text in context-abdol kareem soroush

8/2/2019 Text in Context-Abdol Kareem Soroush

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In the same sense and exactly for the same reasons, one can say [that] text does not stand alone, it

does not carry its own meaning on its shoulders, it needs to be situated in a context, it is theory

laden, its interpretation is in flux, and presuppositions are here as actively at work as elsewhere inthe field of understanding. Religious texts are no exception. Therefore their interpretation is subject

to expansion and contraction according to the assumptions preceding them and/or the questions

enquiring them. These assumptions can be of very different nature, ranging from philosophical,historical, theological to the more specific assumptions such as liguistic and sociological ones.

[These are part of the "spirit of the age". They need not and do not usually enter the mind through

formal education (here the transcript is flawed)].

Now since presuppositions are age-bound, can change and do change in fact, religious knowledge,or the science of religion, which is the product of understanding (comprehending), will be in

continuous change (flux), and since it is only through those presuppositions that one can hear the

voice of revelation hence the religion itself is silent and since the interpretation of the text issocial by nature and depends on the community of experts, like all learned activities it will be an

independent dynamic entity: abstracting from individual interpreters; containing right and wrong,

certain and dubious ideas the wrong ones being as important as the right ones from theevolutionary point of view. It is a branch of knowledge, no less no more.

The outcome of the preceding concise arguments can be briefly listed as follows:

Religion, or revelation for that matter, is silent.

The science of religion is relative, that is relative to the presuppositions.

The science of religion is age-bound, because presuppositions are.Revealed religion itself may be true and free from contradictions, but science of religion is not

necessarily so.

Religion may be perfect or comprehensive, but not so for the science of religion.

Religion is divine, but interpretation of it is human in and out.That is the story of religion. All this implies that religion is always surrounded by a host of

contemporaneous data and deliberations, in constant give and take with them, the interpretation ofwhich remains constant so long as these external elements are constant, and once they change, the

change will be reflected in the understanding of religion as well. Therefore it is not because of the

conspiracy or aberration of mind or illegitimate manipulation or extravagant interpretations that the

science of religion changes. Rather, it is the natural product of the evolution of humanunderstanding in the non-religious fields and contexts that forces the religion to be comprehended

differently. And as mentioned above, external factors are responsible not only for the change, but

also for the constancy of religious interpretation during ages.

The world-view of the classical man, his views about nature, man, God, history, language, society,happiness, certainty, reason, knowledge and the like were reflected in his understanding of religion

in the same manner and to the same extent as the world-view of the modern man has exerted its

influence on the science of religion and each, of course, seem as natural and as true as the other tothe party concerned.

This rough statement [small flaw in transcript] may seem a pretty straightforward a priori piece of

epistemology, not unfamiliar to hermeneuticists and philosophers of science. But it has two serious


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shortcomings. First, it may not look convincing or revealing enough to the more historically

minded scholars, who may ask for more historical data and a posteriori justification in support of

the suggested doctrine. Second, it may seem a flatly false and even blasphemous idea aboutreligion whose revelatory nature according to true believers guarantees its constancy, relevance,

and truth throughout the history. Relativity and change are characteristics of man-made systems

whose application to the divine revelation would be utterly misplaced. In addition to that, it seemsas if the doctrine puts religion at the mercy of the extra-religious principles whose truth and

accuracy are not certain and this compromises the whole message of religion, whose main mission

is to offer the fallible man an inf allible source of certainty and information.

Both questions are too severe to be met here in depth and in full. But certain remarks are in order.

() The desired reconciliation between religion and philosophy cannot be purchased except at the

expense of one being colored by the other; that is only a conceptually philosophical religion (or,

more meticulously put, a philosophized comprehension of a religious text) can be reconciled with

philosophy, and a conceptual mystification of the religion would always precede the mystical

justification of it and so forth.

Mystical and philosophical Islam are but two conceivable kinds of Islam, better articulated and

refined than others, but in practice there are virtually innumerable types of Islam, all sharing the

common feature of being in balance with the believers extra-religious system of thought. Now,disputing the validity of those mystical and philosophical interpretations of the text is missing the

point completely. Those are parts and moments of the history of religion, science is a mixture of

right and wrong ideas. (Despite the fact that every scientist tries hard to secure hard facts and trueideas, science itself, transcending beliefs and opinions of this or that particular scientist, cannot but

consist of errors, misunderstandings, dubious hypotheses, arguments and counterarguments, side

by side [with] the firmly established facts and conclusions.) To see the good side of the story only

is to distort the history. There, defeats are as important as victories, and both of the same value asfar a s evolutionary life of science is concerned. The science of religion, to repeat the same point

again, is no exception.

() Again, disputing the validity of these conclusions is totally irrelevant. What matters here fromthe vantage point of epistemology is to notice that the lofty suppositions being made here, and the

testimony of one of the great members of the dynasty of commentators, namely Tabatabai, about

the history of Tafsir (and the whole history of religion indeed) as being tampered with uneducatedviews and improper wishes of mystics, philosophers, theologians, traditionalists and modernists

alike. Modifying tone and terms, we can state the same fact as follows: history of religion has been

under continuous construction and reconstruction by philosophers and the rest, and religion is

nothing but the history of religion of course.

() The content of the text [Quran] will be divided into two parts: the essentials and the

accidentals, accidentals being requirements of cultural, social, and historical environment of the

delivery of the main message, and more generally these points and allusions which are consideredto be beyond the proper field of expectations. There are many hadiths related (assigned) to the

prophet concerning treatment of diseases say, but nobody really considers them essential to Islam

because that is not what makes people needy of prophets. People themselves can find the facts


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about diseases and drugs through trial and error. If that is so, then what about philosophy,

economics, politics and the like? Some of these questions are very crucial and are hotly debated

among Muslim intellectuals, but the main issue here sometimes remains untouched or unattended,namely the extra-textuality of the questions. These problems are not to be decided on the strength

of the traditions or historical facts. On the contrary, tradition and history should be explained in

light of these findings.

Treating those questions requires a good deal of philosophy, politics, sociology and history, andthat is what gives the science of religion the flavor of the age, and that also explains why the true

ijtihad in disciplines such as fiqh cannot materialize unless a true ijtihad in the first principles have

taken place first. This, in turn, shows why religious jurisprudence in Islamic societies has been sostagnant in recent centuries. That was not because of the lack of internal dynamism on the part of

fiqh, but because of the stagnation of other related disciplines, such as theology and history, and

the non-existence of some of the decisive disciplines, such as sociology and the like. Theseconstitute the relevant reasons for the stagnation. The story of the causes is different, of course.

The status and significance of religious revivalism and intellectualism, now can be understoodbetter. Broadly speaking, revivalism can transpire in two different manners, positive and negative.

The negative revivalism consists of purging and purification of the actual understanding of religion

from alien elements and to do justice to the more neglected dimensions thereof. An example isbeing Al-Gazzali, no doubt. The positive revivalism, on the contrary, (on the other hand) is more

attentive and mainly concerned with the extra-religious factors and foundations required for an age

bound comprehension of the text. The most prominent representation of this orientation is Iqbal,whose main complaint was directed to the dominance of Greek thought over the Islamic culture.

Both serve the same purpose, of course, namely to keep the message of religion alive. The

difference being a matter of emphasis and sensitivity.

This brings me to the end of my treatment of the first question. But before leaving this issue, Iwould like to emphasize that religious reform in our time which we are so badly in need [of]

cannot succeed unless one is vigilant to the continuous new developments taking place in the

different areas of thought. Mottos like back to the roots or try the neglected sources or find abrave inspired leader, can be very misleading. No reform can take place without re-shuffling the

traditional suppositions, and no re-shuffling can emerge unless one is masterfully acquainted with

both traditions and the newly developed ideas outside the sphere of revelation. The internal andexternal findings, sooner or later approach an equilibrium. To disturb the stagnation, one has to

mobilize the external sources. Muslims decadent understanding of their sacred sources, it seems,

occurred as a consequence of their decadence which had occurred in cultural, social and

civilizational general climate and not vi ce versa.

Now as to the second charge, namely betraying the sacredness of the text, sacrificing its perennial

message at the doorstep of the vagaries of the age, and undermining the certitude of faith, Id better

start with a short dialogue which took place between me and a friend of mine quite recently. Whatis your position in connection with the Islamization of Knowledge? asked he quite seriously, and

then added in (jocular) way, Perhaps you opt for a scientification of Islam rather than Islamization

of Knowledge? Neither of the two. I opt for the humanization of religion. That was my reply


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and that is indeed the basic foundation on which the whole edifice of expansion and contraction of

religious knowledge is erected. Revealed religion, of course, cannot be a human phenomenon, but

not so for the science of religion, which is in and out a human prediction and construction. It ishumanized in the sense that it is impressed by characteristics both mean and noble, virtually all the

characteri stics of human beings.

Rationality, prejudice, egoism, truth-seeking, obliviousness, greed, fallibility, partiality,

complacency, easy going, acquisitiveness, and the like all have their due share in the science ofreligion and all influence it in one way or another. True, the revelation is divine, but what about the

interpretation of the revelation? The interpretation no doubt may be conjectural, fallible,

changeable, partial, fallacious, one-sided, misguided, prejudiced, culture-bound, incomplete, butthis is what the revelator himself has ordained it to be. We are fallible human beings and that is our

lot from Truth. The case of religion is no better than the case of nature. There also we are captives

of our humanity. No human science is sacred, science of religion being no exception. But ofcourse, the revelation itself is different. Therefore the dichotomy of the revelation/interpretation

should be kept intact. We are all immersed in an ocean of interpretations and whenever one tries to

offer the true inte rpretation of the text, he makes himself even more engaged. To capture thetrue intention of the revelator is an ideal to which all of us approach collectively, but at the end we

may discover that the true intention of the revelator was nothing but the collective endeavor of

mankind itself. Here the action and its telios coincide.

This is not to desacrilize the sacred or to secularize religion, it is the simple and at the same timethe subtle instance of naturalization of the supernatural, or if you like it better, the manifestation of

the supernatural as and in the natural. The secular view is blind towards the supernatural, but here

we look at the human interpretation as the revelation descended anew, from the heaven of the text

to the earth of interpretation through the angel of reason, after its being revealed and descended tothe prophet in the first place. In other words we look at the revelation through the interpretation,

much the same as a faithful scientist who looks at the nature as an artifact of the creator. Ofprogress we are not certain, but evolution is certainly guaranteed. Now from this epistemologicalpoint of view, faith is seen to be the very commitment on the part of the faithful (believer) to take

the word of God seriously and to interpret it sincerely and continuously, in order to gain general

guidance for his life, both before and after death (this and the next life). This is what makes abeliever distinct from the non-believer. Faith is always personal and private, it can be more or less

certain, but knowledge cannot be but collective, public and fallible.

A higher order look at knowledge tells us that despite the firm belief of individual believers in their

own interpretation of revelation, the caravan of knowledge, inspired with all kinds of complexitiesand contrarities is breaking its way ahead, feeding on the controversies, competitions and

cooperations of its members, irrespective of their individual desires and faiths. Our lot is nothing

but to hope. That is what Rumi has exhorted us:

The merchant of timid disposition and frail spirit neither gains nor looses in his quest Nay, hesuffers loss, for he is deprived and despicable Only he that is an eater of flames will find the light

In as much as affairs turn upon hope The affairs of religion is most worthy Here it is most

permitted to knock at the door Naught but hope is possible.Once that is understood, the way for religious democracy and the transcendental view of religion,


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which are predicated on religious pluralism will have been paved. This being but two fruits of that

auspicious tree.

Seest thou not how Allah sets forth a parable?- A goodly Word Like a goodly tree, Whose root isfirmly fixed And its branches (reach) To the Heavens,- It brings forth its fruit At all times, by the

leave Of its Lord (Al-Quran, Surah 14:24-25; Ibrahim).

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1 Lecture Delivered at McGill University, Institute of Islamic Studies 13th of April 1995 and

published in Liberal Islam, a sourcebook, edited by Charles Kurzman, New York, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 1998, PP 244-251- The Interpreted Sharia, a book review

Book presentation: Charles Kurzman, International Institute for the Study of Islam in the modern

world, ISIM Newsletter, 2, March 1999, P41

The first trope of Liberal Islam holds that the shari requires liberty, and the second trope holdsthat the Sharia allows liberty. But there is a third liberal Islamic trope that takes issue with each

of the first two. This I call the interpreted shaia. According to this view, Religion is divine, but

its interpretation is thoroughly human and this-worldly. I quote here from Abdul-Karim Soroush(Iran, born 1945): the text does not stand alone, it does not carry its own meaning on its

shoulders, it needs to be situated in a context, it is theory-laden, its interpretation is in flux, and

presuppositions are as activity at work here as elsewhere in the field of understanding. Religious

texts are no exception. Therefore their interpretation is subject to expansion and contractionaccording to the assumptions preceding them and/or the questions inquiring themWe look at

revelation in the mirror of interpretation, much as a devout scientist looks at creation in the mirror

of nature[so that] the way for religious democracy and the transcendental unity of religion,

which are predicated on religious pluralism, will have been paved.

text in context-abdol kareem soroush

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