some reflection on post-enlightenment qur'anic hermeneutics

Special] Post-Enlightenment Qur’anic Hermeneutics 1421I contend that, in spite of the rhetorical force and intellectual power ofthe various Post-Enlightenment projects, none has had an overwhelminglypositive reception in the traditional scholarly community and among thebelievers. It appears that the great majority of Muslims, in the West, the FarEast, in Africa, and in the Arab heartlands of Islam continue to cleave totraditionalist understandings of the meaning of the Qur’an, even thoughmany of those understandings frequently leave Muslims greatly unsatisfied.Led by a few scholars of Islam, <strong>some</strong> segments of the Western popularpress and intelligence and military communities have claimed that the“Islamist” tafsir, referred to above, is convincing an increasing number ofMuslims of its claims. 68 They assert that this hermeneutical approach isfueling the development of a “jihadist” ideology that seeks to violently removeWestern influences from the Islamic world and reinstate the pristineIslam of the formative years, with extremely negative consequences. 69Although probably exaggerated, these assertions may bear <strong>some</strong> truth,in the sense that the “jihadist” hermeneutic is filling a void created by theunsatisfying impact of the more mainstream and traditional hermeneutics. Itis my view, however, that all of these projects, including the Islamist hermeneuticalproject, have so far failed to spark the kind of discourse in Islamicjuridical and religio-political affairs that would help to put the newtafsir in the dominant position that such literature has traditionally played. 70None has become canonical. More significantly, each genre of the tafsir Ihave described appears in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, or in a Western EuropeanAND HAMID ALGAR (1983); CHARLES C. ADAMS, ISLAM AND MODERNISM IN EGYPT, supranote 59; MAHMOOD AHMAD GHAZI, ISLAMIC RENAISSANCE, supra note 59; MALCOLM KERR,ISLAMIC REFORM, supra note 59; CHRISTIAN W. TROLL, SAYYID AHMAD KHAN, supra note 59.68. For examples of such scholarship see generally SANDSTORM: MIDDLE EASTCONFLICTS & AMERICA (Daniel Pipes ed., 1993); BERNARD LEWIS, CRISIS OF ISLAM: HOLYWAR AND UNHOLY TERROR (2003); BERNARD LEWIS, ISLAM AND THE WEST (1993); BERNARDLEWIS, WHAT WENT WRONG: THE CLASH BETWEEN ISLAM AND MODERNITY IN THE MIDDLEEAST (2002); DANIEL PIPES, MILITANT ISLAM REACHES AMERICA (2002).69. See, e.g., Paul Berman, The Philosopher of Islamic Terror, N.Y. TIMES MAG.,Mar. 23, 2003, at 24; see also IBRAHIM M. ABU-RABI’, INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF ISLAMICRESURGENCE IN THE MODERN ARAB WORLD (1996); JOHANNES J.G. JANSEN, THE NEGLECTEDDUTY: THE CREED OF SADAT’S ASSASSINS AND ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST(1986); Ayman al-Zawahiri, On the Islamist Revolution in Egypt (January 2002), in ANTI-AMERICAN TERRORISM AND THE MIDDLE EAST: UNDERSTANDING THE VIOLENCE 69 (BarryRubin & Judith Colp Rubin eds., 2002).70. Tafsir published during the classical period also often appeared in response todiscourse on issues of the day, particularly theological concerns, such as predestination, the“createdness” of the Qur’an, and the legitimacy of Shi’a theology and theories of governance.Perhaps the best example of this is the twelfth century Mu’tazilite tafsir of Zamakhshariwhich has become a standard classical reference work for exegetes of the Qur’an. SeeRippin, supra note 9, at 8953. Perhaps it is still too early in the current development of thePost-Enlightenment tafsir to determine whether any of the genres I have described will takehold and become canonical.