Interpreting the Qur'an

Towards a Contemporary Approach

Abdullah Saeed

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134215911
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

How is the Qur'an - central to all Muslim societies - to be understood today in order to meet the needs of these societies? Abdullah Saeed, a distinguished Muslim scholar, explores the interpretation of the ethico-legal content of the Qur'an, whilst taking into consideration the changing nature of the modern world.

Saeed explores the current debates surrounding the interpretation of the Qur'an, and their impact on contemporary understanding of this sacred text. Discussing the text's relevance to modern issues without compromising the overall framework of the Qur'an and its core beliefs and practices, he proposes a fresh approach, which takes into account the historical and contemporary contexts of interpretation.

Inspiring healthy debate, this book is essential reading for students and scholars seeking a contemporary approach to the interpretation of the Qur'anic text.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Chapter 1

Introduction

This book is about the interpretation of one particular type of Qurʾānic texts: the texts that are considered ethico-legal in nature and are represented in the Qurʾān’s beliefs, rulings, laws, commandments, prohibitions and instructions.¹ Examples of such ethico-legal content include belief in God, prophets and life after death; regulations related to marriage, divorce and inheritance; what is permitted and prohibited; commandments relating to fasting, spending, jihad and ḥudūd; prohibitions related to theft, dealing with non-Muslims; instructions relating to etiquette, inter-faith relations and governance. The book is not intended as a manual providing a step-by-step guide to interpreting such texts, even though it contains useful ideas for their interpretation. Rather, it is an argument for releasing the ethico-legal verses from the legalistic-literalistic approach² that has been the hallmark of their interpretation from the post-formative period of Islamic law³ to the modern period in both exegesis (tafsīr) and law (fiqh). The book is, first and foremost, a justification for using a different approach to the interpretation of the ethico-legal texts. I will refer to this approach as ‘Contextualist’.⁴ The thrust of my argument, therefore, is towards a more flexible approach to interpretation of these texts by taking into consideration both the socio-historical context of the Qurʾān at the time of revelation in the first/seventh century and the contemporary concerns and needs of Muslims today. My main interest is how the meaning of the Qurʾān can be related to the life of the Muslim, in a sense its application to day-to-day practicalities in different times, circumstances and places, particularly as it relates to the concerns and needs of the modern period.

Historically, Muslim exegetes and jurists often relied on linguistic criteria only to interpret the ethico-legal content and to determine whether a particular ruling in the Qurʾān is to be universally applicable or not. In this, the question of social and historical context in which the ruling was given at the time of the revelation of the Qurʾān was seen as irrelevant or unimportant, except in rare cases. In writing this book, I am emphasizing that this social and historical context of the Qurʾān needs to be taken into account with the linguistic criteria to provide a fuller meaning of the Qurʾān that is relevant to changing needs and circumstances of Muslims.

A question that arises is, ‘What are these concerns and needs that justify embarking on the approach to the Qurʾān I am suggesting?’. One could, of course, argue that such concerns and needs are transient and subjective, and that Qurʾānic interpretation should not be linked to such concerns and needs. However, my position is that the epoch making changes in the world over the past 150 years have affected Muslims as well as non-Muslims and altered significantly how we see the world. These changes are enormous: globalization, migration, scientific and technological revolutions, space exploration, archaeological discoveries, evolution and genetics, public education and literacy, to name a few. We must add to this an increased understanding of the dignity of the human person, greater inter-faith interaction, the emergence of nation-states (and the concept of equal citizenship) and gender equality. These changed perceptions and institutional structures have had repercussions for law and governance. Moreover, today the destiny of individuals and communities is bound with that of other people who may or may not share their beliefs, values, norms and understandings. In short, the contemporary world is vastly changed from the one our forefathers knew. This requires effort from people of all faiths to look at how their world views, traditions, teachings and rules should guide believers today.

One of the clearest illustrations of the need to rethink the interpretation of the ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān can be found in the predicament of ‘Islamic law’ represented in fiqh (which essentially is the result of the interpretation of the ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān and other sources such as sunnah). The reality is that many of the interpretations that functioned as law in the pre-modern period are no longer considered viable, except by a relatively small number of Muslims. Only in essential beliefs, certain ethical and moral norms, clearly spelt-out ḥalāl (permissible) and ḥarām (prohibited) guidelines and limited areas of family law is there consistent practice and tradition. Even in the stricter, more conservative Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, their legal systems are significantly different from pre-modern legal regimes that were based on fiqh rules. Their laws and legal systems incorporate many features that would be alien to pre-modern Islamic legal systems, such as institutional structures that are prefaced on European court structures. More broadly, the nation-state exists without reference to Islamic sources or notions. Much of the rest of Islamic law as it exists in standard fiqh works is now generally ignored in most of today’s Muslim societies. In the area of prescribed punishments ḥudūd, Islamic law is not implemented fully anywhere in the Muslim world and those who call for it are increasingly opposed by an apparent majority of Muslims. Even in the area of family law, the emphasis on gender equality means that new statutes are being developed by almost all Muslim majority countries to protect women’s rights more adequately. Those who seek to retain gender inequality as part of their social and political systems are adhering to pre-modern interpretations in the face of inexorable change. This demonstrates that much of the earlier interpretations of the ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān that exist in fiqh are no longer serving the needs of Muslims today. Therefore, unless the issue of refocusing the interpretation of the Qurʾān on contemporary circumstances is addressed, the risk is that the ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān will gradually become ignored, or simply irrelevant, and Muslims will lose their connection to the Qurʾān in a significant way.

Among Muslims, three broad approaches may be identified in relation to the interpretation of ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān in the modern period: Textualist, Semi-textualist and Contextualist. This classification is based on the degree to which the interpreters (1) rely on just the linguistic criteria to determine the meaning of the text, and (2) take into account the socio-historical context of the Qurʾān as well as the contemporary context of today.

Textualists argue for a strict following of the text and adopt a literalistic approach to the text. For Textualists, it is the Qurʾān that should guide Muslims, rather than any so-called modern ‘needs’. They consider the meaning of the Qurʾān to be fixed and universal in its application. For instance, if the Qurʾān says that a man may marry four wives, then this should apply forever, without any need to consider the socio-historical context in which this text was ‘revealed’. For them, why the Qurʾān allowed a man to marry four wives in the first/seventh-century Hijaz is not important. The clearest examples of Textualists are found today among those referred to as Traditionalists and Salafīs.

Semi-textualists essentially follow the Textualists as far as linguistic emphasis and ignoring of the socio-historical context are concerned, but they package the ethico-legal content in a somewhat ‘modern’ idiom, often within an apologetic discourse. Usually they are involved with various offshoots of modern neo-revivalist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt) and Jamāʿat Islamī (Indian subcontinent), as well as a significant section of the modernists.⁵

Those I refer to as Contextualists emphasize the socio-historical context of the ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān and of its subsequent interpretations. They argue for understanding the ethico-legal content in the light of the political, social, historical, cultural and economic contexts in which this content was revealed, interpreted and applied. Thus they argue for a high degree of freedom for the modern Muslim scholar in determining what is mutable (changeable) and immutable (unchangeable) in the area of ethico-legal content. Contextualists are found among those Fazlur Rahman called neo-modernists as well as Ijtihādīs, the so-called ‘progressive’ Muslims and more generally ‘liberal’ Muslim thinkers today.⁶

The methodological innovations introduced by thinkers such as Fazlur Rahman to resolve the problem of interpretation of ethico-legal texts are pertinent to this debate.⁷ They represent an important step in relating the Qurʾānic text to the contemporary concerns and needs of Muslim societies. Rahman relies heavily on understanding the socio-historical context of the revelation, at a macro level, and then relating it to a particular need of the modern period. In this, he draws on the idea of the ‘prophetic spirit’ or, in other words, seeks to imagine how the Prophet might act were he living in these times. In doing so, Rahman does not adopt an analogical model, so common in fiqh, in which the interpreter looks at the superficial aspects of two different situations, one being the precedent and the other being the contemporary situation. Then, based on any similarities between the two situations, the interpreter attempts to project the ruling or value associated with the precedent on to the modern one. Rahman is arguing for something more substantial – one that has not, so far, been generally accepted in the interpretation of the Qurʾān or in fiqh.

In line with the ideas advocated by Rahman and other Contextualists, I argue that the interpretation of the ethico-legal content of the Qurʾān needs to take social change into account in order to sustain the close relationship between the Qurʾān and the Muslim today. The Qurʾānic interpretation up to now, which has been to a large extent philological, needs to give way to a more sociological, axiological and anthropological exegesis in order to relate it to the contemporary needs of Muslims today.⁸ However, a search for acceptable methods in the modern period should not neglect the classical Islamic exegetical tradition entirely. On the contrary, we should benefit from the tradition and be guided by it where possible without necessarily being bound by all its detail. Contemporary scholars must be informed about the ways in which the texts have been interpreted throughout history. That understanding can be helpful in our formulation of new interpretations in the light of new circumstances and challenges.

Interpretation – unlike revelation – is a human endeavour. Thus, one could argue that there is nothing sacred about the personal interpretation given to a verse even by a Companion of the Prophet, or by a Successor or by early imams. Their understandings, like ours, are limited by context and culture and may or may not be relevant outside their culture, their context. Muslim scholars today need to explore the tradition in the light of contemporary experience, including modern knowledge and methods of research. They should benefit from rational methods, historical research and critical scholarship as developed in a range of fields of scholarly research. The methodologies, terminologies and concepts provided by the classical scholars of Qurʾānic exegesis are not permanently relevant or invariably applicable as the sole source of understanding the Qurʾān.

I am writing this as a Muslim – as a person who believes that the Qurʾān is the revelation of the will of God to the Prophet Muḥammad. I also take the view that the Qurʾān we have today is a historically authentic text that contains the revelations that Prophet Muḥammad received over a 22-year period, collected by Muslims who were witnesses to these revelations in the immediate aftermath of the Prophet Muḥammad’s death in 11/632. My argument in this book should not be taken to mean that I am rejecting the heritage of tafsīr or fiqh. I believe that we need to respect that heritage, learn from it and use what is relevant and ben...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Interpreting the Qur’ān
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The context of the debate on interpretation
• 3 Revelation and interpretation
• 4 Interpretation based on tradition and textualism
• 5 Interpretation based on reason
• 6 Flexibility in reading the text
• 7 Abrogation and reinterpretation
• 8 The meaning of the text as an approximation
• 9 Recognition of the complexity of meaning
• 10 Socio-historical context and interpretation
• 11 Ethico-legal texts and a hierarchy of values
• 12 Epilogue
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index