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AAR Proposal Draft Nura !1 Nura Sophia Liepsner Draft for AAR proposal (Quranic Studies) History is not a neutral ground in which events are positioned in time but forges identities and ways of being in the world, ontologies that sometimes overlap and compete with those produced by religious discursive traditions. Talal Asad thought us that the time inherent to a discursive tradition does not move linearly. The relation between past, present, and future, he argues, revolves around a specific practice and is not necessarily chronological. Within a tradition, different temporalities can exist at the same time and inform practices of people who follow its disciplinary logics. What characterises Asad’s definition of a tradition is not a secular nor a linear temporality but one that emphasizes the contemporaneity of past practices (Asad: 1993, 2003; Moumtaz: 2005; Scott: 2006). Against this backdrop, my paper analyses questions of secularism, time, and history in the field of Quranic hermeneutics in particular in the wake of colonialism and the emergence of the nation-state. In this vein, my focus will rest on major figures who pushed for projects of cultural, political, and theological reform. Key among them are Fazlur Rahman (d. 1988), Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (d. 2010), and Mohammed Arkoun (d. 2010). In line with contemporary approaches to scriptural hermeneutics, their methods of interpretation start with a historicisation of revelation (Pink: 2006). But what are the consequences this method? Scholars have argued that following this exegetical movement towards history, the meaning of the Quran is never absolute but solely dependent on the reader and her context (Pink: 2006; Mahmood: 2015). Other scholars highlight the ways in which modern Islamic thought can be subservient to Euro- American liberalism and neo-colonial projects (Mahmood: 2006; Massad: 2015; Abu Lughod: 2013). These preliminary points, lead me to the main question I seek to answer in this essay: If we accept the universal validity of the Prophet’s revelation, how can we explain that its interpretation changes through time and space? I posit that to answer this question we must pay special attention to the ways in which Quranic scholars approach the passage of history and time. As I will try to demonstrate in this paper, Rahman, Arkoun, and Abu Zayd’s historical approach does not neglect the Quran’s eternal meaning. These scholars are aware of the direct relation between the worldly and the divine, the contingent and the absolute. This paper contributes to the existing literature on modernity, Islamic reform, and Quranic exegesis. Yet, instead of analyzing Abu Zayd, Arkoun, and Rahman’s approach to tafsīr in light of Western imperialism and the (im)possibility of local resistance, my approach wishes to move beyond the Western/non-Western divide. More specifically, I study these contributions to the field of Quranic hermeneutics in light of their global audiences and the way in which they may form new ways of being in the world, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. While cautionary stances towards neo-liberal agendas are certainly warranted, this paper examines historical approaches to Quranic hermeneutics that have the potential of complicating if not destabilizing neo-liberal projects. With these considerations in mind, I argue that while the U.S. government may have found an “indigenous ally in the form of moderate or liberal Muslims” (Mahmood 2006: 329), the results of this cooperation might surprise U.S. policy makers. A critical reading of Rahman, Abu Zayd, and Arkoun’s projects reveals an effort to produce Muslim subjectivities and complicate liberal ideals of the self as described by scholars like Mahmood Mamdani (2004). This paper argues further that the ideal consumer of these Quranic scholars is neither secular nor fundamentalist/militant. Let us now turn to the hermeneutical approach of Mohammed Arkoun. How is the tension between the contingent and the absolute reflected in Arkoun’s reading of the Quran? In Rethinking !2 Islam Today (1987), Arkoun argues that God’s revelation to humanity occurred in historical time and “that there is no access to the absolute outside of the phenomenal world” (Arkoun 1987: 9). Thereby, Arkoun positions himself against the reformist thinking of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida because it limits, in his view, the study of the Quran to what he defines as a ‘primitive’ and ‘archaic mentality’ (Arkoun 1987: 2). Within reformist thinking, he explains, the Golden Age represents a utopian time to which all Muslims “are bound to go back (…) in order to achieve the spirit and the perfection shown by the Prophet, his companions, and the (…) pious ancestors” (Arkoun 1987: 7). In opposition to an idealisation of the Golden Age, he proposes a hermeneutical method that historicises revelation while being attentive to the imaginary and the mythical realm as well (Arkoun 1987: 3). Arkoun wants to eliminate both the ‘dogmatic attitudes of believers’ as well as ‘the ideological postulates of positivist rationalism’ (Arkoun 1987: 17). While Arkoun’s approach is deeply problematic for its partial embrace of Euro-American civilizational projects, he praises the hermeneutical methodologies elaborated by Islamic jurists and theologians throughout the centuries (Arkoun 1987: 17). Most interestingly, however, Arkoun does not dismiss the divine aspects of the Quran. For him, the hermeneutical key to approaching the Quran is a dialectic relationship between two strongly competitive forces: “the transcendent, the divine, ontological message and the written literature and culture derived from it” (Arkoun 1987: 17). But, if we return to the question asked in the beginning of this essay, how can we explain the validity of hermeneutical changes across time? To answer this question in more depth, let us analyze Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd humanistic approach to the Quran. In Rethinking the Qur'an (2004), Abu Zayd also argues against positivistic and elitist readings of the text. His hermeneutics approaches the Quran as a discourse in everyday life. While the contexts of reception is central to Abu Zayd’s thinking, he posits that each reading also occurs in relation to the divine text, the mushaf. Yet, despite the Quran’s eternal existence, approached hermeneutically, the text becomes adaptive to the contingent situations in which it is recited, studied, and read (Abu Zayd: 10). Abu Zayd wants to render his hermeneutics open the ‘imaginary’ realm and inclusive of people who are not scholarly trained. Similar to Arkoun, Abu Zayd criticises reformers like Ahmad Khan, al- Afghani, and Abduh for idealising the Golden Age, neglecting the tradition and distancing Quranic exegesis from the study of hadith, and approaching the Quran anachronistically (Abu Zayd: 40-58). Instead of believing in a strict temporal divide between an ideal past in which all Truth was revealed and a subsequently slow but certain decay, Abu Zayd’s conception of revelation is gradual. By highlighting the importance and legitimacy of the Islamic tradition, Abu Zayd suggests that the Quran’s meaning was not revealed in full during the Islamic Golden Age and that its meaning can be interpreted in accordance with the passing of historical time. While Abu Zayd’s position may provided a ground for converging “Muslim reformist view points and U.S. strategic interests” (Mahmood 2006: 330), this argument fails to attend to the ways in which contemporary Quranic hermeneutics “have changed the political field through their ethical and moral activism” (Mahmood 2006: 332).1 Perhaps one the most influential discussions on hermeneutics and history is found in the work of Fazlur Rahman. In Major Themes of the Qur’an (1980), Rahman situates Quranic revelation and interpretation in history. His assertion that “from the earliest days of Islam, Muslims have held that this succession of Divine Messengers came to an end with the Prophet Muhammad” (Rahman: 81), indicates his deep appreciation for the fact that revelation occurred in 1 Mahmood first made this argument in her field-changing book Politics of Piety (2005). In her article “Secularism, Hermeneutics, and Empire” she mentions this passage in a footnote but does not relate it to her general criticism of hermeneutical approaches to the Quran. !3 historical and chronological time. But is this linear chronology all that Rahman alludes to? To understand Rahman’s temporal approach to the Quran we must first untangle his conceptualization of revelation. For Rahman “the experience of revelation is spiritual in nature” (Rahman: 93). Focusing on the spiritual aspects of revelation is important because it adds an additional layer to Rahman’s approach—a layer that is arguably absent both from salafi and secular hermeneutics.2 For Rahman, “there is no doubt that the agent of Revelation to Muhammad is this Spirit” (Rahman: 96) and is, by residing in the spiritual realm, both external and internal to chronological time. It follows that because prophethood and revelation are physical but also metaphysical experiences, they operate on two temporal levels: both inside and outside of human history and its chronological developments. They exists, so to say, simultaneously in Muhammad’s eternal spirit as well as in his worldly actions. Muhammad combines both idealist and realist elements (Rahmah: 100) and is thereby situated at the intersection of heavens and earth. Through God’s revelation to him, hermeneutics and metaphysics merge. Thus, divine and worldly time are no longer separate entities but spheres that are in constant and vibrant dialogue with each other.3 By embedding these thinkers within an older tradition of Quranic exegesis (Saeed: 2006) this paper makes three interrelated points: 1) Quranic hermeneutics belongs to a ongoing intellectual tradition; 2) this tradition’s continuity produces new temporalities and forms of self; 3) thereby it bridges the divide between ‘modern’ and ‘pre-modern’ Islam (Pink: 481). I conclude this paper by restating that the Quranic hermeneutics, when embedded within an Islamic discursive tradition, can complicate secular ways of being-in-the-world.
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