If it accords with the Quran it is unnecessary and can be burned. If it doesn't accord with the Quran it is heresy and must be burned.

Tim Cavanaugh | January 18, 2006

An interesting brouhaha results from Pope Benedict XVI's alleged comments on Islam and the possibility of reinterpreting the Quran. From a Daniel Pipes article in the New York Sun:

Father Joseph D. Fessio, SJ, recounted on the Hugh Hewitt Show the details of a seminar he attended with the pope in September 2005 on Islam. Participants heard about the ideas of a Pakistani-born liberal theologian, Fazlur Rahman (1919-88), who held that if Muslims thoroughly reinterpret the Koran, Islam can modernize. He urged a focus on the principles behind Koranic legislation such as jihad, cutting off thieves' hands, or permitting polygyny, in order to modify these customs to fit today's needs. When Muslims do this, he concluded, they can prosper and live harmoniously with non-Muslims.

Pope Benedict reacted strongly to this argument. He has been leading such annual seminars since 1977 but always lets others speak first, waiting until the end to comment. But hearing about Fazlur Rahman's analysis, Father Fessio recalled with surprise, the pope could not contain himself:

This is the first time I recall where he made an immediate statement. And I'm still struck by it, how powerful it was....the Holy Father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said well, there's a fundamental problem with that [analysis] because, he said, in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Muhammad, but it's an eternal word. It's not Muhammad's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it.

This basic difference, Pope Benedict continued, makes Islam unlike Christianity and Judaism. In the latter two religions, "God has worked through His creatures. And so, it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used His human creatures, and inspired them to speak His word to the world." Jews and Christians "can take what's good" in their traditions and mold it. There is, in other words, "an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations."

Whereas the Bible is, for Benedict, the "word of God that comes through a human community," he understands the Koran as "something dropped out of Heaven, which cannot be adapted or applied."

There's some controversy about how accurately Ben Seize is being quoted here. Fessio is a bigmouth who strikes come-hither poses with farm animals. A key participant in the seminar indicates there's more of Fessio than the pope in the above description. In any event, Pipes, in a rare optimistic turn, disagrees with the view attributed to the pope:

The Koran indeed can be interpreted. Indeed, Muslims interpret the Koran no less than Jews and Christians interpret the Bible, and those interpretations have changed no less over time. The Koran, like the Bible, has a history.

For one indication of this, note the original thinking of the Sudanese theologian Mahmud Muhammad Taha (1909-85). Taha built his interpretation on the conventional division of the Koran into two. The initial verses came down when Muhammad was a powerless prophet living in Mecca, and tend to be cosmological. Later verses came down when Muhammad was the ruler of Medina, and include many specific rulings. These commands eventually served as the basis for the Shari'a, or Islamic law.

Taha argued that specific Koranic rulings applied only to Medina, not to other times and places. He hoped modern-day Muslims would set these aside and live by the general principles delivered at Mecca. Were Taha's ideas accepted, most of the Shari'a would disappear, including outdated provisions concerning warfare, theft, and women. Muslims could then more readily modernize.

Whole article here. The user comments are worth reading: In addition to many expected disagreements from bible thumpers and thumpers of assorted other holy books, one commenter notes that Mahmud Muhammad Taha's efforts were rewarded with an execution by public hanging, for the crime of apostasy. I have my own thoughts, but let's just open the floor...

Comments

|1.18.06 @ 8:10PM|#

Can't wait to hear Bill Donahoe's take on this story. Whatever it may be, I'm sure it'll be a hoot!

|1.18.06 @ 8:40PM|#

What? Daniel Pipes doesn't have a 10 foot log up his ass? That is news!

|1.18.06 @ 8:44PM|#

Fessio's views sound more like what Islamophobes (and hard-core Islamists) WANT Islam to be (and also how they want a Christian leader to prattle chauvinisitically like Portia in Merchant of Venice to the Islamic Shylock): they want it to be rigid and unbending so they can prate about Christian and liberal civilization superiority.

Benedict XVI is not as indulgent about Islam being a close cousin religion as his predecessor was, but what is odd is that in this unlikely version he appears to be more passionate about the idea that the Koran is divinely inflexible in interpretation than many believing and some conservative Muslims. In fact, if one believes Islam NOT to be of divine origin (and a Pope would be expected to feel that way) why would they expect or want Islam to be inflexible and eternal? Especially if an inflexible Islam has persecution tendencies towards Christians, especially proselytizing ones.

Further while Catholicism is not fundamentalist biblical literalism, the stuanchly humanistic interpretation of the Bible described sounds more American academic (ahem, Fessio) than the former Joseph Ratzinger, chief Inquisitor of Catholic liberals.

|1.18.06 @ 10:04PM|#

Tim Cavanaugh, you are a wicked, wicked man for making me ROTFL at the "feed my lambs" picture. ;-)

I think I see what Fessio's Ratzinger was getting at; unlike the Qur'an, none of the books in the Old and New Testaments, are written by The One And Only Mouthpiece of God. Of course, Christians believe that Jesus is himself God, but he didn't write a single word of a single book.

Thus, you have imperfect human beings, with all their ignorance and prejudice, writing down the word of God. So, certain attitudes and predilections make their way into the text, which are not necessarily those of God himself; for instance, God's feelings about those who bash the heads of Babylonian babies with rocks, might be different from those of the writer of Psalm 137.

Jadagul|1.18.06 @ 10:25PM|#

Pretty obviously, the Pope doesn't think that the Koran is the direct word of God. I think that his contention is that Rahman evidently doesn't believe it either, because that would be inconsistent with his position that the Koran can be reinterpreted.

The part about the difference between the Christian and Islamic traditions was to explain why a good Catholic can reinterpret the Bible, but a good Muslim can't reinterpret the Koran.

|1.19.06 @ 12:14AM|#

Matthew-

I think the Pope's point is that he interprets the Koran as a very rigid document, with the text itself allowing no room for leeway. He's not saying he agrees with the text, just that if one did agree with the text then one would have no room for flexible interpretations.

Having read the Koran, I myself see it as having room for interpretation. Of course, I'm sure that the Pope has read it as well, being a well educated scholar of religion. And I'm sure he's had more interactions with Muslim scholars than I have, and more chances to subject it to careful analysis. (Most of my Muslim friends are very secular and have no real desire to talk about religion.)

I need to befriend some observant Muslims, so I can discuss the Koran in depth with them. I find it interesting. Despite what the terrorists would have America believe, the Koran gives far more attention to charity than killing. I won't pretend that the book is devoid of violence, but it's a hell of a lot more complicated than most Americans think. Even the most illiberal passages are full of caveats and conditions. Which is not to say that the book is liberal in spirit, but it is definitely more complicated than most Americans think. (Hint: Don't depend on Osama bin Laden for lessons on religion.)

Anyway, the multitude of qualifications and exceptions and caveats are part of the reason why I think the Koran is open to considerable interpretation.

|1.19.06 @ 12:58AM|#

Tim Cavanaugh, you are a wicked, wicked man for making me ROTFL at the "feed my lambs" picture. ;-)

It was baaaaaaaaaaad.

|1.19.06 @ 1:02AM|#

I appreciate your comments thoreau.

David Friedman|1.19.06 @ 1:02AM|#

'Were Taha's ideas accepted, most of the Shari'a would disappear, including outdated provisions concerning warfare, theft, and women."

A lot of this discussion seems to take it for granted that Sharia is based mainly on the Koran. That is not the case. The Koran contains relatively few legal rules, with the result that the bulk of Sharia comes either from hadith--traditions of what Mohammed and his companions did and said--or from the work of the early Muslim legal theorists.

Further, the additional material in some cases has the effect of negating the Koranic material--most strikingly in the various qualifications to the rule about cutting off the hand of a thief which provide lots of ways of avoiding that particular outcome.

What is needed in order to revise Sharia is not the abandonment of the idea that the Koran is the word of God. It is the reopening of "the gates of Ijtihad"--a return to the process of deducing legal rules from the Koran and other sources which more or less shut down in the tenth century, at least in the view of most scholars.

|1.19.06 @ 1:06AM|#

Uh, pardon me for observing that the 'fact' offered by Fessio's Pope Benedict that the Koran is different from the Old Testament because it was told directly from God to Mohammed is untrue. Moses received the Five Books of the Torah from God directly at Mt. Sinai, according to the Old Testament. It is for that reason that Moses knew before that he would not be allowed to enter Judea. It is in fact a basic tenet of Islam that only two men ever spoke directly to God, Mohammed and Moses.

By that standard, Judaism should be as inflexible as Islam, yet that is not so.

|1.19.06 @ 1:15AM|#

The gentleman who diagrees with Father Fessio's transcript of happenings at the seminar is named - "Christian W. Troll". I'm not kidding, check out the link.

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/31833

|1.19.06 @ 4:18AM|#

Moses received the Five Books of the Torah from God directly at Mt. Sinai, according to the Old Testament.

No he didn't. All he got from God on Sinai was the the Ten Commandments and a brief list of the manners in which YWEH prefers to be praised. There's no way that stone tablets containing Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy could have fit into the 4x2x2 foot box that was the Arc of the Covenant. Considering also the fact that Numbers is mostly just a census, and that in Deuteronomy 32:48 God is listed as specifically telling Moses, on the day before the entrance into Canaan, for the first time, that he won't be going in, the idea that all the books of the Pentateuch were dictated to Moses is preposterous.

Where do people get this stuff?

|1.19.06 @ 5:45AM|#

It is true that much of Sharia comes from the Hadith, but its my understanding of the Hadith that they are sayings attributable to Mohammed, and nobody else.

In order to give the laws the patina of holiness, as opposed to being of human origin (Moslems do not believe that Mohammed was divine in the way Christians view Christ, only that he was a mere human) the conventional thinking is that the sayings were words Allah gave to Mohammed but which he did not put into the Noble Quran. That is, the Hadith are the words of God.

I have been told by people who know more about this than I that this is a point of considerable debate within the Islamic studies academy.

A further point: most Islamic countries use Sharia only for civil matters (inheritance disputes, contract matters, family law) and have separate, non-Sharia-compliant criminal justice systems.

|1.19.06 @ 7:39AM|#

Hey Thoreau,

You've just given me inspiration to read the Koran. I'm sure you're right. Thanks.

|1.19.06 @ 7:40AM|#

If you live in Mecca, do you still have to make the pilgrimmage?

Ed|1.19.06 @ 8:04AM|#

The assorted holy books are based both on historical evidence and hearsay. It's the friggin' hearsay that causes so much commotion. Get rid of the "God told me this" and "So-and-so resurrected What's-his-name" and humankind will be able to proceed with more important business.

R C Dean|1.19.06 @ 8:05AM|#

Fessio's views sound more like what Islamophobes (and hard-core Islamists) WANT Islam to be

Of course, there is this:

Mahmud Muhammad Taha's efforts were rewarded with an execution by public hanging, for the crime of apostasy

so they can prate about Christian and liberal civilization superiority.

To the extent we don't hang anyone for apostasy, I think such prating has some basis.

Andrew Ian Dodge|1.19.06 @ 8:23AM|#

I need to befriend some observant Muslims, so I can discuss the Koran in depth with them.

I have tried to engage believing Muslims in conversation about their religion. It tends to get no where as they can not really discuss in any way but "we are right" and "you are infidel".

|1.19.06 @ 8:34AM|#

thoreau,

Sure took you a long time to get around to reading it.

Andrew Ian Dodge,

Oh definately. Talking to true believing religionists - be they Catholics, Muslims, Church of Christers, etc. - is like talking to a brick wall.

|1.19.06 @ 8:35AM|#

Ed,

What historical evidence? The Bible is an extremely poorly sourced document (just to give one example).

Ed|1.19.06 @ 9:14AM|#

Hak,
Aren't there like, real people and stuff in the Bible? And dusty cities and really hot deserts and Roman bad guys?
And hookers? All those things were real. Weren't they?

|1.19.06 @ 9:33AM|#

Bartman,
It is indeed true that a lot of sharia is from the hadith. I was raised to question all hadith that have no supporting evidence in the Koran (and depending on my parent's mood, to ignore them altogether and stick with Koranic laws). To say there is considerable debate is an understatement. There are many debates of not only which sets of hadith are accurate, but also the legitimacy in general.

Regarding the Koran, it is very open to interpretation and needs to be debated. A classic example is the multiple wives story. The actual verse of the Koran regarding this says (approx), "If you care for orphans, than you may marry 2 or 3 or 4." To me this sounds like an allowance to marry widowed women to care for their orphaned children (about as noble a reason as polygamy as you can get. Most people ignore the first part and just rack up the wives. Thoreau is right that the focus of the Koran is more about charity and caring for orphans than violence (with a lot of caveats). Heck it even says that Christians and Jews can go to heaven and that only God know who is going and who isn't.

|1.19.06 @ 9:42AM|#

If I had to choose between living in a society that followed a strict, literal reading of the Koran or a society with strict, literal reading of the Bible, including the Old Testament, I'd definitely go for the Koran. Both societies would be miserable, but the Koranic one less so. It certainly pays more attention to the concept of mercy than does the OT.

|1.19.06 @ 11:33AM|#

There is, in other words, "an inner logic to the Christian Bible, "

Har!

|1.19.06 @ 11:43AM|#

Ed,

Yes, most of the claims by the text are very poorly sourced. To be blunt there is more evidence for the Trojan war than there is for much of what the Bible claims which may lead one to give more credance to the claims about the Greek Gods than those about Yahweh.

Mo,

Its an ancient text. Of course its open to interpretation. The Pope is a moron if he doesn't realize this. Then again, given the circular reasoning and other like errors in logic that the Papacy has traditionally been prone to it wouldn't surprise me if this particular Pope is a moron.

|1.19.06 @ 11:45AM|#

Ed,

Yes, most of the claims by the text are very poorly sourced. To be blunt there is more evidence for the Trojan war than there is for much of what the Bible claims which may lead one to give more credance to the claims about the Greek Gods than those about Yahweh.

Mo,

Its an ancient text. Of course its open to interpretation. The Pope is a moron if he doesn't realize this. Then again, given the circular reasoning and other like errors in logic that the Papacy has traditionally been prone to it wouldn't surprise me if this particular Pope is a moron.

|1.19.06 @ 11:45AM|#

Ed,

Yes, most of the claims by the text are very poorly sourced. To be blunt there is more evidence for the Trojan war than there is for much of what the Bible claims which may lead one to give more credance to the claims about the Greek Gods than those about Yahweh.

Mo,

Its an ancient text. Of course its open to interpretation. The Pope is a moron if he doesn't realize this. Then again, given the circular reasoning and other like errors in logic that the Papacy has traditionally been prone to it wouldn't surprise me if this particular Pope is a moron.

|1.19.06 @ 11:45AM|#

Ed,

Yes, most of the claims by the text are very poorly sourced. To be blunt there is more evidence for the Trojan war than there is for much of what the Bible claims which may lead one to give more credance to the claims about the Greek Gods than those about Yahweh.

Mo,

Its an ancient text. Of course its open to interpretation. The Pope is a moron if he doesn't realize this. Then again, given the circular reasoning and other like errors in logic that the Papacy has traditionally been prone to it wouldn't surprise me if this particular Pope is a moron.

|1.19.06 @ 12:01PM|#

It's the smart move, Fessio was always the smarter one.

|1.19.06 @ 3:10PM|#

Ahhh, so this explains why the Catholic church is always in such a rush to modernize.

|1.19.06 @ 5:43PM|#

It is in fact a basic tenet of Islam that only two men ever spoke directly to God, Mohammed and Moses.

How do they explain the passages of Genesis where Abraham speaks to God?

R C Dean|1.19.06 @ 6:12PM|#

How do they explain the passages of Genesis where Abraham speaks to God?

He's a Jew, so of course he is lying about it.

|1.19.06 @ 6:43PM|#

Jennifer,

Seriously, have you actually read the Qur'an, or the OT for that matter? I'm only vaguely familiar with the former, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. But despite the "fire and brimstone" reputation the OT has acquired in modern times, especially amongst those who've never read it, God's mercy is front and center in much of the OT.

|1.19.06 @ 6:54PM|#

Syd - It has been years since I studied either the Qur'an or the Torah, but if I recall, all other prophets spoke to divine emmisaries (angels, basically).

Shem - Again, it has been years since I studied this at Hebrew University, but I am certain that it was explained as God having written the Ten Commandments in his own hand, while the rest of the Torah was told by God to Moses who transcribed God's words. That is the Orthodox Jewish belief, and why Jews must stand when the Ark is opened in Temple. While that is not a link to some sort of evidence, that certainly can tell you where I "come up with this stuff" - I learned it in Israel.

|1.19.06 @ 6:57PM|#

But despite the "fire and brimstone" reputation the OT has acquired in modern times, especially amongst those who've never read it, God's mercy is front and center in much of the OT.

Have you read Leviticus and Deuteronomy? Have you counted the number of harmless things which qualify one for the death penalty in those books? By the end of the Old Testament God started to mellow out a bit, but the God of the early part of the Old Testament was downright evil.

|1.20.06 @ 2:51AM|#

crimethink,

Only if you read the OT very selectively. The genocides committed in your God's name hardly speak of the God you describe after all. Then again, your God changes with every culture that encounters it, so its not surprising that you'd try to meld the new with the old version.

|1.20.06 @ 2:54AM|#

God's mercy is front and center in much of the OT.

Tell that to Job. Or the citizens of Babel, whose tower was destroyed because the possibility of a united humanity posed a threat to God. Or the Canaanites, who got massacred so the Hebrews could have a pristine country. It's only mercy in the sense that he doesn't kill *everyone*

By the end of the Old Testament God started to mellow out a bit

No he didn't. He was the same dick to the prophets that he was to almost everyone who did his dirty work. The guy only actually liked maybe two dozen people in the entire course of the OT.

James-Maybe that's the Orthodox Jewish belief, but it's not textual; it represents a later interpretation. And Abraham does speak to God. It's God who changed Abram's name to Abraham, and Sarai to Sarah. It happened in Genesis 17. A strong case can be made that Jacob was wrestling with God when his name was changed to Israel. And Adam and Eve certainly saw God, since they were living in his garden.

|1.20.06 @ 8:41AM|#

No he didn't. He was the same dick to the prophets that he was to almost everyone who did his dirty work.

Well, the book of Ruth had a surprisingly mellow, non-bigoted, non-Old Testament feel to it. But overall, the Old Testament god was an evil, vile bigot, and I don't know what Crimethink's "mercy front and center" attitude hinges on.

|1.20.06 @ 12:00PM|#

Shem - I agree with you that in Genesis, Abraham speaks to God. All I was saying is that Muslims do not believe that, although they also consider themselves to be children of Abraham.