Kristof shares some encouraging news on the Reformation of Islam in his column today:
But now the same tools that historians, linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years are beginning to be applied to the Koran. The results are explosive.
The Koran is beautifully written, but often obscure. One reason is that the Arabic language was born as a written language with the Koran, and there’s growing evidence that many of the words were Syriac or Aramaic.
For example, the Koran says martyrs going to heaven will get “hur,” and the word was taken by early commentators to mean “virgins,” hence those 72 consorts. But in Aramaic, hur meant “white” and was commonly used to mean “white grapes.”
Not so sure about his timeframe. I believe the Bible has been undergoing quite a thorough deconstruction (off and on) since the early 16th Century or before, but he’s right to point to this new trend in re-examining the Koran as encouraging.
And none too soon either.
Consider the growing sentiment in Egypt, as reported by David Remnick recently in the New Yorker*:
[American University of Cairo graduate Hazem Kandil] said, “We’ve tried the socialist agenda, we’ve tried the non-agendas of Sadat and Mubarak, which were mixed, and both failed miserably. We’ve exhausted the socialist and capitalist leanings. But people see that we have not exhausted the Islamic possibility. This worries me. It’s very plausible that we’ll take the Islamic road. A lot of what the U.S. is doing implies to people that this is your real motivation. Also, when the United States pushes for democracy without really supporting liberalism in the Islamic world in an adequate way, support for the Islamists grows. In this part of the world, too, conspiracy-thinking is part of the mood of thinking. Liberalism is being linked with American aggression.
“The Islamist influence will grow and will dominate, even without an Islamic President,” he went on. “When people start suffering under that, maybe they’ll listen to a more liberal agenda, but not before. What’s scary is that if we don’t deal with these people they’ll re-launch themselves. I see people at A.U.C. tilted toward the jihadist cause more and more. They’re watching satellite television, they’re watching Saudi-financed channels, they’re listening to the cassette tapes of fundamentalists that are sold on every street corner, they’re reading Islam Online and lots of other Web sites like that. The Islamic discourse is concentrating on the West. Under Sadat and Nasser, the Islamists were oriented toward moral issues in Egypt. Now the word is: ‘We are fighting for our lives.’”
It seems much more likely that an Islamic government in Eygypt will emerge before a Democratic one—and even if a Democratic one does…
Tariq smiled disdainfully at a mention of Bush’s speech at the National Endowment.** “The nightmare for the West is that they advocate democracy and then they find that these countries elect Islamic governments,” he said. “Islamists have gained a lot of legitimacy through their social work, even in their jobs as engineers or doctors. They have a certain status.”
Therefore the Reformation of Islam should be of utmost importance in our dual efforts to spread Democracy and curb Islamist terrorism. That means one very important thing should begin now: end the widespread Middle-Eastern illiteracy.
Here are some Literacy Rates (total populations…all from the CIA World Factbook):
For Comparison
In Middle East and other Muslim countries (and because there’s a disparity in education opportunity, the percentage for men in [brackets])
The increased capacity for publishing and distributing the Reformationist texts of Luther, Zwingli, etc., greatly accelerated their efforts in 16th Century Europe. Perhaps even more than for Christianty, though, the Reformation of Islam will benefit from more widespread literacy. The decentralization of Islam, as compared to the HRCC in the 1500s, requires that the Muslim people can get this information directly (i.e., not filtered through politically ambitious local imams and/or mullahs who like the control over their respective kingdoms they now enjoy).
As Kristof notes, there are good things and good texts coming too:
Still, there are encouraging signs. Islamic feminists are emerging to argue for religious interpretations leading to greater gender equality. An Iranian theologian has called for more study of the Koran’s Syriac roots. Tunisian and German scholars are collaborating on a new critical edition of the Koran based on the earliest manuscripts. And just last week, Iran freed Hashem Aghajari, who had been sentenced to death for questioning harsh interpretations of Islam.
[…]
The world has a huge stake in seeing the Islamic world get on its feet again. The obstacle is not the Koran or Islam, but fundamentalism, and I hope that this scholarship is a sign of an incipient Islamic Reformation – and that future terrorist recruits will be promised not 72 black-eyed virgins, but just a plateful of grapes.
*merci Ondine
**The perceived hypocrisy of that speech by Egyptians was well summed up in the New Yorker piece by a young Egyptian radical:
“Egypt has an atrocious human-rights record,” he said. “And yet your President called my President a builder of open societies.”
Martyrs just get a bowl of grapes? Um, why? That just doesn’t sound right for an afterlife scenario. Sounds more like what you’d get checking into a middle-rate hotel.
Maybe it means virgins smothered in grapes.
Honestly, interpretive transformations like this are an effect of a change in attitudes, not the cause. People have to already be willing to believe that being a martyr isn’t all that great before they care about the details.
So I agree that the re-examination of the Koran is encouraging, but as a sign that there is an underlying dissatisfaction with conservative Islam.
Honestly, interpretive transformations like this are an effect of a change in attitudes, not the cause.
You have a point, but I think it’s a bit symbiotic as well. It does take widespread dissatisfaction for folks to accept new interpretations, but it need not be widespread dissatisfaction with Islam, per se. It could be as simple as hating your local imam that leads to the effect an authoritative revision saying it’s grapes, not virgins, has on sparking a revolt.
Let someone ever so slightly challenge his authority and the floodgates can open.
Especially if imams or others have convinced Muslims to sign up for suicide bombings on the basis of the 72 “grapes” awaiting them, I think you can expect some backlash.
There are some complications. It’s not just the Koran, it’s Arabic itself. Arabic is diglossic. I won’t take up your bandwidth on this subject but I’ve written about it here.
Well, so what? According to some experts the number of native speakers of Modern Standard Arabic (the literary language) is zero. So in order to become literate you need to learn a second language. How many of us are really fluent in a second language? So, depending on how you define literacy, it’s possible that the number of truly literate people in the Arab world is much smaller than the numbers quoted.
On the Koran itself applying the tools of modern criticism to the Koran may lead to the destruction of Islam. The complete integrity of the Koran is a fundamental belief of quite a few Muslims. This article provides some interesting information on (fairly) recently discovered divergent versions of the Koran. I’ve read Muslims quoted as saying that divergent versions of the Koran would cause them to lose their faith.
On the Koran itself applying the tools of modern criticism to the Koran may lead to the destruction of Islam. The complete integrity of the Koran is a fundamental belief of quite a few Muslims.
Not an Islam scholar, but I hope you’re wrong.
The complete integrity of the Bible is a fundamental belief of my religion (Pentacostal), but that doesn’t stop folks in my Church (well, former Church for me personally) from glossing over the parts they don’t want to follow and insisting the rest must be interpreted word for word as the very Word of God.
As Irshad Manji says of her book “The Trouble with Islam: A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change,” for example:
I may mean something different by integrity than you do, Edward. I mean that it’s a fundamental belief that the Koran is the literal word of God, dictated to Mohammed and transcribed by his associates. Differing versions are ipso facto an assault on that belief.
No, Dave, we’re using the same defintion of integrity. Pentacostals believe that to alter one word of the Bible is a sin. How they reconcile the various translations through the years is a mystery, but…
My point is that although Pentacostals who think about it must know that translations are always prone to error (unless somehow they’re also guided by God), they rationalize away the overwhelming potential for some error to be there and STILL insist that the version of the Bible they carry around with them is the ONE, TRUE version and any deviations are sin. If the version they have has a “correction” to an earlier sinful version, they accept that as God’s will.
I suspect those Islamic literalists who need to can find solace in a similar self-delusion.
Good post on your site, btw, Dave. The link to the original article is dead now though.
I like to think he’s wrong about not being able to discuss art and such with colloquial languages, but clearly, communication will suffer.
There’s a substantial difference between reconciling different translations of the Bible and reconciling different Arabic versions of the Koran. The point is that the Koran—like the Bible—evolved.
I agree with you that literalists (either Christian or Muslim) are skating on thin ice. But I think you’ll find that that kind of literalism is closer to the norm in the Muslim world than in the Christian world. When was the last time a Christian scholar was defenestrated by his students for suggesting that the Bible evolved?
Thanks for the heads up on the link, Edward, I’ll see if I can fix it.
I like to think he’s wrong about not being able to discuss art and such with colloquial languages, but clearly, communication will suffer.
That’s the heart of my point, Edward. Of course he’s wrong. But the main thing linking the Arab maghreb is MSA. A vernacular literature and a vernacular Koran would splinter the Arab world. And it was the vernacular Bible that created the Reformation.
When was the last time a Christian scholar was defenestrated by his students for suggesting that the Bible evolved?
It’s been centuries since Christians were killed for questioning the status quo, but it did happen, frequently, during the Christian reformation. The potential consequences do not argue against encouraging and helping to protect the Muslims brave enough to do it now.
There’s a substantial difference between reconciling different translations of the Bible and reconciling different Arabic versions of the Koran.
Do you mean today? Because there’s a higher price to pay in pre-Englightened Islam than in post-reformation Christianity? Or do you mean something else?
The potential consequences do not argue against encouraging and helping to protect the Muslims brave enough to do it now.
I agree with you completely, Edward. But it’s happened in the last couple of years in Nablus (as shown in my link).
Do you mean today? Because there’s a higher price to pay in pre-Englightened Islam than in post-reformation Christianity? Or do you mean something else?
I mean that translations are different. You can believe that God inspired all of the translators. But different contemporaneous i.e. 7th century Arabic versions of the Koran strike at the heart of Islamic literalism.
A vernacular literature and a vernacular Koran would splinter the Arab world. And it was the vernacular Bible that created the Reformation.
Actually I’d argue that it was mostly vastly different priorities that created the Reformation. But that’s a bit too cynical.
The vernacular Bible (assuming you mean the English one or the Lutheran one, there were a few being published back then) simply consolidated the conclusions to the debates that had been raging, as the respective translator saw fit. The arguments created the Reformation, and although they may have been made out of sincerity, they were quite often supported (or tolerated by the princes, etc.) for economic/political reasons.
By vernacular Bible I mean the Bible translated into the language spoken by the people. English in England. German in Germany. And so on. The Latin Bible supported a Church controlled by a clergy (or scholars) who understood Latin.
But different contemporaneous i.e. 7th century Arabic versions of the Koran strike at the heart of Islamic literalism.
Sure. But why do you suggest that this leads to the destruction of Islam itself? Fundamentalists may be dominant in the contemporary Islamic community, but there are still many self-described Muslims who use more modern interpretive strategies.
But why do you suggest that this leads to the destruction of Islam itself?
If your faith is based on the Koran being the literal word of God, what’s it based on if it’s not?
If your faith is based on the Koran being the literal word of God, what’s it based on if it’s not?
You’re placing an awful lot of emphasis on this idea that there is a universally shared interpretation of the Koran that I don’t believe exists, Dave.
If I were the scholar who claimed “hur” was “grapes” and not “virgins,” I’d have no problem saying that “grapes” was Mohammed’s meaning. Others with political agendas or ignorant of Arabic perverted it. The premise that the Koran is God’s word is still valid and true. It was man who was untrue.
But different contemporaneous i.e. 7th century Arabic versions of the Koran strike at the heart of Islamic literalism.
While this would likely cause Islam to splinter into a multitude of fragments, I think one real possibility would be something akin to the synods of the 4th century Church: a gathering of a quorate corpus of imams and scholars to determine which of these “versions” are canonical and which are apocryphal (or, in extreme cases, heretical). Of course, the thought of 21st century Islam going through the analogue of the Arian Heresy sends shivers down my spine, but that might be the necessary price of modernization…
If your faith is based on the Koran being the literal word of God, what’s it based on if it’s not?
Ask the Catholic Church?
ignorant of Arabic and/or Aramaic that is.
BTW, nice excerpt and analysis on your site there, Dave. It’s a little close to Sapir-Whorf for me (and I disagree with your analysis of the Chinese dialects, fwiw), but I do think you’ve touched on something important: the absence of a linguistic framework in which to discuss ideas can lead to their expression being stunted.
Thanks, Anarch. While I don’t believe that language determines thought, it’s pretty clear that there are influences. There’s plenty of empirical evidence that language functions as “hooks” to hang concepts on. Doesn’t mean you can’t have the concepts. Which I believe is what you’re saying.
The issue of dialect vs. language is a sticky one. I believe that to a great extent the distinction is a political one.
Relating directly to the original post is a subject I’ve been working on in a (really) long post on orality in the Arab world. There’s a modern body of thought that there’s a substantial difference between how people from literate cultures and how people from oral or vestigial oral cultures view the world. BTW please don’t think that I’m making any value judgements here. I absolutely am not.
BTW for more extensive selections from the interview I cite in the article on my blog see here. The original interview appears to have disappeared from MEMRI.
The issue of dialect vs. language is a sticky one. I believe that to a great extent the distinction is a political one.
Hence the old linguistic crack that a language is a dialect with an army (or an army and a navy).
I’d be thrilled to see a reformed Islam — heck, I’d be thrilled to see most religions reinterpret and reform themselves until they’re all Unitarianism, ha ha — but what worries me is what kind of backlash could be expected from the die-hard literalists and fundamentalists, and how severe it would be. In Western culture, at least in the present day, Fundamentalist Christians are mostly content to rant and rave on their cable TV shows and radio programs and in silly niche-marketed books. Islamic fundamentalists have tended to have a rather different reaction towards transgressions against the religion. Is there any comparable tradition of peaceable transition in Islam?
Is there any comparable tradition of peaceable transition in Islam?
Is there any comparable tradition of peacable transition in Christianity?
That’s not snark, by the way. I’m much more familiar with Christianity’s tumultuous transitions than I am its peaceable ones.
Well, I was speaking of contemporary times. Even when you have something as controversial and revisionist as the Jesus Project, the literalists are mostly content to grumble on the sidelines and fan the flames of the culture wars a little.
I shudder to think of a reformative transition in Islam as violent as the Protestant reformation and counter-reformation. And I certainly despair of the idea of academics and Islamic theologicians being targeted by fundamentalists.