How to avoid "extreme" interpretations of the Quran

My previous blog post has generated requests and a fair number of taunts challenging me to share what exactly is the right way to interpret the Quran. Which I have on more than one occasion touched upon but I guess this is an issue that cannot be repeated often enough. As I already pointed out in the post, we all have noticed words like moderate interpretation and "extremely strict interpretation of Islam" to describe certain religious factions. I am sorry but there is no strict or not so strict interpretation of Islam. Islam is what God says it is, in the Quran and only in the Quran. Hence, there has to be the right way of interpreting the verses of the Quran and by implication a wrong way of interpreting the Quran and nothing in between these two opposites.

When we interpret Islam wrong it is not Islam anymore, it is as simple as that. Similarly, when we succeed in interpreting some verses correctly and others incorrectly then it is just that part right and partly wrong. There are no blends, it is all black and white as one would expect from a Divine guide.

God is not in the business of maybes.

I often tell people wanting to discuss Islam that unless we can agree on the methodology of interpreting Islam, we won't be able to agree on anything. So let us keep the questions on hold for a bit and talk methodologies because whoever is able to convince the other on the best methodology then one can just apply it and get all the answers all by themselves.

In my humble opinion, this is how I see it;

Trust your God-given faculties of observation, logic and rational thought as reminded by scores of verses of the Quran. Yes, the thing to note and emphasize is that the methodology of the interpretation of the Quranic verses is embedded in the Quran itself. 

In contrast, seeking advice from those who may know more than you are mentioned only a few times and that too not in the popular "ask those who know" manner. Those who keep harping on "Ask a Shaikh" need to be told that the number of times "use your brain" is emphasized vs ask others is in the ratio of one to hundreds in favor of your brain. Please use it. In fact, it is not about "asking" but some in the community should be entrusted with researching and making their findings public.

For the record and with all due respect to those who have a different opinion, the thing about the Quran is, as one would expect from a Divine message, that it is fully Self-Referenced and the Checksums are also all embedded in the body of the message. The core message needed for salvation is easily understood by even a 12-year-old. The Quran, of course, is much much more and is there for all of humanity and for all times to come. The message is designed once again to be relevant to people with varying degree of access to knowledge bases and brain power and happen to be living at different times and in different space.

When one decides to leverage the full potential of the book, Quran once again comes to the rescue to address the issues associated with serious research and truly demonstrates its timelessness so to speak. For starters, the use of particular words is demonstrated by its use in a priori manner within the Quran and hence protected from the natural evolution of the language. We must research this aspect first. Similarly, the methodology of non-contradiction (there are none in the Quran) not only protects the content and its interpretation but does it in a manner whereby and large the domain knowledge constraints are taken out of the equation. In simple terms, if your interpretation of a verse contradicts another verse then there are only three possibilities.

1. Your interpretation of the first verse is wrong
2. Or your interpretation of the second verse is wrong
3. Or your interpretation of both the verses is wrong, hence, seek another interpretation

A self-correcting mechanism that needs no outside input. The answer to the question; is it even possible to interpret the verses of the Quran in such a manner that it eliminates verses contradicting each other? The answer is not only an emphatic yes but yes on several levels. The non-contradiction claim of the Quran serves two purposes; one to point out that for mere humans to put together over 77,000 words, covering a full spectrum of domains is not easy without some elements contradicting others and the second is to facilitate our understanding as mentioned above.

Mustansir Mir, Professor of Islamic Studies at Youngstown State University, eloquently argues for a multi-layered approach. He writes,

“From a linguistic standpoint, it is quite possible for a word, phrase or statement to have more than one layer of meaning, such that one layer would make sense to one audience in one age and another layer of meaning would, without negating the first, be meaningful to another audience in a subsequent age.”

So yes one is free to use different meanings associated with certain words but must do so only in a manner that it does not contradict a chosen meaning in another verse.

Add to it a simple rule of restricting the meaning of words to the Arabic language and be alive to the obvious allegorical references and you are done.

To seek the best of meaning is an additional and general guideline in order to understand the truth within the verses and hence take out hiding the truth from the equation.

Who in their right mind would refuse to follow the instructions of how to understand the intended message of a guide, found in the guide itself, that is if the intention is to understand the message? Irrespective of the age of the guide and the set of instructions found in it. Even more baffling is the behavior which results in insisting on an interpretation which is at odds with the one arrived by following these same set of instructions.