Sceptics of Islam: Revisionist Religion, Agnosticism and Disbelief in the Modern Arab World 9781350987937, 9781786733627

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes to Readers
Introduction
1. Muhammad ‘Abduh: 1849–1905
2. Shibli Shumayyil: 1850–1917
3. Ameen Rihani: 1876–1940
4. Taha Husayn: 1889–1973
5. Isma‘il Mazhar: 1891–1962
6. Isma‘il Adham: 1911–40
7. Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi: 1863–1936
8. Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi: 1875–1945
9. Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allah: 1916–98
10. Mahmoud Mohamed Taha: 1909–85
11. Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm: 1934–2016
12. ‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id (Adunis): 1930–
13. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd: 1943–2010
14. Mohammed Arkoun: 1928–2010
15. Muhammad Shahrur: 1938–
16. ‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi: 1907–96
17. Nawal El Saadawi: 1931–
Notes
Suggested Readings
Index

Citation preview

Ralph M. Coury is Professor Emeritus of History at Fairfield University in Connecticut, where he taught for nearly three decades. He has also held positions at Universiti Sains Malaysia and Randolph-Macon College in Virginia. He specialises in the study of Arab political and intellectual history and in Orientalism, and his publications include The Making of an Egyptian Arab Nationalist: The Early Years of Azzam Pasha, 1893–1936 (1998).

‘This is an immensely timely anthology. Its carefully selected texts constitute a valuable contribution to our understanding of the rich varieties of modern Arab culture. Muslim and Christian authors alike are granted the opportunity to state their secular and humanistic points of view within an informative framework provided by the editor, Ralph M. Coury. The book can be highly recommended to students of politics, Middle East studies and comparative literature.’ – Youssef Choueiri, Professor of History, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar, and Reader in Islamic Studies, University of Manchester ‘Originally spread by racist Orientalism and recently fuelled by Islamophobia, the common Western view of the modern Arab world is that it has been immune to radical critiques of religion. This splendid anthology gives unambiguously the lie to this view as it illustrates, through judiciously selected original passages and in eminently readable translations, that Arab critical thinkers (Muslims and Christian alike, whether believing radical revisionists, agnostics or atheists) have followed similar paths to those of their counterparts outside the Arab world, responding to many of the same socioeconomic, political and especially cultural forces in their aspiration for freedom, social justice and human rights.’ – Dimitri Gutas, Professor of Arabic and Graeco-Arabic, Yale University ‘A spirit of critical, reasoned uncertainty informs this excellent anthology of Arab writers which reflects their chiefly twentieth-century views of religion, culture and society. Each contribution, ably introduced by the editor, is complemented by an overview which makes the volume accessible to the informed general reader as well as helpful to the Middle East specialist.’ – David Waines, Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies, Lancaster University

SCEPTICS OF ISLAM Revisionist Religion, Agnosticism and Disbelief in the Modern Arab World

Edited by RALPH M. COURY

I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2018 Paperback edition published 2019 Copyright © Ralph M. Coury, 2018 Ralph M. Coury has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7845-3337-3 PB: 978-1-8386-0205-5 ePDF: 978-1-7867-3362-7 eBook: 978-1-7867-2362-8 Series: Library of Modern Middle East Studies 178 Typeset by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

For Melissa

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Notes to Readers Introduction 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Muhammad ‘Abduh: 1849–1905 Shibli Shumayyil: 1850– 1917 Ameen Rihani: 1876– 1940 Taha Husayn: 1889– 1973 Isma‘il Mazhar: 1891– 1962 Isma‘il Adham: 1911– 40 Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi: 1863– 1936 Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi: 1875– 1945 Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allah: 1916– 98 Mahmoud Mohamed Taha: 1909–85 Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm: 1934– 2016 ‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id (Adunis): 1930– Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd: 1943–2010 Mohammed Arkoun: 1928–2010 Muhammad Shahrur: 1938– ‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi: 1907– 96 Nawal El Saadawi: 1931–

Notes Suggested Readings Index

viii x 1 21 31 43 55 65 79 91 99 109 121 129 143 155 169 179 191 203 213 249 251

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks are due to the following: Dr R. Kevin Lacey, Associate Professor and Director of the Arabic and Near Eastern Studies Program at Binghamton University, for his elegant translations of several pieces. The translations are very much Kevin’s, but I have sometimes taken liberty as editor to make revisions. Kevin and I have collaborated on a number of scholarly projects since the early 1990s, including two co-edited books and a journal on Arab culture and thought published by Binghamton University. Dr Muhammad Ali Aziz, Lector of Arabic at Yale University, who helped in reviewing the translations made for this anthology, and with a dedication that most scholars would never have expended on works other than their own. His contribution, informed by a remarkably broad knowledge of Islamic thought, has far transcended questions of language narrowly conceived. Melissa Nash Coury, ‘the companion of my life’ (sharikat hayati) for half a century. If it had not been for her learning, intelligence, energy, and patience, as interlocutor, editor, and organiser, this book would not have seen the light of day. If it had not been for her stubbornness, she would have been listed as co-editor. A number of colleagues, friends, and librarians who have provided various invaluable services, including scholarly advice, help in translation, and help in gaining access to materials: Dr William Abbott, Dr Ali Antar, Dr Najib Awad, Niko Banac, Vincent Carrafiello, Dr Andreas Christmann, Dr Dale Eickelman, Seth Godfrey, Cathy Nash Holley, Fadia Juha, Mark Maxwell, David Orintes, Dr Gerald Peterson, Simon Samoeil, and Dr Robert Webster. Alex Wright, Executive Editor at I.B.Tauris, who has shown more patience than any author could reasonably expect. He gave me enough rope. Any errors or weaknesses are mine.

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Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: Saqr Abu Fakhr, for his A Dialogue with Adunis: Childhood, Poetry, Exile (Hiwar ma‘a Adunis: al-tufulah, al-shi‘ir, al-manfa), Beirut, 2000, pp. 131– 46. Maha Aoun: Taha Husayn, On Pre-Islamic Poetry (Fi al-shi‘ir al-jahili), Cairo, 1926, pp. 26 – 9. Gerlach Press: Sadik J. al-Azm, Critique of Religious Thought, 2015, pp. 17– 30 and 71 –5. Saqi Books: Nawal El Saadawi, ‘God Resigns at the Summit Meeting’ in The Dramatic Literature of Nawal El Saadawi, 2009, pp. 164–98. Dr Muhammad Shahrur, for his The Book and the Qur’an: a Contemporary Reading (al-Kitab wa al-Qur’an: qira’ah mu‘asarah), Damascus, 1997, pp. 545–54. Syracuse University Press: Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, The Second Message of Islam, 1987, pp. 146–64. Westview Press: Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, 1994, pp. 30– 4.

NOTES TO READERS

This book adopts a flexible approach to transliteration. Words transliterated from Arabic texts follow a modified version of the system adopted by the International Journal of Middle East Studies. The book does not use all of the diacritical marks of that system. Common spellings of proper names that are well-known in the West (such as Nasser and Gibran) are also used. Translations included in this book that have already appeared elsewhere in English are reproduced as found, with the exception of minor changes to style, spelling and punctuation, for consistency. Italics are used for the editor’s introduction to individual authors; for his summaries, introductory or transitional, of portions of the texts that are not translated as such; and for his notes, within brackets, relevant to the specificities of an edition or text. Most of the endnotes are the editor’s and are not marked as such; endnotes by the original authors are so indicated; additions to an author’s note by the editor are preceded by the letters ED. In the case of the selections from Shibli Shumayyil and Sadiq al-‘Azm (Chapters 8 and 11), some endnotes by the authors have been dropped to save space. This is also sometimes true of the pious formula ‘Peace be unto him’, following the name of the Prophet Muhammad. Various translations of the Qur’an have been used and in some cases modified, including some of the best-known, such as those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Arthur J. Arberry, Ahmed Ali, Marmaduke Pickthall, and George Sale. More recent versions by Tarif Khalidi and the editors (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Caner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakaki, Joseph E. B. Lumbard, and Mohammed Rustom) of The Study Quran have also been drawn upon.

INTRODUCTION

Arab discussions of the relationship between religion and ‘modernity’ have existed since the early nineteenth century, and, according to some scholars, considerably earlier.1 The terms in which such debates have been conducted are famously ‘plastic’, especially when it comes to that of ‘modernity’, often defined as involving the development of strong centralised states, rationalism, secularism, individual autonomy, capitalism, and its liberal democratic associations. As Roxanne L. Euben writes, scholarly disagreements about when the modern period began, when it ended, and what it consisted of, make ‘predicating definitions of fundamentalism [or ‘traditional’ religion] on modernity . . . seem a bit like building on quicksand’.2 Regardless (not surprisingly) of such ambiguities, the debates have intensified with the decline of Arab Marxism and pan-Arabism and the rise of Islamism, and they have become integral to a struggle for power between various political elements. Several primary categories of thinkers can be identified: 1) Islamists, often designated as ‘fundamentalists’, who argue that all major aspects of human life, including the formation of states, should conform to strict and detailed understandings of God’s will as embodied in Islamic values and laws based on the Qur’an and other religious sources; their radical adherents tend to embrace the idea of the need for immediate revolution (sometimes through violence), to reject man-centred epistemologies as hubristic, to assume the right to foreclose discussion, and to define rulers and opponents as apostates, heretics, disbelievers, or immoral.3 2) Liberals, sometimes forthrightly secularist (‘almani), who draw upon Islamic history and precedent to argue that Islam is primarily a private religion and not a system of government and law and/or that it is synonymous with rationalism, science, and political democracy, either capitalist or socialist. 3) Radical secularists (of various political persuasions, including a number of political radicals) who offer daring critiques of prevailing religious

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ideas and practices, and even of religion itself, as false and as a hindrance to progress. This anthology provides an introduction to the thought of Arab Christian and Muslim left liberal and radical religious thinkers from the late nineteenth century to the present. A number of them are believers, even if they adopt positions that many would regard as heretical or disbelieving (terms that are themselves subject to debate); others are openly agnostic or atheistic. They are also diverse in respect to their countries of origin, their professions, and the genres (poetry, fable, drama, Qur’anic exegesis, scientific theory, and metaphysics) in which they present their views. Some are widely known apart from their writings on religion while others are not. The level and scope of transgressions differ as well: the Lebanese Shibli Shumayyil’s promotion of the idea that only material reality exists, that it is eternal and indestructible, and that religion has been developed and maintained out of a desire for eternal life and to serve the interests of dominating elites (Chapter 2); the Egyptian Taha Husayn’s contention that the Qur’an’s story of Abraham and Ishmael does not establish its historicity, and that their building of the Ka‘abah4 may have been a myth contrived to posit a link between Arabs and Jews and to give Islam a monotheistic pedigree (Chapter 4); the Lebanese Ameen Rihani’s fiercely ironic assault upon all of the basic doctrines of Christianity through his allegorical fable about a modernising, secularising fox who is tried and executed by fellow animals (Chapter 3); the Iraqi Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi’s poem celebrating a successful ‘revolt in hell’ undertaken by scientists, philosophers, poets, and other (good) inhabitants who seek to put an end to the reign of a cruel and unjust God over a cruel and unjust realm (Chapter 7); the Iraqi Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi’s rejection of the traditional Islamic belief in the inimitability of the Qur’an as championed by exegetes and others who believe what they want to believe or who are reluctant to speak the truth out of fear of retribution or hope of advancement (Chapter 8); the Sudanese Mahmoud Mohamed Taha’s propagation of the idea of a first and second message of Islam, the first revealed in Madinah, where Islam’s radical egalitarianism was adapted to the limitations of time and place, and the second, first revealed at Mecca, providing for complete liberty and equality for all, and only now fully applicable because of human advancement (Chapter 10); the Syrian Muhammad Shahrur’s celebration of the Prophet Muhammad as a ‘beautiful model’ for the adaptation of the eternal principles of his revelation to the particular needs of a particular time and place, a model in the making of necessary choices, and not a model whose choices must be followed in our very different circumstances (Chapter 15); or the Saudi ‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi’s understanding of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic deity as a projection of human vice and criminality, an accused who serves as an excuse and justification for

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the never-ending evils and sorrows of human life and the universe in which humanity is trapped (Chapter 16). In spite of these and other differences, all of the authors of this anthology have been united in mounting what have often been regarded as provocative challenges, not only to the ideas of Islamists, but also to much of the standard intellectual repertoire of religious liberals who have constituted the Islamists’ primary opponents. The title of this book speaks of ‘sceptics of Islam’ within the ‘Arab world’, and these key words should be defined. The term sceptic does not refer to the ancient Greek and Roman philosophical schools of that name, or to varieties of disbelief as such, or to the cynicism or nihilism with which the term has been associated in the modern period. It is meant to convey its original Greek meaning of ‘thoughtful’ (skeptikos) and its Latin etymological derivatives, ‘inquiring’ or ‘reflective’ (scepticus).5 The word is, in this sense, meant to evoke the term ‘free-thinker’ of the Enlightenment, even while recognising that these free-thinkers were hardly always right or as free-thinking as they thought themselves to be. There are, to be sure, thinkers who are sceptics in some areas and not in others, including many modern defenders of religion who regard religious faith as beyond the reach of the scientifically knowable.6 Given the stark opposition that exists between modern anthropological and scientific/ cosmological understandings on the one hand, and many traditional religious understandings on the other, the efforts of a mediaeval-like Scholasticism (even with a sense of real limits) to translate the critical results of science and reason into religion appear rash and forced.7 There is therefore a tendency among many Arab and other modern believers to live with ‘two truths’, recognised as either incompatible (in this world) or compatible only on the basis of a naturalisation of the supernatural through a hefty dose of metaphorical, figurative, and psychological interpretations. Walter Benjamin writes that theology is today ‘wizened and kept out of sight’, or, in Theodor Adorno’s gloss, ‘that every [theological] content will have to put itself to the test of migrating to the realm of the secular and the profane’, that the ‘belief in revelation can be maintained only through a desperate abstraction’.8 The words come readily to mind when reading a number of our authors: the Egyptian Muhammad ‘Abduh (Chapter 1)9 writes that revelation is ‘the knowledge that a man finds within himself, with certainty that it proceeds from God, with or without an intermediary’, and that prophets share certain experiences with the mentally ill, in terms of voices and visions, but that believing in the ‘soundness’ of their experience is based on a largely pragmatic criterion, that is, that the ‘illnesses of hearts are healed through their medicine’. Or there is the Algerian Mohammed Arkoun’s (Chapter 14) claim that ‘the misrepresentation’ of dogmatic Islam is the ‘transfiguration of the

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historical actor Muhammad into the prophet-medium of the “word of God”, which is conceived as transcendent, normative, immutable revelation’. The gist (among believers and non-believers) is to reduce talk of God to that of human experience, typical of a modern religion of self-discovery in contrast to redemption from without.10 The powerful forces productive of such modern religion (Adorno speaks of ‘converts, even if they haven’t formally converted’),11 to say nothing of irreligion, are palpable, and often acknowledged with brutal honesty: ‘Still’, again this is Arkoun, ’the experience of the divine can no longer seek support in symbolic capital, a sense of miracle, a mythical universe, and a capacity for bewitchment. All such assets have been neatly destroyed not only by our surroundings of concrete, factories, and public housing, but by a replacement myth of secular and republican origin characteristic of current societies.’12 And, in a passage from another of his works: ‘Doubt: since immediate certitudes have wavered . . . it is necessary for one to be no longer in a universe of answers and beliefs, but of questions and research.’13 The following writers are, then, sceptics, with a definition allowing for believers and unbelievers, Christians and Muslims. But what of the ‘Arab world’ and ‘Islam’, especially when two of our authors are of Christian origin? I believe that there are unities justifying such identities, including majority Muslim and Arabic-speaking populations, and other accompanying constants. I am nevertheless fiercely anti-Orientalist in rejecting the assumption that there are integral, self-contained (except, perhaps, in the case of quite small and simple societies) cultural or civilisational units that act collectively as subjects and that are, inherently and eternally, constituted by determining essences that set them apart from one another.14 To be sure, whether we speak of Islam or the Arabs, there are, as has been mentioned, constants and commonalities, such as a common language, or a holy book, or belief in one God, but even these have been constructed through a variety of discourses, practices, and institutions.15 The idea of large, highly self-contained cultures or civilisations cannot withstand critical scrutiny, inasmuch as there are no such societies to which such cultural and civilisational characteristics correspond. This commonplace observation lies at the heart of this anthology, which seeks to give the lie to the idea that the ‘Arab world’, or the ‘Arab Islamic world’, or the ‘Islamic world’, constitute, over against the ‘Judeo-Christian West’, a quintessential other that is largely impermeable to critiques of religious beliefs and practices, critiques which, whether defined as secular or religious, and apart from strengths and weaknesses, must be understood as part of processes that are in flux.16 Religion can certainly play an independent role, but it is one among other factors, embedded in practices that are open to non-religious and

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non-cultural determinations.17 I might also note that even the manner in which the term ‘Islam’ is usually translated into English, that is, as ‘submission to God’, is a reflection of the Orientalist emphasis upon the religion’s totalitarian nature, inasmuch as the word ‘Islam’ is best understood and translated as ‘deliverance of oneself to God’, and that the word for submission in Arabic is khudu‘, a word with no etymological connection to the word ‘Islam’.18 Those who seek to construct a categorical boundary between the West and the Islamic world are faced with a formidable challenge, inasmuch as the populations designated by the label ‘Islam’ are the cultural heirs of the Hellenic world in which Europe is often said to have had its roots. Those who deny the Muslim – Hellenic link resort to four interrelated arguments: that Islam is a ‘carrier civilisation’, conveying Hellenic elements that are only contingently related to Islam; that Islam is a preserver which, unlike Europe, did not build upon and surpass Hellenism; that Hellenism among Muslims was limited to small, marginal elements, particularly Persian and non-Arab, who faced considerable and continuous hostility from Islamic orthodoxy; that Hellenism had a very short run among Muslims, ending abruptly in the thirteenth century.19 Scholarly refutations are long-lived and widely accepted: that the GrecoArabic translation movement was supported by the entire elite of Abbasid20 society, and subsidised by an enormous outlay of public and private funds;21 that reason was not championed exclusively by scholars in the sciences and philosophy in contrast to religion;22 that many of the major works were not simply preservative, that they revolutionised many aspects of science, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy;23 that the coherence of philosophical arguments were established in their own right and were not subservient to religious doctrine;24 that even highly systematic theological works did not seek to provide a comprehensive system of thought as a basis for all other sciences;25 that speculative theology (kalam) sought to prove, through reason, religious dogma already established through transmission, but that this did not differ from the endeavours of comparable Jewish and Christian theologians, Eastern or Western;26 that speculative theology ultimately tended to disengage the specialised sciences from their original philosophical network and to allow them to be restructured free from the demands of natural philosophy, metaphysics, and theology;27 that the culture of science became an institution with an unprecedented scale of social support and participation;28 that Islamic Hellenism did not come to an end by the thirteenth century, that subsequent Islamic thinkers developed, variously, coherent intellectual systems in which metaphysics, Qur’anic exegesis, science, Sufism,29 and moral philosophy were combined, and that this

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occurred not only in Safavid Iran, Ottoman Turkey, or Mughal India, as has long been established, but also in the Arabic-speaking areas of the Ottoman Empire and North Africa;30 that Sunni Islam of the Hanafi31 legal school was open to philosophy and science at all times;32 that relative decline in the sciences may have ultimately occurred, but that this resulted from specific historical developments, such as the decline in maritime power relative to Europe, and not as the result of some intrinsic predisposition;33 that the alleged broader petrification of Islam, as posited by Muhammad ‘Abduh and other critics within this anthology, is a misrepresentation, that there are indications that Muslims participated, as early as the sixteenth century, in elaborating a modern culture that shows distinct parallels with European cultural history; that this culture flourished in thriving bourgeois-like intellectual circles, many of which were linked to Sufi brotherhoods and reflective of commercial and capitalist interests within Ottoman and Egyptian societies long before the stimulus of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798;34 that ‘authentic and normative’ Islamic discourses have not been overwhelmingly confined to legal prescriptions, that they include discourses and practices of exploration, in philosophy and religious philosophy, in science, belles lettres, music, art, and mysticism.35 Why have these (by now) unremarkable observations not had greater effect on Western and American intellectual understandings of the Arab and Islamic worlds? Joseph Massad has recently provided a notable answer: the West’s identity as the embodiment of secular liberalism has entailed the construction of the idea of an essentially illiberal Muslim other.36 Europeans constituted Islam in constituting themselves and, once this had occurred, the stage was set for the justification of imperial projects to save Muslims from themselves through the promotion of democracy, capitalism, women’s rights, tolerance, equality, and, ultimately, therapeutic psychoanalysis.37 The history of this imperialism and its concomitant cluster of ideas, including the assumption that secular critique is the only true critique, and that it is foreign to Arab/Islamic societies, has been a long one, and it has been significantly revived in recent decades.38 Once the new millennium started, and in the shadow of September 11th, a new project of reforming the culture of Islam was adopted, similar to that of the Cold War, but with a broader focus on religion. The new project, like the previous project, involved major wars, but it had a much larger budget, inasmuch as it was not only seeking to destroy existing regimes and ideologies, but also to produce new ones.39 As Massad rightly says, theological change and opinion among Muslims and Muslim scholars have not been all mortgaged to Western interventions. They have long had their own internal dynamic.40 Nevertheless, contemporary internalisation of some Orientalist ideas,

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including sweeping contrasts between a West of the profane and an Arab/ Islamic world of the sacred, is striking. Saba Mahmood writes: It has become de rigueur for leftists and liberals alike to link the fate of democracy in the Muslim world with the institution of secularism both as a political doctrine and a political ethic. This coupling is now broadly echoed within the discourse emanating from the US State Department, particularly its propagandistic effort to reshape and transform ‘Islam from within’.41 Although many of these thinkers speak of the necessity of taking political and material realities into consideration, their discussion often concentrates on the Arab/Islamic ‘intellect’, or ‘mind’, or ‘heritage’, or ‘identity’, which is unable or unwilling to emulate Western liberating secularism. There have been a number of exceptions, such as the Lebanese Mahdi ‘Amil, who argues against the idea that the Arab bourgeoisie can and ought to play the role played by the Western bourgeoisies, an assumption, he maintains, that ignores the imposition of imperialism on the Arab region and the transformation of the Arab bourgeoisie into a dependent socio-economic and political class that cannot be compared to its Euro-American counterparts, even on the intellectual/cultural level.42 The stories that Westerners tell themselves about their history and the history of others since the Enlightenment is accorded far too much credibility. Can we really say, in the words of the Syrian Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm (Chapter 11), that ‘science’ (in connection with secular reason) has become, ‘as a method of inquiry, as a body of knowledge, and as applied technology, the West’s primary and most decisive form of theoretical and practical knowledge’?43 A number of Marxists, Arab and other, argued long ago that the ‘enemy’ is not simply metaphysics but ‘abstract bourgeois idealism’, that Western society has substituted its public, civic religion, for Christianity. Even if one rejects the allegedly ‘bourgeois’ nature of the particular reason to which these Marxists referred, one might nevertheless contend that secular arguments are not, as such, necessarily more rational or rigid than the religious. ‘Perhaps the feeling that secular arguments are rationally superior to religious ones is based on the belief that religious convictions are more rigid’, Talal Asad writes: But there is no decisive evidence for this. Religious traditions have undergone the most radical transformations over time. Divine texts may be unalterable, but the ingenuities of human interpretation are endless – quite apart from the fact that some of the conditions of human doubt and certainty are notoriously inaccessible to conscious argument.

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Fanatics come in all shapes and sizes among sceptics and believers alike – as do individuals of a tolerant disposition. As for the claim that coercion replaces persuasive arguments among the religious, it should not be forgotten that we owe the most terrible examples of coercion in modern times to secular totalitarian regimes . . . .44 The ‘ruthlessness of secular practice’, Asad concludes, ‘yields nothing to the ferocity of the religious’.45 ‘Today, Western secularism is so relentlessly defined through its imagined opposite in Islamic theocracy,’ Wendy Brown writes, ‘that to render secularism as generated exclusively through Western Christian European history is to literally eschew the production of ourselves in secular thought and against our imagined opposite. It is to be locked into Thomas Friedman’s conceit about “our secular modernity” and “their need for it”.’46 This is the same Friedman who has written that religious reform has been blocked in Sunni Islam since the twelfth century. Alas, the words of Friedman are actually echoed by some of the authors represented in the following pages. Many questions come to mind, especially in respect to interpretive approaches: 1) How is religion to be defined and what accounts for the varied ways in which it has been constructed and deconstructed? As it has grown in importance in recent years as an object of political concern, four ‘anxious tendencies’47 are now current: that religion is a Western construction, based on the model of a private, personal Protestant ‘faith’, and closely related to imperial interests (belief has not traditionally been a central and defining feature of religiosity, it has not always preceded religious practices and choices,48 and the Christian Church has been pre-eminent in ‘identifying, cultivating, and testing belief as a verbalizable inner condition of true religion’);49 that religion is reviving and there is no necessary connection between secularisation and modernity; that religion provides a springboard for peoples’ lives, even without belief and without God; and, finally, that all major religions are essentially the same, at one with liberal humanism in a post-secular age. The fact that secularisation continues unabated in the advanced world is often denied, even if there is detailed evidence to prove it. The basic definition of Martin Riesebrodt, that religion is essentially an appeal to superhuman powers to avert misfortune, overcome crises, and obtain salvation, seems solid enough amidst the confusion. Religion is not necessary and it is weakening, particularly in the developed world, but it is unlikely to disappear soon inasmuch as death and misfortune will continue for the foreseeable future.50 I nevertheless wonder how the evermore prevalent religion of self-discovery, in contrast to the religion of redemption, fits this

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definition. I also wonder, not unrelatedly, if an anthology of this type, for all its attention to the political and material, functions as a displacement of the political by the cultural. The great problem lies, of course, in the formidable difficulty of cordoning off one realm from another. 2) What influences, personal, national, international, cultural, socioeconomic, and political, account for the appearances of the following religious critiques, for their differences and similarities, their inter-connections, and the varied responses (hostility and support, censorship, dismissal from office, threats and violence, including execution, and heated but peaceful debate) that their authors have experienced? What encompassing structures and patterns can be identified, over against, and yet inter-connected with, a diverse array of the local, specific, and contingent? Certain constants have clearly been at work. There is, certainly, the emergence of the modern nation state, the judiciaries over which it presides, and the politics in which it is immersed. It exercises a sovereign power (Saba Mahmood summarises Talal Asad’s analysis) to ‘reorganise substantive features of religious life, defining what religion is or ought to be, assigning a definition of its proper content, and disseminating concomitant subjectivities, ethical structures, and quotidian practises’.51 The rise of trials for apostasy within the Arab world, as illustrated by the example of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (Chapter 13), is commensurate with the development of such a state, and parallels the evolution of heresy trials (particularly directed toward the middle and lower classes) in Britain in the early modern period and in conjunction with a comparable political development. Apostasy, in contrast to disbelief (more likely to be conceived as having only to do with the essentially unknowable relationship between the human being and his creator) has been regarded as a threat to Islamic order, manifested through material actions, and clearly resembling, in positive law, a threat to the authority of the state, a kind of high treason. The concept is therefore well-suited to being invoked against individuals who have, from the ‘inside’ or otherwise, the capacity to disrupt. Abu Zayd’s books were not simply unorthodox. The Court was concerned that he was also teaching these books to his students as a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Cairo University.52 What other comparable, encompassing structures might be identified, and what links might they have to the shifting (or stable) history of terms, concepts, and attendant punishments relating to religious dissent other than ‘apostasy’? Why, for example, did the term ilhad, largely used for a rationalist rejection of prophecy for much of the Middle Ages, come, although not uniformly, to take on the meaning of out-and-out atheism within the modern period?53

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3) To what extent have modern Arab religious reconstructionists (Muslim or Christian, but in the case of this anthology the emphasis is upon Muslim) adopted arguments, apologetic or otherwise, that are common to many of their foreign counterparts, and especially those of the Christian West? If, more particularly, Adorno is indeed correct in speaking of the need for every modern theological content ‘to put itself to the test of migrating to the realm of the secular and profane’, what strategies are shared by the allegedly advanced and backward? Resistance to a world of radical doubt is, of course, common to both the ‘First’ and ‘Third Worlds’. Sayyid Qutb’s critiques of the ‘failure of modernity’ are shared with a company of ‘First World’ critics, including Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John Newhouse.54 At the same time, the nature of certain strains of political Islamism, the level of violence with which some Islamists have been associated (Charles Taylor has not been executed), relate to the specificities of socio-economic and political crises in the ‘peripheral societies’ in which the majority of Muslims live. Reinhard Schulze has argued that no ideological tendencies exist or could come into existence within the Islamic world that are not otherwise found in international political life, and that Islamic terms and symbols are constantly being translated into European ones and vice versa.55 One is struck, however, by how often no translation seems to be necessary. There is, for one, the resort to apophatism, which limits descriptions of God to negation on the basis that language delimits by its very nature, and that no words can truly describe the ineffable God. One cannot say, for example, that He exists or doesn’t exist in the usual sense of these terms. The Egyptian Isma‘il Mazhar (Chapter 10) refers with irony, in the 1940s, to the religiously devout’s desire to reduce God to ‘an ultimate abstraction’ by employing the phrase ‘God is without likeness’, a ‘short cut’ to ‘disable reason’ and ‘scholarly inquiry’, while the Iraqi Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi (Chapter 8) writes, in the 1930s, and without irony, that ‘He [God] is in every place and in every time, just as it is correct and rational to say that He is not in any place or any time.’ The apophatic has long existed in the history of religion, among ancient ‘pagans’, mediaeval Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and their attendant mysticisms. It seems, however, to have been more and more invoked in response to the challenge of modern disbelief, in countering, for example, the contemporary ‘new atheists’ (Dawkins, Hitchens) who have been accused of thinking that God is ‘a very large and powerful creature’.56 If this is true of the apophatic, it is also true of the promotion of religion on the basis of something other than its own truth content. Arguments based on this tendency are universal, and have been adopted, in our own day, by prominent Western left-wing atheists.57 Jurgen Habermas argued (in a debate with the future Pope Benedict in 2004) that a liberal state constitution could be justified apart

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from religious and metaphysical bases, but that it had to draw on local cultures for solidarity, that the ‘cognitive process’ was not sufficient to conquer peoples’ attitudes, and that this could only be provided by Christianity.58 And Benedict, as Pope, not an atheist, told the Austrians, in 2007, that they owed much of what they possessed to their Christian faith and its beneficial effects.59 Muhammad ‘Abduh had preceded these gentlemen by over a hundred years: How many times have we heard that eyes wept and sighs arose and hearts were humbled as a result of religious thinking? But have you heard anything comparable as a result of the appeals of moralists and political leaders? And has evil been abolished because it brings harm and damage to [the common people and elite]? Rather, moral character is grounded in beliefs and tradition and these matters cannot be established except through religion. If efforts to meet modern theological needs by drawing upon apophatism or other strategies widely used elsewhere have, then, been common among our Arabs, it is also important to note that the traditional sources facilitating such measures are abundant. If the Egyptian Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allah (Chapter 9) ‘wrestled his critics for ‘Abduh’s ghost’ in order to legitimise his project of literary Qur’anic exegesis, he also wrestled for the ghost of the thirteenth-century exegete Fakhr al-Din al-Razi for the same purpose. He followed, in this, the same penchant to borrow exhibited by his fellow Egyptian Isma‘il Mazhar (Chapter 5) and many other ‘Third World’ (and not simply Arab Muslim) counterparts. Mazhar did not simply translate Darwin, he sought to ‘domesticate’ his ideas, using mediaeval texts and verses to justify his choice of words and make much of the fact that the concept of evolution was not new to Arabic. ‘Like Vedic scholars in India’, Marwa Elshakry points out, ‘Confucian writers in Qing China, and other colonial intellectuals of his generation’, Mazhar was able to ‘act as publicist for modern evolutionary studies while seamlessly reviving older cosmological traditions and in the process transforming their signification’.60 Those Arabs interested, more particularly, in the naturalisation of the sacred, could draw upon rich and varied mediaeval intellectual arguments, including, and this was to play an important role, a philosophical understanding of revelation as consisting of emanations pouring fourth upon human minds from the ‘necessarily existent’ through the agency of the ‘active intellect’.61 Religious arguments may not necessarily be more rational or rigid than secular arguments, but discussion of modern strategies must also take account

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of commonplace accusations that are made against many religious thinkers of all kinds, that is, that they tailor their thought to their doctrine: many cherrypick from scriptures and philosophical and other sources, they express contradictory views to different audiences, and they simply ignore certain issues.62 Aquinas more or less acknowledges that conclusions are often predetermined on many points. God’s revealed truth precedes and guides the movement of secular reason, Etienne Gilson would write. Or, in the words of Umberto Eco, ‘nobody ever claimed that Aquinas was Galileo’.63 If we compare Arab Muslims to Westerners, the parallels are, again, striking, as shown by the commonalities shared by Paul Tillich and Muhammad ‘Abduh. Tillich differentiates between a natural stage of literalism (characteristic of primitive individuals and societies) in which myth and the literal are indistinguishable, and a moment when the questioning mind breaks the natural acceptance of the mythological as literal. When the second stage is reached, one can replace the unbroken myth by the broken myth, with a reinterpretation of the unbroken, or one can repress questions produced by the breaking of the myth, half consciously or half unconsciously. If the ‘questioning power’ is ‘very weak and can easily be answered’, then there is no need to go further.64 ‘Abduh refers to comparable problems and comparable coping devices: ‘The language of the prophets employed in speaking to their peoples should not be above their comprehension, or the mission to convey divine wisdom would be futile. This is why expressions that were originally directed to the common people may come to need explanation and interpretation for the elite. Similarly, a long period is needed for the common people to understand what has been directed to the elite.’ 4) Are the works of our authors manifestations of a long trajectory of secularisation, and/or of religious transformation, or are they, given the opposition to which some of them have been subject, exceptions that prove the rule, elite productions separated from the persisting and growing traditional religiosity of the larger culture? Mohammed Arkoun argues, on the one hand, that no strong linear movement has existed, that the writings on Islam of the late nineteenth century and into the interwar period were ‘modest’ and ‘compromising’ and with little effect, and that the ‘excesses’ of Islamism would never have arisen if the ‘frames of traditional thought’ had been penetrated as they have in Christianity. Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm, on the other hand, argues that his work has been part of a trend that originated in the Nahdah (Renaissance), the term used by Arabs for the rebirth and creation of various areas of cultural life beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. Arab society, he maintains, has moved towards greater clarity, objectivity, and scientific understanding; religion is increasingly privatised, and it has lost its

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hegemony over education and public life. Islamism is a reaction, seeking to regain a position that has been permanently lost.65 Many social scientists and historians would agree with al-‘Azm. They believe that it is not possible to escape aspects of contemporary life that first developed in the West but that are now virtually universal. A certain secularising process accompanies modernity, even if this process does not evolve with the same uniformity everywhere.66 Some would also argue, in respect to ‘backlash’, that the ideologies of Islamism are indeed modern, the manufacturing and not the recovery of an identity, and in response to disruptive political, social, and economic forces. Islamism has been weak in a city like Sfax, Aziz Al-Azmeh points out, but strong in Tunis where sections of the population are socially traumatised.67 The intrusion of the state into everyday life, the incorporation of aspects of religious law into codified state law (which is more subject to nonreligious political and social factors), external and internal political and economic domination, large and growing gaps between rich and poor, rapid urbanisation and fierce competition for educational and employment opportunities, the entrance of women into the labour market and public life, resulting in the subversion of patriarchy, all play central roles.68 What is attributable to Islamic uniqueness is virtually a universal problem in which ordinary people face arcane forces intervening in the production of value to which they attribute feelings of loss. Hence, the unprecedented manifestation of zombies in the South African countryside in direct proportion to the sinking of the labour market for young men in the new century.69 It is crucial, here, to ask if ordinary people are as conservative or reactionary in their religion as some Islamists – or their opponents – would have us believe. As has already been indicated, these opponents may sometimes operate with their own internalisation of imperialist essentialism, reinforced by class prejudices, comparable to those of upper class ’free-thinkers’ of the European Enlightenment. Social scientists must be given their due in analysing Islam’s contemporary ‘existence’. The demographers Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd have argued (in 2011), to take but one example, that the Muslim world is now at the centre of a transition to modernity that is reflected in declining rates of fertility. Fertility rates in the Arab world fell from 7.5 to 3.6 between 1975 and 2005. To assume that Islam is a causative factor in high birth rates is ‘a system of intellectual myopia’. The spectrum of Muslim rates of fertility – from 1.7 to 7 children per woman – is ‘as varied as the type of Islamic believers, from agnostics and atheists, to militant fundamentalists and Salafis, as well as the flourishing category of those who are simply sociologically or culturally Muslim’.70 Given the nature of trying to gauge something as elusive as the degree of modernisation and secularisation, diversity of judgement is understandable.

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One nevertheless wonders what accounts for the degree to which the lasting real accomplishments of Arab modernisation over the last 200 years have been so often summarily denigrated and dismissed by contemporary Arab intellectuals. Aziz Al-Azmeh speaks, and rightly so, ‘of a transformation of staggering depth, amplitude, and tempo’, alluding to the decline of various traditional institutions such as guilds and clans, the creation of homogeneous legal systems, based on principles of universality and codification, the creation of new aesthetic forms and norms, the crafting of modern standard Arabic, the almost complete construction of new models of personal sensibilities and subjectivities, and the creation of a fairly cohesive, secular, pan-Arab intelligentsia and political culture transcending Arab boundaries.71 The truly extraordinary degree of self-abasement, striking in light of such a transformation, is well captured by Samir Kassir: Some people are driven to despair by the Arab malaise. They believe that the Arabs are so profoundly trapped that they will never be able to break free and, in so believing, they only make the deadlock worse. This is the extreme variant of modernism, propounded by liberals, disappointed nationalists, and former activists of the left alike. Decline, according to this way of thinking, is so widespread that it damns the very notion of a renaissance: the Nahdah did not just end in failure, but it was also by its very nature an historic anomaly, an impossibility right from the outset. Worse still, all attempts to free the Arabs from their predicament, particularly nationalism, are considered to have only made the problem worse. Some of these disappointed souls go so far as to internalise the culturalist distinctions that legitimise imperial domination.72 That Kassir singles out the erasure of the Nahdah and the disavowal of the pan-Arab nationalism with which it is associated as representative of the internalisation of imperial justifications is not surprising. As has already been indicated, the Nahdah refers to the rebirth and birth of various areas of cultural life beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, which included the opening of modern schools, the establishment of print and publishing industries, the translation of foreign works, the revival of old literary genres and the appearance of new ones (the novel, short story, and drama), and many other achievements.73 And yet, as Kassir well knows, none of this can be separated from political nationalism: ‘The Nahdah has an intrinsic nationalist dimension . . . [it] was both an Arab cultural renaissance and the first stirring of Arab nationalism, similar to the crystallisation of Italian patriotism. It was, as it were, a combination of the European Renaissance . . . and the Risorgimento, but without an armed uprising or a Kingdom of

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Piedmont to articulate it.’ In the ‘content and mode of its expression it was the child of progress and the enlightenment’. Despite all of the contemporary deadlocks, ‘the word nahdawi, man of the renaissance, still has favourable connotations, rather like humanist in Europe, as does tanweeri, man of the Enlightenment’.74 It is these two elements, the Nahdah and pan-Arabism, that have been particular targets of Western scholarly and intellectual animus, dismissed, variously, as superficial, reflective of the perspectives and interests of a nonrepresentative elite with no grounding among the masses, and totalitarian even when speaking the language of liberation. This perspective can be traced back to European thinkers such as Lord Acton (1834– 1902) who distinguished between a benign nationalism that is civic, contractual, liberal, peaceful, and measured, and an organic nationalism that is based on ethnicity or race and that is prone to violence and tyranny. Acton believed that England, Germany, and the USA had the benign nationalism and that the Latins had the bad.75 Elie Kedourie played a major role in popularising this kind of thinking in modern Middle Eastern studies. Pan-Arab nationalism, initiated by a handful of Western-educated young men estranged from their own society, was spread by imposition and imitation, with brutal murder and persecution of minorities as a result. The British and Americans were ‘patriotic’, motivated, simply, by love of their countries and their institutions. The pan-Arabists, by contrast, sought the transformation of ‘the heterogeneous, fissiparous, sceptical populations of the Fertile Crescent [and Egypt] to the likeness of their dream, with all of the differences suddenly annihilated and external unity the emblem of a deeper, still more fundamental unity: one state, one nation, one creed’.76 Kedourie and other like-minded authors wrote their most important works in the 1950s and into the 1970s, but their views have been revived in recent decades and have been embraced by a range of Arabs, including secular liberals and leftists (many Islamists have despised Arab nationalism, seeing it as a purely Western concoction and/or the Trojan horse of Arab Christians). Amira al-Azhary Sonbol (2000) contends that Arab unity or nationalism was ‘an imported ideology’, the creation of the culture of the elite (khassah) that is only now giving way to the culture of the common people (al-‘ammah) to which Islam is so central.77 Hazim Saghiyya (2000) argues that pan-Arabists created a ‘new paganism’ that sacralises the national community and which is enmeshed in racism and anti-Semitism, the latter mediated, in particular, by Arab Christians drawing on a tradition of anti-Semitism unknown to Islamic societies.78 And Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (2010) writes, startling in a book of such erudition and insight, that the Arabs’ memory of a lost glorious empire linked to Islam ‘feeds into a revenge mentality and produces a fixation

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on power rivalry’, that the ‘quest for power becomes a fantasy for world domination instead of a source for universal justice’, and that this quest for power is ‘sought in the mobilisation of Islam and of all other ideologies, whether Arab or other regional nationalisms’.79 This hoary tradition of thought has many weaknesses, apart from the difficulties attendant in readings of the Arab unconscious upon which much of it is based: the theoretical distinction between organic racial/ethnic nationalism and civic, contractual, nationalism, is untenable; the US and other so-called civic nations took shape because they had particular links to particular identities, and not as the result of a rational and freely chosen allegiance to a set of principles; rulers of civic nations have, moreover, been willing to commit atrocities against those suspected (Native Americans, Vietnamese, their own working classes) of rejecting their principles or opposing their interests;80 the first phase of pan-Arabism, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century into the 1950s, was eminently liberal in thought and practice (‘If only two things were present, science and constitutional government’, the Syrian Muslim Rafiq al-‘Azm wrote in 1924, ‘progress and power would be within reach of Arab society.’);81 although this liberal pan-Arabism lost ground by the 1950s and 1960s, it hardly disappeared, as manifested by its rebirth in the 1970s as a ‘neo-Arabism’ linking Arab unity to civil rights and political democracy, and by its more recent reiteration (unacknowledged in the mainstream Western media) in the Arab Spring; 82 although neither liberal pan-Arabists nor their radical successors were able to achieve lasting political and economic unity at an inter-state institutional level, and although they experienced failures and tragedies, and were themselves guilty of various oppressions, they also had major socio-economic, political, and cultural accomplishments to their credit, including their contribution to the development of a ‘vast [pan-Arab] sound chamber’ in which information and ideas resonate across state frontiers;83 if a sense of Arab ethnie has not been translated into more effective unity, it is attributable to the fact that none of the Arab ruling classes have been capable of, and/or interested in, bringing about such a unity, and that imperial powers have been brutal in their opposition to it, and not because of the foreign origins of nationalism, or the sheer opportunism of Arab politicians, or the defects of Arab mentality;84 even after the radical turn under Nasser and others, pan-Arab culture remained universalist, secular, and innovative, in its on-going keenness to incorporate various post-war Westernisms (existentialism, critical theory, surrealist free verse), in its South – South, ‘Third World’, and non-aligned solidarities, and in its drive towards the modernity and equality (veiling had become so rare by the 1960s as to be noteworthy) that liberal parliamentarianism had not been able to achieve;85 if there was any

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significant break with the nahdawi past, it came in the last two decades of the twentieth century and, even then, Islamism as a system of thought hardly became the Arab world’s dominant ideology (as followers of the Western mainstream media might conclude).86 Whether there is a grand narrative of Arab progress in respect to ‘modernisation’, including the revision and critique of religion, secularisation, or national integration, is here beside the point. An unbiased examination of the historical record cannot sustain the reductionism of Western and Arab nay-sayers. It is a record of progress and retreat, loss and gain, with the positive and negative sometimes inextricably intermingled. Let us take the relationship between Darwinist Arab Muslims and Christians between 1850 and 1960 as related by Marwa Elshakry in 2013: Post-war [World War II] historians of Arab intellectual thought have often treated Christians and Muslims as separate theological, as much as epistemic and political communities. Yet following Darwin’s Arabic readers paints a different picture. Tied together by networks of print, through associations like Free Masonry and societies for the ‘advancement of science’ and later, large academies, many of the figures in this book formed a single, if loosely articulated community of readers, often borrowing from each other’s interpretations, commentaries, and references, forging an extra metatextual layer to their readings. This is not surprising: they read, discussed, and debated each other’s works. Muhammad ‘Abduh’s own 1904 treatise [expressed through articles in which he argued that Muslim civilisation had traditionally been free from the violent conflicts that had plagued Christendom in respect to science], for instance, is best understood against the background of his debates over the legacies of Ibn Khaldun with the socialist [Christian] writer Farah Antun – debates that saw Azhari shaykhs side with Antun’s view over that of their grand mufti.87 Or there is the integration of the Jewish intelligentsia of Iraq in the interwar period as treated by Orit Bashkin in 2012. Many Iraqi Jewish intellectuals fully identified as Arabs and pan-Arab nationalists, she writes. It was in fact in terms of such identities that they internalised the reformist discourses of Nahdawi print culture, including the advocacy of women’s rights, the critique of conservative or corrupt Jewish religious leaders, the promotion of reason, science, and technology, and a critique of many aspects of Jewish religious practices, such as high taxes on kosher meat. Discussion of such issues (linked to the promotion of a secular nation state that would guarantee equality for all) was conducted in a

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trans-regional Arabic print market that regularly referred to major Western proponents of secularisation, as well as Egyptians such as Salamah Musa and Taha Husayn (Chapter 4). Iraqi Jewish authors enjoyed contact with Arab authors outside of Iraq and their works regularly appeared in Lebanese and Egyptian journals and newspapers. Al-Misbah (The Lamp), the first Iraqi Jewish newspaper in Arabic (1924), decorated its pages with the words of Muhammad ‘Abduh, and championed the liberation of Iraqi Jewish women through the invocation of the Egyptian feminist Qassim Amin.88 Bashkin concludes: I have used Arabization and secularization interchangeably. Of course, to be (or become) an Arab does not mean to be (or become) secular. . . Arabization, however, did chip away at the boundaries of the Jewish community by demonstrating that there was another community, mainly the nation, which was highly important to Iraqi Jews. This awareness motivated Jews to address issues that affected other communities as well. Arabization meant interacting with other Muslim and Christian children in a state education system, accepting the authority of non-Jewish figures in questions pertaining to social conduct (ranging from a Muslim Arabic teacher to the theories of Qassim Amin), and recognising that their debates regarding faith paralleled similar discourses among Christian and Muslim Arabs.89 Or there is the transformation of Syria’s rural population under the governance of President Hafiz al-Asad as recounted by Hanna Batatu in 1999: The spread of rural health centres and mobile medical units, the marked rise in life expectancy, the faster and more dependable system of transport and communications, the increase in the pace of peasant mobility, the electrification of more than ninety-five percent of Syria’s villages, and the exemption of the agricultural classes from the income tax and, since 1992, from the profit tax and recently from the imposts on exported agricultural products – all these factors – contributed directly or indirectly to the enhancement of the life chances and the standard of living of a great number of peasants.90 Or there are the contemporary workings of the great pan-Arab sound chamber as described by Samir Kassir in 2006: The phenomenon [a homogeneous and yet plural field of pan-Arab culture] hasn’t sprung fully formed out of nothing; the continuity of Arab culture is hardly new. If there is a novelty in the present variant, at

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least in terms of the contemporary period, it is the fact that there are so many centres of cultural production. During the nineteenth and the greater part of the twentieth century, cultural production was concentrated in the Levant, between the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia. . . What characterises contemporary Arab culture is that creation and production are distributed among the majority of the Arab countries. . . North Africa has been exceptionally quick to contribute. But the eruption of the Gulf States and the Arabian Peninsula onto the scene . . . has been no less remarkable. . . .91 In 1961, Raymond Williams wrote that the British ‘long revolution’, whose development over the course of two centuries he had investigated, was still in its ‘early stages’. Is this true of the Arabs? Whatever the future may hold, Arab and other contemporary commentators who indulge in sweeping denigrations of pan-Arab and Nahdawi matters, are not operating as very good historians or social scientists. ‘Claims that everything is going to the dogs,’ Stefan Collini writes in praise of Raymond Williams’ resistance to such a view, ’all too often rest on the hidden support of parochialism, snobbery, class insouciance, and a wilful refusal of intellectual effort required to draw up a more realistic balance sheet of gain and loss’.92 * *

* *

*

Limitations of space have made for difficult choices, including the necessary omission of a range of topics that I would have liked to raise – the extent to which modern imaginative literature has followed the path of the critique of religion in expository writing, the degree to which critical Arab discussions of religion have paralleled their counterparts within other Muslim and postcolonial areas, the extent to which modern Arab historians have contributed to the search for the historical Muhammad and the origins of ‘classical’ Islam;93 the relationship of ‘high discourse’ to popular levels, including the positively atheistic, the agnostic, and the non-religious (la dini), all of which appear to have expanded with new social media productive of new networks and organisations. And so on. And then there are particular individuals: Georges Khodr, the Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan of Lebanon (b. 1923) who argues, on the basis of a radical theology of the Holy Spirit, that Muhammad was a prophet to Muslims and a messenger to Christians. Or the Lebanese Sunni cleric ‘Abdallah al-‘Alayli (1914– 96), who mocked his fellow ulama’s94 ignorance and laziness and called for a Muslim Justinian Code encompassing the legal traditions and theological views of all Muslim sects. Or the Egyptian judge

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‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, who argued (in Islam and the Foundations of Governance, al-Islam wa usul al-hukm, published in 1925) that Islam had not mandated any particular form of government. Given the seminal nature of his work and the controversy that it ignited, his absence is especially regretted, the result of the need to make a place for the lesser-known, and mitigated by the recent English translation of his important book by Maryam Loutfi. Anthologies cannot be exhaustive. There are certainly many additional intellectuals who would meet the criteria for inclusion.95 I hope that readers will be able to make some use of this particular collection, according to their own lights and needs. Ralph M. Coury

CHAPTER 1 MUHAMMAD ‘A BDUH: 1849—1905

The Egyptian Muhammad ‘Abduh played a major role in the Nahdah (the Arab cultural Renaissance that began in the mid-nineteenth century) as teacher, jurist, and religious thinker.1 He was born in Shanra to a peasant family, and educated at the Ahmadi mosque-school in Tanta, and at al-Azhar University in Cairo, where he became a follower of the Iranian revolutionary and intellectual Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. After receiving his certificate from al-Azhar, he taught at Dar al-‘Ulum and the School of Languages, and edited the official state paper al-Waqa’i‘ al-misriyyah (The Egyptian Gazette). As a result of his support for the ‘Urabi revolution in 1882 against foreign domination and the subsequent British occupation, he was sent into exile, living in Beirut, then in Paris, and again in Beirut. While residing in Paris he and al-Afghani edited the Islamic reformist and anti-imperialist periodical al-‘Urwah al-wuthqa (The Strongest Link). After this periodical was banned, he returned to Beirut where he taught and wrote, and then to Egypt where he obtained employment in the state bureaucracy. Having accepted the British occupation as tolerable if it contributed to genuine independence, he advanced steadily, serving as a judge in civil courts, councillor to the Court of Appeal, a teacher at al-Azhar and member of its Administrative Council, and then Grand Mufti (1899 – 1905).2 ‘Abduh and al-Afghani founded the Salafiyyah, the most important school of Islamic liberal modernism, which aimed to reinvigorate an allegedly stagnant religion through the restoration of the spirit of its pious ancestors (al-salaf). Reform entailed a diversity of means: emphasis upon rationalist interpretation, under the assumption that true science and true faith are compatible, and that passages of scripture that seem to contradict reason and history should be understood as allegories and parables; rejection of customary adherence (taqlid) to past rulings in juridical and other matters; promotion of new theological reasoning, drawing upon speculative theology (‘ilm al-kalam) and scientific exegesis (tafsir ‘ilmi), that seeks confirmation of contemporary science within scripture; the introduction of geometry, physics, music, and history into

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the curriculum of al-Azhar and other institutions; promotion of new child-rearing and teaching methods, including the abolition of rote learning; a critique of what ‘Abduh regarded as heterodox practices and superstitions (veneration of shrines, belief in intercession) associated with Sufism;3 the introduction of popular didactic language, free of the specialised vocabulary of traditional speculative theology, and with few references to other commentators.4 ‘Abduh was not writing for the mass of the people or, primarily, for the ‘‘ulama’,5 but for a large readership drawn from the effendiyyah, a new professional class of notables, intellectuals, educators, journalists, and civil servants who had grown numerous in Egypt and the wider Arab and Muslim worlds by the end of the nineteenth century.6 Although he experienced fierce resistance, particularly from ulama who vigorously opposed his curricular reforms, he also achieved significant success, as reflected in a long list of distinguished intellectual disciples, including the Egyptian Sa‘ad Zaghlul, the leader of the 1919 Egyptian revolution and the founder of the liberal democratic and secular Wafd party, the greatest political party of the Arab inter-war period, or the Egyptian judge ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, the author of Islam and the Foundations of Governance, published in 1925, which argued that the caliphate7 had not been part of the early legal foundations of Islam and that the Shari‘ah8 did not mandate any one form of government, or the Syrian Rashid Rida, ‘Abduh’s chief biographer and acknowledged heir, who edited a widely influential serialised edition of ‘Abduh’s unfinished Qur’anic exegesis. The degree to which ‘Abduh’s ideas are still influential in light of present day Islamism is widely debated. What cannot be denied is that his Treatise on Unity (Risalah al-tawhid) has been regarded as ‘the manifesto of modernist Islam’,9 and that a number of his views, as Albert Hourani writes, became ‘part of the furnishing of the mind of many educated Arab Muslims, and of Muslims far beyond the Arab world’.10 This observation is reflected in the extent to which some of ‘Abduh’s principal themes are sounded by a number of the authors in this anthology, including those who are, intellectually and politically, far more radical: the compatibility of Islam with reason and science; the rejection of accepted past rulings; the use of metaphorical and allegorical interpretation when necessary; the effort to develop as naturalistic an understanding of revelation as possible; the assumption that development and underdevelopment are primarily a function of moral, cultural, and psychological factors;11 and the idea that ‘Islam’ is not simply a religion, that it constitutes a civilisation that promoted enlightenment and then declined.12 Such thinking was certainly increasingly common in the public discourse of ‘Abduh’s time. He both reflected ideas and shaped them.13 One hardly needs to add that speaking of Islam and the West as ‘things’, and of what went right or wrong with them, is still very much with us.

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A selection from The Treatise of Unity (Risalah al-tawhid), First edition, Cairo, 1897, pp. 69, 71, 72, 77 – 9, 81, 82 – 3, 101–2, 104– 5, 125– 6, 127– 8, translated by Ralph M. Coury [This is the first English translation of a selection from the first edition; an English translation of the entire book, based on the 18th edition in Arabic and edited and annotated by Rashid Rida, was published by Kenneth Cragg and Ishaq Musa‘ad in 1966 as The Theology of Unity.] The meaning of the word ‘revelation’ that has become dominant relates to what God has addressed to the prophets. Revelation is also defined as the act of informing in secret, with the thing revealed constitutive of the revelation as such. According to the Shari‘ah, revelation is defined as the words of God sent down to one of His prophets. As for us, we define it as the knowledge that a man finds within himself, with certainty that it proceeds from God, with or without an intermediary. The first [by means of an intermediary] arrives through a voice that he hears or without any voice. The difference between revelation (wahy) or inspiration (ilham) is found in the fact that man is aware of inspiration as an inward sensation. It presses upon him without his having a sense of its origin. It can be compared to a sensation, of hunger or thirst, of grief or delight. [p. 69] If the premise that we have mentioned above [that some men need reflective study to understand what others know quite readily, and that those of lesser mind and in need of study will in the end accept what they at first found amazing] is accepted, and there is no alternative, it would be intellectual weakness and a withdrawal from necessary conclusions not to recognise the following: that there are human souls that, by their very nature, have a purity of essence, and that these souls are thereby prepared, through pure divine emanation, to reach the highest horizons and depart from humanity to the highest summit. These souls witness the things of God as if by natural vision, which others could not attain by reason or sense experience, even with the help of proof and demonstration. They receive more clearly from God, the all-knowing and wise, what none of us could have received from professors of learning. They teach what they have been taught and summon people to what they have been commanded to convey. This is the manner in which God works among all nations and in all times, according to need. He mercifully reveals what He chooses, according to His providence, of that which fulfils the social bonds necessary for man’s well-being. He does this so that the human species will reach its highest level of development. The signs that He provides for man’s attainment of happiness are adequate. The message is then sealed and the gate of prophethood closed, as will be made clear in our

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explication of the message of our Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him. [p. 71] As for the likeness of the voices and the bodies of the spirits perceived by the senses of those whom God has distinguished in the rank [of prophets], it has been observed, even by the enemies of the prophets, that something similar exists among those suffering from certain diseases. They [the enemies of the prophets] concede that some of the mental images of the diseased form actual shapes in their imagination and reach the level of sense perception. Therefore, the sick man is sincere in saying that he sees and hears, that he fights and wrestles, but none of this occurs in reality. If the representation is that of mental pictures, with no basis outside of the man himself, and if this sort of thing occurs through an accident touching upon the human brain, why is it not possible for the representations of mental realities to occur within noble souls when they are pulled away from the world of sensation and reach the divine presences?14 And would this condition not be a consequence of the soundness of mind among people of this level, in keeping with the specificities of their characteristics, which are not found among others? The incontrovertible conclusion is that the relationship of their souls to their bodies is of a different kind than what is known of this relationship in others. And this is what makes it easy to accept, or, rather, necessitates acceptance, inasmuch as their status among people is extraordinary. It is this contrast that distinguishes them from others and the proof of their message is established by it. The proof of the soundness of their witness, and the soundness of what they speak about, is that the illnesses of hearts are healed through their medicine. The weakness of purpose and of minds is transformed into strength among their nations, which take up their words. It is self-evident that the healthy cannot issue forth from the ill and that order cannot be established through disorder. [p. 72] The messengers of God do not have the role of teachers and instructors of crafts. They have not come to teach history or the details of what the world of the stars contains or to elucidate the variety of their movements or the hidden layers under the earth, or the measurements of the length and width of the earth, or what plants require for their growth, or what animals need for their survival as individuals and species. Sciences were established for these and many other topics, and minds have competed in investigating their specifics. For all of this is part of the means to material gain and of obtaining the means to comfort. God has guided human beings by entrusting them with this comprehension, which will increase the happiness of the successful and decree unhappiness for those who fall short. However, God’s method in this is to follow the way of gradualism in reaching perfection. The prophetic laws came, in a general sense, to promote this

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endeavour and to support man in his achieving the exalted state that God has promised to human nature. The words of the prophets that allude to some of the things that we have mentioned above, in relation to orbits and the fashioning of the earth, are in fact intended to promote consideration of the proofs of the Creator’s wisdom or to direct man’s thought to His secrets and wonders. The language that the prophets, may peace and prayers be upon them, employed in speaking to their peoples should not be above their comprehension, or the mission to convey divine wisdom would be futile. This is why expressions that were originally directed to the common people may come to need explanation and interpretation for the elite. Similarly, a long period is needed for the common people to understand what has been directed to the elite. This [requiring explanation and the passage of time for understanding] is a very small part of what has appeared in the words of the prophets. In any case, religion should not be made into an obstruction. Souls should not be separated from what God has bestowed upon them, so that they can learn the truths that are accessible as far as possible. Rather, religion must encourage them to pursue such knowledge, requiring them to respect evidence, and mandating that they exert their utmost effort in knowing the world that lies before them. This must be done, however, with commitment to the [true proportions] of the goal, and stopping at the soundness of belief according to its boundaries. Whoever says anything else is ignorant of religion and commits a crime that the Lord of Religion (rabb al-din) will not forgive. [pp. 77– 9] How many times have we heard that eyes wept and sighs arose and hearts were humbled as the result of religious preaching? But have you heard anything comparable as a result of the appeals of moralists or political leaders? When have we heard of a class of men whose actions are dominated by the good on the basis that it would be beneficial to their common people or their elite? And when has evil been abolished because it brings harm and damage to them? These things do not happen in the story of mankind. They are also not in keeping with man’s nature. Rather, moral character is grounded in beliefs and traditions and these two matters cannot be established except through religion. The religious factor is the most powerful factor in the ethics of the common people and the elite. Its authority over men’s souls is superior to that of reason, which is the unique quality of their nature. [p. 81] It is possible for someone to claim that this comparison between reason and religion leads to disregarding reason in matters of religion, that religion is based on pure surrender, and that it blocks the rays of insight that effect an understanding of what God has established in respect to knowledge and rulings. We answer: if that claim is true, religion would not be a means of

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guidance. As we have already asserted, intellect is not sufficient to reach a state of human well-being without a divine guide, just as it is not sufficient for animals to comprehend all sensations through the sense of sight alone. Rather, they need, for example, hearing as well as sight to understand what is audible. Religion is likewise a general sense, unveiling what is confusing to reason in its search for the means to happiness. Intellect is authoritative in recognising this sense and in managing it within its own sphere, and in submitting when religious doctrines and the boundaries of action are revealed. How can intellect be denied its right, while it examines its evidences in order to comprehend them and establish that they come from God? Nevertheless, once reason recognises the mission of a prophet, it is necessary for it to accept everything that he brings, even if it cannot attain the essence of even a part of it or fully penetrate its truth. However, this does not impose the acceptance of impossibilities, such as combining the contradictory or opposites within a single postulate (mawdu‘) and at one and the same time. And it is because of this that prophecies are far-removed from bringing anything of this sort. Nevertheless, if something appears to be contradictory, reason necessitates that the apparent meaning is not intended. It is then free to search for the true sense by referring to the rest of the Prophet’s message in which the ambiguity appeared, or to revert to dependence upon God and His omniscience. Some of our predecessors, who have obtained salvation, have chosen to follow one or the other of these options. [pp. 82– 3] Islam set aside traditionalism (taqlid). It launched a fierce campaign that destiny could not refute and eradicated traditionalism’s fundamentals from the minds of men. It blew away all of its pillars and props in the doctrines of nations. Islam called upon reason and disrupted its slumber and awakened it from a long sleep. Whenever beams of the light of truth had penetrated it, the keepers of the temples of illusion would come forth and murmur softly: ’Continue to sleep, the night is pitch dark, the path is rugged, the destination is far away, the means of transport are feeble, and there are few supplies for the road.’ Islam spoke up against the whisperings of the despicable and boldly declared that man was not created to be led by a bridle. He was, rather, created to be guided by knowledge and signs of the universe, signs leading to an understanding of its workings. Indeed, the appropriate role for teachers is to warn and guide, leading men into paths of study. The people of truth are described as those ‘who listen to the word, then follow what is most beautiful of it’. [Surah 39:18; this surah15 and others are not identified by name in this first edition.] It portrays them as those possessing the distinction of evaluating what is said, apart from the identity of the speakers, in order to pursue what they know to be good and to reject what does not appear to be either valid or

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useful. Islam turned to leaders, and diminished the position from which they had pronounced their orders and prohibitions. It put them under the supervision of those over whom they had exercised control. They [the ruled] informed them [the rulers] as they wished and examined their claims, in accordance with the rulers’ own judgement and conclusions, based on their knowledge and certainty, and not on surmise and delusion. Islam turned hearts away from attachment to the ways of the ancestors and what their progeny had inherited from them, labelling those who took opinions from their predecessors as stupid and foolish. It strongly indicated that priority in time is not a sign of knowledge and not a way of pronouncing on the superiority of one intellect or mind over the other. For the discernment and nature of the predecessor and the successor are the same. In fact, the successor has knowledge of the conditions of the past and is ready to consider them, and the traces of the workings of the universe have come to him, traces that were not accessible to his predecessors and ancestors. The discernible traces, from which contemporary men can benefit, might also illustrate the ill effects of the actions of those who preceded and the dreadful evils that came to them from those who had committed such evils in the past. ‘Say: travel in the land and see what happened to those who disbelieved.’ (Surah 6:11). For the gates of God’s favour will not be closed to the lowly seeker, and His mercy, which encompasses all things, will not be narrow for the seeker who reviled the masters of religion in their effort to follow the influence of their fathers and to adhere to the path that their predecessors had set for them. [‘Abduh then refers to the following verses from the Qur’an illustrative of the attitude of those who wrongly followed the ways of their fathers.] ‘No. We shall follow what we found our ancestors following’ (Surah 31:21) and ‘We found our fathers following a certain way, and are guided by their footprints.’ (Surah 43:22) The authority of reason was thus emancipated from everything that constricted it and from the slavery of every kind of traditionalism. It was thus returned to its kingdom, performing its proper work according to its judgement and its wisdom, and submitting, with all of that, to God alone, and conforming to His Shari‘ah. There are, within bounds, no limitations on its activity and no ends to the speculation it may pursue. [pp. 101– 2] When Islam arrived, humanity was divided into religious sects, and apart from a few instances men were not familiar with truth and certainty. They argued and cursed one another and claimed that they were grasping the rope of God in acting this way. Islam rejected all of this and asserted, unerringly, that the religion of God is one in all times and in the mouths of all prophets. God said: ’The true religion with God is Islam. Those who were given the Book were not at variance except after the knowledge came to them, being

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insolent to one another’ (Surah 3:19). ‘Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian, but rather was a hanif,16 a submitter, and he was not one of the idolaters’ (Surah 3:67). ’He has prescribed for you as religion that which He enjoined upon Noah, and that which we revealed unto you, and that which we enjoined upon Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, that you uphold religion and not become divided therein. Grievous for the idolaters is that to which you call them’ (Surah 42:13). ‘Tell them: “Oh people of the Book,17 let us come to an agreement on that which is common between us, that we worship no one but God, and make no one His associate, and that none of us take any others for lord apart from God.” If they turn away, tell them: “Bear witness that we submit to Him,”’ (Surah 3:64). There are many additional passages which are too long for inclusion. [pp. 104– 5] If Islam called to unity, the use of reason, the exploration of the universe, seriousness of purpose and activity, justice, freedom, and religious insight, why are Muslims divided, why have they ‘closed the gate of learning’, why are they an ‘example’ of ‘inactivity and laziness’, why do they pursue improper religious innovations when they have the Book of God as their guidance, why are their rulers ‘models of injustice’, and why have they ‘spent centuries turning the free into slaves?’ [pp. 125– 6] Muslims with a smattering of modern learning regard Islam as an old garment to be discarded, and self-deluded Muslims who believe that they have some religion regard reason and science as mere suppositions. Islam is guidance and reason, as Muslims who truly studied their religion and fair-minded foreigners recognised. Islam is like a doctor who cured patients [helping to produce the enlightened West] from a fatal disease but would not take the medicine himself. Those Muslims who demean their religion will be the subject of another book. Doctrine should be limited to what is clear in tradition and it is not possible to add supposition to the indisputable. Truly sound doctrine does not contain anything that infringes upon God’s transcendence (tanzih) or that infringes on the elevation of the divine above any comparison to that which has been created. If anything of this sort appears within the uninterruptible chain of transmitters (al-mutawatir),18 it is necessary to disregard the apparent meaning, either through surrendering it to God’s knowledge of its true meaning, with the belief that the apparent meaning is not what is intended, or through interpretation based upon what is acceptable within the context . . . He who believes in the Noble Book and its practical laws, who maintains his belief in life after death and in reward and punishment for his deeds and beliefs, and for whom the injunctions of the Shari‘ah remain foundational, is a true believer. This is true, even if he finds difficulty in understanding the reports (akhbar)19 about the unseen in their apparent meaning, and even if he proceeds to seek to interpret them on the basis of concrete evidence, and even

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if he is not right to assume that his own interpretation is exemplary. What the divine laws have conveyed is geared to the common people, and not to that in which the intellects of the elite take delight. The essence of this is that faith is certainty in believing in God and His messengers and the Last Day, except for the necessity of respecting the Sunnah20 of the prophets. [pp. 129– 30] As for the intellectual admissibility of something appearing that exceeds the customary on the part of someone other than a prophet, someone through whom divine power works, I don’t think that this is a subject about which intellects disagree. What is necessary to keep in mind is that the people of the Sunnah and others are in agreement that it is not necessary to believe in a specific miracle (karamah) on the part of a specific friend of God (wali allah)21 after the appearance of Islam. It is possible for every Muslim, as the consensus of the community has determined, to deny the occurrence of any miracle of any friend of God. There is not, in the denial or acceptance of this, anything that contradicts the principles of religion, or which deviates from sound tradition, or which goes astray from the path of righteousness. From whence comes this principle, which enjoys consensus, and about which the Muslim masses are now raging, and which leads them to believe that miracles and the breach of the ordinary are produced through an industry in which the friends of God compete and about which the pious boast? God, and His religion, and His friends, and the people of learning, are all free of this. [pp. 131–2]

CHAPTER 2 SHIBLI SHUMAYYIL:1850—1917

The Lebanese Shibli Shumayyil (of Greek Catholic background) was educated in missionary schools and the Syrian Protestant College (subsequently the American University of Beirut), from which he graduated in 1867. After graduation he proceeded to France and then to the Imperial Medical College of Istanbul. After receiving his degree in Istanbul, he travelled to Egypt where he practised medicine, and pursued a long career as a populariser of science and a major champion of Darwinism, materialism, and political, socio-economic, and cultural reform.1 Shumayyil maintained that nature consists of the unity of matter with force and that matter has always existed and will always exist. He totally rejected any belief in spiritualism, supernaturalism, or vitalism.2 No intelligence, purpose, or final cause has been at work in the story of evolution, only natural law and material processes, including the spontaneous generation of organisms (which he regarded as the definitive proof of the non-existence of a creator).3 Shumayyil’s materialism and Darwinism were inseparable from his religious, political, and social thought. He was not merely concerned with ‘the evolution of life itself, but with all of nature and society’.4 Religion developed from a primitive instinct, initially expressed in fetishism and nature worship, then in forms of animism and polytheism, and finally in monotheism. It sprang from the desire for eternal life and for domination on the part of religious and political elites.5 All things are in the process of differentiation and change and only the fittest survive. Nevertheless, what applies to a body also applies to societies, and they function best when all of their parts cooperate for a common good.6 Shumayyil believed that socialism (al-ishtirakiyyah) would achieve this good, and he appears to have been the first Arab to promote it to a broader audience.7 Socialism would be effected by a gradualist change in the general will. Religion had to be separated from politics. It made for division, especially when it was controlled by clerical and political elites.8 He did not champion the socialisation of the means of production. The government

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would bring about cooperation and provide work for those capable of it. Labour would be the only source of individual income, and income would be regulated by the government to insure justice.9 Many of Shumayyil’s views were fiercely opposed by Christian and Muslim religious leaders and a broad range of other enemies. Arab Jesuits published their own translation of an anti-evolutionary book in 1880 and the Syrian Protestant College subsidised the publication of A Philosophical Refutation of Evolution (Minahij al-hukama’ fi nafy al-nushu’ wa al-irtiqa’) by Ibrahim al-Hurani in 1884. Hurani was an Evangelical theologian, a senior figure in the American mission, and, since 1880, the editor of the College’s weekly newsletter.10 The College’s sponsorship of such a book is hardly surprising in light of the ‘incident’ of 1882. This was precipitated by a commencement address in which Elwin Lewis, a professor of geology and chemistry, celebrated Darwin as a great contemporary scientist. Lewis was ultimately dismissed, several American professors resigned in protest, and a large number of Arab medical students boycotted the College. The administration and senior faculty resisted, and the boycotting students were threatened with dismissal if they didn’t write an apology. Fifteen medical students were dismissed within a year, and the Lebanese Ya‘qub Sarruf and Faris Nimr, young instructors of Arabic, left for Egypt, to which they transferred their periodical al-Muqtataf (Selections), which would serve as a publishing outlet for Shumayyil and comparable thinkers for the next half century.11 The College’s support for al-Hurani backfired, in that it made Darwin and Shumayyil better known. In spite of considerable hostility, Shummayil maintained amicable relations with a wide range of Egypt’s leading intellectual figures and published tens of articles in many of that country’s journals and newspapers. A visit to Greater Syria in 1909 revealed a large following, including supporters willing to subsidise the republication of some of his writings.12 ‘His ideas on progress and the evolution of the state and society more broadly,’ Marwa Elshakry writes, ‘would prove extraordinarily influential and the engagement with them would shape Arab attitudes toward evolutionary thought for generations to come.’13 Shumayyil’s most famous book is The Philosophy of Evolution and Progress (Falsafah al-nushu’ wa al-irtiqa’), a translation, including Shumayyil’s own commentaries, of the German Darwinist Ludwig Buchner’s (1824–99) commentaries on Darwin. Buchner, a lecturer in medicine at Tubingen, published Force and Matter (Kraft und Stoff) in 1855, which came to be spoken of as the ‘Bible of materialism’ in the nineteenth century. ‘Whatever the ultimate defects of materialism,’ Frederick C. Beiser writes, ‘we can be grateful to Buchner for presenting his standpoint so clearly and simply. We have good reason to bestow upon him a title he would have loved: the German Lucretius.’14

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A selection from The Philosophy of Evolution and Progress (Falsafah al-nushu’ wa al-irtiqa’), Cairo, 1910; from the Introduction, pp. 39 – 44, translated by Ralph M. Coury, and from the Conclusion, pp. 343– 55, translated by R. Kevin Lacey [The first edition of Shumayyil’s translation (with commentaries) was published in 1884. The following selections are taken from the second edition of 1910, to which a new introduction was added by Shumayyil. The asterisks separating passages are in the original.]

From the Introduction You should know that, according to this view [materialism], man is natural. He, and all that is in him, is acquired through nature. There is today no doubt left in respect to this truth, even if anyone strongly persists in denying it, anyone who is still influenced by the old teachings that are firmly grounded in his mind, as if they were sculpted in stone. For man is strongly connected to the world of sense perception and the visible, and there is nothing in his formation in respect to matter and energy that indicates that he is connected to the world of the spirit and the unknown. For all of the elements of which he is made are present in nature and all of the forces within him proceed on the basis of the forces of nature. For he is, like the animals, physiological, and, like inanimate beings, chemical, and the differences between men and animals are only in the quantity of matter and not in the quality of matter, the image and not the inner substance, the accidents and not the essence. For the human senses and the animal senses, and the human comprehends and the animal comprehends, and the laws of nutrition are the same in them. However, the human comprehends more than the animal because he is more developed, just as the higher animal comprehends more than the animal who is below him. His elements are as the elements of the inanimate, which interact, which form themselves, which disintegrate, which burn up, which give off heat, and all of life is combustion. * *

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The metaphysicians have no ability to deny this and yet they say that even if the worlds were created from a single material each world was nevertheless created specifically, that it was created by a Creator from matter that was also created, and that it has no life within it except for that which the Creator has laid out for every kind of life. Man is the end purpose of His work and the utmost limit of His expectation, so that He has made everything in the

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heavens and earth subordinate to Him and He has granted man alone an eternal soul and has commanded man alone to submit to Him. Nevertheless, they who follow this view will encounter obstacles. The fact that they will be obliged to deny all of the activity that proceeds from the material and all the possible explanations of it are among such obstacles. And I do not suppose that they would be able to sustain this view in terms of nature. This is because all that has been learned about the material indicates that it endures inasmuch as matter is not extinguishable, with the sole exception of the form that it assumes. It is, in terms of essence, continuous, and everything that is not capable of being annihilated is not created. Everything that occurs within it arises as an intrinsic energy that does not deviate, and nothing indicates choice. Rather, it is all produced through necessity, according to laws based on a known system that is not vulnerable to shortcomings either in its totality or in its parts, including, among these shortcomings, the idea that the specific creation entails a constancy of worlds and species. This [idea of] constancy has been negated, for it is established that all existence is changeable and that the heavenly bodies are changeable in this changeable totality. There is no special creation. They [world and species] have been formed on the basis of the set laws of nature. The species are changeable and connected to one another. They are in fact successive to one another. Perhaps the supporters of vitalism have accepted this, but they have made life free of matter, that is, they have referred to it in terms of a vital principle. Nevertheless, this principle is refuted on the basis that chemistry has a capacity to combine living materials that are, it is believed, specific to vital bodies, and that all power is totally attributable to a single first power that is movement. And much evidence from chemistry indicates that the simple elements have their origin in a single, first matter, as movement in its primordial form (hayula). For nature is one and there is nothing in the studies of nature that deny this unity. In truth, it is not known how this principle in respect to matter could be dissolved, and, if matter were dissolved, how it could then proceed is also not known. The supporters of spiritualism might say that this connection [of all things as matter] could be true among organic bodies in some parts of the organic world, and that it is not true of the human being who is detached both naturally and spiritually. As for the existence of man as a natural, detached phenomenon, which establishes that he is of an independent species created in himself, this is refuted by the school of Darwin which shows that man is strongly linked to those below him in the animal species. And if there is a barrier between him and the animal who is closest to him for natural reasons, what is greater than the barrier that exists between the species of animals themselves and, more particularly, between two kinds of animals within the same species? And if this barrier is not confirmed in the world of nature how is it confirmed

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spiritually? If it is said that this barrier exists because of the loftiness of comprehension that animals don’t have, we say that all of the power found in humans is also found in the animals. Similarly, they are found in states that differ in respect to man’s level of formation, for the difference between men is a matter of accident and not essence, and if it were otherwise, then all men would possess the same level of reason and, furthermore, at the highest level; [However], just as man is defective in his intellect, according to his condition, so is the animal in his body. That is, the spiritual power does not bring about a fixed, obvious, state of being. If this [predictable fixity through spiritual power] is not possible, how can there be this barrier between man and animal, by which the spiritual principle pours forth on one and not the other? For intellect is found in the animal, just as it is [found] in great variety among the branches of humanity. This segment ends with examples of rationality shown by monkeys in cooperating with one another. * *

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Humanity has peoples and tribes that are very savage, and who do not know the meaning of humanism. And there are some who are not able to count to ten or to four because of the weakness of their intellect. Some of the Australians do not differentiate, in a picture, between a man and a horse and a house. Does this state of things prove the saying that man has a mind and that animals are without one? Is not the killing of children, and not simply the burying alive of girls among some of the tribes, an on-going custom? Doesn’t man’s bad and savage behaviour to his mother and his wife place him below the beasts? Does the savage know the meaning of virtue and does he consider the good to be anything other than what his tribe deems to be good, that is, killing and stealing with a clear mind and a conscience at rest? Don’t the savages eat each other? Is there not, between the lowest and highest of men in intelligence, a gap greater than that between man and the animals? Is it not strange, after this, that reason [should be regarded as] specific to humans and be denied to animals? If man has thirsted for life, sensually and mentally, as the animals, from whence does he acquire this difference? * *

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There is, in truth, no support upon which the proponents of spiritualism can rely and to which they can resort except for revelation. And there will be nothing left for them except that. It will serve them for a long time, and we

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would ourselves have stopped at this if the method of Darwin had not treated everything that relates to man such as languages, customs, laws, religions, and so on. The sects and religions and other phenomena of the same kind are of a single origin and their establishment in this world is due to two factors: the desire for leadership among leaders and the satisfaction gained by those who are led in their desire for eternal life. And each of these is derived from the self-love of human beings. Clever, smart persons have assailed innocent minds. Some have dominated and others have been dominated. The aims of these two elements have been fulfilled through this, but only for the time being. You should know that self-love leads a person to hope for everything that he considers to be a good for himself. He flees from everything that he considers to be an evil. There is not one way of proceeding in this respect. Rather, each one regards what is good according to his desire, and he seeks it according to his perception. And even if he sometimes makes a mistake in his pursuit, he is not mistaken in the goal, the goal that is always peace of mind. Even if this involves suicide, on the basis that death is considered to be better than a life filled with anxieties and a troubled conscience, or on the basis of coveting another life that is perhaps less trying than the life of this world. This is the reason for which the human being has set himself apart from the rest of beings and has wanted to effect a gap between himself and them in respect to essence. This inclination is apparent in all of his physical and mental activities and in all of his emotions. It is very rare to see anyone confessing his wrong-doing inasmuch as love of self does not tolerate knowing that he has done wrong. And if he admits to it, it is also for personal reasons, and he will for the most part strive to attribute his wrong-doing to others. If he doesn’t find any human being to throw the blame on, he resorts to complaining about fate and time. Time! I did not find a friend within it. It has become one of my critics. It will become aware of my merit in the future. Repudiating it and rebuking my actions, Time is nothing other than the human being. Time is nothing other than its inhabitants.15

From the Conclusion Communities raise their children, but humans suffer from what they raise. Persons are only the seedlings of time; let the nation reap what it sows. Abu al-‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri

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If you have followed the directive set out in the body of this book, scrutinised it with the utmost care, and been able to prevail over the factors influencing your previous upbringing and education, and this in order to restrain yourself from factors of raw emotion; if you are not dissembling, or concealing a passion or a frisson, or not repeatedly opposing the call of wisdom; if, instead, you are self-reliant in your judgement, and nevertheless not rejoicing over the abundance of your triumph; if you are not being led by propositions that do not come from the depth of science, even if the author in question is a scholar of eminence; then, under these terms and conditions, science is permitted to you, just as it is permitted to others besides you. This is true as long as your interrogations are directed to the laws of reason, and not to the desires of the heart; as long as your knowledge leads to nature and experimentation, and not to laws laid down by convention, as long as you are observing reality free from any obscurity. Having said all of this, you can do no more than join me in acknowledging the following propositions: (1) The sciences of the ancients are based more on speculation16 than practice. Their philosophy is more a matter of intellectual activity17 than sense perception; more abstract than material; more disparate and arbitrary than cohesive and necessary. They are based more on human convention than on the disposition of nature; they are more spiritual than physical; more dialectical and speculative than experiential and experimental; they are based more on wishes than on established facts. (2) The sciences of the ancients and their philosophy were transmitted to us in the Arabic-speaking societies of the world. Their sciences and philosophy remained, in their entirety, our sciences and philosophy for a very long time. Moreover, they remain, to this day, the spirit of our philosophy and our intellectual, literary, and religious sciences. (3) The social state of man, as well as his organisations, his statutes, and his religious laws – even his intellectual aptitude, psychological inclinations, and the goal of his researches – all of these are deduced (and this has been true throughout all stages of man’s history) from his sciences and his philosophical perception of the universe. (4) It cannot be denied that the empirical, natural, materialist sciences are today much more advanced than they were in the past. It is also undeniable that the sciences of speculative discourse have declined, and that turning to their findings has become very infrequent. At the same time, the social, literary, and religious views that have accrued to them have changed. Finally, it cannot be denied that man’s social situation in the past was much more wretched than it is today.

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(5) If, in respect to all of this, we compare the peoples and nations and governments in all of the inhabited realms of today’s world, we find enormous disparities. We also find that wherever the sciences of speculative discourse and their perspectives are more widespread, the natural sciences are at a low level, humans are oppressed and degraded, and man’s social situation is very bad. And vice versa. * *

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For all of these reasons, the abstract over the strictly delineated, spiritual philosophy over materialist philosophy, and speculative theology over experimental sciences, were all bound to prevail within the sciences of the ancients. By virtue of their subject matter, as well as their difficulty, the sciences of speculative discourse were regarded as high sciences. The most resplendent minds indulged themselves in taking them up, exhausting their powers on them and leaving aside all other sciences in their pursuits. This was still true – until more recently – of even the spirit in which the experimental sciences were pursued.18 This is the type of philosophy (together with its sciences) that was transmitted to those of us living in Arabic-speaking societies through the books of Aristotle. This philosophy became known to us as Aristotelian philosophy. We built our intellectual, literary, and religious sciences, as well as all of our societal organisations, upon it. The speculative theories of this philosophy became firmly fixed with us, to the extent that this philosophy permeated everything and its impact still affects our thinking to this day. This reality becomes crystal clear to us if we scrutinise the established sciences and their intended objectives from the time of Aristotle up until today, and if we also look into the studies of those scientists and philosophers who gained fame for their work after Aristotle. Indeed, merely mentioning the names of these sciences exempts us from explaining this reality and provides sufficient proof that these sciences are products of thinking devoted to the study of abstractions, and that they are not based on the facts of nature derived from the study of things that are known through sense perception. Examples of the names of which I speak include the ‘Science’ of Divinity; the ‘Science’ of Psychology; the Natural ‘Science’, which, for the adherents of whom I speak, is merely the equivalent of the Science of Divinity; and the ‘Rational’ Sciences and the ‘Mechanical’ Sciences (the latter exactly like the ‘Rational’ in terms of abstraction). Under each of these original sciences there are many branches; e.g., the ‘Science’ of Logic, the ‘Science’ of Speculative Theology;19 the ‘Sciences’ of Theology;20 the Greater (not to mention Lesser!)

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‘Science’ of Religious Law;21 the ‘Science’ of the Mystical Knowledge of God;22 and all of the other ‘sciences’ of literature such as the ‘Science’ of Expository Expression, the ‘Science’ of Figures of Speech, the ‘Science’ of Meanings, etc. These sciences became more independent after the time of the Greeks, when familiarity with them was linked to familiarity with all of the branches of the experimental sciences. They became more abstract and their branches multiplied. They also sank into trite and silly studies. Private institutes were erected for them, and it was there that all of these confessional, discursive, theoretical sciences came to preoccupy minds, to waste precious time, and to drive thought away from concern with the useful things that can be perceived by the senses. These sciences yield neither chicken coop nor fried egg. And yet they alone are the commerce of the scholar and the philosopher and the imam,23 who wear the robes and lengthen the sleeves, who wrap the turbans and fashion the peaks of their scholarly caps, pompously swaying in their walk as though they had discovered the secret of eternity. In truth, confusion and rashness are the only secret that they have discovered. Even if they want to spin a story, they make a mountain out of a mole hill. If they want to justify an issue of theoretical speculation, they evade whatever they wish, inasmuch as they are not bound by their precarious proofs in the same way that mathematicians or mechanical engineers are bound by proofs that are precise. If you take a comprehensive look at the many compositions (which number in the hundreds of thousands) that take up these various literary and purely mental philosophical topics; if you look at how much time has been wasted on them by the most sublime minds; if you look at what has consequently become firmly rooted in hearts and minds through the predisposition to proceed with these vacuous studies in the midst of the useful sciences, and if you look at the deceptions and errors produced in society – then I don’t know if you should be very grateful to Aristotle, who bequeathed this strand of philosophy, or to Ibn Sina,24 who passed it on to us. Read a chapter of al-Ghazali’s The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut alfalasifah)25 and a chapter of Ibn Rushd’s The Incoherence of the Incoherence (Tahafut al-tahafut).26 Then tell me: What do you understand? Turn your attention to the sterile dialectical studies on logical problems and tell me: Can all of that have possibly issued forth from sound minds? Try to read – if you can – the thick volumes on the silly issues involving impossibility and forbiddance and permission. And then tell me: Does all of this differ greatly from senseless hallucinations? Shumayyil’s attack on traditional science, philosophy, and religious thought that lack positivist, empirical dimensions, is extended to a flood of imaginative literature,

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mediaeval and contemporary, that he considers to be ‘far from reality’. Scientists themselves, including those of ‘refined minds’, spend their most valuable time in delving into ancient literary artefacts instead of the true sciences from which society could benefit. The harm of the abstract philosophy of which I speak is not restricted to the pure and natural sciences. It has encompassed everything, even religions. Take, for example, the religious law of the Qur’an. Of all of the religious laws, it is the only one that is completely social and practical, that turns to truly worldly affairs. I mean, in saying this, that this law was not limited to the universal fundamentals widespread within the laws of all religions. It showed special concern for precepts dealing with particulars. It laid down rules for social interaction, and also even obligatory rules for worship. From this perspective, it was a religious law that was practical and concerned with material realities, to the extent that heaven itself did not depart from representations of this nature (concerning the trees, fruits, rivers, etc., to be found there). As long as the adherents of this religious law pursued it, the affairs of their world were sound, as opposed to the case of others in the world, and taking into consideration the state of humankind in these historical periods. For everything is relative in this existence of ours. However, the philosophical sciences of the Greeks, together with their abstract studies, reached these adherents of religious law, and, in taking up these Greek sciences and studies, they inclined to the speculative and disputatious. They applied these sciences and studies to religions in establishing the greater science of religious law. Innovations subsequently proliferated, and the view of the Sufis27 is most evil in enabling this kind of speculation. With all of this, the adherents of the religious law of the Qur’an turned from the practical, material goal of religion to abstract goals and speculative aims, and to all of the literary sciences of dialectic erected upon them in the humanities. There was even a turn to what has absolutely no connection to religion at all.28 Such a drift even took hold of the poetry of the Arabs. It shifted from its concrete, descriptive trajectory, which prevailed in the pre-Islamic era, to the enervating, imaginative form. The poets of this persuasion gave themselves over to it completely. Most of the poetry that resulted became the virtual expression of the poets’ shamelessness in love. Poetry also became an arena for the poets’ debasing themselves in flattery and immersing themselves in compositions of praise or blame. The poets retrogressed, and they remain backward to this day. If their societal orientation had remained the religious law of the Qur’an alone, as it had been in the past, no obstacle would have stood in their way to block their advancement, except for the tendency which arises within every religious law to become frozen over time. However, the wise lawgiver of Islam himself gave

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Muslims a way out of that frozenness. This was through the verses dealing with the principle of abrogation (naskh) of parts of the Qur’an.29 The Prophet Muhammad delivered these verses in his Qur’an so that Muslims might pursue their lives in a most prudent, practical manner. The spirit of the type of ancient philosophy of which I speak had the most negative of impacts on the social affairs of humankind as well. Here I will not burden you with looking into distant past history. Look instead to recent history. Europe was, until quite recently (150 years ago), the domain of princes who ruled over the continent with absolute authority, assuming their authority in the way the landowner assumes authority over his property, amassing it as well as parcelling it out by way of bequests and marriages. Authority in this kind of Europe flowed from top to bottom, emanating from the prince who was everything to the people who remained nothing worth mentioning. The people had no voice whatsoever. Their only importance to history was that of chattel to be bought and sold. They had no rights with respect to founding the religious laws that governed them, or with respect to the enactment of laws and orders that determined their polity. In sum, they had no moral existence whatsoever. Those philosophical principles and sciences of speculative theology, and, especially, the religion based on them at the time of their flowering and glory, were also added to these negative dimensions of society. Look to the present to see how all of this has had an influence on our religious laws, our organisations, our governments, and all of the other interactions and aspirations of our lives. The influence still produces conflicts among us in our society, driving us away from cooperation and pushing us towards tearing one another apart. See how governments, therefore – by force and by public display – still endorse educational systems based on the philosophical principles and sciences of which I speak, erecting special educational institutes30 for them through which they can blot out the people in order to maintain blind authority over them.31 Look at these ignorant people themselves; how, by way of these institutes, they help others but at the expense of themselves. If you try to extricate the people from their ignorance, they rise up against you as though you have abused them, as is expressed in the following line of poetry: ‘Man is only accustomed to poverty. So, if you take care of him, he is abused.’ For examples of everything that I am speaking about, do not look merely to the East, which is silly with its nations and governments and kings, wherein the final goal of all of the sciences of the type that I am describing is more important than every other goal of society. Look also to the kingdoms that are most advanced with respect to the huge differences between their positions now and their positions in the past (in terms of power and might).

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Notwithstanding their knowing that their advancement was based solely on their abandoning many of the vanities of the past, they have not given up the remainder, and they are quite content in not having done so. Look at the many crimes that are committed each day, individually or collectively. They are concealed by those [false] principles, the goals of religions and nation states rest upon them, and this has prevailed up to the present. Take this into consideration and you will not find it strange if society is not fully righteous in its religious goals and principles.32

CHAPTER 3 AMEEN RIHANI:1876—1940

Ameen Rihani (of Maronite origin) was one of the most accomplished of the Syrian/ Lebanese authors of the school of modern Arab literature in the North American ‘Emigration’ (mahjar) which began to form in the late nineteenth century as a result of emigration from Mount Lebanon. In spite of the fact that Rihani emigrated when he was only twelve and that his formal education remained limited, his energetic auto didacticism, his travels and residency in the Arab world after emigration, and his close association with a range of American and Arab intellectuals, contributed to an uncommon cosmopolitanism.1 He remains, as Nijmeh Hajjar writes, ‘one of the very few bilingual Arab humanists who have distinguished themselves in both the Arab and Western worlds’.2 He wrote extremely well in both Arabic and English, and in many genres: the novel, the literary review, poetry, critical writing on the arts, the newspaper article, biography, the travel memoir, history, translation, and drama. His intellectual life was linked to his political activism, as an advocate of socialism, of Arab liberation and unity, of the independence and unity of Syria and Lebanon, and of the Palestinian cause. He was a man of many Arab firsts or near firsts – to write an autobiographical novel, to write a novel in English, to translate the great sceptical mediaeval poet Abu ‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri,3 to promote an unambiguously political definition of pan-Arab identity,4 to denounce the political and economic systems of the United States from a socialist perspective,5 and to defend Palestinian rights before American and other Western audiences.6 Although he shared the secularism, anti-clericalism, and disbelief of a number of his colleagues, the extent of his willingness to express sweeping radical rejections set him apart. ‘I have accustomed myself to a way of thinking which spares no man,’ he writes in 1903, ‘no party, no creed, and no sect when such a man or party is allied with fraud, corruption, and crime.’7 Agnosticism is revealed as early as 1898, in a paper entitled ‘Agnosticism’, which is clearly indebted to T. H. Huxley. ‘The agnostic does not know,’ Rihani writes. ‘He hopes for light; and he will wait until that light comes.’8 Rihani appears to have ultimately understood God as the source of a universal

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morality, produced by an evolutionary process that He set in motion. Religion must be compatible with reason and science. There are no universal revelations. ‘I am this rebellious sinful unbeliever (kafir), and I have many brothers on earth . . . Our aim is to transform their selfish spiritualism [those mindful of theology] to a spirituality full of good for Humanity.’9 Rihani’s confrontation with religious authorities began early in his career. He provoked considerable controversy among emigrants and in the Arab world when he presented his first talk in Arabic, ‘Religious Tolerance’ [al-Tasahul al-dini] at the New York Maronite Society (on St Maroun’s Day and in the presence of a number of clerics) in 1900. The speech stimulated a long-lasting exchange in the Arabic press, including a gentle rebuke from the Maronite Patriarch.10 Matters worsened when he argued, in 1902, that Lebanese clergymen, notables, and great landlords blocked social and economic progress, and that the Maronite Church should desist from interference in the affairs of the Administrative Council of Mount Lebanon.11 And, in 1903, his publication (in New York) of The Tripartite Alliance in the Animal Kingdom (al-Mahalifah al-thulathiyyah fi al-mamlakah al-hiyawaniyyah), an allegorical fable in which draught animals try and execute a fox for disbelief, resulted in his excommunication from the Maronite Church (the publisher is reported to have burned the remaining copies).12 He nevertheless remained undaunted and reproduced the same sentiments in the novel The Muleteer and the Priest (al-Mukari wa al-kahin) the following year.13 There seems to be a tendency to downplay Rihani’s critique of traditional religion. Kamal al-Hage speaks of his being ‘anti-clerical and not anti-religious’,14 and Nijmeh Hajjar speaks of The Tripartite Alliance as an ‘allegorical critique of the thinking of the clergymen’,15 as a ‘debate of the role of religion and reason in society’,16 as a refutation of ‘many features of the traditional religious establishment’,17 and, more forcefully, as ‘a critique of orthodox ecclesiastical teaching’,18 and ‘a critical opinion of traditional teachings and practices’.19 As the following selection shows, The Tripartite Alliance is an unabashed attack on several basic beliefs and practices of Christians, with a rejection of Muhammad’s prophecy included. Rihani may have been interested in reconciling science and religion later in his career (as Hajjar also maintains),20 but one must do justice to what Halim Barakat has called his quest for ‘confrontation’.21 A selection from The Tripartite Alliance in the Animal Kingdom (al-Mahalifah al-thulathiyyah fi al-mamlakah al-hiyawaniyyah), New York, 1903, pp. 59 – 89, translated by R. Kevin Lacey A horse invites fellow animals to a conference to discuss their loss of power through the development of the steamship, the locomotive, the automobile, and electricity. Dismayed and disunited, they hope to form an organisation that can agree upon a unified defensive strategy. The horse, together with a mule and a donkey, put forth a number of

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unifying principles by which to proceed: that the horse, the mule, and the donkey are of one family and should forge a strong, all-inclusive alliance, with ultimate loyalty to their God the lion; that they oppose modern civilisation, including the power of electricity and steam and all other modern inventions; that they disregard differences of rites that might obstruct their unity, and theological and philosophical differences unworthy of their attention; that they recognise the absolute power of their individual leaders and remain steadfast in holding to the rites and customs that do not harm the new organisation; that the individual be sacrificed for the sake of the whole except when that individual is one of the prominent leaders. The horse invites a fox to give his opinion of these stipulations before an oath is taken to abide by them. He notes that the fox is a famous journalist and author, that he represents the animals of the future, that he is the leader of the foxes, and is known for his penetrating thought and eloquence. When the fox rises to speak he is both applauded and booed inasmuch as his freethinking is well-known and he has previously outraged some of those present. Thanking his supporters and forgiving his opponents, the fox proceeds to summarise his major themes: the animals must embrace modern technology and achieve unity, and such unity cannot be based merely on love, zeal, and probity. They must give up their backward ways, especially their concern for false and divisive theology. They must follow the true teachings of the lion whom they mistakenly believe to be God. The fox: ‘Don’t merely ignore theology in your alliance. Publicly renounce it and fashion a decisive law that absolutely prevents it from being taken up. And punish everyone who breaks the law by studying theology. Also, arrest every logician. Logic these days is very harmful. Whoever rides its back will find that it ends in evil. If you unite, you must make your creed the foundation of your unity; and if a foundation is corrupt, can what is built upon it last? How can you resist the powers of electricity if you are not firm in your unity? You must first agree upon a creed that will compel you to unite, but this is something that you have not decided upon until now. Will you make the religious law of the new community that of the donkeys or the horses or the mules? As far as I am concerned, were you to discard all of these religious laws (a voice coming from one of the mules says, ‘Stop! Stop!’; another voice from among the donkeys says, ‘Blasphemy! Blasphemy!’), if you would wait so that I can finish expressing myself, you would not be shouting ‘Blasphemy! Blasphemy!’ As I was saying, if you were to discard all of your religious laws and make the original, comprehensive, and holy religious law your truly new law (with this there is stomping of feet on the part of the donkeys), the law that God inscribed in the hearts of all of us, the law that nature itself reveals to us, you would still achieve your hopes. Your project would be solid and your union would last. You are aware – God grant you long lives – that your enemies build their machines in accordance with the laws of nature. And electricity is no more than one of God’s many dimensions

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or one of his many revealed prescriptions. How can you say that electricity is the grimmest enemy?’ One of the donkeys then speaks. ‘I request from our host that he stop the fox. He is an infidel, a deviant.’ The fox responds to this. ‘I would request that the honourable donkey not interrupt me while I am speaking, and when I finish my speech – which I am delivering at the special request of our host – then you can object or pass sentence or criticise. I have said that electricity is one of God’s many manifestations, one of the many elements that He has ordained. And you cannot, nor do you want to, oppose Almighty God. You must, therefore, take the route that your enemies have taken (another uproar ensues). Revise your current religious law so that it is in accordance with the laws of nature. Build your creed on the laws of electricity and steam and you will find yourselves close to God – indeed right before His holy and luminous visage. I am not afraid to tell you that your current religious law, whether followed by the donkeys, mules, or horses, is corrupt to the core.’ (More din and stomping of feet) A voice from among the horses cries out, ‘Stop him! Stop him!’ A voice from among the donkeys, ‘Silence, disbeliever!’ The head of the donkeys‘ delegation then speaks. ‘It is not fitting that we curse the fox in the home of our host. We are all guests. We are all equal. So please allow me to ask him to clarify for us the areas of corruption of which he speaks, one by one.’ The fox responds. ‘I will do so if you all listen and refrain from the braying and stomping of feet. Please indulge me, and know that I am not, as you say, a blasphemer and heretic. I jealously guard the true laws and the authentic creeds. I defend them as much as I can. You all blaspheme against God Almighty by making him a god of anger and injustice and hatred and favouritism. You criticise the worship of idols while at the same time you worship pictures and statues. You try to kill the obvious laws of nature that are operative in electricity and steam with laws that are unnatural, existing only in your creed and minds. Incarnation does not accord with natural laws. Speech between the Creator and His creatures is contrary to the principles of reason. This is what God Himself has taught us through His numerous natural manifestations. The miracles said to have happened long ago are not happening now. Your eternal hell is a barbaric remnant. The story of the whale that swallowed Jonah I cannot swallow! The sun that stood still in the middle of the day is an artificial sun like that which shines on the stages of human nightclubs.’ A great commotion breaks out. Some of the donkeys and mules demand that the blasphemous fox be executed. When the fox refuses to recant, he is seized and shackled

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and brought to trial before a Bureau of Investigation. A mule, horse, and donkey assume the roles of civil and religious judges and cross-examine him. The horse: ‘Are you one of the followers of the lion?’ The fox: ‘Yes, by the grace of God I am one of his followers.’ The horse: ‘But you deny his divinity.’ The fox: ‘Have I been asked to affirm his divinity, or anybody else’s?’ The horse: ‘Did he not say “I am the son of God”? And glory unto Him.’ The fox: ‘Yes. And we are all sons of Almighty God.’ The horse: ‘Do you put yourself at the level of our Lord the lion?’ The fox: ‘Not at all. Although I think that I share many essential things in common with our Lord the lion.’ The horse: ‘And what are they?’ The fox: ‘Those who are steeped in animal science say that all of us are from one stock, which gradually diversified and branched out. The common stock is subject to eternal natural causes and to circumstances which govern it. Moreover, we all grow and evolve from the egg which is the origin of life. The proof of this evolution is in our bodies whenever we compare them with all other animals, regardless of whether they are larger or smaller than we are. All of us have in common the soul that moves us to good or evil, and a circulation system that gives life to our organs in a frame that is in a state of existence for a fixed amount of time. All of us share a certain amount of common intelligence that serves to clarify the principles that we use to confront issues of concern in this life and the life to come. Although intelligence varies, what God holds back from one mind He increases in another. I differ from the lion only to the extent that I am weaker than he in body and soul as well as mind. We are different quantitatively, but not qualitatively. In the eyes of the Creator, he and I are equal. We take our reward or punishment after the Final Judgement and our deeds are weighed on the scales of justice.’ The donkey: ‘Doesn’t what you are saying contradict “The Book of Genesis?” Are you not refuting it with your claim that we all arise from the egg which is the beginning of life?’ The mule: ‘Or, more to the point, do you not believe in “The Book of Genesis”?’ The fox replies that he believes in genesis and not ‘The Book of Genesis’. Man was not created all at once. Evolution, as described by animal scientists, may have been organised and overseen by God, but not according to the modalities described in the Bible. The fox is asked, again, if he believes in God’s revealed word, and he replies that he can’t generalise and say that he believes in all of it or none of it. The fox is cut off once more and he is shackled to a torture device which tears through his flesh with pins. He finally answers with a clear-cut ‘no’ to the question of whether

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he believes in God’s Scripture. This is recorded, and the investigation is resumed without the accompanying torture. Although the fox claims that his belief in God is more secure than the stars of the Big Dipper, he admits that he has said that God has three heads, but that he has also said that He has three pre-eminent qualities commensurate with His three heads. The opportunity is thus established for the fox to deny the orthodox understanding of the Trinity. The donkey: ‘What are the three pre-eminent qualities, and what do you mean by the commensurability?’ The fox: ‘Almighty God knows the present, past, and future. This is the first pre-eminent quality. The second is that He is present everywhere. The third is that He has infinite power. The first quality concerns the head that is known as the Father. The second concerns the head that is known as the Son. And the third concerns what is known as the Holy Spirit. These three qualities are independent yet connected, and the three heads are independent yet connected to one neck.’ The donkey: ‘The three heads to which you derisively and mockingly refer are what we call the “aqanim” of the nature of Almighty God. “Uqnum” is the same as hypostasis, that is, self-subsistence, subsisting in and of one’s self. Boethius has said in The Book of the Two Natures that “The Greeks named the substance, the individual that possesses the faculty of rationality, ‘the hypostasis’.” This is what we also intend by the term uqnum. Just as we say that God has three aqanim, we also say that there are three instances of selfsubsistence within Him. Uqnum and self-subsistence point to one and the same thing.’22 The fox: ‘No one can arise three times and then die three deaths. Do you believe that the lion will come a second and a third time to earth, so that he will die three times and be resurrected three times?’ The donkey: ‘What we teach you is sacred. Do not mock it.’ The fox: ‘You teach me only fables and superstitions and delusions, able sirs. If our Lord Almighty had three aqanim, then there would have been eternal struggle among them and He would not have been able to create this amazing world. Does any kingdom on earth have three kings? Any organisation three presidents?’ The horse: ‘Cut short the questions. You are here to answer questions, not ask them.’ The donkey: ‘It appears to me from your words that you do not, in truth, grasp the nature of God. Or maybe you do not want to grasp it.’ The fox: ‘I acknowledge before you that I am incapable of grasping God’s nature as you describe it in your holy books and your difficult and obscure theology.’ The donkey: ‘Do you believe in what you can’t comprehend?’

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The fox: ‘I always build my faith on study and scrutiny and real comprehension.’ The donkey: ‘Then you don’t believe in God?’ The fox: ‘I do not believe in the human-like god that you describe with your wildly imaginative and obscure descriptions. We are not able to grasp their meaning. I am not afraid of your barbaric threats and your demonic warnings. Your theology teaches that this world is nothing more than a stopping-place into which the majority of the human race as well as the animal kingdom have been placed for a spell on the way to eternal hellfire. If the terrified sinner, therefore, asks for consolation and comfort, let him take your threatening moralising sermons and read them. As for me, I don’t need all of that. What I believe in does not terrify or torment me. I believe in one God, with one head, who has no associate. He is the Creator of heaven and earth. He rules over all. I believe in a just God, merciful, compassionate, caring, forbearing, magnanimous, and generous. I believe that God is impartial and does not show anger or seek reprisals. He is the omnipotent God who has bestowed bountiful good things upon countries without asking who is their prophet. His sun shines on all peoples and all animals without regard for their races or species or religious orientations. He is the God who blesses the harvest if the sowing has been undertaken in earnest. He is the God who sends the spirit of success to those nations in which order prevails, and which take pride in good works. He is the God who elevates the state that reins in the powerful and protects the weak to the pinnacle of glory. He is the God who recompenses each individual for his works; He does not discriminate among the sons and daughters of those scattered over the face of the earth. He is the God who does not burn in eternal hellfire those children who die before they are bathed in holy water. He is the God who does not give a bird two wings and then destroys it if it flies off singing. He is the God who does not torment those who fear Him. He is the God who . . .’ The donkey: ‘Enough! Your God is of no use. He is only a wild fancy.’ The mule: ‘He is a demonic God because he has only one uqnum.’ The fox: ‘He is the True God, always eternal. I feel His presence and see Him with my eyes.’ The donkey: ‘As we have learned in our books, the vision of God is impossible for the eye of the body.’ The fox: ‘The revelation sent down in your Holy Book contradicts what you are saying. “In my body I see my God,” and also, “I have heard you with the hearing of the ear, and now I have seen you with my eye”.’ The donkey: ‘God cannot be seen through sensory perception, whether through the human senses or any external sensory power. Every power is an act of a human organ, and such an act is equated with that which has executed it. Now if it is impossible for the like of this power to extend beyond the

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corporeal, and God is not a body, as already granted, a vision of Him is not possible, whether by sense perception or imagination. There can only be an intellectual vision of Him.’ The fox: ‘Believe me, learned judge, I have not understood your profound meaning. If you pardon me from your difficult theology and rarefied and farreaching logic, I will take back my words and say to you that I see God only through my intellect and not the corporeal eye.’ The questioning resumes, the fox continues to resist a declaration of belief in God, and an additional form of torture (whipping) is applied. The fox claims, at one point, that he believes and doesn’t believe, and, at another point, that he believes in the God whom he has described. The bodily torture is then abandoned, and the court records that the fox has been subjected to an enhanced form of torture before making his second confession. The fox is now subjected to ‘mental torture’. The donkey: ‘You said that your god was not made incarnate and that the lion – glory unto Him – is not god. Did you think about this pronouncement before proclaiming it publicly? Are you aware that the lion has two wills, one divine and the other human, and that the lion is equal in glory to the Father, the Father is equal to the Holy Spirit, and the latter is equal to the two former?’ The fox: ‘I learned all of that, but I don’t want to teach it to anybody because I am not accustomed to teaching what I don’t understand. You believe – and I believe with you – that God has power over everything. Do you deny this? Then you say that He was made incarnate and came down into this world and appeared in the body of the lion, that He rent asunder all of the holy laws of the lands in which He lived, and died on the cross. Then you say that He was made incarnate to redeem humankind and wipe away the sins of the earth. But did He wipe away the sins of the earth? Is the world better off today than it was during the days of the almighty lion? The God who is capable of everything became incarnate – according to your claim – for a noble end. But the world in its entirety tells us through its history and deeds that He did not achieve that end. Is there not a contradiction in this argumentation that you weave with your worn-out theology and weak philosophy? If God is capable of everything, and had He become incarnate and come to this world to wipe away sin, He would have wiped it away entirely. But sin still prevails. God, therefore, did not become incarnate. You infected me with the disease of logic. So I have taken up addressing you in your own manner of speaking. If I have denied the lion’s incarnation, that is only out of my great respect for the lion. For if the lion were a god, then how is he superior to me? I respect the lion with the utmost respect because he is, according to my belief, the greatest philosopher who ever walked the earth and the greatest teacher who ever appeared beneath the sun. You consider him

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a god while trampling on his laws. I consider him a philosopher and comply with his teachings as best I can and act according to them. You are satisfied with philosophy and worn-out theology. I combine my good faith with whatever good deeds I can do. You worship him outwardly as long as his name puts you in control over all the animals and brings the good things in life to you. I love him and respect him gratis, not desiring anything material from him.’ The donkey: ‘Clarify for us, first of all, the words in accordance to which we do not act. Then clarify the words that you say you uphold.’ The fox: ‘The lion said, “Oppose evil with good.” If what I say to you here and now before you all is evil according to your beliefs, why don’t you oppose it with righteous counterparts, as the lion has commanded you? If what I say to you is good, why don’t you at least treat me in the same way? Did the lion say to you, “Torture whoever opposes you in religion. Persecute and kill them.” Did he not say to you, “Love your enemies and bless those who curse you”?’ The horse warns the fox to abandon his impudence, demanding to know, immediately, if he believes in the divinity of the lion. The donkey says that the fox should be allowed to clarify his words and the horse agrees. In the course of his response the fox denies the divinity of the lion and the prophecy of the camel as well. The horse: ‘Answer the donkey’s question.’ The fox: ‘I act in accordance with the words of the lion, and I pray in my small room. I have no need for the holy hut23 which the Lord never ordered erected in the first place. Did he not say, “Wherever you pray, be not like those who are duplicitous, for they love to pray standing in grand assemblies and on street corners so that they are visible to people. As for you, whenever you pray, enter your small room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen.” ‘From this it can be concluded that the lion disapproved of mosques or temples or holy huts, and of those who frequented them for base purposes. He never ordered the construction of special huts for prayers because he said, “Pray in your rooms.” Had he wanted the building of a hut for prayer, he would not have cautioned against prayer in public places. This is why I do not grant you any authority at all, I deny absolutely your claim that Almighty God gave you authority over us. What came down in the Lord’s Scripture on this topic completely contradicts your claims. Did he not say, “As for you, do not invoke [someone as] ‘my lord’ because your teacher is one, and he is the lion, and you are all brothers. And do not invoke a ‘father’ for yourselves on earth, for your Father is one, who is in heaven. And do not invoke ‘teachers’ because you have one teacher, the lion.” Therefore, do you think I will submit to you and rebel against the lion? Do you expect me to discard the words of the lion and adopt your words? Who is greater, all of you or the lion, the righteous philosopher? Who is more deserving to be followed, the true

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sovereign or the pretender king? And what do we have to do with all of that right now? Do you wish to tell me how the son can be equal to the father? Were both created in one day? How can that be?’ The horse: ‘I have told you twice to refrain from questions. You are before the Council to answer questions, not to cross-examine. Have some modesty and keep your words to a minimum. Your eloquence will be of no advantage to you in this bureau. Answer the question. Do you believe in the divinity of the lion?’ The fox: ‘No, nor in the prophecy of the camel. Both in my estimation are great leaders who deserve respect and honour. Were I to consider them divine I would not be able to honour them more than I do now in their capacities as leaders and philosophers. The belief in the divinity of the lion is unnecessary for whoever acts according to his words, following his path and imitating his works.’ The donkey: ‘So you want to say that the lion is an animal just like us.’ The fox: ‘No. He surpasses us in the level of his intellectual and psychological gifts and virtues.’ The donkey: ‘This is acceptable in respect to incidentals but rejected in terms of essentials. Our objective is that you tell us whether the lion is an animal or a god. The Council has laws that must be preserved.’ The fox: ‘He was an animal.’ The horse: ‘Fine. Oh Secretary, write down the following: The third confession made by the accused, without any torture, is that he does not believe in the divinity of the lion – to whom is all glory.’ The Secretary recorded all of this in writing and the question and answer session returned to its heated state. The inquiry proceeds to a discussion of the ‘worship of pictures’. The fox admits that he has claimed that the worship of pictures is a vestige of the worship of idols. The worship of idols had its benefit in that it led to the worship of the one God. It was a ladder, but there is no longer any use for it. This discussion continues and the fox does not acquiesce. His belief that the supplication of pictures and statues is useless is finally recorded as yet another confession. They then turn to the discussion of electricity. The donkey asks if it is a mortal enemy which harms the animals’ best interest. The fox maintains that it comes from God, that it is a natural phenomenon which, if used according to the laws of nature, would be a friend, and that the animals are claiming that God intends to harm them by a gift that is beneficial. The horse suggests changing the topic because it is giving him a headache. The discussion then turns to the Virgin Birth. The donkey: ‘Didn’t you say “virginity negates giving birth”, that is, the chaste female can never be a mother?’ The fox: ‘I said that giving birth negates virginity.’ The donkey: ‘What do you understand by the word virginity?’

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The fox: ‘Pardon me from answering this question. Pardon me. I am not a doctor. The only thing that I know is that fire cannot be generated without reciprocal friction. The same applies to offspring.’ The donkey: ‘And can no one be an exception to this rule of yours?’ The fox: ‘Do you mean by this exception the story of the lioness who was mother of the lion?’ The donkey: ‘Yes. Do you not believe that this lioness became pregnant without the animal contact to which you have referred?’ The fox: ‘How is this possible? The laws of nature teach us that a third thing can’t be generated from two things except after the reciprocal friction between them.’ The donkey: ‘But the pregnancy of the mother of the lion was accomplished by means of the will of the Holy Spirit which took up dwelling in the lioness – as laid down in the Holy Book.’ The fox: ‘That was laid down in your fanciful imaginations. If the Holy Spirit took up dwelling in the lioness, the real husband had the right to divorce the lioness by virtue of the religious law, and if he did not divorce her, then that is a sort of forgiveness and leniency that entitle him to profuse gratitude and sweet praise. Who knows, maybe he needed some witnesses, and . . .’ The fox is given twelve lashes for his mocking the sacred. After this lashing he is again chastised by the horse, who insists that the mother of the lion never knew the blemish of conjugal contact. The fox answers that he learned this at a young age but that he does not want to teach it because he can’t understand it. The horse orders the Secretary to record that the fox does not believe that the lioness became pregnant without the ‘blemish’ of conjugal relations. The fox then begins to joke, particularly about miracles, and the donkey loses control. He splits the fox’s head open with a crucifix and the fox falls to the floor, unconscious and thrashing about in his own blood. The horse urges self-restraint. If God’s mortal enemy is to be slaughtered others should do it at the animals’ orders. The fox is revived, seated on a chair because of his severe pain and dizziness, and questioning is resumed. The issue of miracles is again taken up, the fox remains recalcitrant, and he is subjected to water torture. Although the water torture is suspended when he seems about to relent, he nevertheless continues to answer in the negative. The horse: ‘Write down, Secretary, the following: The fox confesses that he does not believe in divine miracles, and this after conventional water torture was administered.’ The Secretary wrote down what he was told. The horse then ordered him to read out all of the confessions of the fox for the judges. He rose and read the following:

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The accused fox confesses first of all that he does not believe in the Holy Book. Second, he confesses that he does not believe in God. Third, he confesses that he does not believe in the divinity of the lion. Fourth, he does not believe in sacred pictures. Fifth, he does not believe that the lioness, mother of the lion, conceived without the blemish of conjugal union. Sixth, he does not believe in divine miracles. When the Secretary had concluded reading out the facts, the Council ordered that the fox be bound in iron chains and taken to prison to await the verdict of the judges. After his hands and feet were bound, he stood looking like a lost prey, his cheeks stained with the blood flowing from the wound in his head. He then spoke: ‘Fetch the cross so that I might carry it, and bring two thieves with whom I can die.’ The Council refused this request. The judges showed no regard for the touching words of the fox. These words would have reminded them, had they paused to reflect, about the life of the lion and his struggle against evil. They thus left the Council room with little concern for the case of the atheist fox who was taken off to jail, despised and ridiculed. The fox is condemned to death and when he refuses to recant he is burned to a crisp. As the donkey, mule, and horse begin to give thanks to God for His continuous support against unbelievers, the sky darkens, a violent wind arises, torrential rains begin to fall, and fierce claps of thunder follow fierce flashes of lightning. After a half hour, in which the animals stand about trembling, calm is restored, the clouds break, and the lion appears at the wheel of a large automobile and drives down to earth. As soon as he arrives, he loses no time in delivering his rebukes: ‘I told you to love your enemies . . . I told you to judge not that you be not judged . . . You have committed fearful crimes and then say that they are done on my behalf . . . When did I tell you to burn your brethren for my sake . . . Woe unto you from the great and harsh punishment that you will encounter.’ The animals try to cover up their deceit with crude lies, but the heavens cloud over once more and the lion disappears in his automobile. The donkey, horse, and mule set out along the railway tracks with their heads bowed. They are soon run over by the train of modernity, ‘wagons of steam’, and of ‘electricity’, and of ‘all kinds of inventions’. Their heads and the rest of their bodies fly into the air and their various limbs are ‘scattered on the road of modern civilisation’.

CHAPTER 4 TAHA HUSAYN:1889—1973

The Egyptian Taha Husayn was born in a small town (Maghaghah) in Upper Egypt into a lower middle class family.1 He contracted ophthalmia at the age of two, and ineffectual treatment by the village barber left him totally blind.2 He studied at a kuttab,3 at al-Azhar (where he became a devotee of ‘Abduh), at the Egyptian University,4 and then at the Sorbonne, on a government scholarship. He received the first doctorate conferred by the Egyptian University, in 1914, for a dissertation on al-Ma‘arri,5 and a doctorat d’etat at the Sorbonne in 1918, for a dissertation on the social philosophy of Ibn Khaldun.6 Upon his return from France, he was appointed Professor of Classical Studies and then Chair of Arabic Literature.7 The stage for the literary-religious battle over Husayn’s On Pre-Islamic Poetry (Fi al-shi‘ir al-jahili), perhaps ‘the most famous Arabic literary battle of the twentieth century,’ 8 had been well set before this work was published. A number of conservatives were already hostile: for his use of non-Azhari methods in his study of al-Ma‘arri; for his teaching of Western classics; for his championing of the ‘modern’ school of expression and thought against the ‘ancient’ (he coined such terms); for his anti-clerical articles published in 1923, later collected as From Afar (Min ba‘id), and for a 1925 intellectual history, The Masters of Thought (Qadah al-fikr), which portrayed religion as losing its battle with reason.9 Matters came to a head with the publication of On Pre-Islamic Poetry in 1926. The main theme was that most of this poetry had been written after the rise of Islam, and that it had been forged for various reasons: the need to substantiate Islamic claims; the projection of clan, tribal, and Arab-Persian disputes into the past; the need to elaborate upon ancient legends.10 There was much opposition to the thesis on the poetry as such, but the work would not have been as scandalous if it had not touched so directly upon Islam. According to Husayn, the story of Abraham ( Ibrahim) and Ishmael (Isma‘il) as recorded in the Qur’an did not establish that it had actually occurred. The story of their presence in

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Arabia and their building of the Ka‘abah11 in Mecca may have been strategically designed after the rise of Islam to give this religion a monotheistic pedigree and to establish a link between Arabs and Jews. Husayn was vigorously attacked in articles, lectures, and entire books. Both al-Azhar and al-Manar12 accused him of apostasy. A special committee of alAzhar declared that the book was blasphemous, demanded that it should be banned, and that he should be dismissed. The book was debated in Parliament and court inquiries were initiated. The University had sided with Husayn, arguing that its academic freedom was at stake and refusing to accept the resignation that he had submitted. Husayn reaffirmed his belief in Islam publicly, the book was withdrawn, and then republished as On Pre-Islamic Literature (Fi adab al-jahili) in 1927. The new edition removed the passages on Abraham and Ishmael and Husayn’s appeal to disregard religion in the search for scientific truth, and it substituted the word misattribution (nahl) for misappropriation (intihal) in relation to the issue of poetic forgery.13 Husayn reaffirmed his views on pre-Islamic poetry in 1935, and continued to argue against the interference of religious authorities outside their own sphere.14 He also forcefully maintained that the views of science and religion are irreconcilable. He never displayed defiance again in respect to the wording of the Qur’an itself, but his collection of stories On the Margin of the Prophet’s Life (‘Ala hamish al-sirah) dealt with tales linked to the Prophet as delightful legends, without selecting versions more acceptable to modern views (Pierre Cachia, the author of a critical biography, calls it ‘the most impious of his works’).15 As is true of virtually all other comparable cases, the story of On Pre-Islamic Poetry cannot be detached from broader Arab (or narrower Egyptian) political realities of the period. The Palace supported the opposition of many Azharites. Husayn was nevertheless a full professor, with powerful academic and political allies, including the Liberal Constitutional Party, and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid,16 a prominent member of the Party and Rector of the University. The University was no longer a private institution and Egyptians were more fully involved in running their educational system than they had been before they received partial independence in 1922. Husayn was actually promoted in the aftermath of the affair, becoming the first Egyptian Dean of the Faculty of Arts in 1936.17 The affair has nevertheless had, apart from its particular context, and to a greater degree than most others, a lasting importance in Arab Islamic intellectual history. Husayn became one of the most celebrated of modern Arab authors (‘the dean of Arab letters’). He also became, and still remains, one of the most potent symbols of ‘reason’, liberating in the eyes of his supporters and corrosive in the eyes of his enemies.

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A selection from On Pre-Islamic Poetry (Fi al-shi‘ir al-jahili), Cairo, 1926, pp. 26– 9, together with ‘Science and Religion’‘ (‘al-‘Ilm wa al-din’), al-Siyasah al-usbu‘iyyah (Weekly Politics), Cairo, 17 July 1926, translated by Ralph M. Coury

A selection from On Pre-Islamic Poetry The Torah speaks to us of Abraham and Ishmael and so does the Qur’an. Nevertheless, the appearances of these two names in the Torah and the Qur’an is not sufficient to confirm the historical existence of these two people. Nor does the appearance of these two names confirm the story which speaks to us of the emigration of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, to Mecca and the rise of the Arabicised Arabs there [the Hebrew Ishmael was said to have been taught Arabic and to be the ancestor of ‘Adnan,18 the forefather of the Adnanites, or the Arabicised Arabs more generally]. We are obliged to see this story as a kind of device to strengthen the link between Jews and Arabs on the one hand, and between Islam and Judaism, as well as the Qur’an and the Torah, on the other. This idea first appeared in the period in which the Jews began to settle in the northern Arab lands and dispersed their colonies there. We know that fierce wars broke out between the colonising Jews and the Arabs who lived in these lands. These ended in a reconciliation and friendliness of sorts, and in a kind of alliance and truce. It is not unlikely that this truce, which was established between the raiders and natives of the country, gave birth to this story, which made the Arabs and Jews cousins, especially since they both saw that there was not a little similarity between the two sides inasmuch as they were both Semites. What cannot be doubted, however, is that the appearance of Islam and the fierce enmity between it and the paganism (wathaniyyah) of the Arabs, apart from the people of the Book,19 worked to confirm the solid, strong link between the new religion and the two older ones. As for the religious link, it is clear and strong. The Qur’an, the Torah, and the Gospels have a common subject, a common likeness, and a common purpose. They all converge upon the concept of the unity of God and they all depend upon a single foundation. This is what the revealed, Semitic religions share. However, it would have been helpful if this moral-intellectual link were supported by another, a material and tangible, link or [at least] one as tangible as that [effected] between the Arabs and the people of the Book. What was to prevent this story, the story of the material proximity between the Adnanite Arabs and the Jews, from being exploited? The Quraysh were totally ready to accept something like this myth in the seventh century AD . At the beginning of this century their good fortune had led to the political and economic renaissance that provided for their sovereignty in Mecca and the surrounding

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area and that established their moral sovereignty over not a little of the Arab pagan lands. The source of this renaissance and of this sovereignty consisted of two elements: trade on the one hand, and religion on the other. As for trade, we know that the Quraysh practised it in Greater Syria, Egypt, the land of the Persians, Yemen, and the lands of Ethiopia. As for religion, it was [based upon] the Ka‘abah. The Quraysh united around it and the polytheist (al-mushrikun) Arabs would make pilgrimage to it each year. This Ka‘abah gained ascendency over the souls of the polytheist Arabs, taking the form of a kind of mighty power. These polytheist Arabs transformed it into a symbol of a strong religion, as if it were meant to stand in the way of the spread of Judaism from one angle and Christianity from another. We gather from myths that a kind of religious competition existed between Mecca and Najran [in central Arabia]. We also sense from the myths that this religious competition [also existed] between Mecca and the Church which the Abyssinians had established in Sanaa [in Yemen], and which led to the War of the Elephant mentioned in the Qur’an.20 The Quraysh, then, were living during the time of a material, commercial renaissance, and of a religious, pagan renaissance. By virtue of these two renaissances they tried to create a political, pagan, independent unity which would be able to resist the intrusion of Romans, Persians, and Ethiopians, and of their religions, into Arab lands. If this is true, and we believe it is true, it was quite rational for this new civilisation to seek to find an ancient historical origin for itself which would connect it to the glorious historical origins of which myths speak. There was therefore nothing to prevent the Quraysh from accepting this myth, which reported that the Ka‘abah had been established by Ishmael and Abraham. Rome had likewise previously accepted another myth, and for comparable reasons. This myth, manufactured for Rome by the Greeks, maintained that Rome was linked to Aeneas, the son of Priam, the ruler of Troy. The meaning of this story [of Abraham and Ishmael] is therefore clear. It is a tale which appeared before the rise of Islam and which Islam exploited for a religious reason, and which Mecca accepted for a religious reason and a political reason. Literary and linguistic history has therefore little to gain that would add to the discovery of the origin of literary Arabic. We are therefore able to say that the link between the language of literary Arabic that the Adnanites spoke and the language that the Qahtanites spoke in Yemen is similar to the link between the Arabic language and any of the other known Semitic languages. The story of the original Arabs and the ‘Arabicised Arabs’, and Ishmael’s learning Arabic from the Jurhum – all of this is a tale based on myths that have no [historical] weight and value.

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‘Science and Religion’ I know that Islam does not nullify human reason and does not destroy the relationship between it and free thought. It is not necessary for the people of the fourteenth century [AH ] to live as the people of the eighth or ninth centuries, and it is not necessary to be obedient to the shaykhs21 or, apart from the shaykhs, the types of institutions and environments with which the Christians are familiar and of which the Muslims are truly innocent. Another difference between me and them is that I announce with honesty and clarity that science is one thing and religion another, and it is to the benefit of both science and religion that this split occurs between them so that one is not an enemy to the other and so that this enmity does not instigate, in the Islamic East, what occurred in the Christian West. It is here that the strong conflict between my friend Haykal22 and me appears. You may remember that my friend Haykal believes that there is no conflict between religion and science, that this conflict cannot be, and that the enmity between the men of religion and the men of science is, rather, an enmity about governance and power and not about science and religion. There is no doubt that there is enmity between the men of science and religion in respect to governance and power. As for the idea that it is not possible for enmity to occur between science and religion, that is something that I strongly doubt. Rather, I think it is untrue. I would like to direct my friend Haykal to two matters of great importance. That religion, when it establishes the existence of God and the prophecy of the prophets and involves people in believing in them, establishes two matters which science has not been able to establish up until now. Science has not reached the point of being able to establish the existence of God. Nor has it reached the point that it can establish the prophecy of the prophets. Therefore, there is a conflict between religion and science in respect to these two matters, two matters which religion affirms and science does not recognise. Yes, science does not deny them. Or, it does not attempt to deny them or establish them. Rather, it avoids them completely, for the sake of what it is able to treat through research and experiment. Yet this is in itself enough to establish the fact that science and religion are not in agreement and that there is no way for them to agree unless science recognises the existence of God and the prophecy of the prophets, or if there comes a day in which religion gives up the existence of God and the prophecy of the prophets. This is one matter. As for the second matter, it is that the books of revelation do not stop at establishing the existence of God and the prophecy of the prophets. They also deal with other questions in which science is involved

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by virtue of its existence and which one cannot avoid. And it is here that a clear contradiction exists between the texts of these divinely inspired books and what science has concluded in respect to theories and laws. I won’t attempt to give detailed examples of this. The Torah and the Qur’an mention creation, its formation, its duration, and the science of geology also treats this. There is a strong, severe conflict between the Torah and the Qur’an on the one hand, and the theories of the science of geology on the other hand. Many geologists have worked hard in the effort to reconcile their scientific conclusions with the texts of the Torah and they have not succeeded in any way. The conflict remains between science and religion in respect to this subject. The conflict between religion and science about the evolution of man is no less than the conflict about the creation of the heavens and earth. For the school of the origin and evolution of man is not able to agree with what is found in the Torah and the Qur’an in respect to any dimension relating to this issue, and the science of embryology cannot agree with what is found in the Qur’an in respect to the formation of the foetus. And you can say the same about the conflict which exists between the texts of the Scriptures and the Qur’an and the science of astronomy. If we attempt to account for the subjects about which there was a clear-cut disagreement between science and the books of revelation we would not finish with an article or articles. There is therefore no truth in anything that is said of the agreement between science and religion. No! They are not in agreement and there is no way that they could agree unless one of them totally abandoned its nature to the other. The third thing, and I don’t know how our friend Haykal disregarded it, is greater than these two matters in seriousness and is more far-reaching than either of them in bringing about conflict. And that point is that science is not limited to this dimension of the conflict [that is, differences about such matters as creation]. Rather, it wishes to subject religion to its investigation and criticism and analysis. It does not currently set great store as to whether the Scriptures agree or disagree with it. Rather, it claims to have the right of taking religion itself as a subject of research and this has happened. Our friend Haykal is not ignorant of the fact that the world regards religion as it regards language, law, and clothing, that is, that all of these things are social manifestations produced by the existence of society, to which society is linked in its development, and by whose various influences society is affected, such as family context, region, location, and so on. In the view of modern science religion is, then, as in the case of other matters, a social phenomenon which does not descend from heaven and which is not brought down through

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inspiration. Rather, it proceeds from the earth, as is also true of society itself. It is clear that there is no way to reach an agreement between religion and a science which adopts this method of understanding and the analysis of religion. Our friend Haykal has read (as I believe) the book of Durkheim23 on religion and he knows (as I believe) that Durkheim ends his sophisticated long book with various conclusions, among which is the idea that society worships itself, and, to use a more precise expression, that it deifies itself. It is obvious that there is no way for agreement to be reached between religion and a science which holds these views and which expends whatever it possesses of force and energy to establish and support itself. It is, then, a matter of integrity and wisdom for the men of religion and the men of science to tell the truth to the masses and to present the genuine problem to them. And this truth is that religion exists in one dimension and science in another and that there is no way that they will meet. To claim anything other than this is to be either deceiving or deceived. There are in fact many who are deceived, more than we would assume. And the deceived are those who often try to achieve an agreement between science and religion and between the texts of the heavenly books and the results of modern research. These deceived are a danger to religion itself inasmuch as they rely on speculative interpretation and you know that the stuff of science does not yield to tampering. If science argues to you that the world is round or that it circles the sun, it is not going to accept your interpreting these statements and turning it into their opposite. Just as it is not going to accept your interpreting or transforming the rules of arithmetic or the principles of mathematics. Therefore, interpretation treats the texts of religion alone, and these interpreters corrupt the texts of the Torah and the Qur’an and impose upon them a meaning that they do not possess in order to reconcile them to science. They bring forth a new Torah and a new Qur’an, and they understand the Scriptures and the Qur’an according to an understanding which (if one were to ask the first Muslims and Jews) would be rejected in the most ugly of ways. If this is the way it is, then what is the position we must take between science and religion? Whether we rise or fall, whether we like it or not, we are in need of religion and science together. If we cannot reconcile them in the manner attempted by al-Ghazali,24 Ibn Rushd,25 and Muhammad ‘Abduh, who were not successful in anything in respect to this matter, there is no question that we will have to prepare our souls to endure the contradictions and disagreement. I don’t look upon this with bitterness and difficulty. Every person is able, if he thinks a little, to find two excellent personalities within himself. One is rational. It researches and criticises and analyses. It changes

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today what it believed yesterday, and it destroys today what it built yesterday. There is, also, a feeling personality. It takes delight and grieves and rejoices and mourns. It is satisfied and experiences awe without criticism, study, and analysis. And these two personalities are connected in our temperament and our formation. We can’t free ourselves from either of them. What can stop the first personality, erudite, studious, critical, and the second personality, religious, believing, desirous of the highest ideal, from being what they are? And you will say: How will we be able to unite the two contradictions? I will not attempt to provide an answer to this question. I will, rather, refer you to yourself and you will see that you don’t wish for joy when you rejoice or for sorrow when you mourn. You are, no matter what happens, not able to do away with these two personalities, either one or the other. You are influenced by religion whether you want to be or not. You are influenced by science whether you want to be or not. You are in need of both of these to live and you will benefit through both of them and turn both of them to good account without difficulty and sorrow. Unless you posit one of them against the other and lead them to become enmeshed in the indeterminate war which is called the conflict between science and religion. Many people (of the best and most intelligent) have sought to realise this kind of life in a sound manner. Pasteur has been one of the most strong in his faith in Christianity and the most diligent in performing his religious obligations. His position in respect to science did not contradict and oppose this. He did not experience, in conjunction with this, any suffering, nor was he influenced by the conflict between science and religion. Very many of the men of Christian religion occupy themselves with science and find valuable discoveries through it. Among them are those who specialise in geology, astronomy, and natural sciences, and, yes, there are even those who specialise in philosophy and who treat the texts of the holy books in a manner that is scholarly, critical, and analytical, and who are, in spite of that, secure believers in their religion. They do not doubt it and they are not less attentive to the obligations of their faith and its regulations. If you go to the Christian countries you will find there priests and monks who combine the approval of the Church with the esteem of scientific organisations and the admiration of scientists for their endeavours in science. Do you suppose that this is harder for a Muslim than it is for Christians and Jews? Why is this? Islam is not more difficult and not harsher than Judaism and Christianity. Islam does not have riddles and mysteries. I would affirm that this dimension of spiritual life is easier for a Muslim than for a Jew or Christian. This dimension of the spiritual life is alone able to provide for peace between science and religion. You can, on the other hand, take up the position

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of the interpreters and change the text and transform it into something it can’t sustain. You will argue, as is true of the disciples of Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh, that the birds of Babylon were species of microbes and that the seven heavens were kinds of stars. You will not provide for the success of religion and will not lend it support. Rather, you will corrupt it and bring it down to what science wants and you will acknowledge that the ancestors were all in error when they understood the Scripture in a way that is different from you and in a way that is different from science. You will not avoid a horrible danger in taking up this position. This is because science – as our friend ‘Azmi26 says – is continually changing and developing. If you interpret the Qur’an and the Torah today in order to reconcile them and science you will be compelled to interpret them in a different way tomorrow in order to have them agree with science when it changes. Science now believes that the earth is a ball. You try to harmonise between religion and science in this respect and you therefore undertake a speculative interpretation of the Qur’anic text. Suppose that science says tomorrow that the earth is not a sphere, that it is pear-shaped, and that it doesn’t spin, so that you are then forced to indulge in a new speculative interpretation in order to harmonise between the Qur’an and science. What will free you from this corruption and thwarting. Why won’t you grant science its motion and religion its stability and permanence? If you, however, make of religion a mockery and a matter of derision by subjecting it to this kind of study, which is called interpretation, then out and out atheism is better than this form of nonsense and the sabotaging of the text. The conclusion of this is that the conflict between science and religion exists. There is no question of it. It has been known from the time that science truly came into existence, and from the time that philosophy came into existence in the fifth century before Christ. And it has continued. We have the choice between options that we can take in respect to this conflict. There are the atheists who comfort their souls by denying religion altogether. There are the pious who comfort their souls through the denial of science in its entirety. And there are the interpreters who turn religion into a matter of hypocrisy. I don’t want any of these positions for myself. I prefer, rather, this fourth position, which allows me to live a sound spiritual life, leading to tranquillity in respect to religion and desire for the highest of ideals. It allows me at the same time to live a life of reason and activity that is conducive to production. It allows me to satisfy mind and conscience without undermining one at the expense of the other. [The only copy of this article in the US is on microfilm. The last paragraph is not legible and has therefore not been translated.]

CHAPTER 5 `

ISMA IL MAZHAR:1891—1962

The Egyptian Isma‘il Mazhar was a member of a well-to-do family, the brother-inlaw of the prominent liberal/modernist intellectual and activist Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid.1 Mazhar’s studies at the Khedival School and at al-Azhar were unsatisfactory to him, and he sought to re-educate himself through extensive reading in contemporary Western and mediaeval Arab science and philosophy. He discovered Shumayyil in the summer of 1911, and his intellectual life was permanently altered as a result.2 He published a partial translation of Darwin’s Origin in two volumes in 1918 and a second expanded edition in 1928, and he established the periodical al-‘Usur (The Times) in 1927. This periodical, ‘the rallying point of writers advocating free thought’,3 presented critical articles on religion that were more radical than anything that had ever been published in Arabic. Nearly every issue returned to common themes – evolution and science, and the rejection of established precedents (the first issue forthrightly announced that its goal was ‘the criticism of modes of religious and traditional thinking’).4 There was, above all, the philosophy of positivism as developed by Auguste Comte, which Mazhar called the ‘greatest discovery in human thought’.5 Humanity would pass through mythological, theological, metaphysical, and positivist or rational/empiricist phases. The mode of thought that dominated the Arabs, Mazhar pointed out in an early article, was still metaphysical inasmuch as Muslim thinkers were preoccupied with abstract ideas and not realities. No Arab thinker, including Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, had applied positive scientific methods to modern problems. An article signed by an ‘Azhari free thinker’, perhaps Mazhar himself, described the mosque college as arrested in the ‘mentality of the Middle Ages, in which adherence to the letter of the law replaced the exercise of reason’.6 To be sure, Mazhar’s thought seems to have been ultimately influenced by what Marwa Elshakry has spoken of as ‘transcendental positivism’, that is, the idea that much scientific knowledge is based on postulates, such as the existence of a world outside of ourselves or the existence of causation, which cannot be substantiated, and that the

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concept of a first cause could be regarded as one of these postulates and could be, in a kind of deism, identified as ‘Divinity’. This does not, however, alter the fact that Mazhar never abandoned the idea that one cannot obtain knowledge of God as a real or actual existence in and of itself, any more than one can obtain knowledge of the external world beyond human comprehension. Science concerns itself only with the claim of relations between manifest appearances; its natural laws are not to be confused with ultimate causes.7 Mazhar was not isolated. He was a member of a new professional class, the effendiyyah, especially as manifested by its intellectuals and journalists, in a period, the 1920s and 1930s, in which political and intellectual ferment increased, and the issue of the role of religion in public life became more acute.8 His role as intellectual and political activist was hardly limited to the critique of religion. Much of his scholarly life, manifested in his translation of Darwin and other works, was devoted to the development of a new scientific vocabulary and syntactical flexibility that would make modern scientific writing in Arabic possible without losing touch with the Arab past. And, as a publicist and participant in actual party politics, he was a champion of Sa‘ad Zaghlul and the Wafd,9 and a proponent of social/democratic reforms based on ‘Anglo-Saxon’ models (especially that of the British Labour Party). If Mazhar is remembered it is nevertheless largely as a Darwinist and critic of religion, in which the transgressive articles of al-‘Usur played a central role (its premises were set on fire in 1930, probably by Azharites).10 Majid Khadduri writes that scarcely any well-known writer escaped criticism within this publication, unless he professed agnostic views. Arabs and Westerners were equally fair game, including writers such as Taha Husayn, who were accused of not expressing their disbeliefs forthrightly because they lacked courage and conviction.11 Khadduri claims that al-‘Usur’s radicalism was facilitated by its reliance upon freelance writers who held no government posts and who were therefore free from bureaucratic restrictions and other forms of attack and interference, including the pressure of religious leaders who supported one or another of the political parties. Mazhar was arrested and briefly detained on the charge that he was a communist, and Elshakry writes that this arrest and the attack on al-‘Usur’s headquarters contributed to his decision to suspend the periodical, while Khadduri maintains that the economic crisis of 1929 was determining. Al-‘Usur was suspended in 1931 and Ibrahim Haddad, a Lebanese writer who had worked with al-‘Usur, took up the cause of that journal in Beirut where he published al-Duhur (The Ages).12 Mazhar withdrew to the countryside, where he lived for two decades, and where he concentrated on the preparation of a scientific dictionary. He returned to Cairo briefly to take up the editorship of the pioneering al-Muqtataf,13 but he was forced to give this up when it was suspended in 1949.

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‘With al-‘Aqqad: A Critique of the Book God’ (‘Ma‘a al-‘Aqqad: naqd kitab Allah’), from On Literary Criticism (Fi al-naqd al-adabi), Beirut, 1965, pp. 7 –28, translated by R. Kevin Lacey [Al-‘Aqqad’s book was published in Cairo in 1947. The editor has not been able to find where Mazhar’s review first appeared. He assumes it was soon after the book’s publication. Asterisks between passages are found in the original text.] Reflections on the Intellectual Problem, after Readings from ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad’s Book God. 1. Preparatory Remarks14 Nothing in the world of thought requires a precise definition of meaning (assuming that we want to avoid stumbling but at the same time encompass all phases of the argument) more so than 1) the definition that we give to the word ‘God’ and 2) the definition that we give to the words ‘Divinity’ (al-uluhiyyah) or ‘Lordship’ (al-rububiyyah). There is no doubt that there is a very strong, mutually reinforcing connection between the meaning of the words ‘Divinity’ and ‘Divinity’/ ‘Lordship’. The acceptance of one leads to the acceptance of the other. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon us to agree upon the differences in usage. I would like us to recognise that whenever we say the word ‘God’, the subject refers to religion, and that whenever we say the words ‘Divinity’ or ‘Lordship’, the subject refers to philosophy or speculative contemplation. What I want to say with all of this is that if our talk turns to God, we must be bound by everything that any religion produces in describing or qualifying the meaning of God and His attributes. We would, therefore, understand God in the Torah in a fashion that is different from the way that we understand Him in the New Testament. And within the framework of Islam we would understand Him as having a meaning that is not in agreement with His meaning as conceived in the Torah and in the New Testament. This is in keeping with the particularities of each religion. The depiction that each religion bestows upon God is a true depiction according to the nature of that religion. However, when discussion turns to the idea of Divinity or Lordship, you are headed for the vast expanses and distant horizons in which thought moves without the restrictions imposed by religion. Thus, as a Muslim, I must submit that ‘God is without likeness’ – and stop at that. But, as a scholar, I must first investigate the following: ‘Is God without likeness’ or is He, in fact, ‘like all things’, and with this I turn to the field of logic, which is the domain of doubt.

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2. Belief and Doubt Muslims have taken a short cut in this context with their saying that ‘God’ is without likeness. To be sure! This is because in all of the great religions you will find concepts and beliefs that try to express what Muslims express in the three words,15 ‘God is without likeness.’ With this pronouncement, the religiously devout have wanted to reduce God to an idea or an ultimate abstraction. In fact, they have wanted, in this pronouncement, to disable reason, to close its paths so that it will be kept from scholarly inquiry about God. The theologians have merely intended, by this definition, to preserve the oneness of faith, lest it be shaken by doubt. They have based this oneness on the theory that man is by nature a believer. ‘Whatever the topic of belief, there is first off the readiness to believe; thereafter the faith is born, irrespective of the degree of right or wrong.’ This theory has been advanced even to the extent that it has been said, ‘There is in the nature of man a hunger to believe that is like the hunger of the stomach for food.’ This is the orientation of the theologians. They are, with this, taking a defensive position with respect to the foundation on which religion rests. It is, for example, similar to their doctrine, ‘There is only God; there is nothing else with Him, and there is none like unto Him’ – a doctrine that they attribute to the instinctive human hunger to believe. As for the subject matter of belief, that is, the doctrine, it is what religious scholars say it is. The conceptualisation of the belief or creed is that which comes from religious authority; with that, you are the one who has a doctrine. But you cannot discuss the subject matter of belief, that is, the doctrine. Your creed must rest on these [doctrinal] terms. Otherwise it is nothing. Notwithstanding this position, those who pronounce it have overlooked (or deliberately feigned unawareness of) the fact that human nature does not encompass only the attribute of belief. It also encompasses the attribute of doubt. However, religious scholars have not, in truth, wanted to say that human nature has a hunger for doubt like the hunger of the stomach for food. No. Not at all! However, what I say is that man’s hunger for doubt is stronger than his hunger for belief. This is according to the makeup of man’s mental powers. When the first man believed that there is a reason for the universe, his belief came only through doubting that there is not a reason. From that came the reason. This is like your saying, either ‘I doubt that there is no reason for the universe (belief ¼ there is a reason for the universe)’ or ‘I doubt that there is a reason for the universe (belief ¼ there is no reason for the universe).’ Man’s belief that there is a reason for the universe therefore arose initially from his doubt that there is not a reason. From this there ensues in man’s

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heart, or his intellect, or his belief (or whatever – call it what you will) that there is a reason for the universe and this is God – or the First Cause or the First Intellect (or whatever – call it what you will). Denying doubt in the domain of human thought, when in fact doubt is the beginning of belief, is an intellectual conspiracy against reason and philosophy. Therefore, I believe that it is correct to say that the aptitude for doubt comes first and then belief follows in its wake. The converse is incorrect. 3. Universal Consciousness and the Law of Wills and Causes When you are ignorant of the way of nature And put yourself in the place of the cause for all things, You have established a Lord and desired thereby a solution to problems. But this is the greatest of problems. al-Zahawi16 Mazhar quotes al-Zahawi to introduce his reflections on al-‘Aqqad’s belief that religiosity derives from a ‘universal consciousness’ of a ‘force within the universe’. According to al-‘Aqqad, the existence of this universal consciousness might have remained a supposition, however credible or probable, if it had not been for the ‘individual geniuses’ who filled humanity with awe of the unknown by extrapolating, in all places and from the earliest times, a phenomenon of religiosity from this consciousness. ‘In other words,’ Mazhar observes, ‘a derivative is taken as a proof of the truth of the source to which is it referable.’ The philosopher Auguste Comte expressed this concept [al-‘Aqqad’s, on the origins of religiosity] without the need of resorting to probabilities that have no probable causes. He has said: Before now the belief in wills or things that are sentient was no more than a false depiction hiding our ignorance of natural causes. But now all learned people of modern civilisation believe that all worldly events and natural phenomena must be reduced to a natural cause. These events and phenomena can be explained with explanations based on natural science. There no longer remains, therefore, a vacuum that is filled by belief in the existence of God. No reason remains that would lead us to believe in Him.17 This pronouncement is nothing other than Comte’s explanation for the maxim that he set down, the maxim stating that if man is incapable of explaining observable phenomena and knowing their natural causes, he attributes them to powers similar to his human powers.

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According to Comte, the presence that al-‘Aqqad’s universal consciousness senses is, in reality, man’s ignorance, his inability to give an explanation for observable phenomena. And, according to Comte, al-‘Aqqad’s religiosity consists of the wills to which are attributed the causes of observable phenomena. According to al-‘Aqqad, as long as man remains mired in ignorance of causes, the effect of the presence of the universal consciousness intensifies, whereas according to Comte the number of wills explaining observable phenomena increases. 4. The Retrogression of Wills and the Progression of Causes The gods used to walk upon the earth, speaking to people and communicating with them in the manner of the dead communicating with the living. Every natural phenomenon had a special god to which it had been entrusted, and this special god was, for the ancients, the cause to which each natural phenomenon could be traced. The observable events or conditions about which thought remained perplexed or to which it could not trace causes were related by man to wills like his will, not to natural laws or laws of the universe. People ceased to say that lightning was a result of divine anger when they came to know the truth about atmospheric electricity. When Benjamin Franklin discovered the lightning rod, the phenomenon of atmospheric electricity was related to a natural cause, not to a will resembling human will. People retracted the belief that madness and delusion are attributable to works of magic, sorcery, and the devil’s disciples when medicine proved to them that the causes lie in the nervous system. If I have not misunderstood, the expression ‘universal consciousness’ expresses a psychological state, not a rational mental one. It shows concern for assigning causes to things whenever ignorance over natural causes becomes intensified. Little by little, the belief in the existence of different wills, which are entrusted with the full control of natural phenomena, began to lag behind: every natural cause that reason or experimentation could trace to an observable phenomenon necessarily eliminated one or another of the wills which man previously embraced in lieu of a natural cause. There is no doubt that if belief in God depends upon the necessity of finding clarifying explanations for the reality of natural phenomena in the realm of metaphysics, that is, if the causes of natural phenomena can’t be explained without invoking the inspiration of metaphysics, then such a belief in God becomes recondite and is subjected to greater and greater doubt among those who are both rationalists and naturalists. Indeed, the belief [in God] becomes susceptible to effacement when faced with even the weakest of demonstrations for natural causes.

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Nonetheless, we might find a weak dimension to this reasoning – which, we should not forget, rests upon Comte’s speculative theorising. The weak point is contained in the belief that there is nothing in existence more in need of explanation than connecting the separate links in the chain of naturally occurring phenomena, phenomena from which the material world is constituted in an interconnected conglomeration, and this when the chain in its totality (the chain being considered as a whole, with uninterrupted causes and inseparable units) has an unknown first cause. You can say that this is not enough to explain the reason for the natural causes in the world, how man originates from his parents, and of how the first centuries originated before him. In order for the naturalist proof to be both firm and invisible, the naturalists need to reveal the reason for human existence in this world in the first place. With this we go from the domain of science to the domain of philosophy, and Comte’s philosophy is a natural philosophy first and foremost. But as long as we are speaking about Divinity, we need to proceed step by step in our research in order to see where this is leading. We therefore say the following: It is not enough for the naturalists to know how the laws of evolution gave rise to stones, trees, flowers, animals, and man. In order to reach a proof that quenches the thirst for the origin of existence, the naturalists must prove things by demonstration according to nature: Why have the individual elements (in contrast to other elements), from which the above-mentioned things take shape at the time of their origins, been selected especially for the two characteristics of attraction and repulsion? With this, too, we go from the domain of science to the domain of philosophy or – if you prefer – to speculative contemplation . . . At one state of its development, human knowledge of the aspects of the interconnectedness between observable phenomena was so weak that there was a desperate need to hypothesise a group of gods and demi-gods. To the group was attributed the causes for the existence of each link in the multiple links of an observable natural phenomenon, with each link being set apart and associated with an individual god. When humanity set forth on the path of natural science, its number of gods dwindled. There remained only a tiny number through whom some phenomena were explained, inasmuch as the primary causes of such phenomena were still being subjected to scientific verification. Subsequently, humanity proceeded eagerly to uncover many of the facts of the universe, to the extent that belief finally settled upon one god whose will was limited to intervening in some of the observable phenomena of the world (but not in others), and in ways described as being consonant with science and wisdom.

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As a result of this development, man was in a situation from which he could not extricate himself. He now faced the original cause for the existence of the world, just as he had previously faced individual, disparate observable phenomena. He was attributing the original cause to a will similar to his will, just as he had previously attributed the causes of various observable phenomena – when he was ignorant of their real origins – to various wills. The knowledge of natural causes increased; the wills decreased until restricted to just one. The human mind could not help but submit to the proposition that this will possessed a power and that the power was bound up only with contingents. Natural philosophers believe that natural causes explain various observable natural phenomena. In other words, the origins of the phenomena can be revealed through natural science. With the advance of science, it became possible for the will that represents the human will (and conceived as the original cause of the universe) to be placed behind the world of observable phenomena, and for this will to become far removed from direct intervention in temporal events and in the aspects of interconnectedness among the particulars of observable phenomena. This will became, by virtue of the organisation of the human mind, the origin of universals, the origin of intent, the cause for existence in its totality. Here too we move from the domain of science to the domain of philosophy. Before discovering the law of gravity, Kepler believed that the preservation of the planets in their orbits was reducible to souls being entrusted with the orbits. That is to say, he attributed a natural cause to a will similar to his will, when he did not know the cause of motion. However, when he learned about the law of gravity, the human intellect became content with this fact and did not seek any further explanation for the movement of celestial bodies. Nonetheless, doesn’t the human mind need to search for what causes gravity and its impact on the arrangement of the universe? As long as the human mind was unable to fathom what caused gravity, it attributed it to a will like its will, with the mind departing from the realm of science and entering the realm of philosophy, the realm of speculative contemplation, the realm of ‘the universal consciousness’. The sequential links from which is constituted the chain of observable phenomena in the universe (if the phenomena are to be explained by natural causes) are a chain that, as a whole, and as an indissoluble and indivisible unity, remained in the past (and perhaps still remain) in need of a cause to which the whole chain can be traced. When natural causes could not explain this, the mind leapt to will (like the human will bestowed with the attribute of ‘First Cause’); to a free, intelligent, and wise will – to God.

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Science says: Inasmuch as man has discovered natural laws that allow him to explain many observable phenomena in the world, always associated previously with the realm of metaphysics or the supernatural, that is, a hidden will resembling man’s will, why can’t one hope that the cause for existence will be discovered in the future? To this Philosophy responds: Everything that man has discovered in the way of what forms the basis of his science and knowledge is nothing more than laws to which the observable phenomena in the world can be traced; they are not ultimate original causes. So it is inevitable that we trace the cause for existence back to a god who is wise and intelligent, who has a will like our will. This must be the situation as long as we are incapable of knowing any other cause for existence. At this point, the idea of ‘Divinity’ does not go beyond a ‘necessary supposition’ to which the human mind resorts so long as it cannot find any other ultimate original cause for existence. As for the material world, we cannot reflect on it more than to say that its circumstances and observable phenomena do not happen by virtue of the creative force having a direct influence on each and every circumstance. Rather, what happens in it is entrusted to the general laws with which the great creative force delegates the management of the state of the world’s affairs. Haeckel18 If we contemplate the words of the great iconic philosopher Haeckel, we can translate them with the language of Auguste Comte into other terms. The creative wills were many. Most of them originated in human ignorance with respect to the natural causes lying behind observable phenomena in nature. When the causes became known, the wills diminished, to the point that they became one will only setting into motion the ultimate original laws to which the more particular secondary causes can be traced. With this, the arrangement and the affairs of the world came about by way of an intermediary, not by way of an ultimate primordial. And with this in turn came the belief that the creative will is a will like ours, analogous to it, and notwithstanding the difference. This became prominent in the studies of theology investigating anthropomorphism (tashbih),19 that is, the idea of giving God characteristics that resemble human characteristics. Philosophy says: The belief in the Creator as something constructed according to our mental forms, or as an image from among the images of human thought, or as an enlarged will resembling our smaller will, is just as

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false as the belief that the earth is the centre of the solar system or that man is the axis of creation. That is to say, a belief of this sort is false to the same degree that axiomatic truths are clear and obvious. Reason says: Notwithstanding some of the strength that can be found in the previous statement, the attempt to believe that the cause of the universe is knowable, the attempt to believe in that which is far beyond the knowledge of our essences, is farfetched, by dint of nature itself. Indeed, it is silly, without any trace of real truth. Many knowledgeable people have tried to obtain knowledge of the Supreme Essence, the One Who Manages this universe, in another manner. And they have failed. Even if for the most part they usually conjectured that they had reached the truth, this was in fact at moments when they reached no more than mere appearances of no value to the real truth. Their efforts followed two paths. Firstly, they grasped the First Cause by way of likenesses drawn from human characteristics, but they did this by endowing these characteristics with features/attributes that could hardly be human. Secondly, they made the First Cause an abstract concept measured by a dimension of human nature that is base, lowly, and undefined. As for Spinoza, he believed that he was the philosopher farthest removed from the belief that the First Cause was constructed according to the model of his own [human] intellect. He proceeded in his philosophy to imagine that he had overcome every obstacle by rendering it [this First Cause] as ‘extension and thought’. At this point, Dr Martineau20 wonders: From whence can Spinoza obtain the idea of extension other than by looking into the natural states of his own body? And from whence did he get the idea that God is thought, except from the characteristics of his own mind? Extension and thought are no more than two things that are the most characteristic of bodies and minds. Similar is the belief – as expressed by al-‘Aqqad – that the First Cause or God is ‘consciousness’, for that, too, is the most characteristic aspect of anthropomorphism. If man were not conscious, then why did he comprehend that there is a ‘final aim’ or a ‘first cause’ that is in itself a ‘consciousness’. When man is ignorant of the natural cause, or the [first] cause, he attributes things to a will like his will. Glory be to the human mind! Consider, after this, Herbert Spencer.21 Notwithstanding his distance from those who believe in anthropomorphism, and his inability to deny the Creator or First Cause, Spencer took to turning left and right to land upon something

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through which he could explain the universe, something beyond all doubt and reservation. He therefore pronounced that a ‘hidden force’, which is unknown, manages the universe. However, a speculative glance at Spencer’s idea shows that he did not advance a single step beyond what the other naturalist philosophers achieved. Just as the Creator for Spinoza was no more than a human likeness, his facsimile in space/place (that is, ‘thought and extension’), the Creator for Spencer was pure facsimile of a non-specific idea, the idea of power, an idea derived from the lowest of human characteristics, the characteristic of sense perception. Therefore, we must be aware that we do not need to ask, not at all, in all researches connected to the origin of things, whether we are envisioning the First Cause of the Universe according to a model drawn from our own identity, inasmuch as envisioning the First Cause, according to the model of human identity, is a matter from which a finite self cannot escape. What is necessary is that we always ask whether we are envisioning the First Cause according to a model drawn from superficial speculation or according to a model derived from extensive speculation with which the system of human reasoning is entirely familiar. If we are unable to comprehend the cause of the universe according to a form other than that whose depiction originates in our own personal experiences, it is obvious that our belief or lack of belief in the existence of an intelligent will, which is to say a creating cause, originates in what we comprehend of the idea of causality. And as long as our understanding of causality is reducible to what is in accordance with our scientific experiments – that is, that our understanding is restricted to drawing conclusions from the heretofore clearest of naturally occurring phenomena – it is clear that we will not be satisfied in our reasoning with the idea of the causal chain unless it is accompanied by the belief that things have evolved from one another, gradually, and in an organised sequence over the course of time. This in turn requires our belief in the existence of an intelligent, concealed will behind the world of naturally occurring phenomena, a will which has influenced the past, is influencing the present, and will continue to influence the future. If we believe in true causality that includes the element of the will as one of its givens, if we want to preserve that with which reason is familiar, a familiarity without which we cannot be rightly guided in investigating what is behind reality, we are clearly compelled to believe in an intelligent and free will that we take as the cause of things. In other words, we are compelled to believe in a creator, and as a consequence we must say that this – as was our opinion with respect to causality – is our religious belief.

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The doctrine of ‘Divinity’ is, therefore, as you see, a natural chain: a will like the wills of humans which explains the existence of things, with multiple wills gradually diminishing and becoming one will as advances are made in uncovering the natural causes attributable to observable phenomena; there is a gradation in causality, leading to the desire to obtain an ultimate cause to which the existence of the entire universe is reducible. Thus, the doctrine of ‘Divinity’ is a natural necessity for maintaining that with which human reason is familiar. Whether maintaining this familiarity is the correct or erroneous way to proceed is irrelevant with respect to the needs of the human mind. Indeed, for me, it is a purely secondary matter in the investigations of philosophy. What the mind needs is to preserve that with which it is familiar, and the doctrine of ‘Divinity’ is the way to do this, so long as human science remains in its present state. As for describing God as extension or thought or concealed power or consciousness, all of this is mere bickering or a depiction that does not satisfy science one iota and does not convince natural philosophy, even if it has pleased the same dimensions of human vanity mentioned above. The Eternity of the World, the World Coming-to-Be in Time, and Creation If creation means bringing into existence the non-existent, how can we reconcile this with the natural principle that says that matter does not cease and is not renewed? The answer, according to reason, is that only forms come into being within time. Essences never change. Creation is not absolute creation. It modifies accidents. It involves a new combination of eternal essences. How can we reconcile the eternity of God and belief in the eternity of the universe? The answer is found in the doctrine of the oneness of existence. ‘God is the universe and the universe is God,’ and the things caused by the cause are forms (not essence) that occur in time. * *

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If the belief in the oneness of existence can reassure the mind, inasmuch as this belief offers an explanation that preserves that with which reason is familiar in respect to the doctrine of eternity and coming-into-being in time, that is, if this belief makes coming-into-being part and parcel of form whereas it makes eternity part and parcel of essence, with the world being of one essence, eternal in the sense of having neither beginning nor end; and if, therefore, all of this likewise extricates us from many of the dilemmas that ensue with the belief in free will and choice, and, also, extricates us from the dilemmas of good and evil by assigning one of them to God (with an inability to assign the other to Him inasmuch as God is good realised); if all of this is so, how has evil come into the world?

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Epicurus says the following: Either God wants to prevent evil, but He can’t; or He has the power to, but He doesn’t want to; or He does not want to and furthermore He can’t; or He both wants to and He can. But if He has the will to prevent it but not the power, then He is incapable. And if He has the power but does not want to, this is a deficiency, which cannot be associated with Him. If God has neither power nor will, then He is incapable of preventing evil and He is therefore not God. For if He has both the power and the will, where does evil come from?22 Since the time of Epicurus, thinkers have been unable to answer this question. However, their inability comes from their commitment to the belief in God’s eternity and in the world’s coming-to-be in time and all of the many suppositions that ensue (for example, divine foreordainment and limitations to the will, determinism as opposed to free will, and so forth.) The science of evolution has confirmed that man is a result of old, preexisting, and unending laws, and that his coming into existence is no more than a new combination that took place in the eternity of essences contained within matter. Man is part of the world of the living, the evolutionary governance of which does not go beyond that. It is the world of man alone that contains the meaning of good and evil, corresponding to the needs of man’s rational life. There ensues from this the fact that good and evil are two concepts restricted to the world of man. They are conjectural; no more and no less. If heading in this sound direction extricates us from the dilemmas that fritter away that with which human reason is familiar, we must not – if we want to think about ‘Divinity’ – go beyond that scope to which we are bound by the nature of reason, that is, the scope recognising the fact that reason possesses a familiarity with things the components of which include the idea of ‘Divinity’. As for giving specific designation to God so that we say that He is extension or thought or force or consciousness (and the like) – all of this is a pretext to support human tendencies which are among the most effective things in deconstructing that with which human reason is familiar.

CHAPTER 6 `

ISMA IL ADHAM:1911—40

Isma‘il Ahmad Adham was born in Alexandria, the son of a Turkish army officer and a European woman, the daughter of a well-known chemist. He claimed to have studied mathematics in Istanbul and to have received Ph.D.s in physics and philosophy in Russia. The use of the term ‘claimed’ is here deliberate inasmuch as a number of commentators, and particularly G. H. A. Juynboll, have accused him of fraudulent scholarship and falsifying his biography. Juynboll contends (writing in 1972), not without evidence, and among other accusations,‘that Adham never got any doctorate, never became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and never made friends [as he claimed] with the Russian Orientalist Barthold’.1 What cannot be denied is that Adham published frequently and widely on a variety of topics after settling in Egypt in the 1930s. His works included a large number of articles on science, a treatise on genealogy, two books on religion, studies of the prominent Egyptian poet Ahmad Zaki Abu Shadi and other contemporary authors, and Arabic translations from French and Turkish literature.2 He published in periodicals whose names frequently appear within these pages. Most of these generally avoided direct treatment of religion, but this was not true of all of them, and especially not of al-‘Usur. Adham mentions Isma‘il Mazhar (the editor of al-‘Usur) as the scholar and friend who was promoting ‘freedom of thought’ and ‘the call to atheism’, while he and others were seeking to establish organisations in Egypt and Lebanon modelled on those of the American atheist Charles Lee Smith.3 It was al-‘Usur, after all, that had announced, in its first issue, that its goal was the ‘criticism of modes of religious and traditional thinking’.4 Adham had harsh Arab critics and admirers. Some fellow writers accused him of poor Arabic, repetition, plagiarism, and pretending to be more learned than he was, while others celebrated his clarity, sagacity, sweetness of tone, and courage. One of his greatest admirers was the editor of the Aleppan periodical al-Hadith, who devoted a special issue to Adham soon after his death. Eighteen writers submitted prose and poetry, with a Syrian woman comparing Adham to Socrates.5 Juynboll treats the

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comparison as absurd, but it is in fact not inappropriate if we think of Adham’s courage in expressing his religious views. Two works are, in this respect, of central importance, From the Sources of Islamic History (Min masadir al-tarikh alislami) of 1936, and the article, later published as a booklet, ‘Why I Am an Atheist’ (‘Limadha ana mulhid’), first published in al-Imam (The Forward), in 1937. The first work took a harshly critical approach to the reliability of the hadith as sources of Islamic history. It caused a considerable stir, which was facilitated by Adham’s sending 100 free copies to al-Azhar. The Rector Muhammad Mustafa alMaraghi was solicited to file a complaint against him, and the Ministry of the Interior banned the book from the market. The work depends to a significant degree on the Orientalists Ignaz Goldziher and Leone Caetani, and Juynboll, albeit impressed by its ‘liberal spirit’, concludes that Adham did not know Italian and German and must have read these authors in Turkish and Arabic versions.6 The second work, ‘Why I Am an Atheist’, Adham’s most well-known, provides a personal and scientific overview as to why he became an unbeliever. The argument is primarily directed against Einstein and the mathematician Sir James Jeans,7 both of whom had spoken of something behind the universe, a ‘genius’ (Einstein) or ‘mathematical mind’ (Jeans) which is inaccessible and which could be called God. Adham refutes this on the basis of the law of chance, which, he argues, provides the conditions for what is possible. This essay gained notoriety for its forthright radicalism, an icon of the degree to which Arab, and especially Egyptian, ‘free-thinking’ had developed in the interwar period.8 It was far more likely to have been known about than to have been read. As essay or pamphlet, it seems to have been difficult to obtain. The degree to which it was summarily dismissed is also notable and surely not unrelated to its neglect. There was fierce opposition. Many would not read it even if they could, or at least not admit to having read it. The editor of the journal of al-Azhar spoke of it as ‘rubbish’, about which he would not have written if he had not been concerned about its effects on innocent minds.9 This response from Azharites of Adham’s day is not surprising, but it is also found in Juynboll and others. The scientific argument, Juynboll writes, is ‘a shallow, quasi-scientific expose’. Its ‘only value’ is its testimony to ‘the courage of the author, a courage that was badly needed in the Egypt of his days’. Juynboll admits that Adham’s friends were fortified by the study, although they hardly agreed with its contents.10 The contents are, however, perhaps not as fantastic or lacking in respectability as Juynboll and others might think. The fact is that there have been those who believe that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle limits the accuracy of measurements and, if determinism means that we can calculate the future from a knowledge of the present, it follows that if we cannot know the present exactly, we cannot know the future. Thus Heisenberg said (in 1927) that ‘in a certain sense the law of causality becomes

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invalid’.11 If causality is denied, then it might be thought to affect one of Aquinas’s (and various other theists’ and deists’) second ways to the affirmation of God’s existence, that is, the identification of God as First Cause.12 The point, here, is not to become enmeshed in such complicated matters. It is to do justice to Adham’s memory. (He committed suicide by walking into the Mediterranean, an act which Juynboll, hostile to the end, attributes to his fear of being exposed as a fraud.)13 ‘Why I Am an Atheist’ (‘Limadha ana mulhid’ ), al-Imam, Alexandria, August, 1937, pp. 236– 46, translated by Ralph M. Coury

Introduction The fact is that I grew up with a religious education of a type that was not the best way to implant religious doctrine. My father was a Muslim who was among those fanatical for Islam and Muslims and my mother was a Protestant Christian with a tendency to freedom of thought. There is nothing extraordinary about that because she was the daughter of the famous professor Van’ t Hoff.14 However, bad fortune led to her death when I was two years old. During my childhood, up to the end of the Great War, I lived with my two sisters in Istanbul. They instilled Christian teachings and would bring me to church each Sunday. As for my father, he was involved with the war and roving from place to place among its various theatres. I did not know him. I was not introduced to him until the war came to an end and the Allies entered Istanbul. Nevertheless, my father’s distance from me did not prevent his dominating me from a religious point of view. He assigned the husband of my paternal aunt (he was one of the Arab shurafa’15) to instruct me in respect to religion. He would take me to prayer every Friday and make me fast in Ramadan and perform the prayers undertaken during the nights of Ramadan. All of this was a burden to me as a child, and of a strictness to which I have never returned. This, in addition to memorising the Qur’an, which I in fact accomplished successfully when I was ten. However, I emerged embittered towards the Qur’an because learning it had cost me such a great effort, an effort which I would have preferred to spend on something more to my personal liking. All of this contributed to smoothing the way to my personal revolt against Islam and its teachings. I experienced Christianity in a different way. My two sisters – who received a considerable part of their education in the American College of Istanbul – did not burden me with learning Christian teachings. They proceeded on the assumption that everything contained in the Torah and the New Testament was untrue. They would mock the miracles and the Day of Resurrection and the Last Judgement and all of this had an influence on me.

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My father’s library was crowded with thousands of books. I was prevented from going out and mixing with children of my age. As a result of this prohibition, I suffered from an isolation which would later distance me from groups. I couldn’t go out except with my sisters. I became accustomed to this life. I loved them excessively and we would spend our time together studying and reading. I discovered the works of ‘Abd al-Haqq Hamid16 when I was eight and I memorised much of his poetry. I was very much in love with fictional stories. I would read the works of such Westerners as Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, and Hugo, and the stories of the famous Turkish fiction writer Husayn Rahmi.17 My father came to Istanbul, the war ended, and the Allies entered Istanbul. He did not stay for long inasmuch as he departed for Anatolia with Mustafa Kemal18 in order to begin the national liberation movement in the company of its leaders. I spent four years from 1919 to 1923 in Istanbul, abandoned in our house and learning German and Turkish under the aegis of my sisters, and Arabic under the aegis of my paternal aunt’s husband. I read Darwin’s Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man, and I emerged from reading these as a believer in evolution when I was not yet thirteen. I read the studies of Huxley,19 Haeckel,20 Sir Lyell,21 and Bagehot22 when I had not yet reached the age of thirteen. I focused upon reading Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, and Kant in this period, but I didn’t understand everything that I read. I emerged in this period rejecting the idea of free will. Spinoza and Ernst Haeckel had the greatest influence on me in this respect, and I came to reject the doctrine of eternal life. However, the direction of my studies stopped with the return of my father to Istanbul, his taking refuge in Egypt, and his becoming my daily companion. It was there, in Alexandria, that I spent the days of my adolescence. However, my father would not recognise that my thoughts were valid, or the way that my beliefs were taking shape. He looked upon Islam and the fulfilments of its rites as absolutely obligatory. I remember that I revolted against this situation one day and that I refrained from prayer and that I told him that I didn’t believe. I am a Darwinist who believes in the theory of evolution. His answer to this was to send me to Cairo and to enrol me in a private school so that I would be cut off from the materials that I had been investigating. However, I used trickery to undermine this by retreating to the Egyptian National Library on Thursdays and Fridays (the days the school was closed) where I would pursue what I could find of German and Turkish works. And I would feel, while I was in the school, that I was in an atmosphere that was far inferior to my level. Yes, I was not yet older than fourteen but my learning in mathematics, the sciences, and history qualified me to be at the highest level of a secondary school. However, my weakness in Arabic and English prevented me from actually reaching such a level. In 1927 I left Egypt after having received the greater part of an

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intermediary education at the hands of specialist teachers. I went to Turkey and spent some time after this at the University and it was there, for the first time, that I found people with whom I could share ideas. I studied mathematics in Istanbul and spent three years there. In this period I established the Group for the Promotion of Atheism in Turkey. We produced a number of small publications, each of which was sixty-four pages. I remember the following: The seventh essay: Freudianism; the tenth essay: What Is Religion?; the eleventh essay: The Story of Religion and Its Origin; the twelfth essay: Doctrines; the thirteenth essay: The Story of the Development of the Idea of God; the fourteenth essay: The Idea of Eternity. The members of the group edited these essays and they were students in the University of Istanbul under the auspices of Ahmad Bey Zakariyya’, professor of mathematics at the University, and his wife. Within the context of a short period the organisation reached a very high level, inasmuch as its membership consisted of 800 students of the higher schools and more than 200 from the secondary-intermediate schools. After this we thought of getting in touch with the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism which was directed by Professor Charles Smith. We joined him as a result of this, and the name of our group was changed to the Eastern Association for the Spread of Atheism. My friend, the scholar Isma‘il Mazhar, was at that time promoting freedom of thought and the call to atheism. We tried to establish an organisation in Egypt that would follow our organisation and to establish another one in Lebanon. We contacted Professor ‘Isam al-Din Hifni Nasif23 in Alexandria. He was one of the professors at the university in Beirut. However, the movement failed. I left Turkey in 1931 to go as a student to Russia and I stayed there until 1934 studying mathematics as well as theoretical physics. The reason for my devotion to mathematics was the result of a natural penchant inasmuch as I had completed the study of Euclid’s geometry when I was twelve. I read the works of Poincare, Kline, and Lobachevsky24 when I was fourteen years of age. I was filled with doubt and questions inasmuch as I found, when I began the geometry of Euclid, that he started with the foundations [of mathematics as a given]. And my view, at this time, clashed with the idea of the sanctity of mathematics. I doubted the essential foundations of mathematics and I neglected its study for some time, devoting myself to the study of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, the last of whom was the closest to me. Many tried to convince me to complete my studies of mathematics. However, a strange transformation happened after this, whose true nature I do not know up to this very day. I imbibed mathematical learning in its entirety. I studied arithmetic, algebra, geometry of all kinds, and quadratic equations, but my doubt [about the foundations of

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mathematics as a given] did not dissipate. I [ultimately] accepted the veracity of the first principles of mathematics for the sake of argument and I continued to study. I didn’t finish my studies until I mastered the fundamentals of mathematics, and this was the subject that led to my obtaining the doctorate in pure mathematics from Moscow University in 1933. In the same year I was successful in obtaining the doctorate in sciences and their philosophies with a new thesis entitled ‘On New Mechanics Based on the Movement of Gases and the Calculations of Probability’. This was a thesis in theoretical physics. I emerged from all of my studies believing that [our concept of] reality and the principles of mathematics were merely subjective. My effort in this subject culminated with the conclusions that are found in my book Mathematics and Physics. It was published in Russian in two volumes with an explanatory introduction in German. The result of this life was that I left off religions and all doctrines and that I believed only in science and scientific reasoning. And how great was my surprise and my wonder in finding myself much happier and more tranquil than I had been when I was wrestling with myself to preserve my religious belief. This self-confidence led my academic circles at the University of Moscow to take up the study of my ideas about mathematics for a time in 1934. (1) The causes which pushed me to abandon belief in God were many; there was pure science and pure philosophy, while other factors fell between these two; some had their origin in my environment and my circumstances, and some had psychological causes. It is not my intent to elaborate upon these causes in this study. I have intended, for a time, to write a book about my religious and philosophical beliefs. My goal here, however, is to limit myself to mentioning the scientific cause which led me to abandon the idea of God. This does not prevent me from writing about the remaining causes if another opportunity presents itself. Before I present the causes I must turn to one aspect of atheism. I am an atheist and my mind is at ease in respect to this atheism. I do not, in this respect, differ from the mystical believer in his faith. Yes, godlessness was in the beginning only an idea that appealed to me, but with time my emotions surrendered to it and it came to dominate them. It ended by ceasing to be an idea and became a belief. I have to ask: What is the meaning of atheism? Ludwig Buchner,25 the leader of the atheists of the nineteenth century, would answer: Atheism is the denial of God and a lack of faith in immortality and free will. This definition is in fact purely negative. And I do not seek, on this basis, to reject it. The definition of which I approve and which, I believe, expresses my belief as an atheist is: ‘Atheism is the belief that the cause of the universe is contained within the universe itself and that there is nothing, therefore, behind this world.’ One of the merits of this definition is that its

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first half is purely positive while its negative aspect can be taken to establish proof of God’s non-existence. And this second, negative part, contains all of the meanings found within the Buchner definition. Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804) says: ‘There is no rational or scientific proof for God’s existence and there is no rational or scientific proof for His nonexistence.’ This statement comes from the greatest philosopher of the modern age and the author of the critical philosophy followed by the majority of philosophers. And the opinion of Immanuel Kant does not depart from what the Latin poet Lucretius said a thousand years ago. And for this reason alone one finds it among the ranks of the enlightened and many intellectuals, even the philosophers from among the agnostics. Herbert Spencer, the great English philosopher, and Thomas Huxley, the well-known English biologist and anatomist, were agnostics. However, does the lack of evidence for the nonexistence of God push the individual to agnosticism? The reality that I grasped is that the idea of God is a primary idea. It became one of the requisites of societies for 2,000 years. We can therefore be certain in saying that the establishment of the philosophical idea of God or its place in the world of human thought does not derive from whatever it might entail of forceful, persuasive philosophical elements. Rather, it derives from what psychologists speak of as a rationalisation. [The Arabic word al-tabrir is here followed, in parenthesis, by the word ‘racionation’ in Latin letters. This appears to be a misprint of the English word ‘rationalisation’.] You are therefore not going to find a scientific or rational value for every piece of evidence which is brought forth to confirm the existence of the first cause. We learn from the scholars of religions and beliefs that the origin of the idea of God developed from primitive conditions and that it made its way to the world of thought from states of illusion, fear, and ignorance in respect to natural phenomena; our knowledge of the origin of the idea of God destroys the sanctification that we have bestowed upon it. (2) The external world – the world of phenomena – is subject to the laws of probability. [The author uses the Arabic word al-ihtimal for ‘probability’, and places the actual English word in parenthesis after the Arabic word.] Natural law does not depart from their [the phenomena’s] existence, that is, as the estimated totalities about which the scholar has come to a conclusion based on a phenomenon comparable to other phenomena. Scientific causality does not depart in its essence from being a description of the behaviour of phenomena and their links to one another. In the field of physics – the natural sciences – we have succeeded in confirming that if ‘B’ is the effect of the cause, this means that there is a link between the phenomena ‘B’ and ‘A’. And it is

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also probable that this link will occur between ‘B’ and ‘C’, and between it [‘B’] and ‘D’ and ‘E’. It is as if it is probable that it is the effect of phenomenon ‘A’ at one time, and, also, of phenomenon ‘C’ at another time, and of phenomenon ‘D’ at another time, and of phenomenon ‘E’ at another time. What we take from this is that the link between the term we use for the cause and the term we use for the effect submits to the nature of pure probability, which is the basis of modern scientific thought. For we know that the heart of modern physics lies in the idea of pure probability. I do not want to prolong this point. I direct the reader to my scientific treatise for the German Institute of Natural Sciences which was published on 14 September 1934. It was read at the meeting of 17 September and was published in the proceedings of the Institute for the month of October as ‘Matter and Its Electrical Structure’. It was summarised, alongside its introduction, in the newspaper al-Basir (The Discriminating), edition 1212, Wednesday, 21 July 1937. In this treatise I concluded that probability was the heart of the scientific point of view in respect to the atom, inasmuch as if everything in the world is subject to the law of probability, I would proceed, on this basis, to take this argument to its conclusion and determine that the world is subject to the law of chance. However, what is the meaning of chance and chance occurrence? Henri Poincare says at the beginning of chapter four of his book Science et Methode, and within the context of his remarks on chance and chance occurrence, ‘Chance hides our ignorance of causes and relying on chance occurrences is an acknowledgement of deficiencies in understanding these causes.’26 The fact is that all scientists, from the time in which human reason first unfolded from a mathematical perspective, have agreed with Poincare in his conviction (see our friend the eminent scholar Isma‘il Mazhar’s The Intersection of Means in the Theory of the Origin of the Species and Evolution, Malqa al-sabil fi madhab al-nushu’ wa al-irtiqa’, pages 167 – 174). However, from a mathematical perspective, I would posit a different meaning for chance, a refined meaning. This was put forth for the first time in the history of human thought within the context of my words on chance and chance occurrences in chapter seven of my book, Mathematics and Physics. The meaning which I provide does not offer us the customary expressions by which we speak of this phenomenon because these expressions are tied to the understanding of cause and effect. It is for this reason that we will try to define the meaning through an example. Suppose we were in front of the backgammon board and we were sitting around a table. It is understood that there are six sides for each piece of dice. We can symbolise each face with the following symbols, with each of the two faces represented in this way:

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(1) ya (2) du (3) thay (4) guhar 1L

2L

3L

4L

5L

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(5) bang (6) shish

6 L First die

1 K 2 K 3 K 4 K 5 K 6 K Second die Insofar as each of these faces might appear if we throw the dice, then the amount of probability in respect to the appearance of these faces will define the meaning of chance that we are studying. The relative probability of these faces appearing depends on the circumstance of the player of the dice, but we have to ask: what is the percentage of the relative probability of these faces appearing under the same conditions. For example, if we assumed that in one case ‘N’ would be the effect of the play it would be: L 6 x K 6 ¼ shish x shish ¼ desh [the face of the die that is six]. For what are the chances of the desh appearing at the toss of N þ M?27 If we suppose that the state of probability is represented by the letter ‘H’ we could conclude that if the player threw the dice (N þ M) a number of times and that the total would, for example, be thirty-six times, then, in 1 fact, the probability of the desh appearing here would be nþM . And in the case where N þ M ¼ thirty-six times, the percentage of probability would 1 be 36 . If the desh occurred once in thirty-six times it would not be strange because this might be expected to happen. But this does not mean that the desh would necessarily happen because this matter might involve another factor, which might be the way in which the two dice are thrown. Whenever the value of ‘M’ becomes greater, the value of ‘H’ is defined, that is, the relative probability, and this is subject to the law of the greatest numbers in the calculation of probability. And the meaning of this is that the law of chance involves large numbers. An example of this is that the removal of the appendix is ninety-five per cent successful. I mean that ninety-five cases succeed out of a hundred. If we suppose that a hundred people who were ill entered a hospital for surgery for this operation the surgeon would be confident that he would emerge with success in ninetyfive of these cases. What is the percentage of the probability of success in the case of the operation on a particular individual? He would be silent and not answer you. That is because he would be incapable of knowing the relative probability. This illustration makes the law of chance clear in that it involves a great quantity and many examples. The understanding of the behaviour of chance involves the probability of occurrences. The cause and the effect will exist as manifestations of the link between two events within the scope of that which

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is subject to the law of the greatest number of chance events in the realm of pure possibilities. The meaning of this is that causality is the link of the possibilities between two things subject to the law of the greatest number of chance events. For example, if we suppose that the desh came once in thirty-six times, that is, with a percentage of one in thirty-six, we would in fact have discovered the most probable link between the roll of the dice and the occurrence of the desh. And this law does not in any way differ from natural laws in anything. We are therefore able to say that chance, which submits the universe to the law of its greatest probabilities, provides the conditions for what is possible. And since the world does not depart from a group of occurrences, which interact with each other within single entities, interconnecting and coordinating, and then dissolving and becoming distant from one another, only to join anew in an orderly state, there is then no doubt that they are in their movements subject to the conditions that are defined by the law of chance of the greatest number. The example of the universe is, in this, like that of the printing press which has, based on every kind of letter in the alphabet, a million letters. It takes up this movement and this interaction, gathering and organising and then breaking up and dissolving endlessly in its rotations. There is no doubt that this text, which is now being read, has emerged in this rotation from among these eternal rotations, just as there is no question that a book (The Origin of the Species and likewise the Qur’an) will emerge in another rotation of these unending rotations, self-composed and self-corrected . . . Our world would not emerge as one of these books with its own unity, organisation, and composition, unless it were subject to the law of total chance. Albert Einstein, the author of The Theory of Relativity, says in an old study: In the face of the universe we are similar to a man who comes upon a valuable book about which he knows nothing. When he begins to examine it and to proceed gradually to study it and to comprehend the intellectual coherence of its parts, he senses that there is something obscure behind the words of the book, in respect to which his understanding has fallen short. This obscure thing, which he is not able to grasp, is the mind of its maker. If he advances in thinking about this he will know that this effect is the product of a genius who has devised it. We are like this before the universe, for we sense that there is, behind its system, something obscure whose knowledge our minds cannot reach. This thing is ‘God’.28

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And Sir James Jeans, the famous English astronomer, says: The characteristic which provides the equilibrium which unites the universe is the common factor in which all existences participate. When mathematics are harmonious with the nature of the universe they are in harmony in the same way. And when mathematics are able to interpret the occurrences of events which take place in the universe and to link them to a rational unity this interpretation and determination do not lead to anything other than the idea that the nature of things is mathematical. On this basis we have no alternative except to seek a mathematical mind, possessive of a mathematical language to which this universe belongs. This mathematical mind whose effects we sense in the universe is God.29 You will see that both of these (the first, one of the greatest authorities on mathematics in the world, and the second an astronomer and mathematician of the first rank) are unable to envision the state of probability subject to the universal law of chance, which the constitution of the universe follows, and this for no reason other than the fact that both of them are dominated by the idea of cause and effect. The fact is that Einstein, on the basis of his example, winds up with the existence of something obscure behind the organisation of the book which was expressed through the mind of its author – its maker. The fact is that this is a product of pure probability because it may be subject to another state, and the effect of something other than a mind. Our example of the press and its letters, and the possibility of such books being produced, subject to the laws of total chance, clarifies this state. In respect to Sir James Jeans’s remarks: In spite of the fact that his view of the mathematics of the nature of things is incorrect, inasmuch as the success of the mathematical aspect in linking events and interpreting their actions does not lead us to the idea that the nature of things is mathematical, it does, however, indicate that there is a rational foundation that connects his perspective and the nature of things. For things constitute the existing entity and mathematics ties together what is existent in a mental system based on a foundation of relationships and unity. Or, in other words, mathematics is a system of what is possible and the universe is a system of what exists. And the existent includes the possible and therefore the existent is a particular state of what is possible. Therefore, it is clear that there is nothing strange in the compatibility of mathematics with the universe with which we are familiar. Rather, all of the strangeness comes from the lack of harmony between the mathematics of one universe and the mathematics of another universe because there are specific mathematics for

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every universe. Every universe is subject to the mathematics that is a necessary condition for the existence of a universe. It is therefore clear that Sir James sought harmony according to the idea of cause and effect as Einstein sought harmony in the application of the mathematical perspective in respect to the universe. This caused both of them to search for the mathematical mind behind this universe. And this is an error because if the universe is a particular existing system it is subject to an organisation that is possible and that is made possible as a probability from among a number of [probable] states. What determines the probability which it assumes is the universal law of chance and not the universal first cause.

Conclusion The difficulty, which many see, and with which they confront me when I invite them to regard the universe as being independent from the link of cause and effect and subject to the law of universal chance, have their origins in two factions: 1. [The faction which consists of] those who object on the basis of understanding these words as sheerly mathematical, and it is difficult to express them in ways other than the mathematical. Not every person is mathematical with the ability to undertake mathematical proofs. 2. [The faction, supporting the author’s argument, which] provides the universe with a new understanding that makes us see it in a new and unfamiliar way. It is from this that the difficulty of understanding comes inasmuch as the transformation of the idea of cause is essential, affecting the essence of the conceptualisation [Adham’s conceptualisation of the basic issues] in and of itself. It is for these reasons alone that the difficulty has come into existence in respect to this new understanding and has prevented many from believing in it. As for myself, I do not find these difficulties as anything other than formal. Time alone will be able to bring about their disappearance. I therefore have no doubt that my scientific belief and the propagation of my view, based on the universal law of indeterminacy, will be confirmed, and will be considered, at the same time, the greatest blow to those who believe in the existence of God.

CHAPTER 7 JAMIL SIDQI AL-ZAHAWI: 1863—1936

The Iraqi Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi was born in Baghdad, and was educated there and in Istanbul and Jerusalem. He held a number of positions during and after the Ottoman period, serving as a member of the Baghdad Educational Council, a director of the state printing office and editor of the chief state publication, a member of several high courts in Baghdad, Yemen, and Istanbul, a professor of literature at the College of Arts in Istanbul, a member of the Ottoman Parliament before World War I, and, after Iraq’s independence in 1932, an elected member of Parliament, and then an appointee to its Upper Chamber.1 As a poet and commentator on a broad range of topics, al-Zahawi published widely in the newspapers and journals of Baghdad, Cairo, and Beirut. He became wellknown for his political and social radicalism, and, in contrast to many of his fellow writers, for his religious radicalism, agnostic, certainly, and in some eyes atheistic or pantheistic.2 Al-Zahawi’s ideas, including his views on religion, were hardly unique or without appeal to many readers, for all of the opposition that they might engender. The prominence that he gained cannot, however, be understood apart from his having become a major representative of a school of neo-classical poetry that took on a distinctly Iraqi colouring. The so-called neo-classical style, centred first and foremost in Egypt, enjoyed its greatest popularity throughout the last third of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth. This poetry was composed in the traditional metres of mediaeval classical Arabic poetry; it made use of classical thematic types (aghrad); its language was essentially dependent on mediaeval vocabulary; and it was highly declamatory, with the poet’s personality hidden behind a kind of objectivity.3 In spite of these elements, this poetry was not separated from contemporary realities. S. Somekh writes that ‘the old Arabic dictum to the effect that “poetry is the annals of the Arabs” . . . has never been so true in the history of Arabic literature as it was in the heyday of neoclassical poetry.’4 The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the conquests of Western

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imperialism, the tensions between traditional Islamic values and what were taken to be the challenges of modernity, the struggles for independence, unity, democracy, and the rights of women, were all fully and skilfully represented. As Somekh also points out, the poets of this tradition regarded themselves as active participants as well as chroniclers. They were especially keen to take up the role of national spokesmen. Poetry was now increasingly addressed to ‘the people’ rather than rulers and patrons, and with the intent of rousing the masses to action (facilitated by the penchant for declamation).5 Iraqi poets developed their own variety of this neo-classicism, employing new poetic techniques, a simplified language, and a passion for the cause of the ‘wretched of the earth’ that was far stronger than what was generally found among their non-Iraqi counterparts. Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi was an innovator in this respect, but he had worthy associates in Muhammad Mahdi al-Jawahiri, and al-Zahawi. Al-Jawahiri surpassed al-Rusafi politically in preaching social change through revolution rather than charity, and al-Zahawi went so far stylistically as to experiment with doing away with rhyme altogether.6 Al-Zahawi remains classifiable as a neo-classicist, but Somekh writes that his poetry was ‘so replete with scientific and social ideas that his concern for the poeticality of his poems was often negligible’,7 and Selma Jayyusi, more positively, speaks of the literary field in Iraq witnessing ‘the rise of that iconoclast, Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, whose use of linguistic simplifications were as adventurous as his experiments in the field of ideas’.8 ‘In my [middle age],’ he has himself written, ‘I was thought of as courageous for my resistance to tyranny, and in my old age as an apostate because I propounded my philosophical views.’9 His most important and famous work expressive of this ‘apostasy’ was his philosophical poem ‘Revolt in Hell’ (‘Thawrah fi al-jahim’). Al-Zahawi had been associated with Mazhar’s al-‘Usur, and it is not surprising that his poem was to be published in that journal’s successor, al-Duhur (The Ages) of Beirut. A selection from ‘Revolt in Hell’ (‘Thawrah fi al-jahim’), al-Duhur, 1931, based on the Arabic text found in Jadaliyya (Dialectic), www. jadaliyya.com, 9 January 2012, translated by Ralph M. Coury [As far as the editor knows, there is only one translation into English, which was published online by Firas Massouh at www.jadiliyya.com on 6 February 2012. The segment of the poem that the editor has translated comes from the original Arabic text that appeared on that website. The translation here was undertaken to provide a more literal rendering than that provided by Massouh. No effort at rhyme has been made.] The poem begins when the narrator’s body is visited by two angels, Munkar and Nakir, who, in Muslim tradition, cross-examine the deceased before the final judgement. They ask questions about God and the after-life and the narrator tries to give the answers of a believing Muslim. He equivocates about hell, however, saying that he once believed in

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it and that he then denied it. The angels become suspicious and continue their questioning. Arguments develop and the narrator expresses unorthodox views, asking why man should be punished if there is predestination. He tries to convince the angels that he deserves to go to heaven because he has served his country and has struggled on behalf of women and the poor, but the angels are interested only in religious beliefs. He is ultimately thrown into hell, but not before he gets a glimpse of paradise with its honey, milk, and appealing women.

Thrown into Hell They expelled me from heaven, pulled tightly and shackled/By a bridle like that used to tug a camel./Two angels then stooped and dipped me three times/ Into the innermost core of a boiling hell/And, at last, into its deepest hollow./ They pushed me down as you would dispose of despicable waste./I am not able to describe what I suffered as a consequence of this cruelty./Oh my Lord, take this suffering from me/For if I am a sinner you are the forgiving./It was as if hell were like a great volcanic ditch with a mouth emitting crimson fire and spitting out waves of lava./Its flames began to fly/And then I heard them moving rapidly/And the hairs of my head stood up/As the sound of the flames mixed with the shrieks of the damned in a mighty uproar./There are layers upon layers in these depths/And the worst of sufferings was in the lowest abyss/Where suffering is most bitter/Where weak brother cannot protect his brother/And no tribe can help its own./Food is infernal everyday/And drink a black smoke./The thirsty are given juice but a juice that is made of bitter fruit./There is inhaling and exhaling and then exhaling and inhaling./There is suffering for them every day/And there is destruction for them every day./ There are spiders and snakes for them/And there are tigers and panthers./The criminals plead for mercy in their thirst/But their pleading has no result./ Anger overtakes them/And sparks fly from their glances./Their fire is ignited in order to incite./For some souls are over charcoal, broiled and weakened./The faces of those who have gone astray are black like asphalt/And the features are concealed/And the eyes are fading./I will not forget its fires which are like the waves of the oceans./The sinners cry for a protector/And there is no protector./ Their nobles and commoners are the same/And their rich and poor.

Meeting with Layla10 Who Was Punished for Love While I was wandering about in all of this I came upon Layla/Who was walking over burning coals among her pearl-like peers./And there were snakes with evil fangs./And the eyes of the beautiful women were overwhelmed with tears/Filled with sorrow that was visible./I said: ‘Why does the beautiful one

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cry?’/She said: ‘I do not cry because of the fire or the inferno./I cry, rather, because I am separated from my lover/A separation that is a great calamity./ We are far from each other, and we have to love each other from a distance./ They have separated us . . . /I do not see my companion and he does not see me./He has been thrown into a chasm from which there is no exit/Into a hollow abyss./Oh, the separation is harder than all of the sufferings by which the guilty are tortured./And if we were all close to each other/The difficulty would be diminished./I would not have been concerned with the fire if my lover were with me./All issues would be as nothing if it were not for separation.’/I said: ‘What crime did you commit on earth/To bring you, finally, to this fate?’/She answered:/‘My companion and I were in denial before we were put into hell./Our ignorance of hell has forced us to visit it.’

The Meeting with the Poets and Geniuses I then saw Farazdaq,11 wriggling and looking lean/And his face contorted/ And next to him al-Akhtal,12 suffering from the fire and weeping/And Jarir13 voicing his complaint./And I said: ‘What is your story?’/And they said: ‘We have suffered greatly because of our satire.’/And others were around them kneeling/And all of them were tense/Including the great scholar/And the lord of art/And the philosopher and the erudite./And after looking right and left, I did not see anyone ignorant there, no one who was lacking in thought./ Rather, the ignorant live in paradise in towering palaces inhabited by houris14/With the exception of a smaller group who seek to be proper and whom the masses regard as exemplary./And then Ahmad al-Mutannabi15 greeted me/And al-Ma‘arri,16 the shaykh who was blind./And these poets were great oceans, and these poets were the masters of poetry./And Bashar17 was choking with anger and pustules were on his ugly face./And Abu Nuwas18 followed all of these in a state of depression, he who had been the exuberant drunkard./And, of the same rank, the great al-Khayyam19 and Dante/And the master of poetry and Shakespeare./And Imru’ al Qays20 had first place among the gathering, just as kings have./I said: ‘What did you do wrong?’/They said: ‘We have received an unbearable punishment./We used to ridicule religion in our poetry, what a terrible fate!’

‘Umar al-Khayyam and the Pleasure of Wine I heard al-Khayyam singing and entertaining the masses of people who had gathered/Chanting among them with a beautiful voice/A segment of poetry nourished by sentiment:/‘How nice is the wine that protects from the fire to the point that if it blazes up it will not harm/The wine that diverts the

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flames so that nothing would be left when they kindle/Except for light./It was as if the precious ruby had melted and provided happiness for the viewers./It was like a fire that is burning/A blaze that, like any fire, is an exhalation./And I am therefore in love with the ruby./As we run away from the fire in hell/Pour wine for me . . . /So that I may throw up, with it, anything of hell that has enchanted me./By God, come back to me, oh wine, because I have need of you./If you were in heaven next to me/I would not be afraid of fire or cold.’

Socrates Delivers a Lecture I then heard Socrates giving/A lecture in hell/While it was burning./Plato is next to him in the fire/Listening as if he were delighted./And the great Aristotle was in deep thought./And Copernicus, who taught us that the earth is a sphere that revolves/Following the sun wherever it leads/Like thousands of insects flying around it./And then Darwin . . . who saw that we were the progeny of the ape who had been developed through time./And then Haeckel21 and Buchner22 and Gassendi23/And the famous Herbert Spencer24/ And then Thomas25 and Fichte26 and with them/Spinoza and d’Holbach27 and Giordano28 and Newton the virtuoso and then Renan.29/And then Rousseau and like him Voltaire/And Zarathustra30 and then Mazdak31, who also came forth/And a group at the front of which was Epicurus/And the wise alKindi32 and then Ibn Sina33/And Ibn Rushd,34 the celebrated and bold./And then this Abu Dulama’35 also among them./And then al-Rawandi36 and Nasir37/And groups other than these./And all of them were resistant and all of them were patient in the fire/And Socrates was the most steadfast of the group./His determination did not weaken./After explaining the origin of the fire and referring to it in his speech, he said:/‘Development will have its say about the fire so that we will become stronger than it is/And matters will give way./There are rich oil wells deeply flowing in this ancient valley./They will dry up/So that there will be no fire and no burner and burned.’/And then, when he finished his speech/They applauded him and he was deserving.

Mansur al-Hallaj38 Complaining I saw al-Hallaj/Lifting his eyes to the sky with weariness/And saying: ‘You are God/Who is the self-subsisting, and as for the universes they are perishable./ You are the One from whom I derive/A spark that bursts forth within me./ I became concealed, through Him, after being apparent/And He, through me, became apparent after being concealed./Why did You wish to torture me/And why did You not [simply] test me?/You who are the rescuer./My fate in the

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world of men was to be killed by them/And my fate today, in hell, is bitter suffering!!’/I said: ‘There is no way of avoiding what has been written as fate/ Even if the subject of fate is mistaken.’

The Inventions of the People of Hell to Instigate Revolt They remained thus until a wise person came forth from among them/With an invention/That had not been anticipated throughout the ages/A tool that could extinguish the fire if one wished/So that the flames would not burn bodies!/And another came forth with a miracle/Through which he could demolish the whole nation in an instant./And someone other than he was guided to an invention that would conceal a man/So that he could not be seen./A young man arose, lastly, who gave a speech to them/And his voice was loud./Millions gathered around him . . . They paid him heed and all of them were tense./He said: ‘Oh my people, hell has been filled with those of you who have been oppressed . . . so revolt.’/He said: ‘Oh our people/I see matters going from bad to worse, to the very worst.’/ He said: ‘Oh our people, you have borne heavy loads of injustice that the camel could not bear.’/He said: ‘Oh people, this, what you are enduring/Is a great burden.’/He said: ‘Oh people, we have been oppressed by the most evil of oppressions./Why don’t we revolt?. . ./God has decreed that some people will be made infidels while death/Is hovering pretty close to them./Is it right for a disbeliever to be in the fire eternally/For the predestined belief of an hour?’/He said: ‘Oh people, do not fear for after all of these evils you will not suffer evils./Be bold, oh companions, for hope cannot be obtained except by the bold./Only the greatest succeeds in struggle among people who have great hopes./You are in hell today as prisoners/So let there be a liberation by you and for you./Resist the force that oppresses those like you/And time will always be on the side of the strong./You are today the majority and the number of the guardian angels of hell is small./What is there to fear from them?/If we challenge them we are a great number./Oh people, defend the rights that they have usurped/And the most numerous will be victorious./Do the people of hellfire have misery and distress while the people in paradise have happiness?/Do we have the lowest reaches of hellfire as an abode/While they have palaces in the highest of heavens?!/All of the suffering that you have endured/Has its origin in heaven./Verily the people of justice have not treated you justly/As though their hearts are like rocks./We have served the various sciences in our world./Is hellfire a proper reward for that?/ There was in worldly life oppression and killing/And now this torture forever.’/ A cry went up from the people of hell./The valley and the plain trembled as a result./They rose and subsided within hell/Like a vast ocean over which centuries have passed./Extinguish the smouldering embers of hell!/It was a rebellion that was underestimated./A revolt in hell. . . / It shook the throne and

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the heavens were virtually destroyed./The rebels put on the clothing of war./ They proceeded in an orderly manner, thoroughly prepared./The rebels crawled from every quarter./They advanced in ranks as if they were notes on a musical score/For an anthem that they sang/Its influence at work among deserving souls.

Al-Ma‘arri Leads the March of the Rebels Al-Ma‘arri: ‘They have usurped your rights. Revolt, oh people!/The theft of rights is a great injustice./The rebels: ‘They have usurped our rights and have not treated us justly./As for us, we are revolting for our rights.’/al-Ma‘arri: ‘You have huts made of baked mud and the foolish in heaven have palaces.’/The rebels: ‘They have usurped our rights and have not treated us justly./As for us, we are revolting for our rights.’/al-Ma‘arri: ‘If you were to succumb, your fate would be nothing more than hellfire throughout the ages.’/The rebels: ‘They have usurped our rights and have not treated us justly./As for us, we are revolting for our rights.’/al-Ma‘arri: ‘There is nothing more to human life than struggle/And only tombs prefer tranquillity.’/The rebels: ‘They have usurped our rights and have not treated us justly./As for us, we are revolting for our rights.’/al-Ma‘arri: ‘As for the fire, it is only for those of elevated sentiments./ What a terrible fate!’/ The rebels: ‘They have usurped our rights and have not treated us justly./As for us, we are revolting for our rights.’

The Battle with the Zabaniyyah39 The Zabaniyyah of the fire hurried to them/And all of the rebels were afraid./ How awful is war in hellfire,/A war that has no equal./It united men and women/And women and men./They were attacking/But none of the attackers or invaders could be seen./Stomachs were gorged/And heads were flying./Then the devils joined the rebels as helpers/And the army of the evil spirits was not insignificant./And Iblis40 was the leader of the devils./And Iblis is capable wherever he is./Then angels of the throne, an abundant group, came to restore security./And the leader of these angels is ‘Izra’il41 who never weakens./For these are among the white angels standing in a row/While the revolting black devils are standing in another row./The two sides meet above hell/One of fire, the other of light./They clash, just as high mountains clash/And like the clashes of the seas./And the screams of the wounded rise to the throne/And the wounds of the fallen are surging./They fight each other with lightning, rank on rank/And the fighting and destruction intensify./They fight the hurricanes with winds./They fight the tornados in whose fires granite stones are melted./ They fight with flashes of lightning/And the heart trembles at the sound of the thunder./They fight with the seas which are thrown upon the army with

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force while their waters are burning./They fight with the mountains which crack open hands, one by one as though they are shells/And with volcanoes pouring out lava/In which there are rivers and seas./The throne of your lord shakes after being calm/And the operations are in full force./The heavens are about to fall/And the stars are about to vanish./They fought each other at the outset with alternating outcomes./A clear-cut victory was not revealed with the coming of dawn./And then, it became perfectly clear to the observers/ That the army of the defeated angels/Had been driven out of its fortresses during the night/And this, as the shining morning appeared/And victory for the people of hell came to pass with the help of the devils./They rested from the tortures from which they had suffered and happiness came./They had not entered the throes of the fighting/Before a decision based on thinking and planning had been made/Wiping out heaven./Then they flew on the backs of the devils/With the lightness of flying eagles/Seeking out paradise./And as they were about to reach it . . . a short struggle ensued./ And then they were victorious and then they established/What victory, command, and organisation require./They threw out the foolish/And they occupied the highest palaces . . . how wonderful they are./Everyone was thrown out, except for those who were righteous/For this group wer e worthy of respect among the people of heaven./The holder of the keys of heaven left in fear of his life/And a great number of his followers ran after him./The rebels held a party to celebrate their victory/And they were followed by much applause./It was the greatest coup that had ever occurred/ Within the long course of the passage of time. * *

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And then I woke from my sleep in the morning/And the sun was shining in the heavens./And the matter was, in truth, nothing but/A dream/Provoked by a watercress.

CHAPTER 8 `

MA RUF AL-RUSAFI:1875—1945

The Iraqi Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi was born in Baghdad in 1875 to a family of little means.1 His father died when he was a child and he was brought up by his mother who was of Turkish ancestry. Al-Rusafi studied at a local secondary school, at the Rushdiyyah Military School, and then at a school of religion and language studies under the reformist Shaykh Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi.2 After completing these studies he taught Arabic at two schools in Iraq and then at the Royal College in Istanbul. After returning to Baghdad following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, he worked as a publisher of a short-lived newspaper al-Amal (Hope), then as a member of the committee for translation and Arabicisation, and then as an inspector in the educational system. His last teaching position was as a professor of Arabic at the Higher Teachers Institute, which he held from 1927 until his retirement in 1937. He was elected to Parliament in 1932, just after Iraq received its independence. As the introduction to al-Zahawi has made clear, al-Rusafi was one of the greatest and most radical of neo-classical Iraqi poets and the founder of the social school within that genre and within Iraqi poetry more generally. ‘His interest in the welfare of his country and its people were matched only by his passion for modern concepts and inventions,’ S. Somekh writes. ‘The idea of national independence, social justice, the liberation of Muslim women, democracy, and progress, run through his poetry in all of its stages . . . his poetry as a whole presents a unique brand of neo-classicism marked by a great readiness to incorporate new ideas and techniques.’3 One of his most popular poems is ‘The Breast-Feeding Widow’ (‘al-Armalah al-murdi‘ah’), involving the poet’s encounter with a widow who was sitting by the roadside lamenting her husband who had died and left her and her infant destitute. When the poet commiserates with her and offers her a generous amount of money, she responds, with words that were to become a lasting memory for many Iraqi and Arab school children, ‘if your act of sympathy were to become widespread, no creature would stay in the wilderness in poverty’.4

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The work that remained largely unknown until recently is The Book of the Muhammadan Personality or the Solution of the Sacred Puzzle (Kitab alshakhsiyyah al-muhammadiyyah aw hall al-lughz al-muqaddas). Although it was completed in 1933, it was not published until 2002, and by a German publisher who was not widely known. The Personality came as a surprise. Al-Rusafi ‘was certainly known to have a rebellious temperament,’ Abdou Filali-Ansary writes in 2010, ‘but no one had any real idea of the extent of his rebellion.’5 According to The Personality the historical transmission of the hadith is hopelessly flawed and the collective version of the Prophet’s life as found in Muslim consciousness is bogus. The Prophet lived in a society of extreme violence, and he was far from immune from adopting its ways. He made use of a full range of procedures of Real Politik to fulfil his goals, including plotting, deceit, physical elimination, and conquest. He was subject to violent outbursts of anger and passionate desires. Some of the marriages after his first wife’s death were contracted for compelling reasons of state, but his uncontrollable sexual desires also played a role. The Qur’an is not inimitable, a miracle of eloquence, as traditional belief would have it. Some of its prescriptions are arbitrary and unjustifiable, and some of its passages don’t make sense. The Prophet was not illiterate. He certainly was not poor, at least not after he went to Madinah.6 The Prophet nevertheless understood that divinity is the totality of being and he was able to enter this totality and lose awareness of himself. Muhammad would unite his nation and ‘lead the greatest revolution in the history of mankind’ on the basis of the vision that he had. The book has had a chequered life. Before its publication several handwritten or typed copies had circulated privately in Iraq, and a book in Farsi, published in Beirut, seems to have been based on a loose translation with redactions and revisions.7 Al-Rusafi ’s work, finally published in Arabic, does not seem to have garnered the attention one might have expected, but it has certainly had some effect. Officially banned in some Arab countries and impounded at some book fairs, it has nevertheless been widely available in Lebanon and other Arab countries since its publication. Abdou Filali-Ansary speaks of al-Rusafi as having an excellent mastery of Arabic, a solid common sense, a good general culture, a demand for rigour, an openness to the issues of his time, and to some of the dominant theories (Darwin, relativity, etc.) of his youth, as well as striking intellectual honesty. Al-Rusafi is also vehement, annoyed, categorical in his judgements, and lacking in knowledge of newer perspectives in the social and human sciences that were in wide circulation by the early 1930s. His work does not resemble that of traditional ulama8 or modern researchers. And yet, ‘there is no doubting that al-Rusafi’s book represents the most serious assault on orthodoxy that has been launched on it in modern times.’9 Tarif Khalidi agrees. ‘[The book] is a lengthy demolition job, the likes of which had not been seen in Islamic literature since the days of Abu Bakr al-Razi and his famous attack on prophecy in the early tenth century.’

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And then, bringing comparisons more up to date, Khalidi continues, ‘this bold, original, and iconoclastic sirah [biography of the Prophet] has yet to leave its impact on modern scholarship inside and beyond the Muslim world. It issues from a sceptical or agnostic current of thought with ancient roots but one that is represented in more modern times by thinkers like a Shidyaq,10 Shibli Shumayyil (d. 1917), Farah Antun11 (d. 1922), and the early Taha Husayn.’12 A selection from The Book of the Muhammadan Personality or the Solution to the Sacred Puzzle (Kitab al-shakhsiyyah al-muhammadiyyah aw hall al-lughz al-muqaddas), Berlin, 2002, pp. 583– 9; 599– 601; and 147– 8, translated by Ralph M. Coury

Has the Qur’an Come Down from Heaven? The directions by which we define location do not constitute a firm objective reality. They are relative. We speak of what is above our heads as above and what is beneath our feet as below. What is true in respect to ourselves is also true in relation to the terrestrial globe which is a celestial body swimming in empty space and rotating around the sun. The constancy of the directions of this earth exists only in relation to our presence on its surface. Inasmuch as we lack the capacity to leave, the sun is always above us, and we see it as rising and falling, etc., etc. Directions do not exist in and of themselves. There is an absolute, eternal existence which is not enclosed. The heavenly bodies proceed, emerging and disappearing, according to laws that do not change. The people of religion express such laws as ‘the power of God’, but this is deficient. The creator is more sublime than the descriptions of the prophets. In our transitory life we consider what is lofty as elevated. We therefore speak of God as being on high, even though he is free from being in one place or another. The Qur’an’s speaking of the ‘descending’, ‘bringing down’, and ‘descent’ in respect to revelation from on high is therefore simply meant to convey glorification. To be sure, the Qur’an sometimes uses ‘sending down’ in the sense of literal truth (God sends down water from the sky), but this does not mean that a word can’t be used metaphorically in one place and not in another. The meaning of God sending down a Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad means that He inspired its meanings. Al-Rusafi proceeds to discuss the term ‘heaven’ at some length, establishing that water does not come down from the ‘heaven’ from which the Qur’an came. It comes from an atmosphere that encircles the earth, of which the clouds are a part. Perhaps we have strayed from our subject. Let us return to what we were about. In summary, what we have said so far is that the Qur’an is an expression of meanings without actual words, that ‘sending down’ means inspiration, and that the expression ‘sending down’ is a metaphor to glorify the inspirer or the one who sends down. Our opinion is supported by what the author of

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The Perfect Guide (al-Itqan), al-Suyuti,13 says about the way in which the ‘sending down’ took place. Al-Suyuti relates that al-Isfahani14 begins his interpretation of this expression by saying that: The people of the Sunnah and of Community (or Unity)15 have agreed that the words of God are something that has been ‘sent down’, although they have differed over the meaning of this ‘sending down’. Some of them say that it is the disclosure of the Qur’anic recitation. And some say that God inspired Gabriel with His words while Gabriel was in the heavens, at a high point in that place; God taught Gabriel the Qur’anic recitation and he delivered it to earth as he was descending within that place. (The Perfect Guide, 1, 43). Let us pause a little at these words to reflect upon them and say the following [Al-Rusafi ’s mapping seems confusing. As I understand it, he is speaking of three groups: those who believe that the Qur’an consists of words and meaning and who do not believe that ‘sending down’ means falling from high to low; those who believe that the Qur’an consists of meaning without specific words and that ‘sending down’ means only inspiration; and those who believe that the Qur’an consists of meaning and words and who believe that ‘sending down’ means falling from high to low; these conceive of Gabriel as the intermediary who transports God’s words from on high.] There is no question that the first group, who say that the meaning of ‘sending down’ is the disclosing of a recitation, are those who maintain that the Qur’an consists of both meaning and words together. They want ‘sending down’ to mean that actual words were also included in the sending down. Hence they speak of this as the disclosure of recitation. And the meaning of our saying [as Muslims] that God sent down the Qur’anic revelation would therefore be that God disclosed His recitation to humankind. The aforementioned group exclude the idea of a falling from high to low from their understanding of what is meant by sending down. The idea of falling from high to low is what they want to eliminate in interpreting ‘sending down’ as meaning the disclosure of a recitation. However, what is more conducive to peace of mind, what is compatible with stronger reasoning, and what is acceptable to good taste, is the belief of others who think that the Qur’an is meaning without specific words, and that the idea of ‘sending down’ therefore means only inspiration. As for those of the second group [which believes that the Qur’an consists of words and meanings together, and that sending down means falling from high to low, in contrast to the first group, which believes that the Qur’an consists of meaning and words together, but that the meaning and words didn’t fall from high to low, and in contrast to those who believe that the Qur’an consists of

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meaning without words and that ‘sending down’ means only inspiration] they also say that the Qur’an is meaning and words together. They want ‘sending down’ to mean falling from high to low. But what are they achieving by this when God almighty is free of place? How can His words fall from above to below while He is free of direction? In order to free themselves from this dilemma, those who say that ‘sending down’ means a descent from high to low bring in Gabriel as an intermediary to transport the words of God from high to low, inasmuch as Gabriel, as is true of other creatures of God, moves from place to place. The believers in this interpretation say that God inspired Gabriel with His words and that he [that is, Gabriel] is at a high point in heaven. They are not satisfied, however, with the concept of ‘inspiration’ (alilham) because it does not include actual words. So they say that God taught Gabriel His recitation so that the words themselves would also be part of the Qur’an. They also adopt the idea of movement. They say that Gabriel delivered the recitation to earth while he was descending to the place. How clever and capable these people are in imagining the impossible!

A Digression We have already said that God is free of place. It is necessary for us to say a word about this subject by way of a digression. Here someone might say, ‘Reason is not able to imagine a being in no place or time.’ Indeed, al-Ma‘arri has said in his The Necessity of What Is Not Necessary (Luzum ma la yalzam), ‘You say to us that there is an eternal Creator. We say that you are right, and that is therefore what we say. You also claim that He is without place or time. But with this why don’t you say that these words are an obfuscation, that their meaning is that we have no minds.’16 What is intended in saying that God is free from place and time? I would answer someone who asks this question by saying that these expressions as a whole are incapable of identifying God’s essence. As I have said in a poem, ‘There is something obscure in every soul/Which falls short of explication in poetry and prose/There are many meanings that are subtle to the point that they elude clarity.’ However, I believe that the words that are somewhat close to capturing the reality of the divine nature are those that speak of total, universal, endless existence. The most eloquent words that draw near to an adequate expression of the divine nature are found in the statement of the Qur’an, ‘He is the first and the last, the apparent and the inward’ (Surah ‘Iron’, al-hadid, 3). The clear meaning of this formulation is that He is everything, that He is universal, unending existence. And it is impossible for reason to conceive of a universal, endless existence in one place to the exclusion of another place, or in one time to the exclusion of another time. This is because place is particular and

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finite, but He is universal and endless. And this is because place and time can have no existence except in Him, that is, in universal, endless existence. It is as if they are merged within His existence, not external to it. In accordance with this view it is correct and rational to say that He is in every place and in every time, just as it is correct and rational to say that He is not in any place or in any time. The words of the Qur’an that are consistent with this logic proclaim, ‘He is with you wherever you are’ (Surah ‘Iron’, 4) and ‘Wherever you turn there is the face of God’ (Surah ‘The Cow’, al-baqarah, 115). There is no doubt that the universal endless existence encompasses all things, and the places and times of all things. That which encompasses a thing cannot be in it because if it were it would not be encompassing it. In summation, one can say that if you conceive that universal and endless existence can stop at a limited particularity, your conception will be far from the reality of the sacred divine essence . . . [pp. 583– 9]

Is the Qur’an Inimitable?17 The question of the inimitability of the Qur’an is one in which the ulama of Islam have been interested since the end of the second century of the hijrah,18 to the point that they set aside this question as a special subject. A group of them wrote about it, and the judge al-Baqillani19 was among them. His book about it is the best of those that have been written – according to the ulama. But if you scrutinise their books and read them with care you will see that they are speaking about faith and belief, not about reflection and thinking. There is no doubt that if a human being speaks on a matter of faith that he believes and holds as sound, he will be partial towards it in everything that he says about it. His faith in it and his belief in its soundness will be a barrier against all that conflicts with it or is contemptuous of it. It is said that love makes one blind and deaf. There is no doubt that faith, like love, also blinds and deafens. Love makes the lover blind to the faults of the beloved, and belief in the perfection of something blinds the believer to its weaknesses. You therefore find the ulama exaggerating the greatness of the Qur’an and speaking excessively of its inimitable nature. You also find them regarding everything in it as the highest summit of rhetoric and eloquence. They have taken it as the highest standard by which to measure degrees of eloquence. They never see shortcomings in it and they will not listen to any argument from those who disagree. They will not accept any of their proofs. In light of this the subject of the inimitability of the Qur’an is not a literary, artistic subject. It is a purely religious subject. Anyone who deviates from this position, that is, that the Qur’an is inimitable in the perfection of its language, is an unbeliever in the view of the ulama. Anyone who disagrees

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with them is an atheist. The issue of the inimitability of the Qur’an has become one of those religious issues in which reason is not needed and argument is useless. Those arguing about religious matters never encounter one another without then splitting apart. Each one of them chants in his own tongue the words of the one who said, ‘Although views differ, we are satisfied with what we hold and you are satisfied with what you hold.’ We speak in this manner on the assumption that they are trustworthy and sincere in what they say and propose. Otherwise, we would be compelled to be suspicious and doubtful, although it is possible that some of them are truthful and sincere. They say that this book of the judge al-Baqillani is the best book written on the inimitability of the Qur’an. However, anyone who examines it with honesty and who reads it with deliberation and careful study will be convinced that its author is among the first squadrons of the hypocrites, that he is, in his writing, one who seeks the rewards of this world rather than the truth. If it were not a distraction from our present concern I would here provide proofs and demonstrations of this from the above-mentioned book [that is, the book by al-Baqillani on the inimitability of the Qur’an]. If the question of the inimitability of the Qur’an is looked upon as purely a literary and artistic matter, logic, proofs, and pieces of evidence would have their place in intellectual encounters and disputation. But what will be the case if thought is not free and what will be the outcome when traditional beliefs always persist? Moreover, those who have written on the interpretation of the Qur’an and its inimitable nature appeared only in the second century, at a time when neither thought nor opinion was free. In that century, traditional (taqlidi) faith arose, according to which man followed the religion of his ancestors. This was a religion stronger and more firmly established in the hearts of its adherents than a religion that might have arisen for other than traditional reasons. (I will shortly comment on faith and its variations.) How can people enjoy freedom of thought and speech in an age in which everything is established in the name of religion – the state, the government, the caliphate, the king, the prince, the minister, the judge, the leader, the army? All of this is coloured by Islam and coloured with religion. There is no escape from it. Freedom of thought was not in the interest of any of the elements mentioned above, especially in relation to religion and the colour that it gave to society. Rather, all of the men of governance, and especially those prominent among them, worked to preserve this colour as it had previously existed. They would do all in their power to preserve the status quo and to keep the great mass of people under their influence. This state is permanent, continuing into our own day. It is actually stronger and worse in our time. No one would be able today to write all that

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was written by the authors of the Prophet’s biography in the age in which [the Islamic] religion was first being recorded. And this was in addition to their actually discussing everything that they related and mentioned. Here is Egypt with all of its men and women of science and literature and not one of these learned individuals is able to speak or write freely, except on something that does not deal with religion. Dr Husayn Haykal20 wrote a book about the Prophet’s life, but there is nothing in it other than what the earliest authors have said. This was because he was not free in writing or speaking. How could he be when he saw the turbans of al-Azhar University hovering above him, always ready to regard him with an angry eye if he should turn away from their path, at which time they would swing into motion and rise up against him, with the masses on their side? There is no question that wherever you find this situation you will also encounter hypocrisy. Hypocrisy always accompanies it. How splendid was alMa‘arri for having said, ‘I dissemble with you. May God forgive me my lapse. But then the religion of all others as well as mine is hypocrisy.’ God has denounced hypocrisy as one of the greatest of social evils. This is because hypocrisy is the vehicle of distortion and delusion and both of these elements poison the happiness of social life. We have said that those who wrote of the inimitability of the Qur’an have not written on the basis of reflection and thought and that they were not free in their thinking. (See The Perfect Guide, 2, 116– 125.) Rather, they spoke out of faith and belief. This was enough to result in their non-critical attitude towards the Qur’an. Add to this that there were sincere and insincere people of faith among them. The insincere could have been motivated to write inspired by hypocrisy, either to gain a position through which they might rise, or to gain fame through which they might become great, or for other reasons necessitated by personal self-interest in a context in which everything was established in the name of religion. If you were to say that there were also disbelievers (zanadiqah, the plural, and zindiq, the singular)21 who were free in their thoughts during the time in which people wrote books about the inimitability of the Qur’an, and if you were to proceed to ask why they did not therefore respond to those who upheld the inimitability of the Qur’an, I would say that yes, disbelievers did also arise among those who wrote about the inimitability of the Qur’an, but that they were not, as you say, free in their thoughts. The punishment of death faced the disbeliever if he said anything that contradicted religion. The Abbasids22 killed many of the disbelievers. They were not even satisfied with killing them. Rather, they erased everything that they wrote and obliterated any trace of their legacy. Where are the writings of these disbelievers? Where is the Damigh of Ibn al-Rawandi?23

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The first reciters of the hadith24 and those who wrote down the biography of the Prophet erased everything that the poets and authors who were enemies of the Prophet said. We have not received any of their statements except for negligible and simple remains which no one considers. Only a little of the poetry of Umayyah ibn Abi25 is left to us and there is only a sentence or two of Musaylimah’s Qur’an.26 If they had preserved these matters we would today be better able to judge between them and Muhammad. Ibn Hisham,27 the author of the famous biography of the Prophet, committed a great crime against learning and literature in abridging the biography of the Prophet by Ibn Ishaq.28 He didn’t simply abridge it, he savagely murdered it. There is nothing left of it except its name. Ibn Ishaq’s biography was written at length but was abridged by an order of Mansur.29 Learning has sadly suffered through its loss. [pp. 599–601] [The above arguments in favour of naturalistic and/or metaphorical understandings of the nature of divine being and revelation are related to more particular discussions of how, precisely, the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad through peaceful dreams and/or forms of unusual visual, aural and emotional experiences. The following passage represents a segment of these more particular discussions.]

Representations of Revelation As for representations of revelation, they include an account that Muhammad himself conveyed to Harith ibn Hisham:30 ‘The chroniclers relate that this Harith asked the Prophet, “How is revelation given to you?” The Prophet answered, “Sometimes it comes to me like the jingling of bells and this is the manner in which it comes with the most force. It then leaves me but what it said remains in my memory.”’ In another account in this vein the Prophet is reported to have said that ‘revelation comes to me sometimes like the jingling of bells, and sometimes the angel appears to me as a man’ (or, as another version has it, ‘it appears to me as a youth speaking to me, with my being conscious of what he said’). Reports on this second way of receiving revelation also mention that the Prophet would quickly forget what had just been revealed – and this in contrast to the first way of receiving revelation that is mentioned above. Here is the text of this account: ‘The revelation would come to me in two ways; Gabriel would come to me and give it to me as any man would give it to another man, and thus I wouldn’t remember it. It would slip away from me. It would also come to me through something like the sound of jingling, and to the point that it would disorder my heart and it would not slip away (The Aleppan Biography, al-Sirah al-halabiyyah, 257/1).’31 In this hadith there are two representations of the different kinds of revelation. The first one is that the Prophet hears a sound like the jingling of bells, although

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he doesn’t see anything. The second is that he sees a man speaking to him. Neither of these two forms occurs to him unless he is extremely agitated, or, as the transmitters of hadith, the commentators, and the biographers express it, when he is overtaken by revelation. Both forms of revelation proceed from a vision that the Prophet sees and which puts forth its message. However, the first of the two, that is, the one in which he hears the jingling of the bells, occurs only if his agitation is intense, as is indicated from his own words: ‘It was most intense for me.’ It is this intensity which combines all of the manifestations of struggle, from the ashen colour of the face, the redness of the eyes, the loss of consciousness, the snorting like the snorting of a bull, and other things. The strong agitation of the experience is indicated by the Prophet’s hearing a sound like the sound of bells. This sound arises from the degree to which his nerves are disturbed while in this state, just as his sluggishness during the revelation arises from the strength of the nervous fit and its tensions. The strength of this state is also indicated by the Prophet’s not seeing the white spectre identified as Gabriel; this is because a fit culminating in an extreme state would distract the soul from noticing anything else within it. The Prophet would not see the spectre, that is, he would not see Gabriel. This phenomenon is indicated by the fact that Muhammad would also sometimes see Gabriel as a man sees his friend from behind a sieve or as a man who does not see his friend clearly. This type of vision would occur when the fit of revelation was unending in its intensity. But Muhammad would also sometimes see Gabriel/the spectre clearly if the revelatory fit were mild, as he saw him while trembling as he stood in ‘Arish on the day of Badr (see my article under the title ‘The Strength of His Imagination’).32 As for the second form of revelation, the one in which the angel appears as a man and speaks to the Prophet, this occurs when the fit is mild and the Prophet sees the white spectre clearly, as if he speaks to him. The words in each of the two forms of revelation are Muhammad’s and not the spectre’s. The words are nothing more than the speech of which Muhammad’s soul was thinking before the fit overtook him. This view of ours is supported by the Qur’an when it says, ‘The noble spirit has brought this down upon your heart’ (Surah ‘The Poets’, al-shu‘ara’, 193– 4). These verses are plain in conveying that the revelation consists of reflections and thoughts that come to the heart and that the soul contemplates. If the revelation involved an encounter with hearing, the verses just quoted would have said, ‘The noble spirit has brought this down upon your ears’ and not ‘upon your heart’. [pp. 147– 8]

CHAPTER 9 MUHAMMAD AHMAD KHALAF ALLAH:1916—98

The Egyptian Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allah was born in Sharqiyyah Province, of an Egyptian father and Sudanese mother.1 He was educated at a local kuttab2 and then at the Egyptian University in the 1930s, where he obtained a master’s degree and then prepared a Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The Art of Storytelling in the Qur’an’ (‘al-Fann al-qasasi fi al-Qur’an al-karim’), under the supervision of Dr Amin al-Khuli, which was submitted in 1947. Al-Khuli, regarded as a successor to Muhammad ‘Abduh,3 had developed a theory of Qur’anic literary exegesis which promoted the use of all accessible scientific methods apart from religious considerations. According to al-Khuli this approach was not a matter of choice, inasmuch as the Arabs’ original acceptance of the Qur’an was based on its literary power. The literary approach would uncover the Qur’an’s inimitability (i‘jaz), which is basically expressive and emotionally provocative (i‘jaz nafsi).4 Khalaf Allah’s dissertation involved an extended application of al-Khuli’s approach. The stories of the Qur’an should be largely understood as literary narratives and not historical documents. They are often allegorical, and meant to serve spiritual, ethical, and religious purposes. On the one hand, Muslim commentators (Khalaf Allah continually refers to al-‘aql al-islami, here translated as ‘the Islamic intellect’, although ‘mind’ or ‘mindset’ might also be used) have had great difficulty in trying to prove the historicity of some Qur’anic narratives or in projecting their established views onto the Qur’anic texts. On the other hand, the Orientalists (and disbelievers) have questioned the historical authenticity of the stories on the basis that they contradict or do not comply with historical facts. The emphasis on literary narrative offers a way out by rendering the question of historical authenticity irrelevant or wrong-headed. Khalaf Allah frequently resorts to the authority of ‘Abduh (Donald Reid speaks of his ‘wrestling his critics for ‘Abduh’s ghost’) to argue that the Qur’an is not meant to be a history book and that anything that seems to contradict science and logic reflects the understanding of the Arabs of the seventh century.5

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Khalaf Allah anticipated troubles and he was not to be disappointed. Two members of his committee failed him, a storm subsequently broke out at al-Azhar and elsewhere, and the journal al-Risalah (The Treatise) published an on-going debate with his accusers and others (al-‘Aqqad 6 argued that he had a right to publish on his own, but that the university, a national and collective institution, had a right to reject his dissertation). Khalaf Allah was attacked for blasphemy, apostasy, ignorance, dishonesty, poor Arabic, and distortions of ‘Abduh and the mediaeval exegete Fakhr alDin al-Razi upon whom he also depended.7 In response to a letter of condemnation sent to the King, Khalaf Allah vowed that he would burn his own dissertation if it contained anything contrary to the Qur’an. An ominous answer, revealing how serious matters had become, came from the editor of the newspaper of the Muslim Society to the effect that burning the dissertation was insufficient. Khalaf Allah should ‘burn the devil, retire from the College of Arts and its doctorate’, and go to the seclusion of his own room where he could ‘weep about Satan’s deceit’ until God accepted his repentance.’ 8 The University rejected the dissertation, Khalaf Allah was transferred to a nonteaching position from his position as a teaching assistant, and al-Khuli was not to be allowed to teach or supervise Qur’anic studies in the future. Al-Khuli continued to teach Arabic grammar, rhetoric, and literature, but he was transferred to a nonteaching position in 1954.9 Khalaf Allah’s career as an academic was ultimately resumed, but not at the University. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1949 based on a non-religious literary topic and he then taught at the Higher Institute for Arabic Studies linked to the Arab League. He never repented and the dissertation on storytelling was published in 1953 in revised form, with an introduction by al-Khuli. It was reprinted five times in Cairo alone between 1953 and 1999. The chair of Qur’anic Studies in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature remained vacant until 1972, when a recent graduate was appointed to the position as a teaching assistant. The graduate was none other than Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd who, in 1993 (see Chapter 13), would be subject to the same accusations of apostasy as Khalaf Allah.10 Some of the perennial arguments of the opponents of 1947 and 1993 were neatly summarised by Abu Zayd in 2003: the word of God should not be compared to any human discourse; treating the Qur’an as a work of literary art suggests that Muhammad is its author; implying that the Qur’an is inferior to a book of history because it doesn’t present historical accounts is blasphemous and an act of apostasy; claiming that the language of the Qur’an is determined historically and culturally can be construed to mean that the Qur’an is a human text.11 There are, then, the perennial arguments and counter-arguments, but, also, the encompassing context of economic, social, and political struggles in which the perennial appears and reappears and to which it is irrevocably linked, however inchoately or indirectly. When Khalaf Allah presented his dissertation, the continued presence of

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British troops powerfully symbolised the lack of full Egyptian independence, the Palestine conflict was rushing towards a climax, the great Egyptian landlords blocked internal reform, pressures for food, housing, and education were building from below, the popularity of the ‘playboy’ King Farouk was evaporating quickly, the cooperation of the Wafd12 with the British during the war weakened the once-popular party’s mass support, young people were increasingly attracted to radical movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the communists, the Egyptian Palace and other political elements were keen to maintain Azhari support, and a Prime Minister and a former cabinet minister had recently been assassinated.13 ‘How,’ Donald Reid asks, ’could a thesis expressing controversial views on Islam have been calmly discussed?’14 A selection from The Art of Storytelling in the Qur’an (al-Fann al-qasasi fi al-Qur’an al-karim), Cairo, 1965, pp. 28 – 42, translated by R. Kevin Lacey Historical Meanings (Chapter 1) Khalaf Allah discusses how unbelievers, Jews, Christians, and Orientalists have emphasised the idea that Qur’anic stories are meant to be taken as literal reportings of history, and that what they regard as their contradictions and inaccuracies therefore reveal that Islamic prophecy is invalid. Muslims also believed in the soundness of the criterion of historicity. If the unlettered Prophet had not received revelation, how could he have known of the reports of events15 contained in the Qur’an? This emphasis on historicity has prevailed throughout Islamic history up to today. The understanding of Qur’anic stories has been based on an historical and not a literary culture. The interpretation of exegetes has often therefore not been sound, except when they based their understanding on Arab rhetoric and literary art. The first problem related to Qur’anic historical allusions that were often obscure. Two explanations were possible – that the Prophet’s contemporaries already knew the history behind the obscurities or that the Qur’an wanted to direct attention to the moral and instructional. The exegetes tried to eliminate the historical ambiguities and the Qur’an’s own deliberate obscurities. They relied on historical culture, Israelite documentation,16 or purely theoretical presuppositions. We would do well to take special note of the following facts in respect to the positions of the exegetes towards historical allusions in the Qur’an and the obscurity and enigmas that enveloped them: 1) The exegetes, content with the historical foundation as a general foundation for understanding the Qur’an, take a long and hard look at historical questions and problems. We see that some pause at a particular story to give it a title along the lines of what we find in books of history proper. Some also speak about the personality of the Prophet and narrative events in the same way as real historians.17

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2) The pondering at length over the historical foundation makes the exegetes familiar with this method in their understanding of Qur’anic storytelling, to the extent that we find them denying the artistic and literary methods. We see that out of necessity they resort to literary methods in their understanding of the Qur’an, but only rarely, and in these instances they keep their words brief. This is what al-Zamakhshari does in his explanation of the story (‘And has there reached you news of the adversaries? They have climbed over the walls of the private chamber . . .’ and so on, from the Surah ‘Sad’. And this is what al-Tabari does in one of his remarks in interpreting the stories of Adam in the Surahs ‘The Cow’ (al-baqarah) and ‘Sad’.18 What they do in their exegesis conveys the sense that the exegetes do not believe that a literary way of thinking can be accommodated with God’s revealed word in respect to stories, that is, that they do not believe that it can be accommodated with God’s intention to make storytelling a means to an end, a guidance, a directive, and a warning, as well as an offering of glad tidings; that they do not believe that it can be accommodated with the notion that God does not intend Qur’anic storytelling to involve history in any respect whatsoever. 3) The exegetes’ reliance upon historical culture, Israelite documentation, and theoretical presuppositions does not enable them to lessen the vagueness or to eliminate the obscurity to the extent that they would have liked. On the contrary, their approach also often leads them to labyrinths. As a result, they do not reach the truth that they seek about the matter. We see an example of this in the interpretation of the story of the man who passed by a village where the royal thrones were empty. Another example lies in the explanation of how Iblis19 entered heaven – after God had expelled him from it – in order to tempt Adam and goad him into eating from the heavenly tree. The following appears in Abu Hayyan’s The Vast Ocean (al-Bahr al-muhit): ‘And the person who passed by a village is ‘Aziz. But it is also said that he is Armiya’ . . ., or Armiya’ who is in fact al-Khidr20 . . . or he is every person who ever passed by the village . . . or one of the Israelites (other than Moses) . . . or a man servant of Lot . . . or Isaiah. As for the village, it is Jerusalem . . . or the village of al-‘Inib . . . or the Holy Land or al-Mu’tafikah . . . or the village from which thousands fled because of the warning of death . . . or it is the Monastery of Hercules . . . or Shabur Abad . . . or Salmayadh.’21 The exegete al-Razi22 has the following: People have disagreed over the matter of how Iblis could have tempted Adam (may peace be upon him), even though Iblis was outside heaven and Adam inside. They have offered different points of view on the topic, several of which follow:

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One of them is that proposed by the storyteller, and which people have transmitted along with other versions on the authority of Wahb Ibn Munabbih al-Yamani23 and al-Sudi,24 on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas,25 may God be pleased with both of them and others. This account says that when Iblis wanted to enter heaven he was prevented from doing so by the guards. Then he went to the serpent, an animal with four legs as though of the Bukhti26 pedigree, the best of animals. This was after Iblis had presented himself to all of the other animals and they all rejected him. The serpent swallowed Iblis and took him into heaven concealed from the guards. When the serpent entered heaven, Iblis came out of his mouth and took up his whispering temptations. The serpent was of course cursed and its legs fell off. Then it began to crawl on its belly and was made to take its sustenance from the soil; and it was made an enemy to humankind. Know, however, that this explanation and others like it are not worthy of our attention, and this is because the questions arise as to why Iblis, if he had been able to enter heaven in the mouth of the serpent, was not himself able to make himself a serpent and then enter heaven. Another reason for not taking this explanation seriously lies in considering the following: when Iblis did what he did by way of the serpent, why was the serpent punished in spite of the fact that the serpent was unaware of what it was doing and, furthermore, was not entrusted to do it? A second point of view on the story of Iblis and his temptation of Adam in heaven is that Iblis entered heaven in the shape of an animal. This belief is less unsound than the one that immediately precedes it. A third point of view proceeds as follows: some of the learned in the origins of things have said that perhaps Adam and Eve were departing from the gates of heaven while Iblis was close by outside, and it was at that location that he whispered his temptations to them. A fourth view – that of al-Hasan27 – is that Iblis was on earth when he tempted Adam and Eve and that he sent his temptations to them while they were in heaven. Some, however, have said that this is far from the truth because the temptation was in the form of concealed speech and concealed speech can’t be sent from earth to heaven. People also disagree over Iblis in another respect: did he initiate the talk with Adam and Eve or did he whisper his temptations to them by way of the speech of his followers?28

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4) The Islamic intellect, preoccupied with this culture of history, often does not free itself for the sake of other approaches. Traditionally, it pauses only occasionally to clarify and confirm the right guidance and direction, the warnings and glad tidings, that are contained in Qur’anic storytelling. And it has, because of this, passed by many issues that should have been placed within the framework of the psychological fundamentals and social supports upon which Islamic missionary work has rested (and, indeed, upon which all social causes rest). Secondly [and in addition to the obscure and ambiguous historical allusions that have just been discussed], the repetitions that the Islamic intellect has taken into consideration, and specifically within stories that are themselves repeated: In relying upon the historical method for understanding Qur’anic storytelling, the Islamic intellect becomes incapable of understanding the secret meanings for the sake of which the repetitions occur. Why has the Qur’an repeated the stories of Adam, Noah, Hud, Lot, Shu‘ayb, as well as others among the messengers and the prophets? For a focus on the historicity of each one of these, perhaps the only thing needed is the appearance of one story in one locality only, and not the repetition of one story in more than one Qur’anic locality. The repetition of the story, and especially when the narrative events are one and the same and the historical material similar and the situations similar, is something that requires justification, clarification, and exposition.29 Another question about the repetition of stories, which has been posed by the Islamic intellect, relates to the fact that, even if only hypothetically, it could examine the mysterious reasons for which the repetitions occurred, that is, why were there differences in the repetition? Although the situation is the same and the incident is the same, why are there differences between the description of Moses vis-a-vis his Lord in the Surah ‘Ta Ha’ of the Qur’an as opposed to other Qur’anic chapters? Khalaf Allah quotes the Surahs Ta Ha and The Ants (al-naml), and refers to the Surah ‘The Stories’ (al-qasas), to illustrate how God’s revelation of himself to Moses took on different forms in respect to how He appeared in conjunction with fire and how He transformed Moses’ staff into a serpent.30 Although the Islamic intellect has attempted to deal with repetition and the differences in depiction, no conclusive point of view has been reached. Many have looked upon Qur’anic storytelling as representative of the Qur’an’s ‘ambiguous verses’.31 Al-Tabari and other exegetes have noted that the verses are ambiguous in that the choice of words can be similar in respect to stories that are repeated, that there can be stories with the same choice of words but with different meanings, and that, conversely, there can be stories with different choices of words but the same meaning.32

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Had the Islamic intellect established its understanding of Qur’anic storytelling on a foundation of artistic and literary merit, it would not have taken the position that it has traditionally taken. It would have known from the very outset that what it considered repetition has little importance as repetition insofar as history is concerned because the presentation of historical material in the stories is not what is really intended. The Qur’an’s real intent is to convey moral admonitions, lessons, warnings, and glad tidings, and these differ from one place to another. From this standpoint there has been difference. Difference in intentions undoubtedly compels difference in literary images. The intention of the Qur’an with the story of Moses in the Surah ‘Ta Ha’ is not the same as it is in the story of Moses in the Surah ‘The Ants’. And the story of Moses in the Surah ‘Ta Ha’ is an independent story, as it is in the Surah ‘The Ants’. From a literary point of view, the latter differs from the former. Therefore, there is no repetition nor difference nor resemblance. Thirdly, the storytelling material and the actual truth: This issue arose when it became clear that much of the storytelling material that the Qur’an contains is not in agreement, and not knowable through science except by way of interpretation and, furthermore, through recourse to a literary method of interpretation from which assistance could be procured and from which help could be sought. 1) It became clear to the Islamic intellect that [describing] the sun as having set in a fiery spring is not correct, given what is known about the facts of the world, that is, that the sun is always ascendant while the earth is turning around the sun, and that the sun can’t set in a fiery spring by any stretch of the imagination. It has occurred to the Islamic intellect that God’s word in this context is simply incorrect unless there is recourse to a kind of interpretation. This type of interpretation is ipso facto necessary. The upshot, as we see, is the submission to the artistic, literary method. It was decided that the Qur’an depicts mental images of the setting of the sun in this story, and not the actual reality of the sunset. The depiction is of that which people see with their own eyes, not what actually happens when the sun sets and rises. Al-Razi says the following in his exegesis of the story of ‘He of the Two Horns’33 in the Surah ‘The Cave’ (al-kahf): ‘The Second Study: It [God’s revealed word] has made certain by way of proof that the earth is a sphere, that the sky surrounds it, and that there is no doubt that the sun is in the heavenly firmament. It also says that ‘“He of the Two Horns” found a people in the vicinity of the sun.’34 However, it is well known that there are no people in the vicinity of the sun. It is also well known that the sun is many times larger than the earth. Is it rational, therefore, to assume that it enters into one of the springs of the earth?’

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If all of this is certain, then there are several ways by which we can interpret God’s words that ‘the sun sets in a fiery spring’35: Firstly, when ‘He of the Two Horns’ reached the sun’s place in the West and there remained no buildings in its wake, it was as if he had found the sun set in a spring and the spring in turn was dark, even though the sun’s setting is not like this in reality. It is just like the case of a sailor who, because he has not seen the shoreline, sees the sun as if it sets in the ocean, even if the sun actually sets beyond the ocean.36 The judge ‘Abd al-Jabbar says the following in this regard: ‘How can it be correct for somebody to find that the sun sets in an actual portion of the earth whereas it only sets relative to the trajectory of the course of its setting? Our answer to this is that the sun sets only in a manner resembling setting into the earth, in the manner that the sun seems to be setting into the ocean when man views it on the edge of the ocean. In a similar fashion, men say that the sun rises from the earth and moves in the sky. This is in keeping with what we have previously discussed in respect to evaluating what is observed by human eyesight.’37 2) It became clear to the Islamic intellect that Wadd and Sawa’ and Yaghuth and Ya’uq and Nisr were idols that were worshipped in the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad’s prophetic mission, shortly or long before it. The Islamic intellect was traditionally incapable of understanding the connection between these idols and Noah, which would account for the possibility of their appearing in his story. This issue, therefore, was regarded as another problem that had to be confronted. Al-Razi says the following in the course of his interpretation of the Surah Noah (Nuh): These five idols were the largest of the idols of the Arabs. They were transmitted by way of Noah’s people to the Arabs. Wadd was the idol of Kalb, Sawa’ the idol of Hamdan, Yaghuth the idol of al-Madhhaj, Ya’uq the idol of Murad, and Nisr the idol of Himyar. For this reason the Arabs were called worshippers of Wadd and worshippers of Yaghuth. This is what is reported in the chronicles. However, there are some problems with this. The world had been destroyed previous to this during the time of the Great Flood. How could these idols have endured and been transported to the Arabs? It is impossible to say that Noah – upon whom be peace – put them on a ship and took possession of them, because he came to deny the idols and smash them! How could it be said that he placed them on the Ark attempting thereby to preserve them?38

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Khalaf Allah draws upon al-Razi – in subsections three and four under the preceding subsection number two – to show that the dialogue between Jesus and God, together with a pronouncement of the Jews, found in the Surah ‘The Table Spread’ (al-ma’idah), should be interpreted on the basis of intention and not surface meaning. Jesus did not say that he and his mother should be adopted as two deities. God rhetorically asks him if he did say this, knowing what his answer would be, and as a way of reprimanding someone who would say such a thing. Jesus himself is recorded as replying, ‘Had I said this, then You would have known of it.’ In the second story the Qur’an speaks of the Jews as saying, ‘We have killed the Messiah, Jesus, Son of Mary, the Prophet of God.’ Given the Jews’ view of Jesus and their rejection of him as a messenger, al-Razi asserts that they could not have made such a pronouncement. They must have said this in mockery, or perhaps God spoke in this way in order to exalt Jesus, or to glorify the Messiah for whom they had hoped. Khalaf Allah then proceeds to subsection five to present an interpretation of the help of the angels at the battle of Badr.39 5) The Muslim intellect clearly could not envision the help of the angels for the Muslims at the battles of Badr and Uhud,40 unless the Qur’anic story of this affair were considered to be the speech of one who embraces the people in their beliefs as a means of strengthening morale and spreading powerful hope among souls (through speedy victory). Al-Manar41 writes: Abu Bakr al-‘Asamm42 denied that the angels fought. He notes that ‘One angel is sufficient for destroying all the people of the earth’, as happened with Gabriel at Mada’in in respect to the people of Lot. So, if he was present at the battle of Badr, why did the Muslims need to go to battle against the infidels? By virtue of his presence, what is the advantage of sending all of the other angels to Badr? Also, the notables among the infidels were famous, and each one who killed someone from among the Companions of the Prophet was well known. Also, if the angels did engage in battle, then they were either where people could see them or they were not where people could see them. In the first case, those seen from among the forces of the Prophet would have numbered 3,000 men or more, although no one has actually claimed this. It is also a contradiction of God’s Word, ‘And God will make you [the believers] lesser in their [that is, your enemies’] eyes.’43 An additional point to be considered is that if the angels had been in something other than human form, extreme fright would have settled in the hearts of men. But this has not been handed down. If the angels were not where the people could see them, then the lopping off of heads, the lacerating of bellies, and the felling of infidels,

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would have had to take place without any participant seeing these things. Something like this would have been one of the greatest miracles of all time and become widespread and famous among Muslims and infidels, ally and foe. Moreover, if the angels had heavy bodies, then everyone necessarily would have seen them; but if they had light bodies, how could they have stayed on their horses?44 This and many other things loomed before the traditional Islamic intellect, and it reasoned that these things could not be understood as having been actual historical occurrences and concrete reality, except as they might be understood through the application of a type of interpretation. Had the Islamic intellect established its understanding of Qur’anic storytelling from the very outset on the basis of the literary method, then it would not have needed these interpretations or the kind of cogitations that ultimately led it, by compulsion and not by choice, to find refuge through thinking in literary terms. Fourthly, reports and the inimitability of the Qur’an: This was a final position taken up by the Islamic intellect in taking an account of itself and the positive value of its efforts. Was it good for the Prophet and the Qur’an that this historical method should have been the principal foundation for understanding the storytelling of the Qur’an? Or had this way of thinking provided the gap through which missionaries and atheists could discredit the Prophet and the Qur’an? The traditional Islamic intellect calculated everything in numerical terms. It counted the sayings of the polytheists (mushrikun) and the atheists and the missionaries. It counted the problems that it faced when pausing to take into consideration historical allusions and their obscurities and enigmas, the repetition of stories, and what it was compelled to say in respect to the ambiguities of Qur’anic storytelling. Finally, the Islamic intellect took a statistical approach to the conflicting reports and depictions which it could not believe to have been true and real, except on the basis of interpretations and the understanding of things in terms of literary approaches. The traditional Islamic intellect calculated all of these things, and it became clear to it that the historical approach to the Qur’an in seeking to understand Qur’anic storytelling offered far more that was bad, objectionable, and unfortunate than was good. At that point, the Islamic intellect rethought the historical approach, the causes that had led to its adoption, and the commitment to adhere to it. The Islamic intellect found that the causes for adopting the historical approach were clear in respect to those stories that the Qur’an relied upon in promoting belief in the Prophecy of Muhammad (upon whom be peace) and the soundness of his

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law-giving mission, and in respect to determining what reports of miracles were contained within these stories. As for the reports being miraculous, this was a matter that the Islamic intellect rethought. The rethinking concluded that these reports were not – as is clear from the Qur’anic verses – the best area through which to respond to the Meccan polytheists, nor the area through which a challenge might be mounted to establish that the reports are among the miracles. The reports are found wanting as a proof of the miraculous nature of the Qur’an. Many of them were already known in the Arabian Peninsula before the time of the Prophet’s mission, with the result that the Qur’anic exegetes would interpret the Qur’anic phrase employed to refer to them, ‘Did you not see?,’ as meaning ‘Did you not know?’ The reports did not contain events that were unknowable, except for fine details, or if one assumes that the Prophet was indeed illiterate. Moreover, Muhammad could have had the reports written down for him, or a human could have taught them to him, or the polytheists could have given them to him. In fact, the polytheists had their own stories about the ancients which they preferred to those of the Qur’an.45 The Islamic intellect thought about all of these things and concluded that the Qur’an itself did not make the reports of events the area through which the polytheists could be challenged in respect to inimitability. Rather, the Islamic intellect came to view the inimitability of the Qur’an as consisting entirely of its powerful influence and mesmerising expression. In his exegesis of the Quran, al-Razi says the following in interpreting God’s words, ‘[Muhammad spoke in] a tongue that the people were maliciously inclined to regard as foreign’:46 People accused Muhammad of learning these words from someone else, of then making them appear as if they were his own, and claiming that he knew them by way of revelation, and that he was lying. Then God responded to this by saying ‘[Muhammad spoke in] a tongue that people were maliciously inclined to regard as foreign, but this [Qur’an] is in an Arabic tongue . . . ‘As for the way in which the response was determined, know that it becomes apparent if we say that ‘the Qur’an is miraculous only because of the eloquence derived from its wording’; it is as if what is being said in this context is, ‘Well, suppose that Muhammad learned the meanings from that foreigner who has been mentioned in the Qur’an’; nonetheless, the Qur’an is only a miracle in its eloquent wording.47 This is perhaps the basis on which the Qur’an challenges the Arabs over their false surahs [that is, the chapters imitating the Qur’an that were produced by disbelieving Arabs]. Al-Manar says the following in this context:

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It is as if the Qur’an is saying, ‘I leave you with what is in the narrative surahs in the way of reports on the unseen, and challenge you and all others from whom you might get help, to produce ten chapters like the chapters in the Qur’an with respect to storytelling, all the while allowing you to fabricate the stories with respect to their topic.’48 The challenge that the Qur’an represents, therefore, as we can see, rests only on the power of its impact on people and the mesmerising nature of its elocution. There is therefore no need to consider the reports of events within the storytelling as one part of the Qur’an’s miracles. That these reports greatly helped in promoting belief in the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad and the veracity of his mission is something we cannot deny. Indeed, we must affirm and emphasise it. But we affirm this on the basis that this promotion of Muhammad’s prophethood rests on that Jewish religious outlook to which the group used to adhere and which does not necessitate, definitively, that the events of the stories are actual history. As we shall see in a moment, it was enough for there to be stories from among them that both Jews and Arabs recognised in common. These long pauses for the consideration of such matters, and continuous thinking about them, made the traditional Islamic intellect finally decide – and decide forcefully – that history was not one of the Qur’an’s intents and, moreover, holding fast to this idea is an enormous danger to the person of the Prophet Muhammad and, furthermore, to the Qur’an. Indeed, holding fast to it is enough to drive people to disbelief – just as previously people came to disbelieve the Torah.

CHAPTER 10 MAHMOUD MOHAMED TAHA: 1909—85

The Sudanese Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was born in Rufa’ah, a small town on the east bank of the Blue Nile in central Sudan.1 He graduated from the engineering school of Gordon Memorial College, now the University of Khartoum, in 1936. After working briefly for the Sudan Railways, he started his own engineering business. As a political activist Taha rejected the existing political movements because of their links to the British or the Egyptians or the traditional sectarian leadership.2 In 1945 he joined with fellow intellectuals to establish the Republican Party, which sought to promote modernist interpretations of Islam and a republic fully independent from the Egyptian monarchy.3 Taha was arrested twice during 1946. During his imprisonments and the three years that followed, he pursued an austere Sufi 4 regimen that led to the development of his theory of Islamic renewal. This theory was adopted by members of his party and given classic expression in The Second Message of Islam (al-Risalah al-thaniyyah min al-Islam), published in 1967. According to Taha, Islam, the final and universal religion, was first offered in radically tolerant and egalitarian form in Mecca, without distinctions based on race, sex, or social origin. That message was rejected, and the Prophet and his followers were persecuted and forced to migrate from Mecca to Madinah, where God changed some aspects of the message in response to the necessities of the time. The changes reflected a need to adapt to the level of the audience being addressed. The Islamic Shari‘ah5 as known by Muslims today was therefore largely based on the Qur’anic texts and hadith6 of the Madinan phase. This Madinan revelation, a ‘subsidiary revelation’, is no longer relevant, and cannot meet the needs of present day Muslims. Society has developed to such a great extent that a whole new era of Islamic jurisprudence can begin. This second message of Islam, in reality the first message, will provide for complete liberty and equality. Women and non-Muslims, in particular, will be freed from the inequalities of the Madinan period (dhimmi status and polygamy will be abolished).7 Fear of God (taqwa) will lead the master of Sufi

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understanding (al-‘arif) to knowledge (‘ilm) of the true meaning of the second message within the Qur’an.8 By the late 1970s Taha had created a devoted following that sought to abide by his teachings. One of his party’s most striking features was the prominent place it gave to women, the ‘Republican sisters’, who played increasingly visible roles in internal and external activities. Although the Republicans were hostile to the Sufi brotherhoods, they had created their own brotherhood with distinctive regulations and social mores.9 The party garnered fierce hostility from the religious establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood. Opponents organised a trial for apostasy in absentia against Taha in 1968. He was sentenced to death, his property was to be confiscated, and his wife was to be divorced from him inasmuch as he was found to be an apostate. Although the prevailing laws and the situation more generally during that period did not allow for the implementation of such measures,10 the opportunity nevertheless arose in September, 1983, when President Ja‘afar Numeiry, who had been looked upon by the Republicans as a buttress against Islamism and communism (the Republicans were socialists), began to implement Shari‘ah law. Republicans mounted a national protest, and the Minister of Criminal Affairs ultimately moved to press charges. Taha and four of his followers were arrested on 5 January 1985. They were tried and found guilty of sedition, efforts to undermine the constitution, inciting unlawful opposition to the government, disturbing public tranquillity, and membership in an illegal organisation. The case was referred to a special Court of Appeal which, in contrast to the lower court, referred to a charge of apostasy which had not played a part in the sentence under review. The judge of the lower court had ruled that the sentences could be repealed if the accused recanted their views. Although the Court of Appeal denied this right to Taha, who was judged to be incorrigible in his apostasy, it was granted to his four associates. Taha was executed on 18 January 1985. His colleagues recanted and were freed on 19 January.11 Taha’s execution did not pass unnoticed. He had given voice to widespread Sudanese discontent with Numeiry’s application of the Shari‘ah. The Numeiry government collapsed in April of 1985, succumbing to a popular uprising in which professional syndicates played an important role. The United States had begun to withdraw support after Taha’s death and many governments condemned the execution. Taha’s followers published reports from around the world about their martyr. The Arab press was largely sympathetic, and the Arab Organisation for Human Rights adopted the anniversary of Taha’s death as Arab Human Rights Day. In November of 1986, in response to a constitutional suit put forth by Taha’s daughter, the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.12 Numeiry’s political interests had played a central role in Taha’s execution, pressuring Numeiry’s opponent, Sadiq al-Mahdi, the descendant of the nineteenthcentury Mahdi, to remain quiet, and sending a signal to Islamists worldwide that the President was one of them.13 Although Taha ‘destroyed Numeiry from beyond the grave’,14 the Muslim Brotherhood nevertheless ‘won in the end’.15 In 1989 the

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Brotherhood’s allies in the military took power to establish what was to become the longest-lived modern Sudanese government.16 The Republican movement did not revive after Taha’s death. His ideas did not become widely known outside of the Sudan, inasmuch as his career had been limited to that country and his publications were not distributed in other Arab or Muslim countries (in part because of censorship and in part because of limited distribution channels).17 His ideas have nevertheless not disappeared, surviving, variously, among intellectuals and activists, and, often, perhaps predictably, with a contemporary postgrand narrative, post-revolutionary twist. Taha’s ‘inclusive and tolerant manner had made space for people who were less than completely committed to his ideas’, Edward Thomas, a recent biographer, writes. Thomas speaks of ‘civil and gender rights activists’ who share, we are to assume, Thomas’s own assumptions as to the limited appeal and weaknesses of Taha’s ‘too total’ critique, and of his acceptance of ‘the value of the state as a midwife for his Utopia’.18 A selection from The Second Message of Islam, Syracuse, NY, 1987, pp. 146– 64, translated by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im [Brackets supplied by the editor of this anthology are indicated with the abbreviation ‘ed’; otherwise they are the brackets of the translator.]

The Second Message of Islam The Second Message is Islam. The Prophet himself imparted this Second Message without elaboration or detail, except for such overlaps between the First Message and the Second Message as ‘ibadat and hudod [worship practices and the specified penalties]. God says: ‘Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My grace upon you, and sanctified Islam as your religion.’ (5:3) That day was the day of ‘arafah on hajat al-wada’ (the farewell pilgrimage) of the eighth year of hijrah, which was a Friday.19 This verse is the last verse of the Qur’an to be revealed, and is the ultimate word of the Divine Message. God has accepted Islam for mankind so that we may accept it, because anything that is not initiated by Him cannot be undertaken by us. God says: ‘Then He forgave them in order that they may repent.’ (9:118)20 Many people considered the phrase ‘today I have perfected your religion for you’ as implying that Islam itself has been fully achieved by mankind on earth on that day. The verse: ‘And we have revealed to you the Reminder [the Qur’an] so that you may explain to mankind that which has been sent down to them’ (16:44) was also taken to mean that the Qur’an has already been finally and conclusively explained. Nothing, however, is further from the truth than this view. ‘Explanation’ of the Qur’an has been only in terms of [expedient]

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legislation, the Shari‘ah, and interpretation to the extent appropriate for the time of such explanation and in accordance with the capacity of the audience and the abilities of the people. The Qur’an can never be finally and conclusively explained. Islam, too, can never be concluded. Progress in it is eternal: ‘Surely, the [true] religion with God is Islam.’ (3:19) ‘With God’ [is eternal] beyond time and space. Progress into Islam by means of the Qur’an is progress towards God in infinitude (al-itlaq). As such it has not been, and can never be, fully and conclusively explained. It is its revelation into al-mushaf [Arabic text] as a Book that has been concluded, but its explanation has not. The Qur’anic phrase ‘that which has been sent down to them’ does not refer to the whole of the Qur’an but only to the part subject to explanation, namely to the First Message, and sections where the First and Second overlap. The Qur’an has ‘dual meanings’: a distant meaning (batin – secret, hidden, esoteric) which is ‘with the Lord’, and a nearer meaning (zahir – outward, external, exoteric) which ‘ has come down to the slave [of God]’. Initial Islam is not as significant in the eyes of God as the Islam that has a further meaning and that lies with God in infinity. There is a methodology of ascent to God through many levels. If we ascend through these levels we shall discover the paradise that we have lost and we will enter into infinity (itlaq). The Qur’an was rendered into a form of expression in Arabic so that Arabs could understand it (43:3), but the Qur’an itself is not Arabic, in the sense that its meaning can be exhaustively understood simply on the basis of understanding the Arabic language. Being so supreme, Islam has never been achieved by any nation up to the present day. The nation of muslimin [ed: Muslims] has not yet come. It is expected to come, however, in the future of humanity. Its day of emergence shall be the day of the ultimate pilgrimage, the day when the Divine statement, ‘Today I have perfected your religion for you, completed My grace upon you, and sanctioned Islam as your religion’ (5:3) is realised in practice. Mohamed, in his time, was the pioneer of the muslimin to come. It was as if he came to his nation, the nation of the mu’minin [ed: believers] from the future. He was not one of them, as he was the only Muslim amongst them. ‘Say: My prayer and my worship and my life and my death are [all] for God the Lord of all creation. He has no partner. And so am I commanded, and I am the first of those who submit [al-muslimin ].’ (6:163) Abu Bakr, the second best man, was the most superior of all the believers (al-mu’minin), yet there was a huge gap between him and the Prophet. It was to future al-muslimin that the Prophet referred when he said: ‘How I long for my brothers who have not come yet.’ And Abu Bakr said: ‘Are we not your brothers, O Messenger of God?’ He replied:

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‘No, you are my Companions!’ Then he said again: ‘How I long for my brothers who have not come yet!’ Then Abu Bakr said: ‘Are we not your brothers, O Messenger of God?’ He said: ‘No, you are my Companions!’ Then he said for the third time: ‘How I long for my brothers who have not come yet!’ They asked: ‘Who are your brothers, O Messenger of God?’ He said: ‘A people who come at the end of time, of whom the active one shall have seventy times as much reward as you have.’ They asked: ‘Seventy times as much as we have or they have?’ He replied: ‘As you have.’ They asked: ‘Why?’ He replied: ‘Because you find assistance in doing good, and they find no assistance.’

The Muslims (al-Muslimin) The Muslims, as a nation, have not yet come, but the Prophet prophesied their coming, towards the end of time, when circumstances are suitable, and God’s promise is fulfilled: ‘And he who seeks a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him and in the Hereafter he shall be among the losers.’ (3:85) On that day all people shall embrace religion and find no alternative, because religion provides the only answers. We believe that the earth is preparing for the emergence of the Islamic Shari‘ah of the true submitters (al-muslimin), which shall establish the new civilisation. In view of the bankruptcy of contemporary social philosophies, there is no alternative. As stated at the outset of this book, the whole of humanity today is in an ideological wilderness, with Western civilisation lost and bankrupt,21 and with issues of democracy, socialism, and individual freedom persistently demanding answers. Yet there is no answer except through the cross-fertilisation of Western civilisation, or to be more precise, Western material progress, with a new spirit, namely the spirit of Islam. Islam appears to be the only ideology capable of resolving the existing conflict between the individual and the community and between the individual and the universe, as we have already demonstrated. We should not confuse the name Muslims with the traditional name given to the present nation. We have already stated that the present nation derives its name from the initial Islam. Actually, present Muslim society is the nation of the al-mu’minin [believers]. No nation up to now has deserved the name al-muslimin. Any mention of Islam with respect to previous nations refers merely to initial Islam, except for the pioneers of humanity who achieved ultimate Islam, or rather a degree of the ultimate Islam, as the ultimate Islam can never be exhaustively achieved. Such pioneers are, therefore, the pioneers of the nation of al-muslimin which has not come yet. God says in this connection:

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And [remember the time] when Abraham and Ishmael raised the foundations of the House [praying]: ‘Our Lord, accept [this] from us for Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. Our Lord, make both of us submissive to Thee and make of our offspring a people submissive to Thee. And show us our ways of worship and turn to us with mercy; for Thou art Oft-Returning [with compassion, and art] Merciful. And, Our Lord, raise up among them a Messenger from among themselves, who may recite to them Thy Signs and teach them the Book and Wisdom and may purify them; surely, Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.’ And who will turn away from the religion of Abraham but he who makes a fool of himself. Him did We choose in this world, and in the next he will surely be among the righteous. When His Lord said to him, ‘Submit,’ he said, ‘I [hereby] submit to the Lord of the worlds.’ The same did Abraham enjoin upon his sons, – and Jacob [also – saying] ‘O my sons, truly God has chosen this religion for you; so let not death overtake you except when you are in a state of complete submission.’ Were you present when death came to Jacob, when he said to his sons, ‘What will you worship after me?’ They answered, ‘We will worship thy God, the God of thy fathers, Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, the One God; and to Him we submit ourselves.’ (2:127– 33) The phrase ‘Our Lord, make both of us submissive to Thee’ refers to ultimate Islam, and they [Abraham and Ishmael] were in fact muslimin [in this sense of ultimate Islam]. But the phrase ‘and make of our offspring a people submissive to Thee’ indicates, in the short run, a Muslim nation in the sense of initial Islam, which shall evolve and develop into the ultimate Islam. Their prayers have been answered. Abraham advised his sons that there is no god except God, la ilah ila allah, and so did Jacob: ‘O my sons, truly God has chosen this religion for you; so let not death overtake you except when you are in a state of complete submission’ – that is to say, remain holding fast to the creed and maintain that la ilah ila allah until your death. Their answer, ‘we will worship thy God, the God of thy fathers Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, the One God; and to Him we submit ourselves’, refers to the initial Islam. God also said: ‘As I inspired the disciples [of Christ] to believe in Me, and in My Messengers, they said: We do believe, and you shall bear witness that we have submitted (muslimin).’ A knowledgeable person can hear the Lord replying: ‘Do not say we have surrendered, but say we believe.’ They had not surrendered in the sense of the ultimate Islam. They merely surrendered in the sense of the initial Islam. The disciples were Muslims in the sense of initial Islam, since even the first stage of ultimate Islam requires moving out of the law for the

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community as a whole, and entering upon Shari‘a fardiyah, the law for the individual. Individuality is achieved only after perfect compliance with the law for the community, until one is able to properly exercise his absolute individual freedom. The ultimate Islam is [at] the level of individualities. Individuality cannot be achieved by anyone who is divided within himself. When the conscious mind is no longer in conflict with the subconscious, unity of being is attained, and this is characterised by wholesomeness of the heart, clarity of thought, and beauty of body, therefore realising a full and comprehensive intellectual and emotional life. ‘The next life is the ultimate life if they only know.’ (29:64) Ultimate life, free from defects, disease and death, indeed the opposite of death. To restore unity to one’s being is for an individual to think as he wishes, speak what he thinks, and act according to his speech. This is the objective of Islam: ‘O believers, why do you say what you do not do? It is most hateful to God that you say what you do not do.’ (61:2– 3)

The Good Society This superior state can only be reached through a two-fold method: first, the good society, and secondly, the scientific educational method to be adopted by the individual in order to liberate himself from inherited fear. The good society is one that is based on three equalities: economic equality, today known as socialism, or the sharing of wealth; political equality or democracy, or sharing in political decisions which affect daily life; and social equality which, to some extent, results from socialism and democracy, and is characterised by a lack of social classes and discrimination based on faith, race, or sex. In the good society, people are judged according to their intellectual and moral character, as reflected in their public and private lives and demonstrated in the spirit of public service at all times and through every means. Social equality aims at removing social classes and differences between urban and rural life by providing equal opportunities for cultural refinement. The criterion of social equality is that marriage [the most fundamental and intimate relation] is possible between any man and any woman. This is the accurate test of social equality. A good society also enjoys tolerant public opinion, permitting different life-styles and manners, as long as these are beneficial to society. Public opinion has its own judgements over and above those of the law and may be more effective than legislation itself in deterring deviants and offenders. Public opinion may, of course, condemn any type of conduct it disapproves, but it must always do so only by nonviolent means, since

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violence usually results in one of two evil responses: counter-violence or hypocrisy. Sometimes public opinion can be enacted as legislation if this is consistent with the constitution as described above [that is, legislation that reconciles the individual need for absolute individual freedom and society’s need for complete social justice].

CHAPTER 11 `

SADIQ JALAL AL- AZM:1934—2016

Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm was the son of a notable Damascene Ottoman family that continued to play a significant role in Syrian politics after independence. Al-‘Azm was educated at the Roman Catholic Gerard Institute in Sidon, Lebanon, the American University of Beirut, and Yale University, from which he obtained his MA (1959) and Ph.D. (1961) in European philosophy. Although al-‘Azm pursued an academic career from the mid-1960s on, as the author of specialised academic works on Kant and Marx, and as a professor at the American University of Beirut, Beirut College for Women, the University of Jordan, and Damascus University (1977-2009), the crushing Arab defeat of 1967 transformed him into one of the modern Arab world’s most well-known public intellectuals. This transformation was initiated by the appearance of two works – SelfCriticism after the Defeat (al-Naqd al-dhati ba‘ad al-hazimah) in 1968, and Critique of Religious Thought (Naqd al-fikr al-dini) in 1969. Both were published in Beirut, the capital of a new Arab left, whose hopes had hitherto been largely centred on the socialist and anti-imperialist movements under the leadership of the Egyptian Gamal Abdel Nasser.1 ‘When the leader fell,’ al-‘Azm recalled in 1997, ‘everything crashed with him, leaving nothing behind but emptiness, loss, and confusion.’2 The two works offered explanations for the defeat. Self-Criticism after the Defeat berated the Arabs for their lack of self-examination, and for blaming their defeat on external factors (such as Israeli trickery, which they should have expected). Such faulty explanations were the product of a prevailing Arab personality, the fahlawi, a con man type who is indifferent to failure but sensitive to shame and who seeks success with the least possible effort. The leadership of the Arab liberation movements had not transformed the patriarchal societies in which this weak personality prevailed.3 This book was widely debated, praised by some for its courageous honesty, and condemned by others as reductionist and/or as positing an abstract personality with no clear link to a particular class.4 Although it was prohibited and confiscated, it enjoyed multiple printings, and paved the way for Critique of Religious Thought, a kind of companion which was published a year later.

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This second work has long been recognised as one of the most controversial and influential books about religion in Arab societies. Al-‘Azm argued that religious belief is totally incompatible with scientific thought. Religion supports the existing order and prevents a broader movement of liberation.5 The pan-Arab national liberation movement had been successful in implementing some necessary changes in socio-economic ‘substructures’ and in challenging imperialism (the socialisation of landed estates, the nationalisation of the Suez Canal), but it had been ‘very guarded in its approach to Islamic thought, avoiding direct confrontation with it and ignoring the need to renew and rebuild it with openness and clarity’.6 The book stimulated one of the best-known Arab intellectual uproars of the twentieth century, comparable to the controversy that broke out in respect to Taha Husayn’s On Pre-Islamic Poetry of 1926.7 The Lebanese Sunni8 clerical establishment led the campaign against it, and the Attorney General brought al-‘Azm and his publisher to court for trial on charges of ‘inciting confessional strife’ in the country.9 One part of the Christian clerical establishment disapproved on the basis that criticism of religion is dangerous, and one part was supportive on the basis that Islamic thought was stagnant and needed disruption. Although the government was primarily interested in placating the Sunni establishment, Kamal Jumblatt, the leader of the Druze10 community and Minister of the Interior, a latitudinarian mystic and socialist, acted to protect al-‘Azm from harm and deportation after a brief period of imprisonment, and Sa’ab Salam, the venerable Sunni political leader, refused to condemn the book and advised the opposition to simply write refutations.11 An informal bloc of support consisted of secular Arab nationalists, left-wing progressive intellectuals and parties, professional associations, secularists of all types, militant Palestinians, and much of the local press.12 Religious leaders and ulama13 engaged in serious and rational discussion even when they were hostile.14 There was no incitement to disturbances and al-‘Azm never felt threatened. He was ultimately acquitted (prominent intellectuals testified on his behalf), and the book has remained on the market ever since. While it has been formally banned in every Arab country except Lebanon, it has been available throughout the Arab world, and was finally translated into English in 2014. Al-‘Azm was, to be sure, widely condemned during the controversy, and he lost his position at the American University of Beirut soon after his acquittal, the result, to a significant degree, of the enmity of Professor Charles Malik, chairman of the philosophy department and a prominent Christian intellectual and diplomat.15 During the following decades, al-‘Azm continued to be associated with radicalism, as a critic of religion, and, for a considerable time, as a critical and yet supportive activist/intellectual within the leftist-wing of the Palestinian liberation movement.16 His best-known later publications about religion were to be ‘Salman Rushdie and the Truth of Literature’ (‘Salman Rushdi wa haqiqah al-adab’), published in London and Beirut in 1992, and the subsequent The Mentality of the Taboo and Beyond

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the Mentality of the Taboo (Dhiniyyah al-tahrim and Ma ba‘ad dhiniyyah al-tahrim). These books (published in London, Beirut, and Damascus) consisted of al‘Azm’s original essay on Rushdie and other writings, including exchanges with critics. Although they were all officially banned in Syria, they were widely available there and elsewhere and they were widely discussed. Al-‘Azm regarded The Satanic Verses as a continuation of the Arab/Islamic radical critique of religion at the level of creative writing. Rushdie, a ‘Muslim Voltaire’ or ‘James Joyce’, investigates the conflicts that develop as modern knowledge intrudes upon ancient systems of belief and practice. New Muslim theoreticians have rejected old apologetics and have embraced proper historical or philological studies of the sacred text in the manner of classical philology or even Christian demythologisers.17 Al-‘Azm was proud that The Mentality of the Taboo was met with debate and no violence, and that Arabs made up the majority of Muslims who defended Rushdie.18 Al-‘Azm has been, then, an iconic figure, a symbol of Arab radical religious critique and of the causes celebres to which it can give rise. He is, also, paradigmatic of many Arab intellectuals who have made a major shift to the political right.19 For many Arab Marxists, even if they remain loyal to Marxist analytical frameworks, and to their hope of a distant socialist future, the idea of eliminating the capitalist mode of production has given way to the idea of establishing a ‘civil society’ defined (as they might have once said) in liberal, ‘bourgeois’ terms.20 Al-‘Azm adopted this path, and found, in 2011, that his Marxism was compatible with support for the armed revolt in Syria. After the end of the Cold War, he told an interviewer in 2014, the Syrian left had divided into two blocs. The largest adopted ‘the Civil Society programme’, emphasising human rights, the separation of powers, a secular state, an independent judiciary, electoral democracy, and decentralisation, all of which did not exist under the Ba‘athist government.21 Al-‘Azm believed that this bloc largely sympathised with the Syrian revolt. There was, however, a smaller (as he saw it) leftist bloc that acted as if nothing had happened since the Cold War. It was blindly hostile to the West, to global capitalism (of which Russia and China were now a part), and to imperialism. It was particularly opposed to the Syrian revolution and supportive of the ‘tyrannical military/security/familial regime’ which, it believed, was ‘peace-loving and stable’, and the victim of a worldwide plot.22 Al-‘Azm feared the Islamists, but he was sure that ‘the Syrian bourgeoisie’ would come to dominate reconstruction after the revolution’s success, and that the ‘moderate and forgiving religiosity of the Syrian people will prevail once again, as it did in the modern Syria that I know’.23 A number of critics have regarded this embrace of civil society, the down-playing and subordination of Marx, the abandonment of the old denunciations of American and Israeli imperialism, and the support of the Syrian rebellion, as linked to the accolades, honours, grants, and opportunities that al-‘Azm was able to garner in the

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West in recent decades.24 Had he become a ‘comprador intellectual’, a ‘native informant’, who was saying what many Westerners might want to hear?25 One of the crucial differences in his later years lay in the fact that he tended to give voice to the old sweeping criticisms of alleged Arab faults and deficiencies without mentioning or giving adequate attention to the foreign depredations to which they might be linked. His remarks, published in a Festschrift in his honour entitled Orientalism and Conspiracy in 2011, and based on a conference in his honour of the same name held at the University of Hamburg, are representative. He writes that Iranians and Arabs are the worst offenders when it comes to conspiracy theories, particularly in respect to history, politics, and international affairs. Conspiracies have certainly existed, and ‘when the strong consult among themselves, take stock of priorities and define their goals and policies, it all looks like a dark conspiracy in the eyes of the weak.’ There is here, however, no consideration of the possibility that the sheer number of covert and overt imperial aggressions, often brutal and devastating, and so much more encompassing and persistant in the Middle East than in other parts of the world, might account for conspiricist penchants. He stresses, rather, a ‘higher order animism’, that is, that conspiracy theories may be a humanised and secularised version of religious/theological ways of making sense of history and of explaining the world. He refers to the attribute of God’s cunning (makr) in the Qur’an, and of the argument from design in philosophical theology. The ‘drug’ is nevertheless not limited to the religious. It is ‘deeply ingrained’ in part of the Arab social, intellectual, cultural, and political conscious and unconscious.26 If there is a mix of crude and subtle air-brushing at work in such remarks, the reference to the ‘strong consulting among themselves’ serving as the wink that is as good as a nod, the accolades bestowed by the organisers of the Festschrift are perhaps more telling in their exaggerated and inaccurate praise, and in the capacity to let the cat out of the bag: Self-Criticism was the ‘mother of Arab self-criticism’.27 Al-‘Azm is the writer who made ‘self-criticism of an Arab in Arabic famous’.28 Al-‘Azm may have been the one who introduced the term self-criticism into Arabic.29 And then: ‘Sadiq produced a constant stream of criticism directed against the different US administrations [in conjunction with self-criticism] – but this is in this context less interesting.’30 As can be seen from the following selection from Critique, reference to the ‘parallel criticism directed against the different US administrations’, is hardly reflective of what al-‘Azm, in 1969, termed ‘the new colonialism steered by the United States’, the reality common to all administrations as the lynchpins of world capital. One can be useful without consciously embracing the role of an agent. Al-‘Azm is likely to have spoken out of real conviction in his later years even if he was willing to downplay or avoid some unacceptable views out of tactical considerations on behalf of a greater good or because he thought there was no point in speaking about them (particularly to certain audiences).

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Differentiating between the candid and disingenuous is difficult. Al-‘Azm appears to have been more and more prone to speak of the Arabs’ ‘unconscious’, and with a readiness that should be avoided by others in trying to read his unconscious or consciousness. I suspect that more than a little consciousness was at work in his last years as a public intellectual speaking to many a Western audience. Recruitment can take various forms. A Cold War official American intelligence document (in 1950) argued that ‘the most effective kind of propaganda’ is the kind ‘where the subject moves in the direction you desire for reasons he believes to be his own’.31 A selection from Critique of Religious Thought, Berlin, Gerlach Press, 2014, pp. 17–75 translated by George Stergios and Mansour Ajami

Chapter 1 [A12] [These and subsequent numbers in square brackets indicate the pagination of the original Arabic book.] Scientific Culture and the Poverty of Religious Thought. ‘Cure me with that which was itself the disease’ Al-‘Azm says that he is writing for contemporary Arab individuals and a contemporary Arab society that are self-aware and that enjoy some degree of sensitivity. They find that the Islamic doctrines, myths, and tales that they have inherited are inconsistent with other convictions that they have acquired. He invokes the philosopher William James who tries, in ‘The Will to Believe’, to defend the right of the person who grew up within a modern scientific culture to religious belief. James does not think that past scholars and philosophers have been able to prove the existence of God, and that therefore man has a right to base his beliefs on emotions and feelings. Al-‘Azm asks what has happened that accounts for abandoning the philosophers and scholars of the past. He finds the answer in five developments: the European Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the publications of Darwin on evolution, and Marx on capital. The old religious position is on its way to total disintegration, vanishing with the remnants of feudal society and the development of modern forms of social and economic organisation and thought. Two problems loom large in this frantic atmosphere: the first is of a general cultural and intellectual nature and has to do with the conflict between science and religion (which, in our case, is primarily Islam). The second is more particular and concerns those whose culture has been influenced radically by the scientific culture that has permeated their society and environment, forcing them to confront, once again, a simple question: ‘Can I accept, in all honesty and sincerity, the religious doctrine of my forefathers

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without betraying the principle of intellectual integrity?’ This is the question latent in James’ article and his queries. There is a widespread opinion that claims that the conflict between science and religion is only apparent and that the conflict between scientific knowledge and religious beliefs is merely superficial. The proponents of this opinion also claim that the spirit of Islam as such cannot enter into conflict with science and that the conflicts cited are really between science and the outer husk that has thickened around its spirit and obscures its view. I want to elaborate a little in order to examine this view, criticise it, and explain the opposing point of view, that religion, as it has entered the heart of our lives and as it influences our psychological and intellectual formation, is entirely at odds with science and scientific knowledge, in spirit and in word. First: We need to keep in mind that in Europe science required more than two and a half centuries before it was able to triumph fully and decisively in its long war against the religious mentality that had dominated this continent and finally establish its place in its cultural heritage. Science is still fighting a similar battle in most developing countries, including the Arab world, a battle that continues out of sight and only manifests itself to all sporadically. Second: The Islamic religion includes opinions and doctrines on the development, structure, and nature of the universe, and on the origin, history, and life of man through the ages that are integral to it. I need not stress that these opinions and doctrines are clearly at odds with scientific knowledge on these topics. However, these conflicts over particular beliefs concerning particular subjects are less significant than the deeper conflict concerning the recommended method for gaining knowledge and conviction concerning these subjects, or the means of ascertaining the veracity or falsehood of these beliefs. Here, Islam and science diverge completely. For Islam (as for other religions), the correct methodology for arriving at knowledge and conviction is to return to specified texts considered sacred or revealed, or to go back to the writings of the wise men and legal scholars who studied and explained these texts. As for the justification of the process as a whole, it rests on faith and blind trust in the wisdom and infallibility of the sources of these texts. [A16] It goes without saying that the scientific path to knowledge and conviction concerning the development and nature of the universe and man and his history is entirely incompatible with the deferential methodology that prevails in religion. For the scientific method rests on observation and inference and its sole criteria for truth is the degree of internal logical coherence in conformity with reality. Third: Among the essential matters stressed by the Islamic religion is that all the basic facts that touch the core of man’s life and all the knowledge

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connected with his destiny in this life and the next were revealed at one specific and decisive moment in history (the revelation of the Qur’an and perhaps other books that preceded it). For this reason we find that the gaze of believers is always directed backwards to that time in which they believe that God revealed these truths and this knowledge through angels and messengers. As a result, the role of the believer, sage, philosopher, and scholar is not to discover new essential truths or gain important fresh knowledge. It is, rather, to work towards a deeper view and more comprehensive understanding of the revealed texts, tying together and interpreting their parts so as to reinterpret the interpretations in order to extract the varied meanings and bring the facts and knowledge hidden in them since eternity to the surface. This work is necessary and indispensible, based on the Qur’anic verse: ‘Nothing have we omitted from the Book.’32 Hence, we should not be surprised to find that the intellectual history of religion is always composed of interpretations and explanations, and explanations of explanations of explanations. The scientific spirit is far removed from this logic and religious view: science does not acknowledge the existence of texts that are not subject to objective criticism and rigorous study. The most conspicuous characteristic of scientific activity is the notion of discovery. It is what makes science a dynamic discipline that constantly goes beyond its previous achievements. When the dynamic spirit of science weakens and the logic of discovery fades, science and the scientific methodology will be ready to expire. As for religion, because of the nature of its firm, stable, and circumscribed beliefs it still lives among eternal verities and looks backward to seek inspiration in its infancy. Thus it has always provided the metaphysical and obscurantist justification for the social, economic, and political status quo, and it has always formed and continues to form the best bulwark against those who expend great efforts to make a revolutionary change.33 Religion was in Europe an ally of the feudal organisation of social relations and still plays this role in most of the backward countries, especially in the Arab world. In fact, Islam has become the official ideology for the reactionary, backward forces within the Arab world and outside of it [A17] (Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan) and is overtly and directly tied with the new colonialism steered by the United States. Religion is also the chief source of the justification of monarchical regimes since it has promulgated rulings stating that the right of the monarch to rule is derived from the heavens not the earth. It has also become the primary ally of the bourgeois capitalist economy and the chief defender of the belief in private property and its sanctity so that it and its institutions have become one of the strongest bulwarks of rightist and reactionary thought. Religion is predisposed to play this conservative role and has played it in every era with brilliant success by means of its utopian

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notion of another world in which dreams of happiness come true. All of this applies as much to Islam as to other religions. There is a similarity between religion and science in that both attempt to interpret events and determine causes. Religion is an imaginary substitute to science: the problem arises when religion claims for itself and its doctrines a kind of truth that is not possible for an imaginary substitute. The attempt to efface the contours of the conflict between religion and science is nothing more than a desperate attempt to defend religion, one that religion resorts to whenever it is forced to surrender one of its traditional standpoints or when it is forced to withdraw from an outpost it previously occupied. This process occurs in a familiar manner: it begins with a violent collision on some subject between the new scientific vision and the more widely accepted religious vision. After a conflict that might last for many years, the new scientific vision wins the battle, prevailing among the major thinkers and spreading through the intellectual classes, at which point science is about to pass to a better view. At that time, the supporters of the religious perspective claim that the conflict was unnecessary from the very start because the discourse was never between the essence and spirit of religion, on the one hand, and science, on the other, and that religion does not incur any harm in surrendering to science on issues that do not affect its spirit. It would be fair to state, however, that this line of thinking covers up a long series of important and decisive retreats that religion had to make when it was confronted with science. Despite this pretty language about the spirit of religion and its essence, religion has never retreated in the face of science before fighting a brutal battle, or under increasing pressure from modern scientific culture, or because of the dire necessity to adapt to the wave of secularism and progress that eventually force themselves on the life of society. Let us touch upon the nature of this disparity between the old religious vision and the scientific vision that supplanted it. We shall look at a specific example that clearly demonstrates the manner in which scientific research guides us towards convictions and rationales that are incompatible with the prevailing religious beliefs and rationales, and which will compel us to make a definitive and final choice. The reader is surely familiar with the traditional Islamic explanation of the nature, development, and fate of the universe: God created this universe during a specific period by ordering it to be, and it was. The reader will also recall how the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise marked the beginning of man’s history on earth. At the heart of religious doctrine is that God cares for his creatures, hears their prayers, sometimes answers their [A18] supplications, and from time to time interferes in the natural system in the

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shape of miracles. As for nature, it has maintained its central characteristics since God created it, that is, it still contains the same celestial bodies and animal and plant species since creation day. Scientific theory, however, neither acknowledges creation from nothing nor a nature unchanged since its beginnings. The contemporary British scientist and philosopher Bertrand Russell expressed this scientific view in a beautiful literary piece entitled ‘A Free Man’s Worship’34 in the following words: Russell recounts Mephistopheles’ history of creation to Dr Faustus: God turns to creating creatures he could torture for amusement. He creates hot nebula which solidify into planets in which the germ of life appears. As the play continues, man appears. Possessing the power of thought, man sees that he lives in a mad world with the inevitability of death. He decides that there must be a hidden purpose and that God intended harmony to emerge from chaos. Man invents sin and asks God’s forgiveness. The present remains bad and man makes it worse, perfecting himself in renunciation and worship. God smiles and sends another sun to crash into man’s sun and start everything anew. This extract from Russell summarises the natural scientific view on the following issues: the development of the universe and its evolution; the development of life and its evolution; the origin of man and his development and evolution; and the development and evolution of religions, forms of worship, and rituals. Finally, he stresses that evanescence and nothingness are the inevitable end of all things, where no hope remains for any living thing: from the nebula it has come and to nebula it shall return. On another occasion, when Russell was asked if there was a life for humans after death, his answer was negative and he explained it as follows: Upon examining this question from a scientific point of view and not through the mist of emotions, we find it difficult to discover a rational justification for the continuation of life after death. It seems to me that the widespread belief that we live after dying has no scientific support or basis. I do not think that such a belief would have developed and spread but for the emotional repercussions that the fear of death causes within us. There is no doubt that our belief that we shall meet in the hereafter those whom we love is our greatest consolation at their death. However, I do not find any justification for our assumption that the universe is concerned with our hopes and wishes. We, therefore, have no right to ask the universe to accommodate itself to our emotions and hopes, and I do not consider it right and wise to embrace opinions that are not based on clear scientific evidence. Let us attempt a comparison between this cold, harsh, and bare scientific theory and the warm, comforting, and beautiful Islamic religious story with which we are familiar. We find that transcendental powers, angels, prayers, miracles, and spirits comprise an integral part of the religious explanation of

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the development and nature of the universe. The same applies to the history of man and his destiny. As for the scientific view, it was best expressed by the French philosopher and mathematician Pierre-Simon La Place when he offered his book The System of the World to Napoleon. The Emperor asked him: ‘What place does God occupy in your system?’ La Place replied: ‘God is a hypothesis that I do not need in my system.’ Is it then surprising to hear Nietzsche in the past century announcing the death of God? Can we deny that the god that died in Europe is at the point of death everywhere under the influence of scientific knowledge, industrial progress, rational methodologies for pursuing knowledge, and revolutionary trends in society and the economy? Of course, when we agree with Nietzsche that God has died or is dying, we do not mean that religious doctrines have faded from the consciousness of people but rather that the scientific understanding of the universe, society, and man is free from the mention of God, just as La Place stated. Stating that God is dying in backward societies symbolises the state of revolution, ferment, and dislocation that these societies are suffering in their attempt to reach a kind of provisional balance between the new scientific ideas (and their practical and industrial applications) and their remote religious heritage without renouncing entirely and all at once the transcendental values of their past. Hence, we always hear these loud echoes: Even if we were to [A20] surrender entirely to the scientific perspective, the problem of the original source of the universe would still remain. Assuming with Russell that the universe began from the nebula does not inform us about the source of that nebula: It does not explain the source of the original matter from which everything developed. Eventually, science must meet religion. However, posing this question in such a way reveals to us the extent to which our religious upbringing and obscurantist heritage controls our thinking. Let us assume that we concede that God is the source of the original matter. Is the problem solved? Does this assumption answer our question about the source of the original nebula? No, of course. You ask after the cause of the original nebula and reply that it is God, and I ask you, in turn, what is the cause of the existence of God? You will answer that God is uncaused. Here I will reply why don’t we assume that the original matter is uncaused and close the subject without recourse to the transcendental world and spiritual creatures whose own existence is unproved? The ancient philosophers, including the Muslim ones, always leaned towards this opinion when they spoke about the eternity of the world. However, they were compelled to be evasive and agreeable due to the religious fanaticism against the philosophical view of this subject. In fact, we need to confess in all modesty our ignorance about all issues pertaining to the

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problem of the original source of the universe. When you tell me that God is the cause of the original matter from which the universe is composed and I ask you, in turn, what is the cause of God, the fullest answer you can provide is ‘I only know that God is uncaused.’ When you ask me about the cause of the original matter, the fullest answer I can provide is ‘I only know that it is uncaused.’ In the end, each one of us acknowledges his ignorance regarding the original source of things. However, you needed a step more than I did, and you introduced transcendental elements unnecessary for solving this problem. In summary, whether we state that the original matter is eternal and uncaused or that God is eternal and uncaused, we will have acknowledged that we do not and will not know how to solve the problem of the original source of things. It is better, then, to confess our ignorance frankly and directly instead of in roundabout ways using pompous words and phrases. There is no disgrace in acknowledging our ignorance since the frank acknowledgement of what we do not know is one of the most important elements of scientific thinking. You know that a scientist is obliged to suspend judgement when he lacks sufficient evidence, testimony, or proof to corroborate or disprove a matter. This is the minimal necessary condition of intellectual integrity in the rigorous search for knowledge and truth. Having dealt with the question of the conflict between religion and science, al-‘Azm wonders how someone who has been radically affected by scientific culture regards religion and traditional religious doctrines and institutions. Students he has known have been affected by the conflict between science and religion. The conflict nevertheless largely remains a question of murky and repressed feeling as far as they are concerned. Al-‘Azm discusses three solutions before turning to the fourth and last offered by William James. The first solution tries to reconcile inherited religious doctrines with scientific views and knowledge. It fails, broadly, inasmuch as religious doctrines form a cohesive system and if one accepts part of the system one must accept the rest. If belief in Adam and Eve is, for example, renounced for the sake of a scientific version of human origin, why not renounce heaven and hell? The first solution can be divided into several subcategories: rhetorical reconciliation, rationalising reconciliation, arbitrary reconciliation, and Lebanese reconciliation. Rhetorical reconciliation simply declares that the incompatibility between science and Islamic doctrines and creeds is only apparent. Those promoting this view always remain at the level of generalities and the bombastic, so that they are not tripped up. Rationalising reconciliation seeks to rationalise the various social and political conditions and political cultures of the Arab states (reactionary or revolutionary) as

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being in total harmony with Islamic teachings and law. Leagues of thinkers and Islamic clerics supervise the defence of the status quo through this process. Arbitrary reconciliation consists in deriving all modern sciences from the Holy Qur’an by cramming every bit of modern science into its verses. Lebanese reconciliation seeks Muslim/Christian reconciliation through dialogues that disregard all well-defined, essential points of difference. The second solution completely rejects scientific theory and its associated ideas. It retreats within the walls of a religion. It can lead to intellectual and mental suicide or, less drastically, the rupture of individuals from the surrounding world. The third solution argues that religious knowledge and logic always contradict one another. This position is produced by mysticism or a ‘leap of faith’. Human nature is not able to grasp the nature of God and His ways. Such a view sabotages the application of scientific values and methodology in seeking to solve human problems. The fourth and last solution is provided by William James in the article cited under the title ‘The Will to Believe’. James has said that we cannot accept or reject any particular opinion unless sufficient evidence and testing is provided for its truth or falsehood. If these conditions are not met we must suspend judgement. Moreover, our commitment to a particular opinion should be proportional to the weight of the argument and the weight of the evidence on its behalf. James nevertheless maintains that there are exceptional cases and that the belief or faith in the existence of God is one of them. A person has the right to believe in the existence of God if that conforms with his emotional nature, even if there is no intellectual corroboration or scientific evidence for His existence or non-existence. Al-‘Azm asks why the matter of religion is an exception to the ethical principle that James has established to guide the formation of beliefs and contents. If we open the door to exceptions, we can only close it arbitrarily. James’s permission to allow passion, emotions, and fancies to influence our judgements is dangerous. One must suppress personal and emotional inclinations when confronting many possible solutions to a problem. Cold facts and abstract logic should prevail. The compatibility of an idea with our emotional nature cannot be an acceptable reason to believe in it, that is, if we want considered opinions not merely inherited ones. James defends himself in this way: 1) We cannot suspend judgement on the issue of belief in God’s existence forever because while we would avoid falling into error if he does not exist we would also miss out on great benefits if he does exist. James, in fact, misunderstands the problem, for the question is not about the worldly or eternal benefits that I could reap by believing in God and the similar losses that I might suffer from my lack of belief if he does exist. [A53] The problem has no connection to the calculation of gains and losses or the logic of taking gambles and making bets, it is simply as follows: Is the issue of the existence

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of God a matter of truth or falsity, or is its truth as conceivable as its falsity and we do not have any evidence or proofs that would favour one of these options over the other? Our personal opinion about the existence of God should conform entirely with our answer to this question, not with the calculation of gains and losses. 2) James says in defence of himself that the man who suspends judgement in the matter of the existence of God yields to his fear of falling into error and delusion while it is better that he believes in His existence in accordance with his hope that his belief is true. However, James is in error, for our fear of falling into error is much more important than our hope of detecting a truth or our wish that our belief be true. For the number of errors that we might fall into is unlimited, while the truth is one. Since the probabilities of falling into error are far greater than the probability of detecting the truth or the probability of finding oneself with the right belief, one is obliged to place strict and exacting rules on the search for knowledge, hoping to reduce the possibilities of error to the absolute minimum. Despite that, the number of such possibilities is frightening. Contrary to James, then, it is much wiser for us to fear falling into error than to rush to submit to the hope of detecting true belief, especially before we have reduced the possibilities of error to the absolute minimum by means of scientific thinking and its familiar methodology. Even if the belief that we accepted on the basis of our emotions and inclinations is true by pure coincidence, it will lack value because attaining a true belief in this way is like the advantage of theft over honest toil. In other words, we have attained this true belief unlawfully and we cannot build general principles for attaining considered opinions on accidental foundations. In the course of our criticism of James’s views, we are obliged to mention that the thinker who does not believe in the existence of God or suspends judgement about this topic entirely might not do so as a consequence of his emotional nature, since his emotional nature might have inclined him to believe rather than to refuse to believe. He does this because the intellectual convictions that he has formed on clear scientific grounds do not allow him to believe in the existence of God without falling into self-contradiction and without sacrificing the coherence of his logic and thinking. This does not imply that I want to abolish mankind’s religious feelings from existence, but in my view it is necessary to distinguish between religion and religious feelings. Those feelings are crushed under the burden of petrified religious doctrines and under the weight of frozen rites and rituals. We need to liberate this feeling from its prison in order for it to flourish and express itself through ways and means appropriate to the conditions and circumstances in which we live in the culture of the twenty-first century.

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For this reason, we must renounce the traditional idea alleging the existence of something like a special religious truth and to turn our concern toward religious feeling freed from these burdens and weights. Likewise, it appears unnecessary to me for religious feelings to be associated with [A54] supernatural beings, invisible presences, and strange powers, as has always been the case. This feeling is a quality that is able to colour all our emotions, attitudes, thoughts, and higher goals in order to introduce into our view of the fluctuating and sundry events of life something of harmony, consistency, and security. In this sense, religious feelings are represented in the artist’s view of beauty, the scientist’s attitude toward searching for truth, the attitude of the activist towards the goals he is working to realise, or in the ordinary person’s attitude to the performance of the daily duties of life.

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The Syrian poet and literary critic ‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id, of Alawite1 origin, was born in the village of Qassabayn near Latakia in western Syria. Unable to afford formal schooling for much of his childhood, his early education consisted of learning the Qur’an in the local kuttab2 and in memorising classical Arabic poetry that his father taught him. In 1944, he recited one of his poems to Shukri al-Quwatli, the President of the newly established republic who was visiting ‘Ali’s town. Al-Quwatli asked if he needed help and ‘Ali answered that he would like to go to school. He attended a French lycee in Tartus as a result (on a state scholarship), then Damascus University (majoring in philosophy, also on a state scholarship), and then Universite St Joseph in Beirut, where he earned a doctorate in Arabic literature. He adopted the pen name Adunis at the age of seventeen, in response to his inability to get published under his real name, and as a signal to ‘napping editors’ of his ‘pre-Islamic pan-Mediterranean muses’ (he speaks admiringly in the following selection of the rich imaginative possibilities of Christianity’s ‘paganism’).3 Adunis was to become one of the greatest Arab writers of the twentieth century, an innovator and rebel as poet, critic, translator, and public intellectual. The ‘Arab Eliot’ (he has indeed been short-listed for the Nobel Prize on a number of occasions), he is the author of twenty volumes of poetry, thirteen volumes of criticism, a dozen books of translation, and a multi-volume anthology of Arabic poetry, and he played a role as prime mover and editor in the development of Shi‘ir (Poetry) and al-Mawaqif (Positions), two Beiruti journals that are widely regarded as pioneering manifestations of Arab literary modernism.4 Adunis has been primarily interested in poetic modernity, and particularly in modernist treatments of the image. ‘His is the unrivalled venture into this most intricate area of poetics,’ Salma Khadra Jayyusi writes, ‘achieving complexity, originality, and sophistication, and effecting a melange between mysticism and surrealism. This is where this poet excels over anyone else.’5 According to Adunis, poetic

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modernity cannot be separated from cultural modernity more generally, a modernity that he understands as transcending particular periods or cultures.6 True ‘modern’ poetry involves a particular way of approaching the world through thought, based on intellectual and emotional experience.7 It is an approach that ‘entails a questioning of the truth of any discourse whatsoever, be it human or divine’.8 It is based on a self-consistent view of poetry in which every innovation is tantamount to the creation of a new world, what Adunis calls ‘the lyricism of becoming’, a reflection of man’s ultimate potential.9 Adunis argues that a strong modernist tradition has always existed in Arabic poetry, as manifested in the work of Abu Nuwas,10 al-Niffari,11 and al-Ma‘arri,12 but that this tradition has been historically repressed.13 The main culprit has been religion, and more particularly Islam, not, primarily, as the result of misinterpretation or misuse, but in terms of its essence as a theism. Islam is grounded in prophecy and therefore tends to dictate rigidity, reinforcing a perpetual reproduction of the old. ‘For years,’ Jayyusi writes, ‘Adunis had carried on a sustained attack on Islam, denigrating it as the greatest hindrance to creativity and hence modernity.’14 The solution is made clear in a ringing declaration within his classic three volume history of Arabic literature The Constant and the Changing (alThabit wa al-mutahawwil) of 1983: The logic of atheism means returning to man in his essential nature and to faith in him as a human being. According to this logic, as long as man remains attached to the unknown, he will not be able to be a man. Transcending revelation is, then, the transcendence of revelation by man, that is, the transcendence of man to true man, the man of reason. This is how atheism presents itself as a revolution. It seeks to destroy the power that man directs against man in the name of revelation, or, the power over which he resides in the name of the unknown against the real. This involves the destruction of the Shari‘ah and its socio-political embodiments. Atheism has therefore been the affirmation of the unique will of man by which his reason will be his Shari‘ah and his power. The sacred, as far as atheism is concerned, is man himself, the man of reason, and there is nothing greater than this man. It substitutes reason for revelation, and man for God.15 It is an atheism at one with the melange of Sufism and surrealism of which Jayyusi speaks. Atheism does not necessarily exclude mysticism, nor does Sufism necessarily include a belief in traditional religion or a traditional belief in religion. It is true to say that God, in the traditional sense of the word, does not exist in surrealism, as Andre Breton confirms when he says that the sacred in which he

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believes is either not religious or is outside religion . . . The ultimate goal of the Sufi is to become one with the invisible, that is, the absolute. The surrealist aspires to the same thing.16 Adunis has not, to be sure, always been consistent in identifying the prime culprit responsible for Arab petrification. After the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 he wrote of Islam as a prime mover in history and as an awakening (echoes of which are found in the following interview when he speaks of Islam as a ‘means of progress’ under the Caliph al-Ma’mun), and somewhat comparable arguments were made in his ‘Modernity Manifesto’ published soon after this event. The call for a permanent revolt against the static in the name of individualism was sounded, but the role of religion in preventing this revolt was not named.17 The negativity towards religion, or at least traditional theism, was nevertheless reprised fairly soon, as he withdrew his support for the revolution and publicly censored himself for the stance that he had taken. What does seem to remain constant, for all of his intelligence, creativity, and sheer literary virtuosity, is a startling capacity, not unknown to other authors in this anthology, for sweeping, essentialising generalities. ‘We [the Arabs] have become extinct’, he recently proclaimed in respect to the failures of the Arab Springs (he had no hope for them). ‘We have the quantity. We have the masses of people, but a people becomes extinct when it no longer has a creative capacity and the capacity to change its world.’18 The long-lived animosity that he has garnered as a result of his attitude towards religion has been all the more reinforced by his opposition to the violent revolt against the Syrian government and any foreign intervention against this government. In May, 2012, a statement issued on the Facebook page of one of the rebel groups argued that he deserved to die on three counts: that he was an Alawite, that he opposes the Muslim religion, and that he criticises the opposition and rejects foreign military intervention. A group of Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals came to his defence, issuing an online condemnation: ‘History has never witnessed a philosopher killing a man of God, but to this day intellectuals are being threatened and killed by people who have become religious. History will mention [Adunis’s] name as an important figure in Syria. Where and how will you be remembered?’19 Adunis’s answer was, again, informed by a sweeping (political) culturalism: ‘What’s really absurd is that Arab opposition to dictators refuses any critique; it’s a vicious circle . . . the opposition is avant la lettre . . . In our tradition, unfortunately, everything is based on unity – the oneness of God, of politics, of the people.’20

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‘Enlightenment and Secularism, Religion and Fundamentalism and Atheism’ (‘al-Tanwir wa ‘almaniyyah, al-din wa al-salafiyyah wa ilhad’), an interview from a collection of interviews, A Dialogue with Adunis: Childhood, Poetry, Exile (Hiwar ma‘a Adunis: al-tufulah, al-shi‘ir, al-manfa), Saqr Abu Fakhr, editor and interviewer, Beirut, 2000, pp. 131–46, translated by Ralph M. Coury SAF: For over the course of nearly four centuries, ideas of liberation, progress, independence, and social justice have been gradually victorious, and during a period in which the ideology of personal identity has risen with intensity.21 Is this phenomenon being reversed by the break-up of Arab societies, the dissolution of their ties, and the corruption of their common aspirations? A: This is what some of us call an advance and it is manifested in some of the nationalist and religious movements. I consider this a collapse. In fact, a kind of decadence. It is a form of withdrawal from identity, not in order to increase our understanding of it, but in order to destroy it. This withdrawal is a kind of separation from the world, and at a time when we need some form of link to the world, so that we can understand it and understand ourselves through this interaction. There is no question that ideas of progress and liberation have failed. Some thinkers analyse this withdrawal as being a result of this failure. I do not believe that this failure exonerates or makes this withdrawal more understandable. As we observe, the on-going Arab– Arab and Islamic– Islamic wars arise on the basis of internal corruption. These wars are not for reform or for liberation or progress. They are, rather, wars so that one force or faction will take the place of another faction in power. This is an indication of the decay of the Islamic and Arab world, and in a form that is unprecedented in all of its history. The Arab world cannot be understood except as a field in which the phenomenon of interior collapse, corruption, and backwardness are spreading. It is a catastrophe. SAF: In these days, there is, then, an attack upon the Enlightenment and Enlightened thinkers that is without any let-up. What, in your view, is the hidden source from which the boldness and power of this phenomenon flows? A: Its strength arises from the culture that is dominant and the culture that has been inherited, keeping in mind that it is not proper to attack an idea [that is, the idea of a particular culture such as Islam] as such when it is diverse. There are those who attack Islam as a ‘surrender’, that is, that it is the foundation of backwardness. This Islam, described as a ‘surrender’, was, in the reign of al-Ma’mun,22 a means of progress. I am therefore most prone to

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say that the interpretation of the text is the opening to understanding. I am not a believer. Reason, for me, as the ancient atheists said, takes precedence over religion. Religion should be subordinate to reason and not the opposite. SAF: This is the position of Abu ‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri who dared to say, ‘There is no imam23 other than reason.’ A: Exactly. No imam other than reason. If the current ascendant interpretation of religion is the source of this dominant audacity, this sickly interpretation has inspired more than audacity. The collapse of everything has arrived in the last half of this century (the family, the school, the university, the institutions that have been constructed from independence up to the present). And all of this has occurred in order to strengthen and reinforce Salafi24 thought vis-a-vis the Arab citizen. This kind of thinking, in cooperation, objectively, with the sovereign power, has closed the door before the Arab citizen, and has virtually closed the door to future horizons. I repeat: the problem lies in the structure of the sovereign power. It is frightening, at the end of the twentieth century, that the only element that has total freedom to express its views is the despotic one, and this is the only element that has the right to express its thought with full freedom. SAF: Their pulpits are ready in the mosques, and the masses are ready, and the ideology is ready. It controls all of the assets of the parties. A: Not only the pulpits of the mosques. Also the magazines and newspapers and wealth and means of communication and freedom of assembly and propaganda, etc., etc. SAF: Do you believe that secularism and democracy are entre´es into a possible solution to some of the issues of the Arab world after the disappearance of a choice for social revolution? A: I believe that secularism and democracy are necessary steps. However, they are not magical keys. Democracy is an education and a culture whose nature is secular. If democracy and, likewise, secularism, are not provided with big minds and big values and big actions and refined education, they will be transformed into nothing other than phrases. They are nevertheless indispensible and absolutely inevitable. SAF: The contemporary fundamentalist currents see a true enemy in secularism. Do you see a true enemy in rising fundamentalism?

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A: Let us define the meaning of fundamentalism (usuliyyah). Some scholars name it al-aslaniyya [an abstract neologism, based on asl, which can be translated as foundation, base, or rule]. Perhaps this is a good term. There are those who celebrate fundamentals. I am of those who celebrate some fundamentals. If we take fundamentalism in its religious meaning or in its currently ascendant meaning I believe that it is not only an intellectual enemy, it is also an enemy of man and humanity. It is an enemy of man on earth and in this society. This is true because it imposes not only itself upon the horizons of natural freedom, it also imposes itself on the essence of man’s humanity. It transforms him into a kind of instrument. Fundamentalism, in its ascendant meaning, is dangerous, extremely dangerous. It is a movement that is an instrument of the blind. It does not see anything other than its own movement and it obliterates everything other than itself. This is the most dangerous enemy that we face. SAF: It shuts down society, its energies, its future possibilities, and its hoped for promises. A: It shuts down society and all manifestations of life in society. It is also injurious inasmuch as it has practised murder against Husayn Muruwah,25 Mahdi ‘Amil,26 Faraj Fawdah,27 and Naguib Mahfouz,28 in addition to tens of victims in Algeria and other Arab countries. SAF: Some intellectual trends, and not just those that have emerged from under the cover of classical nationalism, fear the loss of identity on the pretext of [the threat of] Westernisation, and some of the religious currents, especially those that have arisen on the flank of the new Salafiyyah, have waged jihad against what they speak of as cultural assault. How would you critique the pretences of these various groups? A: ‘Westernisation’ and ‘cultural assault’ are two expressions that have no link to culture. They are two ideological expressions. If these [people] truly fear Westernisation, they are in fact already Westernised. There is nothing, in our daily and working lives, in our customs, in our dress, in our food, in our houses, and in our communications, that is anything other than Western. Everything has come from the West. If it is Westernised to read Freud or Marx, I don’t see how they can speak of Westernisation and cultural assault. This talk has absolutely no meaning. I’m inclined to say that this kind of slogan is a distraction in order to cover up a political retreat in respect to Israel, to cover up the internal corruption inside society, and to distract people from thinking about their true domestic fate,

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a fate which they have to face daily because of an allegedly external enemy. There is no question that this is a distraction from the great issues that confront man as a result of these corrupt states. I am therefore fundamentally against these understandings. The cultural assault has no meaning and Westernisation has no meaning whatsoever.29 Whenever identity has contact with the other it is augmented. Is identity a sugarloaf which will melt if exposed to the sun? Living identity is an identity that adapts to the world and its provocations. It is not confined within a box that protects it from the wind and sun. Identity, by its very nature, is exposed and open to the wind of the world, coming from any direction. This is its energy and strength. SAF: It seems to me that thoughts of struggling against Westernisation and cultural assault can be likened to an imaginary target to which some are directed so that they can release their cartridges while forgetting essential problems. Thus Iran, which is a fundamentalist state, in one way or another, has employed, from the beginning, non-Islamic expressions, and, in fact, completely Western expressions such as the ‘constitution’, the ‘republic’, and ‘elections’. It does not employ such expressions as ‘bay‘ah’30 or ‘caliphate,’31 etc. A: There is no way of stopping history and the movement of the real. SAF: One of the contemporary historical specificities of the Arab region in which religion was born is that it has not given birth to any movement that criticises religion. To what extent would you support this view? A: I think that this question involves too quick a generalisation. I believe that the most important and earliest of movements that criticised religion, from the Middle Ages up to today, arose in this region, that is, in Baghdad and Damascus. There are many intellectual movements and thinkers who criticised religion. SAF: You mean Ibn al-Rawandi, for example? A: Ibn al-Rawandi32 and others. Ibn al-Rawandi criticised religion in a direct manner and others did so indirectly. Our history is full of such movements. Many were killed for their holding to this position. I am able to summarise the movements that criticised religion in the history of Arab thought as follows: Firstly: the atheistic movement. Its goals are clear. Secondly: the Sufi33 movement. It is a profound critical movement in religious thought.

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Thirdly: the movement of interpretation. This is also a movement critical of religion, but in its own particular fashion. Fourthly: Arab poetry, and this criticism of religion is a great one. This criticism is represented by Abu Nuwas and Abu ‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri.34 Even some of the men of state shared in this fierce radical criticism, including its most famous atheists. All of us know al-Walid bin Yazid35 and his position towards the Qur’an when he addressed it, declaring, ‘If you come to your Lord on the Day of Resurrection, say, O Lord, al-Walid has torn me to pieces.’36 There is a long and varied tradition undertaking the criticism of religion in one way or another. The problem is in the present age. What is truly surprising is that we, in the age of Marxism, atheistic philosophies, and various levels and kinds of science, see no movement for the criticism of religion and religious thought in the radical meaning of the word. There is criticism of some religious practices. But no one has posed, until now, a deep, radical, and truly epistemological or philosophical question at the following level: what epistemological value does revelation have today? There is no thinker or philosopher or social scientist who has posed anything like this question, which has been posed in our intellectual history in one form or another. This reinforces the opinion that the opposition, which presents itself as a substitute, including the ranks of the parties and the secularists and the Marxists, are, in their depths and in the very structure of their thought, authoritarian. This is because their aims can be summarised as eliminating the reigning power in order to replace it with another. As for the conversion of the foundations of society and the conversion of its ideas and the construction of new ideas and institutions, this is not among their aims. I believe that here is the basis of the total failure of all that is spoken of as the political practices of the parties in the Arab world. SAF: I would assume that the ancient atheistic trend in Arab tradition was directed (as in the case, for example, of Abu Bakr al-Razi and others) towards the criticism of prophecy and not towards the denial of God.37 A: No. The position of al-Razi and Ibn al-Rawandi and others was that religion was in agreement with reason or it wasn’t. Therefore, however religion was regarded, reason had priority and precedence and it was the measure. However, these atheists did not give expression to a new concept or a different concept of God as they understood him. They nevertheless clearly expressed their denial of the understanding of God as presented by revelation. SAF: You say that you do not take religion as a personal belief but as an anthropological phenomenon. To what does this position lead? To the

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rejection of religious superstitions, belief in wonders, occult phenomena, miracles, or to atheism? A: It leads to all of this. However, it is necessary to stop at this word ‘atheism’. Atheism within the context of our conversation is the lack of belief in the concept of God as presented by Islamic interpretation or as presented by Islamic revelation. The Islamic concept presents God as a point separated from the universe and as an absolute. Within this context it is possible for me to call myself an atheist. However, if we thought of the concept of God in a different way, then man himself becomes the centre in which God manifests himself. This is because God is, according to another concept, the secret present in the universe. If it is proper to name this secret the ‘unknown’, then it is not necessary to call oneself an atheist. I believe that there is a secret in the universe and I name this secret God. However, I understand this matter in terms of various dimensions. That is, it is possible that this secret is itself that universal power which, metaphorically, one is perhaps able to speak of as God. However, I am personally prone to believe that the universe is a natural and all-encompassing phenomenon and that man is himself a natural phenomenon. I do not believe that there is an occult realm in the metaphysical sense. I do not, therefore, believe that there is a resurrection and a heaven and a hell. And this I believe openly. SAF: You oversaw the preparation of The Dictionary of Mythology (Diwan al-asatir)38 in three volumes. Why were mythologies and epics absent from Islamic tradition? A: I wanted to continue this work until it was complete and included all of the ancient texts that had appeared prior to religions within this region, and, more precisely, within the Tigris and Euphrates Valley and also Egypt. You know, precisely, why Islam rejected these ancient texts. On the one hand, it rejected them on the basis that they were pagan (wathaniyyah) and, on the other hand, on the basis that they were legendary and magical. However, what is surprising is that the Qur’an is built on many of these legends. This is especially true of those linked to the Jews, such as the staff of Moses, the flood, and the opening of the Red Sea before the alleged exodus of the Jews from Egypt. There are many myths in the Islamic heritage in spite of the fact that Islam criticised mythology and mythological thought. I believe that the Islamic thought now dominant in its fundamentalist form is mythological. It is, however, mythological thought that has been ‘legalised’. That is to say, this tradition has lost the poetry and the transparently mythological dimension of the ancient myths, and has become a legalised myth that has

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taken on the nature of law. This has stultified the liveliness of Islamic thought and Islamic imagination. I believe that the philosophers and specialised thinkers should study the fundamentalist thought that is now ascendant as a mythological, legalised way of thinking.39 SAF: These thoughts need a deep discussion and open debate. They need more than this by far. They need [to be expressed with] unlimited freedom. However, I believe that there is a difference between the legendary and the mythological. Mythology is created when reason collides with difficult cosmic questions that the mythological tries to answer through non-rational means. The answer comes in a compound of poetry, history, and marvel. A: Yes, without doubt. The mythological contains poetry and the transparent and the real simultaneously. SAF: As for the legendary, it is an effort to construct an imaginary picture in respect to those matters that are difficult to interpret. They do not arise as a result of the impact of reason with essential questions. Rather, they are formed from ancient religious rituals of the past. They are the offspring of ancient totemic observances. They are the mother of many of those magical practices dominant in our contemporary societies. They are nourished through the people’s trust, their absolute herd-like obedience, and their thoughtlessness in respect to the dominant, the commonly accepted, and the inherited. A: This is true. SAF: There is a strong link between the Torah and the mythology of the Tigris– Euphrates Valley. Perhaps all of the mythology of the Torah is attributable to the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates. Do you see a close tie between religion and mythology in our Christian –Islamic region? A: There is no doubt of that. Many of the texts of the Torah are newly written texts derived from a number of the ancient myths. SAF: Such as the story of Genesis? A: The story of Genesis, and the Book of Job, and the Book of Jeremiah, and The Song of Songs. All of them are derived from previous texts. But the Qur’an drew on many of the myths that appear in the Torah, whereas Christianity totally forsook them. It was only concerned with one myth, which was that of Tammuz.40 That is, death and resurrection. This is why

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Christianity was an extension of paganism. It is, in truth, a forthright extension of ancient paganism. And it is here that you find the importance of Christianity. Christianity is a continuation of a humane, rich thought, of ancient Greek –Sumerian thought. It is a natural extension of all of this. This, while Judaism is a complete break, and Islam is a complete break. I reckon that this break contributes to one dimension of the present Arab intellectual crisis. This is because it [the Islamic religion of a total break] is dominant today, while Christianity has virtually become marginalised, without a presence in the intellectual/cultural domain, to the point that the Church, within Islamic society, has surrendered one way or another. The Eastern Church does not have an intellectual presence. That is because, according to my evaluation, it has surrendered long ago, that is, it has taken on the nature of Islamic society and has become only a matter of religious customs and rituals. The Islam that is itself now dominant is without thought. If we were to consider Islam today we would not find one thinker of value. If one finds a thinker who has some prominence his thought cannot be regarded as anything more than a rewriting of the jurists of old. There is absolutely no new Islamic thought today. This judgement holds good for Islam over the entire twentieth century. This is true, in spite of the fact that talk of Islam does not cease. There is much talk of the Islamic surge, the Islamic renaissance, and Islamic thought. But there is no living, humane, rational new thinking that can be added to what the old Muslims have said. Everything has developed into ritual practice and canon law (shar‘). The only thing existing is canon law and the legal code. These, and jurisprudence, are one thing, and thought is something else. It seems that Islam, as it is practised today, together with the other religions in this region, exists apart from thought and reason. They are enmeshed in rituals, forms of worship, and canonical regulations. SAF: Allow me to add to what you have said: Islam today has two aspects. Either it is an Islam in movement, as is the case in Algeria, Afghanistan, and Egypt, where Muslims are declared to be infidels and there is barbarous murder. Or there is Islam as a foundation whose men substitute Turkish turbans for their minds, as if they were an Indian serpent wrapped around their heads. They are only concerned with what is permitted or forbidden, so that making pictures is forbidden, and children’s play is forbidden, and growing a beard longer than the length of the hand is forbidden, at the same time as the seizure of swelling breasts in the mountains of Zabarbar in Algeria is permitted.41 By way of a digression, I think that Christianity is heir to the mystery religions and the beautiful sacred fertility rites that were widespread in the regions of sedentary agriculture. As for Judaism, it is a pastoral religion far removed from a civilised way of life and the sedentary.

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A: What is strange is the way that this primitive, pastoral religion has allowed the Jews to establish a kind of balance between it and secularism. Israeli society today, from a certain point of view, is secular, and from another point of view, it is democratic. How have the followers of this primitive religion agreed to allow democracy and secularism into their society? How have they established a dialogue among themselves, and this in spite of their deep contradictions and disagreements? How have they done this without fighting within the context of this dialogue? How have they been able to give birth to a society in which they consult with one another democratically while Islam, a noble (al-‘ariq) and more advanced religion than Judaism, has not been able to do this at all? And how has Christianity also been able, after fierce revolutions and bloody wars, to reach the [level] of [Western] societies? As for Islam, it has not ceased, after 1400 years, to repeat itself. What new thing has [its] dominion been able to produce for it, after having been established for the first time 1400 years ago. The secular trend in the Zionist movement and the secularists in Israeli society do not believe in the Torah as a sacred text. Rather, they consider it to be only folklore, serving the idea of transferring the Jews into a nation. Eighty-seven percent of the Israelis do not read the Talmud at all, while we in the Arab world have not ceased to do so. If we want to interpret Israeli politics we take up the Book of Joshua and read it. As if the politics and wars of today were built upon the religious text. SAF: In fact, we find a large number of intellectual Jews who mock the narratives of the Torah and the stories of the prophets.

CHAPTER 13 NASR HAMID ABU ZAYD: 1943—2010

The Egyptian Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was born in Quhafa, a village near Tanta. He studied at a kuttab,1 at a technical secondary school, and then at Cairo University where he received a BA in Arabic Studies and then an MA (1977) and Ph.D. (1981) in Islamic Studies. He joined the faculty of the Department of Language and Literature at the University as an assistant professor in 1982 and he was promoted to an associate professorship in 1987.2 The faculty had pressured Abu Zayd to pursue Islamic Studies as a graduate student, with the expectation that he would fill the chair of Islamic Studies which had remained empty since the Khalaf Allah affair (see Chapter 9). Although Abu Zayd was wary of following this path in light of the fate of Khalaf Allah, he finally acquiesced, producing a master’s thesis on the history of Qur’anic interpretation, and a Ph.D. thesis on Sufi Qur’anic hermeneutics, which concentrated on the great thirteenthcentury mystic Ibn al-‘Arabi.3 The results were embodied in The Concept of the Text: A Study in the Sciences of the Qur’an (Mafhum al-nass: dirasah fi al-’ulum al-Qur’an), published in 1992.4 Abu Zayd’s worst fears were confirmed when he was denied promotion to full professorship in 1993. He was not turned down for infidelity as such. Two of the three written reports of the promotion committee were favourable, but the third report, written by ‘Abd al-Sabur Shahin, accused him of ‘clear affronts to the Islamic faith’, and the final vote of the committee was seven to six against promotion. Although this decision was ultimately reversed, the process led to ‘a legal nightmare’ for Abu Zayd and his wife.5 Conservative Muslim scholars filed a lawsuit before a Personal Status Court (a family court) in Cairo demanding the nullification of the marriage between Abu Zayd and his wife, Ibtihal Yunis, a professor of French at Cairo University, on the basis that Islamic law forbids marriage between a Muslim woman and an apostate (the Egyptian penal code was here irrelevant inasmuch as it does not recognise apostasy). Although the Personal Status Court rejected the demand on the basis that

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the plaintiffs had no direct personal interest in the matter, a Court of Appeal reversed the lower court’s ruling in June, 1995, pronouncing the defendant an apostate and declaring his marriage null and void.6 These legal proceedings were accompanied by a series of attacks and responses. ‘Abd al-Sabur Shahin, a professor of Arabic linguistics at Dar al-‘Ulum, who had voted against Abu Zayd as a member of his promotion committee, and who had written the committee report that spoke of Abu Zayd’s ‘affront to Islam’, denounced him publicly from the pulpit of the ‘Amr ibn al-‘As mosque as an apostate.7 Shortly after the verdict about his marriage was issued, a group of professors at al-Azhar called for his execution.8 The Islamic Jihad group, the killers of Anwar Sadat, involved in a civil war with the government at that time, also issued a statement calling for his death as an apostate. Even al-‘Alam al-islami (The Islamic Banner), a publication of the ruling political party, declared that ‘execution’ was a fitting penalty if he did not repent.9 Abu Zayd and his wife left Egypt in July 1995 and settled in the Netherlands, where he was offered a position of Visiting Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Leyden (he had officially left Cairo University on an indefinite sabbatical.) He died in a Cairene hospital in 2010, after contracting an unknown virus while visiting Indonesia.10 ‘I couldn’t take more than two months of around-theclock security,’ he noted after his departure from Egypt. ‘Whenever someone came to visit they had to be cleared. Whenever I wanted to go out, I had to coordinate with security. I couldn’t just go to a coffee shop with my friends and play a round of backgammon. What kind of life was that?’11 The threats were real enough. The anti-Islamist journalist Faraj Fawdah had been gunned down in broad daylight in 1992 and the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz had been stabbed in the neck by an Islamist in 1994.12 Why, exactly, was such enmity directed against Abu Zayd? There were a number of very specific religious charges: that he disbelieved in the righteousness of the poll tax for Christians and Jews, that he disbelieved in the jinn,13 and that he disbelieved that the slavery of girls under certain conditions was allowed by clear Qur’anic verses.14 There was, also, a more specifically political dimension, apart from personal matters of faith in and of themselves. As has already been mentioned in the general introduction, Abu Zayd was operating from ‘within’, and his enemies feared that the texts that he had prepared would become the source of religious corruption for his students. There was, also, the fact that ‘Abd al-Sabur Shahin, a chairman of the ruling party’s religious committee and a consultant to the Rayyan Investment Company, had already clashed with Abu Zayd about religious matters. The investment company claimed that it avoided interest and paid its investors with ‘Islamic dividends’, and when it went bankrupt, Abu Zayd had written that this was an example of how some Islamists used their religion for illicit material gain.15

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The essential crime, or at least what was presented as such, insofar as it related to his specifically unacceptable method of exegesis, consisted in his treating the Qur’an as a literary text, derived from God, and yet put into human language; the very same crime that had allegedly been committed by Khalaf Allah. Islam, Abu Zayd argued, is grounded in a continuous dialogue with a revealed text that cannot be detached from its socio-historical and cultural context. The text may have a divine origin but this should not prevent interpreting its relative, contingent, and specific cultural, historical, and human components. The influence of Ferdinand de Sasseur’s differentiation between langue and parole, with langue consisting of a sign system and parole as the living use of this system by humans in a specific culture, is here clearly revealed. Informed by such a perspective, Abu Zayd argued that dominant groups assume the role of spokesmen for the absolute and transform the text into a fetish abstracted from its human foundation, and that this has occurred over the course of Islamic history.16 Abu Zayd was to maintain: I’m not a new Salman Rushdie and I don’t want to be welcomed and treated as such. I’m a researcher. I’m critical of old and modern Islamic thought. I treat the Qur’an as a text (nass) given by God to the Prophet Muhammad. That text is put into a human language, which is the Arabic language. When I said so, I was accused of saying that the Prophet Muhammad wrote the Qur’an.17 As Abu Zayd found out, as he well knew, the rub lies in defining ‘wrote’. A selection from The Concept of the Text: A Study in the Sciences of the Qur’an (Mafhum al-nass: dirasah fi al-‘ulum al-Qur’an), Cairo, 1990, pp. 41 – 50, translated by Ralph M. Coury Abu Zayd has argued that revelation is a process of contacting, of communicating news, under terms that are hidden and secret. Two sides are involved, and a code of communication known and used by the sender and receiver. This understanding of revelation as a communication, and of revelation as involving two different kinds of experiential positions, was known to pre-Islamic Arab society in the form of poetry and soothsaying through the jinn. These were understood to be two phenomena whose origin lay in another world behind the tangible sensory world. If Arab culture had not had such a concept of contact, the assimilation of the phenomenon of revelation would not have been possible from a cultural point of view. The concept – of the communication between man and the world of the jinn or with other worlds more generally – remained part of the established understandings of Arab Islamic culture and it is upon its basis that the interpretation of the phenomenon of revelation in and of itself was made possible through the theory of imagination (al-khayal) among the philosophers and Sufis. However, this concept was reworked into a larger

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construction that would absorb all of existence. And this developed through the conceptualisation of formulas of the following kind: You should know that we – May God guide you and us – see that this world, with all the created things within it, has a certain order and precision, a tie between causes and things caused, communication of some parts of creation with others, and the transformation of some existing things into others, whose wonders and aims are endless. I begin with the world of bodily sensations, and, firstly, with its world of visible elements, and of how these elements are ascending gradually from earth to water, and then to air, and then to fire. Each one of the elements is linked to the other and each one is ready to be transformed into the higher or lower one that is next to it. In some cases the element is transformed, and the one ascending is finer than the one preceding, until the world of the spheres is reached. And they are finer than anything else. They are in interconnecting layers which the senses are unable to recognise except through their movements. These movements provide some people with knowledge of the measurements and positions of the spheres, and, after that, with knowledge of the existence of the essences that have these manifestations. You should then look at the world of creation, how it began from the minerals and then progressed to plants, and then to animals, in a fascinating, gradual manner. The last stage of minerals is linked to the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is linked to the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish, which have only the power of touch. The word ‘link’ with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is imminently prepared to become the first stage of the next group. The animal world then widened, its species became numerous, and it ended through a gradual process of creation with man who possesses thought and deliberation. These elements [thought and deliberation] arose in him from the world of the monkeys in whom perception and comprehension were joined but who had not yet reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. This was the next horizon, reached by man after that of the animals. This is the limit of our observation. Ibn Khaldun18 It is in terms of this kind of concept, which prevails in Arab culture and whose roots we find in concepts before Islam, that we encounter the idea that the universe is not made up of separate worlds. Rather, there is communication and movement, rising and falling, between the worlds, and

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these are the effective domains that enable man – who is at the ends of the worlds and the most perfect of all of them at the same time – to communicate with some of these worlds, in which both the prophet and soothsayer are equal. The difference between the communication of the prophet with the heavenly hosts and the communication of the soothsayer with the heavenly hosts is that the communication of the prophet is based on an innate nature and peculiarity of character founded upon divine choice (al-istifa’ ), while the soothsayer needs instruments and useful tools – at least partially – to escape from the obstacles of the material world and to communicate with what is behind the worlds. Truly the prophets: Are suited by nature to slough off their humanity altogether, both its corporality and its spirituality, in exchange for an angel-like state of the highest order, so that they might in fact become angels in the flash of a moment, witnessing the heavenly hosts within their own realm, and listening to the internal divine discourse. These are the prophets, may the blessings and peace of God be upon them. God effected their sloughing off of their humanity during that flash, and that was the state of revelation. This was a natural disposition, which God fashioned and implanted in them. He purified them from the hindrances of the body and its impediments with which they had to live as long as they were clothed with humanity. He did this by means of the instincts with which he endowed them, instincts of moderation and righteousness. Ibn Khaldun19 The soothsayers, in contrast to this, depend upon human efforts and they appropriate what will help them to transcend the obstacles of the body. And, because of the help of this enabling mediation, by means of rhymed prose or the bones of animals, their communication will be deficient, and what they have gained in terms of information is susceptible to both truth and falsehood. Or, better to say, the sound and the false are intermixed. As for the communication of the prophets: It was established for them without any need for their acquiring it or for any dependency on any help from perceptions or conceptions or bodily actions, whether these were speech or motion or anything else. It is, rather, a natural sloughing off of humanity for the angel-like state in the twinkling of an eye. If this is so, and if such preparedness exists in human nature, logical classification requires that there must be another kind of human being,

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as inferior to the first kind as anything must be inferior to something perfect that is its opposite. This is so because the absence of help in attaining understanding is the opposite of dependence on help in attaining it. They are two very different things. If the classification of the world of existence requires that there must be another kind of human being who by nature uses his rational faculty to set his thought in motion voluntarily when his inclination stimulates him to do so, even when this faculty is not by nature capable of it and is blocked by weakness, it becomes involved with matters on a piecemeal basis, either of a sensual or imaginative nature, such as transparent bodies, bones of animals, rhymed prose, or whatever appears of bird or animal, as a help in attaining the sloughing off which he desires. They give him a sort of assistance. This kind of power, which for them constitutes the starting point for this kind of knowledge, is soothsaying. The souls of such persons are lacking by their very nature and unable to attain perfection, and they have a better comprehension of particulars than of universals. They get involved with the former and neglect the latter. Therefore, the power of imagination is most strongly developed in those persons, because it is the instrument of the particulars. These particulars have a total influence in both the sleeping and waking state. They are ever ready and present within them. The imagination brings them forth and serves as a mirror in which they are always seen. The soothsayer is not able to achieve perfection in comprehending matters that are comprehended rationally because the revelation that he receives is inspired by devils. The highest state that this type of person can reach is through the help of rhymed prose and literary parallelisms, distracting from the senses, strengthening that deficient communication to some extent, and inspiring his heart, suddenly, to give expression to the words that fall upon his lips, aided by that movement [which he initiated] and influenced by that expanding foreign element [with which he is in contact]. Perhaps he speaks the truth and it agrees with reality. And sometimes it is falsehood, because he supplements his deficiency with a foreign matter that is not appropriate to his comprehending essence and that is distinct from it. Thus, truth and falsehood are jumbled together in him. Ibn Khaldun20 If what the soothsayer has received is a revelation from the devils, then the goal of soothsaying is a process of communication that includes a message. However, the process of communication here is concluded by way of a special

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code inasmuch as the two sides of the communication – the sender and the recipient – do not belong to the same rank of existence. However, the special code to which Ibn Khaldun refers, the rhymed prose of the soothsayers, remains a particular method in the linguistic fashioning and execution – a particular method – or one which conveys a secondary code – within the general linguistic system. The Qur’an uses the term ‘he reveals’ (yuhi) in indicating the communication between the devils and the unbelievers. ‘The devils revealed [a message] to their friends in order to argue with you.’ (Surah ‘The Cattle’, al-anam, verse 121.) They likewise use it to establish communication between the unbelievers themselves. ‘Some of them reveal to some others flowery discourses by way of deception.’ (Surah ‘The Cattle’, verse 112.) If revelation in these two verses has the meaning of ‘the whispering’, as the lexicons say, and as the Qur’an describes the sayings of Satan to man, in the Surah ‘The People’ (al-nas), then the whispering [waswasah ], as its rhythmical sound indicates, means a communication, encompassed by secrecy and obscurity, a communication that does not allow a third party to understand it. This is the meaning of the linguistic revelation as we have analysed it in the previous section. The link between prophecy and soothsaying – in the Arab concept – consists of each of them being a revelation, a communication between a man and another being, belonging to another rank of existence, an angel in the case of the prophet, and a devil in the case of the soothsayer. And in this communication/revelation there is then a message through a special code that does not allow for a third party to understand it, at least at the moment of contact. This is because the prophet propagates the message to the people after this message has been delivered to him, and the soothsayer prophesises the contents of what he has received. In all of this the appearance of the revelation becomes a phenomenon that is not a new factor in the culture or imposed on it from without, as we have previously indicated, and Ibn Khaldun virtually insists that prophecy does not nullify soothsaying and does not destroy it as some people might imagine: A quotation from Ibn Khaldun is cited. Ibn Khaldun argues that there is no evidence that soothsaying ceased with the coming of prophecy. He cites the Qur’an to the effect that the devils were prevented from conveying only heavenly information and that soothsaying may have subsided with the coming of the greater light of revelation.21 Ibn Khaldun’s determination to preserve soothsaying and divination in their places after prophecy relates to two matters: the first is that the abolition of soothsaying necessitates the abolition of the basis for its existence and therefore the phenomenon of prophecy itself is in need of a new interpretation. The second is that soothsaying and divination were, from one angle, the measure by which the Arabs before Islam were able to confirm the truth of

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prophecy, and were, from another angle, the means of predicting the new and anticipated prophet. Abu Zayd here includes a passage of Ibn Khaldun that gives several examples of information gained by pre-Islamic Arabs about future events from soothsayers, including the coming of Islamic prophecy to the Quraysh.22 If the abolition of soothsaying leads to the abolition of the phenomenon of prophecy’s basis of existence, and, likewise, the abolition of the basis of its knowledge, this confirms that the phenomenon of ‘revelation’ relies upon a concept deeply grounded in the culture, an understanding of the possibility for communication between man and the other worlds of angels and devils. And if we have been able to show that ‘poetry’ was also finally conceived as having a source within the context of this general conception of revelation, we shall be satisfied. We shall then turn to discuss the link of the Qur’an with poetry and rhymed prose, and this in respect to our discussion of the link between the text and other texts within the culture in the special section on the inimitability23 of the Qur’an.

Revelation in the Qur’an The place of communication contained within the state of revelation as it pertains to the text differs from the states of communication that we have discussed up until now, inasmuch as it is more complicated. The two essential sides in the operation of prophetic revelation are God on one side and the messenger, the man, on the other. The Qur’an expresses this communication as ‘recitation’, and this is in the second Surah according to the chronology of revelations, and it is the Surah ‘Folded in Garments’ (al-muzzamil): ‘We shall soon send down / To you a weighty message.’ (Verse 5). It is understood that the speaker indicated by the pronoun ‘we’ (na ) in this verse is the same one mentioned in the first verse, ‘Recite in the name of your Lord’, in the Surah ‘The Blood Clot’ (al-‘alaq). The communication is, then, completed by means of the ‘recitation’ and the code used in respect to what is communicated is the ‘statement’ (al-qawl). In other verses of the Qur’an the expression of ‘the recitation’ has been expressed by the phrase ‘that which is brought down’, and the ‘statement’ by the phrase ‘by the words’ (bi al-kalam). A. The communication of God with man or the words of God to man employ specific methods which the text expresses in the following way: It is not fitting / For a man that God / Should speak to him / Except by revelation, / Or from behind a veil. / Or by the sending / Of a Messenger / To reveal, with God’s permission, / What God wills: for He / Is most high, most wise. / And We have thus, / By Our command, sent/

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Inspiration to you: / You did not know (before) / What was revelation, and / What was faith; but We / Have made the (Qur’an) / A light, wherewith We / Guide those of Our servants / As We will.24 We have analysed the first of these methods of revelation in respect to the previous meaning that we have analysed in the previous segment, which the scholars of Islam have designated as ‘inspiration’ (al-ilham), such as the revelation to the mother of Moses and to the bees and the angels and every revelation distinguished by its specificity and secrecy. The second method of conveying God’s words to man are the words from behind the veil and those are His words to Moses from behind the veils of the tree, the fire, and the mountain. And we observe, in the two states of these kinds of speech from behind the veil, that He begins each speech by the vocative. ‘But when he came / To the fire, a voice / Was heard: “Oh Moses! / Truly I am your Lord! Therefore (in My presence) / Put off your shoes: You are / In the sacred valley Tuwa. / I have chosen you: / Listen, then, to the inspiration / (Sent to you)”.’25 ‘And We called him / From the right side of the mountain.’26 If revelation in the first case consists of words that are understood only by the two sides who are communicating, then these are words without utterance, or the transmission involves words of a code that is without sound in a language that is unnatural, and in contrast to which there is a discourse – expressed through the vocative – in the case of Moses through words in the language that Moses is able to comprehend as a linguistic statement. And this dialogue is confirmed in the scene of a vision. When Moses came / To the place appointed by Us, / And his Lord addressed him, / He said: ‘Oh my Lord! / Show [yourself] to me, / That I may look upon You.’/ God said, ‘By no means / Can you see Me (directly); / But look upon the mount; / If it abides / In its place, then / You shall see Me.’ / When his Lord manifested / Himself to the Mount, / He made it as dust, / And Moses fell down / In a swoon.27 The use of the verb ‘he said’ here confirms the differentiation between the two states of revelation, the first and second from one angle, and the confirmation of the nature of the language used in the second state from another angle. It is necessary here to point out that the context of the verses in which the verb ‘he revealed’ or ‘he reveals’ appears is indicative of a communication that is not linguistic, and which confirms that the content of the revelation does not include a position of mutual communication between the sender and the recipient as is the case in the state of words from behind the veil with Moses. Rather, the contents include merely the command expressed

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by the verb in the verse, ‘We have revealed to the mother of Moses: / Suckle your child,’28 and in the verse, ‘And your Lord revealed to the Bee / That he should take his shelter in the mountains.’29 And the answer of the recipient of the revelation would be nothing other than the execution of the order and the realisation of the act. This is an essential difference between the case of the communication that is without a statement and the case of a communication of words in ‘revelation’. The third method of conveying God’s words to humanity is revelation that is not direct, and that is conveyed by means of the messenger/the angel who reveals what God, by His leave, wishes to deliver to the recipient. And this was the method through which the recitation of the Qur’an or its being sent down was consummated. We can, on this basis, posit the relationship by the following: God

The Sending Down

The Angel

The Prophet Words/Revela on

The depiction of the communication as presented by the text of the previous verse is a depiction of communication through an intermediary who is the messenger/the angel to whom the verse gives the name ‘the spirit’. However, this conception leaves open the field for thought as to the modality of the communication between, firstly, God and the angel, and the code used in this communication, and, secondly, between the angel and the messenger in respect to the modality of encounter – as long as we know that the code used between the two was the Arabic language. These critical questions are the axis of Qur’anic sciences; it is the ‘modality of the sending down and its meaning’. B. How was the communication effected, in terms of its vertical level, between God and Gabriel, and what code was used in this communication? The scholars proceeded to maintain: ‘God made His words understandable to Gabriel while he was in heaven, while he was above the place, and He taught him its recitation and then Gabriel transmitted it to earth while he was descending to the place.’30

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The phrase ‘He taught him its recitation’ allows for a wide field of conjecture. However, the problem was posited among the scholars of the Qur’an in a different way when they asked each other: what did Gabriel bring down of the Qur’an? Was it ‘expressions’ and ‘meaning’, that is, the text with its contents and formulation, or is it the ‘contents’ and ‘meaning’ with the messenger then providing the outer garment of the Arabic language? Or, to put it in another way, was the contact between Gabriel and Muhammad ‘revelatory’ in the sense of inspiration or was it ‘revelatory’ in terms of speech? In answering this question, the scholars of religion divided into two factions: the first faction took to the idea that the bringing down was: Expression and meaning, and that Gabriel had memorised the Qur’an from the Preserved Tablet31 and brought it down. Some of the scholars of religion mention that the letters of the Qur’an in the Preserved Tablet are as large as the Mountain of Qaf, and that under every letter there is a meaning that only God can encompass, may He be exalted and praised. And this is the meaning of al-Ghazali’s saying: ‘These letters are a garment for their meaning.’32 We are interested in pausing to consider the significance and consequences of this view in the development of religious thought. The allusion here to alGhazali is an important allusion. Perhaps its importance will become clearer when we discuss al-Ghazali’s understanding of the text and his transformation of its nature and vocation in the third and last of these studies. What interests us here is to note that this view of the text conceives of a previous written existence in the Preserved Tablet and it is through this conception that the relinquishment of the dialectical linking of the text and cultural reality occurs. And this relationship, which many of the sciences of the Qur’an emphasise, will be set forth in the upcoming chapters of these studies. It was in this previously written, existing form, that the text was recorded in the Preserved Tablet and, definitively, in the Arabic letters. And every letter of it is comparable to the size of the ‘Mountain of Qaf’. And this is, according to the ancient concept of the Shi‘ites33 and, more particularly, the Sufis, a mythical mountain which surrounds the earth from all of its directions and parts. This conceptualisation of the pre-eternal existence for the text as a book led to two important results: The first resulted in exaggerating the sacredness of the text and transforming it from its existence as a linguistic text, conveying meanings and open to understanding, to its being a pictorial text. And with the flourishing of the arts – especially of calligraphy and arabesque decoration – the Qur’an came to represent, through its written

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existence, the axis of creativity for the Arab artist. And it is possible to say, from the point of view of the Arab understanding of imitation, that the Arab artist tried to imitate this ancient eternal writing of the text in the Preserved Tablet. This supposition is supported by the doctrine of the Ash‘arites34 in respect to the separation between the ancient, eternal, inward speech of the Qur’an, and its vocal imitation in recitation, whereby the inward speech becomes an attribute subsisting within the divine essence from which it cannot be separated. And the recitation is, here, simultaneously, an imitation in time of this eternal attribute. And if this is the case on the level of the vocal, why can’t the Arab calligrapher [be conceived as] an imitator of the eternal written calligraphy of the text of the Preserved Tablet on the level of the visual? Conceptualising the science of ‘calligraphy’35 as an addition to the fields of Qur’anic sciences reinforces and supports this supposition. We can discuss this matter, as well as the special place enjoyed by the letters on the two levels, the vocal and the written, among the Shi‘ites and mystics, in another place.36 The second result of the concept of the existence of the eternal writing of the Qur’an (with every letter as great as the Mountain of Qaf) has led to faith in the depth of its meanings and the variety of its levels. To be sure, there is no question that, from one angle, meaning and significance are commensurate with the inward, ancient speech – which is united with divine knowledge, and that, from another angle, meaning and significance are commensurate with the enormous size of the pre-eternal Qur’anic letters. However, tying the plurality of the levels of concrete designations to a divine essence and an eternal existence of the text lead to the demand that the meaning of the text should be understood as ambiguous, with the result that it is, ultimately, impossible to penetrate the various levels of meaning. We are therefore not surprised that [this] understanding of the text will prevail and unite the concrete linguistic meaning with the essence of the speaker [God]. Al-Zarkashi attributes this saying to the Imam al-Shafi‘i:37 ‘Everything the community says is a commentary on the Sunnah38 and all of the Sunnah is a commentary on the Qur’an and all of the Qur’an is a commentary on the beautiful names39 of God and His high attributes. And some other scholars added that all of His beautiful names are a commentary on His great name.’40 And al-Zarkashi also attributes the following to Sahal bin ‘Abd Allah al-Tustiri:41 ‘If the servant was given one thousand meanings with every letter of the Qur’an he would not reach the end of what God has posited in a single verse of His book. That is because it is the speech of God, and His speech is His attribute. And just as God has no end there is no end to the understanding of His words. Rather, no one will be able to understand anything other than the understanding that God has granted to him.’42

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Abu Bakr bin al-‘Arabi followed a similar path and stated that studies of the Qur’an are endless if we are mindful of the constructions and conjunctions [of the language]. These sciences, if they were restricted to the meaning of the words of the Qur’an, can be summarised as follows: ‘[Calculations then follow that conclude that there are 77,450 branches of knowledge, according to the words of the Qur’an, multiplied by four.] Some of the ancestors have said: Truly, there is for every word an inward and an outward, the limited and the unlimited, apart from considering its structures and what ties them together. And this is not counted or known, except by God, may He be praised and exalted.’43 The sovereignty of this understanding for the meanings of the text and its domination over the culture has led in the end to transferring the effectiveness of the text from the field of linguistic meaning, by virtue of the text as a message, to the fields of semantic indicators, by virtue of the text as an icon. Perhaps this is to a great extent responsible for giving priority, in some of the stages of our intellectual and cultural history, to the Prophetic hadith,44 and this in terms of defining these hadith as a human discourse open to understanding, on the basis of language and formulation. This is particularly so if we compare these Prophetic hadith to the sanctity of the Qur’an and the eternity of its language and of its being regarded as an expression of the essence of the Speaker, may He be praised and exalted. We shall return to this issue at greater length through the analysis of our discussion about the inimitability of the Qur’an from one angle, and in the discussion about ‘the transformation of the understanding of the text’, in the last chapter of this study, from a different angle.

CHAPTER 14 MOHAMMED ARKOUN:1928—2010

Mohammed Arkoun, a native speaker of Berber, was born in the Kabyle village of Taourit Mimoun in Algeria. He had a traditional religious upbringing in an extended family of relatively little means. He left Kabylia in order to join his father who owned a grocery in ‘Ayn al-‘Arba, a wealthy French village east of Oran. The move was a ‘formative experience’,1 a confrontation with marginalisation, in that he had to learn Arabic and French in order to achieve social status and communicate outside the Berber regions. Upon his arrival in ‘Ayn al-‘Arba, Arkoun entered a French school through the help of an uncle. After graduating from this school he took up studies at the University of Algiers and then at the Sorbonne, from which he received the Aggregation-Diploma in Arabic language and literature in 1956, and a Ph.D. (for the study of tenthcentury Arab humanism) in 1970. Over the course of a long career Arkoun taught Arabic and Islamic studies at the Sorbonne, Lyons, and Vincennes, and he was, at the time of his death, Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne, and Senior Research Fellow and a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Isma‘ili studies in London. Arkoun draws upon an array of contemporary scholarly methods (structural linguistics, semiotics, the critique of epistemological systems and discourses, historical sociology, and anthropology) in order to subvert traditional Muslim and Western understandings of Islam and its development.2 According to Arkoun, the story begins with revelation, the period from 610 to 632, which he designates as the Qur’anic ‘fact/ event’. Conveyed through the Prophetic discourses of Muhammad, this ‘fact/event’ expresses a universal religious consciousness and a precise socio-cultural milieu. It provides a religious ‘imaginaire’, the inspiration for multiple ways of thought and action. Expressive of the hopes for justice, love, peace, and eternal salvation that are found in various forms within all religions, it is transmitted orally. It is not a system of beliefs and non-beliefs and is not yet fixed in ritual, ethical, juridical, and institutional codes. It is a pressing invitation to accept the Word of God through signs and symbols open to the continuous development of creative understandings.3

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The subsequent stage, the Islamic ‘fact/event’, begins in 632 and continues into the modern period. This new moment takes shape as the oral discourse of the first stage is transformed into a written discourse in the form of the Qur’an, a physical book (mushaf) that is elaborated upon by theologians as God’s uncreated speech and that is combined with the collection of canonical hadith4 as a ‘Closed Official Corpus’. The Closed Official Corpus develops within the context of the imperial expansion of the caliphal5 states (661 –1258), and as an ideological and political means to legitimate these states. ‘All theologians . . . use the instruments and procedures of a speculative reason (ultimately more or less influenced by Aristotle) to transform the mythical, open, symbolic Qur’anic discourse into a logo-centrist, conceptual, demonstrative system of beliefs and non-beliefs (usul al-din).’6 Both Islam and Christianity experienced a distinction between ‘prophetic’ and ‘imperial’ moments and the misrepresentations effected by the latter. ‘In the case of Islam, the work of misrepresentation is seen in the transformation of the historical actor Muhammad into the prophet/mediator of the “Word of God”, which is conceived as transcendent, normative, and immutable revelation, uncreated according to the “orthodox” position that eliminated the Mu’tazilite7 theory of the created Qur’an.’8 A rigid orthodoxy came to prevail, with the group in power condemning any deviant opinion as heretical.9 This development was enhanced and solidified through the emergence of a subservient Ottoman scholastic class.10 The thinkers of the Nahdah helped to reactivate the intellectual field, but they were unable to initiate a truly effective current of critical revisions. Islam and its traditions were ultimately little influenced by the initial ‘modest’ essays that sought to draw upon ‘decontextualized fragments of modernity’ from the classical age, even when they gave rise to violent condemnations from the guardians of orthodoxy. The fundamentalist excesses of the present would not have emerged if modernity had penetrated the frames of traditional thought in the manner that has occurred in Christianity.11 What was true of the Nahdah thinkers was true of many of the traditional Islamicists/Orientalists. They were fixed upon political and doctrinal data, complicit with the orthodox in disregarding the passage from the prophetic and oral to the imperial and written.12 Deconstruction is necessary, and on the basis of the re-creation of a critical and rational approach to Islam and religion in the spirit of classical philosophy.13 At the same time, this rationality must avoid the danger of a culture of modern, secular unbelief, ‘the dogmatic cult of the “death of God”’.14 Arkoun is a deconstructionist but he rejects the idea that there is no transcendental signifier (God) outside the text.15 Religiosity is ‘animist’ in the sense that it understands God as located within the universe. This sense of the God ‘within’ provides for a new rationality, ‘avoiding the prejudice of the secularised positivist or polemical model, as well as the so-called spiritual, divine, and transcendental model’.16 The process by which this rationality is produced is included within an anthropological problematic.

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Responses to Arkoun vary greatly, involving fierce criticism from many orthodox commentators, as well as encomiums, critical reserve, and dismissal by some liberals and radicals: He is in a class by himself, criticising both Western Islamicists/ Orientalists as largely representative of the domination of Muslims, and a modern Muslim intelligentsia as largely representative of a dormant intellectual culture;17 he suggests daring methods and concepts, but largely avoids applying them concretely, often adding questions without providing answers;18 he combines fashionable ideas from everywhere, with major contradictions left unresolved;19 he leaves many questions unresolved, but one should not expect him to be as productive on the level of application as he is on a conceptual level; he speaks of himself as ‘kindling fire’, hoping that the spark will spread.20 One of the commonest criticisms has been that he worked on the margins of the academic world, appealing largely to Western Islamicists/Orientalists and Arabs and Muslims living in the West or in a Westernised milieu.21 That he taught in France and wrote largely in French, that he received numerous Western honours and accolades and was a frequent attendee at many international conferences, adds fuel to the fire. His true distinction, in the eyes of not a few hostile critics, consisted in his providing a symbol of progress for French and Western audiences thirsty for a free-thinking Muslim humanist immersed in their kind of grand theory, even if they did not know what he was saying, or if they suspected that it did not amount to much.22 Ursula Gunther, certainly sympathetic, concluded in 2004 that Arkoun’s concepts ‘have not found their way into Islamic studies’ and have ‘not been taken up seriously . . . in order to initiate change’.23 Such a judgement is more than a little problematic in light of the nature of many recent studies in anthropology and the social sciences to which Arkoun himself referred as marking a break with the Islamicist and Orientalist traditions of the past. To be sure, Arkoun’s ideas have not been widely known as such in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and this is particularly attributable to their having been largely expressed in French, albeit there are some Arabic translations. His ideas nevertheless parallel those of Abu Zayd (who has received wide attention), and both he and Arkoun began to collaborate in the last years of their lives. In April, 2004, they and a number of other Arab intellectuals launched the Arab Institute for the Modernity of Thought. This provided financial and institutional support for debates within the Arab world about religion and its relation to modernity. The event launching the Institute included a scholarly conference, ‘Modernity and Arab Modernity’, which gathered a number of prominent Arab thinkers. Although the proceedings were published in Beirut in 2005, the Institute had ceased to exist by the time the volume appeared.24 There are, however, other institutes, and numerous contemporary religious dissidents and scholarly mavericks, apart from the now deceased Abu Zayd and Arkoun, are continuously appearing.25 Arkoun’s influence upon them is difficult to survey and gauge.

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A selection from Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, Boulder, CO, 1994, pp. 30– 4, edited and translated by Robert D. Lee

Revelation Islam is based on a book of revelation, the Qur’an. What is meant by ‘revelation’, and what does the word ‘Qur’an’ mean? Let’s begin with the meaning of the word ‘Qur’an’, a participle of the word qara’a, ‘to read’. In the word ‘Qur’an’ itself, the root q-r-’ has the sense of reciting more than reading, for it does not presuppose the existence of a written text when Muhammad first enunciated his revelation. Thus verses 16 and 17 of surah 75 say: ‘Don’t move your tongue to recite [the Qur’an] as if you wanted to hurry with the enunciation. It falls to us to put it together and proclaim it [qur’anahu ]; and when we have proclaimed it, to recite it faithfully; then it is our task to make it clear.’ Several verses emphasise the Prophet’s need to conform to the enunciation of verses according to the recitation as he heard them. Orientalist philologists suggest that the word qur’an has Syriac or Hebraic origins, but this observation does not modify the meaning required by the Qur’anic context itself. The principal idea is that of a recitation conforming to a discourse that is heard, not read. That is why I prefer to speak of Qur’anic discourse and not of text in the initial phase of enunciation by the Prophet. The putting into writing of the whole of the revealed discourse comes under the reign of the third caliph, ‘Uthman, between 645 and 656. The distinction between speech and text takes on an even greater importance in the light of modern linguistics.26 The Qur’an bears other names, such as al-kitab, the Book, the writings ‘descended’ from the sky in the course of the ‘Blessed Night’; al-dhikr, ‘the warning’ (and thus the peoples of the Book, ahl al-kitab, who are also called ahl al-dhikr, those people who have received the warning or who cause the names of God and his teachings to be remembered); al-furqan, ‘the discrimination’ or the discriminating proof, that is to say, the revelation.27 The question of revelation is more delicate, especially if one wishes to get beyond and renew ‘orthodox’ teachings piously repeated within each of the monotheistic traditions. It is not a matter of ignoring or overturning these teachings; the science of religions today seeks rather to understand the theological and historical genesis of them, their ideological and psychological functions, their semantic and anthropological limits and inadequacies. It would take too long here to do such analysis and provide this kind of an account. I will, instead, emphasise lines of research that, by avoiding all

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dogmatic definitions, would make possible the understanding of revelation as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon prior to any effort at constructing a theology upon it. The Islamic conception of revelation is called tanzil (‘descent’), a fundamental metaphor for the vertical gaze human beings are invited to cast toward God, transcendence. Tanzil refers to the object of a revelation; the Qur’an speaks also of wahy, which is the very act of revelation by God to the prophets. Here is how the Qur’an details the mechanisms of wahy in surah 42, verse 51/52: Man is not of a dignity such that God speaks to him other than by means of wahy or from behind a veil or by sending him a Messenger who, with the permission of God, communicates the wahy that God wants to give him. God is Transcendent and Wise. It is thus that we have sent a breath of life (ruh), acting on Our Orders; you did not know that it was neither the Book nor the Faith; we have made a Light by which We guide those whom We wish among Our servants. And you, in truth, lead with certainty toward the Straight Path. In the following surah, number 43, verses 1 – 5, the Qur’an offers further details: Ha. Mim. By the clarifying Book! Yes, We have made an Arab Qur’an so that you can perhaps recognise [the signs of an eternal Message]. And, in truth, this Qur’an is an integral part of the Archetype of the Book [umm al-kitab ], which is there in Our Presence, Transcendent and all Wisdom. Will we give up on reminding you of the Message [al-dhikr ] by virtue of the fact that you as a people have sinned to excess? The vocabulary of revelation used by the Qur’an itself is difficult to translate into our desacralised languages, cut off from the system of connotations relevant to religious discourse in the Semitic languages. That is why I have not translated the key term, wahy. Exegetists speak of an inspiration putting itself forward, either as a suggestion solicited by God in the spirit of a human being to permit him to understand the substance of the Message, or as an enunciation articulated in human language and communicated to the prophets, directly or with the mediation of an angel. The term qur’an thus takes on the meaning of recitation. Similarly, ruh, which stands properly for the breath of life, is interpreted as the spirit carried by the

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revelation or the angel carrying revelation. The notion of the Archetype of the Book, transcendent, replete with wisdom, and kept in the presence of God, is also essential to defining accurately the status of the Qur’an, understood as enunciations articulated in Arabic to explain clearly to human beings the truths and commandments of which God chooses to remind sinful peoples, as he already had with the prophets before Muhammad. These definitions, which no Muslim can dispute, permit me to sketch the first move toward a comparative theology of revelation. Whereas Jews and Muslims concur comfortably that God reveals his will to human beings via the mediation of prophets (with the difference that Muslims recognise all the prophets of Israel, while the Jews have always refused to accord Muhammad this status), Christians stake a claim irreducibly different from the JudeoIslamic position: Jesus Christ, they say, is the Word of God become flesh. He is the incarnation of God, the son of God come to live among men according to this conception; the New Testament is only an account of what the disciples heard and remembered of the teaching of the Son of God, speaking in the name of the Father. Let’s leave aside the formidable question of the Trinity, which can be discussed usefully among Christians, Jews, and Muslims only if, going behind dogmatic definitions handed down in each tradition, we agree on the semantic status of metaphor and symbol in the structure of meaning in naturally occurring languages. The problem is linguistic more than it is theological. We do not yet possess a theory of metaphor and symbol that would permit us to take account of the strictly linguistic genesis of meaning and of the philosophical status of the meaning thus engendered. The arbitrariness of traditional theological definitions resides in the fact that they presuppose a solution to the problem of metaphor and symbol in religious discourse. Metaphor adds an aesthetic ornament to a discourse that refers directly to objects, substances, and mental entities called by names that God himself has taught us, according to a biblical verse echoed in the Qur’an and supported at a linguistic level by classical philology. With a philosophy of language such as that perpetuated by theological teaching, the successive revelations are substantialised, essentialised, frozen in denotations belonging to the system of signs that conditions the lexicological and semantic operation of each language. The grammarian Al-Sirafi28 and the logician Matta Ibn Yunus29 raised and discussed this problem clearly within the tradition of Arab thought in the tenth century.30 It is clear that any modern reinterpretation of the notion of revelation will depend on solutions to the initial linguistic and logical problems of nomenclature in naturally occurring languages. Without prejudging what these solutions might turn out to be, we can open a common field of

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endeavour for the three traditions of theological research by using the Qur’anic distinction between the Archetype of the Book and the Arabiclanguage Qur’an. Would Christian theology be willing to say that the discourse of Jesus Christ in Aramaic (and not Greek; the distinction is important) at a precise time and in a precise place on Earth is related to God the Father as the Qur’anic discourse in Arabic transmitted by Muhammad is related to the Archetype of the Book retained in the presence of God transcendent? Even if this analogy brought objections from one side or the other, no one – not Christians, not Jews, not Muslims – can escape the following historical, linguistic, and cultural constraint: The messages transmitted by the prophets of Israel, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad were first oral enunciations, heard and memorised by disciples who subsequently acted as witnesses and transmitters of that which they heard and saw. In each case, whatever the theological status of the first enunciation of the message, there was a passing to a text, a fixing in writing of the message put together in historical conditions that must be, and already have more or less satisfactorily been, an object of scrutiny for the historian. The texts constituted in this fashion, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the mushaf (i.e., the book composed of pages where the Qur’anic discourse is transcribed), were elevated to the status of a Closed Official Corpus according to procedures developed and supervised by scholars: official because they resulted from a set of decisions taken by ‘authorities’ recognised by the community; closed because nobody was permitted any longer to add or subtract a word, to modify a reading in the Corpus now declared authentic. Then, in a decisive, irreversible, historic event shared by the three interrelated religious tendencies, revelation came to be accessible to the faithful only on the basis of the Closed Official Corpus, more commonly called Holy Scripture or the Word of God. Here must, however, be noted an important difference between Jews and Muslims, who continue to use the language of the original enunciations, and Christians, who abandoned Aramaic for Greek, Latin, and various national languages after the sixteenth century. The substitution of texts for oral discourse engendered two phenomena of great cultural and historical ramification. It put the peoples of the Book in a hermeneutic position; that is to say, they needed to interpret the holy texts to derive law, prescriptions, and systems of belief and non-belief of the sort that dominated the moral, legal, and political order until the triumph of secularisation. (As indicated above, a breakdown of the order came with the English and French revolutions, but nowhere did the breakdown bring about the complete elimination of the hermeneutic condition.) It also banalised the Holy Book by putting it within the reach of everyone, particularly after the

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invention of paper and then the printing press. The development of the book as an instrument of culture and a vehicle of civilisation contributed to the circulation of the Book as the receptacle of revelation and the diffusion of other books derived from it, such as those of exegesis, theology, law, professions of faith, catechism, and translation. It is in this sense that I speak of societies of the Book/book, where the Holy Book continues to shape and direct the production of books, and, as a result, the knowledge business as a whole in highly secularised societies. Inversely, the cultural growth of the Holy Book drew it into history and progressively stripped away its transcendence. This interaction between the Book and books has remained an essential characteristic of societies where the legitimacy of the state was tied or is still tied to the phenomenon of the Book, referring to revelation. That is why a history of these societies must integrate this dimension into a global reconstruction of their mechanisms of development rather than detaching religion from other factors producing each society. Further on I will show how social actors have continuously sought help from the Book to sacralise or transcendentalise their conduct, works, values, even the most profane of their visions. I emphasise this function of the Book because it has become dominant and unmistakable to the point of being intolerable in contemporary Muslim societies. Let’s not forget, however, that the separation of religious and temporal domains in Western societies screens the ever-functioning mechanisms of the societies of the Book/book from the eyes of the observer. John Paul II contributed mightily to popularising the religious phenomenon once again, in light of increasing disaffection with ideologies that had since the nineteenth century been working actively to install scientific socialism. The competition is still on; societies of the Book/book, like socialist or liberal societies, require fresh analysis with new scientific equipment. Taking into consideration all the experiments generated in the societies of the Book/book, one could say it is a revelation each time that a new vocabulary comes to radically change man’s view of his condition, his being-in-the-world, his participation in the production of meaning. Revelation is the accession to the interior space of a human being – to the heart, the qalb, says the Qur’an – of some novel meaning that opens up unlimited opportunities or back currents of meaning for human existence. The revelations collected in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur’an fit easily within this definition. They should not be confused with theological systems, exegeses, or legal codes that managers of the sacred establishments have drawn from them at various times. These derivatives constitute some among many meanings potentially contained in revelation. Revelation feeds a living tradition that permits the community to resupply itself periodically with the radical novelty of the original message; [ed: as] all

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the while sacralisation and transcendentalisation are tending to pervert and freeze the liberating vista of revelation. As examples of the dynamic operation of revelation in history, I would cite the experience of exile in Judaism, redemption in Christianity, and hijra (‘migration’) toward the absoluteness of God in Islam. Enough has been said on these themes within the three communities that we need not be detained by them here. The liberating vista of these three crowning events is obvious enough to justify our distinction between the revealing and transforming power of revelation and the repetitive behaviour that social actors deduce from it. This definition of revelation has the merit of making a place for the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, African elders, and all the great voices that recapitulate the collective experience of a group in order to project it toward new horizons and enrich the human experience of the divine. We manage thus to guide ourselves toward another variety of religious thought and go beyond all previous experience with the sacred.

CHAPTER 15 MUHAMMAD SHAHRUR:1938—

The Syrian Muhammad Shahrur was born in Damascus in 1938, the fifth child of a dyer.1 Shahrur’s childhood was spent in a liberal religious atmosphere, and he attended secular primary and secondary state schools. His father emphasised a practical and moral religion rather than ritual and abstract theology. ‘If you want to warm yourself,’ his father is said to have told him, pointing to the stove, ‘don’t recite the Qur’an, but light a fire in the stove.’2 Shahrur went to Saratov, near Moscow, in 1959, to study civil engineering, and his Soviet experience was important to his intellectual development. Sympathetic to socialism and yet disconcerted by one-party rule and Soviet atheism, he became enmeshed in defending his theistic beliefs. His religious and philosophical interests nevertheless long remained subordinate to interests in family and career. He returned to Syria in 1964 with a diploma from the Moscow Institute, fluency in Russian, and a Russian wife. In 1968 he again left Syria to study abroad, at the University College in Dublin, from which he earned a master’s degree in 1969 and a doctorate in soil mechanics and foundation engineering in 1972. After obtaining these degrees, he joined the Faculty of Engineering at Damascus University where he became a full professor. He taught at the university for twenty-six years, from 1972 to 1998, and became well-known as a consultant and the author of standard Syrian reference works in his field.3 In spite of his work as an academic and consultant, Shahrur’s religious interests persisted, and came to a head after the military defeat of 1967. Although Shahrur shared the concerns of a number of his Syrian colleagues, he and Tayyib Tizini were unusual in their emphasis upon Islam as possessing a universal epistemology based upon rationalism, liberty, and science.4 The result was The Book and the Qur’an (al-Kitab wa al-Qur’an), published in 1990, and destined to become one of the most popular efforts at modern Arab radical religious reconstruction. The work was unusual in the degree to which it drew upon contemporary natural science rather than classical philosophy or mediaeval religious exegesis. It has been characterised as a synthesis between Alfred North Whitehead’s

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speculative philosophy, German idealism, and the structuralism of mathematical engineering, and hence truly ‘distinctive’ in comparison to ‘the work of other philosophical thinkers’.5 Shahrur’s conception of religion and Islam is grounded in several key elements. There is, firstly, what is taken to be a Qur’anic notion of religion, al-Islam (that is, the religion of Muhammad), which is at one with an observable form of religiosity (also designated as al-Islam) common to all humanity. This universal religion, of the Qur’an and of all humanity, is guided by scientific reason and a universal common sense that defines the good and moral. There is, secondly, al-iman (often rendered into English as belief or faith), understood as ‘religion’, but in a particular ritualistic, legal, and cultural form, of a particular time, place, and people, and yet reflective of the eternal and universal al-Islam. If society is to truly flourish, contemporary Islamists must abandon the fetishising of their particular iman and recapture the ethical and rational dimensions of the humanity and morality of the universal and eternal al-Islam. There is, thirdly, the notion of God as the foundation of all existence, providing the material existence of ‘being’, its continuous ‘progressing’, and, through man in relationship to God, the ethical standards and limits of its ‘becoming’. There is, fourthly, a concept of prophecy that involves human comprehension of what has been objectively delivered (tanzil) by God rather than revelation conceived in vertical terms. The prophets had, in particular, access to objective knowledge obtained through rational deduction and comprehension of objective truth. Although revelation through prophethood reached its highest level with the Prophet Muhammad, we now live in a post-prophetic era in which leading thinkers (philosophers, natural scientists, lawyers) have succeeded the prophets in their attempts to rationally understand the truth. As Prophet and Messenger, Muhammad delivered verses that are either ontologically eternal, absolute, and objectively valid, or that are temporal, relative, subjectively conditioned, and changeable. The latter were delivered by Muhammad as Messenger. They provide, together with hadith, rituals and precepts linked to a particular time and place (seventh-century Mecca and Madinah), and yet permissible within God’s eternal and universal limits, that is, the upper and lower boundaries of His law. Muhammad offers a model of flexibility in operating within his particular historical context, but we do not have to make the same choices that he made. We must re-read the Message in light of our own contemporary knowledge and conditions. All believers in God (and, by extension, the Last Day) are Muslims. Those who follow the particular precepts revealed by Muhammad as Messenger, relating to prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, and alms, are Muslim-believers (mu’minin). Those who follow the particular precepts of Jesus as Messenger are Muslim– Christians. And those who follow the precepts of Moses as Messenger are Muslim– Jews. The passage of time has, moreover, led to an historical perspective in respect to the particular rituals and precepts of the various messengers. Each prophet conveyed the universal message in terms of the specificities of his people, but, as has already been indicated, with the ending of the

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prophetic period, the particular teachings of these prophets will give way to universal ethics shared by all human beings. In the case of Islam, the traditional interpretations of the ulama6 will be replaced by the interpretations of non-clerical intellectuals free from traditional scholarship.7 The debate about The Book and the Qur’an resulted in the publication of eighteen books and many articles between 1990 and 2000. In December, 1990, the eminent Syrian Shaykh Ramadan al-Buti denounced the book as the product of a Zionist organisation and a well-orchestrated intellectual campaign, whereas, a month later, in January 1991, the literary critic Na‘im al-Yafi spoke approvingly of its scientific spirit, its holistic vision, and progressive, modern point of view. Subsequent critics dropped the Zionist accusation, either criticising the book publicly on other grounds or ignoring it entirely. Two publications of 1991 attacked the book as Marxist, secular, and materialist, and this, in turn, inspired a reaction by politically leftist intellectuals (including Hamid Abu Zayd) who distanced themselves from the book and argued that it lacked any real Marxist and secular– materialist analysis. By 1994 the debate had expanded beyond Islamic specialists to include a wide range of intellectuals and teachers. A lecture at Damascus University in 1992, which attracted 5,000 people, caused considerable unrest among the University establishment. Two publications in particular, by ‘Abd al-Rahman Hasan al-Maydani (1997) and Muhammad Sayyah Ma‘arawiyyah (2000), sought to provide theological arguments to counter every argument by Shahrur. There were, nevertheless, no official accusations of blasphemy, disbelief, or apostasy, no proceedings in civil court, no public hearings or efforts at arrest, and no immediate threats to Shahrur’s safety or life. His first book was officially banned in Egypt and temporarily forbidden in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but it was not confiscated in Syria. Shahrur was invited to speak at several universities in and outside of the Arab world after his retirement from Damascus University, and the Syrian government allowed him to travel without interference.8 Here, again, political, cultural, psychological, and socio-economic contexts apart from religion, and allowing for all of the scholarly difficulty that the separation of such realms entails, played their role. There was, for one, the degree to which secularisation had made greater advances in Syria than in some other Arab countries, advances that had been enhanced by Ba‘athist governance.9 It is hardly surprising that the secularist Syrian government might tolerate and even encourage an author who was fiercely hostile to the interpretations of radical Islamists and who produced an attack on jihadism as such in Draining the Sources of Terrorism (Tajfif manabi‘ al-irhab), a later publication.10 The degree of The Book’s success cannot, however, be explained largely by its availability. By 1996 more than 10,000 copies had been purchased in Syria alone. An authorised Beirut edition and a pirated Egyptian edition were soon available, as well as a version on CD-ROM. In spite of its length (over 800 pages), and apart from

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Syria, the book sold tens of thousands of copies throughout the Arab world, and was also widely circulated by photocopy.11 What strengths account for such positive responses? Andreas Christmann, who has translated and edited, with Shahrur’s cooperation, a large compendium of Shahrur’s writings, attributes the appeal to Shahrur’s emphasis upon ethics in contrast to overzealous legalism, to his providing a strictly contemporary reading of the Qur’an in contrast to absurd obsessions with the past, and to his stress upon a return to universal ethical objectives. Christmann maintains, more particularly, that the ultimate relevance of Shahrur lies in his ability to ‘synthesise critical reasoning with religious thought’, a synthesis that is anathema to secular and traditional opponents.12 And yet, even Christmann has to admit that ‘many of Shahrur’s own interpretations will be seen as too subjective and arbitrary, or incompatible with a rigorous, falsifiable, and verifiable system of textual analysis’.13 In his exegesis of what he takes to be the Qur’an’s description of the Big Bang, for example, Shahrur interprets the introductory divine oath (‘By the Break of Day, By the Nights Twice Five, By the Evens and the Odds, Contrasted,’ Surah ‘The Dawn’, al-fajr, 1 – 3), as referring to the ‘evens’ in the nucleus and the ‘odds’ in the outer circle of hydrogen, to which, according to Shahrur, the Qur’an also refers when speaking of the throne of the Creator God as resting on water (Surah ‘Hud’, verse 7).14 There is masterly exegesis in Shahrur’s work, but even the most well-disposed reader (Muslim and non-Muslim) might have cause for concern when confronted with such passages. Have Shahrur’s formidable efforts to reconcile reason and faith resulted in assessments that are sometimes too generous? Have the judgements of some of his admirers been too much conditioned by political (liberal democratic) wishful thinking, the appeal, for example, of what Christmann calls Shahrur’s ‘absolute trust in the essential goodness of secular, parliamentary legislation’ in contrast to the ulama’s uncodified religious law,15 or of his condemnation of Islamism and communism as equally dogmatic, as ‘ideology without theory’.16 Are these charges by Shahrur not in themselves susceptible on compelling, if ‘old-fashioned’, Marxist theoretical grounds, to charges of idealism and reductionism? A selection from The Book and the Qur’an: a Contemporary Reading (al-Kitab wa al-Qur’an: qira’ah mu‘asarah), 7th edition, Damascus, 1997 pp. 545–54, translated by Ralph M. Coury Part Two: The Sunnah17

Introduction Any serious study of the Sunnah must involve an essential question to which the response must be absolutely clear: This question takes on the following form: Are the words of the Prophet (if they are found to be authentic) – his

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exegesis and behaviour, in respect to matters that do not pertain to the essentials of ‘limits’,18 the obligations of worship, and the unknown – revelation or interpretation? Some say that what was undertaken by the Prophet is all revelation, on the basis of the Almighty saying, ‘Nor does he say of his own desire/It is no less than inspiration sent down to him.’ (Surah ‘The Star’, al-najm, 3 and 4) There is absolutely no justification for this argument on the basis of this noble verse. For the pronoun ‘it’ does not refer to the Prophet. Rather, ‘it’ refers, clearly and solely, to the revealed Book and there is no link, here, between the pronoun and the one previous to it, and this is implied by the verb ‘he says’, which refers to the Prophet. What was characteristic of the Prophet was that he did not judge on the basis of his sayings and his deeds, founded on whim and personal fluctuations. The matter that enabled him to reach an exalted status was in truth the vocation of prophethood but without placing all of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet into the category of revelation in all cases. There is this verse: ‘He does not say of his own desire.’ This occurred in Mecca during the period in which the Arabs doubted the revelation itself. The problem was not that of the sayings of the Prophet and his works but the problem of the Qur’an19 itself. The problem was a problem for most of the Arabs. That is, revelation was the subject of questioning and doubt, and not the personal behaviour of the Prophet. However, it should be noted that if we wanted to attribute the hadith20 of the Prophet to Mecca and Madinah we would find that most of the hadith would not all be Madinan or Meccan. Let us take an example from the Book itself. God would address his noble Prophet, warning him in a clear manner and, on a number of occasions, in a way that did not necessitate interpretation. When he turned away from Ibn Maktum, the poor blind man, and he received the notables of the Quraysh, speaking with them in the hope of guiding them and their becoming Muslims, he was thus spoken to, ‘He frowned and turned away / Because there came to him / The blind man (interrupting)./ But what could tell you / That he might not / Grow (in spiritual understanding)’ (Surah ‘He Frowned’, ‘abasa, 1– 3). It should be noted that these verses are not from the Qur’an and do not have a relationship with the Preserved Tablet and the Clear Guide (al-imam al-mubin).21 And, on another occasion, God said, ‘Prophet! Why / Do you forbid/ What God has/ Made lawful to you?/ You seek to please / Your consorts. But God / Is forgiving and merciful.’ (Surah ‘The Forbidden’, al-tahrim, 1) And, on a third occasion, He says, ‘It is not fitting / For a Messenger / That he should have / Prisoners of war until / He has thoroughly subdued / The land you took / For the temporal goods / Of this world; But God / Looks to the hereafter:/ And God is exalted in might and wise.’ (Surah ‘The Spoils’, al-anfal, 67)

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We are thus able to say that what was adopte d and de signate d as the Prophe tic Sunnah was in fact the life of the Prophe t, and a prophe t and a human entity who lived his life in the present, or to speak more strongly, in the heart of the present and not in a world of dreams. For he – in addition to his life in respect to the revelation by which God led him – lived his life in the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century of the Christian era and within the conte xt of all the ge ographical, historical, cultural, and political conditions, which characterised this Peninsula. We should note that the Prophet and the Companions22 did not consider, at any time, that the Prophetic hadith were revelation. For he did not, for his part, ever order that they should be collected, as he did with the revelation of ‘the Book’. This was also true of the matte r as it re late s to the Rashidun Caliphs23 who understood that it [the collection of hadith] was the result of dealing with a specific existing society within a specific context in which the Prophe t live d and within which he face d the re al world of place and time. It was on this basis that a rich spring was found from which the believers (and more particularly, the ulama who constructe d the Shari‘ah24) be ne fitte d in general. Two questions stand out in relation to this matter: Why didn’t the Prophet order his Companions to collect his words, in spite of the fact that he had been so keen that they record the revelation, and why didn’t the Companions gather the words as embodied in the hadith after they had completed gathering the Book, and even when they knew that these hadith, expressive of the ‘Straight Path’,25 had been handed down through unbroken historical tradition? The Prophet and the Companions did not do this because the hadith were representative of an historical period and the Sunnah, in its essence, does not consist of the Prophet’s words. They also understood that there is a difference between a genius and a prophet. The genius is a product of the material and moral circumstances of his age and these will pass away. Muhammad was, however, a prophet, mediating between the world of the Absolute and the world of time and place. Islam has two dimensions – the divine, as expressed in the revealed Book, and the relative, as represented by Muhammad as Prophet and Messenger in his Sunnah, by which Muhammad takes what is absolute, the limits or the outward boundaries of human behaviour as established by God, and is able to embody them in the actual world that he confronts. There has been a need for a variety of prophets and messengers to confront different human contexts. All of them brought ‘instalments’ of Islam and Muhammad’s is the last.26 It is thus that Islam is sound for all times and places inasmuch as the Book, this link to the absolute, will produce a particular society and culture for each pe riod, in orde r to inte ract with succe ssive historical conte xts and periods. It [Islam] and the circumstance s in que stion will be able to take on a

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particular historical dimension according to the objective world with which it is interacting. This is the pivotal reason for the intense concern of the Prophet and the Companions for the revelation, which is the principle and the absolute. As for the rest, it is left to the human being in the context of the time. There is no mould in reserve from the past for people, and no halt to historical movement in Islam. This [the assumption that there is a mould] is something that the Prophet and his Companions guarded themselves against and into which we have fallen. We have embalmed history and we have blamed the Prophet for this and we have stripped Islam of one of its most important features and this is the Hanifite27 religion, for it is Islam that commands the Hanifite religion as the purest form of human religion. ‘And they have been commanded / No more than this: / To worship God, / Offering Him sincere devotion, / As followers of the Hanifite religion.’ (Surah ‘The Clear Proof’, al-bayyinah, 5) The ordinances of Umm al-Kitab came, then, from God directly and not from the Preserved Tablet or the Clear Guide. And this is what represents the Message and contains the limits and the obligations of worship and ethics and of which it is said: ‘God blots out / Or confirms what He pleases: / With Him is / The Mother of the Book.’ (Surah ‘The Thunder’, al-ra’ad, 39) It is not eternal because it is not the words of God but, rather, the Book of God. It is from here that the false definition of the Sunnah comes, that is, in our believing that the Prophet’s Sunnah is everything that proceeds from him in respect to what is said, done, commanded, denied, or decreed. We know that this understanding of the Sunnah is not the definition of the Prophet himself and that, subsequently, it [this understanding] is open to discussion, acceptance, and rejection. This [wrong definition] was the cause of the embalming of Islam. We know that the Prophet and his Companions did not know the Sunnah in this form, and the actions of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab28 confirm this. And this, with the knowledge that the basis of Islamic jurisprudence is the Book and the Sunnah. This is true. However, it is not the Book and the hadith. If that were true what would be the definition of the Sunnah? Let us now posit a contemporary definition: The Sunnah: It is a programme for the establishment with ease of the ordinances of the Mother of the Book. It sets forth the means of departing from the strictest limits of God in the matter of punishments or the positing of customary punishments relative to a particular stage, ‘the times and places, and the objective conditions with which these judgements are congruent’, relying upon the Almighty’s saying, ‘God intends every facility / For you; He does not want / To put you in difficulties’ (Surah ‘The Cow’, al-baqarah, 185), and also His saying, ‘He has imposed no difficulties upon you in religion,’ (Surah ‘The Pilgrimage’, al-hajj, 88). The Sunnah comes from [the Arabic

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word] ‘sin’ and this means, in the Arabic language, ease and flowing with ease, as we speak of water as flowing with ease (ma’ masnun). This is what the Prophet has totally done to bring about the application of the ordinances of the Mother of the Book. He varied them within the limits of God and came to a stop from time to time for the sake of the existing, relative world in which he – not us – lived. He was, moreover, never, in all of his days, or in all of his circumstances, a dreamer, or delusional, or absolutist. Therefore, what the Prophet achieved in the seventh century in the Arabian Peninsula was the first instance of the interaction of Islam with a particular historical period and not the only one or the last. This was true because he was the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers and he could do nothing other than this in order to preserve the vitality of the message and prophecy until the Final Hour. In so far as his message was based on the limits of God he was the only prophet who was allowed to interpret because he was the Seal of the Prophets, and people therefore needed to learn how to interpret on their own after him, inasmuch as Islam is human jurisprudence within God’s limits.

The First Section The Sunnah of the Message and the Sunnah of Prophecy Now that we have learned about the Sunnah we have to divide it into two segments and these are the Sunnah of the Message and the Sunnah of Prophecy. As I have said, prophecy is learning and the message is ordinances and teachings so that obedience pertains to the message and not prophecy. There is no verse in the Book that says, ‘and you should obey the Prophet’, but there are verses that say ‘and obey the Messenger,’ knowing that great praise has come to the state of Prophecy, as indicated by His saying, ‘Verily God and His angels / Send blessings upon the Prophet.’ (Surah ‘The Parties’, al-ahzab, 56) Sunnah of the Message We must differentiate in the Sunnah of the Message between the limits of God, rites of worship, and morals and teachings. There are some commands and admonitions that have come to the Prophet which address him by the expression ‘Oh Prophet’. These verses include teachings and instructions or references specific to the Prophet alone, and they have no link to the permitted and forbidden whatsoever. It is for this reason that obedience came in the mode of the message, through His saying, ‘Obey God and the Messenger,’ and His saying, ‘You have in the Messenger of God / A beautiful pattern of conduct.’ (Surah ‘The Parties’, 21) Hence, He spoke of the Messenger of God and not the Prophet of God. And here, in the Sunnah of the Message, it is necessary to differentiate between two kinds of obedience.

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1) Interconnected obedience This is the obedience that was brought through the obedience to the Messenger intermingled with the obedience to God, as indicated by His saying, ‘And obey God / And the Messenger;/ That you may obtain mercy’ (Surah ‘House of Imran’, al-‘Imran, 132), and His saying, ‘All who obey God / And the Messenger / Are in the company / Of those on whom / Is the grace of God, – / Of the Prophets (who teach) / The sincere (lovers of truth), / The witnesses (who testify), / And the righteous (who do good): / Ah! What a beautiful fellowship!’ (Surah ‘The Women’, al-nisa’, 69). Inasmuch as God is living and eternal and has intermingled obedience to the Messenger with obedience to God in a single obedience, obedience to the Messenger becomes linked to obedience to God in his life and after his death. This obedience has come to be limited to the limits of God and the rites of worship and morals, ‘the Straight Path’. We can set forth the following analogy in respect to the limits of God:

On the Limits of God The Prophet has set the highest limits for what appear in the Mother of the Book as merely the minimum limits. An example of this would be: women’s dress as it appears in verse 31 in the Surah ‘The Light’ (al-nur). The minimum in respect to women’s dress is set forth in this verse and it is what today would be called underclothes. And in these cases the Prophet posited [in the hadith] the highest boundary for women’s dress by saying that the whole body of the woman is private except for her face and the palms of her hands. Obeying this hadith is similar to obeying a verse and is not less. That is, if a woman went out naked as God has created her, she has then overstepped the limits of God in dress. And if she goes out completely covered, including her face and her palms, she has departed from the boundaries of His Prophet. For the dress of the Muslim woman is dress according to usages, and it fluctuates between underclothes and covering the body except for the face and the palms. Thus we find that the dress of most women of this world is included within the limits of God and his Prophet. (See The Study of Women in Islam, Mabhath al-mar’ah fi al-Islam.) Shahrur proceeds to discuss issues of limits in relation to inheritance, alms, and prayer. On ethics: All of the hadith of the Prophet which came in respect to the Ten Commandments, from consuming the wealth of orphans, or covenants, or reverence for one’s parents, or false witness, are merely expositions of the commandments and obedience to them are combined obedience.

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As for the limits of God in respect to punishments: it is necessary for us to understand that the words of the Prophet in applying the limits of the Book of God in respect to punishments consist of a threat to apply the upper limits of the punishment, that is, that these punishments should stop short of the upper limit. The Prophet has ordered us to avoid applying the upper limit of punishments, ‘the limits of the Book of God’, in saying, ‘Avert the application of the limits in the light of possible uncertainties and take no heed of the mistakes of the decent, except in respect to the limits of God Almighty.’ And in his saying, ‘Avert the limits in respect to the Muslim as much as you can. If you can find an out for a Muslim then let him go. For if the imam29 errs in forgiving it is better than if he errs in punishment.’30 He did not say, ‘Avert punishments through vagueness.’ The Prophet hated to apply the limits of God in punishment and especially for fornication. He himself used to look for uncertainties in order to avoid applying the limit. An example of this is the story of Ma‘iz31 to whom the Prophet said, ‘Have you accepted, or beckoned, or looked?’ (See The Collection of the Foundations of Jurisprudence, Jami‘ al-usul, of Ibn al-Athir, vol. 3, pp. 526– 7.) The Prophet posited a definition and a description of sins in respect to the upper limits of punishments. We have ourselves learned, on this basis, how to establish a definition and a description of the sins of the upper limits before we apply these limits. And this definition is governed by the objective circumstances of every land according to time and development.

2) Detached Obedience This is obedience that has appeared in the Book according to His saying, ‘Oh you who believe! / Obey God, and obey the Messenger, / And those charged / With authority among you./ If you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it / To God and His Messenger, / If you do believe in God / And the Last Day:/ That is best, and most suitable / For final determination.’ (Surah ‘The Women’, 59) And his saying, ‘Obey God, and obey the Messenger / And beware (of evil): / If you do turn back,/ You should know that it is / Our Messenger’s duty / To proclaim (the Message) / In the clearest manner’ (Surah ‘The Table Spread’, al-ma’idah, 92). This obedience to the Prophet comes as separate from the obedience to God. This obedience comes to the Prophet during his life, and not after death, that is, in daily matters and in terms of the rulings of the period. In the orders and decrees that he undertook as the leader of a nation and a judge and a military ruler, and in orders and judgements relating to provision and food and drink and dress, in which he followed Arab customs, he would operate within the context of the limits of God without departing from them and he would apply the punishments only in very rare

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cases. These commands are determined on the basis of a contemporary understanding, on the basis of their content, and not on the basis of their outward form. If there is anything that is beneficial to us in the present time we take it and if there isn’t we leave it. And even if there were here a mixture of obedience to the Prophet with obedience to God and they followed it (‘for the rulers come from among you’), the ‘rulers from among you’ would here mean the living and not the dead. In a situation [in which the rules of the dead were obeyed] obedience to the rulers would become similar to obedience to God in prayer and fasting, and disobedience to the rulers would mean disobedience to God, and the rulers would become representatives of God on earth and in fact His regents. We know, however, that it is the human being who is God’s regent (khalifah) on earth and not the rulers. For everything that the Prophet said as orders is not cited in the Book in a categorical way. In respect to these matters, he has said that this is forbidden and that this is allowed, and the meaning of these judgements is that they pertain to the particular period, and that the limits pertain to the particular period as well, and that they have no link to the limits of God. That is, that the Prophet set limits for some particular matters, that it was necessary for him to posit these limits, and that this was in keeping with the specific circumstances under which he was living and in keeping with the problems that he was trying to solve. They did not bear the eternal character of God’s limits. These [not bearing the eternal characteristics] included such matters as forbidding painting, sculpture, drawing, music, singing, wearing gold, and preventing women from holding positions of governance in the state. If the Prophet truly forbade drawing and sculpture and painting, then it is understandable in his time, due to the fact that the Arabs had recently been in the age of paganism (al-wathaniyyah). Forbidding this was preventative and temporary, whereby this prohibition did not appear in the Book at all. It therefore appeared in the book whose title is Avoidance of the Filth of Idols (Ijtinab al-najas min al-awthan). That is, ‘avoidance of the filth of idols’, and not ‘the avoidance of idols’. This is so because all of these hadith have no link to the limits of God. And he taught us through this that laws that are nondivine bear a necessary [but temporary] characteristic, and he taught us that we ourselves must make laws. On the basis of this departure it is necessary for us to separate off, absolutely, the hadith that are connected to the limits of God and to acts of worship and ethics, that is, the traditions of the Straight Path. We have here to take note that God, may He be praised and exalted, has not given to anyone the right of establishing fixed juridical limits [that will last] up to the Last Hour, limits that would be known as the limits of God. As He has said, ‘Those who disobey / God and His Messenger / And transgress His

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limits’ (Surah ‘The Women’, 14). Here the pronoun in the phrase ‘His limits’ pertains to God alone, and if God allowed the Prophet to establish limits in addition to His limits, He would have said, ‘And transgress their limits’. If this were true [that is, if the Prophet could establish limits], we would find only one edition of the books of hadith, which would be as precise and complete as the verses of the limits of the Book. That is to say, the Prophet and his Companions would have been as interested in gathering and affirming the hadith as they were in respect to the contents of the Book. As for the rest of the hadith that are linked to general and social behaviours, they have only historical importance and are not obligatory on anyone and can be included within the category of the specific juridical hadith, and the decisions and answers to questions addressed to the Prophet during his lifetime. It is in this way that we understand the Prophetic Sunnah as the interpretation of the Prophet in applying the rulings (al-ahkam) of the Book in respect to the limits of God and rites of worship and ethics, taking into consideration the objective world in which he lived, moving between the limits, and applying them at times, and establishing limits according to the period for matters that were not cited in the Book. And in this the Prophet was a beautiful pattern of conduct for us up until the Day of Judgement in respect to bending (bi al-hanaf) within the context of the barriers of God and in the establishment of the limits of the true religion (al-hanafiyyah) in other matters. And it is in respect to this that he said, ‘Has not this Book, together with its like, been given to me?’ This is also the way we understand the saying of the Prophet, if it is true, ‘Disagreement in my nation is a blessing’ (The Small Collection, al-Jami‘ al-saghir, vol. 1, p. 12), that is, that the Muslims disagree as to how they should move within God’s limits from one position to another and from one time to another, and that they also disagree in respect to establishing human limits according to time and place. And this is the heart of mercy and the Sunnah. We therefore have to return to the understanding of the hadith in light of the understanding of the Book and not vice versa, and this is because the traditional methods that have been followed have understood the Book in light of the hadith. It remains for me to express hope that the reader will understand me properly and not think that we are rejecting the hadith of the Prophet. God forbid! How can we do this, when we have heard his saying, ‘There may be a man who received hadith from me and would say, “let us have the Book of God as a judge between you and me. . . etc.”.’ Rather, we call for a renewal of the understanding of the hadith, its critique, and its receiving the consideration that it deserves.

CHAPTER 16 `

ABDALLAH AL-QUSAYMI:1907—96

The Saudi ‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi was born in a small village in the area of Qusaym in Najd.1 After his parents separated, he was left with a poor maternal grandfather and forced to work at a very young age in farming and ranching. Al-Qusaymi eventually joined his father (who had prospered in the pearl trade) in the Gulf of Oman, where he entered one of the religious schools that a Wahhabi2 merchant and shaykh3 had established. A number of teachers from Najd and Iraq taught in this school, including some who had studied with Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida4 at al-Azhar.5 After his father’s death in 1922, al-Qusaymi undertook religious studies in Iraq, then in India, and finally in Egypt, where he became a student at al-Azhar in 1927.6 As a strong Salafi7 with Wahhabi leanings, he soon found himself in the forefront of an attack on those ulama8 of al-Azhar who were associated with Sufi9 practices of which the Wahhabis and many liberal reformers disapproved (such as the visitation to the graves of Sufi ‘saints’). Al-Qusaymi published several works in the exchanges that erupted, including The Lightning Bolts from Najd for the Removal of the Dajawi Darknesses (Buruq al-najdiyyah fi iktisah al-zulumat al-dajawiyyah), Cairo, 1931. Some regarded this attack as egregious (the title, referring to the Azhari shaykh al-Dajawi, a defender of Sufism who happened to be blind, was not in the best of taste), and al-Qusaymi was expelled from al-Azhar soon after its publication.10 The Lightning Bolts was a prelude to These Are the Chains (Hadhi hiya al-aghlal), published in 1948, which transgressed the boundaries of acceptable Muslim discourse at that time. Al-Qusaymi argued that Muslims were fatalistic and ascetic, hostile to learning and lacking in energy, fearful of worldly success, and corrupted by foreign converts who had destroyed the love of freedom and egalitarianism of pristine (Arab) Islam. The prevailing orthodox belief that God is the only real agent is mistaken. The universe is governed by causal laws which man can discover and act upon. True understanding of religion is necessary, but there are achievements that have no connection to religion. The culmination of all human progress does not lie in the past.

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Understanding and doubt are the means to a civilisation of knowledge and power. Future material and industrial discoveries are the key to development. Poverty and disbelief are one, and wealth is close to godliness. If a higher percentage of Jews and Christians within the Muslim world are more accomplished in industry and the professions than Muslims, it is because they have not been corrupted as Muslims have.11 This work garnered fierce condemnation but also full or qualified approval. On the one hand, the Shaykh of Shaykhs (shaykh al-mashayikh) of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Ibrahim, declared that the shedding of al-Qusaymi’s blood was permissible, and King Ibn Sa’ud instructed the Saudi consul in Egypt to disavow him. Sayyid Qutb12 declared him to be an atheist. A number of Egyptian Islamic organisations demanded his removal from the country, and there was a weak echo of this in Egyptian official circles. On the other hand, the Azhari shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, who would become Shaykh al-Azhar in 1958, wrote that no one from al-Azhar had written so great a book in a thousand years. The Shaykh al-Azhar at the time, the poet Hassan al-Qayqari, also praised him as a great Islamic reformer, although he disagreed with al-Qusaymi’s arguments about the negative effects of Sufism. The liberal modernists, together with the Salafiyyah of the Rashid Rida type (who defined the Salaf as the Prophet and those who knew him, in contrast to ‘Abduh who included all of the makers of Islam through al-Ghazali13) also rallied to him. Isma‘il Mazhar was particularly pleased by al-Qusaymi’s defence of causality and his praise of the purity of Arab Islam before its corruption, and Khalaf Allah’s mentor, Amin al-Khuli, called for a discussion of the book at Cairo University.14 If the charge of atheism, defined as disbelief in a theistic god, is hardly credible in respect to The Chains, this cannot be said of the works that al-Qusaymi published in Beirut and Paris beginning in the 1960s,15 works which many contemporary men of religion came to regard as the most transgressive religious critique that the Arab world had ever known.16 According to these latter works, man’s frustrations and sorrows are sublimated into wars and enmities, or into art, literature, or religious fantasy. The feeble resort to myth, the imaginary, and dependence upon their prophets. God is not guided by logic or morality or any rule.17 His qualities are projections of human qualities and yet, in the case of Islam, and in contrast to Feuerbach’s emphasis (or so al-Qusaymi implies in one of his more notorious reflections), the qualities that were projected onto God are especially negative. Man, that is, Arabian man, conceives of his God as particularly cruel and aggressive, reflections of the violence of the Bedouin societies in which Islam was born.18 The theistic God, separate and alone, is, however, as such and apart from the God of Islam, more horrible than any enemy that man could conceive. He is an accused who takes on behaviour that humans wish to justify. Religion derives from internal human needs, but denies, ultimately, man’s true nature, inasmuch as it is not open to human critique.19 Arab unity and Arab revolutions are bogus. Revolutions result from progress; they do not cause it. ‘The Arabs,’ in one of his most celebrated formulations, the title of one of his later works, ‘are a verbal phenomenon.’20

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It is not surprising that the writings in this second phase resulted in much hostility. An assassination attempt may have been afoot for a time when al-Qusaymi was in Lebanon.21 His books were briefly banned in that country in 1962, and he was expelled for a year beginning in 1967. He was criticised by the Syrian, Salah al-Din al-Munajjid, among others, as representative of allegedly widespread Arab atheism that was responsible for the defeat of 1967.22 Such attacks were supplemented by criticisms from Kuwait, which asked how the works of the atheists Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm and ‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi could be published in the prestigious Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar, and how the Kuwaiti censors could possibly allow al-Qusaymi’s works into the country.23 As the years passed, al-Qusaymi’s style also became a major source of irritation. Although he rejected religion, a rhetorical preaching style, in which he would ask and answer his own questions, repeating words of similar meanings and sounds, became more pronounced. ‘Repetition,’ he wrote in justification, ‘is a natural law of human existence’, ending only in silence and death.24 The great Lebanese modernist poet and critic Yusuf al-Khal had, in 1963, celebrated al-Qusaymi’s The World Is Not Rational (al-‘Alam laysa ‘aqlan) as ‘a scream with a logical meaning’. By 1977, he had concluded that al-Qusaymi’s increasingly repetitious expressions of furious rage against the Arabs (do they really deserve this, al-Khal asked) meant that al-Qusaymi had himself become ‘a verbal phenomenon’.25 The degree of support that al-Qusaymi garnered is nevertheless striking. Mikha’il Nu‘aymah, the great poet and critic of the North American Mahjar, wrote in 1964 that no Arab had ever criticised his people with such frankness and courage and rhetorical power.26 Praise by such prominent critics was matched by wide interest, as manifested in the frequent publication and discussion of his works in the literary supplement of al-Nahar in the 1960s and into the 1970s, and the gathering of prominent intellectuals and personalities in the weekly salon over which he presided at his home in Cairo during the last fifteen years of his life. What accounts for such tolerance and acceptance? There was, firstly, the intellectual effervescence of Beirut in the 1960s and 1970s, and particularly after the war of 1967.The ‘republic of Arab letters’ had long figured prominently in Beirut’s intellectual landscape, but from the mid-1960s on its influence was paramount, as artists and writers gathered in Beirut from all over the Arab world. The city’s press was ‘a microcosm of a microcosm’, a sort of ‘communion in doubt and radicalisation’.27 There was, more particularly, the support of key Lebanese cultural and political figures: the progressive publisher Qadri Qal‘aji, who published a number of al-Qusaymi’s works, and who played a major role in introducing him to the leading intellectual circles of Beirut; the prominent poet and litterateur Unsi al-Hajj, the editor of al-Nahar’s literary supplement, who protested against al-Qusaymi’s banishment from Lebanon in 1967 on the basis that this small and weak country owed all of its distinction to its role as the centre of Arab creativity and freedom; and

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the politician Kamal Jumblatt, leader of both the Druze28 community and the Lebanese Left, who played a major role as Minister of the Interior in facilitating alQusaymi’s return to Lebanon after his banishment.29 The support of these Lebanese was reinforced by al-Qusaymi’s close ties with prominent elements within the Arabian Peninsula, including the Saudi royal family. When the controversy over These Are the Chains broke out in 1948, the official Saudi institutions were neutral (tending towards support). The highest religious authority declared that shedding his blood was permissible, and the King gave written instructions to his consul in Cairo to disavow him, but no measures were taken to prosecute or arrest him. Moreover, al-Qusaymi continued to receive financial support from the Saudi royal family, except for a brief period in 1956 when he adopted political positions against Saudi policy in the Arab press. The Saudi government also financed the education of al-Qusaymi’s two sons and both of them worked in Saudi universities. He maintained amicable ties with the Saudi embassy in Cairo, where he was a guest at official receptions in the 1970s and 1980s. And, in 1995, a year before his death, King Fahd called him to ask about his health. The importance of personal friendships may have been at work, or an on-going conflict between the Saudi religious establishment and the royal family, or the desire of the royal family to maintain good relations with powerful tribal and other supporters in the province of Qusaym.30 Disapproval of his religious views as such clearly did not work as an autonomous influence. Many prominent personalities from all over the Arab world, and particularly from the Arabian Peninsula, who appeared at his salon in later years, did not agree with his religious views, but were clearly fascinated by a radicalism that was officially forbidden in their countries. More regular attendees, including long-term friends, rejected his views but admired his courage.31 A broader, significant lesson can be drawn from his career, relevant to the varied fates of our varied authors, and to which I have already alluded several times. And this is that hostility to the critics of religion often depends on the degree to which the author in question is perceived as operating ‘from within’, in terms of a dominant discourse, or a dominant institution, or dominant cadres whose power is defended as sacrosanct. It is often not based on the intellectual positions about the existence and nature of God or prophecy as such. Although the atheism of al-Qusaymi’s later work, for example, was far more inflammatory than the Egyptian Abu Zayd’s work on ‘religious discourse’, Abu Zayd ran into much more difficulty insofar as he was a professor of religious studies at Cairo University and his text might be directed to young Azharites as a work of instruction.32 Or, to take another example, when Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was tried and executed ten years after the publication of The Second Message of Islam, it was not because of the heretical views that he had expressed in this work (although they were relevant), but because of the role that his Republican Reform Movement played in resisting the recent efforts to institute the Shari‘ah33 in the Sudan, and his trenchant critique of the ulama of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the

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Sudan, in his book Religion and the Men of Religion over the Years (al-Din wa rijal al-din ‘abr sanin).34 If the primary purpose was simply to find apostates and atheists, many of them could be found and acted against, including those who openly declared themselves to be such. Al-Qusaymi had not returned home since the 1920s, the books he published in the 1960s and 1970s, in contrast to These Are the Chains, were not produced within the context of an Azhari milieu and under the surveillance of its ulama. He was largely cut off from public intellectual life from the later seventies on, he was largely disregarded in Egypt, and his transgressions, as such, could not be looked upon as relevant in respect to Lebanese sectarianism and its place in the Lebanese civil war (al-Qusaymi rejected all of the sectarians’ gods). He never founded an intellectual school of thought. He had, moreover, never, at any time in his career, sought to reach a mass audience through a more accessible popular style. He had never engaged in provocative political activity. And he had never embraced the communism and socialism that enjoyed such widespread support among the Arab intellectuals of his day.35 As far as the Saudis and more like-minded reactionary authorities were concerned, al-Qusaymi was not accorded tolerance simply as a function of his non-feasance. The author of the radical but still eminently theistic These Are the Chains praised Ibn Saud,36 at the time of this book’s publication, as ruling in accordance with God’s Shari‘ah, and the author of the later atheistic works attacked Arab revolutions and revolutionary pan-Arabism as disastrous. A selection from Pharaoh Writes the Book of Exodus (Far‘awn yaktub sifr al-khuruj), Beirut, al-Intishar al-Arabi, second edition, 2001, pp. 9 – 11 and 163–6, translated by Ralph M. Coury It is better for you and your gods and prophets and teachers and loved ones – if they are intelligent, pious, and honourable – that you be called a freethinker, and that you be a free-thinker, than that you are called (or in fact are) simple-minded, hypocritical, cowardly, hateful, stupid, or afraid. It is more splendid that you revolt against the true God than that you revolt against the false god. Your submission to the false god is less cowardly and more noble and merciful than your submission to the true God. Your rejection of faith in all of the prophets – out of fear that they are the antichrists or that there be one antichrist among them, or out of fear that you be an antichrist or thief or hypocrite with their name – is a greater act of faith and religiosity, wisdom and virtue, and respect for the prophets than that you believe in all of the antichrists, or the most impudent and false among them, hoping that you find a prophet among them, than that you be afraid to disbelieve in one true prophet, than that you believe in one antichrist, hoping

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for him to be a true prophet. Your rejection of belief in the true prophet is only one of the meanings of your piety, whatever the possible meanings of your torment, animosity, madness, or fear might be. Your disbelief in God because you do not want to despise Him or accuse Him or implicate Him or do Him an injustice, or because you fear doing all of the aforementioned through Him, is a greater act of faith and pious godfearing, and more in honour and defence of Him and pleasing to His heart, than that you believe in Him, or that you change the whole world into temples to show your faith in Him so that these temples, which are the whole world, are turned into announcements for your faith; turned into praise for Him in order to explain and justify your weakness, sins, and shortcomings through your faith, and this in order to defend your shortcomings, sins, and weakness through your faith, and this in order to be able to understand through Him (that is to say, God), in whom you believe, that which cannot be understood, and this in order to heap upon Him all of your dirt and refuse and mistakes, all the while imploring Him as though you worship and glorify Him so that He might wipe away your dirt, refuse, and mistakes with His conscience, wanting Him to be transformed into a permanent and allinclusive erasure for your unclean and forbidden sweat, your standing naked before Him with all of your obscenities, as if you want to put before His eyes all forms, types, and meanings of beauty, honour, love, and wooing. And have you believed in God only to do everything that I have just mentioned with Him, and that He do everything that I have just mentioned for you? Accordingly, is there anyone as assailed or as offended as God is? Or, to look at this in another way, is there any assailant or offender such as the believer in God? Or is there an enmity or hatred like faith in God? Is there anyone as belittled and as despised and as accused – allegedly out of honour and glorification – as God is? Is there anyone as aggrieved and as belittled as God is? Indeed, your leaving behind all schools of thought and teachings and beliefs for fear that they are false or extreme or deceptive or aggressive, or that there stands one who is false or extreme or deceptive or aggressive above them; your doing this in order to wage war and deceive and tyrannise and rule is better for you and all of humankind than that you believe in the above-mentioned things and pursue them, whether in groups or individually, moving randomly or successively, hoping that such things are tolerable or trustworthy or intelligent or truthful, or that such qualities might be found among them, or that a person with these qualities will fight and rule by them? Indeed, the believing worshipper of God is no more than a person who insults, fights, accuses, expels, transgresses, and hoists sins upon the innocent. The believer in God searches with his faith for an accused who is innocent, for

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one accused of all faults and sins. There has never been and there never will be one who can be accused of all indiscretions and sins and injustices and trifles and detestable things except God – in the conceptualisation of someone who believes in Him. The belief of people in God or gods is an ignominious, ignoble, base method of searching for an accused about whose faults and alleged wrongdoings nothing is known. God is the most wondrous of the accused, and nothing is known of the accusations against Him. Is there someone accused of all sins who does not himself have a single sin, or who is accused of something about which nothing is known, or who does not, like God, say something in self-defence? Humankind perceives and sees that it faces crimes of all sorts and sizes from all directions. Who is the criminal and who are the criminals? Here are the accusers. And who are they? Well, they are those who, intellectually, psychologically, and even morally, need an accused or a number of accused in order to fashion an accusation and direct it towards someone. They do not want to believe, or to be convinced, that they are the soughtafter criminals. Likewise, they do not want to believe, or to be convinced, that the universe is this sought-after criminal. It is neither easy nor comfortable to be convinced that the universe is the criminal. If this accusation were convincing, it would acquire a significance that is neither comforting nor rewarding. Humans, therefore, believe in a grand and innocent accused, who is capable of bearing all of the sins and faults and all of the insolences of all that humans see and confront and know and suffer, who is capable of being an explanation and a justification and a defence of what cannot be defended or explained or justified. Humans can be convinced of this. They can find the comfort and complete explanation of that for which they search and have need. They therefore believe in a sublime and great God who has no likeness. They define the attributes of this God in a fashion that makes him the first and all-encompassing accused. This God is the all-encompassing, first bearer of responsibility for all that human beings confront and see and know and suffer through pain and stupidities and trifles, through sin and disabilities and impudences and errors that cannot be understood or explained or justified or defended – without, that is, a sublime god who has neither likeness nor explanation nor logic nor restrictions. Humans worship a god of this sort in a faith that has no logic or goal or explanation, except for accusation and the need for the existence of an accused of this

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magnitude, for the existence of one accused of all sins and pains and injustices and foolishness. The need for the existence of an accused on a scale that has no likeness or similarity or paradigm is one of the reasons that people believe in the great, good, and incomparable God. They have believed in Him because they need an accused whose magnitude knows no bounds. They have found in God a being accused of all sins and yet declared to be above all sins. He is, therefore, extraordinary, very extraordinary. The problem of ‘who is the accused’ is the origin of the shameless proof of the existence of God. The desire for an explanation of the existence of enmity and the need for accusation was what proved God and formulated His attributes, qualities, logic, conscience, and magnitude. The characteristics of this unique God and belief in Him makes the incomprehensible comprehensible, makes the unforgivable forgivable. The conceptualisation of a god of this type makes it possible to hoist all ugliness and evil and stupidity upon one accused person or upon one entity. Is it possible to find those who would try to save this God, this innocent accused, uniquely formed, and unique in being wronged and accused, or, rather, unique in His sins and pains and concerns and defeats in the conceptualisation of those who think that they honour Him? Is not saving this accused a good and desired deed, indeed one that is obligatory? Nay, is it not a deed that would be unparalleled in its excellence? Is not saving God from faith in Him the grandest, most pious, most noble act of salvation that can be imagined or accomplished? Are there not those who have the level or degree of chivalry, honour, generosity, mercy, justice, or truthfulness to save this innocent accused who is unique in form and oppression? How did humanity lose all understanding of chivalry and piety when it formulated this accused and the accusation against Him? How was it that one found or that one finds, in the past and in the present, those capable of remaining forbearing or silent before the likes of this enmity, or the likes of this accusation? Why hasn’t one found, and why doesn’t one find, international efforts to repel this enmity and this accusation? Can’t these international efforts be found? Has the entire world reached a consensus, without decency, over the injustice of this innocent one? The problem here is not faith in one god or another but an accusation that has no likeness in respect to an innocent one who has no likeness. Thus, can there be anything more depraved than those who believe in God? Anything more depraved than those who believe in an innocent being in order to make of Him one who is accused of all faults and sins and stupidities, in order to make of Him one who is accused without equal, with an accusation without equal,

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and without their consciences bothering them (or they bothering their consciences)? [pp. 9 – 11] Whoever talks about his belief or school of thought or his gods or prophets or leaders and teachers does not really talk about any of these things, but instead only about himself in the name of something else. His example is like that of the person who goes off to weep over ruins and speaks intimately to the stars. He weeps over his pains and worries and loss and confusion, but speaks intimately to things within himself. He speaks to a hunger within himself. The ruins and the stars aren’t really in his reckoning, and his school of thought or belief is in his reckoning only to the extent that the stars and ruins are. Whoever speaks about his belief or school of thought or his prophet or his teacher does not speak with the fervour that can match the fervour by which stars or ruins or memories are addressed. He who prays with tears and sincerity and trembling does not worship his God; he doesn’t see Him or feel Him or sympathise with Him; he does not weep for Him or sense Him with his feelings. He is not sad in his heart or sad for God’s heart. He does not hunger with his hunger or for God’s hunger. He does not know what He, God, wants nor does he try to know what He wants. He does not want to know, and finds no value or spiritual rapture. God, after all, is not on his mind. The needs or desires or tranquillity of God are not taken into consideration by anyone who believes in Him or worships Him. Instead, that person flatters, suffers, and weeps over his problems and sorrows or pains, or curses them or tries to cheat them or deceive them, or push them far away, with the manner of someone speaking with a being other than himself. Whereas he speaks only with himself in an old language. All people need to speak with and to themselves in an old language. All forms of worship and prayer are no more than conversation to the self and with the self in an old language. All of humankind must continue to speak the old language to the extent that they remain practising and living their old organs. The languages and organs of their fathers are eternal in them. No person will ever be found who believes in a school of thought or article of faith if that belief were to mean interacting or speaking with, or to, anything other than the self and its necessities, or if it were to mean respect for other than the self or its necessities. All human conversations on gods and schools of thought or religious beliefs are no more than conversations about the self and about its necessities, in a language that is neither truthful nor intelligent nor considered. It would be impossible to find the person who believes in a school of thought or article of faith – if that belief were to mean being superior to the flea in its submission or its needs, or in its hunger for food or sex – without

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seeking or asking permission from a god or a teacher or a prophet or any school of thought or any doctrine. Following any school of thought, or any doctrine or faith, is nothing more than a search for desires and needs, and for listening to the call of hungry organs, in the manner of the search for the glory of gods or prophets or teachers, or in the manner of being convinced of their intelligence and truth, and in the manner of attempting to glorify and honour them, and in a manner expressive of faith in religions and teachings and schools of thought. Faith in gods, prophets, and teachers, and their glorification, is no more than a response to the call of organs, a call that comes in a falsified form – without the falsification being intended most of the time. Strong belief in a doctrine and following a school of thought or a religion is nothing more than conversation with Satan that comes in the style of conversation with God and prophets and leaders and teachers. They [doctrines and schools of thought] are no more than a kiss planted on the forehead of Satan, by which is addressed the conscience of Satan, although the kiss is planted – mistakenly, although sometimes deliberately – on the foreheads of gods or prophets or leaders or teachers, whose consciences are also addressed. All lips search for nothing more than the forehead of Satan, regardless of what they announce to the contrary. The brow of Satan steals and accepts all kisses placed on the brow of God or that which is intended for that purpose. The believer is only a being who addresses his organs by means of gods and prophets and teachers, in the language of gods and prophets and teachers, in the name of schools of thought or religions, from within prayer niches and pulpits. The believer addresses his obscene internal organs, but he is embarrassed or makes a mistake or lies or covers up – and then he appears as though he is someone addressing gods and prophets and teachers. He addresses his internal organs in houses of worship and from atop pulpits and in international conferences and gatherings in clubs. He does this as though he is praying and reading the revealed books or conversing with his lords or prophets or teachers, obeying them and explaining their teachings. He does that whenever he prays, reads the revealed books, and whenever he converses with his lords and prophets and teachers, and whenever he obeys them and respects them and explains their teachings and their intentions and morals. The believer is not anymore rebellious for the sake of his organs, is not any less sensitive to their hunger and pressures, is not any less given to listening to their call or insistence, than any atheist. The organs of any strong believer are no more ashamed of the expression of their abominations, or in sensing their obscenities before God and in His eyes, than the organs of any libertine or atheist.

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God is not more of a friend to the organs of the strong believers than he is to the organs of the libertines and atheists. God does not favour some organs over others. And neither does nature. But God and nature together create disparity among organs, without intending or knowing favouritism. Al-Qusaymi continues to elaborate on the primacy of organs and then turns to ask why man is prone to believe in illusions and lies. Is error a human gift or human notion or human need? Is it an example of human magnificence or superiority, the grandest of human glories? Is error a cure for the vision of ugliness, trivialities, pains, and sorrows? Is it a cure for suffering from all of that, for being accused of it, for engagement with it or for the commitment or the obligation to resist it and to be victorious over it? What is the story here? What is the story of the eternal human longing for error? Can this be understood? Can the longing be understood? [pp. 163– 6]

CHAPTER 17 NAWAL EL SAADAWI:1931—

Nawal El Saadawi was born in the village of Kafr Tahla north of Cairo to a family that was conservative in some ways and progressive in others. She was subjected to a clitoridectomy at the age of six and yet her father had wanted all of his nine children to be educated. He was a government official who demonstrated in the Egyptian revolution of 1919 and was exiled for a time to a small village as the result. Both of her parents died when they were young and she was left with the task of providing for a large family.1 El Saadawi was trained as a physician and psychiatrist. After receiving her medical degree from Cairo University in 1955, she practised in the Egyptian countryside and then in Cairo. She became Egypt’s Director of Health, the Assistant General Secretary of the Medical Association, and the chief editor of a health journal. The publication of her first non-fiction work, Women and Sex (al-Mar’ah wa al-jins), which contained a trenchant critique of clitoridectomy, led to her dismissal from all official positions. She subsequently moved to Ethiopia, where she worked for a UN programme on African women, and from there to Beirut where she was an advisor to the Economic Commission for West Asia. When she returned to Egypt in 1980, she resumed her activities as a militant writer, attacking Anwar Sadat’s government for its neo-liberalism, its suppression of Nasserists2 and leftists in general, and its support of Islamic fundamentalists. This resulted in her imprisonment, with a large number of other leftists, for a period of two months. After her release, she established the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, a non-government group for the advocacy of democracy and women’s rights. The inhospitable responses of the government and Islamists (her life was threatened in 1988) contributed to her tendency to spend long periods of time in Europe and the US, where she lectured and held visiting positions at major universities. El Saadawi would in fact become the best known Arab feminist, with over twenty-one of her works (novels, essays, memoirs, plays) available in English and other languages. Amal Amireh writes that she was able to popularise discourses about sexuality and women’s rights through the use of a new accessible language, especially in non-fiction works that combined critical analysis, polemic, case histories, personal anecdotes,

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and biography.3 ‘She has influenced generations of Arab men and women,’ Elizabeth Susanne Kassab argues, ‘and contributed significantly to the gendering of cultural critique in the Arab world.’4 El Saadawi’s emphasis on women’s issues is virtually always grounded in a critique of social and economic contexts. Disease is linked to poverty and ignorance, and sexual oppression to social, economic, and political oppression. As an anti-imperialist socialist she has attacked Western capitalist hegemony, which, she believes, has dominated international feminist gatherings where Western women claim to speak in the name of all women. She believes, in this respect, that the rise of Islamism is both a reaction to Western oppression and a means by which the West seeks to block revolution and divide people on a religious basis. This is true, she believes, even if such Islamism has local and universal roots. She has been particularly critical of the US’s domination of world aid agencies which, she argues, transforms development into a kind of neo-colonialism.5 Although she has directly or indirectly attacked religion in much of her writing (she has regularly been accused of heresy and blasphemy and a number of court cases have been brought against her), some works are notable for placing religion at the centre of their concerns.6 The play God Resigns at the Summit Meeting (al-Ilah yuqadim istiqalatahu fi ijtima‘ al-qimmah), published in 2006, tells the story of great women and prophets who climb a mountain on which God resides to ask for his help. God has intended to hold a closed session, but the meeting is broken into by commoners and they are joined by Eve, a young woman called Bint Allah (the Daughter of God), the Virgin Mary, Isis,7 and the Sufi8 mystic Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah.9 God and the visitors discuss the problems of the universe without reaching agreement and God resigns. The play was banned in Egypt in November of 2006. In February, 2007, al-Azhar University accused El Saadawi of blasphemy and she was brought to court in Cairo. She won the case in May of 2008. Arabic copies of the play were destroyed, but it was later performed in French in Brussels and was translated and published in English in 2009. Perhaps this play can be taken as a summary of the religious suffering of a lifetime. She told an interviewer: I actually wrote it during a stay at Duke University in 1996, but, in a sense, the play has been with me all of my life. My grandmother taught me that God is justice; that God is not a book. As a child of nine I wrote a letter to God because I felt discriminated against in relation to my brother, who could get out and play while I had to stay in and help my mother. . . So, God was interfering with my life from the very beginning, with my dreams, with my emotional life, God was there between the sheets. So I wrote a play where he resigns. . . And then, in answer to another question: ‘I am fed up with this limited thinking; and with the state of the world and the revival of the most reactionary political and religious ideas.’10

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It is important to take note of how El Saadawi’s work, as in the case of al-‘Azm’s to which reference has been made, appears to have been sometimes marketed in the West as a means of reinforcing Western stereotypes, or in such a way as to avoid subjects that would be regarded as unacceptable to many Westerners. Amal Amireh cites the translation of al-Wajh al-‘ari li al-mar’ah al-‘arabiyyah, which literally means ‘the naked face of the Arab woman’, as The Hidden Face of Eve, and the omission of chapters and passages in the book that criticise capitalism and that refute the idea of Arab exceptionalism in respect to the oppression of women.11 Although El Saadawi has herself criticised Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other Muslims for exaggerating ‘their criticism of Islamic fundamentalism to gain the approval of the West, of the American empire, and of Israel’, and has complained, with justification, that her remarks on neocolonialism and capitalism were censored in interviews with the American media during the Arab Spring,12 Amireh speaks of El Saadawi’s own ambiguities and occasional complicity in presenting her positions on culture and politics in international fora. El Saadawi said, in one interview, that she did not care for what her Arab critics had to say because they were not qualified to appreciate her personality, and that Western critics are much more ‘objective’.13 The fact is that El Saadawi is often supported in such charges by Arab and Western defenders who conflate her Arab critics – official state censors, conservatives who reject her feminism, and literary critics who feel she writes poor fiction – into a single group of Arab misogynists.14 A selection from ‘God Resigns at the Summit Meeting’ (‘al-Ilah yuqadim istiqalatahu fi ijtima‘ al-qimmah’ ), The Dramatic Literature of Nawal El Saadawi, edited by Adele S. Newson-Horst, London, 2009, pp. 164– 98, translated by Rihab Kassatly Bagnole [Moses, Abraham, Christ, Muhammad, and Satan demand to meet God to express their grievances. Moses wonders why the Promised Land is not as extensive as he had expected. Christ complains of his being abandoned on the cross and of his mother having been subordinated in spite of her remaining loyal to him until his death. Muhammad asks why Christians and Jews are more powerful than Muslims. And Satan wants to resign because he is sick of being abused for his many accomplishments. All of the religious leaders question why they never hear from God in spite of their endless prayers. The prophets and Satan are joined by commoners who rush the doors of heaven (Radwan, the gate keeper, had intended to keep the commoners out and to demand offerings from the prophets as their price of entry). Once inside, and in the presence of the Almighty, the commoners, prophets, and Satan are joined by a young woman called Bint Allah, Eve, the Virgin Mary, Isis, and the female Sufi mystic Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah. All complain of God’s injustice, especially towards women. God ultimately responds and announces that He has decided to resign and live as a human. The stage goes dark and Bint Allah, who claims that she has received her name from

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the author of the play, is left alone. Police break in, carrying a book. Bint Allah admits that she is herself the author of the play, declaring, after she is manacled, that ‘it’s only a play’, to which the Chief of Police answers, ‘Do you want it to be real also?’ Bint Allah sings of a father who kills his mother and turns against his daughter, acknowledging only sons as offspring. She is then joined by a large number of women, young people, children, and the prophets of the play, who liberate her. Patriarchal monotheism is an oppressive human construct, in its ancient, mediaeval, and contemporary imperial-capitalist forms. A sampling of speeches by the principals catches the drift:] Prophet Muhammad: I would like to start by thanking our benefactor and Lord, creator of the universe, for sitting with us, all this long time despite the many things he has to deal with and for listening to these different opinions with such an openness of mind and without anger. Whereas it is within his power, if he so wishes, to transport this court into hellfire. He is the most compassionate, the most merciful, who enfolds us in his mercy and in the kindness of his great heart. I have come here, O Lord, my benefactor, to complain to you against King Saud,15 who has sown widespread corruption in the sacred land of the Hejaz and has allowed foreign soldiers to step over it with their boots and fight against the Muslims. I wish to thank the young girl [Eve] who preceded me in mentioning this king and other kings and rulers who, in your name most glorious and almighty God, have caused much blood to be shed, have seized lands and money, whereas you have nothing in common with them or with what they say. They do that in my name too, I who am your prophet and your slave, although I am innocent of what they impute to me. They distort what is said in Your Book the Holy Qur’an and interpret it to their likes. They spread sayings which they impute to me, although they have been branded as they change the place and time of the sayings which I did pronounce. I have a saying in which I say to them, ‘You know best how to deal with the affairs of your life,’ but they neglect what I said. They oppress their women in thy name, God Almighty, and in mine also. In my time, that is sixteen centuries ago, I did not impose the veil on women. I ruled that she had the right to choose her husband and to divorce him if she no longer wanted to see his face. But they oppress women and poor people, hoard up gold and silver and the money coming in from oil. They negotiate in secret with the enemies of Islam and have distorted its image to the extent that their Sheikh ibn al-Baz16 published a book in which he said that the face of a woman is obscene and should be covered with the exception of half of her eyes. He said that it was I who had made this ruling. I have nothing in common with that man. He is supported by the authorities in Saudi Arabia. He made a laughing stock of us among the peoples of the world

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by refusing to recognise the knowledge we get from science, and insisting that the earth is flat and not round. All these things he insists emanate from you, the Almighty, and from me, whereas Islam is built on reason, on science, and knowledge. The first verse you sent down to me, O God, was read in your name, Most High of all gods, who taught us with the pen. The Almighty is much greater than they depict him to be. How I wish I could go back to them, my Lord God, confront them with their lies and save my nation, save the Muslims from their evil. They have become corrupt, have sown corruption, and have caused the Muslims to suffer defeat after defeat, so that they are now at the rear of the world when at one time they stood right at the front carrying the torch of civilisation and science. I have come to you this day, My Lord God, with a plea. The world today is in direst need for a prophet to be sent on your behalf to save them from being lost, from those who lead them astray. [pp. 162– 4] Satan: This is a meeting that will go down in history, Master Radwan. It is the first time that the Most High God has listened to our voices. He never listened to anyone except himself, never saw anyone except himself, never worshipped anyone but himself. Worship of oneself requires that one be responsible since responsibility is linked to power and cannot be separated from it. If the Most High God is all powerful, if his power arises above any other power, if his omnipotence is greatest and permits him to do anything, then He must be responsible, and his responsibility must also be the greatest. This is justice and it conforms to reason. Justice is a clear and simple logic of things. Since the Highest God is the highest of all in wisdom and the greatest of all minds his logic should be the most just and the easiest to understand. The words of Allah must be more just and easier to understand than those of human beings. But my Lord God, your words in the three Holy Books were lacking, they needed human beings to explain them to people. They also needed to be translated. Your words in the three Books contradicted each other. You did not make justice and reason the highest virtues. The greatest of virtues for You is to worship no other god. The greatest sin for You was infringement of this rule, of an undivided worship of You, the single God and Almighty. In the Qur’an it is said, ‘Allah forgives all sins except that of sharing Him.’ That is how, my Lord, you throw overboard justice and reason. In your eyes, whoever did not worship you became an apostate, a non-believer whom people had the right to kill. You proclaimed that you know everything that goes on among human beings. But you know nothing about them since you are unable to communicate with them directly, otherwise you would not have sent prophets and emissaries. You tried to hide your incapacity by making

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things obscure, by using symbols, or miracles, or sorcery to influence people. . . You could have tested Abraham’s loyalty in a manner which would have made him more humane, deepen his sense of fatherhood, strengthen his attachment to his wife and son. But you put worship and religious ceremonials above humanitarian principles. It is true that sometimes you would talk differently and say people cannot be forced to believe, but on the whole you stood against free thought and knowledge. In your Book the Torah you tried to monopolise the tree of knowledge, although in the Qur’an you made a retreat and did not mention its name at all. You just called it the tree, but you remained opposed to knowledge and reason. There are many differences between the three Books. This has confused people and divided them into religious sects, groups, and movements. They fight one another in your name; carry one of your books in one hand and a sword or a bomb in the other. But most important of all, in the three Books you have depicted me as the enemy of all people, as being responsible for all the evil in the world. How can I be responsible when you are the one who possesses the power, the arms, the knowledge, the media, the heavens and the earth, everything? My Lord, with all your power, your omnipotence, you could have prevented the shedding of all that blood in Palestine, you could have stopped the accumulations of atomic and other weapons in the arsenals of the United States, of Israel, of Russia, England, France, and China. These military governments with their atomic and other weapons are the source of corruption in the world, not poor Satan who does not even carry a sword, has never carried a weapon, any weapon. What fault did I commit? Was it my refusal to bow before Adam? How can I bow to someone who is corrupt? In your Book you admit that Adam was corrupt. Nevertheless, you made him your successor, your plenipotentiary delegated to rule the earth. . . . You sent Jesus, the son of Mary, her virtuous son, but he suffered torture and died on the cross. You admitted that in your Book, the Bible, but denied it in your Book the Qur’an. Did you feel that the killing of your emissary would raise doubts in peoples’ minds as to your powers? Injustices and corruption breed further injustices and corruption in a never-ending succession. And this is what happened on earth so that all lands have lived in war and were drowned in blood. You made the minority which possesses arms and money rule over the vast majority of people who possess neither arms, nor money. You made men rule over women, legitimised their acts of unfaithfulness and imposed marital fidelity on women alone. You, my Lord, encouraged ignorance and ambiguity, and opposed knowledge. Every step human beings made on the path to more knowledge was forced upon you, and every war in history was launched in your name. Every man or woman

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who opposed you was threatened to be burned by fire or face death. . . [pp. 165–7] Eve: Master Radwan, I wonder why my name does not appear among the women who played a role in history. Why are you following in the steps of your Most High Lord by denying that I was the first to lead the human race to knowledge and not to death as He says in his Books. He mentioned my name in his first book, the Torah, but accused me of original sin. Then, he left out my name completely from his third book, the Qur’an. He confined himself to describing me as the wife of Adam, but made him share the responsibility for original sin with me when he said, ‘And we said to Adam dwell you and your wife in Paradise and eat of its good things [what] you desire, but do not approach the tree and so become one of the unjust, but Satan led them astray, and caused them to be deprived of what they had.’ Here your Most High God speaks of them in the dual form as a proof that both of them, both Adam and his wife, committed a sin. Yet he forgives only Adam when he says: ‘He heard words from Adam and forgave him for He is the Compassionate and the All Forgiving.’ No doubt your Most High God possesses an unparalleled knowledge of grammar related to the Arabic language and so he is precise in expressing what he wants to say. Thus I, Eve, became the sinful in the eyes of all people who believe in Your Most High God and in his Books, whereas Adam came out innocent, although he was corrupt and although the angels protested against his being made the representative of your Most High God on earth and said, ‘Do you appoint him who will sow corruption and shed blood?,’ according to what is mentioned in the Qur’an. Do you know how Your Most High God answered the angels? He said, ‘I know what you do not know’; considered himself all knowledgeable and me an ignoramus with no knowledge at all. Yet, I possess the most basic and most important of all knowledge, which springs from my experience in life. Knowledge, Master Radwan, comes only from experience in a particular place and at a particular moment. Your Most High God exists outside of time and place, so where can his knowledge come from?! Knowledge, Master Radwan, springs from the senses and the mind during a lived experience. . . [pp. 174– 5] Prophet Abraham: No, Prophet Muhammad, the three Holy Books have been the objects of distortions because they were transmitted by human beings, who narrated them and this led inevitably to changes in the words and meaning. To make sure of accuracy and truthfulness, it was necessary that the word of God be transmitted directly to people without going through prophets, interpreters, or translators. For example, Pharaoh did not speak Arabic. Yet his words in the Qur’an are spoken in the Arabic language, so how

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is that possible? Part of the meaning must be lost during translation since we cannot separate between the letters and their meaning. The words of God should have reached people directly, in their local languages, without the need for translations, interpreters, or even prophets. For example, when God used to speak to me I didn’t always absorb everything to the letter. I used to transmit what he said to me according to my understanding. As a result, the words of God always change when they reach people through human beings. . . [p. 186] Rabia al-Adaweya: Every creature, Excellencies, bears witness to the existence of Allah and no one is alone a proof of his existence. It is through my deep love for him that I discovered that he exists in me. We cannot discover our real selves except if we no longer concentrate on the self. Getting rid of our ego, destroying it, is a necessary condition, without which we cannot love Allah and be one with him. Allah is the supreme power who makes it possible for us to be rid of ourselves, of our ego. We abolish the self, we let it perish in order to become a part of a much broader humane self, freed of our narrow egotistic self. We become united with the other, with Allah, with nature and people and with the history of humanity. Excellencies, I found myself in Allah. I struggled for a long time, travelled all over searching for Allah. My efforts, my extensive travels ended with the mirror in which I saw myself. I reached the pinnacle of happiness when I found myself in Allah. But before that could happen I had to lose myself in the other, in him. Belief in Allah is love, love of Allah, of nature, of people, of beauty. It is a readiness to die, to lose the self for love, to let it perish in the other. To die for that love is not death, but a return to real life, where we discover our real self. [p. 188] The Most High God (in a voice full of sorrow and yearning): No, Radwan, I do not want to stay on for all eternity. I am tired of being eternal, isolated in the heavens from people, and lonely. When you asked me to attend this summit meeting I came to you in this human form, or else you would have been struck with terror. At first, I wanted to come down to you as a spirit, but a spirit has no form and no existence except in the imagination. How can imagination be transformed into something material or into a force? That is what happens with my Books when they are printed and become laws and principles adopted by religious parties, which are in fact political parties struggling for power, for land, and for money all over the world; whether East or West, North or South. Like you, I was angry at the massacres which led to thousands of victims among the Palestinian people or other peoples in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. I was angered, like you, by the oppression exercised against women in my name or by the plunder of resources and land also in my

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name. I was immersed to the hilt in self-worship for over 5,000 years, during which I forced you to worship me, although I am no more than an idea in the imagination. After having listened to you men and women, I confess to all of you that I favoured men at the expense of women and made the men dominate over women, which was unjust. I also favoured Abraham’s people and promised to give them land, which belonged to others. I committed many mistakes, and fell into many contradictions, but I also used to revert to my basic human nature, always returned to what is considered good, to justice, equality, compassion, and love. Perhaps for that reason my Books have survived until today. That is why oppressed people and women have found in them weapons with which they can defend their rights. But kings and heads of state have also found in them weapons they can use against women and the poor. But gentlemen and ladies, the human race is moving forward and very few people go back to the idea of creation as it exists in my Books. Modern science has become the only way to reach true knowledge and my Books are no longer suitable, except to be put in museums or in the hotels of the poor or in the departments of history and religion in schools and universities. That is from an academic point of view. But in the political, social, and cultural spheres of life my Books are the most important sources of knowledge, despite the progress in other areas of knowledge. This is dangerous, ladies and gentlemen, this dichotomy between science, politics, and culture. I am primarily responsible for this separation because I separated between the body and the mind or spirit, despite the fact that there is no body without a spirit and no spirit without a body and mind. . . [pp. 196–7] I must admit my mistakes. To admit one’s mistakes is better than to go on making them. The time has come for the world to continue its existence, to continue progressing without a God and without a Satan, and, also, without this most harmful separation between the body and the spirit. It is a curse that has tormented human beings for more than 5,000 years. It has made the body inferior to the mind and spirit in order that I become the mind and the most high of spirits, in order that the human being with his body be made inferior. Human beings also became divided into men who represent reason and women who are the body. It created an antagonism between man and nature, and between man and other living creatures, including the snake. The most dangerous thing that causes harm to human beings is these divisions. I needed to weaken human beings so that I could become the most powerful of all, so that they would worship me, so that they would fear my hellfire, or covet my paradise. No one ever really loved me because love and fear cannot live together in a heart. I need love, real love without fear of hellfire or hope of paradise. No one ever gave me this love except Rabia al-Adaweya. She did not fear hellfire, nor did she covet paradise. But she fell into the mistake for which

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I am primarily responsible. She separated between the body and the spirit. She separated between her body and her spirit to the degree that when she looked into the mirror she neither saw her face nor mine, but only the texts and letters written in the Divine Book. She did not see in the mirror. But that was only in her imagination and in the imagination of the people who were her followers. Rabia lived in her imagination. She did not live the real life of women. She sacrificed her body so that she could see me in the mirror. That is not right, for if I created you as men and women, I gave you bodies, minds, and spirits dwelling in the being of the body. If the body is prevented from living, deprived of what it desires, then the mind and the spirit also suffer deprivation. That is why Rabia al-Adaweya was not happy in her real life. She only knew happiness in her imaginary, illusory life. My conscience feels guilty because this woman gave me so much love and yet in return I only gave her deprivation. In fact, I was a cruel God who tried to compensate for this cruelty with words about compassion and justice. I also was divided myself, since I separated between body and spirit. I denied the existence of my body, and imagined that I was only a spirit in the air. When the crucial moment arrived, when I had to descend to meet you on earth, I had no alternative but to face the truth and to put on the body which you now see in front of you. It is the body of a man who says he is not human, the body of a human being who insists he is a God. The time has come for me to be what I really am, to announce my resignation from my position, as a single eternal everlasting God. To be eternal is a curse, not a blessing. Imagine what life can be like when there is no death. I prefer to be a human being that will die, but who enjoys love and life, sex and freedom, and all the pleasures of the world, rather than a God who has life, but is not alive, does not know sex, or love, or freedom, only an eternal emptiness. Love, like freedom, is indivisible. If, in the heavens, there exists neither love nor freedom then it will be the same on earth. If the God of the heavens is a dictator, then rulers on earth themselves cannot be other than dictators. [pp. 199– 200]

NOTES

Introduction 1. Armando Salvatore, ‘Modernity’, in Gerhard Bowering (ed.), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, Princeton, 2013, pp. 352 –60. 2. Roxanne L. Euben, ‘Fundamentalism’, in Bowering (ed.), Encyclopedia, p. 180. 3. Euben, ‘Fundamentalism’, pp. 180 – 5. 4. See Chapter 4, endnote 11. 5. Stephen Jay Gould, cited in Michael Shermer, Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye, NY, 2016, p. 60. 6. See Lloyd P. Gerson, ‘Sceptics, ancient’, in Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford, 2005, pp. 842 –3. 7. Theodore W. Adorno, ‘Reason and revelation’, in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, NY, 1998, p. 141. 8. Adorno, ‘Reason’, p. 136. 9. Whenever a quotation is given within the introduction without an endnote, the quotation is taken from the chapter devoted to the author. 10. See N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How To Read the Bible Today, Orlando, 2013, pp. 62– 5 and 100– 5. 11. Adorno, ‘Reason’, p. 137. 12. Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, Boulder, 1994, pp. 83– 4. 13. Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Present day Islam: Between its tradition and globalisation’, in Intellectual Traditions of Islam, London, 2000, p. 5. 14. See Sami Zubaida, Beyond Islam, London, 2011, p. 10. 15. Zubaida, Beyond, p. 9. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., p. 1. 18. See Joseph A. Massad, Islam and Liberalism, Chicago, 2015, p. 282. 19. For a discussion of these arguments, see Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Palo Alto, 2003, pp. 168 –70. 20. See Chapter 8, endnote 22. 21. Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Greco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society, London, 1998, pp. 2 – 8. 22. Gutas, Greek, pp. 158– 9.

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23. Ahmad Dallal, Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History, New Haven, 2010, pp. 26 – 31 and 39 – 50, and Gutas, Greek, p. 153. 24. Dallal, Islam, p. 130. 25. Ibid., p. 131. 26. Ibid., p. 133. 27. Ibid., p. 138. Abu Ishaq al-Shatiba (d. 1388), for instance, maintained that the Qur’an did not provide a compendium of medicine, astronomy, geometry, chemistry, or necromancy; it should be regarded as a guide for leading humanity out of darkness and into light. See Muzaffar Iqbal, ‘Scientific Commentary on the Qur’an’, The Study Qur’an: A New Translation and Commentary, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, editor-in-chief, NY, 2015, p. 1690. 28. Ibid., p. 150. 29. See Chapter 1, endnote 3. 30. Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra, translated from the French by Jeff Fort, NY, 2006, p. 12, and Khaled El-Rouayheb, ‘Opening the gate of verification: the forgotten Arab-Islamic florescence of the seventeenth century’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, XXXVIII, 2006, and his Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb, Cambridge, 2015. For Shi‘ites, see Chapter 2, endnote 23; for Sufism, see Chapter 1, endnote 3. 31. This school of law was founded by Abu Hanifah (d. 767). It is dominant in India and in most countries that were ruled by the Ottoman Empire. For Sunni, see Chapter 1, endnote 19. 32. Gutas, Greek, p. 173. 33. Dallal, Islam, pp. 151– 7. 34. Salvatore, ‘Modernity’, pp. 352 – 60. 35. Shahab Ahmed, What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic, Princeton, 2016, p. 543. 36. Massad, Islam, pp. 1 – 13. 37. Ibid., p. 13. 38. Ibid., pp. 2 – 3 and Talal Asad et al. (eds), Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech, Berkeley, 2007, in passim. 39. Massad, Islam, p. 60. 40. Ibid. 41. Saba Mahmood, ’Secularism, hermeneutics, and empire: Islam and the war on terror’, in Joan Wallach Scott (ed.), Women’s Studies on the Edge, Durham, NC, 2008, cited in Massad, Islam, p. 75. 42. Mahdi ‘Amil (aka Hassan Hamdan), The Crisis of Arab Civilisation or the Crisis of the Arab Bourgeoisie (‘Azamat al-hadarah al-‘arabiyyah am ‘azamat al-burjwaziyyah al-‘arabiyyah), cited in Kassab, pp. 145– 8. 43. Sadik J. Al-Azm, ‘The importance of being earnest about Salman Rushdie’, Die Welt des Islams, XXXI, 1991, p. 39. 44. Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam, Baltimore, 1993, pp. 235 – 6. 45. Asad, Genealogies, p. 236. 46. Wendy Brown, ‘Idealism, materialism, secularism’, 22 October 2007, blog post, http:// blogsssrc.org/tif/2007. 47. For the summary from which this discussion draws, see Perry Anderson, ‘One exceptional figure stood out (on Dimitri Furman)’, London Review of Books, XXXVII/15, 30 July 2015, pp. 20 – 1. 48. See Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, ‘Believing in religious freedom’, in Winifred Fallers Sullivan et al. (eds), Politics of Religious Freedom, Chicago, 2015, pp. 45 – 56. 49. Asad, Genealogies, p. 48.

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50. See Martin Riesebrodt, The Promise of Salvation, translated by Steven Rendall, Chicago, 2010. For a discussion of Riesebrodt, see Perry Anderson, ‘Imitation democracy: Perry Anderson writes about Dimity Furman’s analysis of Russia’s post-communism’, London Review of Books, XXXVII/ 16, 27 August 2015, p. 26. 51. Saba Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: a Minority Report, Princeton, 2016, p. 3. 52. Hussein ‘Ali Agrama, ‘Religious freedom and the bind of suspicion in contemporary secularity’, in Sullivan et al. (eds), Freedom, pp. 301– 12. 53. Samuli Schielke, ‘The Islamic world’, in Stephen Bullivant and Michael Reese (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Oxford, 2013, pp. 638– 50. 54. See Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism, a World of Comparative Political Theory, Princeton, 1999. 55. Reinhard Schulze, A Modern History of the Islamic World, NY, 2000, p. 3. 56. Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith and Revelation: Reflections on the God Debate, New Haven, 2009, p. 6. 57. For these leftists, see Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God, New Haven, 2014, pp. 203 – 4; for the apophatic trend, see Karen Armstrong, The Case for God, NY, 2009, pp. ix – xviii, 123– 9, 140– 6 and in passim. 58. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Jurgen Habermas, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion, San Francisco, 2006, p. 24. 59. Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Europe, do not deny your Christian roots . . . where God is, there is the future’, 3 November 2007, www.catholicnewsagency.com. 60. Marwa Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860– 1950, Chicago, 2013, p. 263. 61. See Ahmad Barqawi, On Modern and Contemporary Arab Thought (Fi al-fikr al-‘arabi alhadith wa al-mu‘asir), Beirut, 2015, pp. 242– 58. 62. See Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic, Princeton, 2015, pp. 90 – 136. 63. Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyper-Reality, translated from the Italian by William Weaver, Orlando, 1986, p. 286. 64. Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, NY, 1957, cited in Kaufmann, Faith, p. 120. 65. Saqr Abu Fakhr, ‘Trends in Arab thought: an interview with Sadik Jalal al-Azm’, Journal of Palestine Studies, XXVII/2, winter 1998, pp. 68– 80. 66. See Ralph M. Coury, ‘Nationalism and culture in the Arab and Islamic worlds’, in Suha Taji-Farouki and Basheer Nafi (eds), Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century, London, 2004, pp. 128 – 171, and Sami Zubaida, ‘Muslim societies: unity or diversity?’, ISIM Newsletter, October 1998, p. 1. 67. Aziz Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities, London, 1993, p. 32. 68. See Fred Halliday, Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, London, 1995, pp. 107 – 32. 69. Jean Comorroff and John L. Comorroff, ‘Millennial capitalism: first thoughts on a second coming’, Public Culture, XII/2, 2000, pp. 291 – 343. 70. Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd, The Transformation of Muslim Societies Around the World, NY, 2011, pp. 46 – 67 and 120– 2. For Salafi, see Chapter 12, endnote 23. 71. For the accomplishments listed above, see A. Al-Azmeh, ‘Nationalism and the Arabs’, Arab Studies Quarterly, XXVII/1– 2, 1995, p. 5. 72. Samir Kassir, Being Arab, translated by W. Hobson, London, 2006, pp. 79 – 80. 73. Albert Hourani, The History of the Arab Peoples, Oxford, 1992, pp. 304– 14. 74. For this discussion of nahdawi, see Kassir, Being, pp. 43 –52. 75. For a discussion of Acton, see Youssef Choueiri, Arab Nationalism: A History, Oxford, 2000, pp. 1– 14. 76. Elie Kedourie, ‘Pan-Arabism and British Policy’ in The Chatham House Version and other Middle Eastern Essays, London, 1970, p. 218.

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77. Amira el-Azhary Sonbol, The New Mamluks: Egyptian Society and Modern Feudalism, Syracuse, 2000. 78. Hazim Saghiyya, Nationalists of the Arab East: From Dreyfuss to Garaudy (Qawmiyyu mashriq al-‘arabi min durayfus ila gharudi), Beirut, 2000. 79. Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective, NY, 2010, pp. 342 – 3. 80. See Barnard Yack, ‘The myth of the civic nation’, in Critical Review, X/2, 1996, p. 208. 81. See Hisham Sharabi, Arab Intellectuals and the West: the Formative Years, 1875– 1914, Baltimore, 1970, p. 8. 82. See Choueiri, Nationalism, pp. 205 – 18, and Youssef Mohamed Sawani, ‘The end of panArabism revisited: reflections on the Arab Spring’, Journal of Contemporary Arab Affairs, v/3, 2012. This discussion of Arab nationalism also draws upon Ralph M. Coury, ‘Encountering Pan-Arab Nationalism: A Cultural War’, in Christopher Wise and Paul James (eds), Being Arab, Melbourne, 2010. 83. See Paul Noble, ‘The Arab system: pressures, constraints, and opportunities’, in Bahgat Korany et al. (eds), The Foreign Policies of Arab States, Boulder, 1991. 84. Nazih Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, London, 1997, pp. 135 –58. 85. See Kassir, Being, pp. 53 – 65. 86. Ibid., p. 80. 87. Elshakry, Darwin, p. 9. 88. Qassim Amin (1863– 1908), an Egyptian lawyer and author, maintained that women’s seclusion, veiling, early marriage, and lack of education were the results of misinterpretations of Islam. His most famous book is The Liberation of Women (Tahrir al-mar’ah). 89. See Orit Bashkin, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq, Palo Alto, 2012, 98 – 9 and 1 – 99 in passim. 90. Hanna Batatu, Syria’s Peasantry: The Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables and Their Politics, Princeton, 1999, p. 133. 91. Kassir, Being, pp. 87 – 8. 92. S. Collini, ‘Upwards and onwards’, a review of Dan Smith’s Raymond Williams: a Warrior’s Tale, London Review of Books, XXX/15, 2008, p. 16. 93. The Palestinian Suliman Bashear (1947 – 1991) posited, for example, the idea that there were two separate but parallel processes developing in the seventh century, the rise of an Arab Empire set in the borderlands between Greater Syria and Arabia, and the beginnings of the Islamic religion. Mecca and Ishmael were given prominence to give a Hijazi orientation to emerging Muslim identity. See An Introduction to the History of the Other (Muqaddimah fi al-tarikh al-akhar), Jerusalem, 1984. 94. See Chapter 1, endnote 5. 95. See, for example, Bassam al-Jamal, Notables in the Renewal of Religious Thought (A‘lam tajdid al-fikr al-dini), I, Beirut, 2016.

Chapter 1

Muhammad ‘Abduh: 1849 –1905

1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Marwa Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860– 1950, Chicago, 2013; Peter S. Groff, with Oliver Leaman, Islamic Philosophy A– Z, Edinburgh, 2007; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798– 1939, London, 1962; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: the Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1970; and Mark Sedgewick, Muhammad ‘Abduh, London, 2009. 2. This sketch of ‘Abduh’s career is based on Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 168– 72.

NOTES

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4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

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The Ahmadi mosque-school in Tanta was one of two important Egyptian provincial schools of religious studies (the other was the Ibrahim Pasha mosque-school in Alexandria). Al-Azhar, founded in 971, is frequently referred to as the most prestigious of Muslim (Sunni) religious academies. By the 1950s, it had become part of a university of the modern type. Dar al-‘Ulum, designed to provide secular and higher Islamic education, was founded in Cairo by the Egyptian government in 1871. The School of Languages, now part of ‘Ain Shams University, was founded in Cairo by the Egyptian government in 1835. A ‘mufti’ is an Islamic legal scholar who issues non-binding opinions in response to inquiries from the judge of a religious court. The Grand Mufti, a government appointee, refers to the senior mufti of the Egyptian state, who plays a key role in articulating Islamic jurisprudence. ‘Sufism’ is commonly defined as Islamic mysticism, involving the quest for inner meaning in practice and rituals, and for virtue beyond obedience to the law; the term Sufism is derived from the Arabic tasawwuf, referring to dressing in the suf or coarse wool of ascetics. A Sufi practises Sufism. For these various reformist elements, see Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 161 –218. The ‘ulama’ are a body of Muslim scholars with specialised knowledge of sacred law and theology. The term literally means ’the learned ones’. ‘Effendiyyah’ is derived from effendi or gentleman, and was applied to ‘Westernised’ middle class professionals (including government employees) who wore Western clothing, together with the fez (tarbush) as headwear. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 22 – 3 and 172– 80. A ‘caliphate’ is an Islamic state led by a caliph (from the Arabic khalifah, meaning successor, or deputy, or regent) who is a political (and sometimes also religious) leader regarded as a successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Religious writings generally speak of a successor to the Messenger of God (khalifah rasul Allah). The caliphs of the Umayyad caliphate (661 – 750), as well as some of the early caliphs of the Abbasid caliphate (750– 1258) and other Muslim rulers, have used the term caliph to mean the deputy or regent of God (khalifah Allah). The ‘Shari‘ah’ is a code of law derived from the Qur’an and the example and teachings of Muhammad. See Sedgewick, ‘Abduh, p. 70. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, MA, 1991, p. 308. See Sedgewick, ‘Abduh, p. 69. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 182– 5. See Cemil Aydin, ‘Globalizing the intellectual history of the idea of the “Muslim World”’, in Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori (eds), Global Intellectual History, NY, 2013, pp 168–72. The five ‘divine presences’ refer to various levels of reality as developed in certain Islamic metaphysical systems influenced by neo-Platonism. They range from the reality of being or Divinity to the corporal or human world. A ‘surah’ is a chapter of the Qur’an. The origin of the term hanif is not certain. It recurs in the Qur’an in reference to those who possess the real and true religion. It is used, more particularly, for Abraham, and sometimes seems to be nearly synonymous with the word Muslim. It has been interpreted to mean the original, innate religion of humanity, in contrast to polytheism and later religions. ‘People of the Book’ (ahl al-kitab) refers to the adherents of monotheistic, scripture-based religions, and particularly to Jews and Christians. ‘Chain of transmitters’ refers to a chain of witnesses who transmit a tradition (hadith), a communication or narrative providing a record of actions or sayings of the Prophet and his Companions or other prophets. The Companions (al-sahabah) were the companions,

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disciples, scribes, and family members of the Prophet during his lifetime. The hadith, providing examples of what the Prophet and his Companions did or said, form, collectively, the second basis of the Shari‘ah after the Qur’an. Hadith is singular in Arabic but is sometimes used as a plural in both Arabic and English. The term in Arabic for the chain of transmitters is isnad. The term for a chain of transmitters of a hadith that is handed down on many sides, that is widely known from a very early period, and to which objections have never been made, is mutawatir, here translated as the ’uninterruptible chain of transmitters’. 19. ‘Reports’ (akhbar plural, khabar singular) is used by some Muslim scholars as synonymous with the term hadith. Others limit hadith to stories or reports about the Prophet and use khabar for reports about his Companions and others. A specialist in sunnah (the practices and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) is sometimes referred to as a muhaddith (a scholar of hadith), while an historian or a chronicler might be designated as ikhbarri (from khabar). 20. The ‘Sunnah’ refers to the practices and teachings (also translated into English as ‘Custom’, ‘Practice’, ‘Way’, ‘Example’, or ‘Tradition’) of the Prophet Muhammad, largely known through the hadith, and also to the orthodox majority of Muslims, often traditionally spoken of as the ‘People of Custom and of Community’ (ahl al-sunnah wa al-jama‘ah). A Sunni is an individual adherent. 21. Karamah is used for a miracle performed by a friend of God (wali allah), an advanced Sufi master and not a prophet. The miracle of a prophet is called a mu‘jizah.

Chapter 2 Shibli Shumayyil: 1850– 1917 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Marwa Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860– 1950, Chicago, 2013; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798– 1939, London, 1962; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1970; and Rif’at al-Sa‘id, Egyptian Liberalism (alLibraliyyah al-misriyyah), Damascus, 2003. The Greek Catholic Church is one of the Middle Eastern churches that preserved its hierarchy, liturgy, canon law, and traditions while accepting the supremacy of the Pope. The Syrian Protestant College was founded by American Presbyterians in 1866. Missionary goals had largely given way to interest in lay education by the time of the College’s foundation. The University has played a major role in the cultural and political life of the Arab East. 2. See Elshakry, Darwin, p. 99; and Hourani, Thought, pp. 248 – 9. ‘Vitalism’ refers, in science, to the idea that life is a kind of animating force within the human body. It is associated with the German embryologist Hans Driesch (1859– 1941), and the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1867 – 1941) who posited an ‘elan vital’ separate from matter. 3. See Elshakry, Darwin, p. 108. 4. See Ibid., p. 110. 5. See Hourani, Thought, p. 250. 6. See Ibid., pp. 250 – 1. 7. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 235– 6; Hourani, Thought, pp. 252– 3; Khadduri, Trends, p. 91; and al-Sa‘id, Liberalism, pp. 88 – 94. 8. See Hourani, Thought, p. 251. 9. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 235 – 6; Hourani, Thought, pp. 252 – 3; and Khadduri, Trends, p. 91. 10. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 117– 18. 11. See Ibid., pp. 65 – 72; Hourani, Thought, pp. 249 – 50; and Shafik Jeha, Darwin and the Crisis of 1882 in the Medical Department, Beirut, 2004.

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12. See Elshakry, Darwin, p. 105. 13. See Ibid., pp. 100 – 1. 14. See Frederick C. Beiser, After Hegel: German Philosophy 1840– 1900, Princeton, 2014, pp. 53 – 96. 15. The unidentified author is probably the Syrian Abu ‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri (973– 1057), a great philosophical poet famous for his religious scepticism. He is variously mystical, agnostic, or even seemingly atheistic, rejecting the established monotheisms for a universal religion of love. 16. Shumayyil: What is meant by speculation here is in keeping with the coinage of others with whom we have agreed in our writings on the matter. The term encompasses the sciences of abstraction and the sciences of speculative theology without exception. This is what we mean in our view of a special ‘type’. Otherwise, speculation in its true meaning is broader than simply being restricted to one group of sciences. It is a requirement for all sciences, and it has a great importance in all true sciences. An example of this is the doctrine that everything in nature – from it, of it, and pertaining to it – is a matter of speculation (although the proof that it exists is palpable ocular observation). If we see an apple fall from a tree and land on the ground, and if we say that it fell by virtue of the law of gravity, and if we then say, ‘This proves the existence of a comprehensive law in nature that includes all bodies and that is operational under specific conditions’ – this, too, is speculation. The proof of it is something observable to the eye as the apple falls, and this is confirmed or invalidated by experimentation. If we see a body, constituted from the matter and force of nature, take on a known form and then dissipate, to the extent that its form disappears; and if we see, at the same time, the matter that makes up the body and its inherent power break up and return to observable components; and, if we say, in this respect, that the essence of this thing has not been lost (even if it were concealed from us and moved to another locus, and were still imperceptible); and if we then go on to say that this imperceptible object is not in nature but above it or beneath it or in front of it or behind it, one of those things that cannot be apprehended either by image or proof but only by a delusion on the basis of which we were raised, or by a report that might be fabricated, or by a hope that suits a particular desire, then this, too, is a perception; that is, it is pure abstraction and one of the fields of investigation limited to the sciences of speculative theology. 17. Shumayyil: One of the understandings that they held in respect to intellect (which, in their view, is like the soul) is that it is a ‘pure essence’. These souls and intellects are synonymous. They are disseminated throughout the universe like forces. Each group of the worlds, and the actions thereof, have an intellect or soul or force that proceeds as it wills and whenever it wills. 18. Shumayyil: According to their science, heavenly bodies, atmospheric phenomena, and all other natural occurrences have an established order. Despite this fact, it is not difficult for them to submit to violations of that order in some instances, although without the whole order changing; e.g., cessation of the movement of the sun or the earth while other components of the world remain as they are. 19. The term for speculative theology among Muslims is ‘ilm al-kalam, literally ‘the science of the word’, ‘speech’, or ‘discussion’. It refers to a theological discourse marked by dialectical arguments and speculation that explain, clarify, and support Islamic theological doctrines and/or particular theological positions held by Muslims vis-a`-vis other Muslims. 20. The Arabic term translated here as sciences of theology is ‘ulum al-lahut, a term that is particularly associated with Arab Christian studies of theology. 21. The phrase ‘Greater (not to mention Lesser!) “Science” of Religious Law’ refers to the two main branches of Islamic law, the hermeneutic foundations or roots of jurisprudence (usul

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24.

25.

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al-fiqh), also referred to as the Greater Jurisprudence (al-fiqh al-akbar), and the subordinate branches of positive law ( furu‘ al-fiqh), also referred to as the Lesser Jurisprudence (al-fiqh al-asghar). This refers to knowledge obtained through mystic intuition. ‘Imam’ is used for the leader of Muslim prayer and as an honorific for scholars and ulama, including judges and legal experts. It is also used among the Shi‘ites for ‘Ali, the fourth Rashidun Caliph and a succession of his male descendants. ‘Ali was the first cousin of the Prophet and husband of his daughter Fatimah. The Shi‘ites (the name derived from the ‘partisans of ‘Ali’, shi‘ah ‘Ali) regard ‘Ali and a succession of male descendants as the rightful spiritual and civic leaders of the Muslim community. They are mediators between God and man, with divinely bestowed authority and knowledge. The last imam was not killed. He went into ‘occultation’ or ‘concealment’ and will return as the ‘rightly guided’ (mahdi) at the end of time, to restore religion and rule justly over the world. The majority of Shi‘ites recognise twelve imams and are therefore sometimes called Twelvers. Those who recognise seven imams, including Isma‘il (d. 760) as the sixth (his son, designated as the seventh, died before his father), are known as Isma‘ilis or Seveners. The Isma‘ilis developed under the patronage of the Fatimid Caliphate (the Fatamids claimed to be descendants of Isma‘il) which was centred in Egypt between 909 and 1171. The Isma‘ilis believe that Isma‘il has gone into the unknown or ‘occultation’ and will return as the Mahdi. They put particular emphasis on an apparent meaning of revelation and an inner meaning disclosed through complex, symbolic, and allegorical interpretations, provided by the divinely guided imam. God is absolutely transcendent, mysterious, and unknowable, but his truths can be revealed through prophets and the imams. Isma‘ilis are today found largely in India and Pakistan, with smaller groups in Yemen, Syria, Iran, and East Africa. The Druze constitute an Islamic sect, often designated as heterodox, who trace their origin to the eleventh century Fatimid Caliph and Isma‘ili Imam al-Hakim and his propagandist Darazi. Druze believe that al-Hakim is a manifestation of the Universal Intellect, that he is secretly alive in occultation, and will return as the Mahdi. Emanations of divine principles operate through the Druze hierarchy. The highest among the hierarchy are the ‘men of reason’ (al-‘uqqal), the initiates in contrast to the ‘ignorant’ (al-juhhal). Druze are found in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina (980– 1037), known in the West as Avicenna, was one of the most prominent thinkers within the Islamic philosophical/scientific tradition, with particularly important discoveries in medicine. He is best known in philosophy for his distinguishing between essence and existence, and for the idea of a Necessary Being whose essence and existence are identical and the cause of all other existences. The idea of Necessary Being provided for the concept of God as the ground of a universe that was both eternal and contingent. Conceived in neo-Platonic terms, this eternal being was an involuntary emanation of God’s self-knowledge and not the product of His free will. Ibn Sina argued for the immortality of the rational soul, but presented a metaphorical understanding of such matters as resurrection and punishment. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058 – 1111), a religious philosopher, jurist, and mystic, was one of the foremost religious and philosophical thinkers in the history of Islam. He is famous for his critique of the major claims of the peripatetic philosophers (cause and effect occurred concomitantly, and not as the result of a necessary relationship), and for his legitimisation of a sober Sufism among the orthodox. The critique of the peripatetics was made in his The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahafut al-falasifah). Ahmad Dallal argues effectively that al-Ghazali’s critique was not intended to undermine scientific investigation, and did not have that effect. See Ahmad Dallal, Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History, New Haven, 2010, pp. 139–48.

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26. The Andalusian Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd (1126 – 1198), known in the West as Averroes, was one of the greatest of the classical Islamic philosophers. His achievements encompassed two broad areas of endeavour: the legitimisation of philosophy among Muslims and the production of a systematic commentary on Aristotle. Known as ‘the Commentator’ among the Latins, his inventive interpretations of obscure passages within Aristotle were particularly influential both at ‘home’ and ‘abroad’. The most well known is his long commentary on De Anima, which argues that only one material intellect exists and that there is therefore no personal immortality. This differs from earlier works which considered the possibility (although not subject to rational proof) of the resurrection of the body and eternal life for the individual. There is one truth, but different ways to express it, and the methods of philosophy or theology are not to be shared with simple believers who have a literal understanding of Scripture. 27. See Chapter 1, endnote 3. 28. Shumayyil: The silly questions that are received by the journal al-Manar (The Lighthouse), coming from all parts of the Islamic world, and which the distinguished editor of the journal found himself compelled to answer, can prove to you the degree of the backwardness of people in understanding their religion. Examples of the issues to which I refer include the following: permission for postponing the time during which the deceased must be buried, in order to make sure that the deceased are actually dead; dress that resembles the dress of non-Muslims; the time of sunset, to determine the time of breaking the fast during the month of Ramadan; the prescribed period of waiting before a woman can re-marry after the death of her husband; permission to dance and swoon with passion while invoking the name of God; the torture that may await the deceased in the grave, and the issue of divine recompense (among the Sufis); the permissibility of singing; and so on. These issues just mentioned are taken from just one issue of al-Manar. There are additional examples of concerns like these, in the face of which the bones of the Prophet Muhammad shake in his grave, for both the Quran and its religious law are free from such things. If only the believers could understand this! ED: The Syrian Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865 – 1935) became widely recognised as Muhammad ‘Abduh’s most prominent disciple. He published al-Manar in Cairo from 1897 until the year of his death. The conservatism of his later years has been regarded by some scholars as a fore-runner of contemporary Islamism. (See the introduction to Chapter 1.) 29. ‘Abrogation’ (naskh) refers to the principle that particular verses of the Qur’an can abrogate or qualify others, as a result of a change in circumstance. The idea is based on Surah ‘The Cow’ (al-baqarah), verse 106, and Surah ‘The Bees’ (al-nahl), verse 101. 30. Shumayyil: As for religious institutes, rightly guided governments should never have a hand in them, neither to support them nor thwart them. The groups that establish them with their private funds, and according to their wishes, have rights over them. Government school systems built with the public funds of a nation should not be permitted to set up religious schools, even in a nation that has only one religion. How on earth has this happened, when the primary purpose of a public school system is to teach knowledge, not religion. Religion must be taught only in private religious institutions. Moreover, governments should not be permitted to embrace a single religion so long as they rule over peoples of different faiths. What is demanded of governments is that they bring all of their people together for one set of shared societal interests. Otherwise, the governments become agents of destruction – a situation that unfortunately prevails at this moment in most of the inhabited world, as encapsulated in the expression, ‘Their protectors are their thieves.’ 31. Shumayyil: The government of the French Republic is today fighting religious associations in France without any right, while this government in the East is supporting religious associations without any right. In the case of the former it claims that it is

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resisting the planting of poison by the religious associations, whereas in the case of the latter it gains influence through them. The religious associations in France should be fought by the spread of proper education, not by confiscation. Here in the East they should be supported by granting them political rights for their protection, not by sitting at the place of honour in their holy day celebrations. The religious university in our East is still the most exalted type of university. The societal interests in our country (which is one single country) are expressed through the religious university. And this is the cause for all of the internal divisions that, up until today, we inject into everything among ourselves – even into our books on literature and our political newspapers. Scarcely is anything written down without the words ‘In the name of God’, or ‘Thanks Be to God’, or ‘Prayers on this one’ and ‘Peace on that one’. Such terminologies are particular to books on religion, to the extent that this vein will not cease to throb within us and to cloud our minds with emotions and make us blinder than we already are in respect to our societal interests. 32. Shumayyil: How can this righteousness come to pass when our newspapers to this day rhapsodise about a Muslim imam or a Christian religious dignitary walking in the funeral procession of a person who is not of his faith; as though the situation is actually peculiar. Is it right for a society to be made up of these two different faiths while they remain mutually resistant (although also exhausted), and when in fact they should be like two cooperative and harmonious brothers?

Chapter 3 Ameen Rihani: 1876 –1940 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Nijmeh Hajjar, The Politics and Poetics of Ameen Rihani: The Humanist Ideology of an Arab-American Intellectual and Activist, London, 2010; Albert Hourani and Nadim Shehadi (eds), The Lebanese in the World: A Century of Migration, London, 1992; Sami al-Kayali, Amin al-Rihani: His Formation, His Studies, and Features of His Life and Work (Amin al-Rihani: nash’atuhu, dirasatuhu, malamih min hayatihi wa kuttubihi), Cairo, 1970; and Naji Oueijan, Assad Eid, Carol Kfoury, and Doumit Salameh (eds), Kahlil Gibran and Ameen Rihani: Prophets of Lebanese-American Literature, Louaize, Lebanon, 1999. The Maronite Church (named after St Yuhannah Marun, a fifth century Syrian monk) is one of the Middle Eastern churches that preserved its hierarchy, liturgy, canon law, and traditions while accepting Papal supremacy. They were monotheletes, believing that Christ had two natures but one will, in contrast to the ‘orthodox’ position, which held that Christ had two natures and two wills (human and divine). The Maronites entered into permanent communion with the Roman Catholic Church from the time of the Lateran Council of 1516. Maronites are found largely in Lebanon but also in Syria and other parts of the Middle East and the Lebanese diaspora. Mount Lebanon refers to the entire Lebanese mountain range, apart from its most northerly areas. It long provided refuge for dissident religious groups. Maronite Christians and Druze dominated the area in the nineteenth century. An autonomous administrative status was created by a conference of European powers in 1861, after a civil war between Druze/Muslims and Maronites. The Mountain was to be governed by a non-Lebanese Ottoman Christian subject and protected by the guarantee of European powers. The government functioned through an advisory council containing representatives of religious communities. (For the Druze, see Chapter 2, endnote 23.) 2. Hajjar, Politics, p. 9. 3. See Chapter 2, endnote 15. 4. In a speech at the Syrian Protestant College in 1913 Rihani spoke of ‘natural Syria, Mesopotamia, and the Arab Peninsula’, as constituting an ‘Arab nation’ (watan). Cited in Nathan C. Funk, ‘East and West can meet’, in Oueijan et al., Gibran, p. 181.

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5. Capitalism and democracy were incompatible, Americans had freed themselves from the hands of a king only to fall into the hands of kings without crowns. See Nijmeh Hajjar, ‘Ameen Rihani: discourse on progress, justice, and democracy: dynamics of theory and practice’, in Oueijan et al., Gibran, pp. 134– 73. 6. Hajjar, Politics, pp. 63 – 4. 7. Cited in Funk, ‘East’, p. 179. 8. Ibid., p. 178. 9. See Hajjar, ‘Discourse’, p. 134. 10. Hajjar, Politics, p. 25, and note 14 on p. 251. 11. Ibid., pp. 124 – 30. 12. See Sami al-Kayali, Amin, pp. 171– 95, and Hajjar, Politics, p. 25. 13. Hajjar, Politics, p. 25. 14. Ibid., p. 94. 15. Ibid., p. 25. 16. Ibid., p. 5. 17. Ibid., p. 25. 18. Ibid., p. 5. 19. Ibid., p. 46. 20. Ibid., p. 94. 21. Ibid., p. 9. 22. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480– 524) was Consul in 510 and then a political advisor to Theodoric the Gothic King. He was later accused of treason and executed. He gained eminence as a Latin philosopher who wrote commentaries on Cicero, textbooks on arithmetic and music, original works on logic, short theological treatises, and The Consolation of Philosophy, his most famous title. Inasmuch as Boethius was a defender of orthodox Christology and Theodoric was an Arian, denying the divinity of Christ, Boethius has been regarded as a Catholic martyr. Al-uqnum (singular) and al-aqanim (plural) developed as technical theological terms for ‘person’ or ‘hypostasis.’ They were derived by way of Syriac from the Greek oikonomos. 23. The Arabic term for booth (kukh) may here refer to the New Testament’s account of the ‘Transfiguration’, in which the disciples Peter, James, and his brother John have a vision of Jesus encompassed in light and conversing with Moses and Elijah. Peter is said to have asked Jesus if they could build a booth (sometimes translated as tabernacle or shelter) for each of the holy ones. Peter’s wish is not fulfilled. After God speaks from a cloud to the effect that Jesus is His Son who is to be obeyed, Jesus is restored to his natural state, Elijah and Moses disappear, and Jesus and his disciples descend from the mountain.

Chapter 4 Taha Husayn: 1889 –1973 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Pierre Cachia, Taha Hussayn: His Place in the Egyptian Literary Renaissance, London, 1956; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1972, and Donald Malcolm Reid, ‘Cairo University and the Orientalists’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, XIX, 1987, pp. 51– 76. 2. See Cachia, Taha, p. 45. 3. A kuttab is an elementary school usually attached to a mosque where boys study the Qur’an, reading, writing, grammar, and ethics, in addition to various practical subjects. 4. The Egyptian University was founded in 1908. The name was changed to Fuad I University in 1940, in honour of the late King. The name was again changed to Cairo University after the Egyptian revolution of 1952.

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5. See Chapter 2, endnote 15. 6. Ibn Khaldun (1332 – 1406) was a North African historian and philosopher of history. Some scholars consider him to be one of the founders of modern sociology, demography, philosophy of history, and economics. His best-known work is The Prolegomena (al-Muqaddimah), an interpretive overview of universal history. 7. Cachia, Taha, pp. 48 – 58 and Reid, ’University’, pp. 66 – 7. 8. Reid, ‘University’, p. 66. 9. Cachia, Taha, pp. 58 –60; Khadduri, Trends, pp. 219– 24; Reid, ‘University’, pp. 66 –7. 10. Cachia, Taha, pp. 145– 6. 11. The Ka‘abah was a pre-Islamic structure dedicated to the one God and venerated by Christians, Jews, and polytheists before the rise of Islam. It is the object of the pilgrimage that a Muslim is obliged to make once in his lifetime if he is able. 12. See Chapter 2, endnote 28. 13. Cachia, Taha, p. 147; Khadduri, Trends, pp. 224 –7; and Reid, ‘University’, p. 67. A number of scholars, including Cachia, have believed that Husayn’s conclusion on pre-Islamic poetry actually went beyond the point warranted by the evidence. 14. Cachia, Taha, pp. 60 – 1 and 147. 15. Ibid., p. 198. 16. Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (1872 – 1963) was a lawyer, writer, editor, educator, political activist, and cabinet minister. He was widely known for his championing of education and academic freedom, and for the promotion of secular Egyptian nationalism. He and other members of the Egyptian elite, particularly large land-owners, founded the Ummah Party in 1907. The Party promoted individual rights and constitutional liberties. It occupied a position between the assertive nationalism of the Nationalist Party (al-hizb al-watani) and the Khedive, the term for the monarchical head of state under the British. It was anti-pan Islamism and anti-Ottoman. The Liberal Constitutionalists, to some extent a resurrection of the pre-independence Ummah, broke away from the Egyptian Wafd (the mass-based popular nationalist party) in 1922. It was the party of an upper-class elite who were not above cooperating closely with the British. 17. Reid, ‘University’, pp. 67 – 8. 18. According to Arab traditions, the Arabs were divided into two stocks: the Arabian Arabs (the ‘Aribah) and Arabicised Arabs (the Musta‘ribah). The ‘Aribah, the aboriginal Arab stock, were southerners or Yemenites, descended from Qahtan. The Musta‘ribah, the naturalised Arabs, were northerners descended from ‘Adnan. ‘Adnan was a descendant of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. According to most traditions the Hebrew presence in Mecca and western Arabia more generally can be traced to the sixth century BC , the period of the Babylonian destruction of the temple. During this period, Ishmael is said to have settled near the Jurhum, a people of the ‘Aribah who spoke Arabic as their native tongue. He married a Jurhumite woman (who bore him twelve sons) and learned Arabic, thereby becoming part of the Musta‘ribah or Arabicised Arabs. The Ka‘abah was built while the patriarch Abraham was visiting his son Ishmael in Mecca. Abraham was commanded to build the shrine on a site that had already been sanctified by Adam. The Jurhum would eventually replace Ishmael’s descendants in Mecca and introduce polytheism into Abraham’s sanctuary. Ishmael’s descendants themselves would turn to polytheism after they left Mecca, and that is why they staunchly defended this polytheism when they gained control of the city and its shrines under the name of the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad, founded by Qusayy, one of Ishmael’s descendants. Although the stories accounting for Ishmael’s presence in Arabia and his Arabicisation are not found in

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21. 22.

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the Qur’an, the Qur’an is nevertheless quite explicit on the subject of Abraham and Ishmael as builders of God’s house in Mecca. See Chapter 1, endnote 17. According to traditional sources, a war, in 570 AD , known as the ‘Year of the Elephant’, the year of the Prophet’s birth, was fought by the Christian Abyssinian general Abrahah against the Arab polytheist Meccans, who had polluted the cathedral in Sanaa. Abrahah brought an elephant, an animal unknown to Meccans, on his northward march, intending to destroy the Ka‘abah. ‘Shaykhs’ are established Muslim religious authorities trained in the traditional religious sciences. Dr Husayn Haykal (1888 – 1956) was a prominent Egyptian writer and politician in the inter-war period who published A Life of Muhammad (Hayat Muhammad) in 1933. A modernist work, albeit careful to remain within the framework of orthodoxy, it seeks to show that the Prophet’s life and teaching are compatible with liberal humanism. David Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917), a French sociologist and philosopher, is regarded as one of the founders of modern social science. He studied collective consciousness and was particularly interested in how societies could retain their integrity and cohesion when they no longer shared a common religious foundation. See Chapter 2, endnote 25. See Chapter 2, endnote 26. Mahmud al-‘Azmi (1889– 1954) was the editor of a number of Egyptian newspapers and periodicals, including al-Siyasah and Ruz al-Yusuf. He also served as director of Cairo University’s Institute for Editing, Translation, and Journalism.

Chapter 5 Isma‘il Mazhar: 1891 –1962 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Aziz Al-Azmeh, Secularism from a Different Perspective (al-‘Almaniyyah min manzur mukhtalif), Beirut, 1992; Marwah Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860– 1950, Chicago, 2013; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: the Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1973; and Rif‘at al-Sa‘id, Egyptian Liberalism (al-Libraliyyah al-misriyyah), Damascus, 2003.For information about Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid see Chapter 4, endnote 17. 2. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 264– 5.The Khedival School was a prestigious secondary school founded in the nineteenth century, providing instruction in French and English. Most graduates went on to Cairo University, the Khedival Law School, or foreign universities. 3. See Khadduri, Trends, pp. 230– 1. 4. al-Sa‘id, Liberalism, p. 184. 5. Cited in Elshakry, Darwin, p. 279. 6. Elshakry, Darwin, p. 295. 7. Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 276– 85 and 297. 8. See Elshakry, Darwin, pp. 285– 9 and 293. For effendiyyah, see Chapter 1, endnote 6. 9. For Zaghlul and the Wafd, see introduction to Chapter 1. 10. See Elshakry, Darwin, p. 298. 11. Khadduri, Trends, p. 234. 12. See Elshakry, Darwin, p. 298, and Khadduri, Trends, pp. 234– 5. The word al-duhur could be translated as ‘the times’. The choice has been made to translate it as ‘the ages’ to differentiate it from al-‘usur. 13. See introduction to Chapter 2. 14. ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad (1889– 1964) was one of the most prominent Egyptian men of letters and political activists of the twentieth century: a journalist, editor, poet, literary

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19.

20.

21.

22.

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critic, biographer, translator, and popular philosopher. He was famous for his sassiness, as champion of free thought and expression, the rights of women, liberal democracy, and various strains of literary modernism. He developed his own version of existentialism, which he termed a ‘universal consciousness’ that integrated feeling, reason, and a sense of the divine. See Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective, New York, 2010, p. 63. The sentence ‘God is without likeness’ is spoken of as ‘three words’ inasmuch as the verb ‘to be’ is not expressed in Arabic in the present tense. For biographical information, see Chapter 8. This is translated from the Arabic. Ernst Haeckel (1834 –1919) was a professor of zoology at the University of Jena who discovered thousands of species. Haeckel attempted to establish evolution as a broad solution to all scientific, philosophical, political, aesthetic, and religious problems. He rejected dualism between matter and spirit. God was not formally denied but He was identified with Nature and everything in the universe was explicable in mechanical terms. Steven Schapin speaks of him as ‘the German who became the world’s most influential Darwinist’. See Steven Schapin, in his review of Nick Hopwood’s Haeckel’s Embryos: Images, Evolution, and Fraud, The London Review of Books, XXXVIII/9, 5 May 2016, pp. 35 – 7. This quotation is translated from the Arabic. Tashbih literally means making comparisons. Within Islamic discourse it refers to attributing qualities to God that are analogous to human qualities. Tanzih refers to the elimination of such qualities from the conception of the deity. Tashbih implies immanence and tanzih transcendence. James Martineau (1805– 1900) was a British Unitarian theologian, a minister, a professor of philosophy, and principal of Manchester New College. He was a well-known champion of theism, relying upon the ‘argument from design’, and the idea that moral consciousness and the laws of nature must have a creator. The excerpt from Martineau is translated from the Arabic. The Englishman Herbert Spencer (1820 –1903), a civil engineer, published works on philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, and political theory. He was a Darwinist and a social Darwinist, emphasising the survival of the fittest in terms of individuals and societies. He was also a major proponent of agnosticism, dividing reality between the knowable, the domain of science, and the unknowable, the domain of religion. The knowable was dependent upon the unknowable, the Absolute behind all things. This is translated from the Arabic.

Chapter 6

Isma‘il Adham: 1911 –40

1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Aziz Al-Azmeh, Secularism from a Different Perspective (al-‘Almaniyyah min manzur mukhtalif), Beirut, 1992; Marwa Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860– 1950, Chicago, 2013; G. H. A. Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il Ahmad Adham (1911– 40), the atheist’, Journal of Arabic Literature, III, 1972, pp. 54 – 71; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: the Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1972; Rif‘at al-Sa‘id, Egyptian Liberalism (al-Libraliyyah al-misriyyah), Damascus, 2003; and Samuli Schielke, ‘The Islamic World’, in Stephen Bullivant and Michael Reese (eds),The Oxford Handbook of Atheism, Oxford, 2013, pp. 638 – 50, and M. K. al-Khatib (ed.), The Freedom of Religious Belief: Testimonies of Faith and Atheism from the Time of the Arab Renaissance until Today (Huriyyah al-‘itiqad al-dini: musajallat al-‘itiqad wa al-ilhad min ‘asr al-nahdah al-‘arabiyyah ila al-yawm), Damascus, 2005. 2. See the short bibliography provided by Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il’, pp. 68 –71.

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3. The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism was founded by Charles Lee Smith (1887– 1960) in 1925 on more than three dozen high school, college, and university campuses. 4. For a comparison of al-‘Usur with its fellows, see Al-Azmeh, Secularism, pp. 232 – 3; for the citation from al-‘Usur, see al-Sa‘id, Liberalism, p. 184. 5. See Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il’, p. 57. 6. See Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il’, pp. 56 – 7. 7. James Hopwood Jeans (1877 – 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer, and mathematician. 8. See Al-Azmeh, Secularism, pp. 221– 3. Al-Azmeh notes, however, that no one other than Adham went so far as to announce publicly that he was an atheist. 9. Cited in Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il’, p. 62. 10. Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il’, p. 61. 11. See Peter E. Hodgson, Theology and Modern Physics, Farnham, UK, 2005, p. 167. The German physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901– 76) is famous for his indeterminacy theory which was formulated in 1927. The theory states that it is impossible to determine, simultaneously, and beyond a certain degree of accuracy, the velocity and position of any particle. 12. Hodgson, Theology, p. 167. 13. Juynboll, ‘Isma‘il’, p. xx. 14. Professor Jacobus Van’t Hoff (1852– 1911) was a prominent Dutch physicist, organic chemist, and Nobel laureate. 15. Shurafa’ are the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, Fatima’s husband and the Prophet’s first cousin. Each sharif (singular) draws his descent from one of two of the Prophet’s grandsons, Hasan or Husayn. 16. ‘Abd al-Haqq (Abdulhak) Hamid Tarhun (1852– 1944) was a Turkish playwright and poet. 17. Huseyin Rahmi Guriar (1864 – 1944) was a Turkish politician and writer. 18. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881 – 1938) was the most successful Ottoman general of World War I. He led the resistance against the Entente nations which occupied Anatolia after the war, and played the most important role in establishing the Turkish Republic. 19. Thomas Huxley (1825– 95) was an English biologist. He promoted agnosticism (inventing the term) and Darwinism. 20. See Chapter 5, endnote 18. 21. Sir Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875) was a lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day, a strong supporter of Darwin. 22. Walter Bagehot (1826 – 77), the first editor of The Economist, was a British journalist and businessman who wrote extensively about government and economics. He believed that the conduct of man is not guided by reason. 23. The Egyptian professor ‘Isam al-Din Hifni Nasif was a politician who broke with the Wafd (Egypt’s largest and most popular party) and tried to establish a socialist party in 1927. 24. Jules Henri Poincare (1854– 1912) was a leading French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher of science. The choice of scientific principles, he believed, could be justified on the basis of their convenience in application to the physical world and not on the basis that they were necessarily true. Felix Christian Klein (1849– 1925) was a German mathematician known for his work on the connection between geometry and group theory. Nikolai Lobachevsky (1792 – 1856) was a Russian mathematician and geometer known primarily for his work on higher value geometry. 25. See introduction to Chapter 2.

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26. This sentence is translated from the Arabic. 27. The letter sad (S) was used to indicate the index in this formula. I have substituted ‘M’, which is more standard in Western mathematical usage. 28. This is translated from the Arabic. 29. This is translated from the Arabic.

Chapter 7 Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi: 1863 –1936 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Orit Bashkin, New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq, Stanford, 2012; Nasir al-Hani, Lectures on Jamil al-Zahawi (Muhadarat ‘an Jamil al-Zahawi), Cairo, 1954; ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Hilali, Al-Zahawi in His Literary and Intellectual Battles (al-Zahawi fi ma‘arikihi al-adabiyyah wa al-fikriyyah), Baghdad, 1982; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1972; Firas Massouh, ‘The thawra of Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi’, an introduction to Massouh’s translation of ‘Thawrah fi al-jahim’, Jaddaliyya, www.jaddaliyya.com; S. Somekh, ‘The Neo-Classical Arabic Poets’, in M. M. Badawi (ed.), Modern Arabic Literature, Cambridge, 2006; and Muhammad Yusuf Najm (ed.), The Collection of Poetry of Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi (Diwan Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi), I, Beirut, 1971. 2. Somekh, ‘Neo-classical’, p. 49. 3. Ibid., pp. 50 – 1. 4. Ibid., p. 51. 5. Ibid. See, also, Bashkin’s Babylonians for an overview of the participation of Iraqi Jews in the literary and intellectual renaissance in which the neo-classicists appeared, pp. 1– 99. 6. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ‘Modernist poetry in Arabic’, M.M. Badawi, Modern, p. 142. 7. Somekh,’Neo-classical’, p. 49. 8. Jayyusi, ‘Modernist’, p. 164. 9. Naji, Lost Collection, vol. 1. 10. Layla is a young woman who falls in love with a man of whom her father disapproves. The character has her origin in a fifth-century pre-Islamic poem about Qays, or ‘The Madman of Layla’ (Majnun Layla), and his beloved. The story has many incarnations, including a range of modern versions. It has provided an important allegory for the mystic search for union with God. 11. Hammam ibn Ghalib al-Farazdaq (641 – 732), known for his amorous and risque´ works, was a court poet of the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Walid I. 12. Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi (640– 710) was a Christian poet of the Umayyad court who wrote works in praise of his patrons and satires of their rivals. 13. Jarir ibn ‘Atiyyah al-Tamimi (650 – 728) was a famous satirical poet. 14. ‘Houri’ are the maidens of paradise who are free from all impurity. Some traditions associate them with sensual ideas (such as their physical beauty and co-habitation with the deceased), whereas other traditions, particularly of Sufis, spiritualise their physical characteristics as metaphorical. 15. Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutannabi (915– 65) was one of the greatest of Arab poets, celebrated for ingenious word play, musicality, and witty insouciance. The devastating sarcasm of his lampoons would have been sufficient to secure his fame. ‘The nobility of every people come from among themselves; among Muslims, however, they are paltry slaves.’ 16. See Chapter 2, endnote 15. 17. Bashar ibn Burd (714 – 83) was a poet known for his licentiousness and disbelief. He was imprisoned and beaten to death under the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi. 18. Al-Hasan ibn Hani’ Abu Nuwas (d. 815) was one of the greatest of Arab poets. He was famous for celebrating wine and homoerotic and heterosexual pleasures.

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19. ‘Umar al-Khayyam (1048 – 1131), a Persian, was one of the most prominent Islamic mathematicians and astronomers of the Middle Ages. He is best known today for his quatrains, the Ruba’iyyat, a celebration of sensual pleasures, which has become a staple of English literature in the translation by Edward Fitzgerald. 20. Imru’ al-Qays, a pre-Islamic poet of the sixth century, is regarded by many as the father of Arabic poetry. 21. See Chapter 5, endnote 18. 22. See introduction to Chapter 2. 23. Pierre Gassendi (1592 – 1655) was a French priest, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. He is associated with a kind of scepticism (indebted to Sextus Empiricus) directed against Aristotelianism. He championed atomism, empiricism, and the idea that human beings and their minds are machine-like. 24. See Chapter 5, endnote 21. 25. See Chapter 6, endnote 18. 26. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814) was the first great German philosopher of idealism. He lost his post as professor at Jena because of his alleged atheism (God was not a person but the moral order of the world). 27. Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d’Holbach (1723– 89) was a French philosopher, encyclopaedist, and prominent thinker of the French Enlightenment. He undertook a systematic defence of atheistic materialism. The universe is a determined system, consisting of an eternal and constant totality of matter and motion. 28. Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and astrologer. He believed in an infinite universe and an infinite number of inhabited worlds, composed of the smallest of particles, and moving within a space with no core. The universal and eternal substance constituted both God and nature. He was burned at the stake by the Inquisition. 29. Ernest Renan (1823– 92) was a French Orientalist and expert on ancient languages, civilisations, philosophy, and history. He wrote a famous biography of Jesus that denied his divinity. As an Orientalist he contributed to the idea of essential dichotomies between the civilisations of the Aryans and the Semites, to the latter’s disadvantage. This led Renan to maintain, in a well-known debate with Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (see Chapter 1), that Islam was essentially hostile to philosophy and science. 30. Zarathustra is another name for Zoroaster who lived in eastern Iran and was the founder of the religion of Zoroastrianism. This religion’s central idea is that good and evil are about evenly matched. Ahura Mazda, the god of the good, will ultimately be victorious but he is often not able to control events in the meantime. Zoroaster is thought to have lived in the middle of the second millennium BC . 31. Mazdak (d. c.524 BC ), an Iranian prophet of Zoroastrianism, was associated with the promotion of free love and condemned as a dangerous heretic. 32. Abu Yusuf al-Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (d.866) was the first major Islamic philosopher and was known as the ‘philosopher of the Arabs’ because of his purely Arab ethnic origin. He argued that philosophy and religion are compatible, and he played a notable role in the translation movement from Greek into Arabic. 33. See Chapter 2, endnote 24. 34. See Chapter 2, endnote 26. There are a number of reasons that might account for Ibn Rushd and some other philosophers being in hell, including the argument that the universe is eternal and that immortality is not individual and personal. 35. Abu Dulama’ Zand ibn Jawn (d. 777) was a poet and satirist at the courts of the Abbasid Caliphs Mansur and Mahdi. Many of his writings have been incorporated into

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37.

38.

39. 40. 41.

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folklore, especially those dealing with his ribald behaviour and impecuning and miserly ways. Abu al-Hasan ibn Yahya ibn al-Rawandi (827 – 911) maintained that religious doctrines are irrational, that prophets are akin to magicians and wizards, and that their miracles are bogus. The Qur’an was not a revelation and it is not inimitable. The world is eternal and there is no need to posit a first cause. The paradise of the Qur’an is not especially attractive. Its God is capricious and unjust, without knowledge or wisdom. Ibn al-Rawandi’s attack on the Holy Book is found in his al-Damigh (The Refutation). Only a few fragments remain, conveyed through the refutations of his enemies. Nasir Khusraw (1004 – 60) was a prominent Persian Isma‘ili philosopher who occupied important positions in the Seljuq Turkish dynasty of Iran and Iraq (1038 – 1194). He believed that everything emanated from God and will return to Him. Existence comes into being through the Universal Soul and Universal Intellect which emanate from God and serve as the basis of material realities (ascending from minerals to humans). Each human being contains a soul and intellect. They are imperfect but they exist within Universals. Incorporating Shi‘ite doctrine with his neo-Platonic metaphysics, Khusraw wrote of a divinely inspired guide who would reconnect man with the Universal Intellect and Universal Soul. Mansur al-Hallaj (858– 922) was a writer, teacher, and Sufi who gathered many disciples around him in Baghdad. Adversaries took his declaration ‘I am the truth’ to mean that he identified himself with God. He was excommunicated, imprisoned for eight years, and ultimately executed. The patronage of the Caliph Muqtadir’s mother engendered jealousy among others in the palace and contributed to his death. He is an exemplary martyr for many Sufis. The Zabaniyyah are the guardian angels of hell. They are also believed to be the angels who carry off souls at the time of death. Iblis is the name of Satan in Islam. ‘Izra’il (Azrael) is the Archangel of Death (Malak al-mawt).

Chapter 8

Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi: 1875– 1945

1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Terri de Young, ‘Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi’, in Roger Allen (ed.), Essays in Arabic Literary Biography, Wiesbaden, 2010, pp. 274 –5; Abdou Filali-Ansary, ‘Imposture and rebellion: a consideration of The Personality of Prophet Muhammad by Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi’, Diogenes, 226:63 –74; Yusuf ‘Izz al-Din, Al-Rusafi Tells the Story of His Life (al-Rusafi yarwi sirah hayatihi), Damascus, 2014; Tarif Khalidi, Images of Muhammad: Narratives of the Prophet of Islam across the Centuries, NY, 2007; S. Somekh, ‘The Neo-Classical Arabic poets’, in M. M. Badawi (ed.), Modern Arabic Literature, Cambridge, 2006; Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi, At the Door of the Prison of Abu ‘Ala’ [al-Ma‘arri] (‘Ala bab sijn Abi al-‘Ala’), Damascus, 2002; and Ma‘ruf al-Rusafi, Treatises of Criticism (Rasa’il al-ta‘liqat), Baghdad, 1944. 2. Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi (1856 – 1924) was an Iraqi Sunni mufti and Qur’anic scholar. He was anti-Wahhabi, anti-Sufi, and pro-reformist, reflecting the influence of the Salafiyyah movement of Muhammad ‘Abduh. The Wahhabis developed in central Arabia and take their name from Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (1703 – 92), a religious reformer who promoted the need to return to strict obedience to the Qur’an and the hadith as they had been interpreted over the generations by authoritative scholars. The Wahhabis rejected what they took to be unlawful innovations, such as the reverence for deceased holy men as intermediaries with God. ‘Abd al-Wahhab made an alliance with Muhammad ibn

NOTES

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8. 9. 10.

11.

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Sa‘ud, a tribal leader of central Arabia, who established a state that promoted Wahhabism. This state ultimately became Saudi Arabia. Somekh, ‘Neo-Classical’, p. 49. Ibid., pp. 59 – 60. Filali-Ansary, ‘Imposture’, p. 63. A summary of the book as a whole is provided by Filali-Ansary, ‘Imposture’, pp. 63– 70. This has been translated into English and published under the title Twenty-three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammed. The translator, F. R. C. Bayley, attributed it to Ali Dashti, an Iranian literary critic and political activist, who passed it on to him and asked that it not be published until after his death. See Filali-Ansary, ‘Imposture’, p. 73, and al-Sharq al-awsat, 22 June 2005. See Chapter 1, endnote 5. Filali-Ansary, ‘Imposture’, p. 71. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1801 – 87), of Maronite origin, spent most of his life in the Arab world and Turkey, with intervals in Britain and America. His literary contributions are strikingly diverse, including his participation in a standard translation of the Bible, his editorship of al-Jawa’ib (Tidings from Afar) from 1861 to 1864, the first newspaper to circulate wherever Arabic was read and the first to report on world politics, and his writing of a four-volume satirical, partly autobiographical novel, The Leg on the Leg, Concerning Far-Yaq (al-Saq ‘ala al-saq fi ma huwa al-faryaq) which attacked the Maronite hierarchy who had imprisoned Shidyaq’s brother As‘ad (resulting in his death) for converting to Protestantism. Shidyaq himself converted to Protestantism and later to Islam. He is one of the founders of modern Arabic literature. Farah Antun (1874– 1933) was a Lebanese Egyptian journalist of Christian origin who spent most of his life in the Arab East and, for a time, in the US, editing Arabic periodicals, including al-Jami‘ah (Unity), the most famous. He promoted a number of themes common to the Arab Nahdah: that science and religion must stick to their separate spheres; that all religions have the same principles; that there must be a separation of spiritual and temporal authority; that modern states must be built on national unity and science and not religion. He is particularly known for a debate in print with Muhammad ‘Abduh, precipitated by Antun’s arguing that Islamic theology discouraged scientific research through its rejection of secondary causes on the basis that such causes limited God’s freedom. ‘Abduh objected, arguing, as many Muslims have since, that the natural laws of the universe are the sunnah of God. Khalidi, Images, pp. 292 and 295. The reference is to The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qur’an (al-Itqan fi ‘ulum al-Qur’an) by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (1445 –1505). Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (897– 967) was the author of The Book of Songs (Kitab al-aghani), a famous and widely influential treasury of poetry and literature. See Chapter 1, endnote 20. See Chapter 2, endnote 15. ‘Inimitability’ (i‘jaz) is the Islamic belief which holds that the Qur’an has a miraculous quality in content and form that no human author could match. The term is often associated with literary qualities such as eloquence and rhetorical power. The hijrah, or emigration, refers to the Prophet’s emigration from Mecca to Madinah in 622, marking what was later designated as the first year of the Islamic era. Ibn al-Tayyib al-Baqillani (950 – 1013) was a Qur’anic exegete whose analysis is informed by his critical examinations of prominent ancient poems. See Chapter 4, endnote 22.

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21. Zindiq (plural zanadiqah) is used for free-thinkers, the heterodox, and outright unbelievers. The term, common in the Middle Ages, was used widely, including for those who are in fact believers of some sort. 22. The Abbasids (descendants of Abu al-‘Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet) established the second hereditary dynasty of the Islamic empire, which succeeded that of the Umayyads in 750. They transferred their capital eastwards from Damascus to Baghdad. Although there were long periods in which they did not actually control the empire, their reign lasted until 1258 and the coming of the Mongols. Even towards the end of their reign, they remained a symbol of political legitimacy and enjoyed the prestige of providing formal recognition to various rulers. For the title ‘caliph’, held by the rulers, and the term ‘caliphate’, the polity over which they ruled, see Chapter 1, endnote 7. 23. See Chapter 7, endnote 36. 24. See Chapter 1, endnote 18. 25. Umayyah ibn Abi al-Salt was a poet and one of the religious thinkers known as a hanif in Western Arabia before Muhammad (see endnote 15, Chapter 1). According to al-Aghani, Ibn Abi had inspected and read the Holy Scriptures. It is said that he hoped to be sent as a prophet to the Arabs, and that he envied and bitterly opposed Muhammad. His verses are chiefly on religious topics and reflect many of the themes set forth in the early surahs of the Qur’an. 26. Musaylimah was one of a series of men who claimed to be a prophet after Muhammad’s death. He was the leader of the Banu Hanifah (his real name is Ibn Habib al-Hanifi – Musaylimah is a pejorative diminutive) against the newly formed Muslim state under the Caliph Abu Bakr. He imitated the early style of the Qur’an in order to make it appear ludicrous: ‘The elephant, what is the elephant, and who shall tell you what is the elephant? He has a poor tail, and a long trunk: and is a trifling part of the creations of thy God.’ Muslim tradition calls him the Liar and represents him as a magician who claimed to perform miracles. See R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, Cambridge, 1969, p. 183. 27. Ibn Hisham (d. 834) was the author of a recension of the biography of the Prophet by Ibn Ishaq. 28. Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 767) was the author of The Biography of the Prophet of God (Sirah rasul Allah), the earliest biography of the Prophet. 29. Abu Ja‘afar Mansur was the Abbasid caliph who reigned from 754 – 75. 30. Harith ibn Hisham was a member of a prominent Meccan family who fought against the Prophet at Badr and Uhud. Muhammad had ordered his execution but subsequently forgave him when he converted to Islam. 31. A biography of the Prophet by Nur al-Din al-Halabi (1567 – 1635). 32. The Muslims defeated their enemies from Mecca at the battle of Badr (twenty miles southwest of Madinah) in 624, thanks to the inspiring leadership of Muhammad. The victory laid the foundation for Muhammad’s temporal rule.

Chapter 9 Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allah: 1916– 98 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, ‘The dilemma of the literary approach to the Qur’an’, Alif 23, 2003, pp. 8 – 47; Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr. (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt, Boulder, 2000; Donald Malcolm Reid, ‘Cairo University and the Orientalists’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1987, pp. 51– 76; and Suha Taji-Farouki (ed.), Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, Oxford, 2004. 2. See Chapter 4, endnote 3. 3. Goldschmidt, Dictionary, entry for Shaykh Amin al-Khuli, pp. 105 – 6.

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4. Abu-Zayd, ‘Dilemma’, p. 23. For the concept of inimitability as such (i‘jaz), see Chapter 8, endnote 17. 5. See Reid, ‘University’, p. 69; for a summary of the contents of the Khalaf Allah dissertation, see Abu Zayd, ‘Dilemma’, pp. 23 – 7. 6. See Chapter 5, endnote 14. 7. Abu Zayd, ‘Dilemma’, pp. 27 – 32, and Reid, ‘University’, pp. 69 – 70. 8. Cited in Reid, ‘University’, p. 69; and in Abu Zayd, ‘Dilemma’, p. 29. The translations are different. Abu Zayd supplies his own and Reid takes his, cited here, from Yvonne Yazback Haddad, Contemporary Islam and the Challenges of History, Albany, 1982, pp. 46 – 53. 9. Abu Zayd, ‘Dilemma’, pp. 32 – 4; Reid, ‘University’, pp. 69 – 70. 10. Abu Zayd, ‘Dilemma’, pp. 32 – 4. 11. Ibid., p. 9. 12. See Chapter 4, endnote 16. 13. Reid, ‘University’, pp. 68 – 9. 14. Ibid., p. 69. 15. See Chapter 1, endnote 18. 16. ‘Israelite documentation’ (isra’iliyat) consists of traditions and reports drawing upon the legendary and religious literature of the Jews. These traditions and reports found their way into Qur’anic exegesis and literature that provided stories of the prophets. The transmitters who introduced these elements have been the subject of considerable disagreement in some of the biographical literature. 17. Khalaf Allah: See the stories of the two Surahs ‘The Heights’ (al-‘araf) and’ Jonah’ (Yunis) in Tafsir al-Khazin. 18. Khalaf Allah: Al-Tabari, vol. 1, pp. 185 – 6, and vol. 23, p. 107. ED: Muhammad ibn Jarrir al-Tabari (839– 923) was a historian and exegete of the Qur’an. He is best known for his interpretation of the Qur’an (tafsir) and his History of Prophets and Kings (al-Tarikh alrusul wa al-muluk). 19. See Chapter 7, endnote 40. 20. Al-Khidr, the Green One, is a mystic figure of wisdom and knowledge who is particularly revered by Sufis. He is said to have been a spiritual guide to Moses and Alexander the Great. He symbolises an inner religious sensibility that transcends outward form. The Khidr is often portrayed as the teacher of an individual who realises spiritual truth in a rare, spontaneous manner. 21. Khalaf Allah: Abu Hayyan, Vast Ocean, vol. 2, pp. 290– 1. ED: Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati (1256 – 1344) was a major linguist and exegete. 22. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149– 1209) wrote numerous works on philosophy and theology. His greatest work is an encyclopaedic commentary on the Qur’an, The Great Interpretation (al-Tafsir al-kabir). Although he was a proponent of the Ash‘arite theological school, he was not uncritical of some of its views, and devoted considerable attention to exchanges with the Mu‘tazilites. He is noted for his discussion of the language and content of Qur’anic verses, in addition to their style and arrangement. He was unusual among the exegetes for his attempt to reconcile philosophy and religion. The Mu‘tazilites were followers of one of the two most important schools within Islamic theology (the other is that of the Ash‘arites). They emphasised reason in interpreting revelation and developing belief. They often speak of themselves as the people of unity and justice. God is one and the various attributes mentioned in the Qur’an are not independent of His essence. In order to guard against anthropomorphism in the understanding of God, descriptions of Him must be given emblematic interpretations. Their stress upon justice is based on their belief in the freedom of the will. God could not condemn people to hell if they were not free to sin or not. They were supported for a time by the Abbasids who used

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32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

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force to promote their views. Their position began to decline by the end of the ninth century, but their methods continued to exercise great influence (their opponents often adopting their style of rational disputation), and they have been widely important in the modern period. Their name is derived from i‘tazala, to withdraw, which is related to what is taken to be an early Mu‘tazilite position in respect to whether a Muslim who is a grave sinner is no longer a believer. Their answer was that he was neither a believer nor an infidel, but somewhere in between. Al-Yamani is a pre-messianic figure in Shi‘ite Islamic eschatology. Al-Sudi’s name has come down to us as one in a long line of transmitters of hadith. Nothing more is known about him. ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Abbas (619 – 87) was the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and an early Qur’anic scholar. Bukhti is a breed of mule known for its strength. Imam Hasan al-Basri (642– 728) was a prominent teacher with a broad range of followers. He was a mystic, the author of an influential book of commentary on the Qur’an, and one of the most authoritative transmitters of hadith. Khalaf Allah: al-Razi, vol. 1, p. 313. Khalaf Allah: Ibn Qutaybah, The Problematic and the Strange in the Koran (Mushkil al-Qur’an wa gharibuhu), vol. 1, p. 153. Khalaf Allah: Surah ‘Ta Ha’, verses 9 – 25 and Surah ‘The Ants’, verses 7 – 12. Khalaf Allah: See Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah al-Iskafi (1313– 74), The Pearl of Revelation and the Fruit of Interpretation in the Clarification of the Ambiguous Verses of God Almighty’s Revelation (Durrah al-tanzil wa thamarah al-ta’wil fi bayan al-awwat al-mutashabihat fi kitab Allah al-‘Aziz). Khalaf Allah: al-Tabari, vol. 3, p. 103. ‘He of the Two Horns’ (dhu al-qarnayn) is most often understood to refer to Alexander the Great. He had generally been depicted in the guise of the horned god Jupiter-Amon, and this explains how he was popularly spoken of in the age of the Prophet Muhammad. Khalaf Allah: Surah ‘The Cave’, verse 86. Ibid. Khalaf Allah: al-Razi, vol. 5, p. 305, ff; we will explain this issue in Chapter 2. ED: The author’s note is incomplete. Khalaf Allah: ‘Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad, Eliminating the Dismissals of the Qur’an (Tanzih al-Qur’an ‘an al-mata’in), p. 217. ED: ‘Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad (935– 1025) was a Mu‘tazilite theologian who wrote a comprehensive work of speculative theology. Khalaf Allah: al-Razi, vol. 8. p. 232. Khalaf Allah has drawn upon al-Razi, vol. 8, p. 232; Surah ‘The Table Spread’, verse 116; and ‘Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad, Eliminating, p. 115; and Surah ‘The Women’, verse 157. Badr and Uhud are two important battles in early Islamic history. Badr was the first battle between the Muslims and the Meccans in which a small Muslim army triumphed. At the battle of Uhud the Muslims hoped to replicate their earlier victory, but they were defeated because some troops broke ranks to gather spoils. See Chapter 1, endnote 3. Abu Bakr ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman, known as al-‘Asamm (the deaf), was a well-known jurist and theologian. Khalaf Allah: Surah ‘The Spoils’ (al-anfal), verse 44. Khalaf Allah: al-Manar, vol. 4, p. 115. Khalaf Allah draws upon al-Razi, vol. 8, p. 423, ‘Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad, Eliminating, p. 59, and al-Razi, vol. 5, p. 65, within the section that has been summarised. Khalaf Allah: Surah ‘The Bee’, verse 103.

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47. Khalaf Allah: al-Razi, vol. 5, p. 350. 48. Khalaf Allah: al-Manar, vol. 1, p. 194.

Chapter 10

Mahmoud Mohamed Taha: 1909 – 85

1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Gerhard Bowering (ed.), The Princeton Encylopedia of Islamic Political Thought, Princeton, 2013; John Cooper, Ronald Nettler, and Mohamed Mahmoud (eds), Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond, London, 2000; Abdullah Ahmad an-Naim’s ‘Introduction’ to Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, The Second Message of Islam, translated and edited by an-Naim, Syracuse, 1987; Olivier Roy and Antoine Sfeir (eds), The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, translated by John King, New York, 2007; and Edward Thomas, Islam’s Perfect Stranger: the Life of Mahmud Muhammad Taha, Muslim Reformer of the Sudan, London, 2010. 2. Sectarianism took the form of a rivalry between the ‘Supporters’ or ‘Helpers’ of the Sunnah (ansar al-sunnah), a group following the anti-Sufi Islam of the puritanical Arabian reformer of the eighteenth century Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (see Chapter 8, endnote 2), and the Khatmiyyah Sufi order (brotherhood) and its affiliated political party. The Khatmiyyah had been the most centralising religious order of the Sudanese nineteenth century. The term for a Sufi order (brotherhood) is tariqah (plural turuq), literally ‘a way’, that is, a mystical way to God. The orders institutionalised various spiritual exercises and programmes when they were founded. 3. Mahmoud, ‘Mahmud Muhammad Taha’s Second Message of Islam and his modernist project,’ in Cooper, et. al., Islam, pp. 105– 6, and an-Naim, ‘Introduction,’ pp. 1 – 10; and Steve Howard, entry for ‘Mahmoud Mohamed Taha (1909– 1985),’ in Bowering, Encyclopedia, p. 540. 4. See Chapter 1, endnote 3. 5. See Chapter 1, endnote 8. 6. See Chapter 1, endnote 18. 7. An-Naim, ‘Introduction’, pp. 19 – 28; and Mahmoud, ‘Mahmud’, pp. 108– 22. Dhimmi refers to a person who is categorised as one of the ‘protected people’ (ahl al-dhimmah) in an Islamic state. In the medieval period these were non-Muslim monotheists whose institutions were granted autonomy and security under Islamic rule. They were required to pay a head tax and a special land tax. These taxes were accompanied by certain social restrictions, which differed according to time or place. 8. Mahmoud, ‘Mahmud’, p. 107. 9. Ibid., p. 106 and an-Naim, ‘Introduction’, pp. 5 – 7. 10. Mahmoud, ‘Mahmud’, p. 106. 11. Ibid., pp. 106 – 7 and an-Naim, ‘Introduction’, pp. 10 –19. 12. An-Naim, ‘Introduction’, p. 17 and Thomas, Stranger, pp. 220– 35. 13. Thomas, Stranger, p. 218. As previously indicated, ‘Mahdi’ refers to a Muslim messianic figure. It literally means ‘the one who is guided’. Although this title does not appear in most of the collections of canonical hadith the idea has had particular significance among Sunnis and Shi‘ites since the mid-seventeenth century. Many mahdis led puritanical movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Sudanese Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi is the best-known. He appeared as a leader in 1881 and wrested Khartoum from the British in 1885, establishing a state that lasted until 1898. Sadiq al-Mahdi was the leader of the Sudanese Party of the Nation (Hizb al-ummah). For additional information see Chapter 2, endnote 23. 14. Thomas, Stranger, p. 222. 15. Ibid., p. 228.

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16. 17. 18. 19.

Ibid., p. 227. Mahmoud, ‘Mahmud’, p. 105. Thomas, Stranger, pp. 223– 4 and 229. ‘Arafah, or, in another transliteration, ‘arafat, is the name of a plain outside Mecca, where pilgrims gather on what is called the day of ‘arafah, continually repeating the talbiyah (derived from a verb meaning ‘to carry out an order’, ‘to obey a call or invitation’) formula, ‘Here I am, here I am.’ It is an essential part of the hajj, or the greater pilgrimage, which is obligatory on all Muslims once in a lifetime if their means and health permit. The farewell pilgrimage took place in March, 632, when the Prophet led thousands of men and women on his last pilgrimage from Madinah to Mecca. See also Chapter 8, endnote 17. 20. An-Naim (ed.): That is to say, people’s repentance is initiated by God before it can be undertaken by them. 21. An-Naim (ed.): As indicated above, the author includes both the Marxist and liberal traditions when he refers to Western civilisation.

Chapter 11

Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm: 1934 –2016

1. This overview of al-‘Azm’s life before 1969 is drawn from an interview with Ralph M. Coury in Damascus on 4 January 1998; Elie Chalala and Micheal Teague, ‘Forty year old classic remains influential: Sadiq Jalal al-Azm’s The Critique of Religious Thought’, al-Jadid, www.aljadid.com; and Yasin al-Haj Saleh, ‘Portrait of the Syrian intellectual Sadiq al-Azm, critical philosopher and political activist’, Qantara, 28 September 2015, http://en.qantara.de. 2. Ghada Talhami, ‘Interview with Sadik Al-Azm, University of Damascus Professor’, Arab Studies Quarterly, summer, 1997, p. 2. 3. A summary of the book is provided in Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective, New York, 2010, pp. 76 – 8; see also Talhami, ‘Interview’, p. 1. 4. See, for example, Elias Shaker, ‘Class positioning in the phenomena of Self-Criticism after the Defeat’, from the English translation of that title, Berlin, 2014, pp. 147 – 66. 5. For summaries see Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, MA, 1991, p. 444 and Kassab, Contemporary, pp. 78 – 80. 6. Talhami, ‘Interview’, p. 1. 7. Sadik J. Al-Azm, Critique of Religious Thought, Berlin, 2015, a translation by George Stergios and Mansour Ajami of Naqd al-fikr al-dini, Beirut, 1969, p. 1. 8. See Chapter 2, endnote 23. 9. This overview of the controversy is much indebted to the summary provided by al-‘Azm in his introduction to the English translation cited above, pp. 1 – 8. 10. See Chapter 1, endnote 20. 11. Al-Azm, Critique, p. 5. 12. Ibid., pp. 5 – 6. 13. See Chapter 1, endnote 5. 14. Saqr Abu Fakhr, ‘Trends in Arab thought: an interview with Sadik Jalal al-‘Azm’, Journal of Palestine Studies, XXVII/2 (winter), 1998, p. 73. 15. Abu Fakhr, ‘Trends’, p. 73; introduction to the English edition of Critique, p. 5; and the interview cited in endnote 1. Malik was hostile to his atheism and Marxism, and to the criticism, in Critique, of a symposium on contemporary Christian thought that Malik had organised at the American University of Beirut. Al-‘Azm argued that the symposium avoided the gulf between modern science and belief, as well as the real theological issues that divided Christians and Muslims.

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16. Kassab, Contemporary, p. 75 and the interview cited in endnote 1. 17. See Sadik Al-Azm, ‘The importance of being earnest about Salman Rushdie’, Die Welt des Islams, XXI (1991), pp. 1 – 49, and Kassab, Contemporary, pp. 80 – 1. 18. Abu Fakhr, ‘Trends’, p. 73, and Kassab, Contemporary, p. 83. 19. Richard Schultz, A Modern History of the Islamic World, New York, 2000, pp. 281 – 92. 20. Ralph M. Coury, ‘Nationalism and culture in the Arab and Islamic worlds: a critique of modern scholarship’, in Suha Taji-Farouki and Basheer Nafi (eds), Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century, London, 2004, pp. 168 – 9. 21. ‘Interview with Dr Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm: the Syrian revolution and the role of the intellectual’, translated by Nader Attasi and Ziad Dallal, http://therepublicgs. net/2013/04/27, pp. 5 – 6. 22. ‘Interview’, pp. 5 – 6. 23. Ibid., p. 8. 24. He won the Erasmus Prize in the Netherlands in 2004; the Dr Leopold Lucas Prize from the Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Tubingen in 2004; an honorary doctorate from Hamburg University, within the context of a workshop, ‘Orientalism and Conspiracy’, also in his honour, in 2005. A conference in his honour on Orientalism and fundamentalism was held at Dartmouth College in 2006, and a Festschrift entitled Orientalism and Conspiracy, Politics and Conspiracy Theory in the Islamic World: Essays in Honour of Sadik Jalal al-Azm, based on the Hamburg workshop and edited by Arnt Graf, Schirin Fathi, and Ludwig Paul, was published in London in 2011; he was a visiting professor at Princeton and Brandeis Universities. For a trenchant critique of al-‘Azm’s move to the right, see Boulos Sarko, ‘Theorizing elites and their networks on the great massacre of 2011’ (‘Nukhab al-tanzir li majzarah al-kubra wa shabakatuhum 2011’), al-Nur (The Light), 31 March 2017. 25. For a discussion of ‘comprador’, see Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, NY, 2011, pp. 38 – 63. The term, from the Portuguese, dates from the 1840s and refers to a Chinese agent engaged by a European firm to oversee native Chinese employees and act as an intermediary. See also Adam Shatz, ‘The native informant’, The Nation, 28 April 2003, pp. 15 – 20. Shatz discusses Professor Fouad Ajami, of Lebanese origin, consultant to CBS News, member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Professor at Johns Hopkins University, as a quintessential comprador intellectual. It is interesting to note that Ajami wrote the introduction to the recent English translation of al-‘Azm’s Self-Critique. 26. Sadik J. Al-Azm, ‘Orientalism and conspiracy’, in Orientalism, p. 18. 27. Stefan Wild, ‘Sadik J. Al-Azm – speaking truth to power: a personal tribute’, Orientalism, p.ix. 28. Wild, ‘Sadik’, p. xi. 29. Gernot Rotter, ‘Personal words to an admired teacher and friend’, in Orientalism, p. xv. 30. Wild, ‘Sadik’, p. xi. 31. Richard Taruskin, ‘In from the cold: why Nicolas Nabokov deserves to be appraised as a composer and writer, not written off as being in the witting employ of the CIA’, review of Vincent Giroud, Nicolas Nabokov: A Life in Freedom and Music, 2016, Times Literary Supplement, 5 August 2016, no. 5914, pp. 3 – 5. 32. al-‘Azm: Quran 6:38. Translation of ‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali. 33. al-‘Azm: This does not prevent religion from being revolutionary and progressive when it first spreads, depending on the historical period it appears in. 34. al-‘Azm: ‘A free man’s worship’, in Mysticism and Logic, London, 1951, p. 41.

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‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id (Adunis): 1930–

1. ‘Alawites are members of an Islamic sect, often linked to Twelver Shi‘ism, and yet consisting of a highly syncretistic array of beliefs and practices, including reincarnation and a sacramental meal. A core doctrine is that of a divine theophany, made up of ‘Ali (the first imam of the Shi‘ites), the Prophet Muhammad, and Salman the Persian, one of the Prophet’s closest Companions. Although gnostic, neo-Platonic, and Christian influences are obvious enough, their interrelationship remains somewhat elusive, in part because of a tradition of secret teachings confined to initiates. ‘Alawites make up eleven percent of the Syrian population and are a significant minority in Turkey and Lebanon. 2. See Chapter 4, endnote 3. 3. This introduction is particularly indebted to Adonis (Ali Ahmed Said), ‘Language, culture, and reality’, The Time of Poetry (Zaman al-shi‘ir), Beirut, 1972, translated by Nancy Berg, revised by Nur Elmessiri, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, spring 1987, pp. 112–20; Adonis, ‘Poetry and apolitical culture’, Pages of Day and Night, Chicago, 2000, translated by Samuel Hazo; Adonis, Sufism and Surrealism, London, 2005, translated by Judith Cumberbatch; Pierre Cachia, ‘The Critics’, and Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ‘Modernist Poetry in Arabic’, in M. M. Badawi (ed.), Modern Arabic Literature, Cambridge, 2006; Elie Chalala, ‘The Arab Spring – the original Arab revolution?’, al-Jadid, XVI:63, 2011; Robert Irwin, ‘An Arab surrealist’, The Nation, 3 January 2005; Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique and Comparative Perspective, NY, 2010; and Maria Rosa Menocal, review of Adonis, An Introduction to Arab Poetics, translated by Catherine Cobham, Austin, 1996, Journal of the American Oriental Society, CXV/1 (January–March 1995), pp. 136–9. 4. Kassab, Contemporary, p. 130. 5. Jayyusi, ’Modernist’, p. 170. 6. Kassab, Contemporary, p. 130. 7. Adunis cited in Menocal, Poetics, p. 137. 8. Adonis, ‘Apolitical’, p. 3. 9. Cachia, ‘Critics’, p. 442. 10. See Chapter 7, endnote 18. 11. Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Niffari (d.965 in Cairo) was an early Iraqi Sufi poet. 12. See Chapter 2, endnote 15. 13. Menocal, Poetics, p. 137. 14. Jayyusi, ‘Modernist’, p. 172. 15. Adunis, The Constant and the Changing (al-Thabit wa al-mutahawwil), Beirut, 1983, vol. 1, p. 89. (Editor’s translation.) 16. Adonis, Sufism, pp. 7 – 8. 17. Jayyusi, ‘Modernist’, pp. 172 – 3. 18. Adonis, interview on Dubai television on 11 March 2006. MEMRI, the Middle East Research Institute, special dispatch series no. 1121, 21 March 2006. 19. Poetry News Agency, 19 May 2012. 20. Cited in Maya Jaggi, ‘Adonis: a life in writing’, Guardian, 27 January 2012. 21. The print version of this interview contains footnotes that are unattributed. I have placed the name of the person that I believe is speaking at the beginning of the note. Adunis: It is completely natural that some intellectuals would wage battle employing conceptions of identity as a result of their discerning a foreign ascendency or foreign threat. It is a kind of group terror. But there is no understanding whatsoever. The offensive that these intellectuals will launch by means of a weak and deranged identity will not be able to confront the times, will not offer any knowledge, and will have no role in producing any understanding of the modern age.

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22. The Abbasid Caliph Ma’mun (786– 833) was the son of Harun al-Rashid. He was the seventh caliph and reigned from 813 to 833. 23. See Chapter 2, endnote 23. 24. ‘Salafiyyah’ is the name of a school of Sunni Islam that advocates a return to the pure, uncorrupted Islam of the salaf, that is, the pious ancestors who embodied the essential features of Islam. The term has come to be used for contemporary Islamists who are often designated as fundamentalists, with the word Salafi used for an individual follower. The term, as it was originally used, was particularly associated with Muhammad ‘Abduh, who is widely considered to be the founder of an Islamic liberal-modernist theology (see Chapter 1). 25. Abu Fakhr: He was killed in Beirut on 18 February 1987. ED: Husayn Muruwwah (1910 – 87) was a Marxist theorist of culture and society. 26. Abu Fakhr: He was killed in Beirut on 18 May 1987. ED: Hasan ‘Abdullah Hamdan (1936 – 1987), known as Mahdi ‘Amil, was also a Marxist theorist of culture and society. 27. Abu Fakhr: He was killed in Cairo on 8 June 1983. ED: Faraj Fawdah (1945 – 92) was an Egyptian professor, journalist, and human rights activist who was accused of blasphemy. 28. Abu Fakhr: He was the victim of an attempt at assassination on 14 October 1994. ED: Naguib Mahfouz (1911 – 2006) was a Nobel laureate for literature who was condemned by Islamists for what was regarded as the blasphemy and atheism of his novel The Children of Our Neighbourhood (Awlad haritna). 29. Adunis: Culture does not attack. It experiences its vitality and its flourishing and its brightness. It expands and extends and its expansion and extension do not attack. They are the essential, special attribute of culture. This was the state of Greek culture in ancient times. And this was the state of Arab culture in the Middle Ages. And this is the state of Western culture in the modern age. 30. Bay‘ah is the oath of allegiance that Muhammad extracted from enemies. It includes the shahadah and a prayer of repentance. It was later used for oaths of allegiance to the head of state. 31. See Chapter 1, endnote 7. 32. Adunis: Ibn al-Rawandi used to say: ‘If religion is in keeping with reason we do not have any need of it. And if it disagrees with reason we will reject it.’ Ibn al-Rawandi was born around the year 210 AH and died around 250 AH . And he is the author of The Scandal of the Mu‘tazilites (Fadihah al-mu‘tazilah) and The Book of the Diamond (Zumurrud) [a scathing critique of prophecy]. ED: For more information on Ibn al-Rawandi, see Chapter 7, endnote 36. 33. See Chapter 1, endnote 3. 34. Adunis: There are two verses of Abu ‘Ala’ al-Ma‘arri that explain, totally, his position towards religion: 1) ‘The people of the earth are two: those with reason / Without religion and those with religion without reason.’ 2) ‘Awake, awake oh seduced for / Your religions are a deception of the ancients.’ 35. Adunis: An Umayyad caliph [Walid II ibn Yazid] was born in 707 AD and was acknowledged with homage as caliph after the death of Hisham bin ‘Abd al-Malik [ruled 724– 743] and he [Walid II] was deposed and killed in 744 AD . He was a drinker and reveller and a man of pleasure and music. The singers Ibn Sarih and Ma’abad and Tuways appeared in his period. He [Tuways] was insolent and profligate and when news of the death of the Caliph Hisham reached him from Rusafah he said: ‘I heard that my Khalil / Was being mourned near Rusafah / I began to move and left my tail behind / I said: What is their [the daughters of the deceased Caliph] condition / If the daughters of Hisham / Started wailing about their father I would indeed be effeminate / If I were unable to fuck them.’ ED: The Umayyads established a hereditary dynasty that ruled the Islamic empire from 661 to 750. The dynasty takes its name from the Umayyah, a clan of the Quraysh,

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37.

38. 39.

40. 41.

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the tribe of the Prophet. Their capital was established in Damascus. For the title ‘caliph’ held by the Umayyads, and for the term ‘caliphate’, the polity over which they ruled, see Chapter 1, endnote 7. Adunis: Al-Mas‘udi mentions in The Meadows of Gold and the City of Pearls (Muruj aldhahab wa ma’adin al-jawhar), Cairo, 1964, that Walid ibn Yazid read one day the following from the Qur’an: ‘Every stubborn tyrant will come to naught.’ He called for the Holy Book and placed it before him as a target for a bow and arrow and he began to shoot at it, as he said, ‘Have you threatened every stubborn tyrant?/Well, I am one of them/If you come to your Lord on the Day of Resurrection/Say, “Oh Lord, al-Walid has torn me to pieces.”’ Adunis: He is Muhammad bin Zakariyya’ al-Razi who denied the prophets and rejected the holy books. He is the author of The Divine Learning (al-‘Ilm al-ilahi) and The Fraudulent Tricks of the Prophets (Mukhariq al-anbiya’). The atheists of Islam included: Salih bin ‘Abd al-Quddus and Aban bin ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Lahiqi and Abu ‘Isa Muhammad bin Harun al-Warraq and Hammad ‘Ajrad and Ibn Abi al-‘Awja’ and Bashar bin Burd and Ibn alMuqaffa‘. And Ibn Sab‘in, the Andalusian Sufi who committed suicide in Mecca by cutting his wrists in 1270, said of the Muslims who were circling the Ka‘abah that they are like donkeys circling the waterwheel. Abu Fakhr: Qassim al-Shawaf translated it into Arabic. Adunis wrote the introduction. It was published by Dar al-Saqi in Beirut in 1996. Adunis: Some scholars believe that the stories of the Qur’an are not accounts of events that truly took place in history. They are, rather, only stories that aim to provide religious counsel and to convey a specific moral idea. It is for this reason that they should not be treated as actual physical events but as symbols. Based on this view you should not be prepared to give credence to the historicity of creation in six days, of the apple of Eve, of the flood, of Joshua’s stopping the sun in its orbit, of the three days which Jonah spent in the belly of the whale, of the flocks of birds, of the ascent and night journey of the Prophet, of the virginity of Mary, of the division of the moon into two parts, etc., etc. Those who hold such [disbelieving] views think that these stories are merely mythological representations or models of transmitted myths and that they are widespread in many of the neighbouring cultures. ED: The ‘flocks of birds’ refers to Surah ‘The Elephant’ (al-fil) in which a flock of birds destroys the ‘masters of the elephant’ who are invading Arabia. This army has been understood to be that of Abrahah (see Chapter 4, endnote 20). The Ascent and Night Journey of the Prophet refer to two events. The first is that of the journey of the Prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem in a single night on a winged beast called Buraq. Upon his arrival he prays with the Prophets Abraham, Moses, and Jesus at the site of the Temple of Solomon. The second is that of his being carried by Gabriel to heaven where, among other things, God instructs him as to how often one should pray each day. The journey from Mecca to Jerusalem is called isra’ and the ascent is called mi’raj. These happenings are based on verses 1–2 in the Surah ‘The Children of Israel’ (bani Isra’il). The ‘division of the moon’ refers to Surah ‘The Moon’ (al-qamar) in which God says ‘the hour has come and the moon is split’. This has been variously interpreted as, for example, predicting the splitting of the moon as a sign of the imminent destruction of the world and the Resurrection, or, metaphorically, as a reference to the split between those Quraysh and Arabs who accepted Islam and those who did not (the moon being a symbol of the Quraysh and the Arabs). Tammuz was the ancient Babylonian god of food and vegetation. He was put to death several times but always came back to life, until his bones were finally ground to dust and scattered in the wind. Adunis: See the fatwa of Abu Hamza al-Masri (Mustafa Kamil) in the newspaper al-Hayat of 1 May 1997, which allows one of the leaders of the Islamic organisation in Algeria, who

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is called ‘Antar al-Zawabari, sexual union with young Algerian girls because they are the women of infidels, on the basis that Abu Bakr al-Sadiq [the first Muslim caliph] allowed (according to Abu Hama al-Masri) sexual pleasure with the women of infidels.

Chapter 13

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd: 1943 –2010

1. See Chapter 4, endnote 3. 2. This introduction is particularly indebted to ‘The case of Abu Zaid’, Index on Censorship 25, no. 4 (1996): 30 – 9; Elliot Colla and Ayman Bakr, ‘“Silencing is at the heart of my case”: Nasr Abu Zayd, Interview’, in Joel Beinin and Joe Stork (eds), Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report, Berkeley, 1997, pp. 327– 34; Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective, NY, 2010; Navid Kermani, ‘From revelation to interpretation: Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and the literary study of the Qur’an’, in Suha Taji-Farouki, Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, Oxford, 2004; and George N. Sfeir, ‘Basic freedoms in a fractured legal culture: Egypt and the case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd’, Middle East Journal, LII/3 (1998), pp. 402– 14. 3. Commonly known as Muhyi’ al-Din ibn al-‘Arabi (1165 – 1240), he was an Arab Andalusian Sufi, a poet, and a philosopher. He wrote over 800 works, of which The Perfect Human (al-Insan al-kamil) is perhaps the best known. Man is seen as earthly and divine and a bridge to God. Many have regarded Ibn al-‘Arabi as a heretic or apostate. 4. See Kassab, Contemporary, pp. 183– 4. 5. Michael Cook, The Qur’an: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2000, p. 46. 6. Hussein Ali Agrama, Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt, Chicago, 2012, p. 45; CHRLA (The Center for Human Rights Legal Aid, September, 1996), Dossier 14 – 15: ‘From confiscation to charges of apostasy’, p. 12; Kermani, ’Revelation’, p. 170; Charles Kurzman, The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists, Oxford, 2011, p. 179; Caryle Murphy, Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: The Egyptian Experience, NY, 2002, p. 204. 7. Kermani, ‘Revelation’, p. 170 and Murphy, Passion, p. 204. 8. Ibid., p. 170. 9. Murphy, Passion, p. 204 and al-‘Alam al-islami, 5 – 22 April 1993, quoted in Index on Censorship, p. 39. 10. William E. Shepard, ‘Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid’, Oxford Islamic Studies On-Line. 11. Mona Eltahawy, Guardian, 20 October 1999. 12. Kassab, Contemporary, p. 183. 13. The jinn are intelligent spirits of lower rank than angels. They can appear in human form. 14. Murphy, Passion, p. 206; CHRLA, Dossier, pp. 12 – 13; Cook, Qur’an, p. 47. 15. Murphy, Passion, p. 203; Index on Censorship, pp. 36 – 7; Loutfi Al Khouli, ‘University and academic freedom’, Al-Ahram Weekly, 8 – 14 April 1993. 16. Kassab (Contemporary, pp. 188– 94) presents a fine summary. See also Abu Zayd, ‘The dilemma of the literary approach to the Qur’an’, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, XXIII (2003), pp. 8 –47; Hala Halim, ‘Of hermeneutics and reform’, Al-Ahram Weekly, 15 – 21 November, 2007; and Kermani, ‘Revelation’, pp. 169 – 92. 17. Abu Zayd, cited in Nadia Abou El Magd,’When the professors can’t teach’, Al-Ahram Weekly, 15 – 21 June 2000. 18. Abu Zayd: Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddimah, Beirut, n.d., pp. 95 – 6. ED: See also Chapter 4, endnote 6. The word translated as ‘monkeys’ within this passage cited from this Beirut edition appears as qaf-dal-ra’-ta’, without diacritical marks. The word as given could be read as ‘qudrah’, meaning ‘capacity’ or ‘omnipotence’. ‘Monkeys’ or ‘apes’, qiradah, would have appeared, without diacritical marks, as qaf-ra’-dal-ta’. I have assumed that there has

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19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

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been a misprint, inasmuch as the word ‘monkeys’ or ‘apes’ appears within the standard English translations (including the authoritative translation by Franz Rosenthal) and Arabic editions. See Rosenthal, The Muqaddimah, vol. 1, London, 1958, p. 195. See, also, al-Muqaddimah, edited by ‘Abd al-Salam al-Shadadi, vol. 1, Casablanca, 2005, p. 153, and al-Muqaddimah, vol. 2, Tunis, 1984, pp. 572 – 3. Abu Zayd: Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddimah, p. 98. Ibid., p. 100. Ibid., p. 101. Ibid., p. 108. [See our discussion of this issue in our study Biography of the Prophet: a Peoples’ Biography.] See Chapter 8, endnote 17. Abu Zayd: Surah ‘The Consultation’ (al-shura), verses 51 –2. Abu Zayd: Surah ‘Ta Ha’, verses 11– 13. Abu Zayd: Surah ‘Mary’ (Maryam), verse 52. Abu Zayd: Surah ‘The Heights’ (al-a’raf ), verse 143. Abu Zayd: Surah ‘The Narration’ (al-qasas), verse 7. Abu Zayd: Surah ‘The Bee’ (al-nahal), verse 68. Abu Zayd: Al-Zarkashi: The Elucidation of the Sciences of the Qur’an (al-Burhan fi ‘ulum alQur’an), vol. 1, p. 229. The author is Muhammad ibn Bahadar al-Zarkashi (1344 – 92). ‘The Preserved Tablet’ is generally understood to be a heavenly book that contains the entire Qur’an as well as a listing of the fates of all human beings past and present. Abu Zayd: Al-Zarkashi, Elucidation, vol. 1, p. 229. The concept that we are discussing here relies upon what is found in the text, ‘Nay, it is a glorious Qur’an, upon a Preserved Tablet’, Surah ‘The Constellations’ (al-buruj): verses 21 – 2. See Chapter 2, endnote 23. Ash‘arite refers to a school of theology of the early tenth century, named after Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari. It rejects the emphasis on rationalism of the Mu‘tazilites, but on the basis of rational argumentation, taking a kind of middle ground between reason and the literalist tendencies of the ‘traditionalists’ (ahl al-hadith). It rejects both figurative interpretation and literalism with the formula ‘without asking how’ (bila kayf). God has a ‘face’ but not in a way that can be grasped by human reason. Other tenets set Ash‘arites apart from the Mu’tazilites – an emphasis on God’s omnipotence rather than justice, and occasionalism, according to which God is the cause of all events. By the eleventh century the school was widely followed by many Sunni thinkers and is therefore often referred to as Sunni orthodoxy. Abu Zayd: Al-Zarkashi, Elucidation, 1, pp. 376– 431. Abu Zayd: See: The Philosophy of Interpretation (Falsafah al-ta’wil), p. 297–301. ‘Abdallah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i (767 – 820) was an Egyptian Muslim jurist (sometimes referred to as Shaykh al-Islam) who founded one of the four schools of Muslim jurisprudence. See Chapter 1, endnote 20. The beautiful names (al-asma’ al-husnah) are the ninety-nine names for God, each one describing an attribute. Abu Zayd: Al-Zarkashi, Elucidation, vol. 1, p. 9. Abu Muhammad Sahl ‘Abdallah al-Tustiri (818 – 896) was a Persian Muslim scholar and early Sufi mystic. Abu Zayd: Al-Zarkashi, Elucidation, p. 9, cites al-Tustiri, The Philosophy of Interpretation (Falsafah al-ta’wil), pp. 297– 301. Abu Zayd: Al-Zarkashi, Elucidation, vol. 1, p. 17. See Chapter 1, endnote 18.

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Chapter 14 Mohammed Arkoun: 1928– 2010 1. Ursula Gunther, ‘Mohammed Arkoun: towards a radical rethinking of Islamic thought’, in Suha Taji-Farouki (ed.), Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an, 2004, p. 127. The biographical segment of this introduction is particularly drawn from pp. 127 – 31 of this essay. 2. For an inventory of influences, see Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Democracy: a challenge to Islamic thought’, a seminar on Tuesday, 1 June 1999, introduction by Dr Abdel Wahab El-Affendi, University of Westminster, www.islam21-net/pages/conferences/june99 –1. htm; Gunther, ‘Mohammed Arkoun’, p. 134; Ira M. Lapidus, review of Mohammed Arkoun, editor, L’Islam, monde et politique, Paris, 1986, Journal of the American Oriental Society, CIX/21 (April – June), 1989, pp. 305 – 6; Andrew Rippin, a review of Mohammed Arkoun, Pour une critique de la raisonne islamique, Paris, 1984, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XXXXVIII/3 (1985), pp. 614– 15; Siti Rohmah Soekarba, ‘The critique of Arab thought: Mohammed Arkoun’s deconstruction method’, Makara, Sosial Humaniora, X/2, Desember 2006, pp. 79 –87, particularly pp. 79 – 81. 3. For the Qur’anic ‘fact/event’ and the concepts of ‘axiology’ and ‘imaginaire’, see Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Present day Islam: between tradition and globalization’, in International Trends in Islam, Institute of Isma‘ili Studies, 2003, pp. 179 – 221; Gunther, ‘Mohammed Arkoun’, pp. 150 – 3; Lapidus, ‘Review’, p. 306. 4. See Chapter 1, endnote 18. 5. See Chapter 1, endnote 7. 6. For summaries of the concept of the Islamic fact/event see Mohammed Arkoun, ‘The notion of revelation from ahl al-kitab to the societies of the Book’, Die Welt des Islams, XXVII (1988), pp. 62–89 and particularly p. 79; and Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Present’, pp. 25–6. 7. See Chapter 9, endnote 22. 8. Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Present’, pp. 15 – 16. 9. For a discussion of Arkoun’s concept of orthodoxy, see Gunther, ‘Mohammed Arkoun’, pp. 138– 42. 10. See Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Present’, p. 18. 11. See Ibid., pp. 12 – 13 and 19. 12. See Ibid., p. 17. 13. See Ira Lapidus, ‘Review’, p. 306. 14. Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Present’, p. 16. 15. For Arkoun as deconstructionist, see Soekarba,‘Critique’, pp. 83 –4. 16. Arkoun, ‘Notion’, p. 87; for his ‘animism’, including his particular references thereto, see Akeel Bilgrami, ‘Construction of belief: comparative perspectives: conference in honour of Mohammed Arkoun’, http://caroolkersten.blogspot.com. 17. See Wael B. Hallaq, review of Mohammed Arkoun, Min al-ijtihad ila naqd al-‘aql alIslami and Min faysal al-tafriqa ila fasl al-maqal: ayna huwa al-fikr al-Islami al-mu‘asir?, Islamic Law and Society, II/3, ‘Marriage, divorce and succession in the Muslim family’ (1995), pp. 364– 5. 18. See Arthur F. Buehler, review of Mohammed Arkoun’s Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers, The Journal of Religion, LXXVI/3, July 1996, pp. 516 – 17. 19. See Soekarba, ‘Critique’, pp. 85– 6. 20. Gunther, ‘Mohammed’, p. 154. 21. Buehler, ‘Review’, pp. 516 –17. 22. As‘ad Abu Khalil, ‘Muhammad Arkoun’, The Angry Arab News Service, A Source of Politics, War, the Middle East, Arabic Poetry, and Art, 26 September 2010, http:// angryarab.blogspot.com/2010/09/muhammad-arkoun.html.

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171 –182

23. Gunther, ‘Mohammed’, p. 138. 24. See Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective, NY, 2010, pp. 182 – 3. 25. See, for example, As‘ad Abu Khalil, ‘The golden era of Arab atheism?’, on Al Akhbar English (http://english.al-akhbar.com, and Ahmed Benchemsi, ‘Invisible atheists: the spread of disbelief in the Arab world’, www.newrepublic.com/article/121559/rise-arab-atheists). 26. Arkoun: See my Lectures du Coran, Paris, Maisonneuve et Larose, 1982, Chapter 1. 27. Arkoun: See Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, under these words. 28. Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan ibn ‘Abdallah (892– 979), called al-Sirafi after the province of his birth, was a polymath best known as a grammarian. He contended that grammar was superior to logic as an instrument for determining truth. 29. Abu Bishr Matta ibn Yunus was a Christian Arab philosopher who founded the Baghdad school of Aristotelian philosophy in the early tenth century and who played a major role in the translation of Greek works. 30. Arkoun: See Djamal Al Amrani, Logique aristotelienne et grammaire arabe (etudes et documents), Paris: J. Vrinn, 1983. See also my Humanisme arabe au IVe/Xe siecle, 2nd edition, Paris: J. Vrinn, 1982, p. 189.

Chapter 15 Muhammad Shahrur: 1938 – 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Andreas Christmann, translator and editor, The Qur’an, Morality, and Critical Reason: the Essential Muhammad Shahrur, Leiden, 2009, and especially to the following sections: Andreas Christmann, ‘Read the Qur’an as if it was revealed last night: an introduction to Muhammad Shahrur’s life and work’, pp. xvii –xlv; Christmann, ‘Interview with Muhammad Shahrur (2007)’, pp. 525 – 35; Dale F. Eickelman, ‘Foreword’, pp. vi – xi; Eickelman, ‘Interview with Muhammad Shahrur (1996)’, pp. 501 – 23. 2. Eickelman,’ Interview’, p. 502. 3. For this educational background, see Christmann, ‘Read’, pp. xix – xxi; and Eickelman, ‘Interview’, pp. 504– 9. 4. For the impact of the 1967 war on Shahrur, see Christmann, ‘Read’, p. xxi and Eickelman, pp. 509– 11. 5. Christmann, ‘Read’, pp. xi – xxii. 6. See Chapter 1, endnote 5. 7. This summary of some of Shahrur’s key themes is found in Christmann, ‘Read’, pp. xxviii – xl. 8. For a treatment of the Shahrur ‘case’ from which this summary is drawn, see Christmann, ‘Read’, pp. xxii – xxviii. 9. See Aziz Al-Azmeh, Secularism from Various Perspectives (al-‘Almaniyyah min manzur mukhtalif), Beirut, 1992, in passim. 10. See Christmann, ‘Read’, p. xxvii. 11. See Eickelman, ‘Interview’, pp. 515 – 16, and Eickelman, ‘Foreword’, pp. vii – viii. 12. See Christmann, ‘Read’, p. xlviii. 13. Christmann, ‘Read’, p. xlvii. 14. Muhammad Shahrur, The Book and the Qur’an, p. 235. 15. Christmann, ‘Read’, p. xlviii. Christmann recognises all too well that such trust might be untenable to those who seriously question the political implications of such a concept in the aftermath of such an example as the British Parliament’s sanctification of an unjust war in Iraq in 2003. 16. Cited in Christmann, ‘Interview’, p. 527.

NOTES

TO PAGES

182 –188

245

17. See Chapter 1, endnote 20. 18. Shahrur understands ‘limits’ as the outward boundaries of human behaviour which God has established in ‘the Book’ (al-kitab). According to Shahrur, ‘the Book’ contains the total content of God’s revelation to Muhammad. Humans cannot transcend the limits but they are allowed to move between them. See Christmann, Qur’an, pp. 537 and 548. My understanding of terms as used by Shahrur in this selection (sometimes quite distinctive) is indebted to a glossary in Christmann’s work. 19. According to Shahrur, the Qur’an (al-qur’an) refers to one part of the Book, pertaining to Muhammad’s Prophethood, that is, to all subjects that fall within the category of historical and cosmological knowledge. See Christmann, Qur’an, pp. 537– 8. 20. See Chapter 1, endnote 18. 21. For Shahrur’s usage of the term ‘Qur’an’ in this passage about Ibn Maktum, see note 19. According to Shahrur, the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfuz), sometimes translated as the Tablet Preserved, contains the laws controlling the universe and objective existence. It has programmed the Glorious Qur’an (al-qur’an al-majid) from within. The Glorious Qur’an contains the general and universal laws of all existence, including the laws of physics and eschatological teachings about life after death; these laws are universal and unchanging. It is the fixed part of al-qur’an, belonging to Muhammad’s prophetical revelation. The Clear Guide, sometimes translated as the Clear Record, contains historical narratives, including the stories of prophets and messengers such as Moses and Jesus. See Christmann, Qur’an, p. 538. 22. See Chapter 1, endnote 18. 23. The first four caliphs who were Companions to the Prophet were considered to be ‘rightly guided’ (rashidun). They were Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali. 24. See Chapter 1, endnote 8. 25. The Qur’an says ‘Guide us to the Straight Path.’ Scholars are divided on what this means. Some feel it refers only to the Qur’an while others think that it applies to Islam as a whole. According to Shahrur, the ‘Straight Path’ contains the fixed elements around which the more flexible elements move. What is prohibited and contingently allowed are found within the Mother of the Book, one part of the Book, and belonging to Muhammad’s Messengerhood. See Christmann, Qur’an, pp. 537– 8. 26. According to Shahrur, the Message (al-risalah) consists of the totality of instructions that human beings are obliged to follow. They fall into the categories of religious worship, social etiquette, morals, and legal rules. Christmann, Qur’an, p. 537. 27. Hanifite (al-hanifiyyah) is a term used for Islam or for one of its attributes. It is sometimes rendered as ‘curvature’ or ‘bending’, and is etymologically linked to the verb hanafa, to turn or bend sideways. It is the opposite of straightness and is meant to convey flexibility and dynamism, providing for changes and alterations in respect to legislation and human behaviour more generally, within the limits of the fixed parts of straightness. See Christmann, Qur’an, p. 548. 28. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (579 –644) succeeded Abu Bakr as the second caliph in 634. He was one of the senior Companions of the Prophet. He is sometimes identified as ‘Umar I. 29. See Chapter 2, endnote 23. 30. Shahrur: The Small Collection (al-Jami‘ al-saghir), vol. 1, p. 13. ED: The author is Jalal alDin al-Suyuti (1445 – 1505). 31. Ma‘iz ibn Malik al-Aslami had committed the sin of adultery and went to the Prophet to seek purification. The Prophet turned him away on three subsequent occasions, but the Prophet also consulted with people who knew Ma‘iz to find out if he were sane or disturbed. Everyone said he was sane, so the Prophet sentenced him to be stoned and the execution was carried out.

246

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TO PAGES

191 –192

‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi: 1907 – 96

1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798– 1939, London, 1962; Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore, 1972; Jurgen Wasella, From a Fundamentalist to an Atheist: The Story of the Schism of Abdallah al-Qusaymi (1907– 1996) (Min usuli ila mulhid: qisah inshiqaq ‘Abdallah al-Qusaymi, 1907 – 1996), translated from the original German Vom Fundamentalisten zum Atheisten: Die Dissidentenkarriere des ‘Abdallah al-Qasimi, 1907– 1996, Beirut, Dar al-Kanuz al-Adabiyyah, 2001. 2. See Chapter 8, endnote 2. 3. See Chapter 4, endnote 21. 4. See Chapter 2, endnote 28. 5. Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 23 –8. 6. Ibid., pp. 31 – 46. 7. See Chapter 12, endnote 24. 8. See Chapter 1, endnote 5. 9. See Chapter 1, endnote 3. 10. Wasella, Fundamentalist, p. 42. 11. Overviews of The Chains are provided in Hourani, Thought, p. 353; Khadduri, Trends, pp. 238– 9, and Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 61 – 107. 12. The Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906 –66) was one of the most prominent Islamists of the twentieth century. Qutb’s early commentaries on literature and social and political affairs were largely secularist and nationalist. In the early 1950s, however, he began to express anti-imperialism and a thirst for social justice in Islamic terms. He became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1953, and his Islamism became more radical. Although he was imprisoned in 1954 after the Muslim Brothers tried to assassinate Abdel Nasser, he was allowed to continue writing and to have contact with fellow Muslim Brothers in prison. After his release, he was arrested once again, in 1965, and convicted of plotting against the government. He was executed in 1966. According to Qutb, only God has sovereignty. Society is ruled by God or is in a state of jahiliyyah, that is, at one with the ignorance and godlessness of pre-Islamic Arabia. All existing Islamic societies are really not Islamic and must be reconstituted. 13. See Chapter 2, endnote 25. 14. Responses, pro and con, are treated in Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 108– 18. 15. Examples include The World Is Not Rational (al-‘Alam laysa ‘aqlan), Beirut, 1963; This Universe, What Is Its Conscience? (Hadha al-kawn, ma damiruhu?), Beirut, 1966; The Grandeur of History in Crisis (Kibriya’ al-tarikh fi ma’ziq), Beirut, 1966; A Pharaoh Writes the Book of Exodus (Far‘awn yaktub sifr al-khuruj); The Arabs Are a Verbal Phenomenon (al-‘Arab dhahirah sawtiyyah), Paris, 1977; and The Universe Judges God (al-Kawn yuhakim al-ilah), Paris, 1981. 16. See Wasella, Fundamentalist, p. 210. 17. For a thorough treatment of the most provocative themes, see Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 132– 82. 18. For the critique of monotheism and Islam more particularly, see Wasella Fundamentalist, pp. 157 – 68. For al-Qusaymi’s unusual attack on Islam as such, see A Lover of the Defeated of History (‘Ashiq li ‘ar al-tarikh), Beirut, 1967, the third volume of a three-volume edition of The World Is Not Rational, p. 262. 19. Wasella, Fundamentalist, p. 157. 20. For al-Qusaymi’s attack on pan-Arabism and for his politics more generally (celebratory of a libertarian sense of freedom that is not the product of political laws and systems), see Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 168– 82.

NOTES 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

TO PAGES

193 –204

247

See Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 139 – 40. Salah al-Din al-Munajjid, A Study of al-Qusaymi (Dirasah ‘an al-Qusaymi), Beirut, 1972. See al-Balagh (Kuwait), 8 September 1971, p. 713. For a discussion of this style see Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 144– 7, and al-Qusaymi, Verbal Phenomenon, p. 492. Yusuf al-Khal, ‘Thoughts on paper,’ (Afkar ‘ala waraq), al-Manar (London), 26 November 1977, p. 20. Mikha’il Nu‘aymah, ‘You wanted your book to be a denial of existentialism and all existence. It came as a finely honed reinforcement of your existence and all existence’, al-‘Ulum, Beirut, 9th year, edition IV, April 1964, pp. 8 –10. Samir Kassir, Beirut, translated from the French by M. B. Debevoise, Berkeley, 2011, pp. 494– 9. See Chapter 2, endnote 23. For the support of these Lebanese, see Wasella, Fundamentalist, p. 132– 43. For these Saudi links, see Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 207 – 8 and 215. See Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 204 – 7. A class dimension may also have been very much at work inasmuch as the private lives of members of the upper classes were more likely to enjoy a certain immunity in contrast to others. See Wasella, Fundamentalist, p. 203. See Chapter 1, endnote 8. See Wasella, Fundamentalist, p. 204. See Wasella, Fundamentalist, pp. 212– 13. See al-Kawkab al-misriyyah (The Egyptian Star), February, 1946.

Chapter 17 Nawal El Saadawi: 1931 – 1. This introduction is particularly indebted to Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective, NY, 2010; Amal Amireh, ‘Framing Nawal El Saadawi: Arab feminism in a transnational world’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 26:1, 2000, pp. 215 – 49; Nehad Selaiha, with Sarah Enany, ‘Women playwrights in Egypt’, Theater Journal, 62, 2010, pp. 627 – 43; and Georges Tarabichi, Woman Against Her Sex: a Critique of Nawal El Saadawi, with a Reply by Nawal El Saadawi, translated by Basil Hatim and Elizabeth Orsini, London, 1988. 2. ‘Nasserists’ refers to the followers of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser who led the 1952 revolution against the monarchy and who garnered widespread support in Egypt and the Arab world for his promotion of socialism and pan-Arab nationalism. 3. See Amireh, ‘Framing’, p. 231. 4. Kassab, Contemporary, p. 92; Much of this survey of El Saadawi’s career and work is drawn from Kassab, pp. 91 – 5. 5. Kassab, Contemporary, pp. 91– 3. 6. See, for example, Paradise and Iblis (Jannah wa Iblis), 1992, published as The Innocence of the Devil, translated by Sherif Hatata, London, 1994. God casts the devil as a scapegoat for his crimes against women. See also, Roger Allen’s review of Men, Women, and God(s): Nawal El Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics, by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Berkeley, 1995, Journal of the American Oriental Society, January –March, 1998, 118, pp. 98– 100. 7. Isis is the ancient Egyptian goddess who possesses magical powers and represents the idea of resurrection and eternal life. 8. See Chapter 1, endnote 3.

248

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204 –206

9. Rabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah (713 – 801?) was one of the greatest of Sufi saints. She promoted the idea of divine love and intimacy with God. She lived a life of severe asceticism and had a large circle of disciples as a Sufi teacher. She is well-known for her mystical sayings and poetry, and particularly for a poem in which she expresses the wish to be placed in hell if she is found to love God for any reason other than His deserving to be loved. 10. See Jane Plastow’s introduction, and the author’s after note, in ‘God Resigns at the Summit Meeting’, translated by Rihab Kassatly Bagnole in The Dramatic Literature of Nawal El Saadawi, edited by Adele S. Newson-Horst, London, 2009. 11. Nawal El Saadawi’s interview with the Belgian philosopher Lieven De Cauter, ‘Fed up with limited thinking’, The Essential Nawal El Saadawi: A Reader, edited by Adele Newson Horst, London, 2010, pp. 321 – 30. 12. De Cauter, ‘Fed Up’, p. 327. ED: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali author who has abandoned Islam, writes on Islam and Islamism and is regarded by many Muslims and others as promoting Islamophobia in the West. For El Saadawi’s complaints about censorship by Christiane Amanpour on ‘This Week’, see her interview with Laura Flanders on GritTV, 7 March 2011. It is also notable that the New Yorker celebration of El Saadawi during the Arab Spring did not mention her criticisms of neo-colonialism and capitalism. See Jenna Krajeski, ‘The books of Nawal El Saadawi’, New Yorker, 7 March 2007, and ‘Postcard from Egypt: rebellion’, New Yorker, 14 March 2011. 13. Amireh, ‘Framing’, p. 237. 14. See Amireh ‘Framing’, p. 239. 15. King Sa‘ud (1902– 69) ruled Saudi Arabia from 1953 until 1964. 16. Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn al-Baz (1910 – 99) was Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. He was an Islamic scholar and representative of the Wahhabi school of theology and was known for particularly harsh and inflexible rulings concerning women.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Asad, Talal, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Saba Mahmood (eds), Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech, Berkeley, 2009. Ayubi, Nazih, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East, London, 1995. Al-Azmeh, Aziz, Islams and Modernities, London, 1993. Bowering, Gerhard (ed.), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, Princeton, 2013. Dallal, Ahmad, Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History, New Haven, 2016. Elshakry, Marwa, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860 –1950, Chicago, 2013. Groff, Peter S., with Oliver Leaman, Islamic Philosophy A–Z, Edinburgh, 2007. Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939, Oxford, 1962. Kassab, Elizabeth Suzanne, Contemporary Arab Thought, NY, 2010. Massad, Joseph A., Islam in Liberalism, Chicago, 2016. Salvatore, Armando, Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity, London, 1999. Schulze, Reinhard, A Modern History of the Islamic World, NY, 2000. Stroumsa, S., Free Thinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rawandi, Abu Bakr alRazi, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought, Leiden, 1999. Taji-Farouki, Suha (ed.), Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Quran, Oxford, 2004. Taji-Farouki, Suha and Basheer M. Nafi (eds), Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century, London, 2004. Zubaida, Sami, Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East, London, 2011.

INDEX

‘Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad, 116, 234 (n37) ‘Abd al-Raziq, ‘Ali, 20, 22 ‘Abduh, Muhammad, 3, 6, 11, 12, 17, 18, 56, 61, 63, 109, 110, 191, 192, 221 (n28), 230 (n2), 231 (n11), 239 (n24) on customary adherence to past juridical rulings (taqlid) 21, 26 on the definition of doctrine, 28– 9 educational reforms, 21 – 2 and the effendiyyah (new professional classes), 22 exile, 21 on the failure of Muslims to practise their religion, 28 intellectual disciples, 22 intellectual legacy, 22 and Islam as a civilisation, 22 on Islam as the religion of reason, 26– 7 and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, 21 on the language of prophets as understood by the elite and common people, 25, 29 and liberal modernism (al-salafiyyah), 21 – 2 life and thought, 21 – 2 on mental images of the prophets and the diseased, 24 on a miracle by a ‘friend of God’ (wali Allah), 29, 218 (n21) popular didactic language of, 22 on the use of reason in Qur’anic exegesis, 25, 27 and reform of heterodox practices and superstitions, 22

on religion as mandate for the pursuit of accessible knowledge, 24 – 5 as the promotion of good through its affective force, 25 – 6 on the religion of God as one in all times and among all prophets, 27 – 8 on revelation definition, meanings, and content, 23–5 and the modality of prophecy, 23 – 4 scientific exegesis (tafsir ‘ilmi), 21 speculative theology (‘ilm al-kalam), 21 and Taha Husayn, 55 Treatise of Unity (Risalah al-tawhid) as manifesto, 22 al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa (The Strongest Link), 21 on the vocation of the messengers of God, 24 – 5 Abraham (Prophet), 28, 55 – 8, 126, 205, 208, 209, 211, 217 (n16), 224 (n18), 240 (n39) abrogation (naskh), 41 Abu Bakr al-Razi, 100, 124, 125, 150, 232 (n26), 234 (n42), 241 (n41) Abu Hamza al-Masri, 240 (n44) Abu Hayyan, 112 Abu Nuwas, 94, 144, 150 Abu Zayd, Hamid Nasr, 9, 110, 171, 181, 194 apostasy charges, 9, 110, 155– 6 appointment as chair of Islamic Studies at Cairo University, and initial denial of promotion, 155 attacks and responses, 156– 7

252

SCEPTICS OF ISLAM

on communication and movement between all parts of creation, 157– 9 on the concept of the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfuz) and its role in the exaggeration of belief in the depth of Qur’anic meanings, 165 – 6 on the differences between soothsayers and prophets in their communication with other worlds, 158 – 61 exile, 156 on al-Ghazali’s role in transforming understandings of the nature and vocation of the Qur’an from the ‘linguistic’ to the ‘pictorial’, 165 – 6 the invocation of Ibn Khaldun on the interconnection of created things and the nature of soothsaying and prophecy, 157– 60, 161– 2 life and thought, 155 – 7 marriage, threatened dissolution of, 155– 6 on the modalities of revelation, 162– 5 and the Qur’an as literary text, 157 and the study of Sufi Qur’anic hermeneutics, 155 Acton, Baron John, 15 Adam, 112– 14, 136, 139, 209 Adham, Isma‘il Ahmad, 227 (n8) on Albert Einstein, 80, 88 – 90 and atheist organisations, 82– 3 and al-Azhar, 80 on backgammon as exemplary of the law of chance, 86 – 8 death and the special memorial issue of al-Hadith (The New), 79 – 80 on a definition of atheism, 84– 5 education, and charges of bogus credentials, 79 From the Sources of Islamic History (Min masadir al-tarikh al-islami), a critique of the reliability of hadith, 79 – 80 G. H. A. Joynboll’s critique, 79 – 81 on God as a rationalisation (al-tabrir), 85 on Immanuel Kant, 85 and Isma‘il Mazhar, 79, 86 on James Jeans, 80, 89 – 90, 227 (n7) on the law of chance as means of disproving the existence of God, 85 – 90 life and thought, 79 – 84 on Ludwig Buchner’s atheism, 84 – 5

on the mental blockages inhibiting acceptance of his theory of the law of chance, 90 on his religious education, 81 and Shaykh Mustafa al-Maraghi, 80 on his studies in mathematics and physics as background to the development of his atheism, 83– 4 Van’t Hoff, Jacobus, 81, 227 (n14) variety of interests and publications, 79 – 80 ‘Why I Am an Atheist’ (‘Limadha ana mulhid’), reactions to, 80 – 1 Adorno, Theodor, 3, 4, 10 Adunis (‘Ali Ahmad Sa‘id) on the alliance of the sovereign power and the Islamists, 147 on the Arab failure to question the epistemological value of revelation, 150 on Arab poetic modernity and its link to cultural modernity more broadly, 143– 4 on atheism, 144 – 5, 151 on the authoritarian nature of Arab secularists and Marxists, 150 on Christianity as a humane extension of ancient paganism, and in contrast to the complete break of Judaism and Islam, 152– 3 on Christianity’s origin in the sacred rites of sedentary agriculture, and Judaism as a pastoral religion, 153 on the definition of fundamentalism, 148 on the denial of heaven and hell, 151 The Dictionary of Mythology (Diwan al-‘asatir), 151 on the dominance of Islamic ritual practices and canonical regulations, 153 on the Eastern Church’s surrender to custom and ritual, 153 on the false fears of ‘Westernisation’, 148– 9 on God as the name of an unknown presence in the universe, 151 on Islam as a possible means to progress, 145– 7 on Islamic theism’s hostility to modernity, 144 on Islam’s break with paganism as a source of Arab intellectual crisis, 153

INDEX on the lack of new Islamic thought in the twentieth century, 153 life and thought, 143– 5 literary prominence as innovator and rebel, 143– 4 on al-Ma‘arri’s declaration that there is no imam other than reason, 147 al-Mawaqif (Positions) and Shi‘ir (Poetry) as pioneering periodicals of Arab literary modernism, 143 on mediaeval Arab critics of religion, 149– 50, 239 (n32, n33, n34, n35), 240 (n36) on the murder of Arab critical thinkers, 148 on the mysterious progress of Israeli and Christian societies, 154 on mythology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 151– 3 on the necessity for democracy and secularism, 147 opposition to the Syrian rebellion by, 145 pen name, 143 on the secularisation of Israelis and their use of sacred texts as a basis for nation-building, 154 on Sufism as surrealism outside of traditional religion, 144 – 5 on the universe and man as natural phenomena, 151 on unprecedented Arab decay, 146 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 21, 65, 229 (n29) ahl al-dhimmah (protected people), 235 (n7) Ajami, Fouad, 237 (n25) al-Akhtal, al-Taghlibi, 94, 228 (n12) ‘Alawites, 143, 145 al-‘Alayli, ‘Abdallah, 19 ‘Ali (Caliph), 220 (n23), 227 (n15), 238 (n1), 245 (n22) Ali, Ayaan Hirsi, 205, 248 (n12) al-Alusi, Mahmud Shukri, 99 American University of Beirut, 31 see also Syrian Protestant College ‘Amil, Mahdi, 7, 148, 239 (n26) Amin, Qassim, 18, 216 (n88) Amireh, Amal, 203, 205 ansar al-sunnah (supporters of the Sunnah), 235 (n2) Antun, Farah, 231 (n11) Unity (al-Jami’ah) apophatism, 10–11

253

apostasy, 9, 56, 92, 110, 122, 155, 181 and the modern state, 9 al-‘Aqqad, ‘Abbas Mahmud, 67, 70, 74, 110, 225 (n14) Aquinas, 12, 81 Arab Human Rights Day, 122 Arab Institute for the Modernity of Thought, 171 ‘Arab mind’ as explanation for the failure of Arab modernisation, 7 Arab nationalism see pan-Arabism Arab Renaissance see Nahdah Arab self-abasement, 14– 16 Arab Spring, 16, 145, 205, 216 (n82), 238 (n3), 248 (n12) Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, 203 ‘Arafah, 123, 236 (n19) ‘Aribah, 58, 224 (n18) Aristotle, 38, 39, 95, 170, 221 (n26) Arkoun, Mohammed, 3, 4, 12 on an animist understanding of God, 170 on the arbitrary nature of theological understanding in respect to metaphor and symbol, 174 on the Closed Official Corpus, 170, 175 critical reception in the Arab world, 171 critical responses to, 171 on the death of God, 170 on the distinctions between discourse and text, 169– 70, 175– 6 on the failure of Nahdah thinkers, 170 and Hamid Abu Zayd, 171 influence of subversive scholarly methods on, 169 on the Islamic ‘fact/event’ as an imperial system of beliefs and non-beliefs, 170 on a liberating definition of revelation providing for the teachings of Buddha, Confucius, and other great voices, 177 life and thought, 169 – 72 on the link between revelation and the legitimisation of the state, 176 marginalisation as a Berber, 169 on names of the Qur’an, 172– 3 on the need for a deconstructive rational approach to religion, 170 on the passage of discourse to text, 172, 175

254

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as providing satisfaction to Western critics in search of a Muslim ‘Grand Theorist’, 171 on the Qur’an as an integral part of the Archtype of the Book (umm al-kitab), 173– 4 on the Qur’anic ‘fact/event’ as providing a religious ‘imaginaire’, 169 on revelation definitions and understandings, and a new interpretation based on comparative theology, 172– 7 differences between Judeo-Islamic and Christian understandings, 174, 175 as a new vocabulary for transforming the human condition, 176– 7 on the rigidity of orthodox thinkers and their Orientalist co-conspirators, 170 on societies of the Book/book, 175– 6 on the transformation of Muhammad into a mediator of the Word of God, 3 – 4, 170 Asad, Hafiz al-, 18 Asad, Talal, 7, 8, 9 al-‘Asamm, Abu Bakr, 117, 234 (n42) al-Ash‘ari, Ash‘arites, 166, 194, 233 (n22), 242 (n34) atheism, 79, 83 – 4, 144, 151, 179, 192, 193, 194, 227 (n3), 229 (n26), 236 (n15), 239 (n28) mediaeval and modern meanings, 9 Averroes see Ibn Rushd Avicenna see Ibn Sina al-Azhar University (Egypt), 21, 22, 55, 56, 65, 80, 106, 110, 156, 191, 192, 204, 217 (n2) al-‘Azm, Rafiq, 16 al-‘Azm, Sadiq Jalal, 7, 12, 13, 193, 205, 236 (n15), 237 (n24) academic career at American University of Beirut and University of Damascus, 129 academic honours and visiting professorships, 131 – 2, 237 (n24) on the argument that the spirit of Islam cannot conflict with science, 134– 6 on bogus Lebanese dialogues on Muslim/ Christian differences, 140, 236 (n15) celebration of Salman Rushdie, 130– 1 and Charles Malik, 130, 236 (n15)

Critique of Religious Thought (Naqd al-fikr al-dini), the subsequent trial in Lebanon for inciting confessional strife, and public and state responses, 129 – 30 on the death of God in Europe and ‘backward’ societies, 137– 8 on the evasion of Muslim philosophers in discussing the question of the eternity of the world, 138 –9 on the incompatibility between religious and scientific views of creation, 137 – 9 the invocation of Bertrand Russell on the creation of the universe, 136 – 7 life and thought, 129 – 32 movement to the political right, 131– 3 Orientalism and Conspiracy, a Festschrift, 132 on the preservation of religious feelings, 141– 2 as public intellectual, 130 – 2 on religion as an ally of feudal relations, 135– 6 religious and political radicalism following his departure from the American University of Beirut, 130–1 Self-Criticism after the Defeat (al-Naqd al-dhati ba‘ad al-hazimah) and the Lebanese response, 129 support of the Syrian rebellion by, 131– 3 on unconvincing solutions claiming to resolve the conflict between religion and science, 139– 42 on William James’s argument that modern belief can be based on emotions and feelings, 133– 4, 140– 2 Al-Azmeh, Aziz, 13, 14 ‘Azmi, Mansur, 63, 225 (n26) Ba‘ath (Syria); secularism and tolerance of, 181 Badr, Battle of, 108, 117, 232 (n30, n32), 234 (n40) Baghdad school of Aristotelian philosophy, 244 (n29) al-Baqillani, Ibn al-Tayyib, 104, 105, 231 (n19) Barakat, Halim, 44 Bashear, Suliman, 216 (n93) Bashkin, Orit, 17, 18 al-Basri, Hasan, 234 (n27) Batatu, Hanna, 18

INDEX bay‘ah (oath of allegiance), 239 (n30) al-Baz, Shaykh ibn, 206 Beiser, Frederick C., 32 Benedict XVI, 10, 11 Benjamin, Walter, 3 Bible see specific Books of Boethius, 48 Breton, Andre, 144 Brown, Wendy, 8 Buchner, Ludwig, 32, 84, 85, 95 al-Buti, Shaykh Ramadan, 181 Cachia, Pierre, 56 Cairo University, 9, 155, 156, 192, 193, 203, 223 (n4), 225 (n2, n26) Caliphates Abbasid, 5, 106, 217 (n7), 228 (n17), 229 (n35), 232 (n22, n29), 233 (n22), 239 (n22) Rashidun, 184, 220 (n23), 245 (n23) Umayyad, 217 (n7) Christmann, Andreas, 182, 244 (n15) Clear Guide (al-imam al-mubin), 183, 185, 245 (n21) Collini, Stefan, 19 Comte, August, 65, 69– 71, 73 Courbage, Youssef, 13 customary adherence to past juridical rulings (taqlid), 21, 26, 105 al-Dajawi, Shaykh, 191 Dar al-‘Ulum (Egypt), 21, 156 Darwin, Charles, and Darwinism, 11, 17, 31, 32, 34, 36, 65, 66, 82, 95, 100, 133 dhimmi (protected person), 121, 235 (n7) disbelievers (zindiq, s., zanadiqah, pl.), 106, 232 (n21) divine presences, 24, 217 (n14) djinn see jinn Druze, 130, 194, 220 (n23), 222 (n1) Durkheim, Emile, 61, 225 (n23) Eco, Umberto, 12 Egyptian University, 55, 223 (n9) see also Cairo University Einstein, Albert, 80, 88– 9, 90 El Saadawi, Nawal, 248 (n12) anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism of, 204– 5 clitoridectomy, 203

255

her feminism and the causes of its popularity and influence, 203– 4 ‘God Resigns at the Summit Meeting’ (‘al-Ilah yuqadim istiqalatahu fi ijtima‘ al- qimmah’), the cause of a blasphemy trial, 204 and Abraham’s lament that God has revealed himself through prophets, languages, and translations that are hard to understand, 209 – 10 and Eve as fount of experiential knowledge and innocent of Adam’s sin, 209 and God’s renunciation of oppression and theft in His name, and His resignation to assume the joy of life with a body, sex, and love, 210– 12 and the Prophet Muhammad on the bloodshed, oppression, and ignorance promoted by the King of Saudi Arabia in the Prophet’s name, 206– 7 and Rabia al-Adaweya’s yearning for unity with God and all people, 210 and Satan as resentful of God’s hostility to freedom of thought, and as innocent of all the evil attributed to him, 207 – 9 life and thought, 203 – 5 oppression under Sadat, 203 suppression and misrepresentation in Western marketing, and the question of complicity, 205 teaching and living in Europe and the US as a response to government and Islamist hostility, 203 Women and Sex (al-Mar’ah wa al-jins), and her dismissal from all government posts, 203 Elshakry, Marwa, 11, 17, 32, 65, 66 Epicurus, 77, 95 essentialism in relation to the Arab/Islamic worlds, 4 – 6 Euben, Roxanne L., 1 Eve, 113, 136, 139, 204, 206, 209, 240 (n39) Fahd (King of Saudi Arabia), 194 Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, 11, 110, 112, 117, 119, 233 (n22)

256

SCEPTICS OF ISLAM

Farouk (King of Egypt), 111 Fawdah, Faraj, 148, 156 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 192 Filali-Ansary, Abdou, 100 al-fiqh al-akbar (the greater jurisprudence), 219 (n21) and al-fiqh al- asghar (the lesser jurisprudence), 219 (n21) First Cause (God as), 69, 72, 74, 75, 81 Free Masonry, 17 ‘free thought’/‘free thinkers’, 3, 13, 29, 59, 65, 208, 226 (n14) Friedman, Thomas, 8 Fuad I University (Egypt) see Cairo University; Egyptian University Gabriel (angel), 102, 103, 107, 108, 117, 164, 165, 240 (n39) Genesis, Book of, 47, 152 al-Ghazali, 39, 61, 165, 192, 220 (n25), 221 (n26) Gilson, Etienne, 12 Grand Mufti, 17, 217 (n2) Greek Catholic Church, 31, 218 (n1) Gunther, Ursula, 171 Habermas, Jurgen, 10 Haddad, Ibrahim, 66 Haeckel, Ernest, 73, 82, 95, 226 (n18) al-Hage, Kamal, 44 al-Hajj, Unsi, 193 Hajjar, Nijmeh, 43, 44 al-Hakim, Imam, 220 (n23) al-Hanifi, Ibn Habib, 232 (n27) Hanifite religion, 185, 245 (n27) Haykal, Muhammad Husayn, 59 – 61, 106, 225 (n22) Heisenberg, Werner, 80, 227 (n11) Hellenism, 5 Hisham, Harith ibn, 107, 232 (n30) Hizb al-Ummah (Sudan), 235 (n13) Hourani, Albert, 22 al-Hurani, Ibrahim, 32 Husayn, Taha, 2, 18, 66, 101, 130, 224 (n13) Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid as a powerful political and academic ally, 56 on bogus reinterpretations of scripture seeking to reconcile science and religion, 61– 3 on Christian men of science who are believers, 62

on the comparative advantages of Islam for the production of believing scientists, 62 the Constitutional Party as a political ally, 56 the Egyptian University and its support, 56 the enmity of al-Azhar and al-Manar (The Lighthouse), 55–6 From Afar (Min ba‘id) and Masters of Thought (Qadah al-fikr) as early harbingers of anti-clericalism and the championing of reason over religion, 55 Ibn Khaldun as subject of his second Ph.D. dissertation, 55 on the intractable conflicts between science and religion, 59– 61 life and thought, 55 – 6 al-Ma‘arri as subject of his first Ph.D. dissertation, 55 and Muhammad ‘Abduh, 55 on Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s error in attributing the conflict between science and religion to a struggle between scientists and clerics, 59 – 61 on the need for the coexistence of reason and feeling, 61 – 3 on the need for men of science and religion to be honest about their differences, 61 On Pre-Islamic Poetry (Fi al-shi‘ir al-jahili) and the controversy that it engendered, 55 – 6 on questioning the historicity of the links of Abraham and Ishmael to Arabia and Mecca, 2, 55 – 6, 57 –8 Huxley, Thomas, 43 hypostasis, 48, 49, 223 (n22) Iblis see Satan Ibn al-‘Arabi, 167 Ibn al-Rawandi, 95, 106, 149, 150, 230 (n36), 239 (n32) Ibn al-Salt, Abi, 232 (n25) Ibn Burd, Bashar, 228 (n17) Ibn Hisham, 232 (n27, n30) Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad, 107, 232 (n28) Ibn Khaldun, 17, 55, 159, 161–2, 224 (n6), 241 (n18) Ibn Maktum, 183 Ibn Rushd, 39, 61, 95, 221 (26)

INDEX Ibn Sab’in, 240 (n37) Ibn Sina, 39, 95, 220 (n24) Ibrahim, Muhammad bin, the Shaykh of Shaykhs of Saudi Arabia (Shaykh al-mashayikh), 192 i‘jaz (inimitability) see al-Qur’an ilhad see atheism ‘ilm al-kalam see speculative theology inimitability (i‘jaz) see al-Qur’an intellectual cooperation among Arab Muslims, Christians, and Jews, 17 – 18 al-Isfahani, Abu al-Faraj, 102, 231 (n14) Ishmael, 2, 55 – 7, 126, 216 (n93), 224 (n18) see also Isma‘il Isis (Egyptian goddess), 44 al-Iskafi, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah, 234 (n31) Islam conceptualised as a civilisation and Western liberalism’s essentially illiberal other, 4 – 5, 6 – 7, 22 Islamism causes, 12– 13 definition, 1 Isma‘il, 55, 220 (n23) see also Ishmael Isma‘ilis, 220 (n23) Israelite documentation, 111, 112, 233 (n16) ‘Izra’il (angel of death), 97, 230 (n41) Jarir ibn ‘Atiyyah al-Tamimi, 94, 228 (n13) al-Jawahiri, Muhammad Mahdi, 92 Jayyusi, Salma Khadri, 92, 143, 144 Jeans, James Hopwood, 80, 89, 227 (n7) Jews intellectual integration into the pan-Arab secular culture of Iraq in the inter-war period, 17– 18 jinn (lesser spirits), 157, 241 (n13) Joshua, Book of, 154 Jumblatt, Kamal, 130, 194 Juynboll, G. H. A., 79– 81 Ka‘abah, 56– 8 karamah (a specific miracle), 29 Kassab, Elizabeth Suzanne, 15, 204, 226 (n14) Kassir, Samir, 14 – 15, 18 – 19 Khalaf Allah, Muhammad Ahmad, 11, 155, 157, 192 and the broad Egyptian context in which his work appeared, 110 – 11

257

his dissertation as an application of Amin al-Khuli’s literary exegesis of the Qur’an, 109 on the emphasis of history in Jewish, Christian, and Orientalist Qur’anic exegesis, 111 on God’s embracing popular beliefs in speaking of angels at the Battle of Badr, 117 and Hamid Nasr Abu Zayd, 110 on the inadequacy of traditional exegesis to explain the repetitions and divergences of Qur’anic stories, 114– 15 the invocation of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi in support of literary exegesis, 112– 13, 115– 16, 116 – 17, 119 on the Islamic intellect’s (al-aql al-islami) penchant to disregard the moral and spiritual dimensions of Qur’anic story-telling, 114– 15 life and thought, 109 – 11 the rejection of his dissertation, and his subsequent academic career, 109 – 10 on the resistance of the ‘Islamic intellect’ to literary methods in Qur’anic exegesis, 111– 14 al-Khal, Yusuf, 193, 247 (n25) Khatmiyyah (Sufi order), 235 (n32) al-Khidr, 233 (n20) Khodr, Georges, Metropolitan, 19 al-Khuli, Amin, 109– 10, 192, 232 (n3) al-Kindi, 95, 229 (n32) Layla, 93, 228 (n10) Lewis, Elwin, 32 Liberal Constitutional Party (Egypt), 56 liberalism and neo-liberalism as justification for Western imperialism, 6–7 Loutfi, Maryam, 20 Lutfi al-Sayyid, Ahmad, 56, 65, 224 (n16) Lyell, Sir Charles, 82, 227 (n21) Ma‘arawiyyah, Muhammad Sayyah, 181 al-Ma‘arri, Abu al-‘Ala’, 36, 43, 55, 94, 97, 103, 106, 144, 147, 219 (n15), 239 (n34) mahdi (‘Rightly Guided’), 220 (n22), 235 (n13) al-Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, 235 (n13)

258

SCEPTICS OF ISLAM

Mahfouz, Naguib, 148, 156, 239 (n28) mahjar (emigration), 43, 193 Mahmood, Saba, 7, 9, 214 (n41), 215 (n51) Malik, Charles, 130, 236 (n15) al-Ma’mun (Caliph), 145, 239 (n22) Mansur, Abu Ja‘afar, 232 (n29) al-Maraghi, Shaykh Muhammad Mustafa, 80 Maronite Church, 41, 44, 222 (n1), 231 (n16) Martineau, James, 74, 226 (n20) Marx, Karl, and Marxism, 1, 7, 129, 131, 148, 150, 181, 182, 236 (n21), 239 (n25, n26) al-Mas‘udi, 240 (n36) al-Maydani, ‘Abd al-Rahman Hasan, 181 Mazdak, 95, 229 (n31) Mazhar, Isma‘il, 10, 11, 79, 83, 86, 92, 192 on ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad’s conception of God as consciousness, 69 – 70, 74 and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, 65 on apophatism (defining God by what He is not), 68 and August Comte and positivism, 65–6, 69 – 71, 73 and al-Azhar, 65 –6 on Baruch Spinoza’s definition of the First Cause as ‘extension and thought’, 74 as Darwinist, 66 on the definitions of ‘divinity’, ’God’, and ‘lordship’, 67 – 9 on the desire to posit an ultimate cause, 75 – 6 al-Duhur (The Ages), 66 on the eternity of the world and the oneness of existence relating to questions of free will and morality, 76 – 7 on Herbert Spencer’s idea of a ‘hidden force’ that manages the universe, 74 –5 and Ibrahim Haddad, 66 the invocation of Epicurus, 77 the invocation of Ernest Haeckel, 73 – 4 the invocation of James Martineau on Spinoza, 74 the invocation of Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi in arguing against God as a solution to problems, 69 life and thought, 65 – 6

on man as part of evolutionary governance, and his morality as linked to the needs of his rational life, 77 and politics, 66 on the progression of belief in natural causes, 70, 71 –2 on the question of the First Cause and the origin of existence as an entre´e to the realm of philosophy, 71, 72 – 5 on the relationship of belief and doubt, 68 – 9 as a representative of the effendiyyah (the new professional class), 66 and Sa‘ad Zaghlul, 66 as scientific translator, 66 Shibli Shumayyil as a major influence, 65 on the specificity of religious doctrine, 67 – 8 and ‘transcendental positivism’, 65 – 6 al-‘Usur (The Times), 65 – 6 miracles, 29, 46, 53, 54, 100, 118, 119, 120, 137, 151, 208, 218 (n21), 232 (n26) modernism and Islam, 10 modernity Arab accomplishments, 12–19 definitions, 1 fertility rates as a gauge of, 13 the relationship to various forms of religion and irreligion, 1 – 2 Moses, 28, 112, 114 – 15, 151, 163– 4, 180, 205, 223 (n23), 233 (n20), 240 (n39), 245 (n21) Muruwah, Husayn, 148, 239 (n25) Musa, Salamah, 18 Muslim Brotherhood, 111, 122, 246 (n12) al-Mutannabi, Abu al-Tayyib, 94, 228 (n15) Mu‘tazilites, 233 (n22), 242 (n34), 239 (n32) Nahdah (Renaissance), 12, 14, 15, 21, 170, 231 (n11) and pan-Arabism, 14 – 17 and Western and contemporary Arab negativity towards, 14 – 16 Nasif, ‘Isam al-Din Hifni, 83, 227 (n23) naskh see abrogation nationalism the false distinction between the contractual and the organic, 15 – 16 New York Maronite Society, 44 al-Niffari, 144

INDEX Nimr, Faris, 32 al-Numeiry, Ja‘afar, 122 Orientalism and Orientalist, 4– 5, 79, 80, 109, 111, 132, 170, 171, 172, 229 (n29) paganism, 15, 57, 143, 153, 189 pan-Arabism (Arab nationalism), 1, 14– 19, 195, 246 (n20), 247 (n2) as manifested in a homogeneous cultural field, 18 – 19 and the Nahdah, 14 – 17 as successful and unsuccessful, 16 – 19 Western and contemporary Arab negativity towards, 14 – 16 pessimism intellectual and social origins, 19 philosophy and science in the Arab mediaeval and early modern periods and the myth of precipitous decline, 5 – 6 Plato, 95, 217 (n14), 220 (n24), 230 (n37), 238 (n1) poetry, Arabic Neo-classical, 91, 99 Pre-Islamic, 55 –6, 57, 224 (n11), 228 (n10), 229 (n20) Poincare, Jules Henri, 83, 86, 228 (n24) Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfuz), 165 –6, 183, 185, 242 (n31, n32), 245 (n21) Qahtanites, 58 al-Qur’an, 57, 60– 1, 63 inimitability of, 104–7, 109, 118–19, 162, 167, 231 (n17) Quraysh, 57 – 8 al-Qusaymi, ‘Abdallah, 246 (n18, n20) and his atheist works published in Beirut, 192– 3 on belief in gods and schools of thought as conversations on and with ourselves, 199 on belief in a school of thought or a doctrine as a response to the call of our organs, 200 on belief in God as the positing of an ‘accused’, 196– 8 on the eternal human longing for error, 201 and hostility to his later works, 192 – 3 life and thought, 191– 5

259

on Muslim fatalism and otherworldliness, 191 – 2 on the need for international intervention to end the abuse of God as an accused, 198 – 9 on rejection of faith as an act of faith, 195 – 6 These Are the Chains (Hadhi hiya al-aghlal), contents and varied responses, 191– 2 and the nature of governmental and popular support and tolerance, 193– 5 as Wahhabi protagonist at al-Azhar, 191 Qutb, Sayyid, 10, 192, 246 (n12) al-Quwatli, Shukri, 143 al-Razi, Muhammad bin Zakariyya’, 240 (n37) reason and the debate over the capacity for rational religious argument, 7 – 8 reductionism, and the misrepresentation of Arab failures, 17 – 19 Reid, Donald, 109, 111 religion contemporary definitions, 8 – 9 contemporary naturalisations of the supernatural, 3 the demythologising of, a comparison of ‘Abduh and Tillich, 12 state as sovereign organising power over, 9 Renan, Ernest, 95, 229 (n29) Rida, Rashid, 22, 23, 191, 192, 221 (n28) Riesebrodt, Martin, 8 Rihani, Ameen, 2, 222 (n4), 223 (n5) belief in God as the source of universal morality, 43 – 4 contemporary penchants to downplay the radical nature of his critique of religion, 44 cosmopolitanism of, 43 defence of the Palestinian cause by, 43 denunciation of the economic and political systems of the US as a socialist, 43 early agnosticism of, 43 life and thought, 43 – 4 Maronite Church criticism of the Church’s power in Lebanon by, 44 ex-communication of, 44 promotion of political pan-Arabism by, 43

260

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rejection of universal revelation by, 44 Tripartite Alliance in the Animal Kingdom (al-Mahalifah al-thulathiyyah fi almamlakah al-hiyawaniyyah) the fox’s acceptance of evolutionary theory, 47 the fox’s call for the abolition of theology and the adoption of natural law, 45 the fox’s understanding of Christ and Muhammad as great leaders and philosophers, 52 the fox’s rejection of houses of worship, 51; of the Incarnation, 47, 50, 51, 52; of miracles, 46, 53; of the prophecy of Muhammad, 51, 52; of the Trinity, 48– 9; of the veneration of holy images in church, 52; of the Virgin Birth, 52 – 3 al-Rusafi, Ma‘ruf, 2, 10, 92 Amal (Hope), publisher of, 99 Book of the Muhammadan Personality (Kitab al-shakhsiyyah al-muhammadiyyah wa hall al-lughz al-muqaddas) Abdou Filali-Ansary’s critique, 100 public reception, 100 radical nature of, 100 Tarif Khalidi’s critique, 100– 1 ‘The Breast-feeding Widow’ (al-Armalah al-murdi‘ah), 99 on the disappearance of Ibn al-Rawandi’s The Refutation (al-Damigh), 106, 235 (n36) on the disappearance of the poetry of Umayyah ibn Abi, 107 on God’s freedom from time and space, 101, 103– 4 on the hypocrisy of al-Baqillani on the inimitability of the Qur’an, 104– 5 on the inimitability of the Qur’an accepted on the basis of blind faith, 104– 5 accepted unthinkingly as a matter of long-lived convention, 105 accepted out of fear of the price of dissent, 105– 7 invocation of al-Ma‘arri on religious hypocrisy, 106 life and thought, 99 – 101

on Muhammad Husayn Haykal’s biography of the Prophet, 105–6, 225 (n22) on Musaylimah’s lost imitation of the Qur’an, 107, 232 (n26) on the order of al-Mansur to abridge Ibn Ishaq’s biography of the Prophet, 107, 232 (n37) as poet in the ‘social school’ of neo-classical Iraqi poetry, 99 on the relativity of defining direction, 101 on revelation as consisting of thoughts coming to the heart, 108 on the suppression of freedom of thought in the mediaeval and contemporary periods, 105– 7 on various representations of revelation found in different accounts by the Prophet, 107– 8 on various understandings of the meaning of the ‘sending down’ of the Qur’an, 101– 4, 231 (13) Rushdie, Salman, 130, 131, 157 Saghiyya, Hazim, 15 Salafiyyah, 21, 239 (n24) Salam, Sa‘ab, 130 Salman the Persian, 238 (n1) Sarruf, Ya‘qub, 32 Sasseur, Ferdinand de, 157 Satan, 97, 110, 112 – 13, 161, 200, 205, 207–9, 211, 230 (n40) Satanic Verses (novel), 131 scepticism and sceptics, 101, 219 (n15), 239 (n23) definitions of, 3 – 4 the possibility of rigidity among both sceptics and believers, 7 –8 Schulze, Reinhard, 10 secularisation, secularism, and secularists, 1– 2, 7 – 8, 43, 130, 136, 147, 150, 154 and the debate over secularisation’s success or failure among the Arabs, 12– 13 al-Shafi‘i, Imam, 166, 242 (n37) Shahin, ‘Abd al-Sabur, 155, 156 Shahrur, Muhammad, 2, 245 (n19, n21, n25, n26) atheism as encountered in the USSR, 179 The Book and the Qur’an (al-Kitab wa al-Qur’an) critical reception, 181– 2

INDEX explanations for the success of, 181 – 2 sales of, 181 – 2 on the definition of al-iman, 180 on the definition of al-Islam, 180 on God’s ‘limits’, the upper and lower boundaries of His law, 180, 187– 90 the June 1967 war 179 life and thought, 179 – 82 on the meaning of prophecy in the past and present, 180– 1 ‘Muslims’ as Muslims, Christians, and Jews, 180 on the nature of God, 180 on obedience to the Messenger as intermingled with obedience to God, 187 – 8 on obedience to the Prophet as separate from obedience to God, 188 – 9 on the relationship of hadith and Sunnah, 182– 6, 188– 90 on the Sunnah of the Message and the Sunnah of Prophecy, 180, 186– 90 Shari‘ah, 22, 23, 27, 28, 122, 124, 125, 127, 144, 184, 194, 195, 217 (n8), 218 (n18) al-Shawaf, Qassim, 240 (n38) al-Shidyaq, Ahmad Faris, 101, 231 (n10) Shumayyil, Shibli, 2, 66, 101 on Aristotle’s influence on Arabic-speaking societies, 38 – 9 on the backwardness of religious understanding as exemplified by the silly questions submitted to the religious journal al-Manar (The Lighthouse), 221 (n28) on the deleterious effect of ancient Greek speculative philosophy and science on the Arabs and humanity, 37 –42 on the disparity among nations and its relationship to the development of the natural sciences, 37 – 8 on the eternity of matter and its unity with force, 34 and the ‘extraordinary’ influence of his evolutionary thought on generations of Arabs, 32 life and thought, 31 – 2 on man as material, and of the same essence as animals, 33– 5 on man’s state as derived from sciences and philosophical perceptions, 37

261

on the necessity of separating religion from state and public education, 221 (n30) opposition to at the Syrian Protestant College and among Jesuits, 32 The Philosophy of Evolution and Progress (Falsafah al-nushu’ wa al-irtiqa’), popularity in Egypt and Greater Syria, 32 as populariser of Darwin and science, 31 – 2 on the rejection of vitalism, 34 and the relationship of materialism and Darwinism to his religious, political, and social thought, 31 on religion and sects as the product of human self-love, 31, 36 as translator of and commentator on Ludwig Buchner, 32 al-Sirafi, 179, 244 (n28) Smith, Charles Lee, 79, 83 Sonbol, Amira al-Azhary, 15 speculative theology, 5, 21, 22, 38, 41, 219 (n16), 219 (n19), 234 (n37) Spencer, Herbert, 74 – 5, 85, 95, 226 (n21) Spinoza, Baruch, 74, 75, 82, 95 Straight Path, the, 173, 184, 187, 189 al-Sudi, 113, 234 (n24) Sufism, 5, 22, 144, 191 –2, 217 (n3), 220 (n25) Sunnah, 29, 102, 166, 182, 184– 6, 190, 218 (n19 and n20), 231 (n11), 235 (n2) al-Suyuti, 102, 231 (n13), 245 (n31) Syria transformation of rural areas, 18 Syrian Protestant College controversy over Darwinism, 32 see also American University of Beirut al-Tabari, 112, 114, 233 (n18), 234 (n32) Taha, Mahmoud Mohamed, 2, 194 apostasy trial and conviction, 122 on the definition of muslimin, 124– 5 on the distinction between the First and Second Messages of Islam, 121 – 2, 123– 5 execution, 122 the fate of his movement and ideas after his death, 122– 3 the political consequences of, 122 – 3

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the posthumous over-turning of his conviction, 122 the repeal of the death sentences of his associates, 122 on the exoteric interpretation of the Qur’an, belonging to the First Message, and the esoteric belonging to the Second, 124 the hostility of the religious establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood, 122 – 3 life and thought, 121– 3 on the master of Sufi understanding’s capacity to know the true meaning of the Second Message, 121–2 opposition to the application of the Shari‘ah by the Numeiry government, 122 on present Muslim society as a nation of believers (al-mu’minin) and not yet true submitters (muslimin), 125 – 7 on the Prophet as pioneer of the Muslims of the Second Message, 124 Republican Party, 121 – 3 Republican Sisters, 122 as Sufi brotherhood, 122 Sadiq al-Mahdi as opponent, 122 on the three equalities of the good society, 127– 8 talbiyah (pilgrimage formula), 236 (n19) Tammuz, 152, 240 (n40) taqlid see customary adherence to past juridical rulings theology and strategies reflective of modern needs, 10 – 11 and drawing upon traditional sources, 11 and tailoring thought to doctrine, 11 – 12 Thomas, Edward, 123 Tillich, Paul, 12 Tizini, Tayyib, 179 Todd, Emmanuel, 13 Torah, 57, 60 –1, 63 al-Tustiri, Sahal bin ‘Abd Allah, 241 (n41) Tuways, 239 (n35) Uhud, Battle of, 117, 232 (n30), 234 (n40) ‘Umar (Caliph), 185, 245 (n23, n28) Umayyah ibn Abi al-Salt, 107, 232 (n25) Umm al-Kitab (Archetype of the Book), 173 Uqnum (aqanim) see hypostasis

‘Urabi revolt, 21 ‘Uthman (Caliph), 172, 245 (n2) Wafd Party (Egypt), 22, 66, 111, 224 (n16), 227 (n24) Walid II ibn Yazid (Caliph), 150, 239 (n35), 240 (n36) West, the as embodiment of secular liberalism, 6 – 8 Whitehead, Alfred North, 179 Williams, Raymond, 19 al-Yafi, Na‘im, 181 al-Yamani, Wahb ibn Munabih, 113, 234 (n23) Yazid, al-Walid bin, 150, 240 (n36) Yunus, Matta ibn, 174, 244 (n29) zabaniyyah (guardian angels of hell), 97, 230 (n39) Zaghlul, Sa‘ad, 22, 66, 225 (n9) al-Zahawi, Jamil Sidqi, 2, 69, 99 as Arab neo-classicist, 92 life and thought, 91–2 as political, social, and religious radical, and as radical linguistic simplifier, 91–2 publications as poet and commentator in Arab newspapers and journals, 91 on his reputation as an apostate, 92 ‘Revolt in Hell’ (‘Thawrah fi al-jahim’) ‘Al-Ma‘arri Leads the March of the Rebels’, 97 ‘The Battle with the Zabaniyyah’, 97– 8 ‘The Inventions of the People of Hell to Instigate Revolt’, 96 – 7 ‘Mansur al-Hallaj Complaining’, 95 ‘Meeting with Layla Who Was Punished for Love’, 93– 4 ‘The Meeting with the Poets and Geniuses’, 94 ‘Socrates Delivers a Lecture’, 95 ‘Thrown into Hell’, 93 ‘‘Umar al-Khayyam and the Pleasure of Wine’, 94 – 5 al-Zamakhshari, 112 Zarathustra, 95, 230 (n39) al-Zarkashi, 166, 242 (n30) al-Zawabari, ‘Antar, 241 (n41) zindiq see disbeliever