In “Jihad and the Modern World” on page 407, Dr. Sherman Jackson states that “Muslims will have to avoid the fallacy of assuming that the realities of yesterday pass automatically into today or that the factual or historical assessments of the Muslims of the past constitute authoritative doctrines that are binding on the Muslims of the present.”
In Islam, the Quran is considered to be the eternal word of God. Is Dr. Jackson’s statement contradictory to this belief or can Muslims who agree with Dr. Jackson consider the Quran to be the eternal word of God while acknowledging that times change and certain instructions have to be reinterpreted while considering the original context?
Although I don’t believe the Bible is the eternal word of God in the same way Muslims understand this about the Quran, I am familiar with a similar method of interpretation when it comes to the Torah. For an example, sometimes nonreligious people ask me why I wear mixed fabrics. The simple answer is that I look at the reason for why this law was made. If the reason applies to today, I follow it. If the reason no longer applies, I don’t have to follow it. Mixed fabrics were forbidden because it was a style of clothing that polytheists wore. Today, everyone wears mixed fabrics and it has nothing to do with being a polytheist or a monotheist. This is why the law, at first glance, doesn’t make sense to us.
When it comes to the Quran, do you think that extremism comes from not understanding the context and believing that the world is in the same state of war as it was when the Quran was revealed?
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3 thoughts on “The Quran in Context”
stabakha
I believe extremism came from understanding the Quran in well, an extreme manner. I think extremists read the Quran and took those interpretations to the next level, causing those ideologies to be carried away in a negative manner. Islam and other religions face problems on how to interpret messages made by God, so it makes sense as to why some become extremists. Not saying those acts are justified, but acknowledging the fact that it is important to make sure interpretations of religious texts are communicated in a morally and ethically manner, viewed positively by the majority. I do not think that extremists use the reason for believing that the world is in the same state of war when the Quran was revealed because wouldn’t have they taken the interpretations made by past Muslims? And when the Quran was first revealed, there were not that many interpretations, so how could they have elevated to such extreme ideologies?
acorrell in reply to stabakha
I also agree that extremism came from the understanding of the Quran; what I believe happened though is that extremists believe that anyone who is not Muslim is not following the world of God, therefore, they must be punished because of that. Even if we do not do anything punishable, according to our own understanding of what is right, extremists argue that because they do not follow ALL Quranic ideals, then they are sinners.
ademaio in reply to stabakha
I also think there has to be someone of a literalist element to how extremism started. The Qur’an is a book that could be very dangerous if it is understood improperly and the ambiguous nature of the book makes extremists possible through wrong interpretation and literal understanding of the Qur’an and its words.