The Koran

By Islam

Interpretations

1. MUSLIM EXEGESIS

From the very beginning the study of the Koran was linked to the study of Arabic grammar and lexicography. By the eighth century two schools of Arabic learning had developed at Basra and Kufa, both in modern Iraq. Scholars known as qurra', singular qari' (literally "readers") were philologians who were specialists on the text of the Koran. Several different readings on the Koran were officially accepted, although all had to be based on the 'Uthmanic codex. The correct philological interpretation of the Koran was essential to all theological speculation on the scripture, as understanding of the grammatical structure and lexical meaning of the text was prerequisite to a correct understanding and application of its teachings. A special branch of learning was devoted to Koranic exegesis, known as 'tasfir'. As well as the study of grammar and lexicography, other resources were used to elucidate the meaning of a Koranic passage. Traditions concerning the circumstances of particular revelations, or concerning the interpretation and teaching of Muhammad were regarded as particularly important, and were collected and recorded.

The correct interpretation of the Koran was doubly important to the Muslim state as not only was the Koran the ultimate authority on all religious questions, but it was also the basis of Muslim law. There are two especially renowned early works of tasfir. These are the commentary of al-Tabari (839-923), which is an encyclopaedic collection of all scholarship in the field, and the Kashshaf of Zamakhshari. This last is particularly interesting since it has gained almost canonical status, despite the heretical beliefs of the author. Zamakhshari was a Mu'tazilite, a group who sought to introduce philosophical principles from Greek rationalism into Islamic thought. They denied the doctrine that the Koran was uncreated and eternal, because this would compromise and encroach on the uniqueness and oneness of God. Instead, they asserted that the Koran was created by God, but their argument was rejected by Islamic orthodoxy.

The theological schools of medieval Islam all sought to support their doctrines with the aid of Koranic exegesis. There also developed a tradition of 'ta'wil' or allegorical interpretation of the Koran, especially in Sufi literature, in which the doctrines of Islamic mysticism are found hidden behind the literal sense of the scripture. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Islamic modernism arose, which sought to revive Islam from its state of degradation by returning to the pure and uncorrupted Islam of the "ancestors". As the oldest source of Islam, the Koran was central to modernists, and they established principles necessary for correct understanding of the text. They held that much traditional exegesis had distorted the teachings of the prophet and careful reinterpretation of the Koran, as the original source of Islam, was the only path to the truth of God. Modernists also sought to reconcile Islam with modern science. Muhammad 'Abduh, the founder of modernism in Egypt, argued that as the literal word of God, nothing in the Koran can be false or antiquated. He attempted to show that much of modern scientific understanding was already present in the Koran. For example, the jinn of sura 2:176 that cause disease are interpreted as microbes, and the words in verse 2:250 "Many a small band has, by God's grace, vanquished a mighty army. God is with those who endure with fortitude" is taken to refer to Darwin's theory of natural selection.

More recently, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, an Indian Muslim scholar, has argued that it is necessary to interpret the Koran against the background of its environment. Therefore it is essential to study the cultures and languages of ancient Arabia and of other Semitic peoples. A study of the historical circumstances in which the Koran originated will facilitate understanding of what the revelation meant to those who received it, and thus clarify the way the scripture was originally interpreted. Dr Rabar, in his study "The God of Justice"(1960), argued that, in order to elucidate the Koran, traditional exegesis and medieval dogmatics should be consulted, but above all, the Koran itself is the greatest aid to interpreting the holy word of God, and different Koranic passages should be used in comparison, in order to throw light on each other. Such ideas are rejected by Muslim orthodoxy, but they do suggest the inception of a more historical view of the Koran, which attempts to distinguish the central religious ideas from the historical remnants of a bygone age.

2. MODERN WESTERN CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE KORAN AS A HISTORICAL DOCUMENT

Occidental critical analysis of the Koran has come some way since Gibbon labelled the work an "incoherent rhapsody of fable". Nevertheless, the continued treatment of the Koran as a historical document, rather than a holy text has meant that most western scholarship remains unacceptable to the majority of Muslims. The following are summaries of some of the more thought-provoking, if contentious, of recent scholarship.

a. JOHN WANSBOROUGH

Publication: Qur'anic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation, (1977)

Wansborough took a controversial stance by arguing that the Koran grew out of sectarian controversies over a long time - perhaps 200 years - in the early history of Islam, and was projected back onto an Arabian point of origin. Moreover, he proposes that a definitive text was not achieved until as late as the ninth century. This argument rests on Wansborough's theory that Islam emerged as a coherent religion only when it came into contact with Rabbinic Judaism during the course of the Arabic conquests of the Near East. In support of his theories, Wansborough points to the treatment of narrative material from Judeo-Christian scripture within the Koran which, he says, is not so much reformulated as merely referred to, in a manner which presupposes familiarity. He dismisses the possibility that the Arabs could have come under the Rabbinic influence from the Jewish population within Arabia, which was centered on the Hijaz (the area of western Arabia from which Islam originated) as references to Arabia in sixth and seventh century Rabbinic literature are, he says, negligent.

Wansborough sees the style of the Koran as highly polemical, and thus evidence that it was composed in a very sectarian atmosphere. i.e. within the cultural, ethnic and religious diversity of the conquered Near East, in which Arabs, Jews, Samaritans, Zoroastrians and Christians of Chalcedonian, Nestorian and Jacobite denominations were thrown under the same rule. Within this atmosphere, it is suggested, the conquering Arabs felt the need for a Heilsgeschichte or "salvation history" to legitimise their political ascendancy. In Wansborough's model, the early Muslim community, under the influence of Rabbinic accounts, took Moses as an exemplum and thus created the portrait of Muhammad, gradually, and in response to the needs of the religious community. As Muhammad was based on a Mosaic model, there arose a need for a holy scripture as testimony to his prophethood, hence the Koran was created.

Wansborough also cites certain negative evidence for a late date for Koranic development. He takes the studies of Joseph Schact on the early development of legal doctrine within the Muslim community to demonstrate the Muslim jurisprudence is largely not derived from the Koran. He also sees significance in the absence of any reference to the Koran in the Fiqh Akbar I. The latter is a mid eighth century document in which a statement of the Muslim faith is made in the face of sectarianism. Wansborough finds it inconceivable that this document would not have made reference to the Koran had it been in existence, as the Koran, being the word of God, represents the ultimate authority and orthodoxy of Islam.

Furthermore, Wansborough submits the text of the Koran to a very technical analysis, with the aim of showing that rather than being deliberately edited by a few men, the Koran was "the product of an organic development from originally independent traditions during a long period of transmission."

b. PATRICIA CRONE, MICHAEL COOK

Publication: Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World

During the decade 1977-1987 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook published their theories on early Islam which were even more radical than Wansborough. They rejected wholesale the entire Islamic version of early Islamic history, and argued instead that the Arab conquests and the formation of the Caliphate should be understood in terms of a movement of peninsular Arabs, inspired by Jewish messianism, to try to reclaim the Promised Land and particularly Jerusalem. Like Wansborough they suggest that Islam only emerged as an autonomous religion and culture within the process of a long struggle for identity among the disparate peoples yoked together by the conquests. They argue that since the Islamic historical tradition was the product of conflicting polemic and retrojective reference to a fictitious past it was necessary to look beyond the Islamic tradition for less partisan views on Islamic history.

In formulating their theories, Cook and Crone have studied the non-Muslim sources contemporary to early Islam: from the Byzantine empire, Syria and Armenia. These testify to the existence of the man Muhammad, the fact that he was a merchant, the importance of Abraham in his teaching, and they also attach significance to the date 622AD. These sources do not, however, include any mention of Mecca, and more importantly, none of the Koran until they late seventh century. The Armenian chronicler Bishop Sebeos describes the Jews as allies of the Arabs in their conquest of the Fertile Crescent and a Greek source tells the same story, adding that an Arab prophet was proclaiming the coming of the Jewish messiah. Sebeos understood that Muhammad preached that Arabs were the descendants of Abraham, and as such claimed a right to the Promised Land. The notion of Abraham as the first and most pure monotheist, which was fundamental to Muhammad's teaching is also to be found in the Jewish apocryphal work, the Book of Jubilees, which dates from c.140-100BC. Moreover, the fifth century Christian Sozomenus, describes the presence of Ishmaelite monotheism in Arabia, where some Arab tribes had adopted Jewish practices.

Cook and Crone also point to indications in the orientation of early mosques and in Christian literary sources that early Muslims prayed in a direction much further north than Mecca suggesting that the early Muslim sanctuary was not located here, and that Jerusalem was a more likely site. They further suggest that the Hijra does not refer to an exodus from Mecca to Medina, as Arab tradition holds, but rather refers to an emigration from Arabia to the Promised Land. Cook and Crone argue that Mecca was chosen as the site of the Islamic sanctuary only later, in order to relocate the early Muslim history within Arabia, and so give Islam a wholly Arabic identity in an attempt to break with Judaism. As regards the Koran, they see a lack in overall structure, frequently obscure language and content, repetition and perfunctory links of disparate material, and this as evidence that the document is the "product of the belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of traditions". In a detailed analysis of the Koran they attempt to show an assimilation of Rabbinic Judaism, with Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hellenism and Neoplatonism. They also see a pronounced Samaritan influence. The unity of God and his absolute holiness and righteousness is a constant theme in Samaritan thinking, and Cook and Crone draw a parallel between the Muslim "There is no God but Allah!" and the ever recurring refrain in Samaritan liturgies "There is no God but the one!".