92 Current Islam Faces its Tradition

Mohammed Arkoun

The original version of this essay was published in French in Aspects d'Islam (Brussels: Facultes Universitaires, Saint Louis, 1985). An English translation appears for the first time in this volume, since this study sheds light on the concept of' 'rupture" introduced by the author and debated in this seminar.

"What is there to keep men from believing, of the Tradition and traditions in the Islamic criticism, is treated as having no effect at now that the Good Way has become appa­ domain. Finally, we will strive on the basis all on the absolute equation: Islam = Au­ rent to them, and from imploring the of our findings to rethink the notion of Isla­ thentic Tradition. The sum total of beliefs, forgiveness of their Lord, except their refus­ mic Tradition in its totality. practices, institutions, ethico-juridical al to admit that the traditional lot (sunna) of norms, and texts produced and recognised the Ancients will reach them or that they as Tradition by the community (umma) only will be put face to face with Torment?" serve to show that Islam is defined and will­ - Qur'an 18:55 I - The Concepts of Islam and ed by God, according to this approach. The Tradition Tradition is thus the incarnation of the "reli­ "According to the tradition (sunna) ofthe gion of Truth" (din al-haqq) in history; it is a Messengers that We have sent before you, The debate about tradition is for the most force of sanctification and transcendentalisa­ and you will find no change in Our Tradi­ tion (tanzih) ofthe space-time in which the tion" part already open in the Qur'an: the whole Qur'anic message acts as an overturning life of the Community is enacted. In this - Qur'an 17:77 "modernity" with respect to the beliefs and way, the Caliph, the Sultan, and the Amir It is no simple matter to speak of Islam traditional practices allowed by "the - although essentially secular - have be­ facing its Tradition in the difficult historical fathers" or "the ancestors" (aba' used sixty­ come sacred to quite different degrees. A circumstances of Muslim societies since the three times; al-awwalun, "the ancients", like conception explains why every Com­ 1950s. Leaving aside the difficulties of thirty-eight times). The preceding Arab munity member is treated as the immediate speaking adequately, without reductionism tradition is entirely portrayed as belonging contemporary of all members past, present, or the blind equation of the Tradition with a to the realm of ignorance, disorder, injus­ and future. This approach grants authority great scriptural religion, we, in fact, face tice, error, paganism, and oppression - in a to the spiritual ethos of the Tradition which four possible approaches, illustrated by four word, "the darkness of the jahiliyya". The nourishes the feeling of community identity, concurrent forms of discourse: Tradition - with a capital "T" because it is raises the hopes of believers, and assigns an eschatological and ontological finality to 1) Current Islamic discourse, which tends to divine, unmodifiable by man, and the ex­ pression of Eternal Truth - after twenty concrete historical behaviour, all the while dominate all the others by its political power refusing to integrate historicity with all of and great social and psychological scope. It years of struggle at Mecca and Madina, these effects. It is thus radically opposed to is deeply rooted in the mythical dimension seeks to enter a hostile socio-cultural field the "scientific" attitude that, in contrast, of the Tradition while unwittingly secularis­ and becomes, precisely, Islamic Tradition. takes into account only "facts" (names, ing the religious contents of that Tradition. Must we, in consequence, designate the no­ events, dates, textual statements and the 2) Classical Islamic discourse, which ex­ tion of Tradition from the beginning of like) that are verifiable according to the pro­ plains the Tradition in the period of its being Islam onwards with a capital "T" because it cedures of historical criticism. formed and fixed in authentic texts. is the only "orthodox" expression of the only Tradition received by the Community? The second approach consists of leaving 3) Orientalist discourse, which applies to Or, is it appropriate to redefine Islam as one open the concepts of Islam and tradition the forming and fixing stage a philological socio-historical process among others, which because they are subject to the incessant and historical critique, predominantly histori­ has resulted in the formation of a tradition changes that history imposes. This is a mat­ cist and positivist and which belongs to the termed "Islamic" , but always coincident ter of integrating, in analysis as in concrete nineteenth century. with others, or modified by successive "in­ practice, the spiritual ethos of Islam­ 4) The discourse of the sciences of man and novations" or "modernities"? Tradition with its historicity. This concern is society, which aims to rework the preceding new in Islamic thought; indeed, it goes The first approach corresponds to that of the beyond the criticism of chains of authorities three to emphasise in each instance those current Islamic discourse of movements questions that are repressed as unthinkable and hadith texts as conceived and practised termed "Islamist", but, more generally, to by the most prominent traditionists (muhad­ or "unthought", and, thus, to make possible all reformist discourse (islah). According to dithun). How does religion achieve form, a current critical revival of the problem of this view, Islam is entirely contained in the continuity, and consistency in a social body the Tradition and traditions in Islam. Qur'an as the Prophetic tradition (hadith) and in a more or less rapid social progress? To deal with both the thought and the un­ has explained it. That this tradition was This question arises as soon as we consider made the object of oral transmission and thought that have accumulated in Islamic religion from the angle of the tradition that then written during the first three centuries Tradition for fourteen centuries, we will be­ is its expression. From this perspective, gin by examining the concepts of Islam and Hijra, that it consequently results from a Islam is never concluded; it must be rede­ tradition. We will then describe the situation complex socio-historical process subject to fined in each socio-cultural context and at Current Islam Faces its Tradition 93

each historical phase. It comprises, never­ Let us take a closer look at the notion of why the two terms apply equally well to theless, the following stable constituent ele­ tradition. The arguments, discussions, and secular information from history and litera­ ments: writing of the first two centuries of the Hi­ ture (adab) as to religious traditions that 1) The Qur' anic corpus (mushaf) ; jra, in order to assert the notion of Prophetic touch in particular the Qur'an and the tradition (sunnat al-nabi) against local cus­ hadith. 2) The various texts of traditions and juris­ toms or even other traditions actually going prudence; This indicates that the gathering of informa­ back to the companions of the Prophet tion about the Qur'an, the sira (biography of 3) The five canonical obligations and the (sahaba) or the followers (tabi'un), put into Muhammad), and the hadith was accom­ ritual of their performance; circulation a technical vocabulary often plished in a cultural climate in which secular muddled by inconsistent usage. One will re­ 4) The spiritual ethos common to all of the objectives - such as poetry, political his­ collect in particular the terms: sunna, kha­ faithful and characteristic of the Tradition. 4 tory, maghazi or military campaigns and bar, athar, sama', naql, riwaya, hadith. economic facts - were as important as reli­ The stabilising of these elements took time: All these terms had a standard meaning in gious ones. The Umayyad and then the this is what I call the socio-historical process Arabic linguistic usage before Islam; they Abbasid state needed these akhbar (plural of the formation of the Tradition. We will were worked into the new semantic context of khabar) in order to forge both an "ortho­ also see that, as a matter of fact, the seman­ created by the Qur'an and the experience of doxy" and a cultural tradition equally indis­ tic stabilisation of the Qur'an and the Madina in order to designate specifically a pensable for consolidating the legitimacy Prophetic traditions is impossible insofar as tradition, at once religious and cultural, in and unity of "Islamic" power. it is a matter of living tradition. By the latter the process of formation. I mean of texts by which the faithful live , This official aspect of the forming and fixing producing history and being unendingly re­ Sunna is used in the Qur'an in relation to of an Islamic Tradition is essential for under­ produced by it. One of the functions of the God to designate the customary manner of standing three consequences that are not Tradition is to furnish the necessary refe­ acting towards peoples who lived in error equally addressed by Islamic thought: the rents in order to secure unanimity about when the prophets transmitted the Revela­ splintering of the Tradition into Sunni and certain readings of the sacred texts, which is tion. More generally, sunna designates the Shi'ite; the suppression, at least in theory, to say that the unity of Islam ideally claimed customary behaviour of a group; this is why by the science of usul al-fiqh, of all local by the believers occurs progressively in the sunna introduced by Muhammad only traditions deemed non-Islamic; and the history! on the basis of the four necessary gradually and with difficulty gains recogni­ weakness and discontinuity of a theology of referents enumerated above.2 tion over local customs. In existing docu­ the Tradition. mentation, the first use of the expression Theologically, one can oppose this approach We shall return later to these three points. sunna al-nabi appears only about 80/700 with to the famous verse "Today I have brought Let us again recall two important terms tied the celebrated Caliph 'Umar b. ' Abd al- to perfection for you your religion and com­ to the notion of tradition in Islam: namely , Aziz (d. 99/717). Another step is taken by pleted My favour; I have chosen for you bid'a, or innovation, and taqlid, or imita­ Shafi'i (d. 204/820), who pronounces the Islam as your religion". (Qur'an 5:3) tion. The latter involves scholastic reproduc­ sunna, as the sum of authentic hadith, the tion of norms and teachings defined by the The reading of this verse - as of the whole second "objective" source (asl) of Religious founding doctors of theologico-juridical Qur'an - depends on the role we accord Law (shari'a) after the Qur'an. schools, such as Malik b. Anas (d. 179/795); historicity in deciphering the entire period of The notion of a textual body of traditions Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767); Shafi'i; and Ibn Revelation and prophetic action. 3 transmitted (naql, riwaya) according to reg­ Hanbal (d. 2411855) for the Sunnis; Ja'far Let us reiterate that historicity here is not to ulated procedures thus acquires a decisive al-Sadiq (d. 148/765); and Ibn Babuya for be confused with the purely accidental importance, which culminates in the ela­ the Shi'ites; and Ibn Ibad and Jabir b. Zayd circumstances of the Revelation that the boration of the great and so-called authentic al-Azdi (d. 1031721) for the Kharijites. classical exegetes designated by the name of (al-sahih) texts of Bukhari (d. 256/870) and The more the Tradition is identified with the asbab al-nuzul. If chronologically the Re­ Muslim (d. 2611875) for the Sunnis, and of body of commandments and prohibitions velation is effectively brought to a close by Kulayni (or al-Kulini) (d. 329/940) and Ibn (awamir and nawahi), defined in the the death of the Prophet, it is still the case Babuya (d. 3811991) for the Shi'ites. 5 Khabar Qur'an, the hadith, and the canonical corpus that its exegesis, explanation, and transla­ and athar are more general terms for desig­ juris, the greater the barrier against "innova­ tion into ritual and ethico-juridical norms nating every statement or trace that conveys tions" that can be "traditionalised", that is, continue into our day; it is by the work of information. integrated into the system of the Tradition the individual self on itself and under the Any bit of information, narrative, or news with the assistance of the methodology of pressure of history, that the Community can be designated by khabar or athar; this is brings about Islam as living Tradition. 94 Current Islam Faces its Tradition

the usul al-fiqh. There has thus always been and Kharijite, each of which developed Only one group, put three times in succes­ more or less live tension (it is very strong greater or lesser differences from the others. sion before the Divine Message, is capable today) between sunnalbid' a and, correspon­ Heresiographic literature bears clear witness of grasping it and remaining rigorously faith­ dingly, taqlidJijtihad, that is, between sub­ to the multiplicity of groups, communities ful to it. mission to the authority of the Tradition and and sects (milal, nihal, firaq) that appeared 2) Truth is one like the Divine Message and rational effort to recognise and promote during the first five centuries of the Hijra. the group that grasps it. Thus, there can be "good innovation" , or bid' a hasana. This Even when the two great orthodoxies, Sunni but one True Religion and one Authentic means that in a cultural context where atti­ and Shi'ite, have their separate triumphs, Tradition expressing this Religion. tude and historical criticism are weak, the one with the Seljuks and the other with the scriptural Tradition becomes a force that Safavids, very long-lived local traditions 3) The Companions ofthe Prophet ("like sanctifies and mythologises the founding managed to survive in the setting of religious me and like you") are the first generation of period in which all Truth is centered on the brotherhoods. a spiritual community that reproduces itself rules of conduct and human belief: that is strictly within the Accepted Tradition. As a It stands to reason that each orthodoxy de­ result, successive generations are rigorously what has in fact happened in Islam since the nies to concurrent movements participation 3rd/9th to 5th/11th centuries. We shall con­ "contemporary" regarding the Salvation in the Authentic Tradition. The framework, promised to all. sider how one might revive today a thinking traditionally accepted as theological process and a search that has been long neg­ although in reality exclusively polemic, in 4) In these conditions, being "contempor­ lected. which the battles of Sunnism against the ary" means: "heresies" take place is determined by a • The existence of homogeneous and un­ very commonly cited hadith. varying semantic field within which all II - Tradition and Traditions in the "The source of our subject", writes Ibn transmitters and receiver-actualisers of the Islamic Domain 'Arabi, for example, "is the tradition related Message and its fruition in the Tradition by Ibn 'Vmar: The Messenger of God has move without possible disagreement. said, 'The children of Israel are divided into • The unequivocal semantic character of Just as there is but one Islam - willed by seventy-one sects: all of them will go to Hell "objective" texts, transmitted and ade­ God as the Religion for all men -likewise except one. Those born of Jesus son of Mary quately explained via the exegeses re­ there can be but one Tradition faithfully number seventy-two: all will go to Hell ex­ ceived in the Tradition. expressing and perpetuating this Islam. Such cept one. My Community itself will be di­ • That any sort of actualisation of the Tradi­ is the constant claim of orthodoxy, whether vided into seventy-three sects: all will go to tion issues from "objective" texts, in the Sunni, Shi'ite, or Kharijite. Hell except one'. They asked him, 'What most varying historical and social con~ Christianity and Judaism have likewise im­ then is this unique (saved sect), 0 Messen­ texts, without these contexts in turn affect­ posed the supremacy of the Scriptural Tradi­ ger of God?'. He replied, 'Islam, that is the ing the Tradition. tion, limiting or eliminating concurrent Community (jama'a) of Muslims who will be • That each statement of Tradition refers to traditions that did not benefit from two like me and like you' ".6 a behaviour-Model ordered by God or essential supports, State and Scripture. His­ already demonstrated by the Prophet dur­ The underlying assumptions of this passage torically dated, each Tradition so consti­ ing his apostolic life (whence the import­ have in effect governed the three orthodox tuted nevertheless claims a supra-historical ance of the sira). There is perfect congru­ versions of Muslim opinion up to the present character because of being rooted in Revela­ ence between the statement and the con­ day. It is therefore a good idea to explain tion and expressing the transcendence crete referents in expected conduct, just as them in order to show that common assump­ thereof. there is direct congruence between each tions have nevertheless produced systems of statement and the behaviour of each of Historical reality does not confirm this representation sufficiently at variance to the faithful, independent of time and theological claim. At the Prophet's death in render unthinkable the revitalisation of Isla­ place. 111632, several alternative versions of tradi­ mic consciousness by a critical rereading of • That there is no doubt about the authen­ tion were possible in terms of the Qur'an, 7 the three traditions. ticity of the accounts that transmit the ini­ the Experience of Madina, and the socio­ tial Message and their actualisation in Liv­ cultural conditions of Arabia and the sur­ ing Tradition; the companions - in the rounding countries. Three alternatives manner of Christ's disciples - received a asserted claims in the course of the first cen­ The Organising Assumptions of Orthodoxy special charisma that shelters them from tury. Through bloody struggles and heated error or deviation when it comes to pre­ controversies there progressively emerged These assumptions include the following: serving the Message. the three great orthodoxies: Sunni, Shi'ite, 1) The division among men is irremediable. Current Islam Faces its Tradition 95

It is apparent that these postulates are not large part to nourish the tradition that is Let us correct in advance any simplistic no­ common only to Muslims; they are found to called Sunni by instituting the official corpus tion that our opposition is only between a an equal degree among all peoples of the of the Qur'an (mushaf) under the Caliph Sunni tradition tied to official power and a Book (ahl al-kitab), as a very orthodox work 'Uthman, as well as the collective memory Shi'ite tradition sworn to contest this fait of Y. Congar testifies. 8 How, then, do we with its religious, juridical, and historiog­ accompli. It is impossible to reconstruct here explain the existence of theological and raphic referents. This is why it is so difficult a complete account of all the intellectual psychological schisms? This question brings today to disentangle the religious contents of movements that for five centuries enriched us back to the constituent elements of any the Qur'an from the secular ones: all the the debate about Islamic tradition and all tradition and to the process of their being forms of power that have appeared in Islam the problems connected with it. Let us only combined. since 111632 have exploited this confusion of recall another significant schism that The Sunnis appeal to the sunnat al-nab/, jurisdiction in order to gain legitimacy (The appeared very early, between the tradition­ while the Shi'ites speak of the sunnat al­ process asserts itself still more strongly in the ists dedicated to the collecting of authentic bayt, or Tradition of the members of the current powers born of military caste or the hadith and their literal interpretation (in par­ family of Muhammad. While the former religious setting, as in Iran). ticular the Hanbalite line) and the ahl al­ piously gather the hadith transmitted by the With the exception of the short reign of' Ali ra'y, who allowed that reason might validate first three Caliphs, qualified by them as (36/656-411661), the Shi'ites were in the personal opinion (ra'y) in matters of legal orthodox, the latter abide by the traditions opposition and had to undergo frequent qualification (hukm, in the Hanafite line). by' Ali, the fourth Caliph, and his descen­ persecution until the advent of the Fatimids As for the Shi'ites, the Fatimid State, and dants, all of whom are deemed to possess a in the Maghrib (297/909) and the Buyids in later the Safavid State in Iran, involved an particular charisma. Neither of them takes Baghdad (334/945) They had time to de­ official use of the Tradition and the law, like into account the actual political and psycho­ velop a tragic vision, one inseparably reli­ that in the Sunni environment. cultural conditions within which is accom­ gious and secular, of history. In his lifetime, We are consequently entitled to say that plished, over generations, the mythical and Muhammad had explicitly entrusted to 'Ali beyond distinctions of circumstantial and imaginary crystalising of such secular events and his descendants the charismatic power ideological import, there are grounds for as the succession of the Caliphs known as and the temporal charge to watch over, until thorough study of the schism, anthro­ orthodox, the assassination of 'Ali and his the end of earthly history, the integrity of the pological in nature, between mythical and son Husayn, the persecution of the Khari­ revealed message. This meant integrity con­ historiographic (or only historical at the jites and Alids by the Umayyad Caliphs, of cerning the transmission of the texts and particular stage that concerns us) conscious­ the Umayyad Caliphs by the Abbasid traditions (ct. the disputes about the mushaf ness; between mythical and logo-centric dis­ Caliphs and the like. The religious reading and the compilation of the hadith); the ex­ course; between symbol, sign and even of secular events erases their political and egesis of their contents in order to elaborate cultural sign; between imagination and dis­ social forces or transforms them into sup­ the law; and the rigorous application of the cursive reason; and between metaphorical ports for mythical constructions that enrich law by a just Guide (Imam). 9 and literal meaning. the Tradition. In contrast, the Orientalists' We can see that the split between Sunni and Everything that has just been said concerns historicist reading from the nineteenth cen­ Shi'ite traditionslO can be correctly characte­ the phase of formation and stabilisation of tury onwards displaces the symbols and rised neither in purely historical terms nor in the classical forms of the Tradition. What myths to a domain of legend or popular exclusively theological ones. Only semiotic happened to this in the long period of what exaggeration, in order to retain only those analysis, cultural anthropology, and the is termed taqlid, or the repetition of norms, facts that are duly localised in concrete time philosophy of the language can attain the values, and beliefs set by the Guides who and space. ultimate goals of sorting out an opposition founded schools (a'imma mujtahidun)? We We can nevertheless observe, in this connec­ until now principally addressed by historicist can verify the previously noted existence of tion, an essential difference between the history (offered by Orientalist science), or a solidarity between State, Scripture, and Sunni and Shi'ite processes of producing the by dogmatic theology (offered by the believ­ Orthodox Tradition sustained by the official Tradition. The Sunnis have in actuality al­ ers in the two camps), or by a pietistic culture. Indeed, each time a great power ways been the side in power; they have phenomenology (offered by the work of manages to take over, as in the cases ofthe accepted this political fait accompli whether Henri Corbin and certain followers). We Seljuks, Fatimids, and Safavids, and the first it resulted from consultation (shura), as in will come back to the methodological and Ottomans, the Orthodox Tradition main­ the Caliphate of Madina, or from acts of epistemological priority of semiotic analysis, tains supremacy over local traditions and force, as in the case of the Umayyads and both for uniting different points of view and checks the forces of innovation. The 'ulama Abbasids. The decisions of the Caliphs in for getting beyond the inherited interpreta­ keep watch on doctrinal rectitude, and the office and their administrations helped in tions of tradition. judicial administration applies the shari' a. When, on the other hand, central power 96 Current Islam Faces its Tradition

weakens (as with the Ottomans and their But, how are we to rethink Tradition in satellites from the eighteenth century on, positive terms that is, enabling it via con­ and in Morocco and Iran), Maraboutic structive criticism to fulfill new functions in a dynasties (roughly, dynasties based on saint­ socio-historical context radically changed in ly lineages) take the place of the failing State the last thirty years?13 Doubtless, we do not in regions that are generally only partially on the rise, aided by disparate elements re­ have to worry inordinately about the fate of Islamicised, as in the case of Maraboutism in trieved from a past that is discontinuous, the Tradition: it will always survive the most North Africa. We then witness the revivi­ mythologised, or prescribed by the Western radical criticism and the most brutal revolu­ fication of very old local traditions covered model of development. Muslim societies live tion, because, as a mainspring of unity and by scraps of Islamic Tradition interpreted in an era of institutional, industrial, agra­ continuity, it has over the centuries forged and adapted by the holy founder of the rian, and cultural revolutions that in the the collective sensibility and memory. That dynasty. 11 The colonial phenomenon West have been spread over nearly four cen­ must not impede a constant effort to pass aggravates this evolution, freezing the di­ turies, but that are condensed in brief beyond reductionist theories and in­ verse local traditions that have served as periods in Muslim societies. In this context appropriate analyses. of crisis and structural upheaval, the Tradi­ systems of security and refuges of identity We cannot start from a theological defini­ tion has an irreplaceable function of sup­ until the recent period of national liberation. tion, because Islamic thought, as we have plying stability, security, and legimitacy; but It is important to understand that the Islam seen, very quickly favoured a framework of this contribution, vital for the whole social to which Islamist movements today appeal is polemics that was designed to uphold a kind body, effectively shelters the Tradition from characterised by a splintered, scholastic, sta­ of reflection that was exclusively pre­ all critical analysis or objective evaluation. tic, and repetitive Tradition rather than by occupied with deepening the faith. It is Today, we can less than ever open records the dynamic and open Tradition, highly cap­ essential to create the possible conditions for that were closed in the third and fourth cen­ able of integration, that corresponded to the a theology of the Tradition. We must there­ turies on the subjects of the mushaf, the golden age of the Caliphal State. Hence, fore borrow current ways of thinking great collections of hadith, the Islamic cor­ Islam of the Maghrib is strictly Malikite, opened up by the sciences of man and socie­ pus juris, usul ai-din, usul al-fiqh, and ex­ while Saudi Islam adheres to the Hanbalite ty. This being first a matter of reading the egesis. tradition, and Turkish Islam to the Hanafite. Scriptures (Qur'an and hadith), we will be­ This situation justifies the historical and gin by showing why it is advisable to base theological reconstruction of Islamic Tradi­ research on semiotics. We will then open the tion in its totality, the conditions of which III - Rethinking Islamic Tradition historical and sociological record, but from we will define further. the perspective of a larger inquiry into the in Its Totality Let us underscore at the outset that there is anthropology of tradition and modernity. a double action of nationalising the Tradi­ On the basis of the information thus Rethinking Islamic Tradition today is an in­ reunited, we may justifiably undertake in­ tion and appropriating it for the State. The tellectually urgent and necessary act, politi­ new states in their quest for legimitacy rely quiry on the new status of the theological cally and culturally destabilising and psycho­ attitude. on the Islamic heritage for consolidating logically and socially delicate. We are in fact their power and building national unity, in obliged to uncover, much more clearly than It goes without saying that such an itinerary the sense of the positivist nationalisms of the did classic criticism, the ideological func­ cannot be followed to its end; it will be a nineteenth-century Europe and no longer of tions, semantic manipulations, cultural dis­ matter, in this first effort, of establishing the the umma of spiritual dimensions. This is a continuities, and intellectual inconsistencies necessity that Islamic thought must free it­ secularising of the Tradition without naming that come together to delegitimise what over self from tradition-repetition and from tradi­ it as such. On the other hand, economic centuries we have been given to perceive tion-constraints in order to recover or find a practices, political or juridical institutions, and live as the authentic expression of Di­ tradition that safeguards the richness sug­ the educational system, and the official vine Will manifested in the Revelation. To gested in the following definition: ideology (such as socialism) all get tradi­ rethink Islamic Tradition is to violate official "Tradition carries with it more than ideas tionalised, the whole overlaid with an "Isla­ prohibitions past and present, and the social capable of logical form: it embodies a life mic" appearance with the help of traditional censure that conspires to keep off limits the that includes at the same time sentiments, vocabulary. 12 unthinkable questions that were asked at the thoughts, beliefs, aspirations, and actions Such is the last historical embodiment of the early phase of Islam, but inquiry into which Individual and collective effort can draw Tradition. The outside observer speaks of a was closed off with the triumph of the offi­ from it indefinitely without exausting it "resurgence of Islam", while it is mainly cial orthodoxy that was based on the classic Consequently, it implies the spiritual com­ ideologically makeshift operations that are texts. munion of souls that feel, think, and will in Cunent Islam Faces its Tradition 97

the unity of a like patriotic or religious ideal; This cultural object has been turned into a and totally true knowledge. "God taught and by the same token, it is a condition of living subject, historically active through the Adam all the names". By these names­ progress in so far as it permits some bits reading-participation of the believers. By collected, memorised, and assimilated­ from the ingot of never-completely-coinable the process of selection, of decontextualisa­ one enters "the Religion of Truth". This truth to be passed from Implicit Living to tion, of recontextualisation, of retrospective definition, the keystone of later theological Explicit Knowledge; for tradition - well­ and prospective projection, of literal or constructions, asserts a relationship of spring of unity, continuity, and fecundity, esoteric interpretation, and of semantic or thought to language that modern linguistics and at the same time beginning, anticipa­ mythical amplification, the readings of be­ compel us to reconsider. tory, and final- precedes every construc­ lievers indefinitely go on creating secondary We will take for granted the transfer tive synthesis and outlives every reflective cultural objects, while being removed from brought about, in this regard, by recent analysis". 14 the initial object due to its linguistic, histor­ semiotic research: what supports com­ ical, or socio-cultural connection with a sing­ munication is not "true" knowledge that le space-and-time. The sum total of these bears on objects - objective referents of operations constitutes living tradition. The 1. The priority of the semiotic approach words in the language - but, rather, the empirical effectiveness of daily life bears on reciprocity of perspectives established be­ the cognitive aspects of the human condi­ tween interlocutor-protagonists sharing the It is now well established that semiotic tion. To paraphrase M. Blondel, Implicit same framework of perception and of repre­ analysis requires an indispensable exercise Living expends effort in order to gain access sentations, or mental images to which the of intellectual self-discipline, a quality all the to Explicit Knowledge. Thus, the unthought linguistic signs refer. Tradition takes form at more precious when it comes to reading accumulates in living tradition. just the moment when the members of a texts that for generations have forged indi­ How do we get back to the initial object in group (such as the first nucleus of believers, vidual and collective sensibility and imagina­ its genesis, its constituent parts and its own called mu 'minun, around Muhammad at tion. We learn to introduce a methodologic­ determining factors? This return to the Mecca and then Madina) gain access, aided al distance vis-a-vis "sacred" texts (the source is a leitmotif of the Tradition, but it by a foundation-laying account, to a com­ quotation marks are an expression of this involves returning to the mythical founding mon frame of perception and representa­ distance) without pronouncing any of those age, a space-and-time transfigured by the tion. Semiotically speaking, all of the Tradi­ theological or historical judgments that im­ traditional readings and modes of be­ tion - and every tradition - functions as a mediately block communication. This is haviour Semiotics aspires to a summary cri­ foundation-laying account perpetually en­ what Orientalist historical criticism on the ticism that at once goes beyond both the riched by the significant experiences of the subject of the Qur'an and the hadith has object that is read and all the second objects group or the community 17 never understood, and it continues to be that are produced by the Tradition. How do unaware of the semiotic and anthropological The oneness of Truth and the subsequent the signs used in the texts signify? What approach, as is attested by the recent work unequivocal nature of meaning as presented linguistic mechanisms are used to produce of G.H.A. Juynboll 15 in the Qur'an do not have the same signifi­ this meaning and not another? For whom, cance as in the theological systems con­ The text that are the point of departure and and in what conditions, dQes this particular structed via the logical principles of Aris­ the inexhaustible source of the Tradition meaning arise? totelianism. In the latter, they nourish nos­ offer themselves as a perfectly defined cultu­ These questions involve neither the revealed talgia for the Absolute, the One, Unity, Jus­ ral object, definitively closed on themselves character of statements, nor their sacred tice and Eternity in terms of dynamistic uto­ since the community received them; hal­ charge, nor the results of their spiritual pia like the Platonic line. In the former they lowed as the only collections that are com­ meaning for the believers. Instead, they con­ command a rigid system of beliefs and unbe­ plete, authentic, and transmitted according cern the qualifications and functions of liefs. Addressing a greater number, the to an ideal chain of authorities (isnad) or meaning as modalities of significance, the Tradition tends to function like the former witnesses of the Revealed Truth, invariably cognitive status of which must be established model, rejecting in the name of orthodoxy in the following sequence: in a comprehensive approach to everything both the plurality of meanings put forth by God that has meaning. the exegeses and the various schools and the potential meanings not yet made actual by ~ It turns out that the texts we read are not 1) Muhammad~ the Companions~ the preoccupied with distinguishing knowing new readings of the Scriptures. I have Followers ~ the scholar-initiators ~ the already shown how the modern treatment of from believing16 Instead, they teach that it worthy receivers (the Sunni path) metaphor, symbol, and myth authorise is first necessary to believe - to open one's readings of the Qur'an quite different from 2) Muhammad ~ the Imams ~ the receiv­ heart (in the Biblical and Qur'anic sense)­ all those bequeathed by the exegetic ers ~ the marji' al-taqlid, or doctrinal au­ in order to gain access to perfect, complete, thority (the Shi'ite path) tradition. IS 98 Current Islam Faces its Tladition

2. The Historical and Sociological Approach that the literary work, or the work of art in general, exists and endures only with the Just as the Tradition implies a relationship active participation and continuous in­ of thought to language, as we have seen, so tervention, at multiple levels, of its succes­ it imposes a vision of history, with a frame­ sive publics. Now, that is a fortiori true in work and writing adapted to its expression. large degree of those literary and artistic Transmitting the statements of the Our' an works that are religious texts. In this sense, and the hadith, testifying about the be­ rivalry between oral and written, mythos Tradition in societies of the Book is not just haviour of the Prophet and the companions, and logos, marvellous and empirical, and a "hoarded collection of testimony left to us selecting the significant facts and events for sacred and profane. Historically, the Tradi­ by all those whom the Spirit of revelation the religious memory ofthe community­ tion, as textual form and meaning, bears the has touched throughout history". 22 It is a these constitute acts that presuppose a cer­ stamp of this rivalry; that is what today collective creation of all those who draw tain use of history. One is preoccupied with makes a re-evaluation of form and meaning their identity from it and contribute to its chronology, biography, and circumstantial indispensable, since all the determining con­ production-reproduction. accounts in order to establish the authentic­ cepts assumed in the Implicit Living of the The historical criticism applied by the philo­ ity of everything transmitted. Once the believers (sacred, marvellous, mythical, logist to this collective creation is an indis­ Tradition is constituted, all the discussions oral, written, imaginary, rational, and irra­ pensable first stage, but it is never conclu­ between the scholars and the schools fun­ tional) are in the process of passing over the sive. In re-establishing the actual chronology damentally invoke "historical" arguments. Explicit Knowledge, thanks to the new ex­ of texts and facts, the correct attribution of This constant concern for historical verifica­ plorations of the sciences of man and works and testimonies, and the real deriva­ tion of the transmitted traditions today con­ society. tion of notions, the philologist constructs a stitutes one of the subjects of pride and con­ Involved in the new and pressing inquiries of scientific object that, as such, does not exist fidence often invoked by Muslims against these sciences, certain Christian thinkers, in the mind of the agent-receivers of the Orientalist criticism. There is no going back within the limits allowed by doctrinal au­ Tradition. Like any composite in which au­ on the authenticity of texts elaborated by thority, venture toward a revision ofthe re­ thentic and apocryphal accounts, positive witnesses and of scholars absolutely worthy lations between Scripture, Revelation, and historical data and imaginary recreations of trust (thiqa). The Orientalists who cast Tradition. Thus when Breton tries to put and concrete and mythical space-and-time doubt on these texts are either malevolent or forth a theory of "scriptural space" in order are co-mingled, the Tradition nourishes the misinformed about the seriousness of histor­ to situate the Book within a universe of the ethical and spiritual ethos, but also the ical science in Islam. written word, he goes so far as to recognise ideological pressures of the collective sub­ ject that is the community. It is thus neces­ Modern authors - even Muslims such as that, Jesus being "forever screened from the sary to expand philological criticism by Taha Hussein - who have taken the plenitude of actual experience, He hence­ anthropological analysis in order to make greatest interest in the critical revival of reli­ forth exists for us only in a body of writing the scientific object coincide, on the one gious and/or cultural Tradition, have not and in a Church that memorialises Him". 19 hand, with the actually experienced contents known how to move the debate towards pre­ This position is new because it allows us to of the Tradition, and, on the other hand, vious studies framed in socio-cultural terms develop a common theory for what I prefer with the psychological activity and psychic of knowledge in the first two centuries of the 20 to call societies of the Book. The concept configuration of the collective subject. Hijra. It is not enough to recall that oral of a society of the Book permits us to place transmission then prevailed over written emphasis on two dimensions of the Tradi­ It is, therefore, no longer just the relation­ transmission. More fundamentally, it must tion minimised or transfigured by the advent ships between Scripture, Revelation, and be shown how, in the formation and func­ of dogmatic theology: the historicity of all Tradition that must be redefined from a tion of the social imaginary. the dimension cultural processes, and the practical forms of perspective that is more concerned with ex­ of the marvellous, the mythical, the symbo­ conduct by which the Book is incorporated planatory adequacy than with edification; it lic, and the metaphorical prevailed over the into the social body: the sociology of recep­ is also the presence of belief, affected in the rational categories and discursive proce­ tion, by ethno-culturally diverse groups, of substance and functions that "the witnesses dures that would develop in relation to the the Tradition. The concept of reception is touched by the spirit of revelation" have invention of paper, the perfecting and diffu­ complementary to that of historicity; I use it always recognised in it. Without radically sion of Arabic writing, and the expansion of here from the theoretical perspective de­ challenging the dynamic potential of this Greek logocentrism. All cultural history of fined by Hans R. Jauss, one ofthe leaders of spirit, we may say that it is always mediated the Arab and Islamic domain must be recon­ the "School of Constance", in his work Pour by social agents - that is, the sum total of sidered from this two-fold perspective of une esthetique de la reception. 21 The idea is amplifications, misrepresentations, semantic Current Islam Faces its Tradition 99

and textual manipulations, deviations, Let us first observe that it is not a question enterprise to show the inadequacy of their fabulations, mystifications and ideologisa­ today of opposing modernity that is eternal­ approach. 25 The readers themselves can de­ tions - that are inherent in the reception ly and totally positive and situated on the velop some idea of this by taking into and reproduction of the Tradition. side of progress to a tradition rejected as account the following observations. Islamist movements, which have steadily archaic, obsolete, constraining and negative. In the West, material modernity and intel­ gained importance since the 1930s, illustrate Conversely, one cannot conform to the lectual or cognitive modernity have received our theoretical propositions very clearly. All theology of the Tradition, which puts the varied emphasis, the one in relation to the of them as a matter of fact lay claim to the latter on the side of the absolute, the trans­ other, according to historical circumstance most complete, authentic, and effective cendent, the sacred, and the revealed. The (the Renaissance and the Reformation; the Tradition: that of the time of the foundation examination of current societies discloses European Crise de la Conscience in the three forces in competition: by the Prophet and his companions. In seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the actuality, the discourse of these movements 1) Tradition in the general and archaic great French Revolution; the Industrial Re­ expresses a total historic rupture with Madi­ sense, present in all societies, and preceding volution and capitalism in the nineteenth nan Islam. It offers all forms of Messianic the scriptural Tradition of the revealed reli­ and twentieth centuries; present-day high appeals addressed to populations that are gions. technology and the scientific movements of culturally and economically disinherited, 2) Scriptural Tradition, which has occupied anthropology and sociology). It remains true politically oppressed, psychologically frus­ us to this point. that at all these stages, there is connection trated (due to factors like male-female and integration of the whole society by a like relationships, children's status, and patri­ 3) Modernity, which tends to sanction rup­ process of development from within. Thus, archal structures), and who are therefore ture with the preceding forces without total­ the uniting of the nobility and clergy on the ready to follow any movement that fosters ly bringing it about. In reality, the three one hand, and of the merchant bourgeoisie mythically the expectation of Deliverance forces nourish the dialectic of any society via on the other in the eighteenth century, and and the hope of Salvation. This explains why a stronger accentuation of one over the of the capitalist bourgeoisie and the pro­ the ideology of Nasser, which opposed the others, according to the socio-cultural set­ letariat from the nineteenth century on­ Muslim Brothers, at the same time favoured ting and the historical circumstances. wards, nourished the debates and produced the psychological and cultural conditions The Scriptural Tradition, at its beginnings in the institutions and models of historic action that encouraged their expansion. Despite its the three monotheistic religions, appeared that today define the two sides in the mod­ secularising orientation, Nasserism licensed as modernity par excellence, because it con­ ern West: socialist-communist (with its the same fundamental themes common to signed previous traditions to the darkness of socialist and communist variants) and all Islamist movements: antiquarianism, the ignorance and disorder (jahiliyya).23 liberal. Golden Age, Arab unity, nobility of the Modernity is transformed into tradition with Without anywhere constituting a social class Arabs, anti-Imperialism, anti-Zionism and the accumulation over time of events, homogeneous and influential enough to play social justice. We encounter the same phe­ works, values, success and trials significant a decisive mediating role, the community of nomenon in socialist Algeria and under the for the collective subject. Since the 1950s, scientists, thinkers, and artists, within the monarchy of Hassan II. The Iran-Iraq War change has been so rapid, so profound, and crisis of models of development, tends to set forces Saddam Hussein, who presents him­ so general that tradition has disintegrated intellectual modernity, as a cognitive project self as the great representative of the secular and slipped away. In the so-called backward of the spirit, above all the ideological forma­ Ba'th, also to favour Islamism - that is, the or traditional societies, in contrast to indust­ tions that are enclosed within a national or language and behaviour of traditionalisa­ rial or post-industrial ones, the presence and community framework or even within the tion. The more Islam is transformed into an effects of material modernity are more ob­ limits of a social class that still claims to ideology of contestation and change, the vious than those of intellectual modernity. I incarnate the universal history of farther one gets from the Tradition as spirit shall not reiterate the differences between humanity. 26 of Revelation, or even just as an ethical these two aspects of modernity24; it will ethos that lays the foundation of a certain This new ambition of modernity, tied to the prove more illuminating to concentrate on idea of the human individual. development of the community of scholars the historical conditions of the production in the world, everywhere comes under the How is modernity to be worked into such an and repression of modernity in the West and great historical and socio-cultural weight of evolution ofthe Tradition? Are there some in Islam. each national context. Beyond the ideologic­ forms and contents that fit more easily than The most prominent historians continue to al cleavages that divide the contemporary do others the most widespread traditional present this essential question in a highly world and favour, in particular, a negative forms of behaviour? conformist manner. I cannot pass in review perception of Islam, the most open-minded here all the authors most involved in this scholars continue to be prisoners of a linear, 100 Current Islam Faces its Tradition

polemical and even theological vision of the intellectual modernity28; my particular West. The linear vision that springs from an objective is to stress that Islamic Tradition image of Greco-Roman antiquity separate as I have presented it has remained rigorous­ from "the Muslim East" and traces a con­ ly separate from the Western adventure of tinuous evolution up to our day, while char­ man since the sixteenth century, and, more acterising as simple historical incident the The medieval Christian West did not simply importantly, from that which, in this adven­ role of Islam between the seventh and collect disparate elements of this or that ture, involves the destiny of man as such. I twelfth centuries. The polemic vision con­ work or Arab thinker; one can speak of also want to note that, far from recognising tinues to perceive Islam first and foremost as "Christian" reason in the same sense and and rethinking the reasons for and consequ­ an obstacle to reduce or shape in order to from the same critical and historical perspec­ ences of this exit from a history involving open up the imperial path of the West. The tives as I have developed for Islamic reason. mind and consciousness, Islamic thought theological vision is due to Christian theolo­ since the nineteenth century has been exclu­ gy of the Revelation and the justification of The splitting of Greco-Semitic space into a sively preoccupied with the defensive justi­ the state of Israel that revive the old systems modern West and an East devoted to Tradi­ fication of its tradition, with polemic against of reciprocal exclusion that have dominated tion, to traditionalisation, and to recur­ the colonial and imperialist West and with the whole history of societies of the Book rence of archaic forms of behaviour begins the mythologising of its own history. with the Renaissance and the Reformation. precisely since the appearance of Islam in I am not saying, however, that the modern the Mediterranean world. As early as Petrarch the tradition-modernity relationship is reversed: contrary to the West, as its dominant classes claim, has In the grip ofthese visions that perpetuate Christian vision (or the Islamic view of the forged a model of historical consciousness and reinforce all sorts of collective phan­ jahiliyya), it is the fall of Rome that marks and action respectful of all the dimensions of tasms, obsolete cultural schemes and episte­ the passage to barbarity; the metaphor of man. But modernity is engaged in changing mological barriers, cognitive modernity en­ darkness and light, as dear to Christianity dimensions, ambitions, and horizons while deavors to reach a restored cognisance of as to Islam, in the sense that Revealed Truth opening up a new space of intelligibility and what I have called Greco-Semitic space. equals light, and paganism darkness (zulu­ historical action, where not only the tradi­ tions of societies of the Book may be reinte­ I have pointed out that this space in actuality mat al-jahiliyya/nur aI-Islam), is reversed grated in their totality, but also where his­ extends from the Indus to the Atlantic; that with the humanists and scholars of the Re­ Islam is not to be cast back into a romantic, naissance. Luther, for his part, puts a check torical totality, with all its cultural forms of expression in the world, may be explored dreamy, Bedouin, intolerant, or falsely spir­ on doctrinal authority (the fuqaha and 'ula­ and recapitulated by a cultural anthropology itual "Orient". 27 On the contrary, it must be ma of Islam) in prescribing free investigation unrestricted to a single centre reintegrated as one of the historic factors even in the realm ofthe Scriptures, an atti­ that have contributed to the emergence of tude encouraged by Spinoza. (Ibn Rushd It is from this perspective that the project of the cultural concept of the modern West. To attempted this for Islam, but the scholastic a quest and re-examination of Islamic Tradi­ be sure, Islam is tied to two types of civilisa­ "orthodoxy" eliminated his work). A series tion in its totality takes all its meaning, both tion already fully discerned by Ibn Khaldun: of developments that desymbolise and res­ for the Muslim Community and for contem­ the city dwelling type, which prolongs the trict the concept of existence then take place porary thought engaged in exploring the uni­ sedentary Yemenite, Mesopotamian, Ira­ in this "modern" West: Descartes separates verse, our planet and the human condition. nian, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Mediterra­ extension from thought and substance from The Tradition in its totality implies an exit nean civilisations, and the nomadic type, the subject to make of the material universe from the framework of heresiographic already harshly judged in the Qur'an, which, a homogeneous continuum that may be ex­ thought set by the hadith cited above. All throughout history, resists total integration plained mechanistically. To think is to clas­ the familiar concepts of traditional theolo­ into the former. The problem of the West­ sify, to devise, to describe, to exclude: that gical discourse split apart and gain new ern Sahara and the situation of the Tuaregs is the method. Hegel softens this mechanis­ dimensions, without losing their critical in the extreme south of the Algerian Sahara tic linearity by introducing the dialectic, but function concerning both scholastic tradi­ today illustrate an ecologically based opposi­ Marx makes political economy the key to all tions and provincial, ethnocentric, unitarian tion that still persists. history, just as Freud reduces the structuring or positivist modernity. Among these con­ force of the individual psyche to the repres­ cepts I shall cite religion and the religious in "Western" Islam is obviously that of the sion of fantasies Nietzsche, on his part, so far as they are tied to politics and to the city, and, like Christianity, developed a shatters value in going back to the roots of secular world (din, dawla, dunya), the Re­ functional solidarity between, State, Scrip­ the Greco-Roman ethic. velation, the Book, the Scriptures, the ture (the Book), orthodoxy and a scholarly sacred, the spiritual, the transcendent, and culture deeply penetrated by Greek The reader will kindly excuse such a sum­ all the vocabulary of classical methaphysics, thought. mary presentation of some of the great mo­ ments or protagonists in what I have called Current Islam Faces its Tradition 101

ethics, law, psychology and political eco­ 3. The theological attitude the fact of the resurrection; he then passes to nomy. What are the local traditions reduced the examination of the functions and mean­ to residue or relics by the Orthodox Tradi­ "Ways of living and transforming the ings of the idea of resurrection without expli­ tion, and after that by unitarian world": this is the fine title ofthe first sec­ citly acknowledging that he accepts the sub­ modernity29? How does Orthodox Tradition tion of Initiation ala pratique de la tMologie stitution of the idea of resurrection for the itselftend to become repressed as obsolete, (Initiation to the Practice of Theology) re­ undemonstrable historical fact, in order not inadequate and archaic by material mod­ cently published in France?2 This title and to give up totally the search for the coher­ ernity in the absence of an intellectual mod­ the whole book are the sign of an evolution ence of the awareness of faith. Such an ernity capable of reconsidering it? What that, like modernity, has taken place in the acknowledgement cannot only be demanded mutilations has this same Orthodox Tradi­ West but remains absent from Islam; an from every scientific scholar; it is particular­ tion inflicted on itself by eliminating the evolution limited, nevertheless, because the ly required of the theologian, who too easily schools, works and thinkers that have come takeover by thought of the ways to live and takes advantage of the mystifying power of forth within Islam but that have been judged transform the world remains strictly depen­ the invocation of faith. The psychologist and deviant or "heretic" - not by an entitled dent on "the awareness of Faith (that) is tied the psychoanalyst have shown us that under doctrinal tribunal but by the protagonists in to an institutional aggregate in the Church faith lie indistinct the most irrepressible a rivalry between professional categories, (scriptural canon, tradition, ministers) and compulsions of desire, the most complex ethno-cultural groups or visions of the around the university (diverse specialisa­ contents of memory, the greatest phantasms world? tions, centres ofteaching, etc.)" Y If we go of the imaginations, the most powerful im­ These questions must first be answered his­ so far as to give the floor to a representative pulses of the heart and the firmest demands torically, leaving aside any doctrinal judge­ ofIslam and one of Judaism (how do we of reason; and that the mastery of these ment.30 That current Muslim societies can­ choose? according to a criterion of ortho­ different faculties depends on the forms of not accept the critical discourse of the histo­ doxy or epistemological involvement with discipline of the spirit recognised and prac­ rian does not mean that he has constructed a Tradition in its totality?) in order that they tised by each culture. No less does the scientific object as abstract as that of the "give their interpretation of Christianity theologian continue to presuppose in his dis­ Orientalist philologists tracking down apoc­ (and) not lock it up in its own declaration of course the existence and generalisation to all ryphal hadith. To examine the Tradition in unique meaning" ,34 we find that the evi­ believers of a faith that is acquiescence, its totality in the sense I indicate here is to dence they provide will only juxtapose meet and right, to the Act of God that shows grapple directly with the roots of evil that orthodoxies, without any attempts at the itself in the Revelation. One can conceive undermine those confessional societies that theological integration of their differences in that the theologian aims to substantiate this are closed in what they believe to be their terms of places (topoi) of a theology ofthe ideal faith with a conscientious pedagogy of traditions. I do not mean that religious refer­ Tradition in its totality that would spring all the obstacles to be overcome, but one ence alone explains the tragedies that are from the aporias common to the three cannot forgive him for the constraints and 35 taking place in Lebanon, Nigeria, or else­ scriptural traditions. The task remains very confusions that he continues to force on this where, but it remains true that the religious significant because it allows one to establish same human spirit that he claims to lead imagination is particularly promptly mobil­ what is newly thinkable and what remains toward the absolute. ised to carryon "holy" combat. The func­ unthinkable in the theological field most I am not saying this to prove the position of tion of history and cultural anthropology is open at the present time. Islam superior to the resurrection, but to to lay bare the realities travestied by the Let us reflect on a precise example of aporia open up a new field of reflection, where the manipulators of the religious imagination. 31 common to Christianity and Islam: the his­ traditional claims of Christianity and Islam Is the notion we have just presented of the toricity of the resurrection of Jesus on the will be transcended by the consideration of Tradition in its totality thinkable for a tradi­ one hand, and the divine authenticity of the problems situated upstream from both the tional theologian within the one framework Qur'an on the other. In the historicist con­ resurrection and the divine authenticity of of inherited theologies in each community text developed in the West since the nine­ the Qur'an. I have shown how the oppo­ based on the Book? What does theological teenth century, Christian theologians have nents at Mecca and Madina required proofs attitude become in the new context created not been able to avoid answering denials of to establish this identity, just as from the by the joint pressures of present-day history the resurrection with historico-critical scho­ time ofthe disciples, debates had taken and of the cognitive strategies imposed by larship. Bernard Lauret's very clear restate­ place on the subject of the empty tomb and 36 the resurrection 37 In the two cases, we are the sciences of man and society, themselves ment of the most recent arguments shows the product of this history and the answers the limits of recourse to the University and first confronted with a problem of the to its challenge? the primacy given to the awareness of faith. psychology of knowledge: how do we estab­ The author first applies himself to saving lish the frontier between empirical know­ something of the "historical probability" of ledge of natural occurrences and the mental 102 Current Islam Faces its Tradition

representation of occurrences called super­ revealed It is not just a matter of tolerating 10 The Khatijite line obviously must not be neg­ the co-existence of discourse that each tradi­ lected, especially from the perspective of the Tradition natural or divine? In the time of Jesus, as in in its totality, which I shall define below Umayyad that of Muhammad, rational intelligibility tion pronounces about itself; it is necessary persecution hurt the Kharijites even more than the based on experience of the senses was to explain first and foremost the historical, Shi'ites and had effects disastrous to knowledge about the currents of thought and the forces pt esent in the already asserting its rights; but "the heart" psychological and anthropological condi­ first century A H Fervent witnesses of the most deci­ stayed open to the marvellous and to tions of the emergence and functioning of sive struggles, the Kharijites were pushed back by the mythical knowledge: it is advisable that one, any tradition, and then of the three mono­ Umayyads, and then by the Fatimids in the Maghtib, toward the far pet ipheries of the Empire The small as a historian, appraise first and foremost theistic traditions. It will at that point be communities that still subsist (e g the Mozabites in the interferences and ruptures between possible to envisage a theology of relations Algetia) continue to bear witness to a sensibility and a these two configurations of consciousness in between Scripture, Revelation, and Tradi­ store of knowledge rejected by the Sunni and Shi'ite powers, See Encye/opedie de l'Islam, s v Ibadiyya the face of the sorts of knowledge that have tion in societies of the Book. been proposed. It is a historical fact that II See J Betque, Ulemas,fondateurs, insurges du Maghreb XVIIe siee/e (Paris: Sinbad, 1982); Islam in theological speculation in the three religions Tribal Societies, flOm the Atlas to the Indus, Akbar S has acted as if the question of the psychology Ahmed and David M Hatt, cds (London, 1984) of knowledge - if indeed it could have been Reference Notes 12 See A Laroui, La Clise des intellectuels arabes; posed as radically as in our day38 - was traditionisme ou historisme (Paris: Maspero, 1974) resolved in the Revelation. We thus return 1 Se,e M Arkoun, "L'Islam dans l'histoire", to tradition and to the historical conditions Maghreb: Machrek, 102 (1983), pp 5-22 13 Demographic ptessute, seculmisation, nationalisa­ tion, substitution of an economy of profit and produc­ of its formation. The whole theory of the 2 I distinguish necessary referents and usul: the first tivity for the ethic of poverty and scorn for the WOl Id, 'i'jaz, or divine origin of the Qur'an, attests constitute the stable level of Islam and remain open to the Western model of consumption, etc to the surreptitious transformation of a se­ any exploration or ctitical analysis; they could not be the object of an orthodox or dogmatic discussion; the 14 I cite this text for two reasons: filst, I agree with rious problem of the mind raised in the two second, on the contrary, have long been studied by the the comments of Y Congar on the pertinence of his cases (resurrection and Qur'an) into apolog­ two disciplines, usul ai-din, or theology, and usul al­ vocabulary and approach to tradition faced with posi­ fiqh, or methodology-epistemology of law The usul are tivist ctiticism in the context of modernist ctisis very ist and didactic "solutions". Unlike Christ­ subjective references in the sense that each school closely related to that which Islam is at present under­ ian thought, current Islamic thought refuses proposes definitions and uses for them going; second, my objective is to use the example of to consider any question of historicity. Islam to WOl k my way up to two levels of thought 3 See M Arkoun, Lectures du COlan (Paris: Maison­ infrequently or never addressed until now: the elabor­ I believe that I can predict that these critical neuve-Larose, 1982) ating of the concept of Tradition in its totality for the three revealed religions (ahl al-kitab), and the opening observations and their calls to a trans­ 4 On all these terms, see Encye/opedie de l'Islam, 2nd of the way to an anthropology of tradition and mod­ traditional theological attitude will leave in­ ed. (Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 1960-1973); on khabm ernity different both the Christian authorities and see L Souami, "Introduction a la theorie du khabm chez Jahiz: definition et constitution", in Studia Islami­ 15 Juynboll, op (it the Muslim 'ulama. (It is clear that the rab­ ca, 53 (1961), pp 27-50 bis are not exempt from my criticism). I .6 See A J Greimas. Du sens II (Paris: Seuil, 1983), 5 pp 115-133 have already had many an occasion to verify One will find in the Encye/opedie de l'Islam, s v hadith, the references to all the classic text editions the existence of this secret connivance, un­ The most recent critical account is given by G H A t7 See P Ricoeur, Temps et lecit (Paris: Seuil, 1983) acknowledgeable among the dogmatic tradi­ Juynboll, Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Ptess, 1983) t8 See my Lectures du Coran and POUI une CI itique de tions, that, in explicit terms, defend "irre­ la Raison islamique ducible authenticities". In this domain there "Ibn 'Arabi, LaplOfession defoi, R Daladriere, tt is no point in waiting for the community of (Paris: Editions Otientales, 1978), p 87 To this hadith. 19 S Breton, EClitwe et Revelation (Paris: Cerf, one should add all those that are habitually cited to 1979), piSS scholars harnessed to tasks more "serious" combat the bid'a see M Taibi, "Les Bida' ", Studia and scientifically profitable. To state the Islamica, 52 (1960), pp 43-78 20 See what I have said about this in "Autorite et matter clearly, religious thought is in quest pouvoir en Islam", in Pow une Clitique 7 See M Arkoun, "Pour un temembtement de la of independent thinkers after having been, conscience islamique", in POUI une Clitique de la 21 Paris: Gallimard, 1978 over the centuries, either the monopoly of Raison islamique (Pat is: Maisonneuve-Larose, 1984) 22 Y Congar,op cit vol II, pi 163 Compate the way zealous servants or the target of polemicists 8 Y Congar, La tradition et les traditions I "Essai in which Ibn Taymiyya and the Sunni tradition present aiming at other objectives. historique" and II "Essai theologique" (Paris, Fayard, the Sahaba see my Pensee mabe, 2nd ed. (Paris: 1963) P U F" 1979), p 20 It will be understood, I hope, that I am not excluding theology from the field of investi­ 9 The text by which Muhammad is to have desig­ 23 In Christianity, modelllus was employed for the nated 'Ali is untiringly cited and commended on by the first time around 480-500 to designate the passage ft om gating man and society; but theology must Shi'tes under the title, hadith ghadir khumm See En­ Roman antiquity to Christianity See a good historical submit to rules common to every cognitive cye/opedie de l'Islam, s v account of modernity in the West in H R Jauss, Pour undertaking. For this, on new grounds, it une esthlitique de la leception (Paris: Gallimatd, 1978), pp 158-209, and what I have said on the subject for must again raise the whole question of the Islam in L'Islam, hiel, demain, 2nd ed (Paris: Buchet­ Chastel, 1982), pp 120-137 Current Islam Faces its Tradition 103

24 Ibid

25 For the West, one may consult in particulal F Blaudel, Civilisation matelielle, economie et capitalisme xve-XVmesiecle, vol 3 (Paris: A Colin, 1979); for Islam, B Lewis, Comment l'Islam a decouvelt l' Europe (Paris: La Decouvelte, 1984); A Hourani. Ewope and the Middle icast (London, 1980)

26 Semiotics seems to me to be at plesent the disci­ pline that crosses most effectively the national, ideolo­ gical, and traditional flOntiers of discourse with the knowledge it conveys

27 M Rodinson, La fascination de l'Islam (Paris: Maspero, 1980)

28 It would be necessary to emphasise even more all the scholarship and thought that have brought to frui­ tion the most positive contributions of the great ini­ tiators of modernity I am thinking, for example, of the stimulating readings of Descartes by F Alquie

29 By unitatian modernity I mean the historical and cultural process by which Western thought, flOm the thirteenth-forteenth century on, has imposed a model both explanatory and historically active, which sanc­ tions the dissociation of the subject from his body and asserts a set of propositions and concepts summed up in classical methaphysics: transcendent ontology; Prom­ ethean time of Progress and Evolution and then Development; concrete space of productivity, legiti­ misation t~rough Secular Reason, opplessive man­ ipulation of groups with phantasmic constructions that allow the emergence of "great men": the state; the nation; democracy; universal; suffrage; secularisation and separation of powers; equality; liberty; fraternity; the Great Leap Forward, and so on

30 That is what I have tried to do in several essays in Pow une critique

31 I distinguish ideological manipulation from semio­ tic manipulation: the former is tactical, sttategic, cynic­ al; it controls all the strategies of domination in intellla­ tionallife and political gamesmanship in order to obtain or keep power in the national sphere; the latter is inhelent in every enunciation; it designates the op­ elations of selection that every speaker perfOlms in the language

32 Under the direction of B Lauret and F Refoule, 5 vols (Paris: Cerf, 1982-1983)

33 Initiation, vol 1, p 12

34 Ibid

35 M TaIbi's contribution on Islam is purely descrip­ tive

36 Initiation, vol 2, pp 378-407

37 See M Arkoun, "Le probleme de l'authenticite divine du COl an" , in Lectures du Coran, loc cit

38 Concerning Islam, the Mu'tazilite School has gone fairly fal in examining the question: see Marie Ber­ nand, Le probleme de la connaissance d'ap,es Ie Mugh­ ni du cadi 'Abd al-Jabbw (Algiers, 1982)