CNN reports that there’s a brand-new Qur’an, published in the U.S. that seems intended—at least in part—to de-fang extremist Islam. (There’s a video, too; go to that and the article by clicking on the screenshot below.):
The book’s website contains endorsements by many scholars of Islam (sadly including Karen Armstrong), but also promises the following:
- A new English translation of the Quran that is accurate, accessible, and reliable in how it renders this sacred text
- A wide-ranging verse-by-verse commentary that brings together the most respected and distinguished traditions of metaphysical, spiritual, theological, and legal interpretation of the Quran within Islam
- A helpful introduction to each surah that provides an overview and background of its teachings
- Essays by fifteen internationally renowned scholars on how to read and understand the Quran and its role in shaping Islamic civilization
Several ex-Muslims, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, have argued that one way to help purge violent extremism from Islam is to convince Muslims to see the Qur’an as more allegorical, for at present the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world believe the book should be read literally and not figuratively. Another way is to show that verses that seem invidious, divisive, or brutal aren’t really that way when read in historical context. Both tactics are part of The Study Qur’an. The aim is pretty explicit:
Ten years in the making, “The Study Quran” is more than a rebuttal to terrorists, said Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Iranian-born intellectual and the book’s editor-in-chief. His aim was to produce an accurate, unbiased translation understandable to English-speaking Muslims, scholars and general readers.
The editors paid particular attention to passages that seem to condone bloodshed, explaining in extensive commentaries the context in which certain verses were revealed and written.
“The commentaries don’t try to delete or hide the verses that refer to violence. We have to be faithful to the text, ” said Nasr, a longtime professor at George Washington University. “But they can explain that war and violence were always understood as a painful part of the human condition.”
The scholar hopes his approach can convince readers that no part of the Quran sanctions the brutal acts of ISIS.
While I applaud the editors’ aims, this seems a lot like cherry-picking to me: concentrating on just those verses that seem brutal and hateful while leaving the rest alone. One could just as easily create a “Study Bible,” which explains why Job really did have to suffer needlessly, why, given history, it was okay for Abraham to intend to kill his son, and why all that genocide of the Canaanites and other tribes was justifiable homicide. The problem, with that as with the new Qur’an, is that we have no idea which reading is correct. If you go the metaphor route, even the story of Jesus could be an allegory!
And it’s even worse with the Qur’an because the hadith, the traditional sayings of Muhammed that aren’t part of the book, are many, contradictory, and often of dubious provenance, so one can cherry-pick additional Muslim scripture from those.
Here are two examples of the de-fanging in the new book:
Take, for example, verse 47:4, a text that ISIS has used to justify its brutal beheadings of its captives in Iraq and Syria. It reads:
“When you meet those who disbelieve, strike at their necks; then, when you have overwhelmed them, tighten the bonds. Then free them graciously or hold them for ransom, till war lays down its burdens. …”
Taken alone, the first sentence could be read as condoning the killing of non-Muslims wherever ISIS encounters them, whether it be an Iraqi desert or Parisian cafe.
But the context makes clear that the verse is “confined to the battle and not a continuous command,” Lumbard said, noting that the verse also suggests prisoners of war can be set free, which ISIS apparently ignores.
I’m wondering, if the context is so clear, why Muslims haven’t perceived that. Alternatively, perhaps “the battle” is seen by jihadists as a continual battle against infidels and their modernity.
Another:
One of the most controversial sections of the Quran, 4:34 is sometimes derisively called the “beat your wife” verse. It says that if men “fear discord and animosity” from their wives, they may strike them after first trying to admonish their spouse and “leave them in bed.”
“It’s obviously a difficult verse,” said Dakake, the only woman on the translation team of “The Study Quran.”
“I found it difficult when I first read it as a woman, and when people today, both men and women, try to address the meaning of the verse in a contemporary context, they can find it difficult to understand and reconcile with their own sense of right and wrong.”
But Dakake said that while reading through the reams of commentary, she found that Mohammed did not like the verse, either. In one hadith, or saying attributed the prophet, he reportedly said, “I wanted one thing, and God wanted another.”
“That was very meaningful to me,” Dekake said. “We can say, looking at this commentary, that hitting your wife, even if it is permitted in the Quran, was not the morally virtuous thing to do from the point of view of the prophet.”
Well, remember that the Qu’ran is supposed to be the actual word of Allah, spoken through the angel Gabriel and transcribed by Muhammed. So even if Muhammed didn’t like that verse, the word of God must surely take precedence, and that’s how it’s seen by many Muslims. (It’s also not clear from the CNN report whether that hadith referred specifically to the “beat your wife” verse.)
I hope this book really does represent a consensus of interpretation by scholars and isn’t just a project designed to cast the entire Qur’an in a good light by homeopathically diluting the hatred and divisiveness that seems so clear to a naive reader. And I hope that it will change minds, or at least get Muslims to see that it’s a book of its times and doesn’t need to be taken literally. After all, that’s what’s happened in many liberal Christian faiths. But somehow the Study Qur’an project seems too too contrived—too coincident with Islamic terrorism—to represent a truly objective scholarly enterprise. I hope I’m wrong, but, I fear that I agree (in part) with two critics:
Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said radicalization is often caused by a “perfect storm” of political, social, economic and religious grievances.
So Hamid said he is somewhat skeptical about what if any effect the “The Study Quran” could have on counterterrorism.
“I don’t think we should expect major changes because of some commentary and footnotes on the bottom of the page. If it results in a more nuanced, contextual interpretation of the Quran, that’s great. But it’s hard to make the jump from there” to winning a war of ideas with ISIS.
In any case, “The Study Quran” may not be universally accepted by American Muslims. Nasr is known for his work on Sufism, an esoteric branch of Islam that stresses the inner life of adherents. Already, Lumbard said, there has been some criticism of the translation by Muslims who call it “too Sufi.” That is, too philosophical and open to myriad traditions.
I’m not sure that the political and social “grievances” attitude will be the main impediment to the book’s message. Rather, it’s likely to be the tendency of Muslims, as documented by a recent Pew poll, to see the Qur’an as containing the actual words of Allah—words not subject to liberal interpretation.
The first data below are from Africa, the only place where the question was asked (they didn’t ask it in the Middle East for obvious reasons). But I find it hard to believe the figures would differ much in other majority-Muslim nations:
Also from the Pew survey:
The survey asked Muslims whether they believe there is only one true way to understand Islam’s teachings or if multiple interpretations are possible. In 32 of the 39 countries surveyed, half or more Muslims say there is only one correct way to understand the teachings of Islam.
h/t: Phil
Here’s an idea. Why not state clearly and unambiguously that these so called holy books are not what they are claimed to be. They are simply terrible old books that have no relevance to the modern world. Anyone who takes these books in anyway seriously has the potential to be a danger to themselves and everyone around them.
Unfortunately, there are not that many in the world of Islam who are prepared to consider those ideas as a remote possibility(see above polls), whether stated clearly or not. It will require a shift in the gestalt among them. Some sort of preparedness and receptivity, which I do not see happening any time soon.
But unless it requires and condones the murder of infidels and encourages the murder of almost anyone else it will not be accepted.
No, I suspect many Muslims, like most Christians, will be more than happy to accept a friendlier, humanized version of their holy text — especially if they live in a place which has been heavily influenced by Enlightenment values. The vast majority of the religious think and live in the modern world but then try to back up what they do by pulling out some theology from time to time. The average person doesn’t want to cut their neighbor’s head off (except maybe in fantasy, when they’ve backed over a rose bush or something.)
When sacred literature is updated by interpretation what often happens is that the blood lust and violence are pushed off as things God/Allah/Spirit will take care off later, so don’t worry your pretty little heads about it.
I agree. As we all know, most Muslims abhor the activities of groups like DAESH just as much as the rest of us. I think they’re crying out for Qur’anic support in opposing them.
Most conservative Christians don’t or won’t admit the truth that most of their values actually come from the Enlightenment. Islam would love a way to adopt those same values and this is one way.
It’s not the first. There are Islamic scholars in England who have done similar work. A couple of scholars from that school have opened mosques in Cape Town (South Africa) that welcome gays and where women pray alongside men.
Probably catch on in the Muslim world similar to the Jefferson Bible in Alabama.
Looking for wiggle room, I guess. This is a well meaning effort, I suppose. I can’t see how this publication will significantly affect the world’s population of Muslims any time soon.
I’m thinking pretty much the only thing that will help matters is a great deal of time. If we wait long enough (50 years?), the influence of gradually improving economic conditions and the advance of education and the spread of rational thought and information(the WWW?) might just reduce the literalists among Muslims.
In the mean time (isn’t there always a mean time?) we will have to learn to live with billions and billions of people who are not motivated by rationality and science.
Whether this new “interpretation” of the Koran is accepted will depend on the judgement of the Saudi Arabian scholars,the Turkish scholars, the Pakistani scholars,the Egyptian scholars and so on.
Unfortunately this probably means that this is not going to happen very soon.
…especially as I see no mentions of translations of their exegesis into Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi, etc., etc…
My guess is if books like that were attempted to be distributed, there would be immediate bans, burnings, etc. It wouldn’t even get out of the starting gate. So it seems like much ado about nothing.
I’ve come across Seyyed Hossein Nasr before. Here he is on evolution:
“I reject the ordinary understanding of the Darwinian theory of evolution even on scientific grounds. Let me say that at the very beginning before turning specifically to the Islamic point of view. The theory of evolution is the peg of the tent of modernism. And if it were to fall down, the whole tent would fall on top of the head of modernism. And therefore it is kept as an ideology and not as a scientific theory which has been proven. I know that this very statement that I make would be rejected by many people, but Muslims have at least to look upon this whole issue from this point of view…
“…Evolution…is not ordinary science; so if you are a professor of biology in a university, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, less so in Italy, France, and Germany, and if you oppose the theory of evolution on purely scientific grounds, you are rejected and even ejected from your position, your colleagues think you are insane, you do not get promotions, and so on.”
Link
(I also wrote about him recently on my blog here, concerning his idea that it is part of the “western materialist paradigm” to ask if the Prophet really existed. My conclusion was that if there is a western paradigm, it involves using the word paradigm!)
Interesting. I liked this:
I’m so tired of rational criticism and science being framed as old and tired by people who want to return to a shockingly radical “sense of the sacred.” I’m also checking out Warraq’s book. Thanks.
Thanks for reading and quoting!
As well as Waraq, Robert Irwin’s book Dangerous Knowledge is also worth a look. (It came out around the same time as Waraq’s and covers similar territory with similar conclusions.)
Muslim tradition says the typical error has always been to change scripture or to add something to it. The Qur’an is the final book and is protected from change. So I guess The Study Qur’an will not be greatly accected.
Unfortunately, the best thing we as atheists could probably do to help this along is to pretend to HATE this new book and spit on the scholarship, regardless of its merits. The pro-faith contingent can then entice the pious with the promise that hey, there’s no secularization here: if there were then the atheists wouldn’t object! Shiny!
Give them a common enemy to move against — like atheism — and in a few generations they’ll agree that Mohammad was probably fictional but people who don’t believe in God are untrustworthy narrow-minded nihilists who have no objective basis for morality. Progress!
Well, I suppose it is just about imaginable that a primed jihadist and martyrdom-lover might have doubts once he was presented with a more metaphorical interpretation of a certain verse: and therefore he might not commit this atrocity.
Just goes to show how fiendishly difficult and almost quixotic Maajid Nawaz’s project is. But once you get hold of European Islamists, radicalized in prisons or on the street by radical imams, if this type of thing is a way in to disarm them, then it could work. x
Now why would someone be suddenly convinced that a particular interpretation is true and what they’ve believed in all along was wrong? Unfortunately reality rarely ever works that way – especially when dealing with not-too-intelligent people, which unfortunately would be most of the human population.
Yeah, I know, madscientist, but he wouldn’t need to be convinced: he would need to have doubts raised. So that he moves from being a primed jihadist in this particular intended atrocity to being a believer in jihad who will not make himself a martyr and kill others. That’s a result of sorts: one, several or many people haven’t been killed. x
What a curious thing. Do we have a problem with english-speaking muslims? I suspect the majority of muslims who have been a problem wouldn’t be reading a text in english even though they may speak some english. The impression I get is that the book is meant for english-speaking non-muslims to look at and convince themselves that islam really isn’t the problem because it’s a Religion of Peace ™. Try telling that to the terrorists and their sympathizers – they’ll agree they belong to a Religion of Peace just before blowing something up.
Islam is indeed the religion of peace. How dare you imply that it is not. The peace of islam comes about when all the people of the book (christians and jews)are either dead or have accepted their defeat and are paying the dhimmi tax (and living as third class citizens – read the conditions; it’s all in the koran) and everyone else is dead including islamic apostates such as yazidis, sufis, shia, amadis etc. It’ll be real peaceful then with all the faithful living under one despotic khalifa.
Read it; it’s all in the koran – doG’s perfect, unalterable word.
Loads of different Study Bibles do exist, doing this kind of thing – and “explaining” all the contradictions etc. (as long as you are viewing from the “inside”). I had one called the “Spirit-filled Life Bible”, for example, which was a New King James translation (I think) plus loads of footnotes and cross-references. I think they are a necessary part of de-fanging the religion – but agree that an English-only version will have minimal impact. (Although it if made all muslims in English-speaking nations more confidently and vocally anti-Islamist – and cut down the chances of “radicalising” disaffected youths from these communities – that would not be a bad thing.)
I’m so glad you addressed this book. It’s quite example of how believers make their religions in their own image.
Is anything else even possible?
“Betteridge’s law of headlines is an adage that states: ‘Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.’ It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist, although the principle is much older.”
So says Wikipedia’s article on the topic.
In this case I think it’s spot on: those who will read The Study Quran are not those who are planning jihad; and those who are planning jihad are not those who will read The Study Quran.
Maybe … but maybe not (how’s that for equivocation?) I’ve read that one of the major tools for recruitment to ISIS is passionate apologetics directed towards the disaffected young. Muslim students who were raised inside a bland sort of cultural Islam are suddenly exposed to people who take the religion seriously — and they can tell you WHY. They’ve got books, quotes, arguments, and a idealistic cause which can sound an awful lot like scholarship to people who’ve never really heard their own religious viewpoint put forth with such vigor and conviction. Next thing you know they want to live … and perhaps die … for what they know about God. They want to be REAL Muslims.
Same thing happens with Christianity, too, of course. Zealots in cults can sometimes look like the only ones who have done any real, unbiased study of the original revelation. Why would Almighty God want lukewarm followers whose understanding of Islam is food, clothes, music, holidays, and rote recitations in a language they don’t understand?
They do kinda have a point. A healthy or even insipid background in theology — even if it’s this sort of liberalized Study Quran — might make some of this group immune.
A warning sticker can be applied to the inside cover of the Qur’an, much like we sometimes have for textbooks that teach evolution.
This is the first time I hear of such a sticker. Please elaborate!
I think Mark means this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_Advisory
I seem to recall that the Arabic version of the Koran is considered the standard. It also doesn’t seem like an English Koran would be the choice for non-English speakers.
Seeing that the editors are all oriented towards sufiism and would therefore be condemned by Daesh as apostates I think I’ll wait to see the Wahabi rebuttal (sponsored by the house of Saud) and how it is received by the ummah. In the meantime these editors may want to invest in a safe room each (like Lars Wilks) in anticipation of the inevitable fatwas.
“homeopathically diluting the hatred and divisiveness that seems so clear to a naive reader.”
Now that is fantastically cool wording.
Great job, Jerry. It’s awesome that you take the time to write about this because, while your words would likely be lost on fundamentalists, those who are starting to think non-literally may be bumped over to the side of reason.
sub
I have been tempted to comment every time that the Pew survey on the literal interpretation of the Quran appears. By a small margin, the majority of Kenyans in the coastal region (the old Coast Province) are Muslim. I must have met hundreds of them during my many visits, but I cannot recall anyone who was quickly identifiable as Muslim. Among the many thousands that I have seen, but not spoken to, only a few woman wear a headscarf, and a tiny fraction wear a chador or khimar, but never a niqab or burka. While this is hardly an unbiased sample, I am left with the very strong impression that most Muslims have a pretty pragmatic attitude to their religion. I therefore do not believe that 76% really accept a literal interpretation of the Quran, but are simply responding in a socially safe way: just as 50%+ of Britiish people will answer CoE to a question about their religion, when the effective proportion is much smaller.
Wonder what it says about Abu Lahab – peace be upon him! 😉
Neat to see that there are 15 commentaries/introductions. I wonder how much they will disagree. That in itself might prove to be useful, though real fundies won’t read an English edition, of course.