A Reflection on One of Mostafa Malekian's Hermeneutic Principles: Authorial Intent or the Reader's Understanding?

The views of Mostafa Malekian on philosophy, mysticism, ethics, psychology, and socio-political issues have always been interesting and challenging. Even when we disagree with him (and such instances are not few), his opinions call into question our familiar and common understanding. Malekian's words and the analysis and evaluation of his views can help broaden our understanding of the important and complex issues he has addressed.

In this short essay, I will analyze and evaluate one of Malekian's hermeneutic views. One reason for my choosing such a topic is that Malekian's statements in the realm of hermeneutics have been less examined and criticized [1]. Another reason is that Malekian's views in this realm are not unrelated to his ideas on spirituality and rationality, and therefore, examining his interpretive views can also shed light on some other issues.

The point I will analyze and critique appears in the seventh session of the lecture series "The Epistemology of Religious Belief" [2]. I do not know whether Malekian has elaborated on this point elsewhere. Given the vast volume of Malekian's lectures, interviews, classes, and lecture series, it is not impossible that he has answered the questions and considerations I will raise below somewhere. Nevertheless, analyzing and examining this single fragment is not without benefit. Malekian says:

Our methodology cannot be that whenever the word of our God gets stuck, we say, "Come, scholars of rhetoric, for God is stuck!" Figurative language has its own rules and place. ... The rhetorical sciences were established so that no one could, whenever they get stuck, say that their speech was not literal but figurative. Our problem is that when we encounter difficulties with the literal meaning of many things, we think we can easily bridge from the literal and move toward the figurative. This figurative usage in the Arabic language (which is the language of the Holy Book) must be established. Not that anyone, whenever they get stuck with the literal meaning of what they said, can claim it was figurative. In other words, the criterion for distinguishing the literal from the figurative is not when the speech gets stuck, but rather when the audience itself understands the speech. Did the audience at the time of the Messenger of God understand the seven heavens literally or figuratively? They understood it literally, and if they understood it literally, we must consider it literal until the Day of Judgment. The literal or figurative meaning of speech belongs to the speech itself, not to the passage of time. Speech does not transform from literal to figurative over time [3].

In this part of the lecture, the subject of discussion is whether those propositions in the holy books that are incompatible with modern sciences can be interpreted figuratively [4]. Malekian proposes three answers. The mentioned passage is part of the second answer. I am most interested in Malekian's concluding sentences. The essence of Malekian's statement is this: the criterion for a speech being literal or figurative is the understanding of the "audience of the speech." Then, Malekian asks what the Prophet's audience at his own time understood from the seven heavens, a literal or figurative meaning? And he himself answers that the audience at the time of the Prophet understood a literal meaning. And therefore, considering Malekian's criterion, which is the understanding of the speech's audience at the time of its delivery, the seven heavens must be understood literally.

This is the summary of Malekian's view in the passage above. I am not concerned here with the specific case of the seven heavens that Malekian has raised. My discussion is not about what the seven heavens means or what the audience at the time of the Prophet understood from this expression. I am looking at other questions and considerations.

1. Whom does Malekian mean by “the audience of the Prophet’s time”? This is an important question, because the Prophet’s immediate audience was not a single, homogeneous group. The list of the Prophet’s audiences includes the following groups: “ ‘Believers,’ ‘Muslims,’ Jewish groups (‘those who became Jews,’ ‘Jews,’ ‘Children of Israel’), ‘Christians,’ ‘People of the Gospel,’ ‘People of the Book,’ ‘Sabians’ (Manichaeans), ‘Magians’ (Zoroastrians), ‘Hanifs,’ ‘Polytheists,’ ‘Hypocrites,’ and ‘Unbelievers’ ” [5]. Let us set aside for now the fact that the individuals within each of these groups also did not share a uniform understanding of matters. The question now is: when Malekian says the criterion for distinguishing figurative from literal speech is the understanding of “the audience of the Prophet’s time,” which of these audiences’ understanding does he have in mind? And if these diverse audiences had different understandings, what is to be done? Malekian might well answer that, on the question of figurative and literal, all the audiences of the Prophet’s time held a single view. This answer may be correct or it may be incorrect, but in any case, justifying this very answer requires further argument and evidence.

2. It is not clear whether Malekian considers the understanding of the contemporary audience only as the criterion for distinguishing literal from figurative speech, or whether he generalizes this criterion to all words and expressions. In other words, is “the understanding of the audience of the Prophet’s time” only the criterion for distinguishing figurative from literal, or, more broadly, the criterion for determining the meaning of every word and expression? If Malekian considers the understanding of the contemporary audience only as the criterion for distinguishing literal from figurative, what is the reason for this restriction? The passage we quoted from Malekian does not offer much explanation in answer to this question. However, I suspect Malekian applies the criterion of the contemporary audience’s understanding more generally and broadly, because the first case seems to entail the second: when the criterion for distinguishing literal from figurative is the understanding of the audience of the Prophet’s time, then the criterion for understanding the meaning of all words will be the understanding of the contemporary audience. If my view is correct and such a relation of entailment holds, then the important question will be: why must we refer to the understanding of the text’s audience at the time of its composition in order to understand the meaning of texts? Is the possibility ruled out that an author or speaker might give a different meaning to their words? Is it not possible for an author or speaker to make modifications to the constituent components of a word’s meaning? Since the logical possibility of such a thing is not ruled out, Malekian must provide reasons to show why “the understanding of the contemporary audience” is the criterion and reference for the meaning of words.

3. However, an author or speaker giving a different meaning to the words of a language is not merely a logical possibility. Such a thing has occurred repeatedly, and great philosophers, poets, and thinkers make modifications to the meaning of past words. For example, the American Kant scholar Moltke S. Gram has shown that none of Kant’s own contemporary interpreters had a correct understanding of the meaning of the word “intuition” (Anschauung) in Kant’s philosophy [6]. Gram describes the diverse understandings of Kant’s contemporary interpreters as a “hermeneutical jungle,” which clearly shows that the understanding of the contemporary audience is also not always uniform. Dariush Ashouri, too, in some of his writings, has tried to show that the word “rendi” (rogueishness) acquired a different meaning in Hafez’s poetry [7]. Furthermore, Malekian has certainly read Toshihiko Izutsu’s two important books on the vocabulary of the Quran [8] and knows that, according to Izutsu, the Prophet gave new meanings to many words common among the Arabs and made modifications to the semantic field of these words. If I am right, then the understanding of a writer’s or speaker’s contemporary audiences is not necessarily the correct and precise understanding of that writer’s or speaker’s intent.

4. Malekian himself provides us with another piece of evidence. Elsewhere, in a discussion of Shariati and ideology, Malekian says: “The majority of writers and thinkers in our country who have spoken of the ideologization of religion or ideological religion have intended meanings by the term ideology that differ from the conventional meanings in the Western philosophical and political tradition” [9]. Malekian says Shariati intended a meaning of ideology that differed from the audience’s familiar understanding. This means Shariati had given a different meaning to this term. What does this claim entail? It entails that speakers occasionally intend a different meaning from common and conventional words and expressions.

Other questions, critiques, and observations could also be raised, but I will limit myself to this much. Given the brevity and conciseness of Malekian's remarks on this subject (both in this lecture series and in his other works), one cannot make a definitive judgment about Malekian's view and its strengths and weaknesses. There is a possibility that I have misunderstood and misinterpreted his opinion and view. Perhaps Malekian restricts the criterion of "the contemporary audience's understanding" solely to discerning literal and figurative meaning, and has reasons for this restriction. Perhaps he considers the contemporary audience's understanding merely as the starting point of the process of understanding the meaning of texts. And many other possible 'perhapses.' In another piece of writing, I had examined and critiqued Malekian's reasons regarding the incompatibility of religious devotion with rationality [10]. Despite the fact that both at the beginning and at the end of that piece, I had reminded readers that I am only critiquing Malekian's reasons and not rejecting his claim, some readers of that piece still considered me a supporter of religious intellectualism and an advocate of devotion in religion. The same thing happened again recently. In a short piece, I examined and critiqued Dr. Bijan Abdolkarimi's criticisms of religious intellectuals (Soroush, Shabestari, Malekian, and Naraghi) [11]. Although in that piece, too, I had mainly critiqued Abdolkarimi's reasons, Dr. Abdolkarimi, in his audio response to my critique, constantly called me a supporter of religious intellectualism and placed me in their ranks [12]. It seems that simple logical point is easily forgotten: critiquing the reasons for a claim does not mean critiquing the claim itself; it only means that those reasons are insufficient to justify that claim. But critiquing the claim itself and refuting it requires more work: critiquing and refuting a claim entails proving or justifying the contradictory of that claim. Therefore, critiquing the views and reasons of a thinker does not mean advocating for the views of that thinker's opponents. In evaluating a critique, the correct and methodical approach is to examine the critic's reasons and evidence, not to attribute them to this or that group. Moreover, the reasons for critiquing a claim are no less important than refuting the claim itself. Dozens of people have critiqued the claims of Kant's theoretical philosophy, but what is more important are the reasons of Kant's critics. I have said all this to state that the file of questions and observations I have raised regarding Malekian's hermeneutic views remains open, and with the aforementioned questions and critiques, I have not refuted his opinion and view. We have learned from many people (and Malekian has been one of those teachers) that dialogue, understanding, and interpretation are a long process that may perhaps never end.

A part of Malekian's critiques of his intellectual rivals (religious intellectualism, traditionalist thought, traditionalism, etc.) [13] arises from his hermeneutic views and principles. I have tried to open a dialogue about Malekian's hermeneutic principles and views. Perhaps more can be said in this area in the future.

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Endnotes

1. Although Malekian has made controversial and challenging statements in the realm of hermeneutics, critics have paid less attention to this part of his views and opinions. For example, in critiquing Ibn Arabi's method of interpretation, Malekian writes:

"His interpretations of Quranic verses, prophetic hadiths, the sayings of mystics and Sufi masters, and the words of others are, in most cases, entirely contrived, unfair, devoid of any rule or principle, and completely arbitrary and authoritarian ... The major problem arises when we act as if interpretation has no methodology and that anarchy and chaos reign in the field of interpretation, and everyone can do whatever they want. ... In the work of Ibn Arabi, we are, in fairness, witnessing such arbitrariness and chaos. ... Wherever he needs any meaning, he extracts it from the Quran or hadith or the saying of anyone else; there is no methodology, rule, or principle at work. Sheer anarchy and chaos, complete arbitrariness and authoritarianism. ... I do not deny the principle of interpretation; what is emphasized is that interpretation must also have rules and principles."

In another interview that caused much uproar, Malekian says:

“The science of interpreting religious and theological texts is not an anarchic discipline that allows us to extract whatever we desire from the Quran and the hadiths. This science has criteria, rules, and principles. It is true that hermeneuticists sometimes disagree with one another; however, they disagree on peripheral matters within a vast common ground. Otherwise, the science of hermeneutics does have rules and criteria. When we violate these rules and criteria, we have deviated from the science of hermeneutics, and this is incompatible with scholarly ethics ... I have repeatedly mentioned that Ibn Arabi quotes his master, Abu Madyan. When Abu Madyan was asked, ‘Who is a disciple (murid)?’ he replied: ‘A disciple is one who extracts from the Quran whatever he desires.’ This amounts to interpretive anarchy. That is, as if hermeneutics were an anarchic science ...” .

As far as I know, Malekian has not offered a detailed and systematic exposition of his views on the rules and criteria of hermeneutics. Perhaps one reason critics have not addressed this part of Malekian’s views is precisely this. The first and second passages mentioned above can be found in the following source and web address:

ـ “Ketab-e Mah-e Falsafeh,” No. 7, Farvardin 1387, pp. 3–32.

ـ “Religious Intellectualism” in a detailed conversation between Behzad Jameh Bozorg and Mostafa Malekian; What do you do with your paradox?

2. As the compiler of this lecture series states, the lectures are “a transcription of Professor Malekian’s lessons for doctoral students in the field of Kalam at the Teacher Training Center of the University of Qom during the years 1384–5.” See the footnote on the first page of the first session of the lecture series.

3. Seventh session, pp. 19–20. The audio file and PDF of this lecture series can be downloaded from here.

4. It should be noted that in this part of the lecture series, “‘figurative’ (majaz) is used in a general sense in opposition to ‘literal’ (haqiqat), meaning that figurative includes metaphor, simile, allusion, and symbol.” Seventh session of the lecture series, footnote on p. 19.

5. Emran El-Badawi emphasizes the multiplicity of these groups. See:

Iqbal El-Badawi, E. 2014. The Quran and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions. London and New York: Routledge. p. 4.

6. Gram, M.S. (1982). “The Sense of a Kantian Intuition”, in Interpreting Kant, ed. Moltke S. Gram. University of Lowa Press. P. 53.

7. See the book Mysticism and Rindi in Hafez’s Poetry and also an article titled “Rindi and Nazarbazi.”

8. I am referring to two books by Izutsu with the following titles, both of which have been translated into Persian:

- The Structure of the Ethical Terms in the Koran (1959) (revised version: Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur'an (1966)) - God and Man in the Koran: Semantics of the Quranic Weltanschauung (1964)

9. Shariati and Ideological Religion

10. This article, titled “Rationality or Religious Irrationality, a Critical Assessment of Mostafa Malekian’s Arguments,” has been published on the Niloufar website.

11. This article, titled “A Critique of Bijan Abdolkarimi’s Recent Criticisms of Religious Intellectualism,” has been published on the Niloufar website.

12. Abdolkarimi’s audio response to my critique has been published on his Telegram channel.

13. By "traditionalistic thinking" I mean the mode of thought of Malekian's opponents in the seminary. And by "traditionalism" I mean the mode of thought of figures such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and other representatives of the traditionalist current in Islam.

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A Reflection on One of Mostafa Malekian's Hermeneutic Principles: Authorial Intent or the Reader's Understanding?

Author: Arash Jamshidpour

Source: Niloufar Cultural Site

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