Focus
It
would be naïve to accuse only the West of misreading Islam, for
Muslims are equally guilty of doing so. How else can one explain the
extremists’ view of people like bin Laden, the hijackers, and the
Taliban as exemplifying “real” Islam? How else could moderate
Muslims have done nothing to contest, for instance, the Taliban’s
distortions of Islam? Of course these are extreme examples, but I am
concerned with interpretive extremism and, more specifically, with
how Muslims can contest it.
Elsewhere,
I have examined at length the interpretive practices by means of
which Muslims read violence into the Qur’an, especially against
women. Part of my argument is that what we understand the Qur’an
to be saying depends upon who reads it, how, and in what contexts.
In other words, meaning is contingent upon method and,
unfortunately, what passes for an “Islamic” method for reading
the Qur’an is demonstrably at odds with the criteria stipulated by
the Qur’an for its own reading for instance, to say nothing of our
understanding of God as Just. Further, I argue that the nature of
the relationship between interpretive communities and Muslim states,
and thus how both religious and secular-political authority has been
structured in Muslim societies, has shaped the method. Hence, in
order to understand why Muslims have tended to favor certain
readings of the Qur’an over others at different times and places,
we need to examine the relationship between hermeneutics and
history, the nature of Muslim states, and the configuration of both
religious and secular power within these states.
Saying
that knowledge cannot be independent of the contexts and processes
of its own production is nothing new, at least in most circles. But
once we concede the role of human agency and social structures in
interpretive processes, it becomes incumbent to try and understand
why Muslim identities, consciousnesses, and histories have
intertwined in specific ways to produce certain readings of the
Qur’an. This approach allows us to distinguish between the
Qur’an and its exegesis on the one hand, and between religious
texts, cultures, and histories on the other, for both of these are
needed to challenge extremist readings of Islam.
We
also must learn to read the Qur’an for its “best meanings,” as
the Qur’an itself asks us to do. Such an injunction clearly
recognizes that we can read a text in multiple ways, but that not
all readings may be equally appropriate and acceptable. Indeed, as I
noted, the Qur’an specifies the criteria for judging between the
contextual legitimacy of different readings. Personality, I
understand the Qur’an’s counsel to read for the best meanings
and its definition of Islam as sirat al-mustaqim (the straight path,
the middle path, the path of moderation) and its warning not to
commit excesses in religion as pointing to a rejection of extremist
readings, including patriarchal ones.
The
brief analysis above makes two points. First, extremist readings of
the Qur’an are a function of certain modes of interpretive
reasoning and of the way in which religious and state-political
power are configured in Muslim states. In turn, we need to
understand the role of external factors, notably western hegemony
and policies, in shaping the politics of Muslim states. And, second,
Muslims are not obligated to accept oppressive readings of the
Qur’an since the Qur’an itself has freed us from such a burden.
I
also contend that the problem of interpretive extremism is the
product of both extremist thinking and the unwillingness of moderate
Muslims to challenge it in the fatuous belief that “Islamism is
Islamism,” as an Algerian feminist puts it in a well-acclaimed
documentary shown in the West. This fatalism, which also embedded in
a politics of denial and misrecognition, allows the very
“Islamists” that moderate Muslims decry to interpret Islam in
ways that then victimizes them.
Sadly,
most contemporary Muslims seek to wash their hands of the
extremists, perhaps because of the guilt by association that many of
us feel – even though such guilt should not be based upon their
being Muslims but upon our disengagement from Islam, which has given
extremists a free rein. Thus, as Muslims we need to do more than
distance ourselves from the extremists in the wake of 9/11; we need
to take responsibility for reading the Qur’an in liberatory modes
to provide an alternative and egalitarian interpretative framework.
From Asma Barlas “Jihad, Holy War and Terrorism: The Politics of Conflation and Denial” in American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Winter 2003-pp. 57-59