Guest post by ZEESHAN RESHAMWALA

Many Interpretations are Still Better Than One

[Hasan Suroor suggests in an op-ed that one of the causes of Islamist violence is the ambiguity of the Quran and the hadith, adding that perhaps it is time to develop an “authorised” version of the Islamic tradition. This article critiques Suroor’s assumption that it is possible to achieve a “pure” interpretation of a text, whether it be from a religious tradition or otherwise. In addition, it argues against Suroor’s tendency to imagine violence as a “medieval” phenomenon, and world-history as a deterministic forward-moving arrow.]

Hasan Suroor suggests that the problem of Islamist fundamentalism and the violence that follows in its wake can be solved by untangling the multiple interpretations of ambiguous Islamic texts. In his op-ed in The Hindu (29 September), “Islam and its Interpretations,”  Suroor points out this apparent paradox: that although on the one hand Muslims cite verses and hadith that provide injunctions against violence, on the other hand a more violent strain of believers (such as the Taliban) are also able to cite Quranic verses and hadith that justify their violence. The problem, he claims, does not lie completely with the manner in which Islamic texts are interpreted, but instead with the fact that the Quran is an extremely ambiguous text, arranged athematically, and whose meaning is often dependent on the context of each individual revelation. More so the hadiths, written down from the sayings of Mohammed, are of variable authenticity. The lack of a single authoritative version of Islamic texts, says Suroor, leaves the tradition “open for fanatics to distort at will.” Continue reading On Hasan Suroor’s “Islam and Its Interpretations”: Zeeshan Reshamwala →