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.