The Formative Period of Islam

& the Qur’anic Trajectory

Islamic Intellectual History: Lecture 1

Javad T. Hashmi, MD, MTS
PhD cand. (Islamic Studies), Harvard University
Ramadan 2020
 Qur’an
• Primary scripture of Islam, earliest source we have

• Quasi-historical text

• Can be viewed as an object of intellectual history

• Manuscript evidence

• Historical-critical method: The Qur’an lacks historical

anachronisms
 Other Sources
• Hadith (Prophetic traditions), Sira (Prophetic biography), Maghazi (battle stories), Asbab al-
Nuzul (Occasions of Revelation)

• Full of historical anachronisms

• “The Greeks and Franks will join with Egypt in the desert against a man named Sadim
[Saddam], and not one of them will return.”

• “The [rightly guided] caliphate will be for thirty years, then there will be a kingship after that.”

• Umar’s martyrdom

• Uthman’s martyrdom

• Civil wars under Ali

• Conquest of Egypt: “You will certainly conquer Egypt; a land in which [a currency] called al-qīrâṭ
is customary. When you conquer it, be gracious to its people”

• Conquest of Constantinople: “Constantinople will certainly be liberated, and how excellent a

leader will its leader be, and how excellent an army that army will be.”

• Source: Shaykh Mohammad Elshinawy, Yaqeen Institute, https://yaqeeninstitute.org/

mohammad-elshinawy/the-prophecies-of-prophet-muhammad/ : “Given the number and
precision of these prophecies, they must be seen for what they are: irrefutable proofs of his
prophethood.”
 Methodology
• Toshihiko Izutsu: “The analytical method I am going to
apply to the Qur’anic data… is to make the Qur’an interpret
its own concepts and speak for itself.” (Ethico-Religious
Concepts, p. 3)

• Fazlur Rahman: “[In my study,] the Qur’an has been allowed

to speak for itself… [so that the] the Qur’an [can be read] on
its own terms, as a unity.” (Major Themes, Introduction)

• Jerusha Tanner Lamptey: “[My] specific hermeneutical

method … [is to] focus on the Qur’an… I deliberately focus
primarily and initially on the Qur’an itself… This study aims to
focus on Qur’anic unity…” (Never Wholly Other, pp. 10-11)
 Fred Donner

• “The most important source of information about

the early community of Believers is… the text of the
Qurʾān.” (Muhammad and the Believers, p. 53)
 Patricia Crone
• “As regards the… Qurʾān, its study has so far been dominated by
the method of the early Muslim exegetes, who were in the habit of
considering its verses in isolation, explaining them with reference to
events in the prophet’s life without regard for the context in which it
appeared in the Qurʾān itself. In effect, they were replacing the
Qurʾānic context with a new one.

• “Some fifty years ago an Egyptian scholar by the name of

[Mahmud] Shaltut, later rector of al-Azhar, rejected this method in
favour of understanding the Qurʾān in the light of the Qurʾān itself.
He was a religious scholar interested in the religious and moral
message of the Qurʾān, not a western-style historian, but his
method should be adopted by historians too.”



Source: Crone, “What do we actually know about Mohammed?”, June 2008
 Theological Approach
• Javed Ahmad Ghamidi: “The very first thing which a person must
turn to in order to understand the language of the Qur’an is the
Qur’an itself.” (Islam, p. 20)

• Qur’anic coherence - “not disjointed and haphazardly placed

[verses]” (p. 53)

• The Final Authority: “The Qur’an is a mizan (the scale that tells
good from evil) and a furqan (the distinguisher between good and
evil)” (p. 28)

• Interpretation in Light of the Qur’an: “The Hadith should be

interpreted in the light of the Qur’an… [The Qur’an] is the most
definite and authentic record of whatever Muhammad (sws) did in
his status of a Prophet and a Messenger.” (p. 67)
 Qur’an only?

• Lamptey: “I do not unequivocally dismiss other

sources, nor do I advocate a Qur’an-only
approach. Rather, I contend that other sources
must be subjected to a hermeneutic of suspicion
that gives precedence to the Qur’anic message
and the Qur’anic ethos, a hermeneutic that
prioritizes the Qur’an and uses it to critically assess
the other sources.” (p. 10)
 Pre-Islamic Period
• Jahiliyya ‫جاهلِيَّة‬
ِ

• Semantic fields; Badtameez!

• ِ the moral reasonableness of a civilized man;

Hilm ‫ح ْلم‬:
characterized by forbearance, patience, clemency, and freedom
from blind passion, calm

• Ataraxia: a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and

anxiety; tranquillity. A Greek term first used in Ancient Greek
philosophy by Pyrrho and subsequently Epicurus and the Stoics for
a lucid state of robust equanimity.

• Jahl ‫ج ْهل‬:
َ barbarity, quick to excite and anger, vengeful
Jahl
 Hilm

YouTube: 

How to handle Criticism like a Gentlemen | Javed Ahmad
Ghamidi
 Sabr (Patience)
• Javed Ahmad Ghamidi: “[Patience] means to
restrain oneself form restlessness and anxiety…
Showing perseverance and resolve while
encountering hardships…

• “[This] patience is not something akin to weakness

and frailty that a person is forced to adopt when he
is helpless and weak; on the contrary, it is the
fountainhead of determination and resolve and the
pinnacle of human character.” (Islam, p. 235)
 Q 25:63

• The Servants of the Compassionate are those who

walk humbly upon the earth, and when the jahils
address them [with words of abuse], they say,
“Peace.”
 Pre-Islamic War & Violence
• “War! War! War! War!

It has blazed up and scorched us sore.” (al-Ḥamāsa)

• “If you don’t attack those tribesmen [in retaliation]…


Then be like slave girls defiled by every hand.” (Riyād al-
Adab)

• Tha’r ‫ ثَأْر‬vs Qisas ‫ِقصاص‬

• Diya ‫ & ِد َية‬Amnesty ‫َعفْو‬

 Qiṣāṣ vs. Diya
• “...Do not accept the bloodwite…Do not accept
from them camels small and young…

• “If you accept the bloodwite and do not avenge

[‘Abd Allah], then go with your ears mutilated,
ostrichlike, and do not come to water but in your
women’s leavings when their heels are stained with
[menstrual] blood.” (Ḥamāsiyya no. 52. Do Not Accept the
Bloodwite)
Ḥarb al-Basūs

• “You have committed a grave act in slaying Kulayb

for an old she-camel… (209)

• “It’s no good for you to give us your little sons and

offer to sell us milk for the blood of Kulayb!” (209)

• “[I will not rest] until I have annihilated [all of them]

…until Bakr’s people, all of them, have tasted
death!” (230)
Peace in the Qur’anic Worldview

• Cosmic peace in the heavenly garden

• [Q 2:30] “Will You place therein one

who will work corruption therein, and
shed blood, while we hymn Your praise
and sanctity You?”

• Environs of Mecca as sacred space

 The Sanctity of Life & 

the Adamic Origin Story
• [Q 17:33] Do not take life (lā taqtulū ’l-nafsa), which God has made
sacred (allatī ḥarrama ’Llāhu)…

• The sanctity of life is rooted in the human creation story.

• [Q 15:29] I [God] breathed into Him My soul 


thereby sanctifying it, i.e. the human soul

• [Q 4:1] [God] created you from a single soul and from it created its
mate, and from the two has spread forth a multitude of men and women.

• [Q 49:13] O humankind! Truly We created you from a male and a female,

and We made you peoples and tribes that you may come to know one
another. Surely the most noble of you before God are the most righteous
of you.
 Cain & Abel
• [Q 5:28] “Even if you stretch forth your hand against me to kill me, I
shall not stretch forth my hand against you to kill you. Truly, I fear
God, Lord of the worlds!”

• [Q 5:32] On account of [Cain’s deed], We prescribed for the Children

of Israel that whosoever kills a soul — unless it be in retribution for
the killing of a soul [i.e. qiṣāṣ] or spreading corruption on earth — it is
as though he killed all of humankind. And whosoever saves the life of
one, it is as though he saved the life of all of humankind.

• [Q 2:84-85] We made a covenant with you, “Do not shed one

another’s blood or drive one another out from your homes.” Then, you
ratified it and were witnesses thereto. Yet, here you are, killing one
another and driving some of your own people from their homes,
helping one another in sin and aggression against them.”
 Javed Ahmad Ghamidi on
the Sanctity of Life

• “Sanctity of Human Life:


… No one should kill anyone … The Qur’an has
informed us that prior to this, the Israelites were
also given this directive and the Almighty and
ordained that killing one human is like killing the
whole of mankind… The Qur’an has referred to
[this] in Surah Ma’idah…” (Islam, p. 219)
Forgiveness & Reconciliation

• Q 5:45: In the Torah We prescribed for them a life

for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an
ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, an equal wound
for a wound: but if anyone forgives this out of
charity, it will serve as atonement for his bad
deeds. Those who do not judge according to what
God has revealed are doing grave wrong.
 Pre-Islamic Excess
• In revenge, terrible and extreme action is the rule of
the day. To avenge Shaddad, his wife and family
slaughter 770 prisoners on his grave. ʿ Antar kills
600 enemy prisoners on Rabiʿa ibn al-Mukaddam’s
grave. Maisara and ʿ Antar kill 1,300 Fazara
prisoners to avenge Ghasub’s death. And when a
strange warrior kills al-Ghadhban, ‘Antar’s first
inclination is to travel and kill every stranger he
meets. (Heath, Thirsty Sword, p. 87)
Social & Economic Injustice

• Bedouin society: more egalitarian but subsistence level

• Sedentary Meccan population: more wealth but stratified; class based

society

• [Q 17:16] When We desire to destroy a town [i.e. civilization], We

command those who live a life of luxury within it; yet they [continue to]
commit iniquity therein, so the Word comes due against it and We
annihilate it completely.

• “The Qur’an uses both naturalistic and religious idioms to describe all
world phenomena” (Rahman, Major Themes, p. 91)
 Jahili Ailments
• Idolatry

• Tribal violence & bloodshed

• Socio-economic injustice

• Sexual depravity (also wine!)

 Before Prophethood
• Born 570 CE in Mecca

• Orphaned at a young age

• Hilf al-Fudul ‫حلف الفضول‬: League of the Virtuous


“required them to come to the aid of those who needed
an extra helping hand, such as widows, orphans, slaves,
the poor, and the elderly” (Afsaruddin, The First Muslims,
p. 2)

• “…pained by widespread immorality and social malaise”

(Ibid.)
Prof. Toshihiko Izutzu

Ethico-Religious Concepts, p.74

 Henotheism

• [Q 29:65] And when they board a ship, they call

upon Allah, devoting religion entirely to Him, but
when He delivers them to land, behold, they
ascribe partners [to Him].

• Lukewarm belief

• Intermediaries & intercession

 Virtues
!

• Muruwwa ‫ ُم ُروَّة‬: manliness, chivalry

• Generosity

• Courage

• Loyalty

• Veracity

• Patience



[Q 73:10-11] Bear them with patience what they say against you, and take
leave of them with graciousness.”
 Religious Landscape

• Arab pagans: believed in Allah but were

henotheists

• Salat, zakat, sawm, and Hajj

• Hanifs ‫ح ِنيف‬,
َ Jews & Christians
 Prophetic Call
• 610 CE, Age of 40

• Radical monotheism: belief & action, tawakkul (reliance on God)

and taqwa

• Turns the direction of Arabs away from paganism and towards pure
Abrahamic monotheism (i.e. primordial religion); links the Prophet
Muhammad to “Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus” (Q 33:7)

• Salih of the tribe of Thamud, Hud of ‘Ad — two Arab tribes called
al-‘Arab al-‘ariba (“the primal Arabs”)

• The Prophet & the Qur’an are addressing all of these to tie them
together into one reformed community: “one nation (umma) under
God, indivisible, with [religious] liberty and justice for all.”
 Universalism

• From tribal to universal ethics

• Individualism: Man as an individual under God -

personal responsibility (“no soul shall bear the
burden of another”)

• All human beings come from one soul

 Q 49:13

• O humankind! Truly We created you from a male

and a female, and We made you peoples and
tribes that you may come to know one another.
Surely the most noble of you before God are the
most righteous of you. Truly God is Knowing,
Aware.
 Farewell Sermon

• “O people, your Lord is One, and your father is

one: all of you are from Adam, and Adam was from
dust. The noblest of you in God’s sight is the most
righteous: an Arab has no superiority over a non-
Arab. A white person has no superiority over a
black person, nor does a black person have any
superiority over a white person. Have I given the
message?—O God, be my witness.”
 Day of Reckoning
• Belief in the afterlife (vs Shuhra) & the Day of
Reckoning

• Personal responsibility:

[Q 2:48] Be mindful of a Day no soul will avail
another soul in any way, and no intercession shall
be accepted from it, nor ransom taken from it; nor
shall they be helped [by any other].

• The Hour is imminent (apocalyptical), gravity of

situation
 Individualism
• [Q 19:80] And We shall inherit from him that which he claims,
and he will come unto Us alone.

• [Q 6:94] Now you have come unto Us alone, just as We created

you the first time, and you have left behind that which We have
bestowed upon you. We see not with you your intercessors…!

• [Q 80:34-37] [It will be a] Day when a man will flee from his
brother, and his mother and his father, and his spouse and his
children. For every man that Day his affair shall suffice him.

• [Q 2:254] O you who believe! Spend from that which We have

provided you before a day comes wherein there shall be neither
bargaining, nor friendship, no intercession.
 Salvific Uncertainty
• [Q 46:9] Say [O Muhammad] … “I know not what
will be done with me or with you. I only follow that
which has been revealed unto me, and I am naught
but a clear warner.”

• [Q 3:128-129] Not for you [O Muhammad, but God]

is the decision, whether He relent unto them or
punish them, for truly they are the wrongdoers.
Unto God belongs whatsoever is in the heavens
and whatsoever is on the earth.
 Anthropocentric View
• “The Qur’an is a document that is squarely aimed at man… The
absolute centrality of God in the entire system of existence [is]
to a very large extent because the aim of the Qur’an is man and
his behavior, not God.” (Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes, p. 3)

• Qur’an as homily: a religious discourse that is intended primarily

for ethical & spiritual edification rather than doctrinal instruction,
scientific explanation, historical reporting, or political action

• Functional reading: Prophetic stories, stories of past nations,

etc.

• Aim is not (mereley) to describe but to prescribe

 Javed Ahmad Ghamidi on
the Day of Judgment
• “The Qur’an says that it is man’s own nature, his
quest for justice and his awareness of good and
evil that requires the coming of a Day of
Judgement. If God is just and fair, then such a day
must come… Man [must] face a day of
accountability… Without such a day, the universe
has no purpose…” (Islam, p. 156)

• Immanuel Kant’s moral law argument

 Q 2:62

• Whosoever [1] believes in God and the Last Day

[2] and works deeds of righteousness — shall
have their reward with their Lord. No fear shall
come upon them, nor shall they grieve.
 Prayer

• Approximately one-sixth of the Qur’an mentions

prayer — Why is prayer so important?

• Prayer creates the right disposition in a person in

relation to God but also within one’s own self (i.e.
humbleness, patience, hilm) 



[Q 2:45] Seek help in patience and prayer, and this
indeed is difficult except for the humble.
 Fasting

• [Q 2:183] O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed

for you as it was prescribed for those before you,
that you may learn self-restraint.

• Tames the passions, sexual & violent nature

 Q 2:177
• Piety is not that you turn your faces toward the east
or the west [in prayer], but [true] piety is [in] the
one who believes in God… and who gives wealth,
despite loving it, to kinsfolk, orphans, the needy,
the migrant, beggars, and for [the emancipation] of
slaves; and performs the prayer and gives the alms
[to the needy]; and those who fulfill their oaths
when they pledge them, and those who are patient
in misfortune, hardship, and moments of peril. It is
they who are the sincere, and it is they who are the
righteous.
 Q 90:11

• What is the meaning of the Steep Ascent? It is to

free the slave, or to give food in the time of famine
to an orphan near of kin or to a poor man reduced
to beggary, while being one of those who believe
and exhort one another to patience, and exhort one
another to compassion.
 Sociological
• Under one God

• All from one origin (same soul), lowly origin (dust, sperm)

• One goal and one return destination

• Your wealth is not yours — you and your wealth are on loaner, must do
what God wants with it (i.e. purify it), obligation to your fellow human
beings and community

• [Q 28:77] With what God has given you, seek after the Abode of the
Hereafter … And be kind as God has been kind to you.

• God is watching over you and will punish you with a grievous
punishment if you oppress in the land

• Qur’anic concern for vulnerable persons: women, slaves, orphans, the

poor, those in debt, beggars, the weak, oppressed, etc.
 DEEP DIVE: 

Inclusivist & Exclusivist
Readings of the Qur’an

Islamic Intellectual History: Lecture 1 DEEP DIVE

Javad T. Hashmi, MD, MTS
PhD cand. (Islamic Studies), Harvard University
Ramadan 2020
Fitna (Religious Persecution)

• Early followers disproportionately poor, weak, and

slaves, i.e. the vulnerable - powers that be were
against the Prophet

• [Q 85:10] Verily those who persecute (fatanū)

believing men and women, then do not repent,
theirs shall be the punishment of Hell, and theirs
shall be the punishment of burning.
 The First Fitna

• Tabari: “The First Fitna was when the Messenger of God’s

companions departed for the land of Abyssinia, fleeing from
the tribulations (al-fitan) and calamities (al-zilzāl) in [Mecca].”

• In the Sira, Ibn Ishaq/Ibn Hisham write of the weak Muslims

( al-mustaḍʿafūn ) migrating “to Abyssinia, being afraid of
apostasy and fleeing to God with their religion.”
 The Second Fitna

• Tabari: “The Quraysh intensified [their persecution] against

them... So, God’s Messenger ordered his companions to flee
to Medina, which was the [second and] last Fitna [in the
Prophet’s lifetime], in which God’s Messenger ordered his
companions to leave Mecca, and he himself left [it]. This was
when God revealed, ‘Fight them until there is no fitna
(religious persecution), and religion is wholly for God. [Q.
8:39]’
 ِ
Hijra ‫ه ْج َرة‬

• Migration to Yathrib (Medina)

• The Prophet as hakam ‫( َح َكم‬arbiter), a

wise holy man brought to arbitrate
warring factions & bring peace
 Sahifat al-Medina

‫صحيفة املدينة‬
• Constitution of Medina; Covenant of Medina ‫ميثاق املدينة‬

• “This is a contract of Muhammad the Prophet between

the believers … and those who may be under them [i.e.
Jews] … They are a single community (umma wahida)
distinct from other people… Whosoever of the Jews
follows us has the (same) help and support … To the
Jews their religion (din) and to the Muslims their religion
… Between them, there is help (nasr) against whoever
wars against the people of this document. Between them
is sincere friendship, mutual counsel, and honorable
dealing”
Q 2:62 (repeated in 5:69)

• Truly those who believe, and those who are Jews,

the Christians, and the Sabeans [pagan converts to
Islam?] — anyone who believes in God and the
Last Day and works deeds of righteousness —
shall have their reward with their Lord. No fear shall
come upon them, nor shall they grieve.
 Religious Freedom & 

Casus Belli
• [Q 22:39-40] Permission [to fight] is granted to those who have
been attacked because they have been wronged –– God has the
power to help them –– those who have been driven unjustly from
their homes only for saying, ‘Our Lord is God.’

If God did not repel some people by means of others, many
monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, where God’s
name is much invoked, would have been destroyed. God is sure to
help those who help His cause –– God is strong and mighty.

• [Q 4:75] And what ails you that you fight not in the way of God,
and for the weak and oppressed — men, women, and children —
who cry out, “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people
are oppressors, and appoint for us from You a protector, and
appoint us from You a helper.”
 Jihad, War & Peace
• Quraysh pagans persecute Muslims in Mecca and
threaten Muslims in Medina

• Constitution of Medina includes mutual protection pact

• Peaceful and more militant sounding verses — how do

we reconcile them?

• Youtube: Jihad, War and Peace in Islam by Dr. Javad

Hashmi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=9l_9WwaoDYQ&t=5161s
Bloodless Conquest of Mecca

• “What do you think of me and what do you think I will do to you?”

They replied: “[You are a] magnanimous cousin [of ours]. If you
forgive, then that is what we expected of you. If you take revenge,
then we have [truly] wronged [i.e. we deserve it].” The Prophet
replied: “I say to you as Joseph said to his brothers: ‘No censure is
upon you today. God forgives you and He is the most merciful of the
merciful’ (Q 12:92).
 Q 5:2

• And let not the hatred for a people who once

turned you away from the Sacred Mosque lead you
to aggress. Help one another in righteousness and
piety.

• Do not help one another in sin and aggression ( al-ʿ

udwān )
 Q 5:8

• O you who believe! Be steadfast for God, bearing

witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred for
a people lead you to be unjust. Be just; that is
nearer to piety, and fear God. Indeed God is aware
of whatsoever you do.
 Q 5:3

• This day I have perfected for you your religion, and

completed My blessing upon you, and I have
approved for you as religion, Al-Islam.
 Q 3:85

• Whosoever seeks a religion other than al-islam, it

shall not be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter
he shall be among the losers.
 Q 2:111-113
• They said, “None will enter the Garden unless he be a
Jew or Christian.” These are their vain desires. Say,
“Bring your proof if you are truthful.” Nay, whosoever
submits his face (ʾaslama wajhahū) to God, while being
virtuous, shall have his reward with his Lord. No fear
shall come upon them nor shall they grieve.

• The Jews say, “The Christians stand on nothing,” and the

Christians say, “The Jews stand on nothing,” though they
[both] recite the Book… God will judge between them on
the Day of Resurrection concerning wherein they
differed.
 But…
• [Q 5:72] They certainly disbelieve (kafara), those who say,
“Truly God is the Messiah, son of Mary.”

• [Q 48:13] And whosoever does not believe in God and His

Messenger — truly We have prepared a blaze for the
disbelievers.

• [Q 4:150-1] Truly those who disbelieve (yakfurūna) in God

and His Messengers, and seek to make a distinction
between God and His Messengers, and say, “We believe in
some and disbelieve in others,” and seek to take a way
between — It is they who are truly disbelievers, and We have
prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating punishment.
 Three Readings

• 1. Polyvalent: Allow for inconsistency,(some

Western scholars)

• 2. Exclusivist: “Evolutionary” reading (medieval

Muslim exegetes)

• 3. Inclusivist: Holistic reading (modern/modernist

Muslim exegetes)
 Multiple Interpretative
Possibilities
• Ali Asani, On Pluralism, Intolerance, and the Qur’an,
https://iis.ac.uk/pluralism-intolerance-and-qur

• “History shows that all religions, particularly their

scriptures, have been interpreted by believers to
justify a wide range of contradictory political, social,
and cultural goals. The Qur’an, the scripture
believed by Muslims to have been revealed by God
to Prophet Muhammad, is no exception.”

• Inclusivist and exclusivist readings

 Exclusivist Approach
• Yasir Qadhi, Salvific Exclusivity, https://muslimmatters.org/2014/04/11/salvific-
exclusivity-i-shaykh-yasir-qadhi/

• Sherman Jackson’s translation and commentary of Ghazali’s Faysal al-Tafriqa,

On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam

• Evolutionary view: “[Frederick] Denny maintains … [the] progressive

reification in the term umma, moving from references to a singular, generalized
religious community to ultimately a specifically Muslim community… He
employs a chronological methodology whereas I [Jerusha Lamptey] utilize a
methodology of synchronic semantic analysis.” (Lamptey, p. 172)

• Supercession: “Supersession is the idea that Islam, as the latest of the

monotheistic revelations, supersedes all revelations that preceded it.” (Asani,
“On Pluralism,”)

• Abrogation: One verse cancels out or nullifies another

 Exclusivist Approach in
Action
• [Q 5:69] Truly those who believe, and those who
are Jews, and the Sabeans [pagan converts to
Islam?], and the Christians — anyone who believes
in God and the Last Day and works deeds of
righteousness — shall have their reward with their
Lord. No fear shall come upon them, nor shall they
grieve.

• [Q 5:72] They certainly disbelieve (kafara), those

who say, “Truly God is the Messiah, son of Mary.”
 Bifurcation
• Practice and theory

• “There frequently exists a pronounced bifurcation between

practical action and theological understandings of the
religious Others. Many Muslims, for example, are fully
committed to inter religious engagement and theological
commitments to the finality, uniqueness, and superiority of
the religion of Islam… Bifurcation between the practical and
theological is problematic… Ultimately, this is an unrealistic
—and therefore unstable—partitioning.” (Lamptey, p.2)

• Resist temptation to simplify the view of those who espouse

salvific exclusivity
From Theory to Practice
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Those who distinguish civil
from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The
two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace
with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to
hate God who punishes them: we positively must either
reclaim or torment them. Wherever theological intolerance
is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect.”

• Inconsistency/tension: medieval doctrine says to actively

hate and disassociate with those of other faiths, to fight all
other religions, extirpate and subdue them; see Ghazali
 Inclusivist

• Synchronic, holistic

• Semantic

• Unitary

• Ethical
 Prof. Asma Afsaruddin
• “Here [Q. 5:3, 3:85, etc.] Islam may be
understood in the universal Qur’anic
sense as 



[1] referring to the primordial monotheistic
religion of submission to the one God 



[2] or in a narrow, confessional sense,
which became the predominant
understanding.” 

(The First Muslims, p. 15)
Meaning of Islam & Muslim

• islam vs. Islam — goes back to WC Smith (pre-

modern intimations amongst the Islamic
philosophers)

• Submission or surrender to God

• “[Believers are] to surrender themselves to God

and willingly accept His loving grace” (paraphrase
of A’isha al-Ba’uniyya, d. 1517)
 Reification
• Fuzzy confessional boundaries are crystallized
after the death of the charismatic figure (Max
Weber)

• Goldziher: “Prophets are not theologians.” Qur’an

as homily

• Theologians task themselves with defining proper

dogma and doctrine; theological border policing

• Prof. Wilfred Cantwell-Smith

 Exegetical Strategies
• Reductio ad absurdum: [Q 5:72] They certainly
disbelieve (kafara), those who say, “Truly God is the
Messiah, son of Mary.”

• Recognize different levels and types of kufr

• Functional understanding: [Q 5:73] They certainly

disbelieve, those who say, “Truly God is the third of
three,” … Will they not turn to God in repentance and
seek His forgiveness?

• Semantic fields
END OF DEEP DIVE
 Acknowledge

• To admit the fact of something

• To recognize the authority of

• To express appreciation of
 Iman

• To believe in God & His Prophet

• To be grateful to God

• To be faithful to God & His Prophet

 Faith
• Sam Harris and other anti-theist atheists (“New
Atheists”) define and criticize faith “as belief without
sufficient evidence.”

• “In my view, these generalizations are simplistic and

tendentious. Harris is working with the popular but
limited concept of faith as belief without sufficient
evidence. But the proper meaning of ‘faith’ is trust or
confidence in someone or something.” Faith is trust,
confidence, and reliance (tawakkul) in God, “and trust
or confidence in the possibility of salvation” (Evan
Thompson, p. 36)
 Q 8:2 & 64:13

• True believers (mu’minun) are those who hearts

tremble with awe when God is mentioned, whose
faith increases when God’s revelation are recited to
them, who put their trust in their Lord.

• God! There is no god but God, so let the faithful

(mu’minun) put their trust in God.
 Kufr

• To disbelieve (intellectually)

• To be ungrateful to God

• To be faithless in the sense of disloyalty and

treachery towards God & His Prophet
 Ungrateful
• [Q 26:18-19] And [Pharaoh] said, “Did we not raise you [Moses] among us
as a child, and did you not stay among us for years of your life? And you
did your deed which you did, and you [Moses] are one of the ingrates
[kāfirīn].

• [Q 21:94] Whosoever performs righteous deeds and is a believer, there

shall be no ingratitude (kufrān) [from God] for his endeavor, and surely We
shall write it down for him.

• [Q 16:112] God sets forth a parable: a town secure and at peace, its
provision coming unto it abundantly from every side. Yet, it was ungrateful
[kufr] for the blessings of God… So eat of the lawful and good things God
has provided you, and give thanks (shukr) for the blessing of God.

• [Q 2:152] So remember Me, and I shall remember you. Give thanks (shukr)
unto me and do not be ungrateful (takfurūn) to me.
For most men are ungrateful

• [Q 16:78] [God] endowed you with hearing, sight,

and hearts, that haply you may give thanks… They
recognize the blessing of God, and then deny it,
and most [men] are ungrateful (kāfirūn).
 Who is a Kafir?
• Disbeliever
• Doubter
• Rejector
• Ingrate
• Sinful traitor
• Treacherous
• Faithless
• Rebellious
• Degenerate
• Troublemakers
• Abominator
• Insolent
• Haughty
• Liar
• Slanderer
• Blasphemer
• Hypocrite
• Scoffer
• Mocker
• Aggressor
• Transgressor
• Oppressor
• Evil-doer
• Hinderer
• Who spreads corruption on the earth
• One who blocks the path [to religion]
• One who rejects and kills God’s prophets
• One who tortures, fights, expels, and kills the believers only for saying “Our Lord is God”
 Kafir vs Ghayr Muslim
• Toshihiko Izutsu: “Between kafir and ‘misbeliever’
there is a difference too important to be ignored.” (p.
24)

• Javed Ahmad Ghamidi: “In my view, we do not have

any right to call any non-Muslim (Ghayr Muslim) as
kafir. This decision is for God on the Day of Judgement.
We can only say Ghayr Muslim (Non-Muslim). Nothing
more than this… Therefore, I do not ever use the term
kafir for any Non-Muslim people.” (source: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8MSqpNAotY)
 ْ ِ
Itmām al-Ḥujja ‫إتْ َمام ٱل ُحجَّة‬

• Completion of Proof

• Upshot: 

A Kafir does not refer to just any non-Muslim.
Instead, the term Kafir refers that specific group of
people who reject their Messenger and oppress,
expel, and try to kill the Messenger and his
followers.
 Specificity

• Kafir should be translated as Rejector and refers to

those specific people in a particular time and place
who not only rejected the Prophet, the Islamic
message, and the early Muslims — but who were
also actively inimical and hostile to them in word
and deed
 Generality
• Kufr can be manifested in any human being, even
a Muslim

• [Q 2:172] O you who believe — eat the good things

We have provided for you and be grateful to God, if
it is God that you worship.

• “Since both the positive and negative hierarchical

concepts are mobile, it is not possible to rely upon
simple, static threshold criteria intending to
designate boundaries.” (Lamptey, p. 180)
 Jerusha Tanner Rhodes
(Formerly: Lamptey)

• Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of

Religious Pluralism

• Lateral vs. hierarchical communities; taqwa

 Q 5:48

• For each [faith community] amongst you We have

appointed a [religious] law (shirʿa) and a way
(minhāj). And had God willed, He would have
made you one community, but [He did otherwise],
that He might try you in that which He has given
you. So race with one another in good deeds. Unto
God will you all return, and He will inform you of
that wherein you differ.
 Taqwa Judged on the
Individual Level
• “This aya [Q 2:62] does not imply that those communities
in their entirety manifest taqwa any more than the
preceding aya implies that all Jews and Nazarenes
[Christians] in their entirety engage in shirk. Some do;
others do not.” (Lamptey, p. 170)

• Even early Muslims consisted of hypocrites (munafiqun)

who were kafirs

• “Since both the positive and negative hierarchical

concepts are mobile, it is not possible to rely upon simple,
static threshold criteria intending to designate
boundaries.” (p. 180)
 Intersecting Fields
• “The two fields [of taqwa and umma] intersect, thereby
producing evaluations, but the intersections are
dynamic, multiple, and partial. The fields do not merge
and so lose their unique characteristics. Nor do they
intersect once and for all. They dynamically intersect in a
number of possible ways and in an ongoing fashion. This
is why, for instance, there are various assessments of the
People of the Scripture. It is not an inconsistency to be
argued away through specification or abrogation. It is
the result of the fact that the semantic fields of taqwa
and umma are distinct yet related.” (Lamptey, p. 171)
The Prophet’s Final Stance

• The Prophet’s final stance towards his people was

one of hilm — he granted a general amnesty to his
people and called for peace and reconciliation.
 The Good Life
• [Q 16:97] Whosoever works righteousness, whether
male or female, and is a mu’min, We shall give
them new life, a good life, and We shall surely
render unto them their reward in accordance with
the best of that which they used to do.

• Good in this life — individually and as a society —

and, more importantly, in the Hereafter

• (Ironically?) emphasis on the Hereafter actually

secures a better (more felicitous) life in this world
 Assessment
• Modern Muslim scholars — such as Toshihiko
Izutsu, Fazlur Rahman, Jerusha Lamptey, and
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi — have approached the
Qur’an as a cohesive unit to be “understood on its
own terms” in order to discern its underlying ethical
trajectory

• Seeking the ethical trajectory allows us to better

appreciate the relevance of the Qur’an to our
present situation
 Reviewing
• The Prophet and the Qur’an called to…

• Hilm

• Peace

• To live as a people as one united community under a loving and protecting

God

• To take responsibility for one’s own actions

• To act justly and righteously, and to fear God

• To enjoin goodness and eschew wickedness on earth

• To love and care for your brother and sister in humanity as God loves and
cares for you
 Evolutionary Psychology of
Religion

• Religion as a parasite (meme)

• Religion as a by-product

• Religion as an adaptation
 Islamic Monotheism
• Conferred upon its civilizational holders a distinct
evolutionary advantage; rocket fuel

• Took a lowly, tribal people engaged in petty infighting,

united them, allowed them to vanquish two great
empires of the world, and cast them into a world power

• Enabled universal ethics

• Enabled philosophy & science, culture & art — higher

civilization
 Question
• In an increasingly secularized world, should we
abandon our religion in order to advance?
 My Answer
• Our religion, scripture, and tradition have a lot of insight
to offer us, if we but take the time to study and reflect
upon it.

• It would be foolhardy to discard all this root and branch.

• It is my hope to convince you of the vast but buried

riches of our profound Islamic legacy.

• The real question is: how can we meaningfully engage

with our tradition so that we are not inhibited by it but
enriched?
 Parting Thoughts I
• The Prophet & the Qur’an called away from jahl to the ethic of hilm — but, are we
still not, in many ways, steeped in jahl? Put less bombastically, have we really
achieved the full potential of the Prophet’s ethical mission?

• 1) The Qur’an calls for peace and opposes fitna (religious persecution). Medieval
doctrine called for perpetual war against non-Muslim polities (thereby inverting the
Qur’anic logic on fitna). Today, the Islamic world is engulfed in war, violence, and
terrorism.

• 2) The Qur’an sanctifies all life based on the creation story of Adam and declares all
life haram. Yet, our medieval theories excluded non-Muslims from this default
position. Even today, do we respect all human life, Muslim and non-Muslim, equally?

• 3) The Qur’an calls for the emancipation of slaves and specifically prohibits the
keeping of POW’s as slaves (Q 47:4). Medieval doctrine justified slavery and
specifically endorsed the taking of POW’s as slaves. Today, modern slavery
continues continues unabated in much of the Islamic world (and outside of it).

• 4) Our own prophet was an orphan and the Qur’an urges us to take care of
orphans. Yet, Muslim children today languish due to the belief that adoption is
haram.
 Parting Thoughts II
• 5) The Qur’an has a deep-seated concern for the vulnerable status of women in society. Even if
medieval Muslims can be excused to some extent for the times they lived in, what excuse do we
have today? Muslim countries are consistently listed as the worst place for women to live.

• 6) The Qur’an calls for forgiveness even in the case of murder. Yet, from a criminal justice
standpoint, Islam today is associated with strict, harsh, and punitive justice.

• 7) The Qur’an condemns religious chauvinism and “saved sect” mentality, but our medieval
scholars said “The Jews are on nothing” and “the Christians are on nothing.” Many Muslims today
— of all stripes — seem concerned only with the persecution of Muslims, not the persecuting we
Muslims do

• 8) The Qur’anic ideal is to be patient in the face of religious adversity, insult, and injury. Do we
practice this hilm when our religion is attacked by others (verbally or otherwise)?

• 9) The Qur’an condemns intercession and stresses reliance on God. Yet, virtually all sects of
Islam have (arguably) circumvented this prohibition. Is this not the essence of the Islamic
message on tawhid, i.e. to rely upon God alone and seek His help alone?

• 10) Hilm points to being a civilized man/people. Can we really look at ourselves in relation to the
rest of the world and think we occupy this status?
Further Reading
Any Questions?
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