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Islam is a mosaic, not monolith
Over last 10 years the international media and some academics have warned of rising Islamic radicalism and intolerance in Indonesia
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Over last 10 years the international media and some academics have warned of rising Islamic radicalism and intolerance in Indonesia.
Whether this development represents a shift in the character of Islam in Indonesia towards fundamentalism is subject to debate.
What is not debatable is that over the last several years more conservative and radical forms of Islam
have prevailed in the country, which is undoubtedly a setback for religious pluralism.
Indeed, in the West, the global resurgence of Islam that began in the 1970s has been classified as “religious fundamentalism”. This monolithic categorization promoted by many Western observers has led to a misunderstanding of Islam that could be attributed to their limited knowledge of the religion. While it may be true that a secular bias has contributed to the failure of many non-Muslim scholars to understand Islam, the major pitfall was in their ignorance of Islam as a religion that could be interpreted in many ways.
Although Islam may appear to be monolithic, its form and expression vary from one Muslim to another and from group to group. Every verse of the Koran is interpreted according to how the reader interprets or understands it. According to Ibn al-‘Arabi, an Andalusian mystic, every word of the Koran — not to mention every verse and chapter — has an infinite number of meanings, all of which were intended by God. Proper recitation of the Koran exposes reader to new understandings every time. “When meaning repeats itself for someone reciting the Koran, he has not recited it as it should be recited. This is proof of his ignorance” (Ibn al-‘Arabi, Futuhat IV, 367. 3.)
The text and its context continually produce new textures for readers. Re-reading the scriptural sources with new eyes is necessary. No single interpretation of any teaching should be valorized and allowed to overwhelm the others.
The evolutionary process of interpretation of the texts must continue today in the same manner in which it took place previously — faithful to the past without being limited by it, and by preserving the past without embalming it.
How is Islam, and especially sharia, to be understood? There are a several factors that can influence a Muslim’s understanding of sharia. Sociological, cultural and intellectual factors — what Arkoun described as the “aesthetics of reception” — are significant in determining the forms and style of interpretation. Arkoun said that aesthetic reception means “how a discourse, oral or written, is received by listeners or readers”. In the case of Islam, it refers to the reception of the Koran. It refers to an individual’s perception of each level of culture that corresponds to a social group at every phase of historical development.
Throughout history, Islam’s ability to be interpreted has functioned as the basis of its flexibility. In addition, it also confirmed the necessity of pluralism in the Islamic tradition. Sharia developed in response to challenges at the time. Sharia was not transcendental but situational and should be applied creatively to changing conditions. Muslim scholar Muhammad Mujeeb called sharia an approach to Islam, while others called it as a law.
The Prophet said: “God sends to this community, every hundred years, someone to renew its religion.”
This renewal is not a modification of the sources but a transformation of the minds and eyes that read them, which are indeed naturally influenced by the new social, political, and scientific environments in which they live. It is for this reason that there are various schools of jurisprudence, which differ from one another on many questions.
Even Al-Ghazaly, who was known as hujjat al-Islam, asserted that sacred texts such as Koran and Hadith were open to interpretation on five different levels: ontological-existential (dhati), experiential (hissi), conceptual (khayali), intellectual (‘aqli) and metaphorical (shabahi or majazi).
Everyone who interprets the text by following one of the above levels of analysis has considered his interpretation to be true. Whoever engages in such interpretations, as long as the rules of hermeneutics are used should not be branded an unbeliever. Nevertheless, says Ghazaly, all interpretations of a sacred text are not of equal value.
Some may be misguided or even completely wrong. However, incorrect interpretations should not be suppressed as heresy. An interpretation is heretical only if it denies the truth of a sacred text on all five hermeneutical levels above.
The above perspective is based on the fact that the Koran was revealed to the Prophet over a period of 23 years. Some verses, therefore, refer to specific events, such as the battle of Badr, and specific acts of the Prophet, such as his marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh.
Moreover, various Koranic prescriptions relate to the practices of pre-Islamic society and responded to the social circumstances of the era. These practices no longer have the same social implications.
Over the centuries, Muslim societies have changed and now have new problems which require new sharia legislation.
The writer earned two doctoral degrees from Chicago and is a Ford Foundation Scholar. She is a professor of Islamic Studies at UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, and teaches at Gadjah Mada University and Indonesia Islamic University, Yogyakarta.
