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
