Cultivating Qur’anic Ambiguity
by Anika Munshi
For some, the Qur’ān is a simple book of rules and stories that is easy to understand. For others, it offers an array of complex meanings, and a multidimensional moral matrix tendering a panoply of interpretive data providing solutions to contextually derived situations. So which is it? This essay reveals that Islamic societies and their derived Qur’ānic exegesis transitioned from a relatively high tolerance of ambiguity and plurality to a sometimes extreme intolerance. Moving from past to present, contemporary civilizations of Islam evidently witness their process of modernization as a process of annihilation of ambiguity that renders the Qur’ān inert in its semantic potential. While scholars of the 14th century found the variant readings of the Qur’ān enriching, the existence of these readings constitutes a scandal for contemporary Muslims. While traditional exegetes celebrate the plurality of interpretive options found within the Qur’ān, most modern exegetes, both Western and Eastern, fundamentalist or reformist, presume to know exactly the one and only meaning of a given Qur’ānic passage. Classical scholars saw difference of opinion as a blessing for the Muslim community, whereas today all such differences constitute an evil to be eliminated. In earlier eras, secular and religious political discourses happily existed side by side, today the notion is widely accepted that, when it comes to Islam, politics and religion are inextricably linked. Arabic scholars of language and rhetoric collected polysemic words and analyzed stylistic instruments of ambiguity. Today, however, Western and Muslim scholars alike regard the polysemous expression as a sign of the decline of Islam. This investigation will not only offer a look at the sources of Qur’ānic disambiguation, but also tell us something about the modern Western world.
Western Colonization of Truth
For many centuries, different perspectives coexisted side by side, sometimes rivaling and fighting against each other, sometimes pollinating each other, but always reigned in by the knowledge that one single perspective could never claim the whole truth for itself. The situation changes when suddenly an opponent appears who claims exactly this, namely, to be in possession of a truth that is the only truth and does not allow other truths to exist side by side. His truth is not viewed from multiple perspectives, but is regarded by him as absolute and universal.
The movement against ambiguity led by Western intellectuals since the 17th century reveals itself as a unique development in world history. It was a period of refined rules, accuracy, and certainty. Whereas previous societies cultivated ambiguity to serve several social and cultural purposes, the Age of Enlightenment dreamt of a precision to the knowledge of truth and rendered error almost impossible (Bauer). Friedrich Nietzsche challenged the belief in the unequivocal nature of the world and denied the perspectivality of the human view of the world through his “universalizing ambitions” (Bauer). These beliefs translated themselves into modernity, which has been characterized as a process of rationalization, that is essentially against ambiguity.
Thomas Bauer, professor and director of the Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Münster, and the author of A Culture of Ambiguity, writes that what is often perceived as radicalization is actually a distortion of the West’s own ideologization and disambiguation of the world. He argues that in the course of the 20th century, a process began to occur that has falsely been labeled as “re-Islamization”, but in truth it is a reinvention of Islam as an ideology, using the structures of the West that is intolerant, hostile to ambiguity, and is totalitarian (Bauer). Its proponents seem to know the precise meaning of every Qur’ānic passage, and exactly which Hadith are valid and which ones are not. They always arrive at the only, unequivocally correct interpretations, and believe divergent opinions must be mistakes, journeying them further toward fundamentalism or literalism. Bauer argues, thus, that the Western world’s misguided fear of ambiguity, obsession with truth, and universalizing ambition has brought devastation to the Islamic world that once accepted ambiguity as an inevitable part of human existence (Bauer, 16).
Ambiguity Tolerance in Psychology
In the 1940s, German-American psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswik observed that people who are unwilling to admit to emotional ambivalence also display, on the cognitive level, a high degree of intolerance of ambiguity (Frenkel-Brunswik). She argued that a person intolerant of ambiguity has “a tendency to resort to black-white solutions, to arrive at premature closure as to valuative aspects, often at the neglect of reality, and to seek for unqualified and unambiguous over-all acceptance and rejection of other people”. In her article in 1949, she demonstrated a connection between racism and an intolerance of ambiguity, which she defines as "the tendency to perceive ambiguous situations as a threat” (Adorno). More recent studies show a significant positive correlation between intolerance of ambiguity, on the one hand, and ethnocentrism, dogmatism, rigidity, and authoritarianism on the other. In general, people who have a high degree of tolerance for ambiguity are able to appreciate multiple perspectives and do not rush towards judgment; they ask more questions and look at all the different possibilities when trying to solve complex problems; and are able to be creative and think critically (Tolerance for Ambiguity).
Ambiguity is not the same as ambivalence. Bauman defines “ambivalence” as “the possibility of assigning an object or an event to more than one category” (Bauman). Ambivalence in the psychological sense refers to a state of being that indicates the simultaneous existence of conflicting thoughts, feelings, and desires. For example, a person could be between proximity and distance; agreeableness and disagreeableness; wanting and not wanting; it is a mental state in which a person is often unaware and triggers discomfort. This level of ambivalence may be the cause for an intolerance of ambiguity, and it is imperative to differentiate between the two terms. Overall, Bauman’s definition of “ambivalence” provides us with important insights into the phenomenon of ambiguity. An intolerance to ambiguity can then be summed up as “a reluctance to think in terms of probabilities and a preference to escape into whatever seems to be definite and therefore safe”.
A Salafist History
Muhammad ibn ‘Uthaymīn (d. 2001) was one of the most renowned representatives of the Wahhabi-Salafist thought. Ibn ‘Uthaymīn writes in his book Usūl fī t-tafsīr (Fundamentals of Qur’ānic Exegesis), “it is a mercy of God— for this community that the fundamentals of religion and their basic sources, there is no difference of opinion” (Bauer). He writes that the Prophet (S) has delivered a message of explicitness so sufficient that there is no need for subsequent clarification. The Prophet (S) has been sent to proclaim the right guidance and the religion of truth; and this excludes any error and false religion in every meaning of the expression (Bauer). Since the right guidance is clear and unambiguous, no religious and trustworthy person would intentionally contradict what the Qur’ān and Sunnah say, and differences of opinion must always result from an error. This radically changes the status of the law, as opposed to classical scholars like Ibn Juzayy (693/1294) who would list causes of ikhtilāf, and determine a lack of multiple causes as a lack of knowledge and human failure. The Salafist modern theory of Islamic law is often called “la-madhabiyyah” or “antischool movement” that aims to delegitimize other schools for their claim to a nonexclusive truth and claim their right to an exclusive truth (Bauer). This drastic break from tradition signals a kind of reform that is based on an intolerance of ambiguity and can be understood as a reaction to the demand of the modern West to achieve ideological unambiguity.
Reducing Islam to Extremes i.e. “The Islamization of Islam”
When Orientalists talk about the Islamic world, they depict it as being completely dominated by religion, and having no separation between the religious and secular spheres. A most problematic term is Islamic culture, which unnecessarily categorizes cultural elements such as medicine, art, or literature as either Islamically “right or wrong” (Bauer). Non-religious discourses are declared atypical, unimportant for Islamic culture, or ignored altogether. This Islamization of Islam not only blocks from view the non-religious areas of life in the Islamic world, but also distorts things that ought to be assigned in the religious sphere. Unfortunately, in this purview, when both religious and non-religious issues exist side by side in a given social context, the one that is most conservative according to Western standards is considered the “orthodox” norm and the closest to the “essence” of Islam (Bauer). This perspective applies when radical, intolerant groups are considered the norm, while all others remain unnoticed. Such a view renders the ambiguities and pluralities of the Islamic world invisible. Orientalists and religious fanatics may similarly discover a culture that is astonishingly normal that can be dealt with in a normal and balanced way. Nevertheless, religious fanaticism continues to breed the grounds for textual extremism, alienating or blurring the middle positions, and turning halal into haram.
An Interpretive Spectrum
As-Suyūtī (911/1505) wrote that “difference of opinion is a mercy for my community” because in his purview this saying enabled him to capture one of the most important characteristics of classical Islam (Bauer). Far from being dogmatically restricted, classical Muslim scholars developed a method of Qur’ānic exegesis that encompassed the whole range of interpretations for each passage instead of sticking with one exclusive valid interpretation. They believed it an intellectual challenge to consider the different perspectives of things. For example, even if illness is something bad, does it not have its good sides? Can stinginess sometimes be a virtue? (Bauer).They developed a “theory of probability” which even allowed them to classify hadith according to an elaborate and flexible framework ranging from lesser to greater authenticity, instead of binary categorizations of “right and wrong”. The difference of opinion was not seen as an evil that must be avoided, rather, it was seen as a constitutive element of the system.
However, scholars of fiqh were left with the task of curbing the excessive overgrowth of ambiguity in order to transfer it to a system that could be easily handled — a system that, by the advent of modernity, could not keep up, and either vanished or was replaced by a new dogmatic-ideological construction that, with its hostility toward ambiguity, could be made to fit with the modern West (Bauer).
The Problems with Exegesis
Texts are polysemous, even when their authors avoid it. Most classical scholars are of the opinion that polyvalence occurs in religious texts, but that the challenge is to promote consistent ideologies assuming unequivocal positions that are constantly attuning social behavior to stable norms. As a result, depending on their acceptance, rejection or ambivalence of the Western position, three different reactions emerged: the liberal Muslims (reformist) who make accommodations with modernity; the traditional Muslims (moderate) who more or less tolerate modernity; and, on the other extreme, the fundamentalists (Salafists) who reject modernity (Bauer). Both the liberal reformist and fundamentalist have something in common: they look at their own history with highly ambivalent feelings, often with manifest hatred. Whereas traditionalists appear moderate and accept and reject different positions toward modernity, liberals reject the tradition and fundamentalists reject modernity.
Qur’ānic interpretation today is embedded in power structures, and as Pink mentions, is wrought with (1) tensions between localizing and globalizing factors, (2) tensions between hierarchal and egalitarian social ideals, (3) and tensions between the quest for new approaches and the claim of authority raised by defenders of exegetical traditions (Pink). The conflict is over who has authority to talk about the Qur’ān and in what way. Because Qur’ānic interpretation takes place in power fields, it is not about what is being said, as much as it is about the person saying them, the reasons for which they are said, the place in which they are said or published, and the opposing parties against whom they are directed (Bauer). Unfortunately, these divergent views are entrenched in value systems that prioritize certain larger themes over others that frame the Qur’ānic text in a certain way. Therefore, modern exegesis remains a problematic endeavor.
Early Sources of Qur’anic Disambiguation
According to Ibn al-Jazarī (833/1429), “the Qur’ān is a vast ocean in which one never touches ground or is stopped by a shore”. By this view, the process of standardization can only be viewed as a loss (Bauer). He argues for an exegesis that does not aim for unequivocal truths but strives for an interpretive spectrum scaled along different degrees of probability” (Bauer). Any text that suffers a reduction of ambiguity forfeits its semantic potential; it becomes more one-dimensional, one where each translation cancels out the rest, and thus ideologically more open to manipulation. Both translator and exegete must play a balancing act between standardization and keeping the door open to the multilayered world of meanings. However, disambiguation is inevitable, whether by divine intervention or through socio-political factors. Below are a few sources of Qur’ānic disambiguation that alienate al-Jazarī’s idea of a ‘shoreless’ text.
Divine Restriction to the Arabic Language
Az-Zamakhsharī (538/1144) writes in his commentary to Q 14:4, that every prophet was sent to his community using its proper language. Muhammad (S), on the other hand, was sent not only to the Arabs but to all of mankind (Q 7:158). To reveal the Qur’ān in only one language is a sort of divine disambiguation. Revealing His message in more than one language would have led to an excess in diversity (Bauer). If a divine message is to be revealed, then naturally it should be in the language of the people closest to the Prophet (S) so that they can understand him most clearly. At the same time, the content of the Qur’ān is to be made accessible to people who have no command of Arabic. However, one benefit of keeping to the Arabic original text is to retain the Qur’ān’s aesthetic value and its range of ambiguity for ritual and law. Changing the language means opening it up to a plethora of meanings both right and wrong and inviting various ideologies to enforce their own interpretations of the Qur’ān. Even when it is revealed in Arabic, one of the Qur’ān’s miracles is that it is a multi-layered, multi-leveled, timeless, universal book that can be understood by people of many tribes, nations, generations, and cultures (Tzortzis). It could then be argued that translating the Qur’ān into different languages opens the door to greater cultural flexibility, and fulfills the greater goals of the Sharī’a itself. Though there is no ban to translation, however, it becomes incumbent on each translator to make a conscious choice to state clearly how he understands the text; but since no person is capable of expressing all of its dimensions, he must be in a state of constant renunciation (Bauer).
Reducing the Aḥruf and Qirā’āt
The ‘Uthmānic caliphal era witnessed a significant rise of variant readings that threatened the unity of the developing Islamic community. The resulting codification can, therefore, be interpreted as an act of disambiguation caused by a crisis of ambiguity. However, this homogenizing process was unable to produce a single unified reading of the Qur’ān. The variant readings kept multiplying exponentially, until Ibn Mujāhid (324/936) in the 4th century, won acceptance for the seven “canonical” readings and forced the Muslim community, through his political influence, to abandon all the other readings of the Qur’ān (Nasser). Since then, there have been many attempts at limiting the variant types to seven categories in order to prove the validity of the sab’at aḥruf tradition. However, it is worthy to note that Mujahid’s compilation of seven readings does not limit the presence of other authentic qirā'āt (Qadhi). It became a common misconception that the seven qirā'āt were the only authentic qirā'āt of the Qur’ān and any other qirā'ā besides these seven are to be considered defective or shādh qirā'āt. Additionally, Nöldeke keenly observes that the printing of the Hafs an‘Asim edition in 1344/1925 did not do justice to the original diversity of the Qur’ān, and that the worldwide success of this reading is due merely to historical coincidence and not due to its distinctive differences from other readings (Reynolds). Its triumph marks the culmination and the temporary endpoint of the standardization of the Qur’ānic text in the 20th century.
Classical scholars were more open to cultivating the Qur’ān’s textual ambiguity. Ibn al-Jazarī, for example, is well-known to have denounced the restriction of seven aḥruf as a sign of ignorance and laziness. He approvingly quotes Abū Tālib al-Makkī (386/996), who stated: “leading scholars mention in their books more than seventy transmitters who have a higher rank and a greater value than those seven” (Bauer). Because not all of these variants contain acceptable material, these “isolated” (shāwadhdh) readings are excluded from ritual practice but continue to be cultivated in several Qur’ānic disciplines, mostly philology and exegesis. For al-Jazarī, the trustworthiness of a reading is not guided by the letter, or an abstract norm, but by the trustworthiness of the person who transmitted it, therefore, complete certainty is a rare thing (Bauer).
Western orientalists such as Melchert argue the necessity to put a stop to the accumulation of readings and to alleviate the arduousness of Qur’ānic studies (Melchert). However, classical scholars such as al-Jazarī saw the Qur’ān as an open text, whose semantic range can never be completely exhausted, and demands its listeners towards a new textual endeavor. Ibn al-Jazarī lived in a society that was shaped by the tolerance of ambiguity and was thus capable of making such claims and pointing out their limitations, however, such an argument today would be met with incomprehension.
Qur’anic Ambiguity
The Inexhaustibility of the Qur’an
For Ibn al-Jazarī, the revelation is complete, but its contents are not exhausted because the semantic potential of the Qur’ān is inexhaustible. Each generation discovers something new in the Qur’ān that previous generations were not aware of, and yet there is more left to be discovered. Tzortzis writes in his thesis, that each verse has many layers of meaning that can be understood by people with different levels of understanding, and each layer of meaning can be made sense of by people of varying ages at different stages of intellectual advancement (Tzortzis). As a person’s awareness grows of the multilayered nature of the world, the layers of meaning unfold into various spiritual, existential, and moral truths.
Polysemy in the Quran
Polysemy exists when a word has multiple meanings that are related to each other. Polysemy is important in studying Semitic languages, since these languages are based on root-based morphology (Galadari). For classical scholars, polysemy (al wujūh wa-n-nażā’ir) was a necessary part of understanding the multifaceted nature of the Qur’ān. Only then could a person extract from it a multiplicity of interpretations and parallel truths, all within the bounds of consistency. However, in contemporary times a normative text is seen as unequivocal and must be founded on the Sunni premises that (1) the Qur’ān is uncreated, and (2) Allah’s message is unambiguous. Under these premises, each verse in the Qur’ān can only have one single correct meaning, has a limited interpretive margin, and cannot be adjusted to any temporal conditions. Bauer argues that premise (2) reflects the perspective of Cartesian modernity or the insistence on a single meaning for each Qur’ānic passage, that is correct for all time. Classical scholars on the other hand, such as as-Suyūtī quotes in his book, al-Itqān fī ‘ulūm al-Qur’ān, in the chapter on polysemy in the Qur’ān, the words of Ibn ‘Abbās, “I know the book of Allah better than they. After all, it was revealed among my family…, but the Qur’ān contains many aspects of meaning (wujūh). Instead, conduct your controversy with them on the basis of the exemplary actions of the Prophet (sunan). From these they will not be able to escape” (Suyuti). For as-Suyūtī, living the example of the Prophet (S) is less ambiguous than the Qur’ān which is open to interpretation. Modern scholars have applied this approach by combining intertextuality with polysemy to provide a unique linguistic method for Qur’ānic interpretation.
Lexical Ambiguity
Classical scholars had a playful fascination with language leading them to investigate the relations between words and meanings in new forms (Bauer). Some scholars took to particular interest the concept of ‘addād, or words with contradictory meanings. Take, for example the word “shāma”, which both means to put a sword in its sheath, and to draw a sword from its sheath. Over time, ‘addād like these became absorbed into a more comprehensive discussion on homonyms and was incorporated into books on al-wujuh wa-n-naza’ir (Bauer). In the West, words with opposite meanings unsettled scholars and they attempted to validate as few of them as possible. Classical scholars, on the other hand, had no difficulty understanding words with contradictory meanings, and did not seek to eliminate lexical ambiguity, but to play with it. The exegete had the ambition of finding as many meanings as possible in a text, and collecting words with contradictory meanings was seen somewhat as a sport. Bauer notes that this useless game became exceedingly useful for deriving culture, since much of the Arab-Islamic world used Arabic to flourish and make sophisticated intellectual and social advancements (Bauer). Even then, Western historians labeled this pursuit a scholastic nuisance; the prevalence of such linguistic wordplay was instead seen as a symptom of decadence. In the Western view, such a tolerance of ambiguity was not appreciated and was taken further as an argument for cultural imperialism.
Textual Ambiguity
When Allah reveals a Qur’ānic text with an abundance of textual variance, it is conceivable that such a plurality can reach its limit and lead to irresolvable contradictions. Sometimes the meanings are not contradictory, but they present two possible aspects to a situation. For instance, in Q 2:259, substituting one letter for another in the rasm results in a semantic change — nunshizuhā (look at the bones we raise) can change to nunshiruhā (look at the bones we resurrect from the dead/cover with flesh). Both meanings add to a deeper understanding of resurrection on the Day of Judgment. Also, five out of ten readers take Q 12:110 annahūm qad kudhdhibū to mean that they were taken as liars, and the other five take annahūm qad kudhibū to mean that they tell lies, resulting in two possible aspects to the situation that could mean that, the Messengers realize that their people do not believe them, and they begin to doubt their own message (Bauer).
Even if modern Western scholarship tries to determine the “true” reading using philological and historical-critical methods, they do so with theological partiality. A Muslim exegete bases his work on the conviction that the incomprehensibility of some passages is inevitable and sees it as a divine ruse that incites him to occupy himself with the text, providing the opportunity to prove his knowledge and acumen.
The Gift of Ambiguity
Western audiences may be disconcerted by the contradictory nature of certain positions. They may ask, is Islam a religion of peace or of war? Are men and women held equal to one another, or does man have a position above women? A more complex and multi-layered person is cognizant of the paradoxes of life, and that the Qur’ān offers much wisdom in these contradictory truths. Individuals with unconscious ambivalent feelings are more likely to lean into extreme conceptions of truth, where Allah has granted mercy in ambiguity. Paradoxical injunctions lend a divine wisdom to the Muslim who seeks the middle path, or to exceed in good by shifting the balance. When Muslims annihilate ambiguity, they limit creativity in problem-solving. Certain situations may require a Muslim to seek unity, and at other times, stand out and assert their religious identity. Such inquiry into the relativity of truth, can lead to polysemous expressions of faith.
Looking Ahead
The world of post-formative Islam was not one of certainties, but one of probabilities. Classical scholars possessed a thorough measure of skepticism regarding radical claims to truth, they made habitable the world of ambiguities, and mastered the art of disputation. Contemporary scholars can continue this rich tradition towards a greater tolerance of ambiguity, acceptance of divergent opinions and a plurality of discourses, without giving way to the West’s ideologization and disambiguation of the world.
For Westerners, the simple fact that there were people who think, act, and feel different was experienced as a threat to their own personality. For over 350 years, the West has tried to do away with an exterior alterity and spread its way of life around the world through its fear of ambiguity, obsession with truth, and universalizing ambitions. The vision for a postmodern era must then, be characterized by the acceptance of plurality, and an emancipation from the modern urge toward ambivalence and monosemic expressions of truth; for such an emotional worldview results in a strong intolerance of ambiguity. The problem is not that traditional Islam and contemporary fundamentalist proponents are opposed to the forces of modernization, liberalization, and enlightenment, rather, it is that both fundamentalists and reformers alike, under the banner of the Western narrative, wage a war against their own tradition.
Indeed, an erudite scholar is one who understands that discourses offering multiple perspectives can continue to exist and compete with one another, while acknowledging other truths and not relativizing their own, and simultaneously accepting that it takes several perspectives to offer an adequate picture of the truth. For a Muslim, the only absolute truth is that there is no God except Allah, and Muhammad is His final Messenger; everything else lies in the realm of probabilities, and Allah knows best.
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