The Supermarket of Tafseer and The Noah’s Ark

I envision Islam nowadays as akin to a supermarket with hundreds and even thousands of stores inside. There we find a store where Islam a la Gus Dur (Abdurrahman Wahid) is sold. In another store we find Islam as interpreted by Cak Nur (Nurkholis Majid). In another store filled with “imported packages” and surrounded by students, especially youngsters, we find Islam as interpreted by Ustadz Ja’far Umar Thalib. Other stores sell Islam a la Hassan Hanafi, Mohamed Arkoun, Abid Al Jabiri, Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid, Abdullahi Ahmed Anna’im, Sayyid Qutb, Yusuf Qardlawi, Ali Syari’ati.

The visitors, mainly youngsters, crowd all these stores. They are excitedly driven to explore and try out this fresh stuff. The older people who are satisfied with “some definite view” are usually less interested in shopping in this Islamic supermarket which grows evermore crowded with students and more densely packed with new packages. They have instead “taken for granted” the traditional Islamic packages which their ancestors subscribed to. These older persons assume that they do not need to restore their faith through exploring this new material.

This illustration is a metaphor for explaining how lively the intellectual discourses are which are developing within Muslim society today. Different ideas are vying to attract space in a lively public debate. Muslims today surf from one of these stores to another, moving from one interpretation onto another. It might be due to a number of factors. 

Firstly, and the most importantly, is the urgency of the “writing culture” position in Indonesian Muslim society today which has a large number of educated Muslims trained in modern education institutes. Secondly, there has been a great expansion in the Islamic book publishing industry over the last decade. Thirdly, there are numerous approaches used by the newer students who are interpreting Islam in a modern context. The last and most important factor concerns the political freedom which has recently emerged.  This freedom will eventually lead to the expansion of a more open discursive space. The combination of these factors, amongst others, has resulted in the phenomenon of “ta’addudiah” or pluralism - a diversity within Islam - a colourful supermarket of interpretations.

Supermarkets should be cool places for “window shopping” but in this imaginary supermarkets people may get lost and might not know the way out of the labyrinth. The might even be confused in choosing between their purchases. These kinds of people may also think that the supermarket is a wicked place because people get lost there. They logically conclude that this supermarket should be destroyed because it misleads consumers. For them, people should rather return to the old traditional market where the goods and the sellers are easily distinguished.

Many Muslims feel a clumsiness and awkwardness in the diversity of “Islam”. There is fundamentalist Islam, moderate Islam, revivalist Islam, modernist Islam, neo-modernist Islam, neo-revivalist Islam, and liberal Islam amongst others. This diversity of descriptions only blurs the essence and truth of Islam. According to the people who prefer the traditional market,  Islam has only one acceptable form, that which was taught by the prophet and his companions, i.e. a unitary Islam. This view is symptomatic of the absent-minded reaction people have when they encounter the colourful alternatives to be found in the supermarket.

Since the classic period, Islam has always been interpreted differently from one person to another. A classic writer, Asy Syahrastani wrote a famous book, Al Milal wan Nihal (about Islamic sects and groups), which clearly shows the variations in Muslim interpretations of Islam during that period. While the prophet was alive, Islam was simpler because everytime a misunderstanding about something emerged, the sahabah could ask the prophet. That is why the Qur’an says, “fa in tanaza’tum fi syai’in farudduhu ilal Lahi wa rasulih,” whenever you argue, return to Allah and His prophet. After the prophet died, only the texts codified in the Qur’an and Hadits were available to solve misunderstandings. Here is the problem: each text tends to open itself towards a number of possible interpretations. 

There was a time when many Muslim groups enthusiastically felt that if Muslims were eager to solve problems they should simply return to the Qur’an and sunnah (ruju’ ilal Qur’an was Sunnah). This approach is no doubt something good, but it does have its problems. Returning to the Qur’an and sunnah is not easy and does not guarantee that all Muslims will “ho lupis kuntul baris,” that is jump into line. How can they return to and interprete two sources which each group reads so differently? We eventually realize instead that the prophet is simply not among the muslims anymore and that emerging problems should be solved as best they can be based on one’s comprehension of the spirit of Qur’an and Sunnah. This is a condition pictured by the post-structuralist advocates who claim that the notion of the author as a lone entity is “dead”. Every book written sails as a Noah’s ark, guided by the wind, surfing a borderless sea, travelling from one seaport to another without the author as navigator. That ark might never return to its source. In short this means that all books are interpreted differently by readers, and in ways unexpected by the author. Islam after the prophet’s death is exactly like this Noah’s ark.

Therefore, there has never been only one Islam since the prophet. Islam is one and yet many all at once. In its diversity, Islam is one. In its oneness, it is diverse. The two Janus faces of Islam are unavoidable, especially at a time when huge transformations in the availablity and diversity of information occur on an unprecedented global scale. In this context, Dawam Raharjo has explained how the Qur’an should be approached from a multi-disclipinary perspective. The more stools used in interpreting the Qur’an and Islam, the better qualified the interpretation will be. The narrower the approach used, Islam appears more and more as a religion which is not “ rahmatan lil alamin”. If the way of thinking a la Dawam is followed, the unavoidable consequence is to accept the diversity of Islam.

Not everyone is ready to enter this supermarket. To go there, one has to prepare oneself well in order not to get lost within the jungle of stores. The main issue to face is to accept that what one chooses to “purchase” is only one of several possible interpretations. A classic policy attributed to Imam Syafi’i is worth quoting here: “my opinion is right but might be wrong, and my discussion opponent’s opinion is wrong but might be right.” This means that one has to delay judgements on what one embraces as the truth rather than judging other groups as ideological ashtrays, kafir, murtad, deviants and so on. Such attitudes prevent them from taking advantage of the crowded supermarket with its abundant products.

The second isse of importance in shopping here is to have a critical and skeptical attitude so as not to be decieved by store owners who claim “this is my ketchup and my kethup is number one.” In this regard I always remember a lesson conveyed by Kang Jalal (Jalaluddin Rahmat), the Muslim intellectual from Bandung who taught that attempts to comprehend Islam with burning emotions fade easily but that comprehending Islam through a process of calm and mature reasoning results in a long lasting and strong faith. 

In conclusion then, the right attitude is to view every interpretation in the super market as a challenge and not as a threat. We should treat our Muslim friends as discussion partners, not as enemies and not as infidels led astray. Although considered as the work of infidels, Noah’s ark cannot return to its former pier but will go on sailing from pier to pier. 

The writer is Program Coordinator of Liberal Islam Network

(Translated by Lanny Octavia, edited by Jonathan Zilberg)