Dec
5
The Disobedient Prophet?
Filed Under Islam
Last month I went to the annual meeting for the American Academy of Religion. The most interesting session I attended was titled “The Disobedient Prophet? Tensions between Qur’anic Verses and Prophetic Practice.”
The first presenter discussed the tension between minimalism and comprehensiveness in the development of Shariah law. He argued that the early Muslim community took a minimalist approach in which Muslims could choose to do as they wished as long as it was not required or forbidden in the Qur’an. He then argued that in time, the comprehensive position won out in which Shariah Law was understood to encompass all of life, based upon the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah (the example set by Muhammad). He finished by arguing that the different schools of law in the Islamic world differ due to the way they have chosen to work out the teachings of Qur’an and the Sunnah.
The second presenter gave the example of how the Qur’an (9:5) teaches to “slay pagans wherever you find them,” yet Muhammad chose to ransom prisioners at the end of the battle of Badr.
The third presenter gave the example of the Qur’anic injunction to beat a disobedient wife (4:34), yet some hadiths recount how Muhammad discouraged men from doing so.
The fourth presenter gave the example of how the Qur’an teaches that those guilty of sexual immorality should receive 100 lashes (24:2), yet in a hadith Muhammad says that those guilty of sexual immorality should be stoned instead.
At the end of the session, the panelists came to the conclusion that these contradictions were only apparent. They went into detail describing how Muslims through the centuries have attempted to solve the tensions. Some of the “solutions” were more convincing than others.
In any case, I left the session reminded of the difficulty and complexity of studying other faiths. Those in the Christian tradition who have studied theology, church history, and biblical studies know how complex some issues can be. It is common place for those who have even graduated with an M.Div. to feel like they just began to scratch the surface on so many different areas of study.
Therefore, as Christians who are studying other religions, we should be humble and realize that the various religious traditions we are studying have their own complex history of practices and beliefs, and cannot be “figured out” any more than Christianity can be “figured out” by simply reading a few books.
Comments
Leave a Reply
-
Flickr Photos
More Photos