Approaches to reading intercultural communication in the Qur’an and the politics of interpretation

I. Introduction

In order to understand intercultural communication in the Qur’an, it is necessary to clarify some issues pertaining to the Islamic movement today. The Islamic movement includes a wide spectrum of divergent organizations, groups, and parties, and a great number of independent individuals and intellectuals. A heterogeneous mix of perspectives and trends can be found within a single Islamic group or party. Thus, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood, a wide spread party in the Arab Muslim region, includes both radical and liberal Islamists among its members. Today’s online media and proliferating television stations are exposing diverse Islamic trends, including extremists, salafis, ¹ heretics, moderates, liberals, and the enlightened. There are increasing numbers of Islamic jurists associated with such trends, and their preaching has a profound influence on shaping the consciousness and mindset of sizeable audiences across and beyond the Islamic world. ²

In his book, The Satellite Jurist, Abdullah al-Ghidami (2011) identifies two types of Islamic jurists: land jurists and satellite jurists. Land jurists respond directly to individual religious inquiries and educate people about Islam and its teachings. They typically address the specific needs of their local community and are well aware of this community’s internal issues. Their discourse is generally comprehensible and direct. The audiences of satellite jurists, on the other hand, can be Muslims in any Muslim or non-Muslim country, or non-Muslims in any part of the world who are interested in Islam for any political, scholarly, or socio-cultural reason. Satellite jurists, like the televangelists, make use of television stations to communicate their religious thoughts and beliefs. They are not necessarily authorized by the mosque or an Islamic organization to provide religious opinions or spiritual guidance. They can appear on both public and private television stations. Some of them, however, work for television channels funded by a certain Islamist or a group of Islamists. Land jurists and satellite jurists can be affiliated with any of the Islamic trends, and both are keen to base their legitimacy on verses from the Qur’an—Islam’s foundational text and an essential source shaping Muslims’ beliefs and values. The same Qur’anic verses have often been utilized by different Islamic groups to either legitimize or discredit certain regimes, stands, or attitudes. Qur’anic verses have also been manipulated to diabolize the religiously and culturally different “other.” As I shall show, many of these interpretations are uninterested in the temporal contexts of verses, including revelatory, textual, and intertextual factors, and “the circumstances of textual receptors in creating horizons of meaning” (Taji-Farouki, 2010: 19).

Given the breadth and depth of the religio-political trends that are based on different interpretations of the Qur’an, the critical endeavor of this article is of a problematic nature. However, amid the plethora of accusations directed against Islam, this article’s aim is an “ethical” necessity, rather than simply an intellectual exercise or an apologetic attempt. Interpreting the Qur'an as essentially a text that promotes violence, militant extremism, and intolerance of cultural or religious diversity has resulted in the formation of terrorist groups and biased mentalities that depict Islam as a warlike and fanatic religion. Perceptions based on misinformed interpretations of the Qur'an cannot be undermined, given the profound influence of the Qur’an on shaping Muslims’ code of action. Accordingly, this study aims to explore worldly dynamics underlying the politics of Qur’anic interpretations in terms of the relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims. In the process, it underpins the political and “ethical” necessity of utilizing approaches to interpretation that are sensitive to both transcendental and temporal intercultural ethics, while ensuring that interpretations of Qur’anic messages are evidence-based and verified. I will explore several Qur’anic verses that specifically dwell on the concept of interculturality, and I will pinpoint the temporal and transcendental ethics underlying them. I will argue that it is necessary to have an “ethical self” in order to develop exegetical approaches that are informed by systematic studies and historical knowledge. The Qur’an acknowledges the interrelation between Islam and the other monotheistic religions: “The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah—that which We have sent by inspiration to thee—and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus” (42:13). The Qur’an was revealed in the Arabian Peninsula, the home of idolaters, and introduced concepts that formed a rupture between these idolaters and the new Muslims (Wild, 2012). Already familiar to the people of the Book, values such as justice, equality, and modesty constituted a threat to the tribal power structure that was vehemently supported by the polytheists of Mecca and Medina (Massouh, 2002). This does not undermine the pagan Arabs’ acute sense of morality, as maintained by al-Asfahani in his Kitabul al-Aghani (The Book of Songs) (in Izutsu, 2002). “Only,” according to Izutsu, “their ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ lacked a consistent, theoretical basis” (45). “Brotherhood” for the pagans meant the obligation of supporting one’s fellow-tribesman, whether he was right or wrong (Izutsu, 2002). The Qur’an explains this situation: “When it is said to them [the pagans], ‘Follow that which God has sent,’ they reply, ‘Nay, we will follow what we found our ancestors doing.’ What, even if their ancestors were all ignorant folk erring away from the true path?” (2:170).

Invoking stories and poems from the Jahiliya (pre-Islamic communities), Izutsu argues that Arab pagans’ generosity, chivalry, and valor were necessary markers of tribal influence, power, and wealth, rather than an enactment of “moral earnestness” or a true sense of piety (Izutsu, 2002: 53). In the Qur’an, honor is measured by piety, rather than by wealth or origin: “Mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in God’s sight is the greatest of you in piety” (49:13). Modern Islamic intellectuals such as Nayhum have endeavored to show how Islam “unites humanity under a single law” and supplants the logic of tribal force and the feudal system. It subjugates “the administration to the authority of the majority” and reinforces collective law that protects the oppressed, whether rich or poor (in Taji-Farouki, 2010: 308–309).

II. Methodology

This part of the article clarifies the methodology that this study employs, including its selection of certain textual approaches to the Qur’an. My introductory remarks and theoretical elaboration in the first three parts are intended to clarify this study’s rationale of understanding intercultural communication in the Qur’an, and this method’s potential for delineating other controversial questions in Islam. I do not claim to be introducing readings of the Qur’an that have not already been explored, nor do I address ethico-political implications of all of the controversial issues in Islam, such as women, Jihad, governance, or other issues, except when they are of direct relevance to the central inquiry of the article. My focus will be on the Qur’anic verses that deal with religio-cultural interrelations. It should be noted that the Qur’anic verses and the context of their revelation should not be confused with the actual practices of certain Muslims or the Islamic discourses that utilize the Qur’an for provoking aggressive relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. There is already widespread confusion between the religious phenomenon of Islam, with all its institutionalized manifestations, and the Qur’an itself. This is a reason for dealing with the subject under study.

The plurality of ways of approaching Qur’anic interpretation, especially where the methods are informed by modern critical theories, has posed a challenge to the authoritative class of Ulama and conservative Islamic mentalities. For example, in 1993, the Egyptian court convicted Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd of apostasy for advocating approaches to interpretation that defied the traditional approaches adopted by religious institutions like Al-Azhar in Cairo. He introduced an interpretative approach based on a study of the original audience, the cultural and historical contexts of the verses, and the linguistic system of the Qur’an. The approach has been criticized as denying the divinity of the Qur’an (see Kermani, 2010; Wild, 2012).

Certain readings of the Qur’an can defy Western secular assumptions upon which values such as human rights and democracy are based. For Susan Buck-Morss (2006), these values can be violated by the very process of imposing them. To assume that it is only through abandoning their religious beliefs and Qur’anic teachings that Muslims can become “modern,” or true supporters and implementers of human rights, rights of citizenship, and democratic values can simply be another form of totalitarianism. Indifference to cultural and contextual specificities can trigger further polarities in attitudes and human relations.

Since the eleventh century, reformers like Muhammad Al-Ghazali (see Barlas, 2005), and more recently Said Nursi (see Eickelman, 2003), Muhammad Arkoun (see Kholayki, 2010), and Abu Zayd (1998; 2001a; 2001b; 2010), have encouraged systematic linguistic and contextual readings of the Qur’an. Their perspectives have had a far-reaching influence on Islamic debates on human rights, women’s rights, social justice, and jihad. They have emphasized the need to liberate Qur’anic exegesis from predisposed, inadequate, and perilous hermeneutics that contribute to the sustenance of aggressive attitudinal reactions toward Islam. The politics of such reactions interweaves with performative actions and strands of “extremist” Islamists, paving the way for the emergence of disagreeable images of Islam being persistently conjured up, disseminated, and sustained as the Islam by an expanding Western imperialism. However, it is still important not to overlook how religious tension can be exacerbated by certain Qur’anic verses that challenge some of the theological convictions of the followers of the other monotheistic religions, and by specific occurrences that are narrated in the Qur’an but often taken out of their historical context by some Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The fact that the Qur’an is central to many debates on Islam, both inside and outside the Islamic world, does not necessarily mean that it is widely read by all those who are engaged in a critique of Islam. Charles Ali (1997) and Abu Zayd (2001a, 2010) call upon Muslims and Christians to read the Qur’an in order to be able to pursue constructive intercultural and interfaith relations. Boris Gunjević, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Croatia and a university lecturer, points out that the Qur’an (translated to a recital book) is distinguished for its “supreme artistic expression” (Gunjević, 2012: 134). He argues how the Qur’anic text “leaves us with multiple options for reading and interpretation. This is both a blessing and a curse depending on who reads it and to what purpose” (Gunjević, 2012: 137). Gunjević asserts that reading the Qur’an is strategic to resisting the networked system of power, which is dominated by images that overlook the fact that an eighth of the Qur’an problematizes the issue of reason as juxtaposed to fatalism (see also Nurcholish Majid, in Johns and Saeed, 2010). The Qur’an is

a text which is too valuable and it should be taken, literally wrested, from fundamentalists. Christian fundamentalists read the Qur’anic text as if it were a terrorism handbook. In reading the Qur’an, Islamic fundamentalists mean to have monochromatic control of the text, and with their literal, superficial, ultra-modern interpretations, they intend to mutilate it. (Gunjević, 2012: 131)

Religious coexistence requires examining multiple religious systems, including Biblical, Qur’anic, and exegetical material (Ali, 1996, 1997). Abu Zayd stresses that the Qur’an should be read by Muslims, Christians, and atheists, not only because it has influenced many cultures, but also because it takes up so many pre-Islamic texts and far exceeds the role prescribed to it by Salafis, in which it is seen as laying out what is halal (permissible) and what is haram (banned) (in Kermani, 2010). During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Nursi urged the “democratization of the politics of religious authority and the development of a standardized language inculcated by mass higher education, the mass media, and travel and labor migration” to encourage a “new sense of a public space that is discursive, performative, and participative” (in Eickelman, 2003: 57).

III. Necessary definitions, clarifications, and associations

In this section, I shall explain the key words used in this article and underscore their relevance to the study. “Culture” is a complex term that has been defined by many thinkers, including Kant, Arnold, Malinowski, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, Edward Said, and others. The idea of manipulating certain Qur’anic interpretations to serve power affiliations is reminiscent of the concept of culture as introduced by Halualani, Drzewiecka, and Mendoza. For them, culture is “a site of struggle where various communication meanings are constructed” and is problematized by an ideological struggle, competing interests, and power relations, not by a set of traits that are characteristic of a group of people belonging to a particular geographical location (in Nakayama and Halualani, 2010: 8). Religion, especially within a modern Muslim context, has always been a crucial cultural constituent that operates as part of a complex political struggle to safeguard interests, disseminate moral values, or disrupt power within and across Islamic borders (see Hall, 1997).

The term “communication” is not a neutral activity of utterance or expression. It is a process relating to “the creation, constitution, and intertwining of situated meanings, social practices, structures, discourses, and the nondiscursive” (Nakayama and Halualani, 2010: 7). Communication is not a linear set-up between the sender, the message, and the receiver: these are “themselves articulations,” located differently through “systems of meanings, messages, and symbols as well as practices of speaking institutions, and relations… which may be relatively disempowering and enabling” (Nakayama and Halualani, 2010: 8). Accordingly, communication shapes different forms and mechanisms of culture as a site of human struggle. Re/building or re/defining contexts is a process that is developed and mapped through modes of communication. Culture, context, and communication are thus mutually informative. Contexts are the loci of practices, or rather of developing practices of players, mediators, earlier activities, actions, and effects (Grossberg, 1992).

In terms of the power relations in any culture, the notions of “intercultural” and “intracultural” are not simply equal terms of exchange between conflicting cultures or components of culture. Rather, they call for the exploration of the links between culture, identity, and power, so “inter” moves from meaning actual interaction between culturally different “dialogue partners” to referring to the intersecting layers of cultural, discursive, and signifying practices that constitute power relations within and around groups (Nakayama and Halualani, 2010). Interculturality involves the movement, interaction, exploration, and deployment of representations of power across borders through forms of articulation and communication in a manner similar to the movement and utilization of power within intraculturality. The above concepts help to clarify how different interpretations of Qur’anic verses can signify a continuous fluctuation of power relations within and across contexts, discourses, groups, and theoretical positions. It is necessary to refer to temporal experiences and diverse subjectivities in order to develop a critical analysis of a macro-micro focus “yield[ing] multiple insights over time that can be shared and discussed in degree and by historical moment within, through, and across contexts” (Nakayama and Halualani, 2010: 9).

Leeds-Hurwitz (2010) supports a “critical intercultural communication” as a branch of study grounded in the development of critical perspectives formed by the acquirement of profound knowledge of political, social, institutional, historical, and hierarchical macro-contexts. This knowledge is indispensable for comprehending how cultures work. The utilization of “a critical intercultural communication approach” sheds light on the nature of intercultural communication between Muslims and non-Muslims, and among Muslims, in the context of their varied interpretations of Qur’anic verses. Thus, interculturality in this article is a mode of interactional existence that is not necessarily either peaceful or harmonized. Moreover, in today’s globalized world, the idea of interculturality has become a locus laden with new patterns of significations.

The term “ethics” has been widely discussed since the time of Plato and Aristotle, both in relation to the text/discourse and the reader/recipient. An ascetic reader in classical Jainism, Tibetan Buddhism, Judaism, or Christianity is ethically oriented and can exercise “self-denial” to take “a step toward inner or spiritual betterment” (Stock, 2007: 48). According to Max Weber, “inner worldly asceticism requires the individual to participate in the world… as fulfillment of ascetic obligations… to improve or transform, or radically change the world” (Stock, 2007: 49). This “ascetic readership” has the potential to “be part of a program that has social as well as intellectual goals” (Stock, 2007: 49). Stock describes two types of ascetics: “a religious ascetic,” who tries to achieve “willed victories over temptations,” and “a mystic ascetic” whose goal is “not activity, however defined, but contemplation” (Stock, 2007: 50). For both, bodily and spiritual redemption are intended as a means of purifying the heart and the mind and overcoming temptations. Stock stresses how the ascetic dimension of reading both religious and secular texts persists through ancient and modern periods, and how changing intellectual fashions and formalistic trends in criticism may have obscured this dimension but “people now, as then, have an ascetic outlook” (Stock, 2007: 138).

Both types of ascetics can be found in Islamic sophism. Ideally, all Muslims are required to resist indulgence to worldly temptations, and Islam commends moderation in reactions, consumption, and ingestion. Interpreting a central text like the Qur’an requires what Stock terms an ethical self that is capable of suppressing its “innate fragility” (Stock, 2007: 55). However, it is an ascetic self in the sense that Weber describes—a self that yearns to engage in the world and acquires a transformative insight to improve it. That is, what is required is a reading self that can perceive the text for what it says and not for what the reader wishes it to say.

For Susan Hekman (1995), an ethical self and a moral voice are necessarily contextualized and constituted through their discursive nature. There is no master narrative that can accommodate or control all moral voices. Moral voices do not have to appeal to “universal” principles. Secularists, therefore, cannot claim ethical superiority and morally convict the faithful on the basis of their faith, or vice versa. The emphasis on context and its relation to the text clarifies what many modern Islamic writers have argued: that Islamism should not be excluded from the global discussion on the grounds that it is not a Western discourse. Islamists are currently engaged in raising “the political issues of modernity in a different way, one that changes the parameters of the theoretical discussions set by the West” (Buck-Morss, 2006: 44). Following both Lacan and Žižek, Buck-Morss argues that, even within the Muslim world, Islam has become “a master signifier knitting together the polemic political debates of opposition… though widely-dispersed within cultural life” (Buck-Morss, 2006: 45).

Transcendental ethics, as informed by specific contexts, has been a widely debated issue. Martha Nussbaum, alongside a number of other contemporary philosophers, has offered an alternative position to Kantian transcendental ethical philosophy, rooted in the work of Aristotle. She encourages “a linkage between universal normative principles and contextual factors,” and shows how Aristotle’s ethics recognizes external circumstances and human particularities while remaining attentive to “normative principles of broad applicability” (Hekman, 1995: 38). That is, the reference to the concrete and the specific “does not preclude a universalizing tendency” (Hekman, 1995: 39). Cautious about any relativism that could potentially emerge from a discussion of universalism and particularities, Hekman contends that “moral practices are cultural products, and needs are constituted in different ways in different cultural settings and in varying ways even within cultures” (1995: 40).

The Qur’an frames some common principles, in the light of which it is possible to repudiate claims that it promotes violence. For example, the Qur’an states: “Fight against those who fight against you in the way of Allah, but do not transgress, for Allah does not love transgressors” (2:190). This is a general principle, denoting that, while transgression is forbidden in Islam, fighting back against a certain transgression is permissible. The major theme of Najwa Kamel’s book, The War in the Holy Books (Al-Harbo fil kotobol al-moqaddassa) focuses on the delineation of Qur’anic verses on fighting, highlighting the historical context of each verse to substantiate the above principle.

IV. Interpreting intercultural communication in the Qur’an: Necessities and potential hazards

The exposure of politically “affiliated” or flawed interpretations entails an “ethical” agency that is aware of the Machiavellian working of power. This invokes the connection that Edward Said makes between texts and the existential actualities of human life and culture—the latter being the home where a “range of meanings and ideas” conveyed by language belong (Said, 1991: 8). The uniqueness of the divine language of the Qur’an stems from its being “theologically and humanly circumstantial” (Said, 1991: 46). Esoteric readings can only result in vague abstractions, huge generalizations, and a blurring of “affiliations with the political world” that they maintain (Said, 1991: 292). When an affiliated interpreter “becomes a partner or participant in the transmission of the divine message” (Dallmayr, 2011), this can lead to agitated relations. While humanistic hermeneutics and the democratization of religious faith through freedom of interpretation have their own risks (see Wild, 2012), they still encourage ijtihad, ³ “to face strong opposition of both religious and political elites” (Dallmayr, 2011).

In her feminist reading of women’s status in the Qur’an, Amina Wadud (1999) argues that the Qur’an has been interpreted by men who have patriarchal mentalities, for fourteen centuries. Wadud and Abu Zayd (1996a) contend that reading the Qur’an as a text involves two stages of interpretation: the first is influenced by the reader’s own historical, contextual, and subjective experiences—what Wadud terms “the pre-text phase.” The second stage takes the individual reading to a transcendent level, guided by an objective approach. Whereas the Qur’an is a divine revelation, its interpretation is a human process and the pre-text phase is inherent in any human interpretation. Abu Zayd (1998, 2001a), Wadud (1999), and Barlas (2005) have read the Qur’an in the light of a structuralist approach that is attentive to etymology, syntax, style, and rhetoric: how it says what it says, and the universal vision or implication generated by this mode of textual reading. Abu Zayd’s hermeneutics are sensitive to the temporality of the revelation and propose critical approaches that are grounded in textual literary theories, which are unknown, deemed suspicious, or unappreciated by conventional Islamic scholars. Abu Zayd (1996, 2004) argues that dealing with the Qur’an as a text should not offend Muslims, since the Qur’an is a message relaying God’s speech. Nevertheless, the interpretation of certain verses does not always require specialized linguistic or Qur’anic knowledge; they can be read and understood by the common reader, as will be shown later.

At a later stage, Abu Zayd (2004) found it necessary to develop a reading of the Qur’an that goes beyond its textuality to its discursive dimension. He emphasized the “vertical dimension” of revelation, by which he means the communicative process between God and the Prophet. The Qur’an, a discourse involving God, the wahy (divine revelation/inspiration), and the Prophet, is presented in chronological order in the form of verses and short chapters. The horizontal dimension of the Qur’an as a discourse is embedded in its endless potential to recapture living phenomena and worldly affairs. An exclusive emphasis on the textuality of the Qur’an can risk ignoring its function as “a ‘discourse’ in everyday life,” a function that is crucial to nurturing the Islamic faith of Muslims (Abu Zayd, 2004: 2). Sayyid Qutb argues that, because the Qur’an is the central cultural/religious text of Muslims, confining its analysis to the textual dimension can render its reading an exclusively elitist activity and can “produce either polemic or apologetic hermeneutics,” which are potentially totalitarian (in Euben and Zaman, 2009). “Without re-invoking the living status of the Qur’an as a ‘discourse,’” whether in academia or in everyday life, “no democratic hermeneutics can be achieved” (Abu Zayd, 2006: vii). To explore the assertion that the meaning of the Qur’an is integral to the meaning of life, it is necessary to see the Qur’an as “the outcome of dialogue, debate, argumentation, accepting and rejecting, not only with pre-Islamic norms, practice and culture, but with its own previous assessments, presupposition, assertions” (Abu Zayd, 2004: 3). Recognizing those intrinsic structural components of the Qur’an can “further develop the spiritual and ethical dimension of their tradition,” notwithstanding how the “colonial projects give the people no option but to adapt to the hermeneutics of Islam as an ideology of resistance” (Abu Zayd, 2004: 15).

Because the Qur’an was transmitted in Arabic, its messages cannot be understood without a view to the socio-cultural, political and historical background against which the linguistic system of Arabic was developed. Any canonized human interpretations that are granted sacred status have the danger of equating the absolute (the divine message of the Qur’an) with the relativity and transience of human understanding. Scientific/rational analysis and systematic literary and linguistic exegesis can prove instrumental in curbing such whimsical interpretations of the Qur’an. They also brush away layers of dogmatic and rigid interpretations, transcend—while making use of—the historical meaning of the Qur’an, and unearth the ethical frame of reference of the divine message (Abu Zayd, 1996; Gunther, 2010).

The deployment of a scholarship that has emerged from within Western borders can be seen as alien to the Islamic tradition. However, contemporary Islamic scholars base their interpretations on branches of knowledge, including cultural studies that have been mapped by the collaborative efforts of intellectuals from different parts of the world and not exclusively by the West. In fact, the purity of the origin of any branch of knowledge is a myth. In addition, ethics often resides in methods of applying the tools that are yielded by an epistemological paradigm, be it “pure” or hybrid. Khaled Abou El Fadl contends that Western hermeneutical theories and discourses should be handled with caution by Muslim thinkers, but should not be excluded. For, “transcultural epistemological transplants should thus be executed with ‘measured restraint and a degree of reasonableness so that the receiving body will not violently reject them” (in Taji-Farouki, 2010: 19–20).

V. Current problems and creeping shadows of the past

Violence perpetrated by extremist groups in Muslim and non-Muslim countries has generally provoked both Western hostility to Islam and curiosity about it (Kholayki, 2010). Muslims’ general resentment of the West has been exasperated by political injustices and military mayhem enacted by Western powers, resulting in various wars in the Muslim world. Political Islam, as such, has steadily grown to defend a threatened Islamic identity against diverse forms of Western imperialism that have been historically associated with Christian churches and missionaries which were hardly critical of, if not entirely complicit with, the colonial expansion (A’rawi, 1995). As Charles Ali (1997: 37) has argued, this has generated readings of the Quran that were less consistent with “the deep Qur’anic impulse toward religious freedom,” and more accommodating to a politicized version of Islam. Added to this is the Vatican’s acknowledgement of Islam as a divine religion but its rejection of Muhammad’s status as a prophet (Abu Zayd, 2010).

Put in psychoanalytical terms, negative/belligerent reactions can be symptomatic of an intricate psychological structure roused by the mere existence of one mode of difference or another. This is intensified by religious difference, which can involve ethnic, theological, cultural, political, geographical, or other modes of difference. Within the context of intercultural relations, religious “difference” can trigger and has triggered mutually aggressive responses incited by a threatened ego, which is conscious of a perturbed historical memory between adherents of different religions (see Fanon, 1986/1952).

Žižek (2012: 105–106) explains that Islam has no “father;” its “orphanic” character accounts not only for its actuality but also for “its lack of inherent institutionalization,” thereby opening the door for the religious to overlap with the political and be “co-opted by the state power.” He thinks that the institutionalization of Islam can free it from political manipulation. However, it could just as well render it more subjugated to the monopoly of political regimes in Muslim countries that are far removed from democratic rule. Generally, Muslims are not able to keep pace with the accelerated changes of modernity and to utilize Ijtihad, Shari’a and the Qur’an to cope with those changes (see Kholayki, 2010; Nielsen, 1995).

The failure of Muslim countries to establish real citizenship and democratic systems has led to the emergence of ideological groups aiming for justice and rights through physical and intellectual modes of resistance that claim to be supported by “divine legitimacy,” based on their own readings of the Qur’an. This “legitimized/illegitimate” resistance becomes the marker of an Islamic identity, encouraging the emergence of inimical discourses indicting Islam and Muslims and justifying interventions in the internal affairs of Islamic countries. The sustenance of unpleasant images of Islam has become a tactic for maintaining narratives that validate politico-economic hegemony over Islamic countries. Political interests/affiliations have generated predisposed interpretations that are conducive not only to different versions of Islam, but also, to hostile and misinformed attitudes towards non-Muslims, both within and outside the borders of Islamic countries. This hostility has led to the emergence of some overly apologetic and ultra-humanistic Muslim voices. Riled and embarrassed by atrocities committed in the name of Islam, such voices have become allied with the Islamophobic West. Whereas alliance with the West has become symptomatic of a liberal and progressive identity, antagonism towards the West and many of its symbolic representations, including religious ones, is often perceived as proof of an authentic Islamic identity.

The term “Ahlul Dhimma” ⁴ refers to the subordinate status of non-Muslims in the Muslim community. When it was first coined, this term did not have negative connotations. In fact, the tribute (jizya) corresponds to alms (zakat) that are requested from Muslims (Al-Awwa, 2006). The Romans and the Persians applied a similar practice to the jizya in order to provide protection to minorities. The jizya “originally… was meant to emphasize and safeguard [Christians’] rights in a Muslim State with a Muslim majority, so that any violation of those rights is considered to be directed against God and his Prophet.” In contrast to general belief, the term itself has no permanent Shari’ah values, and if it “offends Christians it can and should be discarded” (Saif, 1995: 127).

Biased projections of Muslims and Islam in the Western media, buttressed by multiple moral discourses, have problematized many aspects of intercultural communication between Muslims and non-Muslims. Belligerent relations can affect issues such as citizenship, minority rights (whether for Muslims in non-Muslim countries or non-Muslims in Muslim countries), human rights, gender, and control of oil resources, among other issues. Thus, for example, the increasingly permanent Muslim presence in the West now constitutes a challenge to Europeans and Americans in matters impinging on individual and collective senses of identity and religious freedom. Nielsen maintains that a pre-existent mono-cultural European society is a “European myth” (Nielsen, 2005: 152; see also Abu Zayd, 2004; Wild, 2012), and that “the history of European culture can be written in terms of constant process of intellectual, artistic, spiritual, and technological cross-fertilization” (Nielsen, 2005: 153). Within the existing power relations of any culture, the minority usually has to adapt to the majority. The generation of young Muslims who were born or have grown up in Europe and have been introduced to a European system of education “are consciously undertaking the analysis of Islam and its cultural expression necessary for Islam to remain meaningful to them and to their children” (Nielsen, 2005: 167). Their insightful perception of Islam can be beneficial to Muslims all around the world (see Ibrahim, 2012).

Within an Islamic context, universal human rights declarations have been criticized as ploys for trespassing on others’ internal affairs, and as insensitive to cultural and religious specificities (Ali, 1997). Stackhouse accuses Islam of being “ill-suited to democratic conceptions of society” and poor in providing “opportunities for freedom of action and association that are characteristic of Western Christianity (in certain cases)” (in Ali, 1997). Even if Muslims suffer from persistent violations of human rights and an absence of real democracy, they do not fail to realize that the rise of human rights discourse in relation to the Muslim world is meant to “construct a moral discourse to justify intervention and domination in much the same way as classical colonialism justified itself by such concepts as extending enlightenment, progress, modernity and education” (Saif, 1995).

VI. Interculturality in the Qur’an

All divine scriptures offer insights into human interrelations. The Qur’an establishes dialogues with all monotheistic religions. Belief in Judaism and Christianity constitutes the third and fourth of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, and the denial of any pillar is an overt act of blasphemy. Interfaith ethics is accentuated in different parts of the Qur’an: “And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, ‘We believe in the Revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; Our Allah and your Allah is one; and it is to Him we bow (in Islam)’” (29:46). The Qur’an encourages neither monoculturalism nor the inherent superiority of one particular civilization over others. Intercultural communication and human difference are valued: “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other)” (13:49).

The Qur’an calls for fighting in the context of self-defense and as an indispensable response to moral provocation and “oppression.” It does not encourage fighting on the basis of religious differences (Ali, 1997; Kamel, 2004; Massouh, 2002). “And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression (2:193). Muslims are advised to fight those who oppressed them because they chose to embrace the new religion. Before the revelation of the above verses, Muslims were directed only to preach the message of God and be patient with those who were hostile to them. Later on, when they gained more power and their small state had been established in Medina, they were instructed to fight the pagans for their persistent aggression against the Muslims ⁵ and not for their rejection of the new faith.

The Qur’an repeatedly urges Muslims to respect their treaties: “if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (guarantees of) peace, then Allah hath opened no way for you (to war against them)” (4:90). In addition, the Qur’an sets out rules for the conduct of behavior during wars: “O ye who believe! Violate not the sanctity of the Symbols of Allah, nor of the Sacred Month, nor of the animals brought for sacrifice, nor the garlands that mark out such animals, nor the people resorting to the Sacred House, seeking of the bounty and good pleasure of their Lord” (5:2). In the sixth year of the Hijrah, the Pagans persecuted the Muslims and prevented them from access to the Sacred Mosque. When the Muslims were re-established in Mecca, some of them wanted to retaliate. The Qur'an makes it clear that hatred should not justify hostility: “let not the hatred of some people in (once) shutting you out of the Sacred Mosque lead you to transgression (and hostility on your part)” (5:2).

The right of non-Muslims to enjoy justice in any Muslim community is indispensable to the concept of the divine justice (Abu Zayd, 2001a). “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just” (60:8). Based on many verses (2:177), neither atheism, polytheism, paganism, or feelings of grudges should obstruct the implementation of justice (Ali, 1997; Engineer, 1997): “O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to Piety: and fear Allah” (5:8). Even if the Qur’an regards idolaters as erroneous, still “their case will go to Allah” (Ali, 1997: 33), and Muslims are advised not to harbor any enmity towards them. God lays out rules for dealing with idolaters: “If any of the idolaters ask you for protection, give them protection until they have heard the words of God. Then convey them to a place where they are safe” (9:6).

Abu Zayd (2001) argues that relational terms between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Qur’an are based on specific historical occurrences, rather than on theological differences. Sayyed Qutb points out how some people treat each verse as a final Islamic rule irrespective of its historical context. He confirms that “Islam does not force people to accept its beliefs; rather, it aims to provide an environment where people enjoy full freedom of belief” (Euben and Zaman, 2009: 146). Nurcholish Majid maintains that “it is God, not the state that will pass judgment on apostasy.” He explains that a death penalty for apostasy was implemented in the past as a result of “a specific interaction of event, circumstance, place and time. That interaction was in the past, and the ruling is no longer applicable” (Johns and Saeed, 2010: 84). For the general principle in the Qur'an is “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (2:256). According to Al-Awwa (2006), equal citizenship rights must be guaranteed to all. He cites incidents that triggered sectarian violence between Muslims and Copts in parts of Egypt as a result of mutual intolerance and bigotry. However, he is very critical of those who seek protection from the West to solve problems, which ideally should be taken care of by the state as part of its duty to safeguard the rights of its citizens, irrespective of their religious belief. He quotes Pope Shenouda as saying that it is Egypt’s Muslims who can protect the Copts of Egypt, and not America and the West.

The Qur’an attends to incongruities among Muslims: “If two parties among the Believers fall into a quarrel make ye peace between them: but if one of them transgresses beyond bounds against the other, then fight ye (all) against the one that transgresses until it complies with the command of Allah; but if it complies, then make peace between them with justice, and be fair: for Allah loves those who are fair (and just)” (49:9–10). Making peace with the conflicting parties is encouraged. If peace efforts fail, then those who are transgressed against should be supported, regardless of their denomination. The verses do not refer to detailed theological differences between the conflicting parties, nor do they condition support relative to certain theological beliefs as opposed to others. Coexistence is the ideal situation, but transgressors should be stopped, even if force is necessary. It is worth mentioning that the two major Islamic denominations, Shiite and Sunni, were created three decades after the revelation owing to political disagreements, and intricate theological differences started to surface and broaden many years after (Al-Ghazali, 2007).

The verses that have been cited explicitly clarify the ethical principles underlying intercultural communication in Islam. Comprehending the above verses and many others does not always require the assistance of a jurist, a theologian, or even a linguist; rather, it requires an “ethical” self that is true to the messages that the verses communicate and calls attention to their temporal contexts.

VII. Conclusion

As the study has shown, there are many verses in the Qur'an that urge Muslims to fight and use force. Interpreting those verses in isolation of their historical contexts and other “ethical” principles that the Qur'an calls for has endangered, rather gravely, many aspects pertaining to intercultural communication between the Muslim world and the West and individual Muslims' outlook for the different “other.” Based on those interpretations, Islamic terrorists have indiscriminately attacked people and places within and outside the Islamic countries and disturbed socio-cultural interactions, seeking hereby God's blessings and an eternal heaven as a reward. While political oppression has encouraged an ideological interpretation/manipulation of the Qur'an, it also has led to blurring an informed understanding of many concepts in the Qur'an. For example, the following verse urges the killing of the polytheists: “And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush” (9:4). Extremists have interpreted the command to kill as one with an absolute value and as applicable in all circumstances and at all times. They did not pay attention to the specific ruling of the verse nor to the historical context ⁶ of its citation—one that is related to fighting those pagans who broke the peace treaty with the Muslims in the tenth year of Hijri. ⁷

The world will not benefit if the Qur’an’s messages are interpreted as being antagonistic to the “other.” Unsubstantiated and de-contextualized readings tend to breed more abhorrence and violence on the ground. This is why it has become necessity to cite the above verses and delineate the principles that underlie them. Making use of Qur'anic interpretations informed by “ethical” politics is indispensable to rectifying attitudes and misconceptions related to intercultural communication in Islam and other issues. An ethical politics of interpretation, I have argued, is rooted in verified, systematic, and rational approaches introduced by modern scholars like Abu Zayd and Wadud as well as older scholars like Al-Gazli. This is, however, not to ignore that the Qur'an includes verses that are highly enigmatic and symbolic in their nature and can have labyrinth of meanings (see Sura 3: 7).

The ethics behind intercultural communication in the Qur’an is based on our shared humanity and contoured by worldly affairs and the urge to resist oppression and aggression—even by force. Many atrocities perpetrated against Muslims have contributed to the formation of imaginary versions of Islam. Each version sets its own criterion for defining aggression and what counts as “the truth” about modes of resistance. In fact, the state itself, and not only extremist Islamists, has become the primary agency of this politicization. The state-controlled religious media, representatives, and institutes operate shrewdly at times and bluntly at others to sustain the power of the state and banish/punish its opponents. The current perilous mystifications/interpretations of Islamic concepts are better understood in the light of world politics and power affiliations. However, reformation from an Islamic context requires developing a credible Islamic discourse that derives its legitimacy from Islamic “essentials” rather than from exclusively predefined Western “liberalism” or “secularism,” or non/state traditional religious authority.

Interfaith dialogues can contribute to building useful intercultural trajectories. The Qur’an encourages dialogue with non-Muslims and among Muslims and acknowledges “human difference” as an indispensable human condition. Say, “O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you—that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah” (3:64). The Qur’anic ethics supports the possibility of integrating plurality and interreligious relations in an institutional framework without jeopardizing religious or cultural specificities. Charles Ali (1996) argues that the Qur’an supports rights on a human rather than a religious basis, and defines co-existence as an intrinsic value of Islam. He concludes that “much concurrence” exists “regarding the underlying commitments of Islam and the West to religious liberty” (Ali, 1996: 37).

A Muslim−Christian dialogue has now been active for almost half a century (Al-Awwa, 2006). Many issues have been addressed, including Christian missions in the Muslim world, the heritage of Abraham, Western Christianity vis-à-vis Arab Christianity, religions and politics, gender and scriptures, democracy and human rights, and more. Many of the interfaith institutes and groups have consented not to discuss theological differences in their platforms. The Arab Group for Muslim−Christian Dialogue, based in Lebanon since 1995, agreed in their covenant “Dialogue and Coexistence” to call their dialogues “a dialogue of life.” ⁸ The Qur’an and Christianity are different in their projection of the quintessence of Jesus Christ (4:171). However, the Qur’an stresses that faith in God binds humans together: “For all those who believe in Allah and in the Last Day and do good deeds—be they either believers, Jews, Sabaeans or Christians—neither fear shall fall upon them, nor shall they have any reason to grieve (5:69).

Many dialogues have rectified attitudes, clarified perceptions, produced common statements, and led to mutual commitments. Even so, interfaith activities have mostly been confined to the participation of the educated and the elites. Skepticism about their feasibility continues. There will be more progress if genuine attempts are made at enabling interfaith and intercultural ethics to become mainstream. This is another area that needs further study and exploration.