MULTI-INTERPRETABILITY OF THE QUR'AN Dr. Enes Kariæ " MULTI-INTERPRETABILITY OF THE QUR'ANAND THE PROBLEM OF FUTURE INTERPRETATIONS OF ISLAM " There is no need to insist too much on the widely known notion of the Muslim world, nor is there any need for the claim, repeated so many times in numerous books and texts in the form of undisputed, categorical fact, that this world is the most turbulent part of the world. Namely, the Islamic or Muslim world, in the XIX and XX centuries, according to the prevailingly Western calendar (i.e., in the era of Islamic XIII and XIV centuries), certainly belongs to the politically, militarily, economically (speaking in terms of statehood)... most turbulent, most unstable and most uncertain state which has lasted for a long period of time. This is particularly true of the second half of the XX century. This whole unrest and instability is also reflected in the treatment of the Qur'an in the contemporary Islamic world, not only in terms of its approaches and legal and political projects, where the Qur'an has been exploited with varying intensity through the "Islamic socialisms" and "Islamic capitalisms", or else "Islamic revolutions", but also through the exegetic and hermeneutic approaches to the Qur'an in general, both at Eastern and Western universities, where its word has been elaborated in accordance with the changes and uncertainties of the modern world and modern trends. These trends come in waves, like fashion trends, most frequently from the West and its capitalist and socialist-communist cradles that had existed and are still existent in the XX century, catching hold of the Islamic world in the domain of: law, economy, philosophy, politics, science, media, mass culture... Given the present state of the Islamic world and Muslims in general, we consider that the interpretation of Islam and the Qur'an in the XXI century will, to a great extent, be determined by what has happened in the XX century. The modern era, when it comes to the Muslim treatment of the Qur'an, is in many a way similar to the era when the Islamic East was penetrated by Greek philosophy. But, unlike the then rather well-prepared and dignified Muslim attitude towards the Hellenic heritage in general, when the Muslim authorities, politicians and intellectuals were establishing distinguished translation centers (where the Greek, and the Hellenistic, as well as other legacies of the ancient world, had first been interpreted before their contents were accepted), nowadays, an incredible variety of scientific fashions, political systems, legal experiments, ephemeral cultural trends have literally been flooding the Muslim world. There is another important parallel between the penetration of Hellenic heritage into the Islamic East and the current breakthrough of Western modernist and secular teachings in this world. The thing is that in those times of Hellenic heritage and Greek philosophy there was no Greek soldiers, nor was there any Hellenistic economic, political and secular force to march alongside them. Today, on the other hand, Western teaching arrived, followed by Western, primarily, military and economic force. Today, it is the Western soldier that always stands behind the crucial principles of the modern Western world: this is how the Islamic world has experienced the West in the new era which represents the focal resume of the Muslim notion of the West. Some contemporary Islamic scholars interpret and view these current metamorphoses of Muslim understanding of the Qur'an, above all, as the consequence of an inferior or several inferior states of the Muslim intellectual world, primarily in the domain of natural and technical sciences, but the inferior submission to the West is also evident in the university and, generally speaking, in the school programs, as well as the curricula of philosophy, psychology, history, sociology and many other educational and scientific disciplines taught in the universities of Muslim countries. We could almost precisely identify the determinants of such a state of affairs in the present Muslim endeavors in the economy, politics, law, even on the level of studying the Qur'an and approaches to the Qur'an. No doubt that the following determinants &e the most significance ones: the incapability of most of the Muslim countries to find their own successful models of development, their incapability to observe them efficiently - the task of those models being to elaborate and effectively process the powerful influences of the West and to enter a dignified dialogue with them; the neglect of traditional Muslim "models of democracy", and non-observance of the present, most efficient democratic models of the political, legal, judicial and state system structures as well as the lack of their implementation in practice; economic under-development; post-colonial or else, mere semi-colonial (some call it neocolonial) existence of Muslim countries. Their post-colonial, semi-colonial or else neocolonial status is transparent in the instability of their political systems, their undefined economic development and in the anarchy of their educational and cultural systems. Very few of the nowadays called "Muslim" countries could be described as countries with respectable economies and stable, although not always and not in all aspects, democratic systems. Primarily, it is Malaysia, the countries of the Gulf and, in one way or another, Morocco, Brunei and countries similar to these. The Muslim world would, despite the powerful influence of Islamic faith and traditions that is felt in all paths of life as a universally recognizable Islamic tonality, certainly be, in the upcoming century, a region of instability, wars, conflicts, military juntas and unrest.. Besides, the Muslim world encompasses the zone of greatest world turbulence, thus the patterns and models which it is offered in order to recover from this long lasting and deep crisis, as well as those offering those models, are numerous and often do not merely differ amongst themselves but are even mutually opposed. II In order to show the level of divergence and the lack of systematic order present today in the treatment of the Qur'an in the political and legal systems of Muslim countries, and in order to point out what most probably awaits us in the century before us in terms of understanding and interpreting Islam, it is necessary to cast a glance, from a somewhat more distant perspective and in most general notions, at the overall treatment of the Qur'an in the Muslim world in the XX century. The XIX and the XX centuries, according to the Western calendar, offered the most divergent approaches to the Qur'an, ranging from the traditionally Islamic to the psychoanalytical! Practically speaking, the types of intelligentsia and Ulama that existed in the Islamic world, the types of both Eastern and Western universities they attended have always been followed by the kind of treatment the Qur'an faced in the XIX and the XX centuries. Examples that, as we said, are related to the variety prevailing within the different types of Islamic mind of the modern era are many. For instance, if Descartes' Debate on Method was the favorite reading among Persian scientific circles, then its consequence has been the appearance of many works that have inaugurated the application of Cartesian analysis in the Qur'anic text. Or else, in those parts of the Muslim world where Auguste Comte represented European science, there have been works published which view the Qur'an, and Islam in general, through the lenses of positivist teaching. Needless to mention specifically that Darwin, Bergson and others were the dominant thinkers of the era when the theory of evolution was fashionable in Islamic scientific circles - particularly in those circles where English and French, due to colonialism, had had a longer tradition. Thus many Muslim university circles got very excited about evolution and evolutionism, moreover, they became more agile promoters of this Westernism then most of the Western evolutionists themselves! In their works, the Qur'an is interpreted as the fundamental and, practically, the "source" book of evolution, while the key elements of the Qur'an, the religious and religious-ethical ones, are almost neglected. Just like evolution became fashionable among university circles, thus the Muslim political elite of the XX century embraced revolution as the new fashion! The Muslim critics of this variety and diversity and Islamic theoreticians of this lack of systematic approach towards the study of the Qur'an interpret, in the Muslim world today, this state of affairs primarily as "the law of void in the social world". The classical Muslim code both in the social and natural sciences ceases to be efficient and is lost, while a new Muslim code has not yet been found, therefore, every attempt to "return" to the classical Islamic tradition as a ready-made matrix has definitely become pointless, no matter how this matrix used to be and could again be efficient. This void in the Islamic world has now been filled by the scientific systems born in the West. The way out of this state probably lies in the fact that Muslims are now confronted with the task of acknowledging and learning their classical traditions from their own, i.e. present, point of view. That should be followed by their re-elaboration and re-adoption of this tradition by way of acquiring efficient knowledge - contemporary knowledge - that needs new interpretation. The Muslim world today does not possess a flexible and widely recognizable (within themselves) Islamic code regarding the study of the Qur'an, and, consequently, in the interpretation of the world, for that very same reason - the mainstream of Muslim intellectuals are taking a wrong approach to their classical heritage in the same way as a closed and ready made material needs only to be touched with a magic wand and - all the solutions for "all the times and all the places" are there... as it is repeatedly claimed these days! The problem of Muslim "fundamentalists" and revivalists lies in the very fact that they have never fully comprehended that the Islamic tradition is not the treasury to be reached by the miraculous touch of the magic wand! It is this struggle between the "fundamentalists" and the revivalists, on one hand, and all other Muslims, be they modernists or the followers of traditional Islam, on the other, that would mark the process of defining Islam and the Muslim being in the XXI century. The debate between these forces will mark the intellectual history of the XXI century Muslim world. It needs to be said that in the first six centuries of Islam we did not have a consciousness that was uniform, a cliche like the "fundamentalists", revivalists, etc., and we did not have that due to the fact that there used to be a universally recognizable matrix of classical Muslim mind and world. That matrix had interpreted the world in the Qur'an and the Qur'an in the world in an efficient way - within the context of its own time and in harmony with that time - a fact that can be found and encoded in the numberless writings from that period that show us the existence of a single Islamic tonality in political, economic, literary, cultural life of the then Muslim nations. The sovereign spirit and the sovereignty of the spirit emerges equally in the writings of Al-Biruni, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina, Ibn 'Arabi, Ibnu 1-Haytam... In the XIX and XX centuries there has not been a universally prevailing, flexible matrix in the Muslim world nor have there been any mutually tolerating matrices in the interpretation of the Qur'an. Instead, the Islamic intellectual scene is caught in a fierce battle between, above all, all of the "fundamentalists" and revivalists, on one hand, and all the others, on the other. In principle, the modernists are turned towards the future, they have good knowledge of the modern world, but to a great extent they reject the Islamic tradition even before getting to know it. The "fundamentalists" and the revivalists, on the other hand, have poor knowledge of the modern world and live in the cozy but inefficient silence of a dead tradition which most often has nothing in common with modern life and which they fail to interpret in the context of, and in harmony with, their own time. The revivalists would like to go to the future walking backwards, actually, that is exactly what they do indeed. The modernists, on the other hand, want to go towards the future without getting to know and interpreting their tradition, relieved of its burden completely! The battle between revivalism and modernism could be seen equally in theology and in practice, as well as in philosophy, law, polities, the economy... an aspect to be discussed shortly. Given that the modernists have proclaimed all the older and classical exegeses sterile and outlived instead of approaching them while interpreting them from the perspective of their own epoch, what has happened is a flood of immature and unnatural syntheses between Western science and, most directly, the Qur'anic text. In order to understand better what has happened in the domain of law, politics, the economy..., let us mention, for the purpose of initial illustration, how the Muslim modernists interpret the correspondence of "scientific discoveries" with the text of the Qur'an, i.e., how they consider that it is the Qur'an that had "anticipated" this and such Western science. The Muslim modernists have proclaimed that Qur'an is the most perfect codex of science existing or that could exist in the universe! For the sake of apology for this stance they have often quoted the segment (VI, 59); "And there is no seed in the darkness of the Earth, nor is there anything fresh, or dry, that had not been in the clear Book!" Reducing the Qur'an to a desired field, the modernists considered that there was a huge domain offered to them to show "the harmony between faith and reason", "the correspondence of the Qur'an and Western science", etc. This is where the modernists were highly uncritical. Thus, if a second-rate scientist in the West appeared with the idea that the essence of matter in its final consequences is gas, the modernists would hurry to "find the proof' for this in the Qur'an (XLI, 11); "Then he took over the Sky, and it was a fog..." When there was a discovery according to which everything in the universe is floating, the modernists quoted the segment (XXXVI, 40) that reads: "Neither the Sun must reach the Moon, nor the night must precede the day. And everything in the universe is floating!" The modern cosmological theories did not escape the modernist interpretations of the Qur'an. If science offered the theory of the "Big Bang", there were numerous modernist circles in the Muslim world who delightedly cited the Qur'anic verse (XXI, 30): "Can't those who do not believe see that both the heavens and the Earth had been one whole, only to separate through the course of time?!" The so-called "scientific interpretation of the Qur'an" in the XX century has become a mass phenomenon for wide consumption which had never happened before with any of the classical methods of interpretation. The commentaries of Al-Tabari and Ibn al-'Arabi have never become the Qur'anic commentaries for the masses! The claim that the "scientific interpretation of the Qur'an" has become massive today is particularly relevant to the Arab world, but, to a somewhat lesser extent, to other Muslims regions or for segments of its Diaspora. In the great centers of the Muslim world, Cairo, for example, in the street book stands, one can always find the miles' long offer of booklets, the so-called latest "scientific" interpretations of the Qur'an. These are very cheap books and are printed in enormous numbers, satisfying the interests of a mainly less-educated population that had moved from the country to the capital throughout the last century. These brochures contain various themes, ranging from the evolutionary interpretation of the Qur'an, to contemporary "scientific discoveries", e.g., "black holes". Often, in these booklets, one can find the theories that have ceased to be fashionable in the West, if ever they had been in fashion in serious circles of Western science! This literature, naturally, also represents a sort of psychological defense and it speaks more of the spiritual state and the mentality structure of the widest strata of the lower and middle classes of the Muslim world, than of the genuinely serious intellectual and mental endeavors to see whether the Qur'an is in contradiction with what is nowadays considered to be "modern science III Let us turn now, for a while, to the treatment of the Qur'an in the political and legal systems of Muslim countries today. Those who master the contemporary legal systems of the part of the East most marked by Islam (e.g., the author S.H. Amin in his work Middle East Legal Systems, 1985), claim that these systems could be divided into three groups: fully developed legal systems (Turkey, Iran, Syria), less developed legal systems (Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates), and finally, undeveloped legal systems (Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Kuwait) where the aforementioned countries, as well as other similar countries have legal systems that are in the early stage of development. With the exception of Turkey, and several other examples, all the Muslim countries cite Islam in their legal and political policy, most of them quote it in their constitutions, or the laws that have the power of a constitutional act, claiming that Islam is their "state religion", etc. Where are the motives and reasons behind these persistent claims of the Qur'an and Islam? The signatory of these lines would not say that all those regimes that claim they observe the Qur'an and Islam, or recognize "Islam as the state religion" are doing it out of genuinely Islamic motives! At least, it is not that all the ruling elites are honestly faithful to Islamic motives. It is rather that behind these claims there is a hidden objective of contemporary Muslim state establishments to control Islam, particularly to control the Islam that is present among their Ulama and their popular masses. We use the term "masses" and not "nations", because these regimes in Muslim countries do perceive their people as the masses! Muslim states exercise this control over the interpretation of the Qur'an, and Islam, and consequently, the channeling of the "desirable interpretation of Islam from the position of the state and society", mainly via the so-called ministries of the vakufs (wizarat al-awkaf), while somewhere, state control over Islam and the interpretation of the Qur'an is exercised through the "supreme councils for Islamic affairs" (Al-majlisu l-A'la li sh-shu'ni l-islamiyyati). Even in secular Turkey, there is a sector called the department of religious affairs - "Diyanat". From this state of affairs and the like, and the attitude of contemporary regimes in Muslim countries towards Islam and the Qur'an, one can find numerous consequences, but what is most significant for us here is to underline that it has become more than clear that Islam in the modern national or quasi-national Muslim states is reduced to no more than yet another governmental sector, or sector equal to others, e.g., one that stands along with the sectors of economy, youth and sports etc.. Despite the state rhetoric, broadcast via powerful state media, that Islam is above everything, even above the state itself, when things are watched closely, the state is actually above Islam and the Qur'an itself! Political pragmatism of the state uses Islam as the mobilizing force, often as the source of its legitimacy and sovereignty... Within the Muslim movements during the stage of the anti-colonial struggle, or the struggle to establish nation-states, there prevailed Qur'anic and Islamic rhetoric, and less often, nationalistic rhetoric ('Ali Jinah and the Muslim League in India and, later, in Pakistan, claimed that Pakistan had been established "solely because of Islam"; Ala Al-Fasi in Morocco, Ben Bella in Algeria, Nasser and the "Free Officers" in Egypt, etc., all of them and all in their own way used Islamic and Qur'anic rhetoric, either to maintain a monarchist regime, to establish so-called Islamic socialism, or else rigid Arab nationalism). Even the Baasi (socialist and communist) parties, that had either local, nationalistic and mobilizing, or else pan-Arabic rhetoric, have often used Islamic and Qur'anic terminology and discourse in a wide spectrum. Let us not forget that both on the Iraqi and Iranian flags there is the most frequently used word of the Qur'an inscribed - Allah - although all the blind men of this world could easily know that these two countries are greatly different both in terms of their regimes and their peoples! Let us recall, also, that the communist party of Palestine is advocating jihad, that very frequent Qur'anic word, claiming that it is a class struggle. The exception to all the above said is the Ataturq's movement that did not use the rhetoric of Islam and the Qur'an, but thrived to establish a national Turkish state, to separate faith from state, to introduce secular laws, etc. Ataturq's political and national project went so far that many of his most faithful and ardent advocates and protagonists are trying to nationalize, i.e. "turkify" Islam, even, through translations of the Qur'an -they want to "turkify" the holy text itself! But, it will not be so easy, and certainly, the Turkish nationalists will lose the battle in this field! But, if we set these exceptions aside, the fact remains that the regimes in Muslim countries are very much counting on the understandable power that a government that controls the symbolic wealth and tradition of Islam and its very strong mobilizing force, can win over the Islamic sentiments among the people. IV Eventually, Muslim countries got rid of colonialism, at least the practical, physical presence of colonial powers on their soil. But, with their rise to power, the Muslim post-colonial governments have very few alternatives before them, because they had to confront the process of modernization of the legal, judicial, educational and other important state systems and sectors on one hand, and the nationalization of all these systems on the other! From the "revolutionary" and "anti-colonial" Qur'anic and Islamic rhetoric, these post-colonial regimes in Muslim countries were compelled to use the Qur'anic word for the purpose of supporting modernist projects. In the Arab and Muslim press of the sixties and seventies we noticed a sudden change in these two types of political use of the Qur'an and Islam: the revolutionary and liberationist interpretation of the Qur'anic word had been forgotten to be replaced by titles such as "The Qur'an and Education", "The Qur'an and Progress", "Why the Muslims are Undeveloped", "The Qur'an and the Nation", "The Qur'an and the State". The post-colonial regimes could have often, and they certainly have, been changed, being very often replaced by military coups that have caused bloodshed, where military juntas have many times grabbed power and toppled the "legally elected" predecessor, but in this post-colonial era the Qur'an has prevailingly served to justify the programs of modernization, arabization/nationalization, the general ideologization, etc. Sudan's case, and to be honest, in most of the Islamic countries', is more illustrative than exceptional. Sudan acquired independence in 1956 and its parliament was then made up of nationalist members who had waged the struggle against British colonial rule. However, in 1958 General Ibrahim Abboud instigated a military coup and toppled the government, with the rhetoric that, being nationalist, it did not serve Islam and the people. In 1964, teachers, educated elite and students launched a general strike against General Abboud who was then forced to withdraw and hand over power to a civilian government. But, in 1969 colonel Gaafar Nimeiri took control over the government, banned all political parties and arrested most of the leading politicians. Nimeiri became the President of Sudan at the end of 1971. Although Sudan adopted a new constitution in 1973, Gaafar Nimeiri did, using all the possible "Islamic reasons", introduce the Shariat law in Sudan. It is for this, and mainly for the provisions of the Shariat-based criminal code, that he was widely criticized in the West. The conflicts in the prevailingly Christian and animistic south of Sudan had broken out, the country became weakened, and in 1985, a group of officers forced Nimeiri to relinquish power. Another military man took power, another general this time. His name was Abdul Rahman Suwar El-Dahab, who again banned all political parties and established military rule, justifying these actions by the need for "unity of the country and the people that the Qur'an calls upon". However, he soon allowed the return of political parties and elections were even held in 1986. Sadiq al-Mahdi, the leader of the Umma party was appointed prime-minister. There is no need to mention again that all the protagonists of these removals and appointments used, to a great extent, rhetoric of a largely profane "political Islam". The best proof of this is the military upheaval in June 1989 undertaken by General Omer Hassan al-Bashir. This Al-Bashir had been in the lead of a group of officers who overthrew the prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, with the pretext that al-Mahdi wanted to "dethronize the Shariat" and that the military "could never allow it". Political parties in Sudan are now banned, all except for the Islamic National Front, which conducts an overall Islamization of the society and has a typical "Qur'anic and Islamic" rhetoric of prosperity, with Hassan al-Turabi as its lead ideologist. One of the most famous slogans of this country today is: Be good to God and develop agriculture"! Going to another linguistic and cultural zone of the Muslim world, the Indo-Pakistani one, Pakistan, like Sudan in the Arab zone, only more prominent, is far from being the only example! The Muslim League led by the lawyer Ali Jinah succeeded in separating from India and thus Pakistan gained independence in 1947. It can be seen from the documents that the Muslim League used Islamic political rhetoric, while Pakistan was called the "political and state project for the sake of Islam". (There is one simplified comparison of modern Turkey and modern Pakistan, the former being created for the sake of the nation, the latter - for the sake of Islam! Time will show us where the truth lies). However, upon gaining independence, Jinah and later the leaders of the Muslim League gave up this rhetoric and introduced, i.e., kept, almost completely, British civil legislation. There were fierce protests, particularly from Al-Mawdudi's Jama'ati Islami Party, which ever since its beginnings had exclusive and totally "Islamic and Qur'anic political rhetoric". The history of Pakistan since 1947 till today has been a history of violent succession of civil and military rule. Of course, all these changes have been explained and justified by both politicians and military protagonists, among other things, as being motivated by "Islam". The first president, general Iskander Mirza and other military leaders were in power in Pakistan during the fifties and sixties. The most striking example of the clash between civil and military authorities was the one between Ah Bhutto and general Zia ul Haq. In 1977, the latter, overthrew Ali Bhutto and ordered his execution in prison in 1979. General Zia ul Haq, meanwhile, set a tailor-made election system to allow multi-party elections but again, in 1985, he toppled the prime minister and civil authorities. But he himself was killed in a 1988 airplane accident. There is no need to mention here that it was this very general, Zia ul Haq who was a great political pragmatist in terms of his political use of the Qur'an and Islam, i.e., the people who believe in the Qur'an and Islam. With the exception of the kingdoms of Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, more or less, and in the periods that might have been shorter or longer, all the Arab countries have been under the rule of military regimes that rose to power by "toppling the government or the king who had cared little for the people and Islam". Algeria is today the most prominent and the least predictable example of this struggle for power in which all sides, both the government and the revolted and divided nation, use, with different intensity and success, the terminology of the "political discourse of Islam". The Qur'anic text has been used in a utilitarian and politically pragmatic manner, its, essentially religious and ethical principles are used as the basis for deducing political and economic constructions, hastily created and in accordance with political pragmatism, with great chances to be compromised and to fail. It is necessary to mention, in this context, that the XX century has witnessed the use of the Qur'anic text in many a revolutionary rhetoric of the socialist, Arabic or else Islamic type. The scale of failure of the socialist and Arabic revolutions in Muslim countries is widely acknowledged and self-evident. What remains to be seen is the fate of the project called "Islamic revolution" in Iran, which demands quite a historical distance. Still, this revolution was carried out with far fewer casualties than any of the numerous European revolutions whose death-tolls were dozens of millions of human lives. In the period of the sixties and seventies, the most frequent titles of political pamphlets produced in Arabic and Islamic countries and by their party ideologists from the ranks of military juntas, were "Islam and Socialism", "The Qur'an and Work", "The Qur'an and Equality", "Arabism and Socialism", "Islamic Socialism - What is it?", "Islam and the Nation". It is necessary here to draw a significant parallel between such a pragmatic political use of the Qur'anic text and the centuries old matrix of classical interpretation of the Qur'an. First, in the classical era, the Qur'anic text was not treated directly as a political, legal, economic..., text, but as the source of law, the source and inspiration of economic ethics and just performance of business, the source of inspiration of a just rule and the moral authority above it, etc. In the modern political, economic, legal..., simplifications of the Qur'anic text the opposite is happening: the Qur'anic paragraphs become political slogans, and quite often, the slogans for economic action (the so-called "Islamic five-year plans", etc.), while, somewhere (Talibans, Algeria, etc.) the Qur'anic text is being compromise in a most vulgar manner - by "urgent actions and direct application", without the courts and procedure, a practice unknown to the classical period of Muslim state systems. In present day Algeria, there are cases commented also by a distinguished authority, sheih AL-Qaradawi, which show that even some groups of young men from certain parts of the country proclaim "jihad" against entire villages in other areas. These groups, obviously, consider that it is sufficient to read the Qur'anic text and start immediate action, without any respect for the legitimacy and legality of the Ulama, the government authorities, disregarding the issue of who is really qualified to interpret the Qur'anic text, etc. The consequences of this situation are disastrous, the gravest being the so-called "al-takfir", the manner of proclaiming all other Muslim political opponents as nonbelievers! 'In the present Islamic world, "takfir" is widely used, both by regimes and by militant groups, who are labeled "fundamentalist" by the West, while they often call themselves 'Islamic". It is this political simplification and use of the Qur'an and Islam, carried out by regimes, that inspired and enabled the appearance of another phenomenon - that has lasted for quite a long period in the XX century - the phenomenon of "alternative interpretations of Islam". Many movements, in present literature defined as "Islamic", "Islamist" and in the West most frequently labeled "fundamentalist", have appeared with the objective of revelation and offering of the so-called "authentic interpretation of Islam and the Qur'an". The movement of the "Muslim Brothers" (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) is particularly prominent. According to some, it appeared in Arabia in the XIX century and spread later to Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Numerous intellectuals (members of the "Muslim Brothers", most often belonging to technical and scientific circles) ignore the authority of traditional ulama in their political programs, while they consider the Sufi orders "weak and slack". The ulama lives from Islam not for Islam, is the frequent slogan of the "Muslim Brothers". They consider that the ulama as such should be rejected because it is subservient to the state. Besides, the right wing segments of the "Muslim Brothers" proclaim very often that all the existing regimes and states in Muslim countries are "un-Islamic", "usurping" and "unbelieving". The Qur'an is considered, in the writings and pamphlets of the "Muslim Brothers", to be the only "constitution", other constitutions are taken as unnecessary and redundant. These attitudes of the "Muslim brothers" are most often defined as the "reasonable and logical" approach towards the Qur'an. The slogans "let us return to the Qur'an", "let us return to the First and genuine practice of the Muslims" are the most widely heard, but it is never with any detail that the explanation is offered regarding the issue of how V) perform that "return". Besides, the "Muslim Brothers" are principally against nation-states, "because the only homeland for the Muslims is Islam!" Moreover, stress is put on pan-Islamism, I would add a romantic pan-Islamism which is an important aspect of their use of the Qur'an and Islam in strengthening the "Islamic international". Still, the parties of the "Muslim Brothers" or else the parties following their ideology do not win political elections even in the countries where those elections, whatever they may be, are held! The nationalistic and Arabic parties in this respect, at least today, have been the historical winners. Therefore, many ideologists of the ihwano-Muslim movement claim that the course needs to be changed and "delusions on the national question" and on the "nation-state" corrected. The Islamic world today lives it state and political being in some fifty-something Muslim (Islamic) countries. The national or quasi-national nation-state is a fact present for decades now. There is no doubt that the "Muslim Brothers" with their concepts so far of their own interpretation of the Qur'an and Islam do not have and most probably would not have in the future, any political opportunities. Moreover, even when they are close to the authorities and power or participate in it, they have contributed greatly to the discrediting of the project of "political Islam". The Egyptian state, since Al-Naser to Al-Mubarak, has had rather unstable relations with the "Muslim Brothers". Anwar al-Sadat used them as a parliamentary force in his struggle against the Russian influence (after turning towards a pro-American policy) and, consequently, struggle against the left, but also in order to arrange favorable setting of political factors and forces in the country and to suppress the primacy of the nationalistic parties. But, he was himself assassinated by the "Muslim Brothers" who had condemned him, on the "basis of the Qur'anic texts", for not being a believer, upon his signing peace with Israel. The general feature of the "Muslim Brothers" movement is their conviction that it is "necessary and urgent to apply the orders of the Qur'an and that God Himself would later offer help". But what is most often ignored here is the first and foremost use of the Qur'an in the VII century occurred over a long period of time, not by sheer and naive automatism, and that enormous human efforts and mental and intellectual endeavors had been invested to find adequate practical solutions for the then society on the ground of the Qur'anic texts. There are many who claim that it would be far wiser for the "Muslim Brothers" to have studied the European democratic system and then offered, on the basis of a strong Qur'anic inspiration regarding justice, moral conduct in business, equality, etc., the concepts appropriate to each of their societies in modern times. It is very difficult now to win politically, no matter how pious and devout a Muslim one is, simply with mere quotations of the Qur'an as slogans, ignoring at the same time the fact that in Europe free political elections and multi-party systems are fully functioning together with stable economies, fair business relations, etc... There are more and more Muslim authors who claim that it is not possible to carry out an effective reform in the Muslim world unless the positive experience of the West and the world as a whole in the field of efficient functioning of the state, judiciary, elections and whatever is today considered to make a democracy, are taken into account! In other words, all these institutions could be "islamized" with adequate an engagement of traditional Muslim mind that would know how to use the Qur'anic texts as an inspiration today, not only in the domain of faith and ethics, but also in the field of the economy, law, efficient institutions... The problem is, therefore, that the Muslims today are not able to find a dynamic, responsible and tradition-based Muslim code in the understanding and interpreting of the Qur'an and Islam. Besides, these interpretations must occur within the entire world experience of today. Just like the Qur'an was not revealed to the Muslims alone, but to entire humanity, thus Muslims, in the interpretation of the Qur'an have to take into account and use the experience of inter-humanity, not merely the experience of the Muslim world! Besides, it could be of great help to the Muslims to use the Christian experience of the Bible through history and its interpretations both by Catholics, Protestants and orthodox Christians. It is this planetary experience that contemporary Muslim movements of "fundamentalist" and revivalist provenance keep ignoring, while the Muslim modernists, on the other hand, neglect traditional Islam. Those Muslims who deny and proclaim "non-believing institutions", the positive experience of the modern world cannot be successful. Such is the case we encounter in Algeria where, according to Al-Qaradawi, some Islamist groups now proclaim elections, multi-party systems and democracy as blasphemy and kufr! Besides, even the Algerian modernist regime should allow free elections that would help the process of moving the Algerian generals from politics into historical books! However, movements such as Jama'ati islami ("The Muslim Brothers"), etc., like many movements of so-called "political Islam", in the times of their birth, used as their model the organizational structure of communist and fascist parties of Europe and Russia. Although, of course, they have never adopted the communist and fascist ideology, they have still adopted, or else acquired by some automatism in their organization, a lot of totalitarian traits in their behavior and attitude. This is today a key obstacle for these movements to attract (which they would hardly ever succeed in doing) the support of the ulama, the traditional Muslim intellectuals and people. V And now, something needs to be said regarding the institutional approach of the Muslim states today towards the Qur'an and Islam. What needs to be mentioned here is that most of the Muslim countries do not have the concept of the "Islamic Community" as an institution that functions with its specific, and separated from the state, apparatus of mosques, imams, muezzins, etc. Namely, the ministries of vakufs, or else, the supreme councils for Islamic affairs, are a direct extension of the government, i.e. politics, which directly shapes the so-called Islamic public opinion and "builds the awareness of the Muslim masses The jurisdiction and competence of these ministries are the programs of printing, interpreting and broadcasting the Qur'an, which is most often realized within the so-called "religious programs" on state television and radio. The very phrase "religious program" points to the reduction of Islam and the Qur'an to the sector of "religious", which in classical Islam and the classical traditional understanding of the Qur'an was completely unknown. Besides, the ministries of vakufs appoint imams throughout the country, while the notions usual in the European context, such as "Islamic Community" are, as we have already said, most often unknown, because it is the state itself that organizes and manages all that it has defined as "Islamic affairs", i.e., which it has transferred voluntarily to this "sector" and these "affairs", still controlling it closely. Along with this, the ministries of vakufs do pass and proclaim the calendar which determines the beginning and the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, the time of the two greatest Muslim feasts, Bayrams (Lids), then the timing of namaz prayers, etc. The title "amir al-mu'minin" has been attached to some rulers, such as the Moroccan king Hasan II, with their secular authority, so that these countries do not have, like many others, another institution of the "supreme religious leader", etc. Amir al-Mu'minin conducts all the 'Islamic affairs" alone or, more often, via the ministry of vakufs. Under the control of the ministry of vakufs are, among other things, most often the appointment of the dean, the head and the administration of Islamic universities, faculties and similar tasks. When speaking of the Qur'an and the attitude towards the Qur'an, the general characteristic of political and legal systems of these countries (excluding, naturally, Turkey, and Albania, as well as the Asian countries holding a Muslim majority and had once been part of the USSR) is a loud, sometimes too loud, declaration in claiming either that Islam, therefore the Qur'an itself, or else the Shariat (Shari'ah) are their guidelines. These declarations do vary from one country to another, from one political system/regime to another. As already mentioned, this is a general characteristic, evident even when, within a brief period of time in a country, two or three regimes quickly succeed each other. In order to show the types and the presence of these divergent attitudes to, and treatment of the Qur'an today, in legal and political systems, as well as in the programs of the parties in Muslim countries and their regimes, it is useful to mention Muhammad Kamil Husayn (his work Al-Dhikr al-Hakim) who has sharply observed that "capitalism can be made Islamic if one cites the Qur'anic ayat (al-Baqarah, 279): "And if you regret, you will still be left with the capital stock of your properties, you shall do no harm to anyone, nor shall you be harmed yourselves!", a dictatorship can me made Islamic, by citing the ayat 59, of the surah al-Nisa, "and you should submit to those who rule over you", while the parliamentarian democratic system can be made Islamic, by citing the 39th ayat of the surah al-Shura: "... and those who negotiate their business". What Muhammad Kamil Husayn is underlying here, actually, is the problem of selective interpretation of the Qur'an and the political abuse of such a selective approach. This is the main failure of the regime, political, legal and state treatment of the Qur'an today in Muslim countries. With this selectivity, we shall certainly meet in the century to come. VI Bringing this study to an end, we consider it necessary, from the point of view of traditional Islam, to draw attention to that significant word - tradition. When speaking of Islamic tradition in the context of the issue of current directions and carriers of the interpretation of Islam and the Qur'an, we often encounter he phrase "the sources of Islamic tradition" being misinterpreted. We think that the mistake is made by "fundamentalists" and the revivalists on one hand, and the modernists, on the other. There are many Muslims today, who consider that the word source, and the idea of original understanding of a religious tradition connotes the sense that it is not valid to understand a certain source of faith (or a source of tradition in general) in any other terms but by the so-called initial original understanding of the source. According to the phrase original understanding of the source, it is clear that the right understanding and interpretation could and, actually, must be reduced only to the original time in which the source appeared! Other times should not, claim the "fundamentalists" and revivalists, have equal, perhaps, different, rights to their own experience of the source of religion. The consequence of this attitude is that the phrase initial original understanding of the source also connotes the logical conclusion that that source has been understood in the right way and that it could have been understood in the right way only by its First recipients! According to this opinion, only those to whom this source appeared First were blessed with the right and capability to understand it correctly! Other, later generations will understand the source correctly only if they do not have their own, but their (the original), understanding and reception of the source! It also means that the phrase "initial original understanding of the source" for a period of time imposes the rule that the first generation is "the most blessed human nucleus", because this community was lucky to see the source break out and it should therefore represent the model for future generations. In these words of mine I want to question the issue of validity, moreover, the issue of Islamic grounds for this and similar understandings of the phrase initial original understanding of the source. Namely, it is beyond doubt that the word source does connote the meaning of a constant, permanent well. In Islam this fact is of particular importance given that there is no specific church. The source in principle is the source of all and for all. No time, no matter how distant it may be from the first generation of recipients of the Qur'an, can be deprived of its own comprehension and perception. Traditional Islam views Islam as a river that flows equally for all those drinking her water and that they all have the same right to that river. While the modernists search for other rivers, the revivalists consider that it is good to drink the river water only at its spring. Unlike the modernists and the revivalist, traditional Islam follows the continuity, the whole river with all her tributaries is a single entity and it is legitimate to drink its water at any point. I hope that this metaphor helps us understand the importance of the Qur'an and the prophet's hadith in all times. In Islam, namely, the source of religion is in the form of the divine word, not in the shape of a resurrected person appearing at one point in history. It also means that the divine word, given that it is a word, flows continuously and never stops flowing. The first generation did not put a dam on the course of this river, i.e. this word, the first generation of Muslims did not channel this course in a binding direction, nor did it put a stamp on one final understanding and reception. Therefore, not only has it not done it, but - from the Islamic perspective - it could have neither done it nor would it have dared do it! It could not have done it because in Islam there is no such thing as a privileged community, or a privileged group, or a privileged epoch! It would not have dared do it, because in Islam, there is no god before God, nor is there a man who would be the one entitled to unlock for mankind the gates towards God! In brief, the first generation has no right to accept Islam on behalf of all others, but only in its own name. The basic objection that could be put to the present revivalism and "fundamentalism" that carry the label Islamic, is their failure to see the fact that the first generation of Muslims could neither live out nor exhaust the comprehensive meanings of the source of Islam and of the Qur'an, nor was it, according to the Qur'an, allowed to do so, even if it could have been achieved! The Qur'an often stresses the fact that other peoples' living, other people's merits and other people's time is not our time! What belongs to past generations is what they had earned, what belongs to us is what we earn and deserve (laha ma kasabat wa lakum ma kasabtum). The position of traditional Islam is the following: God in Islam, because He is righteous, is not more "God" (and more merciful and gracious) just for one time and one people, and less so for other times and other people! That is why He has given His Word equally to all times and to everyone, although that Word is not understood equally nor is it accepted equally by all the times and all the people. Saying this, we have already tackled another issue of the present, so-called Islamic "fundamentalism" and revivalism, whose aim is to restore the so-called ideal epoch of Islam. But what needs a previous explanation, are the two fundamental paradigms of each "fundamentalism", given their attitudes towards the model they seek to restore. There are the so-called "occurred models", those that had once occurred in an "ideal" way and because they are ideal, the entire human practice should adapt to them, value them and practice them - faithfully translating them and applying them in reality!!! Seyyed Qutb, one of the theorists of such a reception of Islamic ideal from the first century underlined that what happened in the so-called Medina community was an ideal Islamic society! All that followed that, to the direction of distancing from this ideal, took the direction of "spoiling the time" (Fasad al-Zaman). Al-Mawdudi, the Indo-Pakistani theorist of contemporary Islam, goes as far as to claim that Islamic history, given that it has not progressed according to the model that was the Medina ideal, has nothing to offer contemporary Islam and that nothing could be learned from it!!! The other types of ideals are models that are imagined and projected into the future, such as, say, the Marxist model of communism. This is the model that has not yet happened, not yet materialized, but, current times, according to many theories of Marxist provenance, have to be governed, and focused towards this future and into this future-projected ideal. The tragic result of "materialization" and practice of these imagined models in the history of our times are widely known. In terms of axiology, the failure and shortcomings of all the theories on past and future ideals, according to which present times should be shaped, lies in the so-called theory of the axial era, the axial community, a chosen and redeeming generation, that does not recognize the maturity of the relationship with God and His Word to anybody but oneself! Islam, however, as it does recognize and acknowledge the maturity of man, allows him to drink from the divine well without mediators. The tradition in Islam is, on the other hand, fully valid only when it does not hide the sources and wells. Traditional Islam develops and inherits such a tradition which permanently sheds light and confirms these sources and wells in the context of new eras. Besides, tradition in Islam cannot change the sources nor can it replace them. It means that in Islam, it is not the theological tradition that is the source of faith but human understanding of the sources of faith in an era, at a place, in spiritual moods. The Qur'an, namely, is always open for new interpretations; there is, therefore, no final translation of the Qur'an, no final interpretation of the Qur'an given that this Book cannot be translated and interpreted once and forever, but must always be transl4ed anew and harmonized with time, and the time harmonized with the interpretation of the Qur'an. We hope that the XXI century will promote and confirm the traditional interpretation of the Qur'an in the sense defined here. Traditional Islam enriches and fertilizes the tradition of Islam and it does not allow that tradition to grow into traditionalism. In Islam, the Qur'an is the fundament, but not in the manner of a document that was once (in the distant VII century) closed into a given set of connotations, but rather, the Qur'an is the fundament in the manner of the Source that can never ever be exhausted and that will always remain open. Today's Muslims, therefore, should not be slaves of these given sets of connotations. They have to be maturely tolerant and show respect for different traditional schools of thought and their inter-action. It is only in this way that they will be able to contribute to the tolerance of the whole world. We do expect that, in the XXI century, the traditional interpretation of the Qur'an would see the reaffimation of its merits and values. BIBLIOGRAPHY Al-Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib, Islam and secularism, Kuala Lumpur, 1993. Ali Nawaz Memon, The Islamic Naton, Maryland, 1995. Arkoun Mohammed, Rethinking Islam, Boulder - San Francisco - Oxford, 1994. 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