Read Online Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide by Paul Marshall, Nina Shea - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paul Marshall, Nina Shea
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which the Message would “harden” and degenerate, and the Qur’an would become, as it is now, subject to political and other forms of self-interested manipulation exercised by so-called guardians of Islam.
The innovative approach to Qur’anic study that I have long proposed in my various writings on the process of modern Qur’anic interpretation entails the use of traditional exegetical methods
and
modern linguistic methodologies, in addition to the analysis of sociohistorical reality and culture. 3 By recognizing the difference between the original contextual “meaning,” which is virtually fixed because of its historicity, and the “significance” in a particular sociocultural context, which is changeable, and furthermore, by realizing that the significance must be strongly related and rationally connected to the meaning, we can produce more valid contemporary interpretations. Of course, any interpretations of the Qur’an produced using such a methodology are not exempt from the reality that
every
interpretation is historically and culturally constructed.
Blasphemy and Apostasy Laws Stifle Progress and Hinder Peaceful Coexistence
In early Islam, there emerged a debate between a rational school of theology known as the Mu’tazila that claimed that the Qur’an is “created” not eternal, and other theological schools of thought that held that the Qur’an is the “eternal” verbatim speech of God. In the Mu’tazilites’ view, an “uncreated” Qur’an is inconsistent with the concept of pure monotheism,
tawhid
, a pivotal concept in Islam. Sociohistorical analysis demonstrates that these schools did not hold their respective views in a vacuum; rather, they expressed in religious terminologies the different sociopolitical positions of their adherents. Eventually, the notion of an “eternal and uncreated” Qur’an became the dominant accepted dogma in Sunni Islam. Unfortunately, the history of this debate is either unknown or ignored by nearly all contemporary Sunni clerics and scholars. Instead, the doctrine of “eternity” is presented as the Truth, while the doctrine of “creation” is denounced as heresy.
As a result, the notion that religious texts, although Divine and revealed by God, are culturally constructed and historically determined is not only rejected by the Muslim establishment but also actively condemned as “apostasy.” There is frequently no clear distinction made among heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy within the Muslim world. Instead, Islamist radicals deliberately conflate these terms in order to attack any discourse that strays from the narrow bounds of their fundamentalist ideology. Having been at the receiving end of such allegations—and driven from my home in Egypt to exile in the Netherlands—I can state with conviction that charges of apostasy and blasphemy are key weapons in the fundamentalists’ arsenal, strategically employed to prevent reform of Muslim societies and instead confine the world’s Muslim population to a bleak, colorless prison of sociocultural and political conformity. There is little hope of escape from this imprisonment, as long as fundamentalists—and the opportunistic and/or authoritarian regimes that compete with them in a chase to the lowest common denominator of Islam—continue to serve as prison guards and wardens.
Laws penalizing blasphemy and apostasy exist in most Muslim-majority countries throughout the world and act as a severe constraint upon the use of reason to explore and understand the contemporary significance of the Qur’an’s profound message. By forcefully silencing critical inquiry, such laws play directly into the hands of Islamic radicals who seek to unify and politicize Muslim societies not only against the West but also against the very concept and principles of modern life, such as freedom, justice, human rights, and the dignity of man, which are themselves inseparable from the right to freedom of conscience and
The innovative approach to Qur’anic study that I have long proposed in my various writings on the process of modern Qur’anic interpretation entails the use of traditional exegetical methods
and
modern linguistic methodologies, in addition to the analysis of sociohistorical reality and culture. 3 By recognizing the difference between the original contextual “meaning,” which is virtually fixed because of its historicity, and the “significance” in a particular sociocultural context, which is changeable, and furthermore, by realizing that the significance must be strongly related and rationally connected to the meaning, we can produce more valid contemporary interpretations. Of course, any interpretations of the Qur’an produced using such a methodology are not exempt from the reality that
every
interpretation is historically and culturally constructed.
Blasphemy and Apostasy Laws Stifle Progress and Hinder Peaceful Coexistence
In early Islam, there emerged a debate between a rational school of theology known as the Mu’tazila that claimed that the Qur’an is “created” not eternal, and other theological schools of thought that held that the Qur’an is the “eternal” verbatim speech of God. In the Mu’tazilites’ view, an “uncreated” Qur’an is inconsistent with the concept of pure monotheism,
tawhid
, a pivotal concept in Islam. Sociohistorical analysis demonstrates that these schools did not hold their respective views in a vacuum; rather, they expressed in religious terminologies the different sociopolitical positions of their adherents. Eventually, the notion of an “eternal and uncreated” Qur’an became the dominant accepted dogma in Sunni Islam. Unfortunately, the history of this debate is either unknown or ignored by nearly all contemporary Sunni clerics and scholars. Instead, the doctrine of “eternity” is presented as the Truth, while the doctrine of “creation” is denounced as heresy.
As a result, the notion that religious texts, although Divine and revealed by God, are culturally constructed and historically determined is not only rejected by the Muslim establishment but also actively condemned as “apostasy.” There is frequently no clear distinction made among heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy within the Muslim world. Instead, Islamist radicals deliberately conflate these terms in order to attack any discourse that strays from the narrow bounds of their fundamentalist ideology. Having been at the receiving end of such allegations—and driven from my home in Egypt to exile in the Netherlands—I can state with conviction that charges of apostasy and blasphemy are key weapons in the fundamentalists’ arsenal, strategically employed to prevent reform of Muslim societies and instead confine the world’s Muslim population to a bleak, colorless prison of sociocultural and political conformity. There is little hope of escape from this imprisonment, as long as fundamentalists—and the opportunistic and/or authoritarian regimes that compete with them in a chase to the lowest common denominator of Islam—continue to serve as prison guards and wardens.
Laws penalizing blasphemy and apostasy exist in most Muslim-majority countries throughout the world and act as a severe constraint upon the use of reason to explore and understand the contemporary significance of the Qur’an’s profound message. By forcefully silencing critical inquiry, such laws play directly into the hands of Islamic radicals who seek to unify and politicize Muslim societies not only against the West but also against the very concept and principles of modern life, such as freedom, justice, human rights, and the dignity of man, which are themselves inseparable from the right to freedom of conscience and
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