{"id":628,"date":"2005-04-24T20:23:21","date_gmt":"2005-04-25T03:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doctorsoroush.com\/english\/?p=628"},"modified":"2012-10-01T20:24:09","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T03:24:09","slug":"reforming-religious-knowledge-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/reforming-religious-knowledge-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reforming Religious Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Times – Site Edition\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> (<\/em>Sunday, April 24, 2005)<\/em><\/p>\n

Asma Barlas<\/p>\n

Abdolkarim Soroush rescues Islam from Muslim interpretations and practice of it by arguing that the \u201clast religion is already here but the last understanding of religion has not yet arrived.\u201d Indeed, he distinguishes \u201cbetween religion and our knowledge of religion\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In a previous article (Religious authorities in Islam, Daily Times, December 31, 2002), I commented on how Muslims produce religious knowledge because I believe this explains both why the knowledge is anti-women (inasmuch as it misrepresents the Qur\u2019an\u2019s position on sexual equality and women\u2019s rights), and why most Muslims nonetheless are opposed to the idea of rethinking it. In this context, I quoted the Iranian intellectual, Abdolkarim Soroush, who believes that Muslim opposition to reform results from confusing religion with their own knowledge of it; this leads them to regard calls for change as an indictment of the religion itself rather than of their own limited and imperfect understanding of it.<\/p>\n

In this essay, I will explore some of the arguments Soroush makes in his book, Reason, Freedom, and Democracy in Islam (Oxford University Press, 2000) since I believe he deals compellingly with interpretive problems confronting Muslims today. (The book is a collection of essays on different themes which means that in order to get a composite understanding of his position on an issue, it is necessary to connect the arguments he makes in different contexts and essays in a way that he does not always do himself.)<\/p>\n

One of the issues that Soroush analyses is the relationship between theory and practice and, more specifically, between Islam and history. He begins by asking if there is \u201ca connection between a theory and its historical and practical unfolding\u201d (76). Should we ascribe faulty practices to a doctrine or to how its adherents interpret it? \u201cIf,\u201d he argues, \u201cwe are going to maintain that an actual system springing from an idea has no relationship to the idea whatsoever, why then identify that system with that idea at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

To Soroush, it seems obvious that one cannot absolve a doctrine \u201cfrom the responsibility of allowing… abuses\u201d (78). As he says, \u201cFalse interpretations and improper conclusions, however sincerely drawn, are still, indubitably, fruits of the doctrine\u201d (84). This line of reasoning leads him to conclude that Islam itself \u201callowed both false righteousness and true virtue.\u201d As he puts it, even though the \u201cseed of religion resists contamination… the plant that grows out of that seed opens a canopy for the virtuous and villainous alike\u201d (86). If this view raises some troubling questions for Muslims, so does his assertion that if Muslims could interpret Islam all over again, its interpretive history would \u201cnot assume different forms or contents nor [would it] inaugurate a radically new history\u201d (86).<\/p>\n

To me, this is the most questionable of Soroush\u2019s arguments since such historical determinacy undercuts \u201cour view of humans as moral agents by suggesting that we are caught merely in the \u2018hinges of history\u2019… unable to do much about it,\u201d as I argue in my book (Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur\u2019an, University of Texas Press, 2002: 208). In the end, I am not sure that Soroush can bring himself to embrace \u201ca view that undermines the idea of human agency and, with it, the idea of morality (since, in the absence of agency, one cannot be moral)\u201d (Barlas, 208). Thus, he expresses reservations about holding \u201cideologies responsible for everything done in their name\u201d and questions whether \u201cthe history of a doctrine [is] identical with the doctrine\u201d (81).<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, he rescues Islam from Muslim interpretations and practice of it by arguing that the \u201clast religion is already here but the last understanding of religion has not yet arrived.\u201d Indeed, he distinguishes not only \u201cbetween religion and our knowledge of religion,\u201d but also \u201cbetween personal knowledge of religion and religious knowledge\u201d (37; 34). On the basis of these distinctions, he argues that while religion may be perfect and complete, our knowledge of it is not. Moreover, since knowledge is shaped by both time and culture, there is a continual need to reform it. In fact, at the core of Soroush\u2019s interpretive philosophy \u201cis the claim that religious knowledge is subject to \u2018contraction and expansion\u2019 and that this flux is a natural part of the history of religion\u201d (Barlas, 2002: 208). It is the failure to recognise this fact, he contends, that is the greatest impediment to Muslim \u201crevivalists\u201d today. As he puts it, \u201cEverywhere they turned they were haunted by agonizing questions: What is your claim and goal anyway? What is the \u2018defect\u2019 in religion that you propose to repair? What error or ailment has befallen it that it has provoked this empathy and reformist zeal? What essential subject has escaped the Prophet\u2019s mind, what good or evil has religion left out that now demands your help in explicating or teasing out? And, anyway, if religion really does harbor such flaws and faults, why are you still committed to it?\u201d (31).<\/p>\n

As Soroush makes clear, however, such questions arise from the failure to realise that, \u201cas a branch of human knowledge,\u201d religious knowledge also is \u201cincomplete, impure, insufficient, and culture-bound\u201d (32). And to the extent that this is so, \u201crehabilitating religious thought; correcting misreadings;… redirecting religion towards it essence; rectifying misunderstandings; and tearing asunder the veils of ignorance and ill will are among the duties of the faithful and, as such, they are part of the history of religion\u201d (86).<\/p>\n

To Soroush, reforming religious knowledge means replacing \u201cone understanding of religion with another\u201d (33). Such a shift in understanding, however, presupposes a shift in how we live in the world. For instance, accepting the Qur\u2019anic principle of the ontic equality of men and women means giving up systems of male privilege and how many Muslim men would be open to that? Hence the antipathy to reform. In Soroush\u2019s words, the \u201cstunning beauty of the truth… lies beyond the veil of habits\u201d and, sadly, too many Muslims today are enmeshed in this veil to see the truth of the Qur\u2019an\u2019s teachings.<\/p>\n

Asma Barlas is associate professor and chair of Politics at Ithaca College, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.dailytimes.com.pk\/default.asp?page=story_11-2-2003_pg3_4<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daily Times – Site Edition\u00a0\u00a0 (Sunday, April 24, 2005) Asma Barlas Abdolkarim Soroush rescues Islam from Muslim interpretations and practice of it by arguing that the \u201clast religion is already here but the last understanding of religion has not yet arrived.\u201d Indeed, he distinguishes \u201cbetween religion and our knowledge of religion\u201d In a previous article […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drsoroush.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}