Evollaqi on natural reading

“A common argument Qur'anis make is that “obey the Messenger” only means 'obey the Message he brought', which means 'only obey the Qur'an'. Or that when we're told to have the Prophet adjudicate our affairs and listen to his instructions, he is only going to adjudicate and instruct based on the Qur'an. Or when we're told to follow the Prophet, this just means follow the Qur'an (as that's only what he's brought and that only what he's living and teaching). Or that purifying us, teaching the wisdom, and other things the Messenger is instructed to do are all just different aspects of giving us the Qur'an, nothing further.

In response one could say, sure, this is all linguistically possible, but it's always possible to say that a reference to a term A is in in fact always exclusively a reference to a term B, as term A is only meant qua term B. B-aloneism is always linguistically possible.

To illustrate this, we could be Sunnah aloneists and read everything in the Qur'an accordingly. We could say “obey God” in the Qur'an exclusively means 'obey the teachings and practices of the human He told us to obey', “follow the Book” doesn't mean 'follow the Book per se' but 'follow the human it grants authority to', and so on. This would be an implausible reading, albeit linguistically possible. And that's the point. A more natural reading of a text we believe is word-for-word perfect and from God is that means what it apparently says, rather than using a number of convoluted synonyms, and adding superfluous words, and leaving out words which would be needed to specify a general statement. The Qur'an doesn't only say obey the Qur'an but “obey God and the Messenger” – suggesting two different sources of speech to be obeyed.”

This was part of a much longer thread going through the arguments for the classical Sunni doctrine. I felt like commenting on this specific point about natural reading. The argument is that to read “obey God and His Messenger” as one obedience is not the natural way to read it, and while linguistically possible, is implausible.

One way to assess this claim is to think about al-tawbah, 9/3:

๏ And an announcement [adhānun] from God and His Messenger to mankind (on the) day of al-ḥaji l-akbar: that God is disassociated of al-mush'rikīn and (so) is His Messenger. So if you repent, then it is good for you. But if you turn away then know that you never escape God. And give tidings of a painful punishment to those who conceal. ๏

Notice that there is only one announcement, adhān, yet it is said to come from God and His Messenger. If the explicit mention of God and His Messenger “suggest[s] two different sources of speech to be obeyed,” how do we understand one adhān coming from them both? Did they make the adhān in unison? Or were they co-authors of the announcement?

No one interprets it like this because the natural reading is that the announcement is God’s and His Messenger delivered it. And I don'’t know of any commentators who thought this phrasing was even worth explaining. So what Evollaqi dismisses an implausible reading is the most natural one here – and arguably any alternative would be implausible. This is evident again in al-anfāl, 8/20:

๏ O you who have believed! Obey God and His Messenger and do not turn away from him [ʿanhu] while you hear. ๏

Traditionists believe it is possible to obey the speech of God but disobey the speech of the Messenger, however, the above verse doesn't seem to see it that way. It identifies both God’s as well as His Messenger’s obedience but ends in the singular pronoun, and not a dual one – “and do not turn back from him while you hear”. The pronoun in the singular is for the Messenger to whom the Believers are asked to listen to attentively.

A final thought about this part:

“A more natural reading of a text we believe is word-for-word perfect and from God is that means what it apparently says, rather than using a number of convoluted synonyms, and adding superfluous words, and leaving out words which would be needed to specify a general statement.”

As is typical in these sorts of polemics, people seem to lose track of their own arguments. Further down the thread, Evollaqi says:

“When the Qur'an says it is enough, in context what it is saying is that it is enough as a miracle – ie that it is enough to evidence the truthfulness of the Prophet saw. He doesn't need to part waters or restore sight to the blind to establish he should be followed.”

So what happened to the text means what it apparently says? The Quran never says it is “enough as a miracle” but it does say its qaṣaṣ are “a detailed explanation [tafṣīla] of all things [kulli shayin] and a guidance and mercy for a people who believe” (yūsuf, 12/111). If contextual reading allows Sunnis to opt for interpretations other than the most apparent meanings of the text, perhaps this is something others are allowed to do too?

Obviously none of this is actually about the language of the Quran. It’s more than just plausible to take ”obey God and His Messenger” as a single obedience, but this reading undermines traditional doctrine – which is what’s really at stake here.

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Tagged: #quranism #tradition #quran

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