The koran as a source of own decision-making and base of civil law — a conversation with the syrian koranexegated muhammad shahrour
As "very slippery ground" the egyptian islam researcher nasr hamid abu zaid defined the koran. His syrian colleague muhammad shahrour sees itself as a matter of principle — but it will take out that the entire book may only be discourse. Rather, he resorts the large slip loss in the lack of border limiting between absolute and human authority (god’s word vs. Its interpretation). Under this pramisse, every generation must deal directly with the revelation, instead of traditionally lit stubborn. In the crossfire of his criticism, especially the sharia.
They emphasize that democracy is in the arab countries with a religious reform and falls. Why?
Muhammad shahrour: because religion is the normative force here. And because democracy has to do with freedom of choice, but the islam is facing this freedom in his traditional reading. In what way?
Muhammad shahrour: freedom means for muslims to be against slavery — neither bought nor sold to. Not more. That they also implied the moment of choice, for example between faith and non-confidence, obedience or disobedient, our history has been leaving rigoros for centuries. Our culture fevers on the vacuum of the values of freedom and life. Instead, we are taught how we should die. But if i love my life, i’m a bad muslim and make me guilty. This idea did not grew up to bin laden’s crap, but he, the hamas, al-jihad etc. Make ways as well as our regimes that know exactly that they have not spilled from these prisoners companies. Example mubarak: if nothing comes from the outside, he will rule to his life and then followed by his son — ipty is not the ukraine. Therefore, our dictators insist that reforms "only out of the inside" take place thirst. You know exactly that it never happens. Practically, not?
American restructuring welcome
accordingly, they bury the current intervention of auben in iraq?
Muhammad shahrour: i’m sure the americans imported a new system in iraq, which could make a second sudkorea in ten, fifty years from the country. Anyway, you never went to the ol, because that had given you saddam too. So if you are planning a restructuring à la sudkorea or japan, then you are welcome, because here is the pure stagnation. This is at least another view as the gears. But it implies that they do not really believe in the assertiveness of a religious reform?
Muhammad shahrour: with my reading of the koran i try to mediate people the value of freedom — and i have a lot of trail. Most sitting interestingly in the islamistic of all arab states, in saudi arabia. Then let us go in detail on your health care. What is you planning?
Muhammad shahrour: on the "theory of limits". In my opinion, god in the koran uses us our limits. For example, according to koran verse 5:38 the highest punishment for theft is the hacking of the hand. It is the top limit of punishment, but not the penalty itself. Equally well, the delinquent can be sentenced to volunteer work. Everything that is between these two boundaries is admitted and a question of the legislative design to be agreed on the parliament.
Idea of civil society inherent to the koran
from here they tense the bow to democracy?
Muhammad shahrour: yes, as soon as the idea of freedom is internalized, everything else follows by itself. According to the god’s law, in my reading, the commutations of the death penalty are just as in law as their opponents. Which case-law is applied ultimately is the case of democratically chosen parliament, not any fatwas. The idea of civil society is deeply inherent to the koran. That sounds very simple in principle. But the koran really gives every question of this response spectrum? In a clear way?
Muhammad shahrour: no, many verses are indeed ambiguous. But do not forget that it is not a rigid instructions for instructions for life, but about god’s revelation — and thus wisdom acts. He opens the goal to self-responsible opinion finding, for ijtihad. An effort that every generation needs to do new. In my opinion, today we can better interpret the koran than at the time of the prophet or. The bedouins because we operate with a different level of knowledge. Play, for example, from the cosmos, centuries to copernicus and galileo are read otherwise as centuries before.
99% of women dressed correctly
they play on the time of the bedouins: the hijab, the islamic headscarf, is a traditional garment of the bedouins. What statutory arbitraries can be measured by the koran in their reading of the woman?
Muhammad shahrour: the top limit is excluded in the severing of the entire body, face and his own. The lowest at the underwear. Thus, everything is, which moves between a total clipping including the face and the hands on the one hand and the naked walk on the strain on the other,. So 99% of women are arranged correctly worldwide. But not the women who wear the burka or totally sweaty as in saudi arabia? If the non-sparklich is unorthodox. On the other hand, the different legal opinions demonstrate whether woman may show face and hands or not, yes, the interpretation marvel of the koran. The starting point of its theory is the distinction between god’s word — as absolute — and his human interpretation. But where hort the one and the other starts?
Muhammad shahrour: in my opinion, there are two fundamental categories: be and become. First is god and absolutely, second human and relative. I have been very inspired by hegel and the british whitehead and their conceptuality from becoming and processive. That’s the word of god, which he would love mohammed in the revelation and written in the koran. The interpretation of the text, however, is an existing being. I also distinguish well between the messenger and the prophet muhammad. At the moment he learned god’s word, he was not a prophet, but the surveyor of the absolute. But as a prophet he was a person of meat and blood, anchored in his culture and their statement of knowledge. What mohammad did in his role as a prophet and spoke — and what is meant in the sunnah, as a second most important source for islamic principles — is therefore not absolutely because not eternal.
Sunna not absulut
thus you tell you to the cornerstones of the traditional islamic discourse.
Muhammad shahrour: they say it: discourse. Only god’s word is absolutely, everything else is historical and always reading with the means of mind and knowledge. I refuse to give the human absolutist consecration. This also applies to mohammed, outside its function as a messenger. If you do not recognize the sunna as a sacral standardization, you will automatically be in friction with islamic jurisprudence, the fiqh.
Muhammad shahrour: the fiqh was charged by muhammad al-schaffii at the time of the violence of abbasides. Its foundation were the hadithe that the sunna delivered and that were also fixed at that time. Instead of questioning the hadithe, al-schafii explained her to the a and olong legal ies. He raised once a past era — mohammed was already over 150 years ago — to a part of the sacral. …So mixed "being" and "will"?
Muhammad shahrour: yes, he also excluded free decision-making because he answered vital questions by the analogies to mohammed’s life. It was particularly fatal that he jerked the forbidden, haram, in the foreground of religion. This spirit was founded in a reactionar epoch before the age of 1200 and is still unbroken. 1200 years of fear, guilt, prohibitions. Not surprised that the arabs introduced the introduction of the internet as the first question: "is the haram?!"
On each corner a mullah, the guilty spread spread
according to their discourse, muslims follow not only god’s word for centuries, but above all the other person?
Muhammad shahrour: there is a mullah or sheikh, which spreads guilty. The religious tv channel donates people daily that they are slaves of god. God’s word and thus the absolute law is: you are free to election. The fight is the jihad, the real. Whether you are muslim, or not. Fear is always a good remedy for the power of power.
Muhammad shahrour: this is the point: since the abbasids, the islamic religious scores were the servants of the political authority, in contrast to christianity, in which the pope appointed the konige. Here, the state prosecides occupied the mullahs, which in turn adopt their fatwas after political well-dunk. The best example of this is the surgery of saddams on kuwait, 1990. From saudi arabia promptly followed a fatwa, which called the united states to aid, while baghdad at the same time released a fatwa, which underpinned the accuracy of invasion. This case-law in the name of god is a farce in favor of political power clerk. But there are also more and more votes from the mullahs against indiscriminately directed fatwas.
Muhammad shahrour: people become blood and violence mude. Example palastina: it was foreseeable that the majority of abbas and not for hamas will vote. People also see how politically naive the fundamentalists approach. About the taliban, over their loss all pleasurable all the pleasure. But as long as the idea of freedom is not established in islamic kops, they will continue to compensate. This subjugation must be unloaded in self- and foreign hatred. Therefore, there are still numerous sermons who devote christians and jews. Therefore, the islamists claim that islam is universal?
Muhammad shahrour: all this is talked, you just have to compensate. However, islam is indeed universal at the moment, as one inherent freedom of choice — within god’s predetermined limits -. Because then he becomes human. A religion that wants to institutionalize the contempt for its own life and who wants to relate from their survival is the purest perversion. But islam is not like that. If you want so, i help the fundamentalist to underpin your theory and thus delight your foundation.
Dr. Muhammad shahrour, geb. 1938. After the engineering studies in moscow and the promotion at the university of dublin, he taught up to 2000 construction at the university of damascus. Since 1967, the year of the destructive defeat in the arab-israeli war, theology aubesiter deals with the koranexegese. Surprised by scientific methodology and influenced by philosophical dialectics he published his analysis in 1990 "the book and the koran — a contemporary interpretation", which was sold out within three months in damascus and was banned in saudi arabia. Exactly from there, shahrours internet forum but has strong resonance.