A fellow Muslim told me about his 'rediscovering' of Islam, trying to re-understand it based on the original sources without the interference of orthodox ideas. And indeed this is what as Muslims must do. Because there is a difference between what the Quranic message and what we as Muslims understand as Islam.
The problem has arisen because we as Muslims do not read and study take the Quran on its own terms. In fact this also happened to the original Revelations before Islam where humans created dogma's, human perceptions of existence, that were enforced on theese scriptures. First the revelations were interpreted in ways to fit in with these later created dogma's, and later people even changed the texts of the revelations to fit their dogma's. Sometimes they only kept parts of the original revelations and mixed these with dogmatic texts of later times. In Islam this wasn't possible as the Quranic scripture was spread wordwide immediately and made altering not accepted. So many false reports (Hadith) on non-Quranic revelations and interpretations were created in the name of the Prophet to enforce these later dogma's of Muslims. As there were many competing dogma's, hundreds of thousands of competing and contradicting reports were circulating in the first centuries after the Prophet in his name or his first followers (Sahaba, Tabi'un etc.). These were later researched by Hadith scholars to filter the true from the false, but as these scholars also followed certain dogma's, they were not objective enough. This we can already see by the differences in Sunni and Shia Hadith collections. There are true historical reports of the Prophet and his first followers in these collections, but it will take centuries to truly filter these from the collections.
Thus nowadays it has become standard to follow a certain dogma and legitimize these with certain Hadith to enforce an understanding of the Quran that isn't necessarily coinciding with the meaning or intention of the original Quranic text. The text has become veiled by our own dogma's that we accept as true representations of existence and reality. But they only represent the limited human understanding of existence.
We need a return to the Quranic text, taking it on its own terms and understanding the contexts of the audiences it addresses. So we need to understand the socio-historical context of the Prophet, the first Muslims, and the other people who the Quran addresses. Then we can understand how the Divine Will expressed itself through the vehicle of human language, and how the Quran tries to convey universal values to mankind. The Quran guides mankind in the process of existence by making us becoming aware (taqwa) of our place in existence and how to approach it.
As long as we hold on to historical human created dogma's, we will misunderstand the view on existence the Quran tries to portray. Instead of talking to the Quran, making it say what we expect, we must learn to listen to it in an objective way. The Quran was sent by God to make us understand existence as it is created and sustained by its Creator. Instead we cling to human limited understandings of existence, and so we will keep struggling and failing.
The same rediscovering is made by Christians, Jews and people from other religions where they are exploring their scriptures to differentiate between the human dogma's of existence and the original message God gave them. Thus this is a shared 'rediscovering' between all faiths, which now shows that the clashes within mankind are between their own created dogma's, their own cultural expressions of existence, and not between the original divine messages that tried to mankind true insights on existence. We all have the same standard that will show us the true side of the religious scriptures, the workings of nature and our shared humaneness, these will make us rediscover the original Revelations on their own terms.
As Muslims, we are the most fortunate as we have an uncorrupted text, the Quran, and so our journey to this rediscovering is much shorter. But it seems we are the most stubborn of all people to realize this. The majority of Muslims believe in peace, human rights, the discovery of nature through science and the acceptance of all people whatever their faith, as our humaneness cannot accept otherwise. But we must realize that many of our dogma's and interpretations that we believe as Islamic are contradicting these values.
- The Quran says men and women are created equally (49:13, 4:1 etc.), but our laws and traditions based mostly on non-Quranic sources (Hadith reports, traditions of old Arab, Jewish, Christian cultures, opinions by old scholars etc.) contradict this completely. And where the Quranic text seems to contradict this value of equality, we misunderstand the context or intention of those specific revelations. The Quran wants to fight oppression (42:38-43) and so we must never use Islam to treat others with inequality, male or female.
- We believe in equality between all people, but our laws makes a seperation between Muslim and non-Muslim, while the Prophet was ordered by the Quran to treat everybody with complete equality (in verse 42:15 the Prophet addresses Jews and Christians with, 'umirtu li-Adila baynakum - I'm ordered to apply equality between you'), and the Quran says that one life is equal to the lives of all of humanity (5:32).
- We believe in the complete Mercy of God, but we still believe only Muslims will be accepted into Paradise by God, while the Quran clearly says that everybody who believes in God, Hereafter and whose deeds create peace, reform and balance in society, will be accepted by Him (2:62, 5:69). Many Quran commentators say that verse 2:62 is abrogated by 3:85 which says that only Islam will be accepted as a religion, as verse 3:85 was revealed after verse 2:62 and thus cancells verse 2:62's inclusive message. But they forget that verse 5:69 was revealed after 3:85, and that it says the exact same thing as 2:62. Is verse 3:85 then abrograted by 5:69 or is it more logical to assume that Islam in the Quran is more universal then we understand it to be? The Quran even complains about this attitude of exclusively claiming heaven by the Jews and Christians at the time of the Prophet, proclaiming that it isn't your religion or the label of your faith that makes you be accepted by God but your pursuit of peace with existence and God (2:111-112). The Quran also clearly states that God's Mercy encompasses everything and He will judge first through Mercy (7:156, 6:12), and even says that there are multiple paths of God (29:69), so how can we claim to be on the only path to Heaven?
- Many of our books on Quranic exegesis (tafaseer) claim that the peaceful verses in the Quran that promote peacemaking and only defensive war, are abrogated by the 'swordverse' (9:5) which says we must fight non-Muslims. But the context of chapter 9 clearly say that fighting was allowed only because the treaties the Prohet made were violated by certain tribes. If we must fight all non-Muslims, why then are we ordered to protect even polytheists if they ask for protection in verse 9:6 that comes directly after the wrongly labelled 'sword verse'? Verses 9:12-13 clearly states that the Prophet was only allowed to fight because certain tribes broke their oaths, wanted to drive out the Muslims from their homes and because they STARTED the fight ('wa hum badaookum awwala marratin - And they started (to fight) you previously')! Thus the 'sword verse' is not about offensive war at all, but is clearly part of the same message the Quran has always given; for Muslims only defensive war is allowed and that they must always pursue peace and never hurt non-combatants (the verses always say that we must only fight the people who fight you, meaning combatants).
- Islamic law has used verse 9:29 to create a seperate taxation system for non-Muslims, and to force them to pay this discriminating tax (Jizyah) while the whole context of fighting in chapter 9 is clearly defensive, not offensive. Thus the jizyah of verse 9:29 was only demanded from non-Muslims who fought the Muslims themselves first. The word jizyah comes from the root jaza, meaning compensation, it thus doesn't represent 'tribute' or 'tax' but compensation payment for the war damage these non-Muslims had caused. Even in modern times countries must pay compensation for war damage, like Germany after WWI and WWII.
It is our duty to the Quran that we must rediscover it by taking it on its own terms, and to reject old dogma's and interpretations that malign and distort its true message and potential. Then we can truly see the true vision on existence the Quran tries to display and which we are discovering through the structure of nature and our shared humaneness.
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