Divine Will (II)

A very busy week I had, sorry for delay. Let’s go a bit further with the current point.
Lord is a believer in “an omnipotent God” who “can do whatever acts he desires”, but unfortunately it is not likely to solve the problem. Remember the main point which fueled our whole debate: existence of different, inconsistent and even contradictory understandings of that Divine Will. How can we justify such a thing? Lord gives his own view: “God did his best to tell us his Divine Will, and if there are different views and understanding, he wanted so.” Then, the main point is left untouched; Hurray!
Let me paraphrase the case: Indeed, I was aimed to find a reference authenticated by God as the original understanding of His Divine Will. Here, Lord proposes another alternative: if there are different views and understandings, it is possible that God wanted it so.
Therefore, with regards to the fact that God sent us his messengers and revealed many verses in order to make a religious structure for our lives, first of all we should find out if God prescribes a sole definite code for our lives, or just gives us some clues and then wants us to act based on our understanding of that clues which may make many different or even contradictory structures? In other words, there are two possible maps:
(I) There is a precise Code which God and Religion means it and we should try to find it, though some times we may misunderstand it (if this misunderstanding happens while we do our best to find out that Divine Will, God may forgive us); and God's code includes instructions for every simple task of human's life, i.e., in any certain time and place, God has a Will which is Unique and we have to find it.
(II) God has ordered some principles on which we should build our understanding, and from which we should try to derive a kind of Code, and different people may conclude differently, i.e. God has not (meant) a Unique Determined Code.
A simple example may show the difference between above maps more precisely: somebody concludes that right now, ‘A’ (an act, behavior, etc.) is allowed, while the other finds it forbidden. Map (I) tells us that not both of them are true, for God’s code is unique and covers all aspects of human's life: one of them is true, and the other is wrong. Map (II) tells us that it is possible that both of them are true at the same time, on the basis that God has probably not determined a definite Code for A and has left it for people to decide which is true themselves. You know the idea behind ‘Straights Paths’ of Dr. Soroush which is somehow based upon this ideology.
Let me clarify the stand of advocates of Map (II) a bit more: they say that God has a determined code for just few things like Prayers, Fast, etc. In other areas (especially when it comes to some features of contemporary life like economy, geography, etc.), God has left it to the Wisdom of Crowd. People should make trial and errors and step by step develop their own systems of life.

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Dear Lord!
In either case, almost all scholars do agree that an ordinary person is not able to find out the path, for he/she first of all should think of all such matters and then decide about them. The only things that Quran has for everybody (and there is no need for an interpreter to find out them), is prescribed principles of Islam, things of this kind:
1- There is a God, who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and unique.
2- There will be a day of doom, the last day, Day of Judgment.
Etc.

Good Luck

Divine Will (intro)

Note: Since our debate about Islam’s position on Jews led to a much broader discussion about Quran itself, this post is named ‘Divine Will (intro)’ to cover the very basis of our later arguments. This post works just as an intro to the subject, and gives some hints on our next posts.

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I hope you have read Lord’s new post. Ideas he has developed in his new argument open the door to a very broad discussion about Quran, about which there is an extensive body of different views within Islamic scholars and various schools of thoughts.

Also Fariborz contributed to that post of Lord, though his commentswere taken word by word from a Sunni site. However, those comments also matter.

Let me ask few questions to clarify what subjects are in the root of all the different views about Quran. Read the following questions, contemplate them, and try to find your own answer to them, whether as a Muslim, or just as a believer in God, or as a nonbeliever. Also it should be noted that these arguments, with few modifications, would apply to all holy scriptures, whether Quran, Testaments, or else.

1- When God tried to reveal those verses to Muhammad, there was a Divine Will, but was that will in the form of a human language? How did Muhammad understand that Divine Will? As you well know, while translating a text from source to target language, very often it happens that the will of original author gets lost. Is the process of revelation immune to such failures?

2- Let’s suppose that God revealed some words, and He meant exactly what those words meant. Here another problem arises: Whose understanding of those words is closer to that Divine Will? Indeed you agree that the same words, particularly the words similar to Quran verses (which are full of metaphors, etc.), may mean differently to different people. Even if we suppose that the people of then Arabia must be our reference in this case, did they all have the same understanding of those words? The same problem, again.

3- Is today's Quran equal to the Quran revealed to Muhammad? Indeed there are different versions of Quran, called Qera’at (which means: readings); but some Muslim scholars believe that these differences, believed to be caused by different dialects of the Arabs, are so insignificant that don’t show any difference in the whole meaning of disputed verses. Another point is that some people doubt the way that Quran was gathered and claim that there is a possibility of flaws in that process.

4- Suppose that we solve all the above questions, and finally establish an original understanding of The Divine Will with very simple statements which may mean just in one way to all the people. The next problem rises when we ask of the role of ‘Reason’ in applying those rules to the contemporary society. Indeed this is not a new story of 20th century. Roots of such debates back to few centuries after Holy Prophet’s death (Footnote 1). I have too many things to say about this 4th subject, but leave them all for future.

hope that this intro was useful.

Good Luck

Footnote 1: Let me refer you a simple story of history which helps you get the point better, and leave rest of the matter for later posts. As you well know, Asharite used to believe that reason is incapable of discovering the will of God when this will is not strictly and frankly given to us; and they had some followers in between Shiite. It is said that one of the Shiite Imams wrote on the coffin of his deceased son: “Ismael, rest in God” (Ismael was his son’s name), and an Asharite follower of that Imam, wrote “Ismael, rest in God” on the coffin of his own deceased son, though his son’s name was Muhammad, not Ismael. This was because they did not identify any role for reason in understanding the Will of God.(Note that for Shiite, 12 Imams are supposed to be infallible like the Holy Prophet himself, and their deeds and words provide a source for Shiite Jurisprudence.)

Quran and Jews (II)

As our discussion about Ethics ended unexpectedly, we started a new route concerning the position of Islam and Quran on Jews. It started with Lord's reference to a verse of Quran which states that the worst enemies of Islam & Muslims are Jews. I gave an explanation of that verse, based on some interpreters' ideas. In his recent post, Lord posed several questions which may be formed into 2 main arguments: one concerns the very basis of interpretation of Quran; and the other asks of my own attitude towards Jews & Zionism, which he finds contradictory.

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Let me begin with second problem, which seems much easier to answer. 3 simple principles may describe my view in details:
a) Not every anti-Zionist person/movement is necessarily anti-Semitic.
b) Still, anti-Semitism is in the root of some anti-Zionist movements.
c) I think that Quran seems to be against political movements of radical Jews, not against Judaism itself.

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Now, let's consider the case of interpretation of Quran. You are completely true when you say: “Quran is not just for interpreters, it’s for everyone, everywhere and every time.” But notice that:
1) This Book was revealed in the context of time and a 25-years-history.
2) The language used in Quran is somehow mysterious, full of metaphors, etc.
3) Quran does not give a detailed explanation of its content, and Tradition (Word and Deed of Holy Prophet) is a proper mean to understand the exact meaning of some verses, in addition to the fact that even the details of some important practices of Islam (like daily prayers) is not given in Quran.
This way, interpretation is sometimes a mean to get the meaning of the verse, not sub-layers of its content.
Lat me clarify this position (behind which there is an important philosophy) a bit more: Some of the Muslim scholars believe that when we open Quran and read it, we should pay attention to the fact that this Book was revealed 14 centuries ago to the people of then Arabia, and every word/phrase of this Book had a special meaning to them. We have to understand ‘that’ meaning, not the contemporary meaning of a word/phrase. 2 factors are important here:
* The meaning of a word/phrase itself: As you well know, a special Term or Word in for example Persian may mean differently to people who live in different cities. You may dig the history of Persian Literature and find that there are many words which their meanings were somehow different in the Iran of 100 years ago. The same applies to other languages. Then, Language evolves throughout history, and words may get different meanings during a period of about 14 centuries.
* The socio-political context of the verse: Suppose that we are watching news, and it states that “2 criminals executed in Iran.” Then I say: “Thugs!” You may know from the previous chats we had that I am a fanatic fan of the current regime, then, ‘thugs’ refer to the executed criminals. On the other hand, you may know that I am strongly against the current regime, and I think that they execute opposition leaders under the name of ‘criminals’, then you know that my word refers to the leaders of IRI, not to those executed. This example shows what I mean by ‘socio-political context’.
This way, an interpreter’s role is sometimes to tell us what a word had meant to the audience of Muhammad (PBUH). One interpreter says that Yahud & Sons of Israel had completely different meanings to those people. If this idea is true, we should consider it.
I hope that this post helps you get my point better.
Good Luck

Quran and Jews

[O, Messenger!]Verily you will find the Jews and the pagans the strongest among mankind in enmity to the believers; and you will find that the closest to the believers in friendship are those who say: “we are Nasara [Christians].” That is because among them are learned priests and devoted monks and they are not arrogant [against the truth].
Quran, 5-82

My friend mentioned the above verse in his weblog and asked of others’ idea that why God revealed such verses against Jews. Here is my explanation.

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Once Islam appeared, Mohammad’s position was strong enough (due to his grand father’s and uncle’s support, who were prominent figures in Mecca) to keep him away from the persecution by pagans, but his followers suffered a lot in the first 10 years of his career, when he was in Mecca.
As you well know, since the very beginning of its advent, Islam recognized followers of 3 religions as ‘the people of the book’, who were Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians (there was no Zoroastrian in then Arabia). These people had the right to still practice their faith, but after Muhammad immigrated to Medina and established a Muslim Rule, ‘People of the Book’ were supposed to pay a tax called ‘Jezyeh’.
In that time, Muhammad signed several peace agreements with other tribes who didn’t convert to Islam, asked them not to help pagans in war against Islam and on the hand undertook to protect their rights.
Indeed, Muslims rarely had any problem with Christians, for they (due to their principles and faith, which is known for being kind and tolerant, and also for their religious leaders, who are known for leaving joys of the world and just paying attention to God) were not used to get involved in ruling.
But Jews were else. In one of the most important wars of Pagans against Muhammad (called ‘Trench War’, for a trench around the city of Medina helped Muslims get rid off the great army of enemies), it was a Jewish tribe who provoked Pagans to begin war; and while Medina and Muslims were surrounded by the army of Pagans, another Jewish tribe (one of those tribes who were living inside Medina and signed a peace agreement with Muslims) betrayed Muslims and started a civil war. Actually one may trace the conspiracies of some Jews against Muhammad and Islam, back to the time when Muhammad was in Mecca and Islam was just a newborn.
Keep the above history lessons in mind, and let me refer you to a quote by an interpreter of Quran, who said once that: “Quran has 2 words for those who follow Moses: one is Yahud and the other is Sons of Israel (both of them equal to Jews). Whenever Quran uses the latter it means Jews in a general sense, but when it uses the former it means a special group of Jews, a group who are seeking for political and ruling power and even in some cases are not obedient to their own prophets”.
In this sense, according to the fact that Muslims had few problems (if any) with individual Jews who were living in the Muslim society, and the other fact that the only People of Book which made problems for Islam was Jews, one may conclude that what that verse is saying, and what Quran is dissatisfied of, is the Political Jewish Movements, not Jews themselves.