Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Naturalizing Religion

|

Naturalizing Religion

Since religion is the only precious asset and sacred commodity for pious individuals, they are not willing to secularize it through human analyses. In other words, religious people believe that religion is a celestial message veiled in mystery which is beyond the knowledge and understandings of humankind and has to be followed obediently. If one makes efforts to secularize or localize the divine message, s/he will be inundated with caustic remarks. So according to them, religion is supposed to be untouched by man’s ideas which include various tastes.

Dr. Abdul Karim Soroush, an Islamic intellectual, likens religion to a soul which is clad with body. People’s souls negotiate and make contact through their bodies. Hence, soul – the meta-natural existence - has been naturalized and colored with physical qualities. The same is the case with religion – celestial oracles descended to the earth and shaped within the earthly frame. It does not mean that the religion’s sacred face has been eroded rather it means that the oracles, which have been beyond time and place, has been enclosed within place and history to be handed to men. Hence, religion has essence and existence, each with particular qualities.

According to him, religion is handed to mankind within particular time and place to particular nation. Therefore, it will be fictionalized, distorted or misconstrued. Moreover, it will change into controversial issue which will be followed by disunity, clash and bloodshed and some make efforts to bar from religion’s development. The religious culture will interact with other cultures and the religious scholars will divide into many groups. These all belong to the external part of religion.

Soroush’s basic argument is simple: all human understanding of religion is historical and fallible. With this idea he undermines the Iranian theocracy, because if all human understanding of religion is fallible, no-one can claim to apply the sharia in God’s name, not even the Iranian clergy.

In The Expansion of the Prophetic Experience, Soroush makes clear that his view on the fallibility of religious knowledge to a certain degree also applies to the Holy Qur’an. With thinkers such as Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Mohammed Arkoun, Soroush belongs to a small group of radical reformers who advocate a historical approach to the Qur’an. In his new book, however, he goes one step further than many of his radical colleagues. He claims that the Qur’an is not only the product of the historical circumstances in which it emerged, but also of the mind of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) with all his human limitations. This idea, says Soroush, is not an innovation, as several medieval thinkers already hinted at it.

Regarding Holy Qur’an, Soroush states that a human view of the Qur’an makes it possible to distinguish between the essential and the accidental aspects of religion. Some parts of religion are historically and culturally determined and no longer relevant today. That is the case, for instance, with the corporal punishments prescribed in the Qur’an. If the Prophet had lived in another cultural environment, those punishments would probably not have been part of his message.

 

The task of Muslims today is to translate the essential message of the Qur’an over time. It is like translating a proverb from one language into another. You do not translate it literally. You find another proverb which has the same spirit, the same content but perhaps not the same wording. In Arabic you say: He is like someone who carries dates to Basra. If you translate that into English you say: He is carrying coal to Newcastle. A historical, human view of the Qur’an allows us to do this. If you insist on the idea that the Qur’an is the uncreated, eternal word of God that must be literally applied, you get yourself into an un-resolvable dilemma.

Regarding Prophetic revelation, Dr. Soroush believes that revelation is “inspiration”. It is the same experience as that of poets and mystics, although prophets are on a higher level. In our modern age we can understand revelation by using the metaphor of poetry. As one Muslim philosopher has put it, “revelation is higher poetry.” Poetry is a means of knowledge that works differently from science or philosophy. The poet feels that he is informed by a source external to him; that he receives something. And poetry, just like revelation, is a talent: “A poet can open new horizons for people; he can make them view the world in a different way.”

He argues, “The metaphor of poetry helps me to explain this. Just like a poet, the Prophet feels that he is captured by an external force. But in fact – or better: at the same time - the Prophet himself is everything: the creator and the producer. The question whether the inspiration comes from outside or from inside is really not relevant, because at the level of revelation there is no difference between outside and inside. The inspiration comes from the Self of the Prophet. The Self of every individual is divine, but the Prophet differs from other people in that he has become aware of its divinity. He has actualized its potential. His Self has become one with God. Now don’t get me wrong at this point: This spiritual union with God does not mean that the Prophet has become God. It is a union that is limited and tailored to his size. It is human size, not God’s size. The mystical poet Jalaluddin Rumi describes this paradox with the words: ‘Through the Prophet’s union with God, the ocean is poured into a jar.’”

Dr. Soroush attempts to naturalize religion and interpret it in modern way. In other words, a religion which is beyond the understanding of its followers, and has been changed to only a set of sacred text which is veiled in the halo of mystery, will not heal the wounds of its followers or relieve them of the pain of ignorance, crime, bloodshed, etc. Hence, religious guidelines should be interpreted in our language and according to our understanding so as to lead us to salvation.

Hujjatullah Zia is the newly emerging writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlookafghanistan@gmail.com

Go Top