Hermeneutic of the Qur’anic War Verses

Cool, calm and confident, caressing his beard, Amrozi smiled upwards with an innocent facial expression while being convicted for the Legian-Bali tragedy which killed 200 people. Amrozi is by now recognizable as the smiling suspect whose wickedness provokes the victim’s families’ eternal ire. He imagines that his reward awaits him in a heaven occupied by beautiful and naked angels - a reward for ‘wiping the wickedness out’. His belief that what he has done is a form of jihad strengthens the view that the term jihad is open to multiple interpretations. This is clearly an instance of how “language is also a medium of domination and power” as argued by the philosopher Habermas. While language can be seen as a value free and non-contentious communication tool, it can be a political instrument due to the use of unilateral interpretation taken from its ‘basic’ meaning. 

Besides the word jihad, in Arabic language there are other words for war such as qital: a physical war, harb: a diplomatic war, ghazwah: a military expedition led directly by the prophet, sariyah: war led by companions pointed by the Prophet, qahr: submission and lastly fath which means liberation (Rumadi, 2002:61-67 and N. Madjid, 2000: 233).

The Quranic verses about war have been ingrained in the consciousness of fundamentalists, especially the verse quoted partially by Osama ben Laden (Ababil Press, 2001:42): “Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, smite them ...” (Muhammad 4). Other Quranic texts such as reliable (sahih) and the more credible hadits add to this discourse by explaining that the reward for martyrdom in war will be beautiful angels and jewels in heaven (Ahmad and al-Turmudzi). Although the Quranic war verses are universal, and were written in the context of the past (in illo tempore), all religious believers grasp the universal values and relevance of the term jihad.

To simplify the categorization and chronology of the Qur’anic war verses, periodical division of Makkiyah and Madaniyah verses can be helpful in grasping their meaning. One opinion says that Makkiyah verses are universal and are a form of theological revolution, for example, the command to destory statues and annihilate polytheistic and anthropocentric beliefs. On the other hand, Madaniyah war verses are heavily dependant on contextual readings and refer to a sociological revolution.

The metaphorical interpretation (ta’wil) in Islamic tradition is mostly considered as a convenient loop hole in Islamic law for those who have a limited awareness of the law. This sort of interpretation is not problematic since the understanding of religious text by using reason broadly means narrowing the metaphysical scope.

The practice of ‘Islamic hermeneutics’ has been going on for a long time in Muslim communities, especially in the reading of the alqur’an. The evidence for this is to be found in: 1, discourse about asbabunnuzul and nasikh-mansukh; 2, in the literature on theory, regulation and method in tafseer.

One author, Fazlur Rahman, believes that the revelation of the Alqur’an was a divine response to the moral-social situation of Arabs in the Prophet’s time. Similarly, Farid Esack, believes that Alqur’an is a collection of God’s verse which was revealed in response to society’s demands during the Prophet’s age. On the other hand, for Abu Zayd, Quranic text was also partly the product of a social reality such that the conceptions therein are formed by the language and culture of that period and that as a consequence that the meaning was formed as an interaction between God and humanity. These authors are too timid to say that actually some of the material in Alquran is God’s response toward pre-modern society (to distinguish it from “primitive” society). Although Alquran has particular aspects which can be observed through a historical perspective – like other texts - it also contains universally noble values.

Publishing technology in the modern era further expands the reach of mental language codified in written language. Religious language which initially depended on verbal communication currently is superceeed by written language which emphasizes langue (language articulation at the social level) over parole (language expression at the individual level)

The literalist reading is a fixed and singular interpretation for each tafseer (interpretation). It denies other interpretations (tafseer). Nietzsche mocked the literalists with these words: “truth is a group of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms; a sum of human relation which is poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed and adored so that after a long time it is then codified in the binding canon.” As Sugiharto re-iterates it: the truth’s illusions are forgotten over time (1996). The literalist considers it an obligation of the faithful to keep the text sacred. Truth is always measured by the lexical meaning within the text wherein there is no truth outside of the text.

Religious texts can certainly be understood as historical products associated with particular historical laws. Consequently, Qur’anic vocabularies and the Arabic language are influenced by pre Islamic history. We can categorize several influences of vocabularies from the pre Islamic age which were later absorbed by Qur’anic words. For example, there is the vocabulary of the pure Bedouin representing the older Arab Weltanschauung with its nomadic characteristics. In addition, there is the vocabulary of the pagan group which is related to the Bedouin vocabulary though it has a different spirit. Then there is the vocabulary of the Jews and Christians who lived in Arabia (T. Izutsu, 1997). For example, words like Allah, Islam, Nabi (prophet), Iman (faith), Kafir (infidel), are not new words but were known long before Islam was revealed. Thus as a semantic-historic phenomenon, language is not only a tool for talking and thinking, but a tool for conceptualizing and interpreting the social world.

Maybe the literalist interpretation is taken so that the sacred book does not come to be considered as a chameleon which changes its color according to the interpreter’s desire. Nevertheless in light of the propensity of current culture for radical literalism it is better to compromise this mode of interpretation.

Figures like George W. Bush (AS), Slobodan Milosevic (Serbia), Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, Osama ben Laden, Saddam Hussein (Iraq) are sometimes applauded. Like-minded people buy T-shirts with the picture of the particular ‘knight’ they adore. Similarly, the Qur’anic war verses are easily exploited by political activists who use it to gain sacred legitimacy for their political objectives. Since religion all to often provides a basis for the moral reward for violence, religion becomes an instrument of political domination (M. Juergensmeyer, 1998). As a consequence, it is important that an effort should be exerted to deconstruct religious language rather than giving in to literalist readings.