The Islamic Humanist Hermeneutics: Definition, Characteristics, and Relevance

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamic hermeneutics
• Islamic exegesis
• humanist interpretations
• Qur’an
• tafsīr

Academic scholarship on Islamic hermeneutics, specifically qur’anic commentaries/tafsīr, is still an underexplored domain.¹ Offering a coherent and comprehensive analytical overview of the hermeneutical theories, discourses, typologies and developments, and their materialization in applied hermeneutics and exegesis remains a difficult endeavour. Moreover, the study of Islamic exegesis and hermeneutics appears to be nebulous and elusive because of its immense variety, complexity and dependence on other fields of knowledge.

In this article, I would like to fill in the gap that exists in the study of humanist hermeneutics, a topic that is insufficiently investigated academically, despite having relevant social implications in the present day. In the first part, I succinctly explore a multidimensional definition of ‘humanist hermeneutics’, which I define as any theory and methodology of interpretation that recognizes and asserts the inherent presence of the human factor and/or limitation of human comprehension in at least 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 text. In defining and analysing humanist hermeneutics, I draw on the interdependency that exists between theories of revelation and the epistemologies responsible for the construction of various types of hermeneutics. The second part of the article is dedicated to a discussion of the nature and main characteristics of humanist hermeneutics. Elements of an authoritarian type of hermeneutics, specifically exclusivist Salafi hermeneutics, are examined when relevant to the analysis of the particular characteristics of humanist hermeneutics. By authoritarian, I refer to the distinction made by Khaled Abou el-Fadl between authoritarian and authoritative interpretations. Authoritative interpretations take into consideration the complexity of the determinacy of meaning, which is the result of a dialectical, permanently negotiable interaction between the author, the text and the reader. Thereafter, the interpretation remains open to the strategies of decoding the indicators of the divine Will in the inherently ambiguous qur’anic text. In contrast, authoritarian interpretations imprison the meaning by equating the author’s intent with the reader’s selective understanding.²

1. Humanist Hermeneutics: A Comprehensive, Novel Definition

In this section, I construct a novel definition of humanist hermeneutics, more comprehensive than has previously been set out. First, in this process, I rely on the inextricable connection that exists between theories of revelation and hermeneutics, particularly humanist hermeneutics. Second, my discussion is deeply informed by the conceptual apparatus developed by Shahab Ahmed in his What Is Islam?. In this book, Ahmed proposes a useful analytical framework that recognizes the different and multiple spatial dimensions of Revelation, distinguishing between the Pre-Text, Text and Con-Text of the Revelation.³ He clarifies that ‘the act of Revelation to Muhammad plus the product of text of Revelation to Muhammad does not encompass and is not co-extensive or consubstantial with the full idea or phenomenon or reality of Revelation to Muhammad’.⁴

The Pre-Text of the Revelation is the Revelatory Premise of the Universal reality of the Unseen God; it is the Unseen Reality or Truth, the reality of Revelation (ʿālam al-ghayb). Or, in even clearer terms, Ahmed says, the Pre-Text represents the source of Revelation that is continuously present/absent at all times and in all places and that remains ontologically prior to, and alethically (regarding the Truth) larger than, the Text of revelation, namely the textual product of the revelation, the Qur’an.⁵ The Truth of the Text of the Revelation, of the event of the Qur’an as a Revelatory Product in the world of Muhammad, is just a limited expression of and contingent upon the Truth of the Pre-Text of the Revelation. Furthermore, he emphasizes that, behind and beyond the Text of Revelation, Muslims have also recognized the phenomenon of revelation in the whole Cosmos, which becomes another source for the revealed truth.⁶ Regarding the Text, Muslims have agreed that the Qur’an does not exhaust the Truth of the Pre-Text, but they have embraced different epistemological methodologies for accessing and knowing the Truth of the Pre-Text: without the Text, via the Text or only in the Text.⁷

Finally, the Con-Text of the revelation is ‘that whole field or complex or vocabulary of meanings of Revelation that have been produced in the course of the human and historical hermeneutical engagement with Revelation, and which are thus already present as Islam’.⁸ The Con-Text includes

the full encyclopaedia of epistemologies, interpretations, identities, persons and places, structures of authority, textualities and intertexualities, motifs, symbols, values, meaningful questions and meaningful answers, agreements and disagreements, emotions and affinities and affects, aesthetics, modes of saying, doing and being, and other truth-claims and components of existential exploration and meaning-making in terms of Islam that Muslims acting as Muslims have produced.⁹

Con-Text, as a product of prior hermeneutical engagement with Revelation, is ‘genealogically traceable and semantically attributable to Text and/or Pre-Text’, that is, ‘Text and Pre-Text are part of Con-Text’.¹⁰ This is possible, because their meanings cannot be available for hermeneutical analysis in a historical setting without simultaneously engaging with the Con-Text of revelation.¹¹

Understanding the epistemological access to the Pre-Text as being strictly limited to the Text, the Qur’an, or filtering the qur’anic meanings through a Pre-Text informed approach, decisively impacts the construction of divine cosmologies, onto-metaphysical suppositions regarding divinity and, inevitably, epistemological theories and hermeneutical practices applied in interpreting the Qur’an. Using Ahmed’s conceptual distinctions regarding revelation, I designate therefore as ‘humanist hermeneutics’ any theory or methodology of interpretation that recognizes and asserts the inherent presence of the human factor and/or limitation of human comprehension on – at least part – of the following levels:

• a. On the level of the source of the revelation itself – asserting that: the knowledge of the Pre-Text cannot be confined to or exhausted by any of the products of the revelation / by any Text; the Pre-Text – ontologically, alethically and axiologically – precedes the Text and plays a decisive role in the understanding of the Text; textual knowledge is not sufficient and is not the only type of knowledge that can access the Pre-Text. This hermeneutical strategy can be identified in Muslim philosophers, in Sufi, Ismaili and Muʿtazila theological hermeneutics, and in contemporary contextualist theories of revelation and their humanist socio-legal exegetical results.

• b. On the level of the process of the revelation itself – asserting: the human agency of the Prophet Muhammad in the construction of the final product of revelation / the Qur’an; and/or the construction of the final product of the revelation / the Qur’an / the Text, be it conceived under the form of an oral discourse or a text, as a temporal reaction to or as an interaction, an interactive dialogue with a specific historical community/society/culture that therefore leaves its imprint on the Text itself. This hermeneutical strategy can be identified in the theories of revelation proposed by Muslim philosophers, Sufis, Ismailis, Fazlur Rahman, Abdolkarim Soroush, Nasr Abu Zayd and Aksin Wijaya.¹²

• c. On the level of the product of the revelation itself – asserting, based on the prophetic human agency and/or interaction with the seventh-century Hijaz culture (see b, above) in the construction of the final product of revelation itself, that the content of the Qur’an / the Text is ineluctably influenced by the Prophet’s personal understanding, feelings, experience and/or its general historical context of revelation, namely the cultural, social, political and linguistic understanding and conditioning of the first communal Muslim interlocutor and recipient of knowledge, as well as its larger historical context of the cultural and especially religious ecosystem of the Late Antique Near East.¹³ The content and the expression of the textual product of revelation, more specifically Arabic linguistic constraints (the language functioning as a reflection of a whole culture and Weltanschauung), the themes and topics, ideas, practices, institutions, approaches, instructions and solutions described – and not necessarily always normed – in the Qur’an, are therefore inextricably interwoven with a certain historical situation and socio-cultural understanding of human beings. As in b, above, this hermeneutical strategy can be identified in the theories of revelation proposed by Muslim philosophers, Sufi, Ismaili, Fazlur Rahman, Abdolkarim Soroush, Nasr Abu Zayd, Aksin Wijaya.

• d. On the level of the interpretation of the Text itself – recognizing the decisive role of the interpreter and of the interpretive and hermeneutical methodologies in the process of the extraction of the qur’anic meanings. The human interpreter of the Text does not objectively and transparently discover, retrieve or reproduce the meanings of the Qur’an, which are considered to exist in the divine auctorial mind, but participates in and negotiates the construction of meanings, assuming openly his/her own inescapable subjectivity. Therefore, in a humanist hermeneutics, the influence that the ‘prior text’, particularly the historical, cultural, social, political and educational background of the exegete and his/her own inclinations, preferences, expectations, personal experiences, psychological configuration and, no less important, gender,¹⁴ has on the process and the results of the interpretation itself is recognized. However, hermeneutical methodologies, in the absence of a humanist theory of revelation, may have a limited functionality. These hermeneutical assumptions are obvious in the work of some Ashʿarī exegetes and Muslim philosophers, and in Sufi, Ismaili and contemporary contextualist theories of revelation.¹⁵

Regarding this last dimension of humanist hermeneutics, namely its manifestation on the level of the interpretation of the Text itself, some concrete examples are useful in order to underline the socio-political impact that Islamic hermeneutics has. Applying different interpretive and hermeneutical methodologies to the reading of the same Text can lead to different exegetical results. For example, a heavily textualist, ethically voluntarist, semi-contextualized interpretation of the Qur’an, such as, at the other end of the spectrum, in exclusivist Salafi hermeneutics, facilitates a patriarchal normative view on gender relations in Islam.¹⁶ In contrast, an aim-based, thematic, rationalist, contextualist and historically informed qur’anic hermeneutics leads to a gender egalitarian exegesis.¹⁷ The same last hermeneutical strategies have been used by feminist Muslim theologians to deconstruct the hierarchical, exclusivist understanding of religious alterity and to propose an inclusive soteriological pluralism.¹⁸

For instance, Omaima Abou-Bakr has used linguistic analysis and historical contextualization to construct a more dynamic, contextualized and inclusive concept of qiwāma. In premodern exegesis, qiwāma was understood as a husband’s financial responsibility for and authority over his wife. Often, in the traditional jurisprudence, qiwāma has been manipulated to legitimize creating hierarchical power relations within the family and to generate highly gender asymmetrical marriage laws that limited women’s basic rights and liberties. However, qiwāma is reconstructed in Abou-Bakr’s interpretation as a concept that can be extended beyond a particular gender, depending on a man’s or woman’s real objective capacities and abilities to fulfil her/his financial and moral responsibilities.¹⁹ In the same manner, Asma Lamrabet uses the method of comprehensive contextualization and a thematic approach to the qur’anic text to support the understanding of (male) qawwāmūn as financial providers or supporters. This role has been especially embraced during women’s pregnancy, confinement and nursing. Lamrabet thus manages to limit the application of qiwāma to the context of the conjugal, nuclear family, and to contest its expansion to the public, socio-political sphere.²⁰

The last example also applies to Abou-Bakr, who dissects another topic important to contemporary sensibilities: freedom of religion. Assuming some humanist hermeneutical strategies of the Qur’an – comprehensive historical contextualization, thematic approach to the verses, the integration of the role of the interpreter in the process of the extraction of meanings, the privileging of the rationalist and ethical Islamic perspectives – Abou-Bakr investigates the evolution of classical, modern and contemporary interpretations of Q 2.256. In the process, she is able to underline the soteriological openness of Islam and, for this purpose, she uses two strategies. She emphasizes the dynamic nature of the constructions of concepts in the Islamic exegetical tradition, and deconstructs the interplay between qur’anic interpretation and the various historical and political contexts that shaped the respective exegeses.²¹

Before ending this first section, it is important to emphasize that I do not intend to label humanist hermeneutics simply as a hermeneutics that is applied to a type of qur’anic exegesis that produces humanist – or human-rights-friendly – interpretations. Humanist exegetical results are important and actually unavoidable, given the fact that humanist hermeneutics dismembers authoritarian tendencies. Nonetheless, in order to be attributed to a humanist hermeneutics, these exegetical products should be rooted in a humanist theory of revelation, present an open hermeneutical finality and reflect an anthropocentric, meta-textual, explorative, dynamic, interactive and performative type of exegesis. All of these characteristics will be briefly explained in the next part of the article.

2. Humanist Hermeneutics and Humanist Qur’anic Interpretations: Characteristics, Tendencies and Relevance

The extensive theological and philosophical variety and complexity of the theories of revelation that mark the tafsīr tradition might make the enterprise of analysing their interdependence seem very tedious. However, if we focus on the humanist dimension of Islamic hermeneutics, as defined above, we notice the existence of two main antagonistic hermeneutical paradigms. These hermeneutical paradigms are dependent on two different theories of revelation, and have impacted contemporary Muslim society quite visibly in the form of a heavily textualist, exclusivist Salafi Islam and a contextualist progressive Islam.

Inevitably, between these two cases there is a spectrum of multiple combinations of theories of revelation and hermeneutics that cannot be discussed within the limits of space available here.²² Furthermore, humanist hermeneutics itself includes a wide range of differences and specificities. Nonetheless, humanist hermeneutics remains connected with the extended Islamic tradition and it proposes an analytical perspective that, while being based on different theories of revelation, can move across the historical, theological and sectarian boundaries of the Islamic exegetical tradition.

Focus on the humanist dimension of hermeneutics has an important socio-political relevance. Humanist hermeneutics generates humanist exegetical products, namely qur’anic interpretations that promote social and gender justice, ecological solidarity, soteriological pluralism and even democratic political views.²³ Having said that, in order to be attached to a humanist hermeneutics, these exegetical products should be:

1. rooted in a humanist theory of revelation that does not freeze the epistemological authority in the Text alone but rather allows a fluid and plural meta-textual epistemic and ontological communication with the Pre-Text, Context and other non-textual or non-discursive products of revelation such as the Cosmos and self-reflexivity;

2. constructed within an axiomatically, non-negotiable, continuous, open ended hermeneutical finality (there is no ultimate authentic, singular, sacred interpretation, but a plurality of – openly assumed – human, constantly changing and contextually adapting interpretations);

3. part of an anthropocentric, meta-textual, explorative, dynamic, interactive and performative exegesis. I shall explain these features in the following sub-sections.

2.1. Challenging Essentialist Hermeneutics and Textual Fundamentalism

There is a discussion regarding the possibility of constructing a humanist hermeneutics of the Qur’an alongside an essentialist view specific to Emilio Betti’s hermeneutics of objectivity. Betti (1890–1968) considers that the text preserves the determinate, objective meaning essentially connected to the author’s original intent and that the interpreter, through the process of interpretation, is capable of retrieving and uncovering that stable meaning and overcoming his/her own inevitable prejudices, subjectivity and historical circumstances.²⁴ For instance, Fazlur Rahman’s hermeneutics reflects Betti’s objectivity stance in his conviction that the interpreter can capture the objective meaning of the text, which may be different from the literal meaning.²⁵ However, his brushing aside of the role of the interpreter’s cultural and historical episteme in the process of the extraction of meaning, namely the historicity of the interpretation itself, is counterbalanced by his humanist approach to the historicity of the process of revelation.²⁶ The humanist character of Rahman’s hermeneutics is also enforced by his assertion of the dependency of the original meaning of the text both on the author and the Qur’an’s ethical message and on the context of its emergence, which shaped the revelation.²⁷

We also notice essentialist tendencies in the general construction of ‘humanitarian’ Indonesian Islam,²⁸ even if it is less in Aksin Wijaya’s hermeneutics. Wijaya distinguishes between revelation/waḥy, the spontaneous, non-discursive act of communication between the Prophet and God (that is, the selected Arabic words of the oral Qur’an, that trap the divine universal message in the specific Arabic linguistic and cultural system) and the Uthmanic Codex, which further limits God’s message through the act of writing it.²⁹ When Wijaya speaks about the scope of the semantics of the Qur’an and of God’s intended meanings, which controls the several, plural and most probable interpretations, he still gives the impression that he is imposing his own liberal values on the Qur’an as universal, trans-cultural Islamic values.³⁰ Nevertheless, Wijaya’s engagement in other types of hermeneutical strategies that I have underlined above³¹ as being specific to a humanist hermeneutics (such as the role of Prophetic human agency and of interaction with the Hijazi historical culture in the construction of the product of revelation, or of the role of the interpreter’s subjectivity in proposing a set of different qur’anic exegeses) allowed him to preserve a non-authoritarian humanist interpretation. It is worth mentioning that Wijaya’s anthropocentric hermeneutics is influenced by Toshihiko Izutsu, Fazlur Rahman and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd in his approaching of the Qur’an as a literary and historical text unavoidably intertwined with Arab culture in its descriptive verses.³² In considering the Qur’an as possessing a transcendent, authentic, divine message, Wijaya’s hermeneutics is also marked by the Ashʿari doctrine of God’s Speech.³³ In the process of applying historical contextualization in the interpretation of the Qur’an, which helps him plead for an ‘Indonesianization’ of Islam, he invokes Abdolkarim Soroush’s and Hassan Hanafi’s contextual hermeneutical suppositions.

There is a widespread contemporary tendency to adopt essentialist textual perspectives, or, in Ebrahim Moosa’s terms, textual fundamentalism, that is, to treat Qur’an as a passive, sovereign, non-interactive text that simply delivers norms and holds absolute authority. In fact, asserts Moosa, the Qur’an represents a performative revelation that requires an interactive audience – the readers, listeners, speakers/‘the community of the text’ – who, along with history, play a decisive role in interpretation, creating and negotiating meanings in the textual process.³⁴ Textual fundamentalism, generative of ‘hermeneutical acrobatics’, is seductive not only to fundamentalist or neo-traditionalist Muslims,³⁵ who preserve patriarchal and sometimes non-humanist interpretations through this strategy, but also to modernists, including feminists. For instance, feminists, such as Asghar Ali Engineer, Azizah al-Hibri, Asma Barlas and Amina Wadud in her early writings,³⁶ privileged some singular verses with a humanist and egalitarian content and treated them as authoritative and normative, ignoring other problematic qur’anic passages. Placing the burden of epistemological authority on the text alone does not uproot authoritarian readings of the Qur’an. On the contrary, it just substitutes the content of a presupposed exclusive, transparent, stable textual normativity with another normativity. This strategy does not fundamentally contest and shift the epistemological paradigm that essentially facilitates the confounding of human interpretations – be they patriarchal and hierarchical, or humanist and egalitarian – with divine intentions.

In more recent Muslim feminist writings, the tendency to engage in a humanist hermeneutics becomes more obvious in the way the Text starts to lose its previous authoritarian epistemological grip. Wadud, in her later publication, Inside the Gender Jihad, pleads for a radical ‘transcending of the text’, for the right of saying ‘no’ to the text – here notably referring to Q 4.34 regarding wife beating – in the name of our contemporary ethical sensibilities,³⁷ despite being apparently supported by the Text. Wadud argues that divinity ‘cannot be contained or constrained by text – let alone by the search for meanings of that text by any human being’ and that the Text should be approached as ‘a doorway with a threshold one must pass over toward the infinite possibilities that point humanity toward a continuum of spiritual and social development’.³⁸ She concludes that the Qur’an simply indicates a moral and social trajectory and does not establish a rigid set of immutable laws. Similarly, Kecia Ali places the imperative of justice above the Text, arguing, without entering into detail regarding the theory of revelation, that the qur’anic text is not a full reflection of divine reality, but only a pale shadow of it.³⁹ Ali goes on to add that ‘the Qur’anic text itself requires Muslims to sometimes depart from its literal provisions in order to establish justice’.⁴⁰ Not coincidentally, she supports a continuous reinterpretation of the Text, responsive to changes in the interpreter’s context and completed by the awareness that the interpreter bears the responsibility for her/his human understanding and exegesis.

We can also mention here Aysha Hidayatullah’s recourse to a novel understanding of the relationship between human beings and the Text/the Qur’an as a divine discourse that does not confine justice to its textual limited pronouncements, but opens it to a larger participation to the requirements of a divine, justice-centred ontology.⁴¹ Hidayatullah draws attention to the relevance of incorporating extra-textual hermeneutical principles in feminist hermeneutical models in order to escape textual fundamentalism and better achieve their aim.⁴² The general idea that the human being is always entitled to transcend the sacred text’s limitations and have a ‘conscientious-pause’ in order to remain faithful to her/his moral consciousness, rooted in a lived faith, is also adopted by Khaled Abou el-Fadl.⁴³

This contemporary tendency, which may be equated with a denial of the exclusive importance of the Text, is not a rejection of revelation. On the contrary, being against some seemingly possible inhumane meanings of the Text becomes a pious act that reconnects the Text to the Pre-text and revivifies a more sophisticated theory of revelation that takes into consideration the multi-spatiality of revelation as Pre-Text, Text and Con-Text. This functions as a strategy that helps the reader escape the authoritarian trap of heavy textualist hermeneutics.

2.2. Challenging Theo-Centric and Logo-centric Authoritarian Hermeneutics

The Islamic exegetical tradition, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, is very complex, sophisticated and diverse. The extensive variety in qur’anic exegesis is not accidentally rooted in a diversity of refined Islamic theories of revelation. However, relatively recently, there has emerged in Islamic thought an oversimplified theological conceptualization of the Qur’an – actually a deformed portrayal of the Sunni Hanbali perspective – that has been further disseminated by Salafi scholars. According to the Hanbali school, as Khalil Andani remarks, God’s uncreated Speech, as part of God’s uncreated eternal knowledge, was ontologically identical to the Arabic Qur’an transposed in eternal sounds and letters.⁴⁴ It must nevertheless be mentioned that even Hanbali theologians have formally made a distinction between uncreated divine Speech and the temporality, specifically the lacking of sequence, and other specific characteristics, of created mortal speech.⁴⁵ Without any nuances, in the Salafi understanding, the Qur’an is reduced to the literal, uncreated Word/Speech of God, flawlessly transmitted orally through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad, who, without any intrusion from his own subjectivity, recited it verbatim to the nascent Muslim community. The Salafi vision of the qur’anic text does not reflect Muslims’ historical understanding of revelation ‘through diverse, competing, and mutually contradictory visions, each of which entail different theories of qur’anic hermeneutics’ constructed in various historical, epistemic, cosmological and theological contexts.⁴⁶ Furthermore, the Salafi hermeneutics based on such a reductionist theory of revelation is minimalist and departs from the earlier sophisticated Islamic tradition, raising the highest danger of slipping into authoritarianism.

Before briefly analysing, for explanatory purposes, the hermeneutics of one exclusivist Salafi ideologue, I must mention that Salafism is not a homogenous, uniform entity, but rather it functions as an umbrella term that covers many trends and understandings of what a Salafi movement should, ideologically, consist of.⁴⁷ Simeon Evstatiev defines Salafism as ‘a Sunni religious orientation based on a specific mode of scriptural engagement’.⁴⁸ Theologically, Salafism embraces a monotheism that emphasizes the oneness, unicity and unity of the Divine, and rejects rationalist speculative theology (kalām), insisting on the elimination of innovation (bidʿa) in religion. Jurisprudentially, it combats the authority and blind emulation (taqlīd) of the established Sunni legal schools, trying to access the foundational sources of revelation directly.⁴⁹ Henri Lauzière, while distinguishing between modernist and purist Salafism, does not offer a scholastic definition of Salafism, given its ambiguity and complex intersections with various historical narratives. However, he notes the theocentric dimension of Salafism, originally associated with a Hanbali and neo-Hanbali theology, interested in the nature of God and in combating theological innovations.⁵⁰ I shall maintain this broad characterization of Salafism, while underlining that, besides the most radical, exclusive construction of Salafism discussed below, there are other Salafi groups that openly contest the violent Salafi orientations and promote a discourse that values religious inclusion and tolerance and emphasizes social work, such as the Egyptian Salafyo Costa movement.⁵¹

Interestingly, even within the Salafi movement, the existence of ideological Salafi variations can be correlated with the differences manifested at the level of their actual hermeneutical methodology. A relevant example can be identified in the emergence of the young Salafi movement, Sunnance, in Niger as a fresh reconstruction of the previously famous Salafi group, Izala.⁵² As a homegrown Salafism, it was possible for Sunnance to come into being also because of the generally more community-based and, despite its political goals, socially and morally interested branch of Nigerian Salafism that was not accidently intertwined with a higher degree of historical contextualization of qur’anic interpretation. ‘The Qurʾān is the same for everyone, but how we put it to work depends on our own social, political, economic and cultural conditions and goals’,⁵³ notes Ustaz Nasiru as quoted by Sounaye. This surprising assertion coming from a Salafi scholar who permits the construction of a more nuanced qur’anic interpretation was naturally further used by Sunnance till it was eventually elevated to the point of sometimes contesting Izala’s theological stances and even practices.

Izala’s puritan discourse, still politically informed, was grounded in a more literalist qur’anic approach and dominated by its critique of Sufism, Shi’ism and the struggle against bidʿa.⁵⁴ Sunnance started to promote a more inclusivist and tolerant theological and social attitude towards both Sufis and Shi’is, being interested in a rather social and moral Salafism.⁵⁵ They tended to value the objectives of the law more than the legal formalities per se. Moreover, Sunnance accepted more cultural practices previously condemned by Izala and reshaped them within a Salafi worldview. For example, the communal gatherings set to debate various religious topics are in fact remnants of Sufi circles. In the same line, Sunnance manifested a higher tolerance of a more relaxed dressing code for women, being less concerned with imposing moral values in the private life of individuals, as Izala was.⁵⁶ Sunnance was rather concerned with expanding the Sunni community and securing its influence on society as a whole. Hermeneutically, Sunnance’s argumentation relied on a more critical response to the scripturalism and literalism that had been embraced by Izala in approaching the Qur’an and was also characterized by a more relaxed appeal to historical contextualization in interpreting the Qur’an.⁵⁷

From this example, we notice that the proposed definition of humanist hermeneutics could be useful when working with various sectarian, historical and theological stances.⁵⁸ It is true that certain Islamic groups tend to share a similar set of hermeneutical strategies. However, any variation in the hermeneutical methods adopted by different factions of that group is reflected in the emergence of a different exegetical content that finally has a different social impact, especially when it is correlated with a change in epistemology and theory of revelation.

In order to better understand humanist hermeneutics, I would like to analyse it in opposition to exclusivist Salafi hermeneutics, here exemplified by the writings of the contemporary Salafi-Jihadi ideologue Abū Muḥammad al-Maqdisī (b. 1959). Without presenting an extensive analysis, I can state, in a nutshell, that exclusivist Salafi hermeneutics proposes a theo-centric, logo-centric, truth-obsessed, static, dualistic, politically framed (constructing relations of power and subordination between the text and the reader) type of hermeneutics.

In a textualist, ‘political’ interpretation of the text, there is a relation of power between the sovereign Text that possesses clear, decontextualized, superior, certain, literal meanings that are epistemologically the most important in the process of interpretation⁵⁹ because they reside ‘in totality in the mind of its Originator’,⁶⁰ and the self-annihilating, objective, obedient interpreter of the Text. In this paradigm, the qur’anic text is conceived as existing prior to the revelation and history in a metaphysical dimension, outside time and space.⁶¹ Moreover, the Qur’an is attributed with the undisputed power of speaking for itself, a fact that generates, inevitably, ‘a minimalist hermeneutics in which the interpreter suppresses textual ambiguities’.⁶² The interpreter is considered to have the objective capacity, mainly through philological analysis, to retrieve and discover the passive, self-evident, stable meaning of the Text and, implicitly, the underlying divine authorial intent.⁶³ Hence the theo-centric label I attached to this type of hermeneutics.

In addition, the interpreter is supposedly able to avoid or significantly diminish his own subjectivity and transparently transmit, using an empirical methodology, the collected facts – textual proofs (naṣṣ).⁶⁴ This supposition fosters an ‘authoritarian hermeneutics’ that ‘involves equating between the authorial intent and the reader’s intent, and renders the textual intent and autonomy, at best, marginal’.⁶⁵ For example, as seen in al-Maqdisī’s interpretation of the Qur’an, exclusivist Salafi hermeneutics assumes the possibility and love of objectivity. This fact leads to the rhetorical rejection of the use of reason in tafsīr and a text-centric approach that camouflages the role the interpreter plays in interpretation.⁶⁶ Paradoxically, the focus on the Text that suffocates the communication with Pre-Text and a larger Con-Text nourishes a form of ‘prescriptive authority’ enabling the scholar to prescribe to other Muslims.⁶⁷ Finally, this strategy culminates in and legitimizes authoritarian, despotic and inevitably human qur’anic interpretations.⁶⁸ The indicators of the divine will encapsulated in the Qur’an are treated as perfect embodiments of the full divine will in a process that ultimately subdues and equates the divine will with the various fallible human understandings of that divine will.⁶⁹ In other words, the literalist reading of the Text, strengthened by a blatant disconnection of the Text from the Pre-text,⁷⁰ facilitates an authoritarian type of hermeneutics.

We find an example of these hermeneutical strategies in the interpretations of the Salafi-Jihadi ideologue al-Maqdisī. In his Millat Ibrāhīm, al-Maqdisī sets out the most literalist and authoritarian interpretation of the Qur’an. In order to demonstrate that displaying hate and enmity against polytheists and their divinities is an essential part of the shahāda (Islamic profession of faith) and an obligatory duty while engaging in daʿwa (conveying the message of Islam to non-Muslims),⁷¹ Al-Maqdisī simply selects and quotes a few qur’anic verses. Then he analyses the verses without integrating them in the general qur’anic textual context and ethical worldview, or in the particular historical context of the seventh-century Hijaz.⁷² Because he considers that the qur’anic verses are atemporal, the way that history has intermingled with revelation is of no relevance to him. For al-Maqdisī, any verse, no matter how circumstantial its content may be, can be used to extract an Islamic law or rule. This atomist and decontextualized exegesis of the Qur’an allows him to present his own interpretations and suppositions regarding the qur’anic text as being simple divine truths derived directly from the sacred text through a linguistic investigation.

Al-Maqdisī assumes that the text is clear, speaking for itself and transparently rendering God’s will, intention and message. Anybody who challenges his interpretation is considered to have challenged God’s commands and wisdom, thus risking being subjected to the allegation of kufr (unbelief).⁷³ Presenting human interpretations of the qur’anic text as self-evident, objective divine assertions is made possible by embracing this extreme textual fundamentalism and obedience to the Text. No real Con-Text is taken into consideration in al-Maqdisī’s qur’anic interpretations. The whole rich and refined Islamic exegetical tradition is reduced to quoting just a few Salafi scholars, such as Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Ḥamad ibn ʿAtīq, etc.⁷⁴ For example, while arguing that authentic belief implies rejecting, fighting and hating the falseness of non-Muslims or Muslim Others and their beliefs, al-Maqdisī quotes Ḥamad ibn ʿAtīq as follows: ‘And openly declaring the religion is the declaration of their disbelief and the degradation of their religion while insulting it along with the disavowal from them … ’.⁷⁵ His hermeneutics also radically excludes any type of acknowledgement of the role of the Pre-Text in understanding the Qur’an/the Text. There is no theological value except that contained in the Text itself.⁷⁶ The obvious exclusionary and discriminatory socio-political effects are inevitably. If, on a cosmological and soteriological level, religion is perceived as a mythical battle between good and evil, Muslim and non-Muslim, if displaying enmity and hate is treated as part of religion and a duty for any Muslim, there is no possibility to promote humanist values, tolerance, mutual respect and understanding on a social level.

2.3. Humanist Hermeneutics: Anthropocentric, Meta-Textual, Explorative, Interactive, Performative

2.3.1. The Interactive, Dynamic, Open Construction of Meaning and the Ethical Responsibility of the Interpreter

When analysing the connection between different theories of revelation and their subsequent hermeneutics,⁷⁷ despite the above-mentioned exceptions (2.1), we notice that humanist hermeneutics is usually connected to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics of subjectivity. Gadamer (1900–2002) considers that there is no innocent, objective interpretation of a text, because the reading is preceded by a ‘horizon’ of understanding, namely the subjective interpreter’s fore-understanding, which he calls ‘prejudice’.⁷⁸ The ‘prejudice’ is conditioned by the interpreter’s socio-political and cultural circumstances, presuppositions, personal knowledge and experience. Gadamer adds to this list even language, which is in itself a cognitive human representation of the world as it was constructed by a specific community and culture.⁷⁹ Most of contemporary contextualist hermeneutics has gravitated around recognizing the importance of the role of the interpreter’s own subjectivity in the process of interpreting the Qur’an.

More specifically, a humanist hermeneutics engages, on a micro level, in a qur’anic interpretation that recognizes the complex, dynamic and dialectical process that exists between the text, the author (author’s intent) and the reader and his/her context in the process of the extraction of meanings.⁸⁰ Texts are understood as being active in the sense that they create, shape and revise their own communities of meaning.⁸¹ These interpretive communities that form around the text and create common methodologies for deriving meanings are not inventing the meaning of a text, but are negotiating it and are negotiated by it in a specific historical context.⁸² Moreover, as I have already emphasized, the interpretation of the text and the construction of meaning is influenced by the reader’s personal psychology, life experiences, circumstances and educational and cultural background.⁸³ Other subjective elements, such as inputs from its transmitters, collectors, audiences, etc., which influence the transmission of religious knowledge supposedly extracted simply from the text, are taken into consideration. The Text is recognized as offering only limited textual indicators and an incomplete authorial intent that is also ‘bounded by its audience, historical context, and language’.⁸⁴

Humanist hermeneutics is being predicated on the connection between the interpreter, the interpreted text and her/his present epistemic, experiential and social context. This means that humanist hermeneutics is fundamentally anthropocentric, because it axiomatically transfers the interpretive responsibility to the human interpreter. This approach allows us to avoid the dangers of authoritarianism, of conflating the law with the moral imperative,⁸⁵ and of confusing human exegesis with non-historical and eternal, divine revelation,⁸⁶ and fallible, human interpretations of the law with the divine will, as we have seen in the case of the exclusivist Salafi exegesis.

Emphasizing the fluid and inextricable synergy between the text, the author, the reader and the context, and giving balanced, adequate attention to the role of each of these four elements involved in the determinacy of meaning, is a humanist hermeneutic strategy. Nevertheless, before Gadamer, Muslim philosophers and Sufi exegetes had also emphasized the interdependence that exists between the interpreter and the interpreted. Some of them have even connected the qur’anic hermeneutical principles with a specific ontology, metaphysics and epistemology based on wujūd/existence. They developed a doctrine of the unity of all existence that connects not only the creature with her/his creator, but also legitimizes democratic access to and the exploration of all forms of revelation: textual/here the Qur’an, cosmic and as reflected in the human self.⁸⁷ An important hermeneutical consequence of this interpreter-centric approach impacts the conceptualization of religious knowledge per se, including the understanding of the Qur’an. The interpretation of the Qur’an is therefore to be seen as be human, constructed, unavoidably subjective, fallible, plural, incomplete and constantly evolving.⁸⁸

The legitimacy of an open ended, necessarily fallible qur’anic interpretation can be identified in the theology of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (873–936) and other classical exegetes. From the perspective of the theory of revelation, al-Ashʿarī and his followers, with some notable exceptions, embraced the ontological and formal distinction between God’s Speech (kalām Allāh), which resides in God’s Essence under the form of an uncreated, eternal divine attribute possessing an eternal meaning (maʿnā), and its created manifestation, the Qur’an. God’s Speech contains non-verbal commands, interdictions and knowledge. The Arabic Qur’an represents its verbal-linguistic recitation (qirāʾa), or indication (dalāla), composed of sounds and letters, that was transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad.⁸⁹ On an interpretive level, the complexity and sophistication of al-Ashʿarī’s view on revelation was reflected in a hermeneutics of ambiguity and polyvalency that fostered a more comprehensive intellectual and interpretive humility.⁹⁰ For instance, Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī recognized that distinguishing between the divine meanings of God’s speech and the created words of the Qur’an allows human interpreters to perform an endless, overwhelming process of rational deliberation and interpretation of qur’anic terms and phrases. In simpler terms, for al-Bāqillānī, the interpreter strives to identify the breadth and the precise inner meanings residing in God while basing the interpretive process on broad, unquantifiable possible additional evidence.⁹¹

We can summarize that Ashʿarī hermeneutics underlines the inherent uncertainty and ambiguity of the exegetical challenge and thus offers an impressive freedom to the Qur’an’s interpreters. Moreover, combined with its rationalist tendency, it presents the possibility of avoiding the canonization of some authoritarian jurists’ interpretations.⁹² From this perspective, taking into consideration that Ashʿarī hermeneutics legitimizes an almost open process of flexible, socially responsive interpretations, which is compatible with some characteristics of a humanist hermeneutics as discussed above (d). Regarding the status of the Qur’an within a broader philosophy of revelation, Shahab Ahmed considers that theological/kalām hermeneutics remains captive in a mediating position and dual approach perspective. Kalām is interested to search the Truth of the Pre-Text (God’s eternal speech), but limits the rational investigation of the Pre-Text about the Pre-Text and the Text itself to the Text (Qur’an). Ahmed refers to the fact that kalām scholastic theology oscillates between a literal and metaphorical understanding of the meanings of the Text. Scholastic theology considers that only the limited expressions of the truth of the Pre-Text that are transposed in the words of the Text are accessible to humans.⁹³ Nevertheless, because Ashʿarī scholastic theology acknowledged the ambiguity and polysemy of the qur’anic text, we see in the classical Islamic tradition that the process of interpreting the qur’anic text was subjected to criticism and reform because the human interpreter’s fallibility in the process of the extraction of qur’anic meanings was recognized.

Moving forward, contemporary Muslim scholars explained this necessity of preserving an open-ended process of qur’anic interpretation in various ways. For example, Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari offers an original argument for the open finality of qur’anic interpretation, invoking, like Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, the discursive and dialogical nature of the Qur’an. Qur’anic interpretation is essential and must remain an open process, because it is through this interpretation that the revelation continues at any stage of history and remains dynamic as part of the endless, two-sided conversation between God and man.⁹⁴

Mouhanad Khorchide embraces the same view but integrates it into an extended analysis of the contemporary relevance of Islamic humanism, which he investigates through an ethical lens. His novel conception of a global, ‘divine’/’göttliche’ humanism,⁹⁵ rooted in the Islamic vision, revolves around a major anthropological thesis regarding radical human freedom and rationality. All human beings are ‘caliphs’ deliberately granted by God freedom and inalienable responsibility for their own choices and actions. If no mediating authority is permitted between divinity and individual with regard to a human’s non-negotiable, sovereign freedom, then tawḥīd (monotheism), which is the fundamental qur’anic message, is translated as a call to humans and society for constant commitment to liberation from any form of paternalism.⁹⁶ Here Khorchide refers to the general paternalist structures of rule that can manifest in religious, non-religious and even humanist, modern idioms. Paternalism can also be perceived, more specifically, in power discourses in which authoritarian structures are to be protected.⁹⁷ It does not matter if these discourses are Islamic or not. This type of discourse continues to keep part of the Muslim world trapped in self-righteous, exclusivist, judgmental perspectives. Khorchide further opposes this attitude of self-closing, whether on an individual, cultural, religious or political level,⁹⁸ to freedom, seen as an attitude imbued by dynamism, inclusivism and processuality.⁹⁹ His stance transforms the relation between God and man into a partnership in which God believes in human beings and sanctions their own happiness and fulfilment, without patronizing them. In return, human beings recognize their finite nature and try to cooperate with God in sharing Her/His love and compassion in interacting with the whole of existence.¹⁰⁰

Khorchide also pleads for a humanism inspired by qur’anic values because he wishes to bring to fruition the qur’anic ethos and its unifying potential. Islamic humanism is able to appraise the sovereignty of the individual that embraces an introspective stance that finally leads to one’s opening up to the Absolute, to the divinity, and to a constant process self-reconstruction. Moreover, Islamic humanism values the responsibility that the indivdual bears for the collective as a part of the collective, assuming an attitude that opens up to the world, to the ‘other’.¹⁰¹ Exegetically and hermeneutically, this openness to a continuous individual quest is reflected in the direct acknowledgement of the ethical role and interpretive responsibility that the individual plays in extracting qur’anic meanings.¹⁰² Khorchide contends that the Qur’an is not an instruction manual that freezes a set of specific, immutable, mostly legalistic beliefs and practices for all times and places. Interpreting the Qur’an remains an open-ended process that is unceasingly subjected to reform and criticism.¹⁰³ Religion and its inherent understanding is dynamic and changes according to social contexts. Truth is always escaping any human possession, because it is a divine attribute. Therefore, modesty and humility must accompany human beings’ continuous critical scrutiny of the Qur’an, of their own selves and life itself.¹⁰⁴

In contrast, the epistemological arrogance of imagining that a certain group of people, such as exclusivist Salafis, are the solely possessors of theological and absolute truths leads gradually but inevitably to the concrete, violent exclusion of the ‘other’. This theological and soteriological exclusivism is reflected in socio-political and ethical exclusivism. See, for example, the previous example of al-Maqdisī, who considers that the fundamental human duty, included in the Islamic declaration of belief, is for authentic Muslims to protect God’s honour and sanctity by all means, including the violent, direct annihilation of the Other.¹⁰⁵

On the other spectrum, Nasr Abu Zayd develops his own approach to Islamic humanism and, implicitly, humanist hermeneutics. From a literary perspective and being partially influenced by the Muʿtazili theological theory of revelation, Abu Zayd underlines the human nature of the Qur’an in its material aspects, namely not only involving the process of canonizing the Qur’an, of transforming a series of oral discourses in a muṣḥaf (written text), or the late application of signs of vocalization to the consonantal script, etc.¹⁰⁶ In addition, Abu Zayd argues that the Qur’an can also be conceived as the transcendent, unlimited Word of God, as well as a historical and linguistic text that was constructed and produced within a conditioned human culture.¹⁰⁷

In his early studies, Abu Zayd has focused on the vertical dimension of revelation, namely on the communicative process between God and the Prophet Muhammad and its final product, the Qur’an. Hermeneutically, he has emphasized the importance of applying a comprehensive historical contextualization to the qur’anic text. Qur’anic meanings, explains Abu Zayd, are constructed in a human language and therefore inevitably ingrained, shaped and impregnated by the seventh-century Arabian socio-cultural and historical circumstances of the society in which the revelation emerged.¹⁰⁸ Epistemologically, the divine intention that exists beyond the actual Arabic qur’anic words remains always incomprehensible to human beings. Nevertheless, if we can identify the manner in which the text was conceptualized by the first community of believers and if we can discern the stable, historical meaning (maʿnā) of the text, then we can also understand its changing significance (maghzā), which varies as the text is read by a series of different human interpreters, situated in different epochs and societies.¹⁰⁹

Later on, Abu Zayd draws attention on the relevance of the horizontal, communicative and humanistic dimension that is embedded in the ‘structure’ of the Qur’an itself, a dimension that requires a conceptual framework based on the discursive, dialogical nature of the Qur’an. As a time-bound and context-based historical product of a specific communicative interaction, ‘the Qur’an was the outcome of dialoguing, debating, augmenting, accepting and rejecting, not only with pre-Islamic norms, practice and culture, but with its own previous assessments’ presupposition’.¹¹⁰ Nowadays, continues Abu Zayd, only by treating Qur’an as a living discourse can we have access to an open democratic hermeneutics that enables us to perceive the diversity of the ‘meaning of life’. Approaching the Qur’an as a (silent) text will always lead to authoritarian or totalitarian interpretations.¹¹¹ Therefore, Abu Zayd connects the liberation of ‘religious thought from power manipulation, whether political, social, or religious’ to the recovery of meaning by the community of believers through the construction of an open democratic and humanistic hermeneutics.¹¹² The connection between ethics and hermeneutics is also visible here. Abu Zayd’s hermeneutical strategies have a positive socio-political impact, as he openly supports intra- and inter-religious plurality and the enhancement of women’s rights.¹¹³

2.3.2. Humanist Hermeneutics: Shifting the Hermeneutical Paradigm

The question remains: How does humanist hermeneutics respond to the general critique brought against Gadamer-influenced hermeneutics as leading to interpretive and/or moral subjectivism and relativism? First, within the perspective of an explorative hermeneutics that is centred on the transformative power of the interaction between the interpreter and the performative revelation, the question regarding the authenticity of interpretation belongs to the domain of probability and is permanently subject to an epistemology and soteriology of humility. Concurrent inhumane qur’anic interpretations (like those of the the exclusivist Salafis) are not opposed by proposing another authentic, essentialist, ultimate discursive variant of Truth/true interpretation, but by dismantling these supposedly divine and final authority of all human’s interpretations. A humanist hermeneutics does necessarily centre on combating inhumane interpretations as such, but it dismantles the source of their harmfulness, namely, their supposedly divine-sanctioned authority, their reclaimed final, certain authenticity.

Second, a humanist hermeneutics evades the strictly textual, hierarchical subject–object binary mode of doing hermeneutics that is associated with extracting qur’anic meanings based on some simplistic, literalist suppositions. The question regarding the authenticity of interpretation is not answered logo-centrically by identifying stable, obvious, discursive, monosemantic or even plurisemantic truths exclusively in the Text, in the object, in a static ‘what’ (what does Qur’an say). On the contrary, it shifts to interrogating the dynamic transformation of the Self, of the subject, of the ‘who’ (who is impacted, in a certain historical and personal experiential context, by interaction with the performative Qur’an). More precisely, humanist hermeneutics transfers the centre of interest from an alethically-informed (discursive, textual truth-obsessed) approach to the Text to a transformative reading that engages the Self and is reflected in the understanding of the Text and Cosmos, including her/his own social human context. The Self is transferred at the centre of the hermeneutical process that thus is meant ‘to invest one’s Self in the making of meaning … and concomitantly to invest or attach that truth and meaning in the making of one’s Self’.¹¹⁴ The hermeneutical engagement is an explorative project of the Self that is no longer obsessed with fixed, prescriptive, universal, normative textual truths but embraces an ‘explorative reasoning addressed at the production of ambiguities, potentialities, and expanding meaning’ that valorizes perplexity (ḥayra) and metaphor as a paradoxical manner of engaging with the multiple forms of the Unseen’s divine Truth.¹¹⁵ Within this paradigm, the accent is no longer on judgingly enforcing norms and textual truths on other Muslims, but on enhancing the ‘explorative authority’ of Muslims to investigate (for) themselves¹¹⁶ the best and most beautiful meanings of the revelation.

The explorative approach to revelation is connected to a performative type of exegesis that allows the individual/reader to be transformed by interaction with the Qur’an as a process of revelation that will further influence her/his reading of the Text. Within this hermeneutical paradigm centred on self-reflexivity and self-awareness, the Qur’an retains just an instrumental value in guiding humanity. It does not offer final textual answers that require the reader’s absolute obedience to exegetical text-centric knowledge, disconnected from personal and social dynamics and reality. In a nutshell, in a humanist hermeneutics, the text is alive; it interacts with its readers and transforms them, and their transformation in turn affects the meaning extracted from the text while engaging, on a macro level, in a meta-textual interpretation.

The meta-textual type of applied interpretation of the Text treats as legitimate loci of knowledge and for the extraction of revelatory meanings not only the Text itself, but also the Cosmos and the Self as ontologically and epistemologically valid signs of the same Revelation.¹¹⁷ That is why, for example, natural science could be treated like philosophy, as a rational project of knowing the rational Pre-Text of Revelation.¹¹⁸ Furthermore, the meta-textuality is rooted in an ontology of unity (waḥdat al-wujūd) and a religious, experiential, transformative human praxis inspired by this ethos of unity, by the interweaving, communication and fluidity that exists between different epistemological methodologies of accessing and knowing the Truth of the Pre-Text. Humanist hermeneutics facilitates a reading of the Text as a permanently open Text that fluidly communicates not only with the Pre-Text and other non-textual sources of knowledge, such as the Cosmos, leading to an ecological solidarity, or self-reflexivity, but also with other textual sources of knowledge (other religious revelations).¹¹⁹ For example, some Hindu or Buddhist elements – treated as universal truths of the Pre-Text of the Revelation – have been integrated in the beliefs and practice of Java Muslims.¹²⁰

This perspective on revelation creates a newrelation with alterity and has strong soteriological consequences, leading to religious pluralism. For example, in Jerusha Tanner Lamptey’s Muslima Theology, the earlier dichotomist, static, solid distinction between Self and Other becomes communicating, permeable and dynamic.¹²¹ The-Other-who-can-never-be-wholly-other, as Lamptey calls it, is conceived as a fluid and interrelated category that builds, in Ahmed’s terms, Pre-Textual bridges. Theologically, the-Other-who-can-never-be-wholly-other is treated as a believer who is on a different path that simultaneously functions as a divine sign that motivates meditation on creation and divine metaphysics and enhancing taqwā.¹²² Indonesian ‘humanitarian’ Islam/Islam Nusantara also seems to be constructed on the same epistemological openness and soteriological inclusivity. The proponents of humanitarian Islam root their orientation in the Wali Songo (‘Nine Saints’), Java’s fifteenth–sixteenth-century figures who constructed a contextualized form of Islamic teachings. The contemporary Islam Nusantara (‘East Indies Islam’) is proposed as a model of multi- and inter-cultural harmony. Islam Nusantara gravitates around the ethico-moral value of raḥma (compassion) and explicitly invokes Sufi epistemology for its founding principles. A more thorough analysis of humanitarian Islam, useful for a better understanding of the concrete application of the concept of humanist hermeneutics, has been carried out elsewhere.¹²³

It is important to note briefly here that, even if some classical exegetical systems did not produce historical humanist interpretations¹²⁴ regarding soteriological inclusivity, some of their structural principles, recombined in a contemporary hermeneutics that makes use of comprehensive contextualization, could promote such a humanist perspective. For instance, the rationalist theology of al-Māturīdī (853–944) has a rather exclusivist and harsh point of view regarding the soteriological destiny of the non-Muslim Other if we look at his actual, historical qur’anic interpretations. Nevertheless, al-Māturīdī’s founding principles – such as the rationalistic principle of the compatibility of reason and faith and the rationalistic position that God is knowable by natural means¹²⁵ – have the potential to create humanist and inclusivist views.¹²⁶

Before concluding the article, I must clarify the fact that, despite following more or less the same general paradigm, there are different instantiations of humanist hermeneutics, each with its own particularities and emphasis. For example, the hermeneutics of the Muslim philosophers and Sufis are heavily influenced, of course, by the distinction they make regarding various degrees and modalities, the source of the revelation, the Pre-Text, and the discursive product of revelation, the Text, which cannot embrace the totality of the knowledge and meanings inhabiting the Pre-Text. Hence the interpretation of the Qur’an can be enhanced by appealing to the rational or existential direct knowledge of the Pre-Text. Another aspect of humanist hermeneutics, the acknowledgement of the agency of the Prophet Muhammad in the construction of the qur’anic text and its expression, is materialized to varying degrees. If philosophical peripatetic Muslim hermeneutics asserts Prophetic agency¹²⁷ without significantly insisting on this point, Ismaili hermeneutics generates a whole philosophy around the role of the Prophet’s agency in determining the verbal formulation and expression of the Qur’an.¹²⁸ In contrast, the, Muʿtazilī, Ashʿarī, and even some Sufi models do not recognize the influence that the specific personality and knowledge of the Prophet Muhammad exerts on the discursive content of the Qur’an. In the case of Abu Zayd, this is an aspect less emphasized and interpretively speculated, while for Soroush and Wijaya the Prophet’s productive or creative agency is quite central. Nevertheless, al-Ashʿarī, for example, despite his problematic approach to the Pre-Text, supports a less authoritarian reading of the Text by using strictly exegetical openness and polyvalency. In contrast, Fazlur Rahman, while embracing an objectivist stance through his belief in the capacity of the interpreter to comprehend the objective meaning of the text, as opposed to its literal meaning, avoids the potential danger of authoritarianism and shifts his hermeneutics into a humanist paradigm through his humanist approach to the historicity of the process of revelation itself.¹²⁹ These various intersections of the variables of a humanist hermeneutics underscore the relevance of defining humanist hermeneutics in relation to the multiple dimensions of revelation.

In a nutshell, open-ended qur’anic interpretation does not lead to moral relativism as it is unfolded within a holistic, integrative epistemological and ontological paradigm¹³⁰ of unity that emphasizes the connection between God, the whole existence/Cosmos and the human being, between Self and Other, between the different sources of revelation (Text, Cosmos, self-reflexivity) and all human faculties of knowledge, rational, existential and physical. Not surprisingly, this epistemological fluidity and openness is translated in soteriological generosity and ecological solidarity. In other terms, humanist hermeneutics does not negate the existence of a higher truth, but it does not limit it to textual discursive truths and shifts its interest to the anthropological dimension and the interiority and transformative interactions of the Self.

3. Conclusions

This article has described humanist hermeneutics as a theory and methodology of interpretation that identifies and affirms the unavoidable presence of the human factor in and/or limitation of human comprehension on at least 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 Text. The specific characteristics of each of these levels of analysis have also been briefly discussed.

Epistemologically, humanist hermeneutics is founded on a vertical dimension that embraces various modalities of expressing the truth of the Pre-Text. More precisely, humanist hermeneutics asserts the axiological relevance that the Pre-Text, as well as the other different textual and non-textual, non-discursive ways of accessing it, have in the interpretation of the sacred Text, the Qur’an. This hermeneutical and epistemological premise generates a different approach of the interpretations of the qur’anic content. The socio-legal interpretations in particular are perceived as simply human, therefore fallible, contestable, reformable, permanently open, explorative exegetical enterprises that should be filtered through the humanist ethical qur’anic perspective. As a result, we note the emergence of a series of tafsīr works that promote, in an Islamic idiom, universal humanist values such as human rights, gender egalitarianism, social justice and ecological solidarity. For example, this tendency can be identified in various Islamic pre-modern and contemporary, contextualist exegeses.¹³¹ The theological impact is also impressive; the humanist interpretive works in support of religious pluralism, even on a soteriological level.

In conclusion, in contrast to an authoritarian type of hermeneutics, such as that of exclusivist Salafis, humanist hermeneutics leads to more humanist interpretive results, reflected on a socio-political and jurisprudential level. Furthermore, humanist hermeneutics is defined not only by its immediate exegetical results, but also by its foundational onto-metaphysical and epistemological suppositions regarding the Divine, its theory of revelation and its hermeneutical finality, namely the promotion of open versus closed interpretations.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Commission: [Grant Number MSCA SJMethod Grant Agreement 101027399].

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.