This text is Paolo Branca’s introduction for Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd’s book, Una vita con L’Islam [A Life with Islam] (240 pages, €12.50, Il Mulino, 2004)
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd occupies a very special place among contemporary Muslim intellectuals. He is not just a man who has had had to pay a very high price for freedom of thought, which cost him his university career and a conviction for apostasy that forced him and his wife to choose exile. Many have run even greater risks and some have even paid with their lives.
What makes his story a singular one is not so much the bitter destiny life had in store for him, shared by many independent thinkers in much of the Arab world, but rather his chosen the field of studies that without doubt unintentionally gained him the unenviable status of such “martyrdom”. As a professor of Arab Literature at Cairo University, following in the footsteps of a number of famous predecessors and applying hermeneutic competence acquired in the West, he dared address an extremely delicate subject; text critique applied to the Koran. To grasp the extent of such a feat, one must bear in mind the Islamic concept of the “Revelation.” Unlike what takes place in Christianity, the Holy Book is in fact not perceived by Muslim simply as “inspired” by God, but literally as having been “bestowed” by God upon the Prophet who in turn passed it down to believers. Thus there is a close parallel not so much between the Gospel and the Koran, but rather between Christ and the Koran. Just as for Christians Jesus is the Logos, the Word of God made “flesh”, for Muslims the Koran is the Word of God made “book”.
This is proven by some surprising parallelisms. Mary, although a virgin, conceives Jesus similarly to how Mohammed, albeit illiterate, proclaimed the Koran; disputes on the subject of Christ’s dual human and divine nature that have so tormented Christianity at its origins are similar to the Islamic diatribe concerning the nature of the Koran as a Word that has been “created” or “bestowed” by God. While the Bible consists of many books that differ in genre and period, attributed to various authors who, albeit inspired by the Divine Spirit, left in these texts the unmistakable imprint of their own personalities, there is nothing similar about the Koran, transmitted by the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed who simply repeated it without adding or removing anything at all from all he had been commanded to say. It is therefore difficult for Muslims to consider our Gospels authentic, since not even one was written in the language spoken by Jesus. The very manner in which they have been passed down is not part of the Muslim concept of the “Revelation.”
Thus, subjecting the Koran to a critical analysis can per se appear as an act of desecration, comparable to psychoanalysing the personality of Jesus or, even worse, placing under a microscope a consecrated host to verify whether or not it has become the body of Christ. Loyal to such a premise, Muslims have always proved to hold an almost “sacramental” relationship with the Koran, the Word of God, which they have always preferred to learn by heart, to recite respecting the complex rules of psalmody, recopying it in elegant calligraphy and enriching it with artistic decorations rather than studying it like any other literary text. The founder of the most rigid of the four Islamic law schools, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (died 855), therefore considered Koranic commenting as a baseless science.
One therefore understands that the problem of the interpretation of the Holy Book has always been an extremely delicate issue in the Muslim world. And yet, the need for making an interpretative effort is stated in the Koran itself, where in a famous passage it says; “He it is Who has revealed the Book to you; some of its verses are decisive, they are the basis of the Book, and others are allegorical”. The same Surah, however, continues with a warning about the risks inherent to such an approach, “then as for those in whose hearts there is perversity they follow the part of it which is allegorical, seeking to mislead and seeking to give it (their own) interpretation” and concludes advising to trust in the supreme divine science: “but none knows its interpretation except Allah, and those who are firmly rooted in knowledge say: We believe in it, it is all from our Lord; and none do mind except those having understanding.” (3, 7).
It is the paradox of all interpretation that is becomes “inevitable” while being simultaneously “impossible”, hence always uncertain since it is partial, temporary and unfinished. Most commentators of the Koran have generally assumed a prudent attitude, although some have dared go further. The same Surah quoted above can in fact be interpreted in a totally different manner if one divides it into propositions in a different order (which is legitimate since in the original Arabic there is no punctuation); “the real interpretation of those passages is known only to God and men of real science, they will say…”. Such an interpretation decidedly revalorises the role played by human reasoning and the prospect that it is possible to understand in depth what was revealed.
In reality, albeit amidst a million uncertainties, the need to provide clarifications and elucidations on such an important text ended up by imposing itself from the very beginning. Thus the exegetes went to work, initially reconstructing a parallel between the Koranic text and various moments in the life of Mohammed and the primitive Muslim community, mainly so as to establish an exact chronology linking the various passages to facts and events described as asbâb al-nuzûl (reasons or occasions of the Revelation). While, however, some commentators restricted themselves to explain on a linguistic basis the objective meaning of each passage, and in this case one speaks of tafsîr, or exegesis, others attempted to define the ultimate intentions of the Koranic message. In this case one can speak of hermeneutics, or ta’wîl, a word than means “taking back to the origins.” This is therefore more interpretative that simply descriptive.
These are two opposing orientations that within the Islamic community also confront one another in other fields, opposing those in favour of a strict adherence to the scope of tradition (naql) to those who were inclined towards a broader form of reasoning (‘aql). Among those in the first group – of Sunni origin – some even reached a sort of anthropomorphism; if the Koran mentions the “eyes” and “hands” of God, this is a truth to be taken literally rather than metaphorically, albeit it without expecting to be capable of understanding the “modalities”. The Shiites, philosophers and mystics, more inclined to making the interpretative effort, instead tended towards ta’wîl, that resulted in the esoteric school of thought, called Bâtinite, that at times proposed such symbolic interpretations of divine characteristics and actions that it risked a sort of “spoliation” of the Supreme Being and His prerogatives.
With the exception of these and other consequent differences, the great classical comments of the Koran have mainly involved linguistics and lexicology, enriched by other contents reflecting the learnedness of the authors, often men with many interests. However learned and at times intelligent they may have been, they were mainly committed to collecting, with expertise and completeness, all that their predecessors had already proposed, restricting themselves to expressing a preference for one or the other positions listed, rarely proposing alternative ones concerning a tradition they basically wished to continue. This resulted in a progressive collection of heterogeneous material that progressed without paying excessive attention to the problem posed by foundations, methodologies and objectives of the exegesis. Exegesis, after producing its best results in the early centuries of what was a Muslim “Renaissance”, was later impoverished, becoming crystallised in canonical forms destined to be, at least in part, dated or changed in modern and contemporary times.
This does not mean that the “classics” of Koranic exegesis are not still widely used and maintain an importance and popularity unequalled, within a biblical framework, to any coeval book. A 12th century commentary such as the one by al-Zamakhshari had three editions in Egypt alone between 1926 and 1970, while the 16th century version by the two Jalâl, again in Egypt, was reprinted six times between 1926 and 1940! It is sufficient to enter any Arab bookshop, not to mention the libraries in Islamic centres also in Europe, to observe that these commentaries are often the only ones present, at times accompanied only by more “militant” work by Sayyid Qutb, which answers needs that differ totally from those recently asserted in the biblical exegesis.
The modern era has, however, determined also among Muslims the need to develop hermeneutic methodologies satisfying new criteria and new objectives. One can speak of a different sensitivity also for books that are still basically inspired by tradition. In this sense, a number of representatives of the Indian Muslim reformist school of thought distinguished themselves at the end of the 18th century, committed to proving a substantial agreement between faith and science, dissenting with the spirit of uncritical imitation that ruled supreme in religious studies and among the promoters of audacious initiatives, such as translating the Koran into other languages… Emancipation from the classic model was emphasised above all with regard to the Sunna or Tradition of the Prophet, which is the main source for Muslim law. The normative aspect, so important in the Islamic “Nomocratia”, is in fact the most problematic one, since the provisions dictated for social contexts of many centuries ago are difficult to adapt to conditions characterising modern countries. Thus there is the delicate issue of being able to distinguish, within the same Revelation, what is permanent and what is transient, linked to particular conditions and circumstances.“When anyone supports the idea that every Koranic injunction must be strictly obeyed, I must respectfully state that I do not agree. The Law can in fact change, while religion has a greater level of stability.”
Something similar had already happened at an earlier stage, also due to the fact that some Koranic Surahs propose rules that are at times divergent, when not totally conflicting. Hence the theory of the abrogation of one Surah by another written later was devised, without excessively addressing the problem of explaining the change in evolutionary terms, but entrusting to the unfathomable wisdom of divine arbitrary will. The objective was mainly to establish “how” to obey God, answering requirements that were eminently juridical. Modern commentators of the Koran, inspired by different motivations, could not be satisfied with such an approach.
New questions, for which they were more or less the conscious bearers, induced them to neglect what ancient people, instead, considered fundamental, to at times openly oppose what for a very long time had been taken for granted and, however, to introduce into the reading and the interpretation of the Koran unprecedented concerns and objectives that, sooner or later, would also result in methodological and general problems of the utmost importance and potentially revolutionary compared to the traditional approach. One observes effectively a generalised return to a certain freedom of interpretation compared to traditional models, an element of capital importance since it manifests the desire to become emancipated from the authorities of the past. Some have spoken of a “Protestant” tendency in such reformers, who demanded direct access to sources, released from tradition and the reopening of the “door of the ijtihad”, hence of the interpretive effort that Islamic law had instead considered closed for about a millennium. As in the past, contact with the Greek school of thought had returned confidence in the capability and role played by reason, and the same happened at the dawning of the modern era. Emblematic, on this subject, is the most famous of all contemporary Koranic commentaries, published in the magazine al-Manâr (The Lighthouse) based on a series of lessons held by the Egyptian Muhammad `Abduh (died 1905) from 1899 to 1905, revised and completed by the disciple Rashîd Ridâ (died 1935), which distinguishes itself from the scholarly commentaries of the past with its above all pedagogic and apologetic objectives. Quoting the many exhortations in the Koran addressed at “people provided with intellect,” it revalorises the role played by reason in an adhesion to the faith that is not only a habit, but is experienced with greater awareness and responsibility.
Stating that humankind had the capability to recognise what is right and what is wrong, even before the Revelation teaches it, can seem to be a foregone statement, but one must bear in mind that such words had not been spoken by Muslim scholars since the ancient school, called Mu’tazilite, had fallen into disgrace in the 9th century. The theological school of thought that dominated since then had in fact preferred not to pose limits to absolute divine freedom, considering good all that God orders and evil all that He forbids, without daring go beyond this concept.
To what extent such an approach was paralysing for the development of a religious school of thought is easily intuitable. It was therefore no minor event for the school of M. ‘Abduh to have reassessed the autonomous role of human reasoning. The distinction of fields between reason and Revelation remains to a certain degree unclear, thus at times the commentary lingers in attempting to scientifically explain the prodigies narrated by the Koran, in providing hygienic and health related justifications for provisions and prohibitions in Islamic law, or in proposing audacious links between recent theories concerning the origins of the universe and the narrations of this event provided by the Holy Book.
However much these tendencies may seem naive to us, if not counterproductive over the long-term, they are important because they indicate which new reference values influenced their authors. The most innovative and original part of this work remains the one concerning morals, in which great importance is attributed to social duties and polygamy is even advised against due to its negative effects on family stability and harmony. In general, traditional juridical provisions were considered in a broadminded way, while the fatalistic attitudes and those removing responsibility during the period of decadence were specifically opposed.
This was a first attempt to adapt interpretation of the Koran to the needs of the times and corresponded to a period of greater openness to requests that emerged from a renewed contact with western culture. This was an enthusiastic phase and one at times rather naive, soon followed by a profound crisis caused by two factors. On one hand the intensification of problems caused by Europe’s colonial aggression in Muslim countries, and on the other, as was inevitable, there was an awareness that rushing to adapt to ‘imported” models risked causing a separation from personal traditions that could have compromised the originality and independence of the Islamic identity.
Thus, radical schools of thought appeared, according to which the state of decadence and submission experienced by the Muslim world did not depend on the religion’s alleged unsuitability for the challenges posed by modernity, but simply on the lack of sincere and total adhesion to the principles and rules of Islam by its followers. The real reform needed was therefore not the one proposed by modernists, but the restoration of a ideal model with its foundations to be found in the Koran and one that had guaranteed Muslims prosperity and success in previous eras. The progressive deterioration of secular ideologies imported from the west, such as nationalism and socialism, contributed to the spreading of radical Islamism, in which, especially in the second half of the last century, many believed they could find an adequate answer to the angst for improvement that still pervades much of the Islamic world.
Hence the great success of authors who were inclined towards a socio-political reinterpretation of the Koran in a revolutionary key, such as that of Sayyid Qutb (died 1966), maître-à-penser of the Muslim Brotherhood, who in his commentary of the Koran proposes above all Islam as a “system” founded on the exclusive legitimacy of divine authority and hence radically alternative to all others. This ideological and revolutionary interpretation of the Koran is shared by all the leaders of contemporary radical Islamism, starting with the Pakistani al-Mawdûdî (died 1979), whose exegesis is widespread, in forms that are, however, at times propagandistic and simplified, not always doing justice to the significant framework of the original Book.
Albeit with their differences, the orientations analysed so far are paradoxically similar in one point of the utmost importance. These are, in fact, tendencies profoundly marked by their dependency on an acculturating model; the western one. After all, little does it matter if some are inspired by it so as to conform with it and others appear determined to relentlessly oppose it.
The reinterpretation of the Koran addressed at modernising Islam so as to bring it up to date is basically no different than reinterpretation addressed at considering it the basis for founding an alternative model to western modernity. One inevitably ends up by assuming the characteristics of what one is fighting, and it is not even said that one always manages to filter the best ones… Abandoning such a trap is not all easy. It is like a net becoming increasingly entangles around its victim with matters deteriorating the more the victim struggles for freedom. Deducing that an updated interpretation of the Koran is condemned to choose between a mere imitation of the west’s cultural models and a equally desperate and unrealistic antagonist ideologization, would be a rushed and ungenerous conclusion. Very quietly, a few original attempts are slowly maturing.
There has been no lack of those who have attempted to introduce into the exegesis of the Koran innovative historical-critical criteria. The Tunisian Tâhir al-Haddâd (died 1935) spoke of a distinction between the text’s intentions and general spirit on one hand, and on the other the provisions linked to specific conditions experienced by ancient Arab society. The discourse continued with the Egyptian Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allâh (died 1998), who in 1947 addressed the problem of narrative art in the Koran, detecting the essentially pedagogic intentions of the Koranic narrations and therefore without problems acknowledging their discrepancies, as in the case of words about Moses attributed to the Pharaoh’s advisers and then to the Pharaoh himself (see the Koran 7, 109; 26, 34); or in the episode of the announcement of a son addressed first at Abraham (15, 53) or at his wife (11, 71).
According to the author this does not compromise the validity of the Holy Text, because choices of style and content, in the Koran as in any other book, follow the rules that govern communication between the narrator and the listeners and were therefore influenced by existing relations between the Prophet and his contemporaries. Obviously this thesis seemed to many an unacceptable relativization of the Revealed Text and an attack on Gods’ transcendence and freedom. The distinction between the formal level and that of contents therefore involved delicate issues, but matters could have become even more serious if an analogous methodology had been applied to the normative aspects, as happened more recently with Sudanese Mahmûd Muhammad Taha (died 1985), who dared propose an Islam not entirely fulfilled with its “first mission”, implemented by the Prophet with 7th century Arabs, but rather as a dynamic reality, striving for greater fulfilment.
The permanent aspect of the Koranic message should, according to this author, be found in the spirit and the contents of the Prophet’s early preaching in Mecca. The normative part that developed in Medina after the hejira should instead be considered as a partial and transient form of application of those principles, nowadays no longer admissible since they are linked to specific times and locations. All in all this was a progressive and evolutionary concept of the religious idea; “In conclusion, we repeat that religion has a pyramid-like form the summit of which is near God to the infinite and the base is humankind, ‘Surely the (true) religion with Allah is Islam’ (3, 19). In the past religion was lowered from its summit to the level of human and material needs and capabilities, and assumed the form of the law (sharî’a), while the summit of the pyramid will forever remain beyond our reach. As individuals, everyone will continue to progress in their understanding of religion distinguishing its signs in the material world and within ourselves (…) God wants us to get to know Him better at every moment. He said, ‘Every day He exerciseth (universal) power.’ (55, 29). In other words, He always reveals Himself to His creation so that He may be known. He is the only one who teaches us. He says, ‘Do not rush into uttering the Quran before it is revealed to you, and say, “My Lord, increase my knowledge.” (20, 114). This increase in knowledge is effectively the most elevated ascent from the base towards the summit of the pyramid of continuously progressing Islam. When humankind develops an understanding of religion and progresses with it, then humankind develops its sharî’a according to its own needs and capabilities, moving towards and increasingly refined base.”
The audacity of such an idea, which resulted tragically in its promoter being sentenced to death, reveals how bitter the debate on such a crucial subject can be. N. H. Abû Zayd recently brought life back to this field of studies, distinguishing the ultimate meaning of the divine message from the historical form it assumes so as to be communicated to humankind. “A religious school of thought cannot escape the laws regulating the movement of human thought in general, since its object – religion – cannot in any way confer upon it its sacred and absolute characteristics. Here one must pause a moment to reflect on the distinction between religion and religious schools of thought. Religion consists of an ensemble of sacred texts with an historical origin, while a religious school of thought consist of the efforts made by humankind to understand these texts and interpret them correctly. In these conditions it is natural that human intellectual efforts should differ from one era to another, or from one environment to another- in the sense of social, historical, geographical environments etc – but also from one thinker to another within a certain period and a certain environment.”
Thus not a literal Revelation, but an inspiration “translated” into the language of humankind that therefore can and must be studied using the most modern analysis and linguistic research methodologies. “Our method is founded on the acquisition of the sciences of language, in particular in the field of studying the texts. Contrary to the religious school of thought focusing its attention on the enunciator of the text, in this case God, and making it the starting point for its reflections, we instead place the receiver, hence humankind in its historical social context, at the centre of our interest and, so to speak, make humankind the starting and the finishing point.
The problem with a religious school of thought instead, is that it starts from its own doctrinal ideas of the divine essence and of human nature, as well as the correlations it establishes between these two entities to project them on the religious texts. In other words, the supporters of this method impose on the texts, from the exterior, values that are necessarily human and historical, to then present them, with a sleight-of-hand, as metaphysical truths, in an attempt to equip them with transcendental and supratemporal characteristics.”. This results in the refutation of affirmations previously considered dogmatic truths; “Supporting the doctrine of a non-created Koran and the supratemporality of the Revelation has no result but the mummification of religious texts, subtracting them from all reflection. The opposite thesis instead, situating the sacred text within a historical dimension, returns to it its vitality and releases it from being subject to temporal limits through re-reading and interpretation, opening it also to the concerns and interests of humankind throughout history.”
Due to these positions he assumed, N.H. Abu Zayd was accused of and tried for apostasy, at the end of which, on June 14th 1995, he was found guilty (the sentence was confirmed by the Court of Cassation a year later) and was therefore obliged to leave his country to safeguard his safety and the unity of his family. Since he was no longer considered a Muslim, his wife would no longer be permitted to continue to be his legal wife in their country of origin. Had it not been for this tragedy, it is probable that his studies would only have been known to a few experts and that today we would not be here presenting the Italian edition of his biography. This is an exceptional document, the “diary of a soul” bearing witness to the profoundness of his deep roots in his own culture of origin, merged with an uncommon moral and intellectual rigour.
Speaking of himself, starting with his family and his poor country village on the Nile Delta, the author accompanies us on an engrossing safari to a time and a land that better than any other portray the scenario of the torment experienced by contemporary Arab-Muslim societies. Moving continuously between his personal and even intimate experiences, with extraordinary pages devoted to his wife, to his co-participation in a collective drama, with the greatest naturalness he presents us with his experience and perhaps the most significant icon of the inner anguish of an entire cultural universe. Human relations were no less important than his years of studying and teaching in his homeland, in the United States and in Japan. Even the bitter experience involving the court case and then exile provided him with an additional opportunity to study in-depth both relationships with others and scientific reflections. To repeat the famous title of Andrej Sinjavskij’s prison memoirs, what we are about to listen to is perhaps only “one voice in the choir”, a choir of closed mouths that find it hard to be heard, due to the gags suffocating them and the clamour of those shouting louder. These are glimmers of hope that seem little compared to the dark glow dominating the horizon, but they are also the only seed that under so much rubble is capable of promising a return to life.
Translated by Francesca Simmons