiguous". This forged a powerful instrument to interpret the
Qur'anic text according to the Mu' tazilites' transcendentalist stan­
dards: where it suited their ideas, the Qur'anic text was labeled "clear"
and, therefore, not in need for metaphorical interpretation; where it
did not, it was considered to be "ambiguous" and need to be inter­
preted metaphorically.
The main conclusion I have reached, after comparing the
Mu' tazilites' and the anti-Mu' tazilites' discourses, was that the
Qur'an became the site of a fierce intellectual and political battle.
That battle was sited at one of the most important j unctures of the
structure of the Qur'anic text (Quran, 3:7) . 9 Both the Mu' tazilites
and their opponents agree on the principle that the Qur'an includes
ambiguous verses as well as clear verses, and that the "clear" should
furnish the norms for disambiguating the ambiguous. However, they
disagree when it comes to practical implementation; thus, the con-

8 Al-Ittijah al-' aqll fi 'I-Tafsir: Didsa fi Qadiyat al-Majaz fi ' l-Qur'an ' nd '1-
Mu' tazila (The Rational Trend in Quranic Exegesis: investigation of the concept
of 'metaphor' in the Qur'an established by the Mu' tazilites), The Arabic Cultural
Center, Casablanca and Beirut, first published in 1982 and so many reprints fol­
lowed.
9 He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: in it are clear, well established vers­
es; they are the backbone of the Book: others are ambiguous. Those in whose
hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is ambiguous seeking discord and
searching for its hidden meanings but no one knows its hidden meanings except
Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the
Book; the whole of it is from our Lord"; and none will grasp the Message except
men of understanding. Reference to Qur'anic citations are indicated always in this
paper by the chapter's number according to Cairo edition followed by the verse or
verses' number. For translation, Yusuf 'Ali's is used as only guiding reference.

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 R ET H I N KI N G T H E QU R'AN: TOWARDS A H U MA N IS T I C H E R M E N EU T I C S

troversy does not only revolve around the meaning of the Qur' an, it
also involves its structure. What the Mu' tazilites consider as "clear"
is considered as "ambiguous" by their opponents, and vice versa.
Such intellectual disputes about the structure and the meaning of the
Qur' an constituted the first hermeneutical principle as the dichoto­
my between clarity and ambiguity.
The intellectual opponents of the Mu' tazilites were the tradi­
tionalists, who upheld the literal interpretation of all Qur' anic vers­
es, to the extent that they affirmed the existential reality of all divine
attributes, all the eschatological images, and even the idea that God
can be seen by human eyes. The Mu' tazilites objected to their idea
that the literal interpretation of the holy text was a religious duty,
regarding it as an obstacle to the fulfillment o f mankind's destiny.
They believed that God himself imposed on mankind the duty to
acquire real knowledge by using his rational faculties.
Later I will explain that this conjecture declaring 'clarity' and
'ambiguity' in the Qur' an is part of the dialogue discourse of the
Qur'an, the dialogue with the Christians of Arabia, the Nasara. For the
theologian to assume an establishing rule or a principle of hermeneu­
tics required the assumption of the 'textuality' of the Qur' an.
As for the jurists, their approach is based on another structural
principle that differentiates between the 'early' and the 'late' revela­
tions. According to this principle, there should be no contradiction
in any prescription or proscription, because the 'late' always abro­
gates the 'early'.
Though they seem to ascertain awareness concerning the
Qur' an as 'discourse' , it presented them with a problem that needed
to be solved. They did not understand that the different rulings of
the Qur' an could be a positive phenomenon, a diversity that should
be kept open as options for the community of believers to be able to
compete with the ever-changing social order; instead they aimed at
fixing the meaning by considering the gradual process of revelation
as gradual development in the content of the message. Considering
the later revelation to be the final and the previous to be provisional
they applied the concept of 'abrogation' , thus, eliminating all the pre­
vious options in favor of the last revealed articulation. According to
this concept of abrogation the Qur' an is divided into four categories:

15
NASR A B O ZAYD

1- Verses and passages that are entirely deleted from the present
Closed Corpus, i.e., they once belonged to the Qur'an, b�t now
they no longer belong to the Qur'an.
2- Verses and passages whereby their rules and stipulations are no
longer valid, but still exist in the Qur'an to be recited; their legal
power is deleted but not their divine status as God speech.
3- Verses and passages whereby their rules and stipulations are valid
though they are deleted from the Qur'an; the stoning penalty for
fornication committed by married people belongs to this category.
4- Of course the verses and passages that were not subject to abro­
[Link]

The Sufi hermeneutics might be the possible ingredient for an open

democratic hermeneutics in the Islamic culture. Muhyi 'Din Ibn
'Arabi, the great Andalusian Sufi who was born in Spain, wrote his
greatest treatise in Mecca (The Meccan revelation, Al-Futuhdt Al­
Makkiyya) and died in Syria (638/1279). His hermeneutics of the
Qur'an formed the topic of my second book (I 983),II and planted
the seeds of a possible open democratic hermeneutics. Ibn ' Arabi's
hermeneutical project is based entirely on emphasizing the inclusive
nature of the Qur'an, meaning bringing together, versus the Furqan,
another name of the Qur'an meaning the separation and differentia­
tion. 1 2 By such emphasis he constituted an attempt to integrate all
knowledge existing up to his time (from Plato to Averroes) in the
Qur'an; his hermeneutics opens the meaning of the Qur'an, and the
meaning of Islam, to be very conclusive meaning that integrates
Christianity, Judaism, and all other religions. Ibn ' Arabi's Islam is a
religion of comprehensive love, as Ibn ' Arabi terms it in his poetry. 1 3
The hermeneutics o f the Sufi i n general, and o f Ibn 'Arabi, follows it

10 For more detailed explanation see art, nashk by J. Burton in EI, vol. VII,
pp.l 00 1Off See also the same author's article 'abrogation' in EQ, Brill Leiden vol. 1,
200 1, pp. IIff.
II Falsafat ai-Tawil: dirasa fi taw1l 'l-Qur'an ' in Muhiyi Din ibn ' Arabi (The
Philosphy of Hermeneutics: study of the Ibn ' Arabi's Hermeneutics of the Qur'an
The Arabic Cultural Center, Casablanca and Beirut, first published in 1983 and
so many reprints followed.
1 2 See article 'tassawuf', in EI, vol. x, pp. 3 1 71'1'.
1 3 "My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a con­
vent for Christian monks, And a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Ka' ba and >

16
 RETHI NKI NG T H E QU R'AN: TOWA R D S A HUMANISTIC H E RM E N EUTICS

in general not in details, depending basically on the notion of four

semantic levels applicable to every verse: the outward (whir), the
inward (blain), the limitation (hadel), and the upward (matla). This
multi-semantic structure of the Qur'an enabled the Sufis to avoid the
dichotomy of clarity and ambiguity employed by the theologians,
because every level leads to the upper and contains the lower with no
contradiction nor dichotomy. It also keeps the Qur' an accessible to all
the believers regardless of their education or their intellectual capacity.
Ibn Rushd critically developed the MU'tazilite system further in
order to open up the meaning of the Qur'an to the findings of philos­
ophy. According to him, the Qur'an, being intended to address and
reach all humans, regardless of color, ethnicity or level of knowledge,
includes three modes of semantic expression. The first, and most com­
mon, is the outward poetic (khdtabi) form addressing the masses; the
second is the argumentative Ijadali) form intended to address the the­
ologians; the third and most refined is the philosophical (burhdni) form
intended for the philosophers. 1 4 The difference between Ibn Rushd
and the theologian, against whom he launches a severe attack accusing
them of destroying the masses' convictions by propagating their inter­
pretation as the only valid understanding, is that he does not consider
the poetic meaning, addressing the masses, as inferior to the philo­
sophical. He asserts the difference not the hierarchy. His being a jurist,
a physicist as well as a philosopher might explain his unique position.
Although he quotes the conjecture verse (3:7) , always invoked by the
theologian to reconstruct the Qur'an in terms of 'clarity' and 'ambigu­
ity', he only used it as a justification, alongside other legal principles -
such as legal syllogisms, the right of the philosophers to be engaged in
hermeneutics. Ibn Rushd' hermeneutics have not yet been studied
probably because his theological treatises did not go beyond these gen­
eral outlines. A thorough study of his hermeneutics would need to
investigate his total writings, including his commentaries; he was after
all deeply involved in a heavy interpretative task.

the tables of Torah and the book of the Koran, I follow the religion of love: what­
ever way Love's camels take, that is my religion and my faith," Sec, Ibn AI-' Arabi's
Tarjuman A1-Ashwaq, a collection of mystical odes (The Interpreter of Desires),
trans. By Reynold A. Nicholson, London 1 9 1 1, p.67
1 4 Cf On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy, translarion of Ibn Rushd's Fasl
al-Maqal by George Hourani, E. Brill, Leiden 1 99 2 , Chapter 3.

17
N A S R A B O ZAYD

So far the Sufi hermeneutics, which emphasizes the semantic multi­

plicity in accordance with the recipient engagement in producing the
meaning, seems closer to recognizing the nature of the Qur'an than
are the theologians, the philosophers (except Ibn Rushd perhaps) ,
and the jurists. They were able, according to the notion o f individual
engagement with the Qur'an, to develop the concept of 'sarna" (lis­
tening attentively) and so present the other side of the coin, the
Qur'an, meaning vocalization and recitation. Dealing with the
Qur' an as a text alone would find 'interpretation' to be the other side
of the coin, in this case the rnushafnot the Qur' an.
Now, the question is, 'could any hermeneutics ignore the fact
that the Qur' an is not only a text?' So far, the history of exegesis shows
that the Qur'an has been dealt with as a text that needs only a struc­
tural and philological analysis to uncover its meaning. This is obvi­
ous in the theological as well as the philosophical approach, which is
built on the assumption of the 'clarity-ambiguity' dichotomy, and
which survived until today. As we have seen already such a dichoto­
my facilitates the semantic manipulation of the Qur' anic meaning.
Dealing with the Qur' an as 'discourse' would present a rather differ­
ent paradigm that might enhance our proposed hermeneutics.
What follows will only offer some examples of the some char­
acteristic of the Qur'anic discourse; a comprehensive and detailed
projection needs a book. I hope that the following examples will pres­
ent only the skeleton of a broader project.

4- Polyphonic not Monophonic, Who Speaks

and Who Listens?

Because the concept of the Qur'an as only 'text' , predominates in both

east and west there is a difficulty in presenting an accurate typology of
the Qur' anic structure The Encyclopedia of Islam's categorization of
the 'Literary Form' of the Qur' an, for example, is based on a mixture
of 'style' -structure and 'content' norms, thus the literary forms are
numerated as: a. Oaths and related forms; b. Sign-passages; c. Say-pas­
sages; d. Narratives; e. Regulations; f. Liturgical forms and Others. 1 5

1 5 See article 'Qur'an', EI, vol. v, pp 400ff, section 7.

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 RETH I N KING T H E QU R'AN : TOWA R D S A HU MANISTIC H E R M E N EUTICS

Muhammad Arkoun, though emphasizing the structure of the

Qur'an as a discourse, following Paul Ricoeur's typology of the Bible,
which is based on the oriented definition of a text, distinguishes five
types of discourse utilized in the Qur'an, 'prophetic, legislative, nar­
rative, sapiential and hymnal (poetic)'.I 6 However, he maintains a
notion of one structure of 'grammatical relations' and one 'realm of
grammatical communication' defined in all Qur' anic discourse. 1 7
Here the diversity and the multiplicity o f the grammatical relations
and the grammatical communications are reduced to one singular
dominating structure.
The Qur'an is the 'speech of God'; there is no dispute about this
doctrine, but the discourse structure of the Quran reveals multiplicity
of voices not only one. As a discourse the Qur'an is polyphonic not
monophonic; there are so many voices in which the T and/or 'We'
speaker is not always the Divine voice. Sometimes the Divine voice is
presented in the form of the third person 'He' or sometimes in the sec­
ond person 'You'. The ' He' manifestation of the Divine preceded by
the imperative "say" enunciated by another, probably unknown for
certain, voice addressing Muhammad is to be found, for example, in
chapter 112, one of the early chapters revealed in Mecca:

Say: He is Allah the One;

Allah the Eternal Absolute;
He begets not nor is He begotten;
And there is none like Him

According to the Islamic believe this unidentified voice should be the

voice of Gabriel, the mediator and messenger of the Divine to reveal
His message to Muhammad. As messenger he is explicating God's
speech through his own voice acting on behalf of the Divine.
Afterwards the implicit Divine voice, which became explicit to
Muhammad via the angel's voice, has to be announced to the people,
the target group of the message, via Muhammad's human voice.
With all the involved three voices the mode of discourse in the chap­
ter is the 'informative' .

1 6 Rethinking Islam, op cited, p.38.

17 ibid., pp. 38-39.

19
NA S R A B O ZAYD

In the chronologically first revealed verses of the Qur'an (1-5: chap­

ter 96) where the addressee is obviously Muhammad, the voice of the
speaker is the voice of the Angel who appeared to him at the cave of
Hira' 1 8 , for first time, or may be for the second time, introducing
Muhammad to the Lord. The Lord is introduced in the third person.
In this first enunciated discourse the angel voice does not seem expli­
cating the Divine Voice; it is rather providing information about
Him to Muhammad; the mode of discourse is 'informative' .

Recite, in the name ofyour Lord who creates

Creates man foom a clot.
Recite; your Lord is the Most Bounteous,
Who teaches by the pen,
Teaches man that which he knew not.

The report in the 'biography of the Prophet' through which we learn

that Muhammad was hesitant to comply with the angel strong and
repeated demand to 'recite' suggests that Muhammad might had
been already involved in a certain 'recitation' in the name of certain
divinity; the angel's voice demanding Muhammad to 'recite' seems to
be aiming at convincing Muhammad to redress his recitation to the
Lord presented. The structure of the discourse where the imperative
'recite' repeated twice supports this suggestion.
Moreover, in the hymn orland the liturgical passages the voice of
the speaker is the human voice and the addressee is the Divine being.
The best example is the opening chapter of the Qur'an to be recited in
the five daily prayers which are obligatory for every Muslim.

Praise be to Allah the Lord ofthe Worlds.

The Compassionate, the Mercifol.
Master ofthe Day ofJudgment.
It is You whom we worship and it is You from Whom we seek help

1 8 According to the report narrated and related to the prophet on the account of his
wife 'Aisha, about the first encounter between Muhammad and the Holly Spirit,
Gabriel, see, The Life of Muhammad (translation of Ibn Ishaq's Shat Raslll Allah)
with introduction and notes by A. Guillaume, Pakistan Branch, Oxford
University Press, Lahore, first published 195 5 , reprint 1 967, p. 1 0 5

20
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R E T H I N K I N G THE QUR'AN: TOWA RD S A HUMANISTIC H ER M ENEUTICS

Guide us to the right course,

The course ofthose whom You blessed,
Not the course ofwhom provoked Your anger neither those who got
astray,

Interestingly, the recitation of this chapter is considered as invoking

God's response, but while the recitation is explicit the Divine
response is implicit, In other words, the recitor has to slowly recite
the verses pausing to receive the answer, In other words, recitation of
this chapter contains both vocalization and attentive hearing, sama "

The following report is narrated as a (queM) hadith where God says:

salat is divided between Me and My servant into equal shares

When he says, praise be to God, the Lord ofthe whole world,
I say, My servant praised Me;
When he says, The Compassionate The Merciful,
I say, My servant exalted me;
When he says, the Master ofthe Day ofJudgment,
I say, My servant glorified me;
When he says, It is You whom we worship and it is You from Whom
we seek help
I say, this is between Me and My servant; all what My servant
askedfor is guaranteed;
When he says, guide us to the right course, the course ofthose whom
You blessed, not the course of whom provoked Your anger neither
those who got astray,
I say, these are for my servant and all are guaranteedfor him. 19

This type of implicit dialogue between man and God, where man,
although reciting God's speech, becomes the speaker, and God, the
default Speaker of the 'recited' Qur'an, becomes recipient, is very
explicit in the structure of the Qur'an. Within the polyphonic struc­
ture of the Qur' anic discourse 'dialogue' is another characteristic to
be presented.

19 See AI-Muwarra' by Malik b. Anas, kirab ai nidi Ii-'salar, no. 174; Sahih Muslim,
- '

kitib al-salit, no. 598. Sakhr CD program Mawsu' ar al-Hadith ai-Sharif,

Copyright Sakhr Software Co. 1995.

21
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NASR A B O ZAYD

5- Dialogue
To mention frequented examples of 'dialoging' it is sufficient t� refer
to what is categorized as the 'say passages' where the structure 'they
say . . . you say' exists. A 'dialogue' could be polemic, apologetic but
it could be also inclusive or exclusive; it could be as well productive
or destructive. We confine our self here to present three types of dia­
logue classified in terms of the addressee, the dialogue with unbe­
lievers, that with the Jews and the Christians of Arabia and the dia­
logue with the believers.
The dialogue with the unbelievers, the polytheists of Mecca,
started calm and soft, but gradually was hardened. When the pagan of
Mecca started to negotiate with Muhammad, suggesting a way for
Muhammad to show respect for their deities in exchange of recogniz­
ing his Lord, it seems in the context of the soft calm dialogue that
Muhammad accepted. This brings the curious story mentioned in
ancient historical sources which relates that Muhammad was reciting
chapter 53 in the presence of a number of Meccan Polytheists and
when he came to the names of three of their favorite deities mentioned
in verses 19 and 20 two short verses were pronounced by Muhammad,
'they are the high-flying cranes (ghardniq) / whose intercession (with
God) to be hoped for.' When the prophet reached in his recitation the
last verse of the chapter, 'so prostrate yourselves before God and serve
Him' the polytheists prostrated with Muslims in a signal of reconcili­
ation between Muhammad and the Meccans.
Muslim scholars reject the story as a later invention while most
European biographers of Muhammad accept it as historical. It is not
our concern here to get involved in this debate, because the Qur'an
itself alludes to the story in chapter 22, verse 52, devaluating the
validity of those two verses by attributing them to a satanic intrusion
on Muhammad tongue, an intrusion to be deleted.

Never did We send an apostle or a prophet before thee, but, when

he framed a desire, Satan threw some (vanity) into his desire: but
God will cancel anything (vain) that Satan throws in, and God
will confirm (and establish) His Signs:for God is full o/Knowledge
and Wisdom (verse 52).

22
 RET H I N KI N G THE QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MAN I S T I C H ERMENEUTICS

Whether this devaluation reflects a process of negotiation or not the

fact remains that there is Qur'anic evidence of the historical existence
of the event, and this devaluation might be considered the first step
of absolute demarcation between 'monotheism' and 'polytheism', But
this demarcation has to be set gradually,
First step was expressed in one of the early chapters, chapter 109,
where Muhammad is advised, by the unknown voice - the angel's voice
- not to negotiate with the unbelievers, the polytheists any more, but
in the meantime to distance his conviction from theirs.

Say: 0 you who reject to believe!

I worship not that which you worship
Nor will you worship that which I worship.
And I will not worship that which ye have been worshipping
Nor will you worship that which I worship.
To you be your Wily and to me mine.

Repetition of the phrase 'I worship not that which you worship' twice
signifies the existence of strong opposition on the side of the unbe­
lievers, accompanied with a strong repeated counter invitation to
Muhammad for an exchange of worshipping. In other words, the
style structure of that short chapter reveals the existence of dialogue
in which the chapter is engaged.
But when an attack is launched against Muhammad and his
prophetship is questioned the Qur'an defends Muhammad. The peo­
ple of Mecca contest the issue of the authenticity of the divine source
of the Qur'an, and therefore the issue of Muhammad's sincerity, hon­
esty, trustworthy - his credibility - is challenged. The allegation that
Muhammad forged and fabricated the Qur' an is disputed and
responded to not in the style form of 'they say', but it is understood
from the refutation that it is a response. This is very characteristic of
the 'discourse' structure, i.e., its involvement and engagement with
another implicit, or explicit, discourse.
The Arabs tried every mean to explain the Qudnic unusual effect
on them by explaining it in terms of all types of discourse known to
them, discourses like 'soothsaying', poetry and even performing witch­
craft. All their explanations were mentioned and refuted. When the

23
NA S R A B O ZAYD

Arabs explain the nature of the Qur'an as 'poetry' and accuse the pro­
phet of composing it, the answer given to such an explanation and accu­
sation is: "We have not taught him poetry; it is not seemly for him"
(chapter 36:69). When they say that Muhammad is nothing but a
soothsayer the Qur'an replies: "By your Lord's blessing you are not a
soothsayer neither possessed" (chapter 52:29). In the context of that
debate the nonbelievers claimed that the Qur'an was nothing but stories
forged by Muhammad who claimed that they were revealed to him by
God. They claimed that they were able to produce similar discourse.
Facing such a challenge, the Qur'an made its own counter challenge ask­
ing them to bring forth 'ten forged chapters like it' (chapter: 11:13).
When the nonbelievers failed to respond to this strong chal­
lenge, the Qur'an, pretending to make it easier for them, decreased
the challenge from 'ten' chapters to only 'one' (chapter 10:38). The
last step was to indicate the absolute failure of the Arabs in challeng­
ing the authenticity of the Qur'an:

"And ifyou are in doubt concerning that We have sent down on

Our servant (Muhammad), then bring a chapter like it, and call
your witnesses, apart foom God, ifyou are truthfol. And ifyou do
not-and you will not- then fiar the Fire, whose foel is men and
idols, prepared to unbelievers" (chapter 2: 23-24).

This dispute and debate with the polytheist Arab grounded the
development of the doctrine of i'jaz, the stylistic and literary incom­
patibility, or supremacy of the Qur'an.
Another common form of the dialogue is the dialogue with the
believers in the form "They will ask you [Muhammad] . . . you say"
which is attested 15 times in the Qur'an. These questions to which
the Qur'an responds cover different areas of interest. Questions were
raised about wine and gambling (chapter 2:219), about the orphans
(chapter 2:220), menstruation (chapter 2:222), dietary law (Chapter
5:4) charity (chapter 2:215,219), prohibition of fighting during the
sacred month (chapter 2:217), and spoils of ware (chapter 8: 1)
Providing answers to such questions, much of the legal aspect of the
Qur'an was gradually articulated, thus reflecting the dialogical nature
of the Qur'an with the human interest.

24
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RETHINKING THE QU R'AN: TOWA R D S A HUMANISTIC H E RM ENEUTICS

Would the answers provided in the dialogical context be considered

final legislation? What about different answers given ro questions relat­
ed to one issue? Lets take the example of intermarriage, which is one
always provoked in any discussion about Human Rights in Islam.
While in chapter 5:5 Muslims are allowed to marry non-Muslim
females, such permission seems to be revoked in chapter 2:221. The
question is which rule will prevail? The second question, which is only
provoked in the modern age, is whether this permission is guaranteed
only to male Muslim or should it be extended to the female as well?
Ibn Rushd tells us about two positions held by the jurists; the
position of those who hold the permissibility considers 2:221 as pre­
senting the general, the preference to marry a Muslim female, while 5:5
particularizes the general. The position of those who prohibit inter­
marriage is grounded on 'abrogation', i.e., that 2:221 abrogated 5:5.20

If we deal with the Qur'an as discourse we can go far beyond the

jurists' outlook that is motivated by law formulation that needs a cer­
tain mode of fixation. Each of the two verses is an independent dis­
course; while 2:221 reflects the non-negotiable stand with the poly­
theists, a position we earlier referred to, the verse of 5:5 is about
'togetherness' in social life. It is about 'making good things lawful'; it
starts with 'food' indicating not only that the 'the food of the people
of the book' is lawful to Muslims but that 'the food of Muslims' is
lawful to the people of the book as well.

This day are (all) things good andpure made lawful unto you. The
food ofthe People ofthe Book is lawful unto you and yours is law­
ful unto them.

20 "The majoriry (of the jurists) upheld the permissibility of marriage with the
kitabiyyat (women of the people of rhe book) who are free (not slaves) through a
contracr , as rhe principle is to consrrue (by exemption) [he particular from the
general (�one of the principles of textual deduction). The words of the Exalted ...
-(giving permission to marry women of the people of the book in 5: 5)- is partic­
ular, while His words -(in 2:221 not ro wed idol atress till they believe)- is gener­
al. Those (jurists) who inclined toward its prohibition, which is the opinion of
some of [he fuqah:\', jurists, considered the general meaning (in 5:5) ro have abro­
gated the particular (in 2:221)" Ibn Rushd, Bidayat al-Mujtahid wa Nihayat al­
Muqtasid (A beginning for who is to be an independent j urist and a sufflcient
(source) for who is just seeking to learn not to be an expert), Vol. 11, p. 51.

25
NASR A B O ZAYD

This is a discourse about, first of 'good' things being lawful'; the first
example of these 'good things' is sharing food. Intermarriage is'intro­
duced here as part of parcel of 'good things' which emphasizes the
implicit call for social 'togetherness'.

Lawful unto you in marriage are chaste women who are believers
as well as chaste women among the People of the Book revealed
before your time when you give them their due dowers and desire
chastity not lewdness nor secret intrigues. If anyone rejects foith
ftuitless is his work and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of
those who have lost. 2 1

Addressing the modern question about equality i n intermarriage, it

suffices here to emphasize that the addressees of the Qur'[Link] dis­
course in matters of marriage and divorce are males; it is after all a
discourse which emerged in a patriarchal environment. Since the
addressees are males, it is understandable that permission is voiced to
men to marry, divorce, and marry off their relative females. If we rec­
ognize that, we are in a better position to enunciate that, according
to paradigm-shift of meaning where equality is essential component,
equality in intermarriage is possible. 22
The j ustification provided by modern 'ulama' to sustain the
classical position could be easily negotiated. Addressing the modern
question about equality in intermarriage, it suffices here to say that
they still belief in the superiority of the male in the family affair, and
accordingly they argue that the faith of non-Muslim women married
to Muslim men will be respected. If a Muslim woman is married to

2 1 Chapter 5:5, and compare with 2:22 1 where anorher mode of discourse of no­
negotiarion with the polytheists is obvious "Do nor marry unbelieving women
(idolarers) until they believe; a slave woman who believes is better than an unbe­
lieving woman even though she allure you. Nor marry (your girls) to unbelievers
until they believe: a man slave who believes is better than unbeliever even though
he allure you. Unbelievers do (but) beckon you to the fire. But Allah beckons by
His grace to rhe Garden (of Bliss) and forgiveness and makes His Signs clear to
mankind: that they may celebrate His praise.
22 The legal opinion provided by the European Council of Fatwa to allow the con­
tinuation of the marriage fot a newly converted Muslim female to her non­
Muslim husband, which created a furious reaction in the Muslim World, was
based on traditional early cases and justified on the wishful expectation that the
guided wife will inspire the husband to convert.

26
 RET H I N K I N G T HE QUR'AN: TOWA RD S A H U MA N ISTIC HE R M ENEUTIC S

non-Muslim, they fear that the non-Muslim husband will not respect
the faith of his Muslim wife, They also invoked that Islam, being the
last of God's revelations pays respect to both Judaism and Christian­
ity, therefore, the faith of a non-Muslim woman married to a Muslim
man is protected by the husband's faith, The reverse position is not
possible, because Christianity does only recognize Judaism while
Judaism recognizes neither Christianity nor Islam.
It is obvious that the 'ulama' are still imprisoned in the p atri­
archal 'world vision' in one hand, and in the religious vision of the
world on the other hand. Marriage decision is, or should be, the
decision of the individual; it is her or his decision to set the condi­
tion she or he wants for the future life with spouse. The issue at stake
is not so much intermarriage; it is rather the individual freedom that
entails freedom of religion and belief. There is no time or space to
address this issue here. It suffices to mention that there is no one sin­
gle verse in the Qur'an stipulating world punishment, or legal penal­
ty, for apostasy; freedom of religion in the form of 'no coercion' is
widely quoted even by the traditional 'ulama', but in an apologetic
manner.

6- Negotiation
As we have already shown the non-negotiation posmon with the
polytheists brings about an exclusive mode of discourse; the only pos­
sible way of communication is dispute, debate and rejection. The dis­
course with the believers varies according to the way they handle
their problem, according to their success they are praised; when they
fail they are blamed and even condemned. This is also true for the
Prophet himself. When he was busy preaching the rich people of
Quraysh hoping that they would strengthen the newly formed com­
munity of believers, he did not pay attention to a poor blind fellow,
identified as Ibn Umm Maknlm by the early exegete, who came ask­
ing for advice. The Qur' a.n strongly blames Muhammad's attitude
addressing him at the beginning by the third person, a sign of negli­
gence.

27
NASR A B O ZAYD

[Link] and turned away

When the blind man came to him
What would make you know that he might elevate himself(ifyou
kindly responded to him)
Or be aware and such awareness brings him benefit
But as for whom who considers [Link] .from any need
To him you pay much attention
No blame on you ifhe would not elevate himself
As for who came to you striving (for knowledge)
While in fear (from God)
You did not pay attention to him! (Chapter 80: 1-10)

The Qur'anic discourse with the people of the book, the Jews and the
Christians, or the Nasara, is the negotiate discourse par excellence. It
is well known that the prophet Muhammad and his wife Khadijah
sought advice from a Christian Arab priest Waraqa b. Nawfal, who
happened to be a cousin of Khadijah. The matter of consultation was
the first encounter with the Holy Spirit during the vision
Muhammad had when he was meditating on mountain Hira'. 23
It is also important to mention that the first Muslim migration
hijra was to Abyssinia. In order to escape being persecuted by the peo­
ple of Mecca, the Prophet ordered the Muslims to go there where,
according to a statement related to the Prophet himself, "there is a
Christian king who never does injustice to anyone." Muslims enjoyed
his protection and hospitality till they returned back after the migration
to Medina. During the period of their stay in Abyssinia, a delegation
from Mecca visited the Emperor persuading him to send Muslims back
to Mecca. The envoys of Mecca told the Negus that those who were
enjoying his protection and generosity were only some rebels who
protested against the religion of their own people's and converted to an
unknown religion rather than to Christianity. In order to turn the
Negus against Muslims he was told that they (the Muslims) blasphemed
against Jesus Christ. When the Emperor asked the Muslim refugees
about their belief concerning Jesus they read to him this passage of the
Qur'an from the chapter called 'Mary' or Maryam in Arabic ( 1 9). 24

23 See the detailed account in The Life of Muhammad. op cited. pp. 106-7.
24 Ibid., pp. 146-1 52.

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 RETH I N K I N G T H E QU R'AN: TOWARDS A H U MAN I S T I C H E RMEN EUTICS

'Son of Mary' is one of the commonest titles given to Jesus in the

Qur'an in order to emphasize his human nature, Nevertheless, the
Qur'an also speaks ofJesus as 'a spirit from God' and ' His word caste
into Mary' by the Holy Spirit. More than that: It was Jesus, accord­
ing to the Qur'an, who prophesied 'Ahmad' - Muhammad - to be the
coming prophet.

And remember Jesus the son ofMary said: "0 Children ofIsrael! I
am the apostle ofAllah (sent) to you confirming the Law (which
came) before me and giving glad Tidings ofan Apostle to come after
me whose name shall be Ahmad " But when he came to them with
Clear Signs they said "This is evident sorcery!" (61,6)

It was only after migration to Medina that Muslims started actual

contact with the Arab Jewish tribes who had long before come from
Yemen and settled in Medina, The well known 'Medina Covenant'
between the Prophet and both Jewish and pagan tribes clearly indi­
cates an essential equality between all the peoples who lived in
Medina. Liberty of religious practice was guaranteed on an equal
footing as long as all the parties defended the security of the city
against any outside attack or intrusion, Concerning different types of
religious faith, equality was essentially guaranteed unless a war is ini­
tiated against Muslim, then the war conditions as historically prac­
ticed come into force, 25
In this context the Qur'an prescribed siyam, fasting, for Mus­
lims and in this also Muslims directed their prayers in the same direc­
tion as Jewish prayers, Jerusalem. But the relationship between the
Muslim community and the Jewish community didn't continue as
smoothly as it had started, Polemic dispute flared, engaging the
Qur'an which started to substitute the previous 'one religion' called
'Islam', that of all the prophets since Adam till Jesus:

1-Those who believed (in Muhammad), and those who became

Jewish, and the Christians and the Sabian, any who believe in God
and the last day, and do righteousness, shall have their rewardfrom
their Lord (11:62, also 5:69,)
25 Ibid., the full text of the document pp. 231-233.

29
NASR A B O ZAYD

2- Those who believed (in Muhammad), and those who became

Jewish, and the Sabians, Christians, Magians, and polytheists, God

willjudge between them on the Day ofJudgment (22: 17.)
3- Say (Mohammed), the truth comes down from God: Let him
who will, believe, and let him who will, reject: for the wrong doers
We have prepared a fire (18:29.)
4- He who will turn backfrom hisfoith, soon will God bring about
(other) people whom He will love and they will love him (5:4.)
5- Those who reject foith after they accepted it, and then go in
adding to their defiance offoith, never will their repentance be
accepted; for they are those who have gone astray (3:90, also
4:137.)

The change of the praying direction for Muslims from Jerusalem to

Mecca may indicate the first sign of demarcation between the two
communities. The polemic dispute sometimes reaches the level of
harsh condemnation. However, occasionally it is a type of quiet
reminder of God's grace on the sons of Israel. This polemic dispute
with its quiet as well its harsh manifestation can be followed in chap­
ter 2, called 'the Cow', because it contains certain narrative reflecting
the arrogance of the sons of Israel in complying with the simple
demands of their prophets. There is a remarkable frequency in the
use of the imperative 'remember' (some 19 times in chapter 2 alone) ,
addressed directly to the sons of Israel preceding different narrative
units of their history of reluctance and rejection to follow the right
path.
Not being able to appreciate the 'discourse' structure it is likely to
extend the discourse to be addressing all the Jews until the present. It
is not only a question of contextualization, which is pivotal in dis­
course analysis, but more than that it is what the discourse tells about
the context and how. Now, the question is which is historical and
which is universal, a question that keeps all the modern liberal Muslim
scholars of the Qur'an busy. Being confined to the Qur' an as 'text'
alone, the conservatives win at the end of the day. When the liberals,
for example, emphasize 'togetherness' as the universal eliminating the
'hostility' limiting its meaning to the negative past the conservatives
will apply the principal of 'abrogation' to historize 'togetherness' as

30
 RET H I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A HUMANISTIC H E RM E N E UTICS

abrogated and will universalize 'hostility', as the abrogat. In the pres­

ent context of unsolved Palestinian-Israeli trauma, whose hermeneu­
tics or meaning is valid? The winner is sure to be the meaning of ghet­
to, separation and isolation, the meaning of Mr, Sharon's wall,
The same is true about the polemic dispute with the Christians,
the Nasara, about the nature ofJesus. We have shown already that the
Qur'an rendered Jesus ptophesizing the coming of a prophet named
Ahmad. And we have also seen how the chapter named Mary ( 19)
was recited in the court of the Negus and in the presence of the bish­
ops. A quick reading of this chapter and comparison with Matthew's
Gospel will easily reveal common ground. Nevertheless, there is non­
negotiable issue that maintains the boundaries between Muslims and
Christians to the extent that the concept of 'togetherness' is almost
forgotten.
The first issue is that of the human nature of Jesus according to
the Qur'an and the divine nature according to the shared dogma of
the Churches. As we confine ourselves to the second chapter project­
ing the Qur'anic discourse, or the Qur'anic disputation with the
Jews, we would also be better to confine our presentation to the
Qur'anic disputation with the Nasara to chapter three, which in its
very opening, verse 3, advocates the credibility of all the revealed
scriptures.

It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step) in truth the Book con­
firming what went before it; and He sent down Law (of Moses)
and the Gospel (ofJesus) before this as a guide to mankind and He
sent down the Criterion (ofjudgment between right and wrong).

In verse four, however, it presents the possibility of misunderstanding

as to keeping the shared ground as solid as possible. But we have to see
the disputation context. While the Qur'an recognizes Jesus as a 'word'
from God (verse 45) and presents the Apostles as Muslims (52), it was
clearly indicated in the earlier chapter of Mary, by way of relating to
the child Jesus the statement 'I am the servant of God' (19:30). This
seems to have caused certain confusion for the Christians of Najran
who came to Medina to debate with Muhammad. 26 The discussion
26 Ibid., pp. 270ff

31
NASR A B O ZAYD

became heated, probably after it was explained that the miraculous

birth of Jesus, from a mother who had not had intercourse �ith a
male, makes him no different than Adam; the rwo cases are alike.

This similitude ofJesus before Allah is as that ofAdam: He creat­

ed him from dust then said to him: "Be" and he was (3:59)

Then the Qur'an made serious religious challenge that seems to cause
fear among the delegation. Here we can realize the 'power' of dis­
course, or the discourse as 'authoritarian'; such a powerful discourse
could not emerge in Mecca simply because Muslims were a small per­
secuted community. As the sources tells us the members of the
Christian delegation withdrew preferring to pay annual collective
amount of money jizya than face a possible curse as provoked by the
Qur'an.

If anyone disputes in this matter with you now after (full) know­
ledge has come to you say: "Come! let us gather together our sons
and your sons our women and your women ourselves and your­
selves: then let us earnestly pray and invoke the curse ofAllah on
those who lie!" (3:6 1 )

The non-negotiable issue for the Qur'an was the divinity of Jesus,
whether God or the Son; it is absolutely unacceptable j ust as there
was no possible negotiation with the polytheist, hence the Qur'an
sometimes calls those who believe in Jesus' divinity either polytheist
or unbelievers. So the only possibility of coming to terms with
Christians is for them to relinquish their claim about Jesus, this being
an impossible demand. The Qur'an further cites the Christians' false
arguments about things they do not know; the final truth is revealed
to Muhammad. The claim of both the Jews and the Christians of
being the only heirs of Abraham is shown to be false. The evidence
shows this to be false: he was neither a Jew nor a Christian because
both the Torah and the Gospel were revealed after his death (see 3:
64-67).
Now, the point I would like to indicate is that the Qur'an never
repudiated the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures; they are both

32
 RET H I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A HUMANISTIC H E R M ENEUTICS

revealed through the same channel as the Qur'an: wahy, What is

always disputed is the way the people of the book underst�od and
explained these scriptures; the issue at stake is the wrong hermeneu­
tics, and here comes the significance of the verse 7 in the same chap­
ter 3, which was taken by Muslim theologians as setting hermeneu­
tical principal. It reads

He it is Who has sent down to you the Book: in it are verses that are
clearly expressed; they are the foundation of the Book: others are
ambiguous, For those in whose hearts is perversity they follow (lit­
erally) the ambiguous seeking discord and searching for its hidden
meanings but no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah and
those who arefirm�y grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the
Book; the whole of it is foom our Lord';' and none will grasp the
Message except men of understanding, 2 7

My assessment here is that in the context of repudiating the Christian

misunderstanding the verses in which the Qur'an describes Jesus as the
'word' and the 'spirit' from God were declared 'ambiguous' whereas the
verses emphasizing his humanity as only a prophet and messenger were
declared the 'clear', the backbone of the book
Another disputed issue between Muslims and Christians is the
doctrine of crucifixion, which Muslims believe that the Qur'an denies,
Muslims see no conflict between normal death and ascension, both are
asserted in the Qur'an, Muslims see no conflict between the normal
death of Jesus and his ascension; both are asserted in the Qur'an, The
context in which the issue of crucifixion is mentioned is not the con­
text of a dispute with the Christians; it is the context of argumentation
and disputation agai nst the Jews in defense of Mary and Christ (4: 1 53-
158), In this context the Jewish blasphemous allegation of adultery
against Mary is strongly repudiated and condemned by the Qur'an, In

27 For a detailed discussion about the way this specitle verse was isolated and, rhere­
forc, Illanipulatcd \-vherher in rernlS of its graffilnatical [Link] or in the
meaning of its vocabularies and further more for the theological dispute, see Leah
Kinberg art. 'ambiguous' EQ, vol. I , pp, 70-76. Also my Al-ittijah al-' Aqli Ii
,TafSir: dirasa f; mathllm almajaz Ii al-Qur'1m ind ' l-Mll' tazila (the Rational
'[rend in Exegesis: study of the Mll' tazilites' concept of metaphor), Dp cited, pp.
1 80-9; Mafhum al-Nass, op cited, pp. 1 79fT

33
NASR A B O ZAYD

the same context the claim of the Jews that they slew Jesus, a claim
implies a threat that they can also slay Muhammad, was also to b� repu­
diated.

The people of the Book ask you to cause a book to descend to them
.from heaven: indeed they asked Moses for an even greater (miracle)
for they said: "Show us Allah in public" but they were dazed for
their presumption with thunder and lightning. Yet they worshipped
the calf even after clear signs had come to them; even so We forgave
them; and gave Moses manifost proofs ofauthority.
And for their Covenant We raised over them (the towering height)
ofMount (Sinai); and (on another occasion) We said: "Enter the
gate with humility';' and (once again) We commanded them:
"Transgress not in the matter of the Sabbath. " And We took .from
them a solemn Covenant.
(They have incurred divine displeasure): in that they broke their
Covenant: that they rejected the Signs ofAllah; that they slew the
Messengers in defiance of right; that they said "Our hearts are the
wrappings (which preserve Allah's Word; we need no more) "; nay
Allah has set the seal on their hearts for their blasphemy and little
is it they believe.
That they rejectedfoith: that they uttered against Mary a gravefolse
charge.
That they said "We killed Christ Jesus the son ofMary the Apostle
ofAllah';' but they killed him not nor crucified him but so it was
made to appear to them and those who diffir therein are full of
doubts with no (certain) knowledge but only conjecture to follow
for ofa surety they killed him not.
Nay Allah raised him up unto Himself and Allah is Exalted in
Power Wise (4 : 1 53- 1 58).

If the issue of crucifixion was as important to the Qur'an as the issue

of the nature of Jesus, it would have been brought again and again in
different contexts. Since it exists only in the context of responding to
the Jewish claim, the discourse structure suggests it was denying the
capability of the Jews to have done this depending on their own
power, and by implication telling Muhammad that their implicit

34
 R ET H I N KI N G T H E QUR' AN: TOWARDS A HUMANISTIC H E R M EN EUTICS

threat to slay him, as they slew Jesus, is not feasible, as God �ill not
permit it. Now, once again the question is which meaning will pre­
vail, togetherness or isolation? This duly brings the relationship of the
West and the Muslim World into our discussion. How does relation­
ship affect the way Muslims 'rethink' their own tradition so as to
modernize their lives without relinquishing their spiritual power, par­
ticularly in view of America's colonizing project?
Now, let me present the possibility of real reformation in the
domain of shari 'a if the concept of the Qur'an is accepted.

7- Deconstructing Shari ' a

Would dealing with the Qur'an as discourse, deeply involved i n dia­
logue with the believers as well as with the non-believers, help us tack­
le the burning unsolved legal issues considered divine revelation by the
majority of Musli ms? Some radical groups may still be crying and fight­
ing for the restoration of Caliphate, but the well-established narional­
state in every Muslim country in the post-colonial era has made a shift
towards the question of law. The obligation to establish an Islamic state
ruled entirely by shari 'a is now the disputable issue between the two
basic trends of modern Islamic discourse. That 'Islam is the official reli­
gion of the State and the principles of shari 'a are the source of legisla­
tion' is an article in the Constitution of all Muslim states.
The conflict sometimes taking the form of a severe and violent
struggle between state and radical groups is not so much about
whether or not shari 'a is to be implemented in both social and in
individualistic life. It is much more about the degree of implementa­
tion and, so, if the political system is westernized or not and hence
anti -Islamic.
If it is enough for the individual to confess Islam and to perform
the other four pillars, praying five times a day, fasting the month of
Ramadan, paying the annual prescribed alms, and performing hajj if
it can possibly be financially afforded, for the community it is not
enough. If an Islamic state is not established, every individual
Muslim is responsible before God for such a religious failure; so
preach the representatives of the radical Islamic groups and the rep­
resentatives of the so-called 'moderate' Islamic discourse.

35
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N A S R A B O ZAYD

Muslim intellectuals, who hold different view about the relati�mship

between Islam and politics, are condemned as 'westernized'; not real
Muslim thinkers. The views of the non-traditional, nor radical,
Muslim thinkers are not well known beyond the boundaries of the
Muslim World, especially of those who prefer to address their read­
ers in their own regional language. As for the highly radical, provoca­
tive preachers, the Western media is very keen to present their ideas,
so creating the impression in the Western mind that Islam has but
one face: the face of Ben Laden.
Let me present now briefly my scholarly view concerning the
concept of shari 'a. The Qur'anic verses which seem to contain legal
connotation and which are considered the basis of shari 'a are about
500 verses according to the traditional sources. On these verses,
which amount to one out of six, or 16% of the whole Qur'an, the
jurists built a system of induction and deduction called 'the princi­
ples of legislation' , 'ilm usul al-fiqh. According to these principles,
they added a second source to the Qur'an, i.e., the Prophetic tradi­
tion, al-sunna al-nabawiyya. They categorized the sunna the second
source of legislation and considered it as divine as the Qur'an. As two
divine sources were not enough to regulate the increasing political,
social, economic as well as criminal problems, the j urists had to adopt
a third principle based on the already agreed upon practiced legal
rules called 'consensus', ijma : of the earliest Muslim generation, the
companions of the Prophet (al-sahabah). A fourth principal of
'rational inquiry', iitihad, was urgently needed in order to be able to
solve the problems that were not solved in the other three sources.
But this principle of ijtihad was practically restricted to apply the
technique of 'analogy', qiyas, which is to reach a solution to a certain
problem by only comparing its position to a similar problem previ­
ously solved by any of the three sources.
The whole body of shari 'a literature, as expressed in the major
four sunni schools, madhhabs, at least, is built on the aforementioned
principles, which means that shari'a is a man-made production;
nothing is divine about it. It is neither possible to claim its validity
regardless of time and space.
If we contextually examine some of the Qur'anic legal stipula­
tions, such as the penalty of fornication, zina, robbery, sariqah, or

36
 RETHINKING T H E QUR'AN: TOWAR D S A H UMANI S T I C H E RM E N E UTICS

causing social disorder, hirabah, as well as slaying, qat!, w�ich are

called hudud, pI. of hadd, the question is: are these penalties basical­
ly initiated by Islam, and, therefore, Islamic? The answer is definite­
ly 'no'; all these penalties were generally pre-Islamic, some of them
belong to the Roman law and adopted in the Jewish tradition, while
others were even older tradition, It is not likely in our modern age of
Human Rights and respect of the integrity of the human being to
consider amputation of the members of the human body, or execu­
tion, as obligatory religious punishments binding by divinity,
Other aspects of shari 'a, such as those dealing with the rights of
religious minorities, women's rights, and Human Rights in general,
have to be revised and reconsidered as well. Contextualization of the
Qur'anic stipulation, and examining its linguistic and stylistic struc­
ture -as discourse- would reveal that the j urists' work was basically to
unfold the meaning of such stipulation and to re-encode such mean­
ing in their different social contexts, The Qur'an is not in itself a
book of law; legal stipulations are expressed, as we have already
proved, in discourse style, which reveal a context of engagement with
human needs in specific time, which, in turns, opens up the appro­
priation of the 'meaning' intended into every paradigm of meaning.
As discourse it provides multi-options, various solutions, and
open gate of understanding, The conclusion is that to claim that the
body of shari 'a literature is binding for all Muslim communities
regardless of time and space is simply ascribing divinity to human
historical production of thought. If this is the case, there is no obli­
gation to establish a theocratic state claimed Islamic. Such a demand
is nothing but ideological call to establish a theo-political unques­
tionable authority; it is the recreation of the most devilish dictator­
ship political regime on the expense of the spiritual and ethical
dimension of Islam.

8-The Challenge of Modernity: confusing context

Muslims so far have been rethinking, redefining and modifying the
sources of Islamic knowledge. Traditions such as Sunna, consensus
and legal syllogisms have been under deep and controversial discus­
sion and debate since the eighteenth century. The meaning of the

37
NASR A B O ZAYD

Qur'an, and subsequently the meaning of Islam, has been the s ubject
,
of investigation, research, appropriation, re-appropriation and nego­
tiation since the late nineteenth century. This type of 'rethinking' was
essentially and initially motivated by a strong commitment to devel­
op Muslim societies in the direction of modernization on one hand,
and to keep the spirit of Islam and its forces alive on the other hand;
modernity was, after all, a foreign power imposed from above by the
colonial European domination of the entire Muslim World after
deconstructing the Ottoman Empire.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the British had success­
fully colonized much of India. The French, under Napoleon
Bonaparte, occupied Egypt in 1 798. France then went into Algeria in
1 830; occupied Tunisia in 1 8 8 1 , and Britain marched into Egypt in
1 882. The Dutch were already there long before that in Indonesia.
There were many other excursions as the West's program of the col­
onization unfolded throughout the Muslim World.
Here one can mention at least three challenging powers that
motivated and constructed the way Muslims rethought their tradi­
tions. First of all, it was the challenge of scientific discoveries and the
advanced technology. The second challenging question was the ques­
tion of rationality and rationalism whereas the third was the political
challenge. Needless to say these three challenging questions, present­
ed here independently, were always mixed in each one of the exege­
sis' trends we are going to present.

1 - Modern science and technology were introduced to the Muslim

world in the form of strange unknown military equipment that
caused their defeat against the empirical Western powers and lead to
the occupation of their land by non-Muslim invaders. When the
French army reached Alexandria in 1 798 the Mamluk worriers were
ready to fight in man-to-man combat. However, they were shocked
to see the powerful artillery machines that killed dozens of soldiers
with one shot, from a long distance. Napoleon Bonaparte brought
with his army a number of natural and social scientists. Al-Jabard in
his history tells of the reaction of the Azhari 'ulama' when they were
invited to watch some chemical experiments performed for them in
the laboratory established in Cairo. They were terrified, some of

38
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RETHINKING T H E QU R'AN: TOWA RDS A H U M A N I S T I C H E R MENEUTICS

them ran away whispering the isti 'adha formula (seeking God's pro­
tection from devil), because they perceived these experi�ents as
witchcraft. That was the first encounter of Egyptian intellectuals with
modern technology courtesy of modern scientific investigation and
research. Their response was to learn in order to gain the power to be
able to fight back. Learning modern sciences, by sending missions of
students to acquire the sciences in Europe, and importing modern
technology, especially military weapons - this was the basic response
by both Turkey and Egypt.

2- Within the military power there was an intellectual weapon hold­

ing Islam responsible for the weakness of the Muslim world. In this
context the Muslim World was perceived, approached and addressed
by the colonizer's mentality as Muslim, with no other sub-identity
attached, like Indian, Indonesian or Arab. The matter became more
complicated when the colonized unquestionably accepted the identity
imposed on them by the colonizer, and by way of internalization
reduced their identity, thus, creating an identity crisis.
It was explicitly advocated that it was necessary to neglect and
even abandon Islam, if this part of the world was to make any
progress toward catching with modernity. It is enough to mention
the French philosopher Ernest Renan (1 832-1892) and the French
politician and historian Gabriel Hanotaux ( 1 853-1944)28, who
served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1894 to 1 898. Renan
posited the absolute incompatibility between Islam and both sciences
and philosophy. Whatever is labeled Islamic science or Islamic phi­
losophy is, according to Renan in his doctoral thesis, Averroes et
l'Averroisme (1852; "Averroes and Averroism" ) , mere translation from
the Greek. Islam, like all religious dogmas built on revelation, is hos­
tile to reason and freethinking. Hanotaux too held Islam responsible
for the backwardness of the Muslim world. His allegation was based
on the theological difference between Islam and Christianity.

2 8 A statesman, diplomat, and historian who directed a major French colonial

expansion in Africa and who championed a Franco-Russian alliance rhat proved
important in the events leading to World War I. As a French nationalist he was
committed to policies of colonial expansion. During his ministry, French domi­
nation was established in French West Africa, Madagascar, and Tunisia; inroads
were made in Algeria.

39
N A S R A B O ZAYD

According to him the dogma of incarnation in Christianity has its

consequence in building a bridge between man and God, thu� free­
ing man from any dogma of determinism. Islamic pure monotheism,
tawhid, on the other hand, has created a non-bridged distance
between man and God, leaving no space for human free will. By such
theological reason H anotoux explained the political despotism char­
acterizing the Muslim World. 2 9
Jamal ai-Din ai-Afghani (1838- 1 897) 3 0 and Muhammad Abdu
(J 848-1905) responded defensively, relating the backwardness of
Muslims not to Islam per se, but to the contemporary Muslims' mis­
understanding of Islam. They both argue, if Islam is understood
properly and explained correctly, as was the case in the golden age of
Islamic civilization, Muslims would not have been easily defeated,
and dominated by European power.
The basic question that confronted the early modern Muslim
reformers was whether Islam is compatible with modernity or not.
How could a faithful Muslim live in a modern socio-political envi­
ronment, without losing her/his identity as a Muslim? Does Islam
accommodate science and philosophy? Second came the question of
the compatibility or otherwise of the divine law (shari a) that consti­
tutes traditional society, and the positive law that constitutes the
modern nation-state. Were modern political institutions such as
democracy, elections, and parliament accepted by Islam, and could
they replace the traditional institutions of shurd, consultation, and
the authority of the elite 'ulama (ahl aI-hall wa al-'aqd; ?

3- The discussion of such questions are embedded in the question of

religion and politics. The issue of political Islam emerged under the
colonial occupation of most of the Muslim countries as early as 1798

2 9 See the translation of Hanotaux article into Arabic and Muhammad ' Abdu's
response in Al-A'm:lI al-Kamilah Iii Imam Muhammad ' Abdu, (the Complete
Works of Imam Muhammad 'Abdu) ed. Muhammad ' Amarah, 5 vols, Beirut
1 972 v. '5 , p. 20 1 f
30 Extensive information o n ai-Afghani can b e found in N. Keddie, An Islamic
Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din
ai-Afghani (Berkeley, 1 983 ): R. Matthee, 'Jamal ai-Din ai-Afghani and the
Egyptian National Debate', IJMES, Vol. 2 1 ( 1 989), pp. 1 '5 1 - 1 69; E. Kedouric,
'Afghani and Abduh. An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism',
Modern Islam (London, 1966).

40
 R ET H I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN : TOWARDS A H U MAN ISTIC H E R M E N EUTICS

In Egypt for example, where Muslims became aware of different

lifestyle brought about in their everyday life by their colonize'rs. They
look and dress differently, behave and speak differently. They eat
haram food, drink wine, interact freely with women who are not their
mahram, even their women are dressed improperly. In brief, Muslim
social and religious identity was extremely violated by the very exis­
tence of those intruders in otherwise purely Muslim territory.
Ironically, or paradoxically may be, that Bonaparte presented
himself to the Egyptian 'ulama ' as the protector of 'faith' against both
the Catholic Pope and the corrupted Ottoman Sultan. Then he
advanced his claim pretending that he converted ro Islam. Nothing
of this worked out. The issue of politics emerged after the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire with the end of the First World War. The deci­
sion of the new national Turkish movement to abolish Caliphate
raised the question whether Caliphate was an Islamic institution or
was only a form of political system that could be replaced by ano­
ther without losing the identity of Islam. Amidst such state of stress
and uncertainty in such transitional period the Muslim world found
itself suddenly stripped of its identity, namely the Caliphate. Political
figures, such as King Fu'ad in Egypt and Sharief Husayn in Arabia,
tried to restore Caliphate, with each seeking to be nominated as
Caliph of all Muslims.
It was the Egyptian ' All ' Abd al-Raziq ( 1 88 8 - 1 966) who
defended the abolishment of Caliphate proving that there is no such
a specific political system labeled Islamic. The response of Muham­
mad Rashid Rida ( 1 86 5 - 1 935) was different. He defended Caliphate
as an authentic Islamic system that should be re-establish ed, failing
which Muslims would suffer the return to paganism, jahiliyya.3 1 As

3 1 Meaning paganism, in reference to the pre-Islamic tribal cultural code in Arabia

translated sometimes a, ignorance. Rida was very much in favor of the Wahh"bi
ideology ba,ed on the writings of Muhammed b, 'Abd al-Wahhib (d, 1 1 3 5 1 1 792)
who was himself a follower of the most Orthodox Muslim thinker, Ibn Taymiyya
(d.6851 1 328), As Rida was a tradirionalist thinker he inspired Hasan al-Banna
that it is possible to establish the Caliphate state. The successful example set by
both M, b, Abdul Wahh:lb and Muhammad b, Su' lid in establishing a theocratic
state to be the kingdom of God was alive, The dream of both the ideologist and
the ambitious Prince became true by embodying the ideolob'Y in militant body of
tribes called ikhwan, Muslim Brotherhood Society was formed in order to be the
embryo of the future Islamic State of Egypt.

41
NASR ABO ZAYO

a political response the Muslim Brotherhood Society was established

in Egypt in 1928. Its basic aim was to re-establish Islamic society in
Egypt as an ideal example to be copied everywhere before the re­
establishment of Caliphate. Hence re-islamization became thus the
antonym of modernization, which was presented as westernization.
The modern political islamist movements, labeled usually as funda­
mentalism in Western public discourse, are all off-shoots of the
Muslim Brotherhood Society.
In such a historical and confusing context, the question of the
'nature' of the Qur'an, its 'structure' as well as its historical back­
ground, was never closely dealt with. As the foundational text of
Islam per excellence it was kept above any critical investigation; it was
the only preserved cardinal and fundamental source of inspiration to
hold on; it is, first and last of all, the verbatim speech of God.
Muslims perceived the Orientalist's scholarship about the Qur'an, its
history and structure as part of the European conspiracy against
Islam and Muslims.

9- Rethinking Tradition
To start with I would like to briefly present the other non-violent,
more open and probably liberal face of modern Islam known only to
the sincere and non-biased scholars, a face somewhat hidden and a
voice quite mute in the mass Media of East and West alike. From this
presentation, the question of 'rethinking the Qur'an' will, I hope,
emerge as vital if Muslims really wish to follow up the essential basic
project of modernization, with more constructive participation.
In order to give a brief account of this process one has to out­
line the epistemological principles of Classical Islam as it reached the
modern age and had to be rethought. Let me clarify that the four
sources to be outlined here represent only one facet of the multi­
faceted Islamic culture, i.e., the facet of j urisprudence, shari'a. They
present the epistemological principles called (usul al-fiqh) from
which the normative law, fiqh, is deduced. All the revivalist move­
ments were to a great extent directed by the state of affairs in which
Islam came to be fixed, that is Islam as law-oriented (sharf'a) faith.
Scholars of Islam know shari'a is one of the multi-facets of the

42
 RETH I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MANISTIC H E RM ENEUTICS

Islamic traditions and cultures, one that can be distinguished from at

least other several facets, such as philosophy, theology ('ilm al­
kaIam), Sufism, etc.
The reason behind reducing Islam to the paradigm of shari 'a is
the fact that since the fifth century of the Islamic era, i.e. the twelfth
century, Islamic philosophy and Islamic theology as well as the cre­
ative philosophy of Sufism have been gradually marginalized.
Philosophers and non-orthodox theologians, such as the well-known
Ibn Rushd, suffered various degrees of persecution. Indeed, great
sufis, such as al-Hallaj (exc. 910) and Suhrawardi (Shihab ai-Din
Yahya, exc. 1 19 1 ) to mention only two names, were executed. I n
terms of their hierarchal order the sources of knowledge, according to
major schools of law, are arranged as follow:
First and foremost, the Qur'an and its exegesis present the foun­
dational treasure of knowledge; it is the Speech of God revealed in
Arabic to prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. Though basical­
ly addressing the Arabs, its message is meant for all humanity regard­
less of time and space. This is the guidance, the light, and the final
divine plan for salvation in this world as well as in the life to come.
Second to the Qur'an are the sayings and the actions of the
prophet Muhammad, including his approval or disapproval of say­
ings or actions of his companions. This is the prophetic tradition
known in Arabic as Sunna. It came to be considered equally divine
with the Qur'an because both are revelations from God. The differ­
ence between them was explained in terms of differentiating between
the 'content' and the linguistic expression or the 'form' of both. The
Qur'an is God's verbatim speech, so its content and its linguistic
expression (form) are both divine. The content of the Sunna, on the
other hand, is revealed, meaning divine, but its form is human;
Muhammad put it into words. Nevertheless, its position is not infe­
rior to the Qur'an; it is equal though secondary. Muslim jurists even
emphasized that the Qur'an is in need of the Sunna more than the
Sunna is in need of the Qudn. The Sunna is not only to explain but
more to explicate what is implicit, such as how to perform prayer and
fasting, or to know the conditions of purification and the amount of
alms to be paid etc. Without the Sunna the Qur'an is less clear. Even
to understand the context of the passages and chapters of the Qur'an,

43
NASR A B O ZAYD

the historical events that surrounded the revelation - a process lasting

more than twenty years - only the Sunna can provide such ( histori­
cal) information.
The third epistemological principle or source of knowledge is
the 'consensus' of the community of scholars, 'uLama '. As there was
no consensus among the scholars on the epistemological validity of the
doctrine of 'consensus', neither could there be an agreement on its
definition and the final formulation limited its scope as well as its
implication. Its scope was narrowed to refer only to what was unan­
imously agreed upon among the first Muslim generation, the
Companions of the Prophet, sahaba, on the assumption that such
consensus should had been grounded on certain prophetic tradition
that was not transmitted to the next generation. Consequently, its
implication was limited to issues not mentioned, either explicitly or
implicitly, in the above two sources. 32
The fourth and last source of acquiring knowledge is the appli­
cation of rational syllogisms, inferring a rule for a certain non-men­
tioned case in the sources above by way of making analogy with a
similar established rule. The analogy is to be based either on similar­
ity, like the similarity between consuming alcohol and smoking hash,
or on the rationale of the rule mentioned. The second type of analo­
gy requires adherence to the theological doctrine of the existence of
'rational logic' behind God's divine rules, a doctrine that was not
accepted by all schools of law. Unlike 'consensus' qiyas, though was
not applied by all the j urists, gained more support by the majority, 33

l O-Rethinking Consensus: the emergence of new ' ulama'

It seems that the process of 'rethinking' tradition, which started as

response to the degeneration position into which Muslim societies
were falling, took its first step with the third principle, namely con­
sensus; it was easy to break through by demanding a new type of con­
sensus. Shah Wal1 Allah (1702-1762) is considered the godfather of
the 'revivalist' Islam in India. Due to the specific orientation of the
Indian Islam, his revivalist formula was a combination of 'sufism' and

3 2 See. Bernard. MoO article 'Ijm,j" in EI, vol. 1 1 1 . pp. 1 023 ['
33 See, Bernard, M, article 'qiyas' in EI, vol. v, pp. 238.

44
 RETHINKING T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MAN I S T I C H E RMEN EUTICS

shari'a oriented thought. In contrast to the Wahab! movement in

Arabia, initiated by Muhammad b. ' Abd ai-Wahab ( I 703-1792)
which took the direction of a highly Orthodox reformation, it is pos­
sible to explain the differences in line with the different historical and
cultural background of Islam, in both social environments. While
Islam in India was reshaped by its interaction with pre-Islamic Indian
tradition, such as Hinduism Buddhism, Islam in Arabia was to a
great extent rooted in its Bedouin tradition and customs.
Shah Wall Allah, heavily influenced by the breakdown of the
Mugal authority which led to the loss of Muslim power, sought to
encourage the revival of a strong central authority by invoking a con­
cept of two complementary authorities, two caliphates, one is politi­
cal and the other is juridical, both are responsible for the preservation
of Islam. For the political authority he uses the term zdhir, meaning
external, and to this he assigns the responsibility for maintaining
administrative and political order and for applying the Shari 'a. For
the j uridical he employs the term batin, internal, and its responsibil­
ity is to give guidance to the religious leaders of the community, a
role that Shah Wall Allah took upon himself. 34
The similarity between this approach and that of Ibn ' Abd al­
Wahhab is obvious, bringing together the political authority and the
authority of the jurist, foqih, to work toward the restoration of Islam
from its state of decadence. The difference between the two approach­
es remains in this sufi tone that is characteristic of Indian Islam.
Within this sufi tone, and in order to establish the position of the
jurist as partner in the state affair, Shah WaH Allah was able to be crit­
ical of the Classical structure of shari 'a; he was able to reject taql£'d, the
uncritical adherence to the opinions of the 'ulama ' of the Classical
schools of law, and a revival of interest in the use of personal effort to
decide a point of law, &'tihltd by employing qiyds. By such a revival of
the principle of personal understanding Shah Wall Allah was able to
bypass the history of stagnation in the field of shari 'a scholarship.
He emphasized the spirit of law, which is applicable in all times
and places, rather than the form of law, which is shaped and formu­
lated in accordance with conditions of time and place. Not only does

34 See Brown, Daniel, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought, Cam­

bridge Middle East Studies, Cambridge University Press, UK 1 996, pp. 22-3.

45
NASR A B O ZAYD

he revive the concept of maslaha,3 5 the community interest, from the

Malik£'s school of law, but he basically and initially depends � n the
well-established Sufi distinction between shari 'a and haqiqa, where
the first is considered historical and limited in time and space while
the later is the Truth attained by spiritual exercise that leads to vision
of Reality.
As a jurist sufi, he tried to cleanse Sunna from any theological
influence, because theology presents an imposition of rational con­
templation on matters that are either clearly indicated in the
Scripture (the Qur'an and the Tradition of the Prophet, Sunna) or
matters that are not mentioned in any. Sunna, according to him, is,
on the contrary, the agreed upon practice of the Muslim communi­
ty. By such a distinction, he successfully dissociated Sunna from the­
ology which, according to him, caused the People of the Qibla
(Muslims) to become separate sects and destined factions beyond
their following the essentials of religion. 36
While, as we shall see, early Indian revivalist discourse present­
ed by Shah WaH Allah encouraged later development, Wahhabism
has never developed away from the basic ideas first formulated by the
founder. The absolute unity between dogma and political regime
offered no scope for political opposition, but advocated more radical
and fundamentalist ideologies. Now, in the context of the American
pressure to reshape the whole Arab world politically and intellectual­
ly, there are a lot of gatherings, conferences, etc. basically aiming to
represent Wahhabism as a liberal, open and democratic system . It is
an attempt to apply some makeup to the same old face.
In Egypt a similar revivalist, but probably more liberal
approach, appeared after the first encounter with Europe. Shaykh,
Refa ' a Rafi' al-Tahtawl (1801-1873) was sent to act as an imam for
the first Egyptian military mission to France (to acquire modern mil­
itary training) . He was very much inspired by his teacher Hasan al­
'Attar, the rector of al-Azhar for five years (1830- 1 834) who tried to
introduce secular sciences to the curriculum of the oldest Islamic edu­
cational institution in Egypt, al-Azhar. Paradoxically, the objection

35 Hujjar Allah al-Baligha (The Conclusive Argument from God), rranslared by H .

Daiber and D, Pringree, EJ. Beill 1 996' 1'. 1 1 .
3 6 ibid., p. 24.

46
 RET H I N KING T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MA N I STIC H E R M ENEUTICS

came from the French director of the school of medicine in Cairo on

the grounds that al-Azhar should continue as an exclusively religious
institution. Shaykh Hasan al-'Attar, being himself well versed in sec­
ular sciences including astronomy, medicine, chemistry, and engineer­
ing, as well as literature and music, found no contradiction between
religious knowledge and secular disciplinesY
Inspired by such a master, Tahtawi managed to learn French and
to read some of the eighteenth century French thought and literature.
Perhaps more importantly he had time to see and observe everyday life
in Paris and to record his observations in a book that was published
after his return to Egypt, entitled Takhlis al-Ibriz fl Talkhis Pariz
(Summary of Paris). On his return he was appointed director of the
newly established School of Languages (Madrasat al-Alsun). A bureau
of translation was attached to the school in 1 84 1 . Books were trans­
lated to and from various (European) languages, covering the fields of
geography, history, geometry, mathematics, engineering, law, etc. In
addition to all these duties, he was appointed the chief editor of the
first official newspaper al-Waqlti ' al-Misriyyah.3 8
Al-Tahtawl's contribution to the study of Islam and 'rethinking
tradition', besides being a pioneer in the intellectual awakening
process, relies in the fact that he gives a new turn to the idea of the
'ufama: In his view, they are not simply guardians of a fixed and estab­
lished tradition. Himself well versed in the religious law, as Shafi' i by
legal rite, he believed it was necessary to adapt shari 'a to new circum­
stances and that it was legitimate to do so. Very much like Shah Wall
Allah, he provoked the reopening of the gate of 'ijtihltd, which had
been announced closed. He even went one step further to suggest that
there was not much difference, he suggested, between the principles of
shari'a and the principles of 'natural law' on which the codes of mod­
ern Europe were based. This suggestion implied that Islamic law could
be reinterpreted in the direction of conformity with modern needs,
and he suggested a principle which could be used to j ustifY this: that
it is legitimate for a believer, in certain circumstances, to accept an
37 See "the Report on the Religious Condition in Egypt (Taqrir aI-Hallah al­
Dlniyyah f1 Misr). al-Ahr:lm Centre fm Political and Strategic Studies, Cairo
1995.
38 Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the liberal Age ( I 798- 1 939), Cambridge
Universitry Press, London 1 983. reprinted 1 984, p. 7 1 ) .

47
NASR AB O ZAYD

interpretation of the law drawn from a legal code other than his own.
Taken up by later writers, this suggestion was used in the creati�n of a
modern and uniform system of Islamic law in Egypt and elsewhere. 39
It is worth noting that the Muslim reformists were able to break
through the principle of consensus by re-invoking the principle of
rational reasoning, ijtihad, which was quite feasible and successful, by
supporting the fourth principle, i.e. legal syllogisms, qiyas. By under­
mining the principle of 'consensus', they were able to navigate
through the volumes of law, fiqh, without limiting themselves to fol­
lowing a specific school, which gave them more freedom to choose
opinions and to build l egal syllogisms. This rype of reformation
became instrumental in the field of law formulation and shari' a cod­
ification in so many Muslim countries.
The process of breaking 'consensus' continued to present the
major development throughout the twentieth century. A new class of
intellectuals started to be engaged, challenging the hegemonic
authoriry of the traditional class of 'ulama ' across the Muslim World,
thanks to the age of print and the press, and the introduction of
modern educational systems. All these were essential elements in the
process of building the post-independence nation states. Now, with
the intensive use of Internet, the traditional authoriry of the 'ulama '
and even the authoriry of modern intellectuals has been fragmented.
If the traditional ' ulama' were the ones who challenged and
rethought the principle of 'consensus', thus, opening new space of
rational reflection on Tradition, it was for the new emerging class of
intellectuals to go a step further in the process of ' rethinking'. 40

1 1 - Rethinking Sunna, hadith criticism:

the emergence of new exegesis

As explained earlier Sunna encompasses the sayings and actions of

the prophet Muhammad as well as his approval and/or disapproval of
his companions' sayings and actions. Unlike the Qur'an that was
recorded down in written form early, Sunna was orally transmitted

39 Hourani, 01'. cited. p. 75.

40 See, Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson (cds.) New Media in the Muslim World,
Indiana University Press, 1 999, especially their contributions and the introduction.

48
 RET H I N KING T H E QUR'AN : TOWARDS A H UMANIS TIC H E RMENEUT I C S

before the compellation of the collections of Tradition aro t;nd the

end of second/eighth century. The fact that all the reports containing
tradition were orally transmitted with the possibility of fabrication
for various reasons and motivations, made the early scholars of hadith
who were very aware of the possibility,- develop certain critical rules
to evaluate authenticity, and hence what was to be accepted, and to
avoid fabrications entering the collections.
This traditional hadith criticism approach was re-invoked and
even developed beyond its traditional critical paradigm in the mod­
ern context of 'rethinking'. Rethinking the Sunna was associated
with the efforts to reopen the meaning of the Qur'an to address mod­
ern issues by way of trying to establish a new Qur'anic exegesis, void
of the heavy classical reliance on Tradition in the classical commen­
taries of the Qur'an. In other words, the criticism of Sunna was basi­
cally one of the results of the Muslim thinkers being involved in
Qur'anic exegesis in a rather different way than that of the classical
exegetes. The strong demand for a new approach in dealing with the
Qur'an in order to open its meaning for the new challenging cir­
cumstances made it essential to distance modern Qur'anic exegesis
from the traditional type heavily loaded with hadith quotations.
Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan of India ( 1 81 7-1898) 4 1 , not a tradi­
tional '!dim, was the first Indian modernist to introduce new themes,
hitherto unknown in this interpretation. An apologist, he tried to
justifY the religious dogmas presented in the Qur'an in the light of
modern scientific discoveries. The perception that the Qur'iin should
occupy the central place in guiding the behavior of the Muslims, as
against the dominant role of the Prophetic traditions generally
accepted by the 'ulama', was apparently gaining popularity among a
section of Muslim intelligentsia during late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries in India. This was intended primarily to create
space for the interpretation of the Qur'an in modern terms, and also
to eradicate superstitions prevalent in Muslim societies. Sayyed
Ahmad was the first to have raised this issue. He points to anomalies
in the interpretation of the Qur'an and suggests that these are void of
4 1 On Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan, sec Christian W. 'Ii-all, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: An
Interpretation of Muslim Theory (Oxford Universirv Press, New Delhi, 1 978);
Hafeez Malik, Sir sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muslim Modernization in India and
Pakistan (Columbia University Press, New York, 1 980),

49
NASR A B O ZAYD

even general principles on which to base an understanding of the

Holy Scripture. Most of what the classical commentators ha�e pro­
vided only concern derivations from the Qur' an of canon law,
scholastic theology, admonitions and similar other matters. Not a few
parts of the classical commentaries are "worthless and full of weak
and fabricated (Prophetic) traditions" or comprise baseless stories
borrowed from Judaism.
It is imperative, therefore, for him to free the field of Quranic
exegesis from tradition, substituting instead the principles of 'reason'
and 'nature' . He proposes that the Qur' an stands on its own, requir­
ing only application of a dedicated and enlightened mind for its
understanding. The principles of interpretation, according to Ahmad
Khan, should not depend on hadith otherwise the eternal and uni­
versal quality of the Qur'an will be put at risk. For him, the great mir­
acle of the Qur'an is its universality which makes it possible for every
generation to find in it the meaning relevant to its situation, despite
the constant increase in human knowledge. Hadith-based interpreta­
tion tends to limit the meaning of the Qur'an to a particular histor­
ical situation, thus obscuring its universality. 42
This approach led Ahmad Khan to the critical approach to the
second source of Islamic knowledge, the Sunna. Under the influence
of Biblical criticism applied to the transmission of hadith's reports by
European scholars like Carl Pfander (1803-1865) and William Muir
(J 819-1905) on one hand, and in response to the close-minded,
Wahhabi oriented, attitude developed by Ahl-i-Hadith, on the other
hand, he "eventually came to reject almost all hadith as unreliable".43
But his refutation of hadith does not mean that he rejects Sunna alto­
gether, although hadith is considered to be the major carrier of Sunna.
Like Ahmad Khan, the Egyptian Muhammad Abdu (1848-
1905) seems to have a critical, though more cautious, attitude towards
the material that had been handed down in the canonized collections
of Sunna. He did not theoretically elaborate on redefining the authen­
tic Tradition; but he occasionally refutes traditions that contradict
either the explicit meaning of a certain Qur'anic passages or both rea­
son and commonsense. This is obviously shown in his rejection of the

42 Rethinking Tradition. cited. p. 44 .

43 Ibid., p. 33.

50
 RETH I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U M A N I STIC H ER M ENEUTICS

traditions related to magic or the satanic touch, as well as th?se men­

tioning the angels descending to fight the enemy alongside the Muslim
warriors, As we will see, his semi-rational interpretation of the Qur'an,
necessitates a critical approach to tradition. 44
The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of Ahl-i­
Qur'an movement in India as a critical response to the emphasis laid on
the authority of Sunna by Ahl-i-Hadlth group, an emphasis which
resulted in leaning towards a ritualistic version of reformation. The basic
challenge presented by Ahl-i-Qur'an was not the authenticity of Sunna
as transmi tted through hadlth reports, but it was basically whether the
Sunna stands in the same position of the Qur'an as divine revelation.
The Classical position holding Sunna as a form of revelation equal to
the Qur'an in authority, though different in its form, was challenged.
Similar controversy, though less violent in tone than in India,
was also happening in Egypt. Just as the Indian Ahl-i-Qur'an were
influenced by Sayyid Ahmad Khan's emphasis on the Qur'anic uni­
versalism versus the Sunna historicity, so the Egyptian critics of
Sunna developed ' Abdu's cautious attitude toward hadlth literature
into a more radical attitude raising the slogan 'Islam is the Qur'an
alone' in a series of articles in al-Manar in 1 907. 45 There was strong
reaction against this claim from several Muslim countries including
one from India. 46 One of the more interesting outcomes of discus­
sion around the authenticity of hadlth has been the emergence of
attempts to separate the question of the authority of sunna from the
problem of the historical authenticity of hadlth criticism - to accept
the results of modern hadlth criticism, at least in part, while in prin­
ciple preserving the authenticity of sunna.
This was the general approach to sunna promoted by the
Lahore based Institute of Islamic Culture. 47 A similar but much
more sophisticated attempt to separate the authority of sunna from
the strict authenticity of hadlth is found in the work of the Pakistani
modernist Fazlur Rahman (1919-1988), who served as director of
Pakistan's Central Institute for Islamic Research in the 1 960s.
44 Ibid., p.37.
45 These articles were written by Muhammad Tawfiq Sidqi, al·Manar, v. 7, pp. 5 1 5 ·
5 2 5 ; v. 10, pp 683·689; v. I 1 , pp. 689·697 and 7 1 7·779.
46 Ibid., v. 1 1 , 1 41 · 1 45 and 52 1 · 527
4 7 Rethinking Tradition, op cited, pp. 100· 1 .

51
NASR ABO ZAYD

This institute was established by the regime of General Ayyub Khan

to help promotion of modernist interpretations of Islam compatible
with the needs of the regime. Fazlur Rahman's works on sunna must
be understood against the background of religious politics in
Pakistan during the 1 960s and, in particular, against the background
of the controversy between Ghulam Ahmad Parwez (one of Ahli-i­
Qur'an group) and his opponents among the Pakistani ' ulama'.
Parwez's radical rejection of sunna and his particular vision of Islamic
state as true heir of Prophetic authority4 8 was associated in the minds
of his opponents with the efforts of the Ayyub government to bypass
the 'ulama ' in order to promote modernist Islam.
Opponents of the government suspected, quite correctly, that
Ayyub was intent on bypassing the traditional sources of religious
authority in his formulation of policy. They concluded, probably
incorrectly, that Parwez's ideas were exercising an undue effect on
government policy. Thus the debate over the relationship between
religion and state and the relative rule of the 'ulamli ' and the gov­
ernment in formulating policy on religious question became focused
on Parwez's ideas, and particularly on the issue of Sunna. Attention
was also focused on the regime's major voice in religious matters, the
Central Institute of Islamic Research and its director. 4 9
The story of the institute and its rule in the state structure in
Pakistan is worth mentioning; it shows how instrumental the criticism
of Sunna was for the process of formulating modern law. It shows also
the failure of the reformation movement when it is too connected to
the pragmatic policy of the political regimes. The example of Pakistan
could be found in different degree in other Muslim countries where the
state is able to manipulate intellectuals to serve the regime ideology.
It seems obvious that the structure of the Central Institute for
Islamic Research was determined to be semi-secular. As Masud
pointed outSO, Fazlur Rahman, who was a graduate of Oxford
University, and at the time of establishing the Institute was teaching
at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, "gathered together a group

4 8 Ibid., p. 4 8.
4 9 Ibid., p. 1 02.
50 Muhammad Khalid Masud, "Islamic Research Institute", ISIM Newsletter 1 /98,
p. 43.

52
 RETH I N KI N G T H E QU R'AN: TOWARDS A HU MANISTIC H E R M E N EUTICS

of scholars who represented not only various disciples but also dif­
ferent Islamic orientations. This group represented differen� Islamic
schools of thought and ethnic and provincial diversity in Pakistan.
In addition to their training in traditional Islamic learning, all had
to have a degree in modern discipline, e,g, economy, sociology, polit­
ical science etc These scholars also had advanced degrees from
renowned universities in the West. Several were sent to USA and
Canada.
As the institute acted as an advisory think tank to assist in leg­
islation work, it provided research material for the drafting of various
laws. It assisted the Islamic Advisory Council, which would advise
the National Assembly, Pakistan Family Laws, legislated in 1962, rep­
resented a liberal interpretation of the Qur'an and Sunna.
The conservatives opposed these laws as they restricted poly­
gamy and gave rights to women that traditional Islamic law did not
allow. The institute found itself the target of hostile propaganda.
Fazlur Rahman was called Abu'l Fazl, the notorious Vizir of the
Mughal emperor Akbar who supposedly instituted a new religion.
Fazlur Rahman's book Islam, a general introduction, essentially
written as a defense of Islam against Western critics, triggered con­
troversy. A population with 25% literacy took to the streets protest­
ing against a book that most of them could not and had not read.
Political opposition to Ayyub took advantage of the situation. The
'ulama ' declared Rahman a heretic Agitation started in Dacca, the
constituency of Mawlana Ihtishamul Haq Thanawi who was leading
this protest against Rahman and Ayyub Khan. Countrywide distur­
bances in 1969 caused Ayyub to resign, Rahman was forced to leave
the country, and taught at the University of Chicago until his death
in 1988.

1 2-Rethinking Qur'an

We can briefly divide the orientation of modern exegesis of the

Qur'an into three basic trends, each of which essentially addresses
one of the challenging questions mentioned above, i.e., science, rea­
son and politics, that modernity brought to the mind of Muslims.

53
NASR A B O ZAYD

a- Islam and Science

It was the Indian Sayyid Ahmad Khan, whom we have already
encountered, who looked at the question of science in his exegesis of
the Qur'an. As we have seen, both the criticism of hadith and the
consideration of the position of Sunna were meant to free the
Qur'anic exegesis from the heavy impact of tradition in order to facil­
itate the introduction of a rather more modern understanding of
God's message. Criticizing classical Qur'anic commentaries in terms
of their sources and their subjects of interest, Ahmad Khan accepts
only those parts of the commentaries dealing with the literary aspects
of the Qur'an. He points to anomalies in the interpretation of the
Qur'an and suggests that these are void of even general principles on
which to base an understanding of the Holy Scripture.
Sayyed Ahmad Khan's major interest was to bring the meaning of
the Qur'an into harmony with the modern discoveries of the natural
sciences. Natural scientific discoveries, he asserts, need to be taken into
account while explaining the meanings of relevant parts of the Qur':l.n,
since they do not contain anything against the "law of nature" .
Modern scientific discoveries, explains Sayyid Ahmad Khan, are
the manifestations of God's ptomises in reality while the Qur'an
presents God's promises in words. On the basis of this argument he
suggests that Scripture has to come to terms with the law of nature,
which includes scientific discoveries. He therefore rejects miracles
and many Qur'anic descriptions, which he considers "supernatural"
in their literal sense, and describes them as metaphors and indirect
expressions of reality. 5 1
He states that Qur'anic words and expressions should not be
understood exclusively in their direct literal meanings; the Holy
Scripture often uses metaphors, allegories, and other indirect expres­
sions. In order to give his claim an authentic traditional support, he
explains how the classical ' ulama ' did not always accept literal mean­
ings of many Qur'anic words when such meanings contradict com­
mon sense or human intellect. The reason they recognized miracles,

'i 1 See Sayyed Ahmad Khan, 'Tahrir fi mill al-Tafsir' (writing on the principles of
interpretation). in Tafsir al-Qur'an wa huwa al-huda wa'I-Furqan (Interpretation
of the Qur'an which is the Guide and the Proof) (Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public
[Link]: Pama, India, 2nd ed. 1 99 5 ) vol. 1 , Pl" 1 -20
.

54
 R E T H I N K I N (� T H E QUR'AN: TOWA R D S A H UMANISTIC H E R M E N E U T I C S

and, therefore, accepted supernatural Qur'anic descriptions in their

literal sense is because natural sciences were not sufficiently devel­
oped during those periods. But since very little is known about pre­
Islamic Arabic literature, he concludes that it is possible that words
and phrases have meanings other than those explained by lexicolo­
gists. It is therefore imperative also to apply other sources and to
accept such meanings of the Qur'an as are based on them, although
these may be absent ftom dictionaries. 52
Self-evidently the explicit concept of the Qur'an as a Text,
which has been the well established concept since its canonization, is
uncritically accepted by Sayyid Ahmad Khan. That explains his
admiration of that part of classical exegesis emphasizing the literary
aspect. Although skeptical about the quantity of the knowledge avail­
able of pre-Islamic Culture, he methodologically emphasizes its
importance. He concludes that the Qur'an should, first and fore­
most, be understood, explained and interpreted by the Qur'an itself
i.e., by understanding its own internal structure. He considers such
principle to be derived from the Holy Book. 53 The second method­
ological principle is that understanding the pre- Islamic Arabic litera­
ture is a pre-requisite to understanding the Qur'an.
Methodologically speaking there is nothing new in Sayyid
Ahmad Khan's presupposition. The difference between his interpre­
tation and the classical commentaries, however, lays in the domain of
meaning - the modern meaning - that considers science, especially
natural science the new religion of secularism. Fascinated by the new
world of science and discovery he had to find a way to integrate it
into his holy scripture. I propose here that Sayyid Ahmad Khan's
effort to open the meaning of the Qur'an to accept scientific findings
is the embryo of the later to be developed pair of seemingly opposite
directions, namely the emphasis on the scientific inimitability of the
Qur'an 5 4 , and that of islamization of knowledge and science.
5 2 Ibid, p. 1 5 ,
53 Ibid, pp. 2 and 1 3 - 1 5.
5 4 The scientific supremacy of rhe Qur'lm (al-i'jaz al-' ilm]), according to an article
published in the weekly supplement of al-Ahram newspaper, October 27, 2000,
p. 2, is nor meant to convince the Arabs of the authenticity and divinity of the
Qur'an. For the Arabs, the writer says, it is enough to esrablish the Qur'a inim­
itability on its rhetorical eloquence; for the non-Arabs this explanation is neither
enough nor acceptable. As fclt Wesrern culture, science is rhe supreme mode of

55
NASR ABO ZAYD

b- Islam and Rationalism

Although Muhammad 'Abdu was neither a theologian nor a philoso­
pher, he admired the philosophical and mystical knowledge of Jamal
ai-Din ai-Afghani (1839- 1 879). But while ai-Afghani was more of an
activist and provocative teacher55 ' Abdu gave up politics and con­
centrated his efforts in the arena of thought, especially after he was
exiled because of his participation in ' Urabl's affair which ended with
the British occupation of Egypt in 1 882. Influenced heavily by
Afghani, who had brought to Egypt the idea of a new, modern inter­
pretation of Islam, 'Abdu adopted a synthesis of classical rationalism
and modern socio-political awareness. This made it possible for him
knowledge. The article is basically written in response to the criticism directed to
the norion of 'the scientific supremacy of the Qur'an. Ir is claimed that connect­
ing the Qur'an to scientific theory, which is changeable and subject to challenge
as human knowledge develops, does in fact cause damage to the diviniry and the
eternity of the Qur'in, the word of God. Defending the validity of al-i' ijiz
al-' ilmi the writer distinguishes between scientific facts and scientific rheories
asserting that the Qur'an's supremacy is built on the former not the later. If such
facts are explicitly or implicitly expressed in the Qur'an, it represents the solid and
universal proof of its divinity. In this context the compatibility of Islam, specifi­
cally the Qur'an, with modern science became one of the concerns of some non­
cleric Muslim intellectual. Reference can be made to publications including:
1 - Reveling the illuminaring Qur'anic secrets Concerning the Celestial and
Terrestrial Bodies, Animals, Plants and Metals (Kashf al-A"ar 'I-Nawraniyya
'I-Qur'aniyya lima Yara' laqu b i'I-Ajrim '-Samawiyya wa 'I-Ardiyyah wa
'I-Haywanat wa 'I-Nabarat wa 'I-Jawahir 'I_Ma' daniyya) by Mohammed b.
Ahmed al-Iskandrani, Cairo 1 2971 1 880;
2 - Explaining the Divine Secrets in Plants, Metals and the Specillc Characteristics
of Life (Tibyan al-Asrar '-RabbilOiyya fi 'I-Nabat wa 'I-Ma' adin wa 'I-Khawas '1-
Haywaniyya), Syria 1 .300/ 1 883;
3 - Comparing Some of the Astrological Discovery with What is Mentioned in rhe
Divine Texrs (Muqaranat Ba'd Mabahith al-Hay' a bi 'I-Warid II 'Nussus
'Shar' iyyah) by ' Abdullah Fikri, who was a Minisrer of Education in Egypt, Cairo
1 3 1 5/ 1 897);
4 - The Precious Metals in the Interpretation of the Qur'an (al-Jawahir fi Tafsir al­
Qur'an) by Tantawi al-Jawhari (d 1 940) 26 vo!., first printed unknown, 2ed.,
'
Cairo 1 3501 1 97 1 . It is multi-volumes tafsir in which the author tries his best to
find everything telated to modern science, modern technology, or even discover­
ies in the Qur'an. Six verses, 5:27-32 for example, is dealt wirh in 25 pages includ­
ing many headings starting with 'linguistic explanation, al-tafsir al-lafzi' and end­
ing with 'the iron save boxes' in the Qur'an, al-khaza'in al-hadidiyah fi 'I-Qur'an'.
(cf. 'Abd ai-Majid al-Sharafi, ai-Islam wa 'I-Hadarha (Islam and Modernirv),
Tunisia 1 990, pp.69-76,
55 See, ' Amarah, Muhammad (ed.), Al A' mal al Kamilah Ii Jamal ai-Din ai-Afghani
ma a [Link] Hayitih wa Aatharih (The Complete Collection of al-Afghani's
Writings, with a Study of his Life and his Writings), Cairo 1 968, p. 29.

56
 RETH I N KING T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A H U MANISTIC H ER M E N E U T ICS

to re-examine the basic sources of Islamic knowledge, the Qur'an and

the Sunna as well as the structure of Islamic theology, thus; prepar­
ing the ground for what is known as the islah, reformation, move­
ment.
When he was appointed as the religious councellor, mufti, of
Egypt in 1 899 56 , he addressed so many practical social and cultural
issues that needed to be dealt with from an Islamic rational perspec­
tive. He set a program for the reform of Muslim higher education and
for the reform of the administration of Muslim law. He tried to carry
out these practical reforms, first, when he suggested reforms of educa­
tion in general and of al-Azhar in particular in 1 892, and, second,
when he proposed so many plans for the reform of the legal system.
' Abdu's efforts to introduce some reforms to al-Azhar was partly suc­
cessful, but the resistance from the traditional 'ulama' was so strong
that he concentrated more on intellectual reformation.
His confidence in 'reason' is manifest in all his activities,
although he considers that 'religion' provides the basis to protect 'rea­
son' from erring. The question of Islam and modern knowledge,
which was fundamental to 'Abdu's writings, led him to re-examine
Islamic heritage, pushing more to reopen the 'door of ijtihad in all
aspects of social and intellectual life. As religion is an essential part of
human existence, he argued that the o nly avenue through which to
launch real reform was through a reform of Islamic thought.
He elaborated in his Tafiir al-Manar the concept of the Qur'an
as a 'text' by, first, emphasizing implicitly its literary sttucture, sec­
ondly, placing its style in expressing its message in the seventh cen­
tury in accordance with intellectual level of the Arabs' mentality.
Whatever seems irrational or contradictory to logic and science in the
Qur'an must, accordingly, be understood as reflecting the Arabs'
vision of the world at that time. All verses referring to superstitions
like witchcraft and the evil eye are to be explained as expressions of
what the Arabs believed in. And literary figures of speech (like
'metaphor' and 'allegory') appear in Tafiir al-Manar as the basis of a
rational explanation for all miraculous events and deeds mentioned
in the Qur' an. The verses which speak about sending the angels
down from heaven to fight against the kuff!ir, infidels, are thus
'i6 ' Abdu, Muhammad, AI-A' mal al-Klmilah. op cited. vol. 5. pp. l O S t:

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NASR A B O ZAYD

explained by ' Abdu as an expression of encouragement; they were

meant to provide comfort to the believers, to help enable th�m to
gain a victory. 57
This was precisely the first explicit effort of the re-contextual­
ization of the Qur'an against the 7th century cultural background, a
method that was developed by later Egyptian as well as Arab and
Muslim intellectuals. This process of re-contextualization led 'Abdu
to de-mythologize the Quranic narrative as well as to come close to a
de-mystification of the Holy Text.
While Sayyid Ahmad Khan was trying to harmonize the Qur'an
with science, by way of creating equation between them - the equa­
tion between Divine 'promise in Action' and 'promise in words' - it
was quite enough for ' Abdu to place the Qur'an in the seventh cen­
tury context, thus excluding any attempt of comparison between the
Qur'an and science.
His most important contribution in this area was his insistence
that the Qur'an is not meant to be a book of history neither a book
of science; it is a book of guidance. Consequently, any search of proof
for any scientific theory is invalid. Qur'anic narratives, on the other
hand, should not be taken as historical documents. Indeed, historical
incidents mentioned in the Qur'anic narratives are presented in a lit­
erary and narrative style, to convey lessons of admonition and exhor­
tation. 58 'Abdu was very clear about the difference between 'histori­
ography' and the Qur' anic stories. Historiography is a scientific field
of knowledge based on inquiry and critical investigation of available
data (reports, testimonies, memories, and geographical or material
evidences, for example). In contrast, the Qur' anic stories are intend­
ed to serve ethical, spiritual and religious purposes. They might be
based on some historical incidents, but the purpose is not to provide
knowledge about history. This explains why names of persons, places
and dates are not mentioned in these stories. Even if the story is
about a prophet, or about one of the enemies of a prophet (like
Pharaoh) , many details are omitted. ' Abdu is clearly against the
method of the classical exegetes, which attempted to clarify these
mubhamat (unmentioned; non-explicit) . He insisted that the impor-
')7 ibid., vol. 5 , pp. 506- 1 1 .
58 Ibid., vol. 5 , p. 30t:

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 RETH I N K I N G T H E QUR'AN : TOWARDS A H U MAN I ST I C H E RMEN EUTICS

tance of the story does not depend on such knowledge; it depends

rather on the lesson of 'admonition' that can be deduced fro'm it. 5 9
It is important here to emphasize the fact that ' Abdu's intellec­
tual liberal discourse presents the intellectual side of the modernizing
project initiated by Muhammad 'Ali (1760 - 1 849) to establish a
modern state in Egypt, a project that was carried out by his grandson
Khedive Isma' il (1863-1 879), who explicitly wanted Egypt to be like
any European state, The ideas of 'Abdu were very influential during
the twentieth century right across the entire Muslim World, thanks
to journal of al-Manar (1898-1936) established by Rashid Rida
(1865- 1 935), ' Abdu's disciple and partner,
' Abdu's 'rational' oriented exegesis was not entirely free of the
issue of modern science where it was implicit, neither was the 'sci­
ence' oriented exegesis of Ahmad Khan free from rationalism, Like
' Abdu, in his effort to free the field of Quranic exegesis from tradi­
tion Ahmad Khan placed the principles of 'reason' and 'nature' as a
substitute for the classical heavy dependence on quotations from tra­
dition. His ptoposal is that the Qur'an stands on its own, requiring
only application of a dedicated and enlightened mind for its under­
standing, The principles of interpretation, according to Ahmad
Khan, should not depend on hadith or this will hazard the eternal
and universal quality of the Qur'an. For him, the great miracle of the
Qur'an is its universality which makes it possible for every generation
to find in it the meaning relevant to its situation despite the constant
increase in human knowledge, Hadith-based interpretation tends to
limit the meaning of the Qur'an to a particular historical situation,
thus, obscuring its universality. 60

c- Islam and Politics

Political concern is not absent from either the exegesis of 'Abdu or
Ahmad Khan. Neither is it appropriate to suggest that 'political' ori­
ented exegesis was started by the Pakistani author, j ournalist, inter­
preter of the Qur'an, ideologue and political activist Abu 'A' la

59 For a derailed account of Abdu's views concerning the Qur'anic narrative, see
Tafslr al·Manir, Cairo 2ed reprint, vol. 1 , pp. 1 9·2 1 , 2 1 0· 1 1 , 2 1 5, 229·30, 233·
4, 27 1 ; vol. 3, 47·8; vol. 4, pp. 7, 42, ')2·3.
60 Rethinking Tradition, op, cited, p. 44.

59
NASR A B O ZAYD

Mawdudl ( 1 903- 1 979). But it was Abu 'I-A' Ja al-Mawdudi wh.o gave
the political Islamic movement its qur';'mic ground that was copied
by Sayyid Qutb. More than anyone else he shaped and influenced the
further development of 'orthodox fundamentalism', also known as
' Islamism'. 6 1 The leaders of the Shi' ite revolution in Iran in 1 979
gave as their main sources of inspiration for shaping an Islamic state
the publications of their Egyptian Sunni 'Brethren' Hasan al-Banna
and Sayyid Qutb, and the Pakistani Mawdudi.
It goes without saying that it was in the Indian context under
the British occupation, where the relationship berween the Muslims
and the Hindus started to deteriorate. Mawdudi started his compre­
hensive study of the doctrine of jihad in the mid- 1 920s, in response
to Hindu accusations that Islam was spread by the sword, after a
Muslim assassinated a non-Muslim leader. This work, which was first
serialized then published under the ti tle ai-jihadfi 'I-Islam, presented
the basic elements of his later thought. In 1 932, and in the monthly
journal Tarjuman al-Quran, which was to be the main vehicle of his
ideas for the rest of his life, Mawdudi' started to formulate the ideol­
ogy of political Islam. He set forth the objectives of his intellectual
mission in the following lines:

The plan ofaction I had in mind was that I shouldfirst break the
hold which Western culture and ideas had come to acquire over the
Muslim intelligentsia, and to instill in them the foct that Islam has
a code oflife ofits own, its own culture, its own political and eco­
nomic systems and a philosophy and an educational system which
are all superior to anything that Western civilization could offir. J
wanted to rid them ofthe wrong notion that they needed to borrow
ftom others in the matter ofculture and civilisation. 62

6 1 Azia Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan 1 857- 1 965, Karachi.
1 967. pp. 208-36. See also, Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism;
Political Islam and the New World Disorder, Updated Edition, Berkeley, 2002, p.
42; see also Tariq Ramadan, Aux sources de renouveau musulman, d'I-Afghani a
Hassan al-Banna; un siecle de refomisme islamique, Paris, 1 998. All quoted by Jan
Slomp, "The 'Political Equation' in AI-Jihad Fl AI-Islam of Abu I A'la Mawdudi
", in A Faithful Presence, essays for Kenneth Cragg, edited by David Thomas and
Clare Amos, London 2003, p. 239.
62 See F c: R Robinson, 'Mawdudl', in EI, vol . , iv, pp. 872ff.

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 RETH I NKING T H E QU R'AN: TOWARDS A H UM A N I STIC H ERMEN EUTICS

According to this ideology, where the West and Islam stand in

dichotomy, the complex human societies are categorized in only two
kinds, either 'Islamic' or 'j!ihili'. As long as the universe, according to
the Mawdudl's Islamic view, is an "organized state" and a "totalitari­
an system", in which all powers are vested in Allah, the only ruler, the
state of Islam, or the Islamic State, should present the earthly mani­
festation of the cosmos.
If both 'Abdu and Ahmad Khan tried, in different way, to con­
textualize the Qur'an in order to open up its meaning by way of alle­
gorization and metaphorization, Mawdudi extended the literal mean­
ing of the Qur'an to address the modern world. The verses of chapter
5:42-50, for example, - now well known as the verses of h!ikimiyya, the
absolute sovereignty of God - which addressed the people who reject­
ed Islam during the time of the Prophet, are taken by Mawdudi to be
addressing the Muslims now; its meaning is not only to apply the rules
prescribed by God but to establish a theocratic state.
Studying in detail Mawdlidl's book on jihad Slomp rightly com­
ments on his hermeneutics as a hermeneutics that turns the decisions
taken in certain historical moments into eternal divine law. For its
importance I better quote it in its length.

On the basis ofMawdudi's own arguments and examples the read­

er concludes, "that all statements on jihad in the Quran, Hadith
and early Islamic history were established in actual situation, and
that they were formulated on the basis ofdecisions concerning for
example slaves, spoils of war, prisoners, 'the hypocrites: traitors,
treatment ofenemies and minorities as part ofa historical process.
To declare the result of this process sacrosanct, as Maududi does,
reveals that the Achilles heel of this Islamism is its way ofdealing
with history. For all the events in the lift of the Prophet and his
Companions are given the same authority as revelation. Added to
this, Mawdudi's interpretation of this 'revelation cum history' is
presented as authoritative for Islam in all eras. 63

63 Jan Slomp, "The 'Political Equation' in AI-Jihad Fi AI-Islam of Abul A' la

Mawdudi", op cited, p. 2'5'5.

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NASR A B O ZAYD

It could be concluded that Sayyid Ahmad Khan, ' Abd� , and

Mawdudi have furnished the ground for Muslim intellectuals,
throughout the twentieth century to open up the meaning of the
Qur'an, and consequently the meaning of Islam, to cope with
modernity, in different ways. As illustrated Sayyid Ahmad was basi­
cally busy with the challenge of modern science; ' Abdu was busy
with the issue of ' rationality' in general; Mawdudi was responding to
the challenge of Western domination, and consequently the
Westernization of the Muslim world. If Khan's approach is to be con­
sidered the embryo of the late 'al-i 'jaz al-'ilmt as well as 'the
islamization of science and knowledge' trend, ' Abdu's approach was
carried on in what has been known as the 'literary approach'.
Mawdudi's approach stands alone as the real source of the following
political and ideological interpretation of the Qur'an. Regardless of
their differences in terms of methodology and conclusions, three of
them followed the classical assumption that the Qur'an is a text.
Now, once again the question is which meaning will prevail,
togetherness or isolation? Related question to be raised is whether
Muslims are ready to rethink the Qur'an or not? Is it possible to con­
sider the open options presented in the Qur'anic discourse and
reconsider the fixed meaning presented by the classical 'ulama ? In
other words, how far is the reformation of Islamic thought going to
develop? This duly brings the relationship of the West and the
Muslim World into our discussion. How does this relationship affect
the way Muslims 'rethink' their own tradition to modernize their
lives without relinquishing their spiritual power, p articularly in view
of America's colonizing project? I am afraid the answer is not positive,
especially with the new American colonization project. Both the new
imperial and colonial American project and the building of ghettos
in the Middle East are likely to support the most exclusive type of
discourse in contemporary Islamic thought. We have to be alert and
to join our efforts to fight against that by all possible means.

Conclusion

I have argued that the Qur'an is a living phenomenon. A humanistic

hermeneutics of the Qur'an has to take seriously the living phenom-

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 RETH I N KIN G T H E QUR'AN: TOWARDS A HUMAN ISTIC H E RM EN EUTICS

enon and stop reducing the Qur'an to be only a text. The Qur'an was
the outcome of dialoguing, debating, augmenting, accepting and
rejecting. This horizontal, communicative and humanistic dimension
is in the 'structure' of the Qur'an, not outside it. The invitation to
'rethink the Qur'an' flows from this communicative dimension. This
invitation is of vital importance for Muslims in general, and for
Muslims living in Europe in particular. I have argued not only for the
continuation of this process of rethinking but for moving it further
toward a constructive method for Muslims, wherever they are, to be
actively engaged in formulating the 'meaning of life' in the world in
which they live and further develop the spiritual and ethical dimen­
sion of their tradition.
But what will prevail: togetherness or isolation? Are Muslims
ready to rethink the Qur'an or not? Is it possible to consider the open
options presented in the Quranic discourse and reconsider the fixed
meaning presented by the classical ' ulama'? In other words, how far
is the reformation of Islamic thought going to develop? This question
duly brings the relationship of the West and the Muslim World into
the discussion. How does this relationship affect the way Muslims
'rethink' their own tradition to modernize their lives without relin­
quishing their spiritual power? I am afraid the answer is not positive,
particularly in view of America's new colonizing policy. Both the new
imperial and colonial project of the United States of America and the
building of ghettos in the Middle East are likely to support the most
exclusive and isolating type of discourse in contemporary Islamic
thought. These colonial projects give the people no option but to
adapt to the hermeneutics of Islam as an ideology of resistance; the
hermeneutics of the Pakistan Maududi, which divides the world into
two adversaries, echoed in Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations'. So I
conclude that we have to be alert and should join our efforts to fight
both claims and their consequences by all possible democratic means.

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