The Jakarta Post | Fri, 06/18/2010 4:21 PM | Opinion
Ahmad Najib Burhani
A number of ulemas that the Koranic interpretation of jihad (martyrdom) from Amrozi, Imam Samudra, Osama bin Laden and the likes, is misguided.
Their interpretation of the Koran and their understanding of Islamic teachings is against the basic meaning of the holy book.
On the other hand, some other ulemas that liberal interpretation of the words from the Koran such as musawa (equality) and islam (submission) is against the foundation of religion.
Liberal-secular scholars have predispositions or preconceived ideas before interpreting the Koran and try to impose those predispositions on the Koran.
Now, can we interpret the Koran beyond ideological interest, free from liberal and radical inclination or free of any kind of interests?
Most contemporary Muslim intellectuals and exegetes are bound by a certain ideology. Ali Shariati (Iran) is a Marxist and his interpretation is Marxist oriented. Farid Esack (South Africa) applies the Koranic hermeneutic of religious pluralism for liberating people from the apartheid system.
Amina Wadud-Muhsin (the US) uses a feminist perspective in reading the Koran for her ideological interest to create equality between men and women.
Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Fazlur Rahman (Pakistan, the US), and Nasr Abu Zayd (Egypt, The Netherlands) apply their ideology, although perhaps some people would call it humanistic, pluralistic, moralistic or nationalistic ideology.
With all their endeavors, Fazlur Rahman and Abu Zayd claim that they have been trying to eradicate ideological interest and minimize subjectivity.
Rahman’s Koranic interpretation is a response toward the way extremist Muslims treat the Koran, which is picking one verse from the Koran and interpreting it without taking into account the entire structure of the Koran or even without understanding the historical context of the revelation.
He called this the “atomistic approach” or “peacemeal treatment” of the Koran. He tries to find the “underlying unity” and “moral” of the Koran, which are humanistic.
Abu Zayd’s interpretation of the Koran challenges the monopoly of religious interpretation by the established and regimist ulemas have political and economic interests in government.
It is a response toward the ideological tendency of both liberal and conservative Muslims in their interpretation of the Koran. He proposes a humanistic approach to the Koran by suppressing all bias and ideologies.
The question for these two scholars, “Are not these two approaches also ideologically biased?” It seems that only by attaching the Koran into a certain ideology that the Koran can have a voice. Without ideology this book is silent.
Merely focusing on linguistics and literary criticism, as proposed by Abu Zayd, logically can offer a non-bias and non-ideological interest of interpretation since it deals only with languages.
It will also reveal the beautiful language and the aesthetic aspect of the Koran.
However, with this approach, the Koran will lose its spirit. When it moves into interpretation, it also involves subjectivity.
Another way to avoid ideological interest in u nderstanding the Koran is through historical and philological approaches.
A huge number of works have been carried out on this by Western philologist and historian and other non-Muslim scholars.
The reason why they have been choosing these approaches is because it is the way to open the
path for further scholarship endeavors and it has minimum subjectivity.
Back to the first question, can we have a non-biased or neutral interpretation of the Koran? This question will bring us into the debate between subjectivity and objectivity, between Jacques Derrida and Emilio Betti.
For Derrida, nothing is objective in this world. This is the reason why several people say that the
Koran cannot be used as a constitution.
The jargon that “the Koran is our constitution” promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood is only jargon. In practice, we can say that it is not applicable.
The role that can be played by the Koran is becoming a source among several or the source of the consti-tution or laws. People can extract values from the Koran to create laws.
Fazlur Rahman and Abu Zayd reject this kind of subjectivity theory. Abu Zayd said that absolute objectivity is impossible, but cultural objectivity is something that could be achieved by humans.
Furthermore, if nothing is objective, then we cannot have a firm position, everything is not certain.
However, we can say in different words that what Abu Zayd calls cultural objectivity is nothing more than subjectivity.
The role that can be played by the Koran is becoming a source among several or the source of the constitution or laws.
The writer is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
— JP
