https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1394-2120
![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The present article is constructed as an argument for Islamic humanist hermeneutics. In the first part of the article, I propose a more comprehensive, multidimensional definition than has previously been set out of ‘humanist hermeneutics’, i.e. any theory and methodology of interpretation that recognizes and asserts the inherent presence of the human factor and/or limitation of human comprehension on any part of the following levels: the source of the revelation, the process of the revelation, the product of the revelation, and the interpretation of the qur’anic text. In the second part of the article, I explore the nature of humanist hermeneutics, offering a condensed explanation of its main characteristics. The whole article brings into discussion the interdependency that exists between theories of revelation and the epistemologies that determine various types of hermeneutics.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See Waardenburg, Islam, 111–3.
2 Abou el-Fadl, And God Knows, 84–91.
3 The use of capital letters for Revelation, Pre-Text, Text, Con-Text, etc. in the present article follows Ahmed’s usage.
4 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 346.
5 Ibid., 346–7.
6 Ibid., 355.
7 Ibid., 347.
8 Ibid., 356.
9 bid., 356–7.
10 Ibid., 158–9.
11 Ibid.
12 A more comprehensive analysis of the above-mentioned authors and the connection between their theories of revelation and their specific hermeneutics can be found in my forthcoming publication: Alak, ‘Impact of the Islamic Theories of Revelation’. See also Andani, ‘Revelation in Islam’.
13 Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives.
14 Barlas, Believing Women, 25; Wadud, Qurʻan and Woman, 2–5.
15 The list is far from exhaustive and only contains what I have analysed till now here or elsewhere.
16 Duderija, Alak, and Hissong, ‘Interpretations’, 60–4.
17 Ibid., 64–71.
18 Alak, ʻGender, Religion and Feminist Theologies’.
19 Abou-Bakr, Interpretive Legacy’, 102–3.
20 Lamrabet, Egalitarian Reading’, 121.
21 Abou-Bakr, ʻFreedom of Religion’.
22 For example, the Muʿtazila conception of revelation had paradoxical hermeneutical results for a theory that considers Qur’an to be created. For the Muʿtazila, the Qur’an has a strictly pragmatic purpose. They understood the Qur’an to be an informative set of statements regarding divine law, accessible to human comprehension, and so they embraced a rather minimalist and literalist legal hermeneutics. Such a hermeneutics, based on the principle of clarity, finally tended to suppress textual ambiguities. See Vishanoff, Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics, 143, 136–8.
23 See, for the contemporary period, Fazlur Rahman, Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari, and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd’s theories in Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives.
24 Betti, ʻHermeneutics’, 177–94.
25 Rahman, Islam and Modernity, 8–9. See also Moosa, ʻIntroduction’, 19; Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives, 47–8.
26 Tzfadya, ‘Retrieving the Foundations’, 135–6.
27 Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives, 48.
28 I refer here to the Indonesian humanitarian Islam that emerged as a movement in response to the 2016 International Summit of Moderate Islamic Leaders (ISOMIL) Nahdlatul Ulama Declaration. Please cite a source for this and add to the list of references.
29 Wijaya and Shofiyullah, ʻMaqāṣidi tafsir’, 450–1. See also Vishanoff, ʻTheologies of Divine Speech’, 13–14.
30 Vishanoff, ʻTheologies of Divine Speech’, 17.
31 See pp. 7–8, above. Note to typesetters: Adjust page numbers at publication.
32 Vishanoff, ʻTheologies of Divine Speech’, 16.
33 Ibid.
34 Moosa, ‘Debts and Burdens’, 123–5.
35 Ibid., 125. By fundamentalists, I refer here to the last century’s political fundamentalist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Khomeini’s Islamic revolution, etc. By neo-traditionalists, I refer to some Muslim scholars of the last century who, while not necessarily politically involved, tend to adopt a modern, apologetic and selective approach to the tradition. Modernist Muslims reactivate the intellectualist Salafi movement of eighteenth–nineteenth centuries while adopting openly or outwardly? basic liberal principles.
36 Wadud, Qurʻan and Woman. Her initial feminist perspective is enriched by the less textual approach followed in her later writings.
37 Wadud, Inside the Gender Jihad, 191.
38 Ibid., 192–7.
39 Ali, Sexual Ethics, 134.
40 Ibid., 55.
41 Hidayatullah, Feminist Edges, 172–3.
42 Hidayatullah, ʻFeminist Interpretation’, 121–2.
43 Abou el-Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 94.
44 Andani, ‘Revelation in Islam’, 219.
45 Ibid., 727.
46 Ibid., 7.
47 Haykel, ʻ Nature of Salafi Thought’, 42–3. On quietist and activist Salafism, see also Ismail, Rethinking Salafism.
48 Evstatiev, ‘Salafism’, 172.
49 Ibid., 183–9.
50 Lauzière, Making of Salafism.
51 Badr, ʻSocial Movements’, 166–7.
52 Sounaye, ʻIrwo Sunnance yan-no!’.
53 Ibid., 84.
54 Ibid., 86, 89.
55 Ibid., 93.
56 Ibid., 94–5, 104.
57 Ibid., 101.
58 This does not mean that Sunnance’s interpretation of the Qur’an can already be included in the category of humanist hermeneutics; there are still other aspects that have to be worked on, but this tendency to adopt more nuanced hermeneutical strategies has had visible effects in the social realm.
59 Gleave, Islam and Literalism, vii, 24, 195, 146.
60 Duderija, Constructing a Religiously Ideal ‘Believer’, 73.
61 Ibid., 71–2.
62 Sharify-Funk, ʻFrom Dichotomies to Dialogues Trends’, 67.
63 Duderija, Constructing a Religiously Ideal ‘Believer’, 73.
64 Mernissi, Veil and the Male Elite, 127–8.
65 Abou el-Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 5.
66 Al-Maqdisī, Millat Ibrāhīm, 61–5.
67 Ahmed, What is Islam?, 282.
68 Abou el-Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 132.
69 Ibid., 128, 67.
70 Pre-Text deemed irrelevant in the comprehension of the Text.
71 Al-Maqdisī, Millat Ibrāhīm, 21–5.
72 Ibid., 24.
73 Ibid., 62–4.
74 Ibid., 14, 21, 15.
75 Ibid., 16.
76 Here I include also the texts from Hadith or āthār in the Salafi argumentation.
77 See note 39. Why not simply: Ali, Sexual Ethics, 134.
78 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 250–1, 270–3.
79 Ibid., 250–1, 270–3.
80 Abou el-Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 120.
81 White, Heracles’s Bow, 80.
82 Abou el-Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 123.
83 Wadud, Qurʻan and Woman, 2–5.
84 Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 127.
85 Ibid., 269.
86 Barlas, ‘Believing Women’, 53.
87 See more in Ibn Sina, ‘On the Soul’; idem, ‘On the Proof of Prophecies’; Moris, Mulla Sadra’s Doctrine; Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics.
88 Soroush, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy, 15–16. Abou el-Fadl, Speaking in God's Name, 132.
89 Andani, ‘Revelation in Islam’, 307–9.
90 Vishanoff, ʻTheologies of Divine Speech’.
91 Ibid.
92 Fakhkhar Toosi, ‘Ashari Theological School’.
93 Ahmed, What is Islam?, 354–5.
94 Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives, 120.
95 Khorchide, Gott glaubt, 20.
96 Ibid., 60.
97 Ibid., 17.
98 Ibid., 59.
99 Ibid., 16, 90.
100 Ibid., 20.
101 Ibid., 94, 99.
102 Ibid., 223.
103 Ibid., 52, 53.
104 Ibid., 72.
105 Al-Maqdisī, Millat Ibrāhīm, 21–2.
106 Abu Zayd, Rethinking the Qurʾān, 9.
107 Abu Zayd, Rethinking the Qurʾān, 8–12.
108 Abu Zayd, Reformation, 97–8; Akbar, Contemporary Perspectives, 142.
109 Sukidi, ʻNasr Hāmid Abū Zayd’, 207.
110 Abu Zayd, Rethinking the Qurʾān, 11.
111 Ibid., 9–10.
112 Ibid., 11.
113 Ibid., 27, 31–5.
114 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 345.
115 Ibid., 285.
116 Ibid., 282.
117 See Ibn Sina, ‘On the Soul’, 32; idem, ‘On the Proof of Prophecies’, 114–15. See Moris, Mulla Sadra’s Doctrine; Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics, and currently Shahab Ahmed’s and Sa’diyya Shaikh’s theories. Add a reference for Sa’diyya Shaikh?
118 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 432.
119 See the soteriological pluralism and openness present in Muslim philosophers and Sufi, Ismaili and contemporary contextualist hermeneutics.
120 Daniels, Islamic Spectrum in Java. Also in Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 359.
121 Lamptey, Never Wholly Other, 252.
122 Ibid., 252–3.
123 Alak, ʻDefining Humanist Hermeneutics’.
124 According to our definition.
125 Also present in Muʿtazilism and Shi’ism. This is a topic that deserves an extended discussion beyond the scope of the present article.
126 Zhussipbek and Satershinov, ʻSearch for the Theological’.
127 For example, for Ibn Sina, the angel of revelation, the Spirit, is the Active Intellect that descends on the prophets, who use their imagination in order to receive and understand this abstract knowledge of revelation. Ibn Sina, ‘On the Proof of Prophecies’, 114–15.
128 Andani, ‘Revelation in Islam’, 568–9.
129 For a more detailed analysis of the differences that exist within the humanist hermeneutical paradigm, see Alak, ‘Impact of the Islamic Theories of Revelation’.
130 See, for example, Mullā Ṣadrā in Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics.
131 Discussed elsewhere, see note 39.