Questioning Muhammad’s “Prophecy” through Spinoza and Rationalist Theology
Why it is urgent for Muslim Theology to see Quran as Literature
Can “God” speak a common language, a “natural language” as Wittgenstein would say ?
Axioms, Definitions and Hypothesis :
– All that exists is by definition understandable by Reason. Le Rationnel est Réel et le Réel est Rationnel, Reality is Rational because Reason is shaped by Reality.
– Truth exists because Reality exists. Truth is the correspondence between “P” and what we observe in the World. “It is raining” is an assertive proposition about the world, if this sentence is true, it means that in the objective facts, there is rain at that moment where the sentence is said. Some propositions are “more true” than others.
– Reason is a Universal Faculty that can be developed by every healthy mind. Reason is not incompatible with emotions, feelings, imagination and intuition. Reason organises knowledge and is the best way to express the truth of reality.
– Science and Mythology have common patterns and schemes, and an evolutionary link, but empirical knowledge is more useful than mythological knowledge (which can have a social or psychological value at a certain time).
– Nothing exists outside of Nature and Natural Phenomena. Every time we discover « quirky phenomenon” like Quarks, or the duality of photons, or quantic entanglement, or black holes, it is still Natural.
– The supra-natural cannot explain natural phenomena by definition.
– “God” cannot create Nature by being “outside” Nature, because of the incommensurability problem.
– The only rational theology is the immanentist-naturalist hypothesis of “Deus Sive Natura” considered as a pantheist-vitalist hypothesis / perspective.
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According to Sunni Theology, God spoke clear Arabic (with some influence from Aramean and probably Syriac and Hebrew). But if we go back to Bayt Al Hikma, in Bagdad, 9th-10th century, in the Early Theology of Islamic Dogma, the Mu’tazilit and the other groups were wondering, for decades : What exactly is the ontological nature of the Quran ? What does it mean, in a rational theology, the “Verb of God”, “Kalam Allah” ?
We aim to conduct research on the idea of Prophecy in the Quran, Al Wahiyi, by reading the Arabic Text of the Quran using the tools of cognitive anthropology, philosophy of mind, and the naturalist paradigma, with what we call skeptical rationalism. Our Rationalism is inspired by Spinoza and Descartes, then Russell, Carnap and Popper, but also inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s Rationalism, especially the notions of “Surrationalisme”, “rationalisme appliqué”, and “rationalisme dialectique”, which lead to the notions of matérialisme régional (Cf. Gaston Bachelard, Le matérialisme rationnel, and Le rationalisme appliqué).
By re-reading the Quran in Arabic, in its early versions, and by using the modern work of Regis Blachere, Montgomery Watt, Clifford Geertz, Jacques Berque, Maxime Rodinson, and especially Pascal Boyer, we aim to operate a radical ontological and epistemological criticism of the Quran as he is presented in the Mainstream Theological Dogma of the Sunni Schools.
We want to demonstrate and defend the idea that the Quran must be seen, read, and explained, as an inter-text and palimpsest book of Arabic Literature and Poetry. This radical gesture, coming from the idea that God cannot speak human language, or “common natural language”, could solve many theological problems, but also political and social problems in the Islamic World. It is time for the Muslims to adopt a positivist and naturalist radical ontological turn toward their immense civilisation. It is time for the Quran to be explained as we explain the Bible and all the books of Mythologies, by historical hermeneutics and phenomenology, without the salafist idea that the Quran is “Kalam Allah Al Mantouk bihi Harfan”.
It is time to apply to the Quran Rationalist tools; hermeneutics, phenomenology, anthropology and epistemological criticism, to make it an unholy book, or non-holy book, subject to natural explanation, so we can finally welcome the Prophet Muhammad among the Human Pantheon of “Religious Fondateur”.
Muhammad produced the Quran, and the Islamic dogma was created in Damascus and Bagdad. Those assertions must be demonstrated rationally, not against the Muslims, but to make Muslims finally “grew up”, as a Civilisation where we finally acknowledge that the anthropomorphic and ethnocentric idea of a God, called Allah, speaking to a chosen man (and speaking only to males), in a chosen tribe, is outdated and irrational-illogical, unless we take it as symbolical, metaphorical, allegorical, or as a cultural fact.
This radical criticism – God doesn’t write books, God doesn’t speak the usual common language, and books are by definition a human creation, and many books are better than the Quran from a Theological and Literature perspective – doesn’t mean “God doesn’t exist” or “Muslims should stop praying or stop going to the Mosque” or “Muslims should stop reading the Quran”. No. It just means, like the Mu’atzila wondered, that we shouldn’t worship the Quran bil-Harf, letter by letter, that the Quran is a book of culture, literature and civilisation, among others, and that the mysticism of Arrumi, Ibn Arabi, or Mahmoud Darwich, or Hafez, or Hallaj, can have the same psychological effect than the Quran. As Max Weber would say, we should “démystifier et désacraliser” the Quran, and consider it as a book of literature and poetry, as a book of culture and civilisation made by humans, probably very talented men, but a book tout simplement.
According to the Theology of the Achaa’ira (Al ‘Ilm Al Akbar, The Great Science, by opposition to the Fiqh or laws/jurisdictions), as it is thought in Morocco in the XXth Century, and to the doctrine of Imam Malik and Imam Ibn Hanbal, and to the teachings of Chaykh Al Islam Ibn Taymya, the Quran is a Mu’jiza, a miracle, supposed to demonstrate that Allah spoke to the Prophet Muhammad, through the Archangel “Jibril” and by direct “telepathie”. The Islamic hypothesis is that the Quran is a Pure Prophecy, a “super-natural or extra-natural” Verb, that cannot be explained by what Aristotle would call “causes naturelles” or what Galilee and Newton would call “Philosophie naturelle”.
For the majority of the Sunni Schools in Islamic Theology and Fiqh, the fundamental point, the point nodal of the Islam Theology and Dogma, common between the Hanafi Schools, the Wahhabi Schools, the Kharidjite Schools, the Malekite Schools, the Hanbali Schools, is that the Quran is “Kalam Allah”, and that he is “Mounazzal”, the Word of Allah, Revealed to Muhammed, as a “Chosen Prophet”, Allah, the Unique God and Creator, the New Arabic Transcendance of Damas and Bagdad (If Yatrib existed as Al Madina Al Mounawara), pronounced letter by letter and transmitted to Muhammed through the Wah’y, the Revelation, the Supreme Inspiration. This Book called the Quran is considered not only as holy and sacred, but coming from a mythological originary scripture called “Allaouwh Al Mahfoud”. Among the peculiarities and specificities of the Quran is that he is “Kamil Wa Chamil” and “Azali”. It means that the Islamic Dominant Theology, except the Mu’atazilites, considers, at least since Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymya, sees and presents the Quran as a Perfect book, “Full and Total”, containing all the Knowledge of the Universe, with an Eternal value, “Sali’h li koulli Zamane wa Makane”. Since the Islamic Dominant schools of theology consider the Quran as the source of fundamental laws (Char’3 Allah), those properties of the Quran poses several political, cultural, sociological and epistemological problems.
We want to apply to the Quran a radical ontological and epistemological criticism inspired by the notion of Prophecies, Imagination and Intuitions, developed by Spinoza in his Traité Théologico-politique,
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We aim to combine the Spinozian method developed in the Ethique and the TTP, with the methodology of the Vienna Circle, to demonstrate that God cannot speak as it is presented in Mainstream Islamic Theology, to invite Islamic thinking to adopt a Rational Naturalist Theology. Then we will propose a Post-Wittgenstein Post-Heidegger hermeneutic of the Quran as a cultural and anthropolotgical phenomenon.
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