From Historical Understanding to Theological Understanding (3), Hassan Ansari

I believe that in Dr. Soroush's theory regarding the dreamlike nature of the Prophet's revelation, one of the fundamental problems is the lack of attention to the achievements of historical studies and the complete disregard for that type of scholarship. An example of this can be seen in his recent writing, which I felt compelled to briefly address here in the margins of my discussion on the aforementioned theory. First, I quote his exact words: "The rhetorical device of *iltifāt*—that is, shifting in speech from direct address to indirect reference, and from indirect reference to direct address—is considered an embellishment by literary scholars; but in the hypothesis of dreamlike revelation, it is a proof of its soundness. And as I have brought up before, these devices, if employed consciously, are artifices, but in the realm of unconsciousness, they are truths! The fact that in the Qur'an, sometimes the first person takes the place of the second, and sometimes the second person takes the place of the first, is an event that truly occurs in the consciousness and imagination of Muhammad (PBUH), not that he resorts to it artfully for the praise and adornment of speech. The intertwining of the speaker, the addressee, and the observer, and one taking the place of the other, is well observed in these instances. For example, let us consider this verse, which has many parallels in the Qur'an: 'And He it is who sends the winds as heralds of glad tidings, going before His mercy, till when they have carried a heavy-laden cloud, We drive it to a dead land, then We send down water on it, then We bring forth with it fruits of every kind. Thus shall We bring forth the dead, that you may remember' (Al-A'raf/57). It is as if initially someone (the Prophet) says that God sends the winds, and then God Himself takes the reins of speech and says, 'We drive the clouds!' This shifting between the present and the absent occurs not in the phrasing but in the very fabric of reality (the dream), and sometimes the Prophet speaks in the tongue of God, and sometimes God speaks in the tongue of the Prophet. The polyphonic nature of the Qur'an can be investigated and confirmed in these examples. The matter of the Qur'an's 'Say' (qul) commands and 'We sent down' (anzalnā) phrases is thus clarified."

As you can observe, and as I emphasized in two previous writings, Dr. Soroush ignores the rhetorical devices that are characteristic of literary speech and entirely trace back, in various forms of expressive, rhetorical, and oratorical articulation, to the historical context of dialogue and communication. He is consequently forced to resort to two different levels of interpretation: First, he finds literature incapable of experiencing the various layers of literary expression through the use of different forms of imagination, rhetorical and literary articulations, and various devices, and deems it absolutely necessary to propose a kind of dreamlike observation as the basis for the spoken language, so that the language directly refers to something real without employing the element of imagination. In other words, it seems that in Dr. Soroush's view, imagination must only rely on an objective matter for language to provide a direct expression of it without the aid of the creative subjective element. Well, this is a new theory about language, and I suppose we must see to what extent linguists and philosophers of language can sympathize with it. What I understand is that for comprehending and interpreting the element of imagination in spoken and literary language, there is no need for such a backing. The human mind and its imaginative faculty can employ and utilize various elements of similes, metaphors, or literary devices to convey different meanings. The dialogue between God and the Prophet, which takes place in various literary forms and by utilizing the shifting between speaker and addressee, is merely a literary genre, a rhetorical device, an oratorical form, and in a word, a type of literary expression, examples of whose use are abundantly seen in classical Arabic literature and can be found in Arabic poetry and prose, even in pre-Islamic poetry. If we wish to comment on this matter, the solution is not the dreamlike nature of the language of revelation; rather, the solution lies in referring to the history of literature. That is all. Furthermore, I must point out here that the language of the Qur'an cannot be interpreted solely based on the language and rhetoric of pre-Islamic Arab literature or what was later narrated, understood, and expressed in the classical Arabic language. The language of the Qur'an must also be compared with the spoken, expressive, and oratorical language of other Semitic languages and their influences on the evolution of the Arabic language in the pre-classical Arabic period, to see, for instance, in the language of dialogue, or storytelling, or other types of expressive articulations, which other Semitic languages—including Aramaic, Syriac, and Hebrew—influenced the language of the Qur'an, and how. I recommend that esteemed readers study the following two books: first, this book

Michel Cuypers, Le Festin, Une lecture de la sourate al-Mâ’ida Paris, Lethielleux, (« Rhétorique sémitique ; ۴ »), ۲۰۰۷

This book has also been translated into Arabic and published by Dar el-Machreq in Beirut. In it, the author discusses the rhetoric of Semitic languages and applies it to the linguistic, discursive, and rhetorical situation of Surah al-Ma'idah, subjecting it to detailed examination and analysis. Studying this book is useful not only for our discussion of writing but also, and immensely so, in relation to another point in Dr. Soroush's theory where he speaks of the structure of word order and topics in the Quran as evidence and an indication of the Quran's dreamlike nature. I am referring to the point where Dr. Soroush notes that the order of surahs in the Quran, and even the beginning and end of a single verse, is unclear, and the coherence of verses and surahs has been a subject of challenge, from which he seeks an indication of the dreamlike, dream-based nature of the Quranic discourse; my recommendation to readers is to consult this book. I also recommend another book on this subject, with the following title: Roland Meynet, Louis Pouzet, Naïla Farouki, Ahyaf Sinno, Méthode d'analyse rhétorique et d'exégèse (Analyses de textes de la Bible et du Hadith), Beirut, 1993 (reprinted in 2004). The rhetorical structures of classical Arabic were later discussed by literary scholars and rhetoricians under the influence of Greek language and syntax and Aristotelian rhetoric, which certainly enriched linguistic approaches to the Quran. On the other hand, Quranic studies, as we know, including the discussion of the Quran's inimitability (i'jāz), themselves became a ground for the growth of rhetorical sciences in the Arabic language. However, for a proper understanding of the language of the Quran, attention to the rhetoric of other Semitic languages, especially in the era before classical Arabic literature, is immensely important. In any case, due to a lack of attention to what has been said, Dr. Soroush has deemed it necessary to explain the expressive structure of the Quran solely by invoking the dreamlike nature of revelation, and to state that "the shifting between the present and the absent occurs not in the phrase but in the reality of the text (the dream), and sometimes the Prophet speaks in the tongue of God, and sometimes God speaks in the tongue of the Prophet."

The second point I must emphasize here in passing is that Dr. Soroush, due to his inattention to what has been said—namely, historical and literary studies for understanding the language of the Quran—has been compelled to justify the Quran's mode of expression, which, as I said, can be interpreted through its rhetorical and expressive structure, with theological discussions, and writes thus: "I must stress that everything that came upon the Prophet, and everything that settled upon his soul, arose from the strength of his spirit, the sharpness of his inner vision, his creative imagination, his revelatory experience, and his unparalleled rational ability—all of which were special divine gifts that permitted him, commensurate with his human capacity, to see distant horizons, to bring embers from the unseen world into the world of witness, and to set fire to the storehouse of history's equilibrium. The centrality and involvement of the Prophet in the phenomenon of revelation is inevitable and undeniable, and all of religion revolves around the axis of his personality and experience, and he revolves around the axis of God. Had Muhammad (PBUH) had other experiences, the Muhammadan Islam would have taken on a different hue and fragrance. All religions, as the Quran explicitly states, are Islam: we have a Mosaic Islam and a Jesusian Islam, and the religion of the Muslims is the Muhammadan Islam, peace be upon them all." In reality, due to his inattention to the expressive and rhetorical structure of the Quran, Dr. Soroush is ultimately compelled to depict a dreamlike world in which the Prophet, in fact, saw himself in a dream and, in that visionary realm, attained an observation and experience whose result was the text of the Quran. In this experience, sometimes the Prophet speaks with God and sometimes God speaks with him—but not him as the historical person of the Messenger, rather a Prophet filled with God, such that when he speaks to himself, it is as if God is speaking to him. And from Dr. Soroush's perspective, this is the secret and mystery of the shifting of speaker and addressee in Quranic addresses. It is clear that this is merely a theological exposition and a mystical interpretation of the Quran and the prophetic experience. There is no objection to Dr. Soroush for favoring a theological approach; the entire point is why, when explaining the language of the Quran, he abandons a historical, literary, and linguistic interpretation—which is the result of the historical understanding of the text—sets aside the fruits of all those historical and literary studies, and reduces everything to a theological interpretation. Moreover, if we are to understand the Quran with a theological approach and interpret the language of the Quran through theological methods, why not turn to the theological and mystical theories previously proposed by Ibn Arabi, or the Ash'arites, and more importantly, the Ismailis, which have examined the relationship between the pre-eternal Word or the formless command with the contingent event and the revelatory speech and narrative—a subject we will elucidate in future writings.

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The Third Critique of Dr. Hassan Ansari on Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush

From Historical Understanding to Theological Understanding (3)

Hassan Ansari | Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Source: Hassan Ansari's Personal Website

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Related Content:

The First Critique of Dr. Hassan Ansari on Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush

The Second Critique of Dr. Hassan Ansari on Dr. Abdolkarim Soroush

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