some reflection on post-enlightenment qur'anic hermeneutics

1408 Michigan State Law Review [Vol. 2006:1403ars. I will conclude this Article with a reflective examination of one ofthese problem areas—the issue of human equality as discussed in the coretexts of Islam and as exemplified by the historical and contemporary problemsof slavery and slavery-like conditions in Islamic societies. It is myview that hermeneutical examination of the issue of slavery offers the key toresolution of a number of other interpretive issues facing contemporary Islam.I will offer <strong>some</strong> observations on future trends for Islamic scholarshipin this area.For purposes of this symposium it is important to be clear about themeaning of the term “scholarship.” When I speak of scholarship, I refer tothe written discourse and the collective inquisitorial and investigative effortby learned persons to improve our knowledge and understanding of the vasttangible and intangible realms that make up our existence. The roots ofIslamic scholarly discourse can be traced to the Prophet Muhammad, hiscompanions, and their successors, many of whom became quite knowledgeablein a variety of jurisprudential, theological, and philosophical areas ofinquiry. The Prophet’s seventh century pronouncements on matters of social,legal, religious, and moral concern are central to this discourse. Also,the Prophet, his companions, and their successors’ efforts to explain andinterpret the Qur’an and translate the experience of the first Muslims into acoherent system of thought, belief, jurisprudence, and praxis were importantaspects of the early scholarly discourse.As is well known, this discourse underwent a tremendous explosion incomplexity and breadth as the Islamic project exploded west to AndalusianSpain and east to the Oxus River in Western Asia. 11 Modern Muslim intellectualsand many scholars of Islam look upon the period of these events,often described as the “Golden Age” of Islam, 12 with great fondness and11. See generally MARSHALL G.S. HODGSON, 1 THE VENTURE OF ISLAM:CONSCIENCE AND HISTORY IN A WORLD CIVILIZATION 197-206 (1974); IRA M. LAPIDUS, AHISTORY OF ISLAMIC SOCIETIES 31-44 (2d ed. 2002).12. See, e.g., TARIF KHALIDI, CLASSICAL ARAB ISLAM: THE CULTURE AND HERITAGEOF THE GOLDEN AGE (1985). The period of the “Golden Age” runs roughly from the time ofthe Prophet Muhammad’s consolidation of his hold on most of the Arabian Peninsula in orabout 630 C.E. until about 1258 C.E., when Baghdad fell to the Mongols. The periodroughly corresponds to the formation of the new Islamic state on the Arabian Peninsula, thesubsequent rise of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, the later decline of the Abbasids, thesimultaneous rise of the Tulunids, the Ikhshidids, the Idrisids, the Umayyads, the Fatimids,and the Ayyubids in Morocco, southern Spain, Tunis, Cairo, and Jerusalem, the rise of theSeljuks in Anatolia, and the early days of the Mamluk Sultanates based in Cairo, Jerusalem,and Damascus. See generally LAPIDUS, supra note 11, at 31-192, 283-94; HODGSON, supranote 11 at 311. The concept of a “Golden Age” is a contested one, and it is probably moreaccurate to refer to this period as the “classical” period in Islamic history. Professor Lapidus,for example, argues that there were really two “golden ages,” one occurring during the formativeperiod and the other occurring during the early days of the Ottoman Empire. See IraM. Lapidus, The Golden Age: The Political Concepts of Islam, 524 ANNALS OF THE