joshim

Critics typically object to Quranism on two grounds: 1) Quranism is incompatible with established doctrine, and 2) Quranism is impractical. Those who employ the first argument believe the Quran explicitly commands people to take the Sunnah as an authoritative source of divine instruction. Others place more focus on the issue of practicality, such as Jonathan A.C. Brown in his recent talk titled The Role of Sunnah and Classical Scholarship. [^1] Here he argues that it’s simply not practical, or possible in fact, to read and follow the Quran without the Sunnah. This is the same argument made in his acclaimed book Misquoting Muhammad, where he states that Quranists have been unsuccessful in their efforts to make “a systematic break with the past or reread the Qur’an apart from it.” [^2]

The specifics of his argument are familiar. If you reject the Sunnah, how can you know how to pray? If you claim to reject hadiths, why do you use definitions of words which can only be traced back to hadiths and similar texts? He continues:

“The Quran Only movement has a real problem at its core. Which is that if you say you are only going to use the Quran, then you have to abandon things like the five daily prayers; you have to abandon things like the details of the ramaḍān fast; you have to abandon things like the specifics of how we do wuḍū. And once you do that, you’ve abandoned the religion of Islam. These are things that all Muslims always agreed upon… To leave these practices is to go outside the boundaries of Islam.”

It is fair for people to define the boundaries of Islam according to their convictions and understanding of the texts. So I don’t mind that Brown thinks people like me are outside the fold of Islam – fortunately I won’t be standing in front of him on the Day of Account. However, it’s clear from his sketch of Quranism that he failed to grasp what it is.

Quranism does not seek to escape tradition. As mentioned earlier, classical doctrine holds that the Prophetic Sunnah is a revelation from God and a source of Divine legislation. For Quranists, however, the Sunnah represents the shared values and practices of the Muslim community, but not revelation from God. From this perspective it’s possible to engage with tradition, for instance by upholding the prayer, without believing its precise form descended from the heavens. Similarly, hadiths can be used as a language resource without believing they represent God’s inspiration to the Messenger.

This probably wouldn’t satisfy Brown, but I won’t labour further.

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In his book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre states that the human being is a “story-telling animal.” From telling stories, by constructing narratives about our lives, a language of morality emerges. “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’” he says, “if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” [^3] These stories link the past with the present and future, and the individual to his or her community. The significance of this for MacIntyre is that tradition weighs upon the present:

“What I am is in key part what I inherit, a specific past that is present to some degree in my present. I find myself part of a history and that is generally to say, whether I like it or not, whether I recognize it or not, one of the bearers of a tradition.” [^4]

Thus, tradition informs morality. The individual is compelled to contextualise their own desires and actions with the goals of the community, since his or her story is necessarily linked to the communal narrative. As such, moral claims are not subject to the whims of each and every individual, but anchored in tradition. And so they have the potential to be understood in objective terms, saving us from moral relativism and aimless individualism.

MacIntyre’s account of where moral clarity comes from helps explain some of my own discomforts with Quranism. My reading of the Quran often takes me to places unrecognisable to most Muslims. While I’m aware this doesn’t mean my interpretations are necessarily wrong, they do lack weight. Not just for other readers, but even for myself.

Still I’m convinced the Sunnah is not authoritative in the way it is commonly believed. Not only because of what the Quran says, but also because some traditions are demonstrably harmful. Yet, in some sense, Brown is right: it is impossible to implement the Quran without tradition. Fundamentally the Quran is a discourse on morality, and moral claims are embedded in tradition. Which is where the real crisis of Quranism lies. It’s not that Quranism contradicts the Quran, or that it lacks practicality. Rather, Quranism is divorced from the communal narrative. For this reason it can have little or no influence in shaping moral claims for the wider Muslim community. At least for now.

MacIntyre does recognise this difficulty. He holds, however, that being a member of a community “does not entail that the self has to accept the moral limitations of the particularity of those forms of community.” Rather, the tradition serves as the starting point for discussions about morality, the foundation from which progress is made.

So it would seem the challenge for Quranism is to demonstrate that it does actually have a stake in the Sunnah, and still diverge from it where the Quran and reason demands. Which is no easy task.

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Tagged: #quranism #jonathanbrown #alasdairmacintyre

Notes:

[^1]: Brown, J. [Bayan Claremont]. (2016, March 25). The Role of Sunnah and Classical Scholarship [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC6GK5ZroxM [^2]: Brown, J. (2014). Misquoting Muhammad: The challenge and choices of interpreting the Prophet's legacy. (p. 206). London: Oneworld. [^3]: MacIntyre, A. C. (2007). After Virtue: A study in Moral Theory (3rd ed. p. 216). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. [^4]: MacIntyre (2007). p. 221.

Nouman Ali Khan does not like Quranism. He says in a 2010 lecture on chapter 114, [^1] that Quranists have a simplistic understanding of the Quran and that reading the Quran without hadiths can cause confusion (minute 4:00 onward). In a 2011 lecture on chapter 2, [^2] he argues that rejecting hadiths is nothing more than an attack on the Quran itself (minute 15:00 onward). In fact, he goes further and accuses Quranists of being munāfiqīn: “One of the movements within hypocrisy, even at the time of the Prophet, you know what it was? it was to separate the Quran from the Messenger, the Quran from the Sunnah… That ancient movement of hypocrisy is still alive today.”

Forward to 2015 and not much has changed. A lecture in Malaysia titled The Quran Defends the Sunnah, [^3] and more recently a video presentation titled Why do we need Hadith if the Quran is enough? [^4] sees him repeat his dislike. “There’s no way someone can actually say that they believe in the Quran and they don’t believe in the Sunnah,” he says. “The only way they can really say that is if they don’t study the Quran.”

On the point of hypocrisy, Farouk A. Peru confronts Khan’s accusation in an excellent and comprehensive video series [^5] by demonstrating that a) the Messenger is not represented by the Sunnah but rather by the Quran, and b) chapter 17 verse 36 commands people to question that which they do not understand. Thus, questioning the Messenger in order to distinguish between the words of the Quran and his own words cannot be hypocrisy. As far as I know, the ustadh has never directly responded to Farouk’s videos, although I suspect he knows of them. In his two recent presentations he argues again – now using chapter 4 verse 65 – that a true believer does not in fact question the Messenger but submits to his judgements completely. This could be a coincidence, but if it isn’t, it suggests the ustadh is receptive to criticisms of his work.

In this spirit, I have a few criticisms of my own. Specifically, his interpretation of 4/65. The verse says:

๏ But no, by your lord, they do not believe until they make you a judge concerning what arises between them. Then after they find not in themselves any constraint about what you decided, and incline peacefully, fully submissive. ๏

Due to his repeated claim that Quranists do not read the Quran carefully, I was interested to see his take on this verse so I could learn what a careful reading looked like. He starts by telling us he doesn’t know who the verse is talking about:

“The first thing [Allah] says is ‘lā yu’minūna’ – they don’t believe. […] By the time you read this much, and I read this much, we’re supposed to get really worried. Because He doesn’t say who they are. He just says they don’t believe. I don’t know who they are.”

This might be because Khan didn’t read the verses prior to this one. We can know who verse 65 is referring to if we read from verse 60:

๏ Do you not look toward those who claim that they believe in what is revealed to you, and what was revealed from before you? They wish to judge for each other toward the worst transgression. And surely they were ordered to conceal it, for wishes al-shayṭān to mislead them to far error. ๏

The passage continues to focus on these people, which leads to the verse in question: “But no, by your lord they do not believe until…” There’s no mystery here. Verse 60 tells us explicitly who “they” are: those who profess faith in what is revealed to the Messenger but do not judge by it, and who judge amongst each other to facilitate the worst transgressions. By not paying attention to the progression of the passage, the ustadh is able to generalise verse 65 to include whoever he imagines. He continues:

“They don’t believe until they make you the judge. […] The Quran is saying, not: ‘they don’t have any īmān until they make the Quran the decision maker’ [or] ‘they don’t have any īmān until they take the revelation and make it the decision maker’. Allah is saying they have no shred of īmān – and He swears by Himself – until they make you ṣalla l-lahu ʿalayhi wasallam, you, the decision maker. How personal is that?”

The suggestion here is that if Allah meant the Quran should be the judge, He wouldn’t have implied it, rather He would have said so explicitly. From the ustadh’s perspective, the correct understanding here is that to make the Messenger the judge means to obey all judgements attributed to him beyond those found in the Quran. It follows from this that we must submit to verdicts found in authentic hadiths, the main textual vehicle of the Sunnah.

Of course, the verse doesn’t explicitly support his own interpretation either. It makes no mention of obeying ḥadīthu l-rasūl or sunnatu l-nabiy, or anything similar, but he is happy to infer as much. Clearly his own interpretation is not subject to the standards he believes should apply to a Quranist reading.

I think it’s fair to ask: what if it had said ‘until they take the revelation and make it the decision maker’? Would he have agreed with the Quranists then? Further into the chapter in verse 105, the Messenger is said to have been sent the book, “so that you may judge [litaḥkuma] between the people with what God shows you.” And again in 5/48: “and We sent down to you the book with truth, confirming for what was before his two hands of the book, and a guardian over it. So judge [uḥ’kum] between them with what God has sent down…” So the Quran does say what Khan says it doesn’t.

These verses, and many others, support the Quranist interpretation of 4/65. To make the Messenger the judge is to judge by the Quran, since this is where the Messenger’s judgements came from. For me, a brief breakdown of the passage of 4/65 looks like the following, beginning with 4/58:

๏ Indeed, God orders you (plural) to deliver the trusts to their folk. And when you (plural) judge between the people, to judge with justice. Indeed, God excellently instructs you (plural) in it. Indeed, God is hearing, seeing. ๏

Here, we understand that the people can administer justice so long as they heed God’s excellent instructions. This concept continues in verse 59, which mentions obedience to ulī l-amr – those of legitimate authority. Then, as we touched on earlier, verse 60 speaks of those who do not accept sound judgements, even though they claim to believe in the revelation. They desire exclusivity in the laws they follow and reject ulī l-amr. Not surprisingly, they are called hypocrites in the next verse. In verse 62 they are shown to only reach out to the people when they taste disaster, but their oaths are false. Verse 63 tells us their intentions are not hidden from God. Verse 64 says that if they had genuinely come to you for protection and the Messenger had sought protection for them, they would have found God forgiving.

This is the context of verse 65. The hypocrisy of those of verse 60 is observable and can be tested, and one of those tests is in verse 65: they have no faith until they stop judging for each other and instead submit to the judgement of the Messenger.

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Tagged: #noumanalikhan #quran #quranism

Notes:

[^1]: Khan, N. A. (2010). Bayyinah Podcast. Tafseer Surah 114 – Nas Part 1 by Nouman Ali Khan [Audio file]. Retrieved from http://podcast.bayyinah.com/2010/06/29/114-nas-pt-1/

[^2]: Khan, N. A. (2011). Bayyinah Podcast. Tafseer of Surah Al-Baqarah by Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan Ayahs 26 to 29 [Audio file]. Retrieved from http://podcast.bayyinah.com/2011/12/03/study-of-the-quran-surah-al-baqarah-4/

[^3]: Khan, N. A. [Bayyinah Institute]. (2016, February 08). The Quran Defends the Sunnah — Nouman Ali Khan – Malaysia Tour 2015 [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp98wb123ik

[^4]: Khan, N. A. [Bayyinah Institute]. (2016, May 03). Why do we need Hadith if the Quran is enough? — Nouman Ali Khan [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4cARWalY4

[^5]: Peru, F. A. [QuranistsNetworkTv]. (2014, April 14). Quranists Responses to Critics – Nouman Ali Khan Pt 1. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHvQhbIchaI

The following are some brief thoughts on Daniel Haqiqatjou’s essay, Debating Homosexuality. [^1] For those who haven’t read it, the essay is a debate Haqiqatjou has with himself about the ethics of same-sex relationships. In it he attacks the Western secular position which is for same-sex relationships, and defends the Classical Islamic doctrine which prohibits them.

Broadly speaking, the secular argument is that like heterosexual ones, same-sex relationships are one of life’s goods. They are pleasurable for the participants; they create stability and security; they help in emotional and personal development; they provide fulfilment over an extended period of time. People in same-sex relationships have the right to privacy and so long as they are entered into by mutual consent, there is nothing immoral about them.

The bulk of Haqiqatjou’s essay questions more or less every premise of this argument. The critique takes the form of: ‘secularists say x, but x is not necessarily or always the case.’ So on the issue of harm associated with same-sex relationships, he argues that harm is not always understood by its consequences. Sometimes a thing is harmful even if its consequences are not clear. On the benefits of sexual gratification, public masturbation is used as an example of when sexual gratification is unacceptable. On the right to privacy, hard drugs use in private is cited as an instance when the principle is not applicable. And so on. The aim by this is not to show that the secular argument is based on faulty propositions. That won’t do since these same propositions are used in Islamic philosophy as well. Consequentialism, the pursuit of happiness, the right to privacy etc. all feature in Islamic law. Rather, the aim is to show that secularists do not apply their ethics uniformly across all arguably related circumstances. Thus, secular ethics is inconsistent and not “preeminently rational.”

There are some noticeably weak or contradictory arguments throughout the essay. For example, in Q4 Haqiqatjou states that nothing is objectively harmful – for “what is or is not deemed harmful is ineluctably normative and far from objective.” This is a complete U-turn on comments he makes in another essay, [^2] where he says extramarital relations are an “objective evil.” Another example is in Q8 where he attacks Western notions of pursuing happiness. “It is not hard to imagine,” he tells us, “how a hyper-sexualized society could socialize children and adults to interpret… natural feelings as latent signs of same-sex sexual attraction.” He doesn’t row back on this armchair psychology when he later admits that same-sex activity also occurred in Muslim societies throughout history. He doesn’t explain whether these Muslim societies were also hyper-sexualised, and what this might mean for a religious tradition which holds Muslim societies of the past as exemplary. Instead he goes on to drive the point home in Q13 with some slippery slope reasoning: “Any man who gives free reign to his lust for women may eventually be driven toward craving to penetrate other men, animals, and beyond.”

Then there are the non-arguments. Significant chunks of the essay don’t seem to add anything to the debate. Perhaps in eagerness to take a sledgehammer to every premise, he lost track of what would actually further his position, which would explain comments seen in Q10. There he attacks secularists at length for neglecting intuitive morality, only to concede that even in Islamic thought intuition must be deferred to jurists because it isn’t always reliable. Similarly, in Q9 he argues that aside from sexual assault, “the meaning and relevance of consent is far less obvious.” Meaning, even if people consent to something it doesn’t necessarily make it moral. But this is hardly noteworthy since a) generally in secular ethics consent is a necessary condition for a relationship to be considered legitimate, not a sufficient one; and b) this is how consent is understood in Islamic thought as well.

Perhaps the most disappointing road to nowhere is his views regarding same-sex relationships and harm. Several times between Q2 and Q5 he suggests these relationships are harmful, provided we acknowledge that perception of harm is subjective. If Haqiqatjou could prove that there is in fact harm done by such relationships, this would be fatal to the secular argument. Yet, having laid the groundwork, nothing gets built on it and nothing comes of it. By the end of the essay we’re no closer to understanding why same-sex relationships are harmful.

Even if we were to take all these as just isolated instances of poor reasoning in an otherwise good essay, the general thrust of his critique is still weak. He demonstrates that for every premise of the secular argument, exceptions exist. But so what? A system of ethics doesn’t need all its base assumptions to be inflexible in order to be rational or compelling. Take for example, ‘killing is wrong.’ There are some circumstances where killing may be necessary – self-defence, or in the protection of others etc. We accept such exceptions, but it doesn’t mean a social ethic built on ‘killing is wrong’ is inconsistent or that the general principle is flawed. Similarly the argument for same-sex relationships doesn’t rely on every one of its premises being applied uniformly in every related situation.

Despite its considerable length, the essay fails to discredit the secular position because, crucially, the author fails to identify what makes it persuasive to begin with.

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This initially caught my attention because it was written by someone with a keen eye for philosophy. Haqiqatjou’s examination of the Western secular argument was disappointing, but if he could make a rational case for the Classical Islamic position, all would be forgiven.

In Q7 he points out that making appeals to nature to justify sexual behaviour is a logical fallacy. It can’t be argued something is right just because you claim it to be natural. But then he explains in Q13 that the moral reasoning behind Islam’s prohibition of same-sex relationships includes: “Appeals to nature and teleology, specifically regarding the natural, God-given roles of males as penetrators and females as recipients of penetration and how liwat subverts this normative order.”

How do we understand this contradiction? If appeals to nature are fallacious, why does he use one here? It turns out that for Haqiqatjou, the Islamic appeal to nature is actually rational. “Western liberal attitudes about human desire,” he says, “are not based on any robust, objective theory of human nature,” whereas “Islamic metaphysics, in contrast, does have just such a theory.” In other words, when Muslims of the classical tradition appeal to nature, they are in fact appealing to an objective standard. Therefore, it is not a logical fallacy to make such an appeal.

If this sounds like an appeal to religion, that’s because it is. What he calls an “objective theory of human nature” is commonly known as something else: religious doctrine. Which is why he is forced to concede that “non-Muslims may be skeptical” of its objectivity:

“Muslims can concede that there is no “objective” way to know that the fitra as described in revelation exists. We can concede that there are no scientific experiments that will unveil true primordial human nature. But, just because science cannot opine on this does not mean that the fitra does not exist and does not operate in the way Islamic thought describes.”

Not objective then. What is “described in revelation” is obviously subject to interpretation, so Traditionalist Islam’s theory of human nature is defined by the subjective readings of scholars of religious texts. That’s not objective. Scholars can agree upon an interpretation of the texts at best, but that’s still not objective.

I think the reason he peddles this strange equivocation is because appealing to religious doctrine turns out to be his only argument. Essentially, same-sex relationships are wrong because the scholars say it’s unnatural based on their understanding of human nature, derived from their interpretations from classical Islamic texts. For comparison, consider his essay The Rationality of Islamic Sexual Ethics: Zina, again. In his conclusion he says that “even if one is not religious per se, the rational merits of prohibiting premarital sex and adultery are more than evident.” Whether his argument is convincing or not is besides the point; he was able to at least make the case without relying on doctrine. If Haqiqatjou could have done the same here, he would have.

As such, you would have to be religious in order to accept his arguments against same-sex relationships. And you would have to be the right type of religious too.

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The lack of rational merit for the Traditionalist position is a concern primarily for Muslims who believe the dīn must be based on sound logic. This debate is happening among Muslims within a wider Islamic discourse, but Haqiqatjou’s essay composes it as Western Liberalism vs Islam. And in order to frame it in this way, he dismisses divergent Islamic views on the issue in Q1. Alternative interpretations of the texts which accommodate same-sex relationships are deemed “implausible and confused.” This dismissal was necessary to set up his argument that Islam has an “objective theory of human nature.” Had he admitted to there being alternative theories on human nature based on the same texts he uses, he would have had to explain why the theory of human nature he invests in is objective but those of dissenting voices are not.

In the end, trying to salvage Haqiqatjou’s understanding of objectivity and human nature is a waste of time. A more fundamental point is that having a theory of human nature doesn’t mean the ethics built from it are any good. One useful example is that of concubinage. Classical scholars, equipped with their “objective” understanding of the fitra, saw nothing immoral in acquiring female slaves to use for sex. A man could have an unlimited number of concubines if he so wished and did not require their consent (in any meaningful sense of the word) to have sex with them. Which is to say this so-called objective theory of human nature allowed for what can be described as the systemic rape of women – those captured as war booty, those born into bondage and women who had fallen into destitution. This highlights what is already evident to many people: we shouldn’t rely on sexual ethics constructed by ancient scholars based on their understanding of human nature. There is a real need to move the discussion forward.

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Tagged: #homosexuality #haqiqatjou

Notes:

[^1]: Haqiqatjou, D. (2015, July 20). Debating Homosexuality. Retrieved from http://muslimmatters.org/2015/07/20/debating-homosexuality/ [^2]: Haqiqatjou, D. (2015 June 11). The Rationality of Islamic Sexual Ethics: Zina. Retrieved from http://muslimmatters.org/2015/06/11/the-rationality-of-islamic-sexual-ethics-zina/