Read Online Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide by Paul Marshall, Nina Shea - Free Book Online
Authors: Paul Marshall, Nina Shea
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messenger of God, and human himself. A message represents a communicative link between a speaker and recipient, delivered via a code or linguistic system. Without such a code, messages will not be intelligible to recipients. In the case of the Qur’an, the Arabic language—the human code of the recipient—is the code of communication between the Divine and humans, simply because the Divine code, if any, is unlikely to be comprehended by humans. Besides, the message was not intended for the recipient (Muhammad) alone; rather, it was meant to be transmitted to the recipient’s community and beyond. Therefore, it had to be comprehended by the Arabic-speaking community of Mecca and the Arabian Peninsula in general. “We never sent a messenger but with the language of his people, that he might make it clear for them,” states the Qur’an (14:4). 2
Since the speaker, God, cannot be the object of scientific study, it is only possible for scholars to approach the message as encoded in the language of the recipient and his community. To accomplish that objective, scholars need all available information about the first recipient, Muhammad, and his surrounding community. In other words, scholars must begin their analysis of the Qur’anic message by studying its contextual reality and seventh-century Arab culture. “Reality” here refers to the sociopolitical conditions that encompassed those who were addressed by the Qur’an, including its first recipient, and which framed their lives, thoughts, and actions. Culture includes the conceptual framework embodied in a language, in this case, the language in which the Qur’an is expressed.
To analyze the Qur’anic message by studying its sociopolitical and cultural reality is to start with empirical facts. The scholarly analysis of such facts can helpus achieve an accurate understanding of the Qur’an, including the realization that the Qur’an is a product of seventh-century Arab culture.
The overarching reality, however, is far more complex than this. While arising within the particular seventh-century culture of Arabia, the Qur’an was taken to heart by its recipients and in turn produced a
new
culture, imbued with profound spiritual as well as sociopolitical and cultural dimensions. The Qur’an’s linguistics exhibit a number of unique characteristics that were widely acknowledged and admired by contemporary Arabs, including some of Muhammad’s opponents. From this uniqueness emerged the notion of the absolute “inimitability”—
i’jaz
—of the Qur’an.
Although it is necessary to analyse and interpret the Qur’an within the contextual environment in which it originated, the understanding of the Qur’an possessed by the first and subsequent generations of Muslims should by no means be considered absolute or final. The specific linguistic encoding dynamics of the Qur’an allow an endless process of decoding. In this process, we should not simplify or ignore its contextual sociopolitical and cultural meaning; in fact, this “meaning” is vital to indicate the direction of any “new” or contemporary message of the text. This direction facilitates our transition from the text’s literal “meaning” to its “significance” in any given sociocultural context, including the present. It also enables the interpreter to correctly and efficiently extract the “historical” and “temporal” elements of the message, which carry no significance in the present context.
In other words, the “deep structure” of the Qur’an must be reconstructed from the surface structure, which was specific to seventh-century Arab culture. Subsequently, this deep structure must give rise to other surface structures, including contemporary ones, suitable to successive generations of Muslim society in various regions of the earth. This entails an interpretive diversity—clearly seen throughout Muslim history, particularly as practiced by Sufis, or Islamic mystics—without
Since the speaker, God, cannot be the object of scientific study, it is only possible for scholars to approach the message as encoded in the language of the recipient and his community. To accomplish that objective, scholars need all available information about the first recipient, Muhammad, and his surrounding community. In other words, scholars must begin their analysis of the Qur’anic message by studying its contextual reality and seventh-century Arab culture. “Reality” here refers to the sociopolitical conditions that encompassed those who were addressed by the Qur’an, including its first recipient, and which framed their lives, thoughts, and actions. Culture includes the conceptual framework embodied in a language, in this case, the language in which the Qur’an is expressed.
To analyze the Qur’anic message by studying its sociopolitical and cultural reality is to start with empirical facts. The scholarly analysis of such facts can helpus achieve an accurate understanding of the Qur’an, including the realization that the Qur’an is a product of seventh-century Arab culture.
The overarching reality, however, is far more complex than this. While arising within the particular seventh-century culture of Arabia, the Qur’an was taken to heart by its recipients and in turn produced a
new
culture, imbued with profound spiritual as well as sociopolitical and cultural dimensions. The Qur’an’s linguistics exhibit a number of unique characteristics that were widely acknowledged and admired by contemporary Arabs, including some of Muhammad’s opponents. From this uniqueness emerged the notion of the absolute “inimitability”—
i’jaz
—of the Qur’an.
Although it is necessary to analyse and interpret the Qur’an within the contextual environment in which it originated, the understanding of the Qur’an possessed by the first and subsequent generations of Muslims should by no means be considered absolute or final. The specific linguistic encoding dynamics of the Qur’an allow an endless process of decoding. In this process, we should not simplify or ignore its contextual sociopolitical and cultural meaning; in fact, this “meaning” is vital to indicate the direction of any “new” or contemporary message of the text. This direction facilitates our transition from the text’s literal “meaning” to its “significance” in any given sociocultural context, including the present. It also enables the interpreter to correctly and efficiently extract the “historical” and “temporal” elements of the message, which carry no significance in the present context.
In other words, the “deep structure” of the Qur’an must be reconstructed from the surface structure, which was specific to seventh-century Arab culture. Subsequently, this deep structure must give rise to other surface structures, including contemporary ones, suitable to successive generations of Muslim society in various regions of the earth. This entails an interpretive diversity—clearly seen throughout Muslim history, particularly as practiced by Sufis, or Islamic mystics—without
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