Pak Tea House » Islam, Religion » Is Islam a patriarchical tradition (II): Exegesis or Eisegesis
Is Islam a patriarchical tradition (II): Exegesis or Eisegesis
Those who listen to the Word, and follow the best (meaning) in it: those are the ones whom Allah has guided, and those are the ones endued with understanding. (Al Quran 39:18)
Every interpreter comes to the text bearing those complex histories of effects we call tradition. There is no more a possibility of escape from tradition than there is a possibility of an escape from history or language. (David Tracy in Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope)
Interpretation being a human enterprise primarily means that it would be essentially modulated by inherent subjectivities of the interpreters, about which they might not be fully aware of themselves. This is because we cannot claim objectivity beyond our personal and social construct of reality. This is exactly the kind of subjectivity which Heidegger calls a reader’s ‘pre-understanding‘ and Gadamer terms as their ‘effect histories‘. Farid Esack, a South African Muslim scholar, terms interpreters as ‘beasts of many burdens‘ and contends that the whole concept of meaning is null and void unless an active and perpetual participation of the reader is assumed [1].
Consequently, as each reader brings along his own burden of contemporary contexts as well as innermost constructs of thought, all of them are bound to approach Quranic text with essentially different viewpoints. Speaking of gender and human sexuality, for instance, is it justifiable (philosophically as well as psychologically) that readings of men, women or eunuchs are understood to produce exactly similar meanings of the scripture? In the words of Cantwell Smith [2],
If you yourself are a Muslim writing a commentary; or a Sufi pir instructing your murid [disciple]; or a conscientious jurisconsult deciding a tricky point of law; or are a modern oxford educated Muslim reflecting on contemporary life; or a 12th century Sherazi housewife; or are a left wing leader of the slave revolt of the Zanji protesting against what seem to you the exploitation and hypocrisy of the establishment – in all such cases the correct interpretation of the particular Quran verse is the best possible interpretation that comes to you or that you can think up.
But the contention, as Smith continues to expound further, does not mean that these individual interpretations are intentionally crafted to concoct pre-concieved meanings of the scripture; rather, these interpretatins represents true will of God in the sincere and uncontrived good judgment of the respective interpreters. Moreover, the fact that one absolutely objective correct reading cannot be claimed by any of the readers does not necessitate that all these individual readings are rendered false. In fact, it is always likely that one of these subjective readings is rendered absolutely true, representing fully well the original intent of the God but there is no way of authoritatively claiming that, since one cannot speak in God’s name; and therefore, the usual concluding remark at the end of all traditional discourses: and God knows best.
While moving towards a better understanding of nature of conservative Quranic exegesis, it is perhaps more fruitful to invoke a framework of tradition rather than aforementioned individual subjectivities. Many contemporary scholars, for instance Fazlur Rahman [3], Amin Ahsan Islahi [4] and Mustansar Mir [5] have noted that traditional exegetes of the Quran generally failed to access it in hermeneutic totality and instead took it as a lineary constructed incoherent text without any literary considerations of textual groups (and sub-groups) with consistent thematic elements and clusters of verses addressed to specific groups of original addressees in their respective contexts. The occassions of revelation (asbab al-nuzul) which these exegetes often refer to are disjointed solitary narrations often having distant contextual imports which are seldom agreed unanimously among themselves. Moreover, there had always been disagreements regarding more important concepts such as nature and extent of abrogation (naskh) and the scriptural content which has been abrogated by the later content.
On a more complex note, originators as well as heirs of this conservative discourse did not possess adequate philosophical tools to realize the true social import of Muslim belief that real Quran is the eternal speech of God and the text between the covers (famously called bayn al duf’atay’n in traditional literature) is its earthly realization [6]; thereby, creating coalesced layers of paradoxes, which on one hand confused Divine ontology with Divine discourse and confused the eternal Quran with its readings on the other.
As the traditions became crystallized and meanings of the scripture were faithfully transferred to next generations of students, complexities like these were eventually buried under the burden of tradition . Consequently, these tendencies to access Quran atomistically and somewhat randomly resulted in future inabilities to consider it as an integrated document perpetually unfolding itself in time.
This hermeneutic view that Divine discourse is unfolding itself in time is well synced with the Quranic claims of divinity, transcendence and applicability for diverse individual and social realities including those which are yet to be realized. These claims are indeed ascribed by conservatives as well, but unfortunately, the failures (or inabilities) to respond to complex hermeneutical paradoxes resulted in a perplexed state of denial as well as acceptance; i.e., denial of historicity and acceptance of some form of imaginary time in which meaning of Divine discourse is strictly atemporal and situated historically.
Furthermore, these subjective responses were always supplemented by an equally ambiguous notion of authorized readings of the scripture, whereas contemporary readings as well as modern hermeneutical methods being rejected as biased and whimsical without due deliberation. Interestingly all the problems followed by assuming this notion of misplaced authority were also referred circularly to the same authority.
A simple and concrete example to depict these interpretive tendencies is verse 33 of Surah al-Ahzaab translated as [7]:
And stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His Messenger. And Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.
Bulk of contemporary conservative exegesis (which in Sunni Islam is conventionally understood to be authorized by an ambiguous authority ahl-e-sunnah wal-jamaah) interprets this verse to contain a mandatory (and commendatory according to some) directive for all Muslim women to remain confined to their homes without an urgent need, which would not be decided by the women themselves but scholars of ahl-e-sunnah wal-jamaah. The popular sermons preached in street mosques display amazing selectivity and seldom mention it (perhaps in a cursory manner) that the said verse is actually addressed to the wives of the Prophet. This is evident by the beginning of the preceding verse (33:32) which states ‘O Consorts of the Prophet! Ye are not like any of the (other) women…‘ and also by the end of this verse (33:33) in which ‘members of the family‘ are again mentioned exclusively.
Many orthodox exegetes (for instance Tabari and Ibn Kathir) of early and medieval Islam indeed mention this fact in their respective interpretations while also generalizing the import of this verse for all Muslim women as according to these scholars, they should follow the exemplary character of Prophet’s wives. According to them, the directive was understood in a general sense by the earliest Muslim community, as indicated by some of the historical reports. This is obviously a claim, which though hard to establish for each single woman of that community, can easily be explained by the fact that it was generally a homogeneous community with extraordinary sense of piety due to various factors including presence of God’s Prophet among them.
Furthermore, these exegetes never state categorically that this directive has explicit mandatory value for all Muslim women and seldom brings this issue as a primary message of the verse. Bulk of their interpretations consist of other pertinent issues related to the context of the ayah (and Surah al-Ahzab in general) for which Prophet’s household was cautioned and directed to observe extra care, caution and character. In line with their method of using traditions for interpretation, these traditional scholars also dwell upon sundry issues like the ‘dazzling‘ character displayed by many women during the pre-Islamic (Jahilia) society.
However, the contemporary patriarchical minds employ an extremely piecemeal and authoritarian approach to interpret it as an explicit directive for all Muslim women. Indeed many other misogynist and sexist interpretations can be easily traced back to their respective originating traditions which were not considered as patriarchical in their respective historical and social conditions; but all of course, are not that simple to deconstruct.
In the context of revisiting (and contesting) patriarchical and authoritarian readings of Quran and Hadith, there is a need to retrieve the ‘antipatriarchical epistemology‘ [8] of these texts while also moving towards a unified hermeneutics based upon ethico-religious principles of Quran. There has already been an encouraging trend in contemporary scholarship for finding keys which can be used to enter into Quran-centered hermeneutics
in contrast to the bulk of the orthodox approach which is generally tradition-centered. Even though these keys vary according to respective motivations of the scholars, for instance God-consciousness and social justice in case of Fazlur Rahman; Divine unity, justice and incomparability in case of Asma Barlas; Taqwa, Tawhid and liberation of opressed in case of Farid Esack; or Divine justice and Beauty in case of Khalid Abou Al-Fadl [9], all these modernists present a common argument rooted in socio-historical perspectives in which God’s word is not merely an event of the past but a perpetual phenomenon always meaningful to contemporary realities.
Interestingly this aspect of transcendence of God’s word is shared by conservatives as well, but of course with a different (and myopic) viewpoint of history and society with respect to religion and religious authority. There are encouraging pointers in the fact that at least some of these modernists had formal religious education from traditionalist madrasas
at the start of their carriers (for instance Rahman and Esack) thus being exposed to whole myriad of complexities inherent in their discourses. To conclude with the profound words of Farid Esack,
The urgent need of contemporary Quranic scholarship is to remove preunderstanding from the much-maligned tafsir bi’l-ra’y (interpretation based on considered sound reasoning) which, in conservative discourse, has come to mean baseless and devious theological or political concoctions superimposed on the Quran.
______________________________
- Farid Esack, Quran, Liberation and Pluralism.
- Wilfred Cantwell-Smith, The True Meaning of Scripture: An Empirical Historian’s Non-Reductionist Interpretation of the Quran.
- This indeed is a recurring theme in Rahman’s various works, especially Islam or Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition.
- Amin Ahsan Islahi’s exegetical work Taddabbur-e-Quran is considered one of the best among the modernists and published in Urdu in 8 Volumes. Some parts have been translated in English and can be accessed here.
- Mustansir Mir, Thematic and structural coherence in the Quran: a study of ‘Islahi’s concept of Nazm and The Sura as a Unity: A twentieth century development in Qur’an exegesis.
- The concept has firm basis in Quran, for instance 85:21.
- The quoted translation is Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s.
- The term is borrowed from Asma Barlas, “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an.
- Khalid Abou Al Fadl, Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women.
Filed under: Islam, Religion · Tags: Divine, God, Islam, Quran
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Islam tells its followers that kuran is the final perfect complete word of the one and only god, the arabic mohammadan god allah. Any one who doubts that or questions that is going to land in eternal hell and muslims should make his life impossible on the earth also.
Such a intimidation (with the help of a tyrannical tribal god-concept) and manipulation (through bribery for those who believe in the kuran’s boasts and “promised” gifts) can not be transcended by cowards and fools. And islam takes care that muslims remain cowards and fools. It is an unchanging or worsening story/case since 1400 years.
[...] Is Islam a patriarchical tradition (II): Exegesis or Eisegesis [...]
An excellent write for the believers providing some nearing clarity about the background of interpretations of Quraan among the muslim masses.
One needs to read the article thorougly and several times to comprehend the message which the author seems to have made a great effort in putting it together. My initial humble comments are that I personaly do not seek any escape from traditions, which are related to time or history recognising that there are inaccuracies contained herein and language which has its limitations. I therefore do not interpret Quraan for others but for myself and those who are very close to me recognising no living human authority on the divinity of Quraan and its verses. in my view any muslim in time could learn from Quraan direct without the help of an interpretor the maximum which God almighty intended it for the believers to learn about.
And when I say God knows better, it is not out of a tradition only but simply to express the limitations of my knowledge at a given moment, not necessarily in the next days. This tradition I have followed ever since I was able to speak and had no answer to a question.
Rex Minor
rex
Quote: “I therefore do not interpret Quraan for others but for myself…”
you are denying that kuran claims to be the final instruction in all matters (for all times for all human beings) – even collective ones. That the kuran is bound to fail in the 21st century is obvious. But why are you trying to hide that fact by resorting to some individualism or “God knows better” type pseudo-pious self-deceitful excuses?
If there is anything unclear in the kuran to the muslims as individuals or as a collective then the kuran is no word of god or of divine final instructions.
Kuran is (and will be) the major reason for many bloody conflicts.
Mr Observer; that you are under the complete control of the devil, as soon as the word of God, Quraan or Islam is mentioned, is probably unknown to you. My advice would be to meditate a day or two and follow whatever faith you have to bring calmness to your soul. Before you end up in a serious conflict with the rule of human law. Mr Galiano, the most famous and creative dress designer of our times lost his job and today appeared in a French court accused of anti- semit racist comments.
The mission of Islam is to make the believers better people, more humane and to guide them in their lives in accordance with the principle and commandments outlined By God almighty through Prophet Mohammad(pbuh), the only Prophet of God who was capable of completing his mission in his life time! Muslims like non muslims must be judged on their deeds and not what books they have read or what faith they follow.
Rex Minor
Somewhere on internet I read a harangue by a sexist/lecherous mullah describing the beauty and utility (( Cute cut-ought!!)) of hooris – - that they will welcome the mullahtypes into paradise wearing 72 silk dresses, but their beautiful bodies will be transparently visible , that you make “love” for bionic-luzzat to one hoor 100-times and then another hoor will appear, tickle your shoulder, inviting another soviet course .. and add more and other nonsense.
I could not believe my ears. I hope RHR has seen that video.
I wonder what happens when the ugly-looking but pious wife of a mullah goes to paradise on merit and mullah goes to helluva a placebo.
I wrote a Reply that there will be no physical sex in Paradise, but it got censored long-distance via New Jersey.
So, people just read the Quran to ‘confirm’ their ‘pre-understading’ .
Is this what you are saying?
to rex
As soon as you read a post from Mr. Observer you bring it in relationship to the devil. This is a serious breakdown of your human faculties and a loss of the ability to be humane. You are incapable of reading him with an open mind and take his analyses seriously.
Was Mohammad able to complete his mission in his life time: Why then is the world, esp. the muslim part, so full of violence, lies and zombified mental slaves (esp. due to islam)?
For me, Islam is what Islam does and what it does is not pretty.
Philological approach to the Quran: Review of Christoph Luxenberg (ps.) Die syro-aramaeische Lesart des Koran; Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Qur’ānsprache. (The review is in English).
http://syrcom.cua.edu/hugoye/vol6no1/hv6n1prphenixhorn.html
The language itself is subject to interpretation.
Prophet Mohummed S A W (these are the correct spellings) did complete his mission, if deviates emerge that is their own option and no fault can be attributed to the message or the messanger.
By the way those who cannot own their own views (and hAVE to write under assumed identities) are not worth the paper these views are not typed upon. Nuts!!! Playing games wasting the energy and worth of this blog.
Should a muslim care to know what a non muslim, particularly under a jewish name tells the followers of Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) about the holy scriptures. I certainly do not. Let christians and jews bring clarity in their house and the muslims in theirs. Jesus or Isa(pbuh) spoke aramaish and addressed his God Allah, and this basic knowledge alone should go a long way towards understanding of the muslim religion in the west. Like the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt reminds Germans that he learnt about Islam from Anwar Sadaat and not from the church Bishops which he deligently attended.
The story of Islam is unending, and knowledge from Quraan shall flow to its readers in time and when almighty decides.
Rex Minor
We can turn around Rex Minor’s question:
Should a non-muslim care to know what a muslim, particularly under a muslim name tells the non-followers of Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) about the holy scriptures.
- The answer is they should not, except that the followers of the Prophet Muhammad keep thrusting their faith in everyone else’s face – to convert, to say that we can’t live with you (e.g., 2 nation theory), as targets of jihad, and so on. The day the followers of the Prophet Muhammad learn to mind their own business, the world will be a much more peaceful place.
Ah, but Rex Minor will say – we are bringing you The Truth.
But then if you are concerned about The Truth, then Rex Minor’s question answers itself: “Should a muslim care to know what a non muslim, particularly under a jewish name tells the followers of Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) about the holy scriptures.” – yes, if the non muslim even under a jewish name, is bringing you the truth.
rex minor proves that:
1) Anti-jewish hate is ever growing among muslims. Just as the nazis did not accept relativity theory becuase it came from Einstein, a jew.
2) Reason and honesty have no place in islam but only the glorifications of its own claims and deeds of imperialism and totalitarianism.
3) If you question kuran and Mohammad then he cannot answer back with reason and facts but must devilize those who ask such questions.
4) The best source for knowledge about islam are the ex-muslims.
—
To sayyed
Those who criticize kuran and Mohammad have to write under pseudonyms. This is not a sign of cowardice but of being careful. Better if you ask muslims the question: why do those who criticize or reject kuran and Mohammad have to write under a pseudonym? How many kuran and Mohammad criticizing articles and books are published and read and discussed publicly (without bias and anger)in islam-based countries?
I wonder why Sayyed, who claims to be the best lawyer in Pakistan, has not thought of this? This is how islamic “education” muddles up the intelligence of muslim lawyers (incl. Jinnah, Munir, Pakistani CJ’s, ylh, Sayyed etc.)
To hiob Jee: AOA/Namaste/Shalom/Ohioguddimuss/Jee Aiyaan Nnooonnn:
If there are not as many books and articles criticising ISLAM or Holy Prophet Mohummed, it is because per merit and substance and as a matter of fact it is realized that criticism for the sake of criticism is, you know, a nono.
You should boldly reveal your Name, no harm will come to you, try it you like it.
God bless you, i dont want to enter into penfriendship on suchlike matters. You are welcome not to read it.
Please correct your spellings, I now spell my title as Syyed, not Sayyed or Cid. Mohummed should be spelled as I have spelled it.
PLEASE!!
If I , in anger sometimes claimed to be the best Lawyer in Pakistan, to err is human, i withdraw that “claim” nunc pro tunc its being lodged or logged. As a lawyer I am not in Jinnah or A K Brohi class.
What I do say is this: No one can buy me, with the grace of God, i am the only ethical lawyer in LawWhore with unimpeachable integrity,,,,, And 52 years record of never charging even a penny for any HR work. Mediocrity, chicanery or bigotry never appealed to me. I have appealed to the finest and never to an an.
riffraff,
My forefAthers , Holy Prophet Mohummed and Caliph Ali wrote letters and anwered letters, so i follow that tradition. I dont make telephone
calls
Hey fellows,
Before you form a mob which is a typical feature in your part of the world and start building a small platoon of notorious Saffron Brigade and all become devil’S advocate, let me explain that your attitude is nothing unique. You are the creation of all mighty God and in time if God wills then you shall also have the honour to learn about the scriptures and their meanings. The article in question is for high calibre muslim elites who are well advanced in the philosophy of Islam. Not for you gentlemen and I have a tip for you. The sort of questions you have raised about Islam and Quraan were raised centuries ago by the hebreash tribe in the desert of Sinai. Moses was the only Prophet who brouht God’s ten commandments in a written form on a slate from the Sinai mountain!
Therefore, if you are very keen to learn about the Ibrahimic religions and no longer comfortable with your ancient practices which incidently we in the west admire them and call them the Motherhood, then please try to learn from your Israeli partners what a judaism is and then later from your anglo saxon friends what the christianity is all about and pay a visit to the Vatican in Rome and have an audience with him to upgrade your soul for higher learning. And only then you would be able to understand the updated version of God’s scriptures called Quraan. Never mind in this process what sort of followers of these various branches of one religion actualy practice.
At the end of the journey who knows you could be better men than the one you are criticising.
Rex Minor
Rex
A question a comment, if you don’t mind.
1. What really is the difference between Islam and Judaism? It seems Islam attempts to globalize Judaism (an old set of ideas that were limited to a specific people) by various means. What do you think?
2. The differences between Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic religions, particularly between Islam and non-Abrahamic religions, are so deep and so fundamental that each side finds it hard to understand the other. In fact, if one truly believes in one of those, then there is no point in trying to understand the other.
@Mr kalchakra
For Q1, I suggest you ask a person of a Jewish faith?
For Q2, there are nor non-Ibrahimic religions in the world, per say. If you mean Hinduism or shintuism, or other isms, they are ancient practices but not regarded as religions, since the religion definition is based on a superhuman power which controls the Universe and demands worship and obedience. FULL STOP!
Rex Minor
Rex Minor,
What Hindus believe as religion is expressed by the term “Dharma”, which is generally considered a broader term than what Judeo/Christian/Islamic understand as religion. There is a basic difference in terminology. For example: a few months ago, some Ahmedi brethren opined that Buddha was a messenger/prophet of God. That is quite wrong. But it can be explained by our tendency to understand things in terms of definitions we actually know. Likewise, it’s common among quite a few Hindus to term Muslims as another caste. If you read some historical references, Mahmud of Ghazni hordes were commonly referred to as “malechas”(unclean/impure) or belonging to another caste.
Rex, except in their national politics (methods of defining, creating, and maintaining their own respective nationhoods), how do the main ideas of Islam differ from that of ancient Judaism, in your opinion?
@chote Mian
I agree with what you said. There is nothing new, every one of us is a massenger if he or she spreads the word of God from the scriptures which are also the basis of our civilisation and today’s world. This is not to say that ancient philosophers and saints by sheer use of a common sense were not gifted enough to differentiate between good and bad. It has also been very common for most ancient communities to regard unknown intruders who were foreign to their customs and cultures, as unclean foreigners. Some tribes still do. The Pashtoon tribes in the north not far from your country still do and those tibetans who have taken asylum in your midst still regard Europeans unclean.
I can very well understand the regard of muslims as a caste in a society which has strong routes in the caste system. The divide of humans on caste or social basis is foreign in all Ibrahimic eligions.
I am a fan of Immanuel Kannt(1724-1804), who was of the opinion that God, morality and immortality, the three great problems of metaphysics, are insoluble. By speculative thought their existance can neither be affirmed nor denied on theoratical grounds, nor can they be scientifically demonstrated. They are absolute by speculative thought. The intellectuals from India have been erred by definitions, and ahmedi muslims are no exceptions.
Morality requires the belief in the existance of God. freedom and immortality, because without their existance there can be no morality.
No speculations are required in a belief!
Rex Minor
Mr Kaalchakra
I am neither a religion expert nor a politician. The scriptures of all Ibrahimic religions are more or less similar, if one were to remember that Quraan is the latest version and written in Arabic and remained unaltered. The jewish people do not believe in the prophethood of Jesus and Mohammad and in the miraculous birth of Jesus vis-a-vis the son of virgin Mary, so I beleve. To e sure you have to ask a jew this question.
Rex Minor
Thanks rex
At least regarding the three Abrahamic religions, you are probably as good an expert as most of us will get to be.
I have been fascinated by Islam and have taken a look at Judaism only the last couple of days. It’s hardly time enough make up one’s mind, but my first unavoidable impressions are – other than the center and the nature of its politics and the details of various miraculous claims to advance those politics, Islam simply recreated all of judaism.
If that is true, then seeing Islam as a ‘latest version’ may be wrong. Christianity was quite different from Judaism, and, in terms of its ideas, Islam appears to have been a regression to a much older times.
Of course, these opinions are subject to change.
Also, since you understand these things better than most of us here, have the Torah been altered as well?
“Have the Torah been altered as well?”
The reason for curiosity is that given Islam’s identicality with Judaism, many Jews should also be concerned with every literal word just as many Muslims are. Jews can then be expected to be as careful with preserving their scriptural words as Muslims are with theirs. If they changed the ‘revealed’ words then their scriptures would hardly be revealed anymore.
@Kaalchakra
I suggest you stay with Torah and leave Islam alone. People who usualy convert to Islams are christians and not those who are non believers in the first place. Therefore judaism is the right place to start. I do not speak or understand hebreash and do not like to get involved in translations and interpretationsof Torah now. Have the muslims not enough of their own translations and interpretations.
I do not claim to understand things more than anyone here. Perhaps you should raise your queries with the author of the article who definitely knows more than many.
Rex Minor
to syyed
Criticizing islam is regared by muslims as blasphemy and the person is to be silenced, even killed. You can’t change that. Your assurances are of no use. No muslim has invested his life trying to save non-muslims from the wrath of the islamofascists.
I do not criticize Mohammad or islam for its own sake but because these actually endanger mankind. We know that now after 1400 years of islam. So exposing this is a necessity. Do not dismiss it lightly.
—
to rex
There are more islamofascist brigades than saffron brigades on the earth and the former are far more wide-spread and dangerous.
Muslims tell that kuran is divine and final in order to manipulate human beings into becoming its mental slaves. No book can be called divine or final. To accord that status to any book means to fool simple-minded persons into becoming obedient uncritical zombies of this book.
hoib
“No book can be called divine or final.”
That’s not true. People can accept anything on faith.
Rex
No problem. Since you mentioned Moses and Judaism, I thought you might know about these things.
We must understand and use religious concepts clearly. The idea of of messengerhood for instance is not used in the meaning of offering ordinary dawah or teaching scripture but in terms of communicating directly with some god/agency and then communicating that god’s message to other human beings.
In Abrahmamic religions, not everyone can be a ‘messenger’ – as the word is commonly used by the followers of those faiths. That idea is too Hinduish, or Indic in general.
to kaalchakra
Of course any book can be called divine – then why only one book? Better not to play with these words and thus not lay the foundation stone of some fascism. Trying to monopolize/finalize god for one’s own party or ideology or book is an evil and dangerous way of doing things. Muslism are too much enslaved under islam to realize this.
hiob
Even if Islamic ideas were evil and dangerous, Muslims have faith, so they will not realize why anyone can find Islamic ideas evil and dangerous. Indic people, on the other hand, lack any well-developed concept of evil in their own theology. So you will make no sense to them either.
You will actually draw stronger opposition from Indics (who don’t believe evil exists except in opposing ANY religion.) than from Muslims (who will dismiss you as an unbeliever who doesn’t ‘know’ or whose ‘heart is not open to truth’.)
A good way out is to make clear what you yourselves believe and let others hold onto what they will.
Rex,
“Morality requires the belief in the existance of God.”
That is an astounding statement. Are you implying that atheists are immoral just by being themselves?
I find it amazing that people/society practicing incestual inbreeding have the guts to talk about morality. Kaffirs are right, Islam and its followers are immune to introspection. This doctrine have been a net loss to humanity for it degrade every aspect of human life.
to kaalchakra
The problem with talking openly about one’s belief is that you get nailed down. One has to have the freedom to change one’s opinions, thoughts etc. Once you bring god (or some eternality craving) into this game then obduracy, even murderous stubborn-ness, is declared to be a paradise-bringing virtue.
Let people have the safe freedom to say “I believe this now and if it is wrong then I will change my belief”. Islam does not and cannot give this freedom and hence islam is dangerous. Not only to muslims but even to non-muslims. Islam is an intrusive, extroverted imperialist, arrogant ideology. Hence “let the muslim believe what he wants to” is a false understanding of tolerance. Such a false tolerance endangers all non-muslims.
to kaalchakra
The following is worth reading as an answer that corroborates what I have written above.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20116\25\story_25-6-2011_pg3_2
Daily Times of 25.06.11 (of today)
Understanding radicalism
The author talks of religion, but means only islam, but dare not say so openly.
““Morality requires the belief in the existance of God.”
To the Religionist, Morality consists of obeying the Will of God (not matter how unreasonable it may seem). This is true of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So, e.g., when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham obeys. The Fall of Man from paradise is because of disobedience to God of Adam and Even, and in Christianity that taints everyone of their descendants.
In the IndicTraditions, Morality has nothing to do with the Will of the Deity. In fact, e.g., in the Hindu traditions, there is a perpetual debate on the behavior of the Avataars. E.g., Rama’s banishment of Sita, shooting Vaali on behalf of Sugriva and Krishna’s advice to Bhima to kill Jarasandha, and advise to Yudhisthira to kill Drona come in for criticism. If Morality consisted in the Will of the Deity, then by definition there could be no criticism.
Therefore a modern Hindu, e.g., Swami Dayananda Saraswati, teaches that you don’t need any religion to be moral. The Golden Rule and not doing harm is common sense, even small children often grasp it on their own without being taught. The purpose of “religion” is Brahma Vidya, the knowledge of the ultimate nature of things, which we cannot intuit on our own, and cannot discover on our own without supreme effort.
Further, e.g., the modern Swami Dayananda Saraswati, headquartered at Coimbatore (this and earlier reference are **not** to the Arya Samaji Dayananda Saraswati of the last century, who sought to create a religionist Hinduism), teaches that in Brahma Vidya, the only element of faith is that the teaching can eventually be realized, apart from that there is no element of belief. You either understand it and realize it and it is a directly perceptible truth to you, or you don’t. Of course, undertaking the mental and physical discipline to realize it is a matter of faith.
@chote Mian
Though our knowledge begins with experience, it does not folow that it arises out of experience.
The conclusion that, the existance of God is necessary for morality, was made by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant((1724-1804) and is shown in his published works. A philosophical classic is his work, CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON, wherein he asserts that our perceptual apparatus is capable of ordering sense-impressions into intelligible unities which, while in themselves cannot be proven, we are led to conclude through “pure reason” that intelligibleunities such as God, freedomand immortality do exist; and the formation of such intelligible unities are practical necessities for our life.
Three moral axioms namely God, freedom of will and immortality of the soul existed for Kant simply because they were sine qua non of the moral life.
I have similar views on morality, not simply to conform with ever changing standards of what s moral and not moral, what is our duty to support or oppose. We must use the faculties of knowledge to determine the limits of knowledge. The mind possesses a priori templates for judgements not a priori judgement.
Iam not a atheist so I do not know how the atheists think of morals, conform to the standard set in their country or they have sme standard of their own. The atheist should tell us.I certainly do not regard atheists as immorals simply because others believe in and worship their God.
Rex Minor
So called “God” comes in many variety as Tom Dick and Harry of ME not only makes exclusive claim on IT but also reject each others as hoax and ignorant . Is there Godhood or Divinity in condoning incestual inbreeding as norm, coming up of formula for distributing war booty in men, women and children and giving the instructions about the Right hand possesion of human beings for sexual gratification? And what kind of God takes pleasure in BBQuing his own children and does it deserve to be the standard bearer of morality ? Not in this century , It had its hey day in medieval era with mentally disturbed societies. Majority of humanity have moved on to the higher plane of conscious existence.Let not the fallen onee drag the rest to this pit of ignorance.
Rex
There is a basic misunderstanding of Kant here. Kant never critiqued reason to support revealed semitic religions, or not even fundamentalist Christianity.
Islamic statement in favor of rejecting any reason that may lead one away from a revelatory semitic god, particularly Allah, had been made long ago, by Al-Ghazli. Many liberal Muslims (wrongly, IMO) blame him for “closing the Muslim mind to reason.”
kant’s contributions were in a direction exactly opposite to Islam. He was laying the foundations of a very HUMAN understanding of the limitations of human reason. When sociologists today refer to the recursiveness of human mind or when economists speak of empirical behavior, they often draw upon Kant’s ideas, but they never do so as a proxy for the moral authority of a revelatory semitic god.
sachbol
The whole concept of a god (in any non-advatic philosophy, I suppose) describes a non-human agency that is beyond human reason. That is, that non-human agency is beyond human likes and dislikes, or moral objections other than those given by the god itself – actually not even those.
The most important point to realize is that different peoples worship completely different non-human agencies (if one believes in any such agency). Few unfounded ideas have done more harm to mankind than the totally unfounded assertion that all the gods worshipped by different peoples on earth are one and the same thing.
@Kaal chakra
Sorry, I do not regard Kant as an authority on God or on your strange terminology of a semitic God? I refered to Kant philosophic approach for morality and freedom of thinking. Is human mind blank or a tabula re-sa that becomes populated with ideasby its interaction with the world. Experience teaches us everything including concepts of relationship, identity, causation and so on. Kant argued that the blank slate model of the mind is insufficient to explain the beliefs about objects that we have some components of our beliefs must be brought by the mind to experience.
Kant expresses deep dissatisfaction with the idealistic and seemingly skeptic results of the empirical lines of inquiry. since the empiricist ositions are not tenable because they necessarily presupposethe very claims they set out to disprove.
Infact any coherent account of how we performeven the most rudimentary mental acts of self awareness and making judgements about objects must presuppose these claims.
My apologies to PTH editors for bringing the question of morality in comments which are supposedly to consider the subject of Islam relations with patriarchical traditions.
Rex Minor
About rex and other muslims on PTH
I have been often ridiculed by the various muslims (and their hindu flatterers) for whatever I wrote on the PTH.
I wonder whether these same people find REX’s argumentations funny, absurd, egregious etc. or not.
Is it some kind of a compulsory solidarity under muslims not to find other muslims funny or ridiculous or egregious etc.?
Imagine I had argueed in favour of hindu religions the way rex does for islam. I would have met with hillarious ridicule.
Rex brings in Kant as if he has had him for his room mate. Forget Kant and Mohammad – we are in the 21st century. Can’t we have a rational modernity-based debate where people do not try to show off their (so-called) knowledge of past writings or try to capture some past figures (who were supposedly the epitomes of intelligence – they may well have been!) for their own ideology?
Look how muslims are practising deceit and self-deceit and expanding their fascist-imperialist reach and infiltration and ruining the world in the 21st century. To expose and defeat that – that is more important.
The Observer that I have read does not alk about muslims, but always about ISLAM, GOD, ARABIC GOD etc etc. COme down from the top of the ladder of shouting foul upon the people who are standing firm on their base line. There are many gifted intellectuals readers of PTH and we can learn a lot of humanity from them.
I am a liberal, believing in the freedom of humans to whatever they believe in and decide for themselves what their faith is or no faith, but not forgetting that the freedom of one is restricted when he oversteps on the freedom of another. There are no communities or societies which are immune against criminals and wrong doers, but one does not accuse the entire communities based on mere perceptions and having zero knowledge about the language or culture of these communities. I am also aware of the immense emotions that people in your part of the world have in their DNA and do not in any way want to upset any regulars. I am grateful to seeing two great writes on PTH about Islam and very much appreciate the author.
Rex Minor
Rex
Does your liberalism not allow the possibility that Islam and Islamic god may actually be evil and dangerous for mankind, or do you object to Observer’s manner of making his case?
@Progressive Right
The premise in your question is that there is not one God but many Gods for this world, something which wasn proven centuries ago by the civilisation that if there is a superhuman being which has created and controls the universe we live in, then there is only one God and we are the creation of the one God. How can therefore I living in the 21st century( witnessing also by the way the football contest between the German and canadian women teams in Berlin) deny the thousands years of research and civilisations and come out like a messiha and talk about several Gods, Islamic and non Islamic ones. You have the courage to speak out from the corner of an underdeloped community of people of this world and the first thing you do is to ridicule the beliefs of the people who have managed to bring human civilisation to a level not witnessed in ancient societies before.
If your ancestors and political leaders have not conveyed to you that you are more than two centuries behind in civilisation along with your neighbours and have a lotin the rest of world to catch up with, then you along with Mr Observer and others are simply blowing in the wind, and this could perhaps be the reason why your countrymen immigrate to western civilisation countries, resist integration and hang on to old customs of arranged marriages with partners that they have not seen before, and usualy prefer countries which do no longer have homogenious communities and have a multiculti envioronment, such as USA and Canada.
I have the patience to take with you the journey to Aristotle times and beyond if necessary and back to our today’s world without ignoring the knowledge we have acquired over our thousands years of history by the use of logic, reason and above all the intelligence, call it intuition if you will, which we were gifted with at birth.
I am a very liberal and this means for me more freedom and equal human rights for men and women , but do not favour liberalisation of the communities simply to destroy the fabric of cultures and traditions which is build on morality, ethics and humanity. If you are of the opinion that human progress can be achieved by ridiculing fellow humans, their faiths, cultures and traditions, then I am afraid you have chosen a wrong route.
Rex Minor
By the way, in the mean time the German team has won the match with the Canadian team with two to one. Look after yourself and be nice to your neighbours.
Rex Minor is a minor Pakistani living in Europe.
to rex
You don’t notice that your criticism is largely applicable to your own ideology and religion and co-religionists.
In fact it is these west-asiatic religions which are proving that there are many gods. But proof is avery vague concept in the field of theology.
As regards Aristotle: even before him lived Socrates and he insisted that words to be used should be carefully defined. But your so-called holy book kuran uses many words without defining them accurately. Hence the huge number of confusions and conflicts (mostly bloody) among muslims. What a loss of intellectual and philosophical level.
hiob
Arabic was the language of the masses, illiterate people. Quran has many imported Non Arabic words /terms from nearby civilizational enetities thus the issue of non defining and lacking in accuracy.
to sachbol
My point was/is: if kuran is really from god then it should surpass the accuracy and clarity as required by Socrates 900 years before Mohammad. But kuran disappoints us completely in this aspect. To attribute the kuran to god is thus an insult to god or a blasphemy. A religion that claims to be final perfect revelation has no excuses for its faults and failures. Muslim propagandists and manipulators tend to give foul excuses and many non-muslims accept theses excuses as valid.