Yaser Mirdamadi: Does Ibn Arabi Empty the Quran of Its 'Violent' Content?

Does Ibn Arabi Empty the Quran of Its 'Violent' Content?

A Marginal Note on a Critique by Professor Mostafa Malekian

Yaser Mirdamadi[1]

1_ The Argument from Quantity

The esteemed professor, Mr. Mostafa Malekian—may his life be long and his scholarly lights ever radiant (henceforth referred to in this piece as "the Critic")—in a segment of the third session of the lecture series "Moral Psychology" at the Porsesh Institute, makes brief, noteworthy points regarding the merciful interpretation of the Quran (for the video version of this segment of the lectures, follow this link).

These points appear to aim at critiquing the merciful interpretation of the Quran, particularly by Ibn Arabi and mystics like him. It seems the respected Critic considers the merciful interpretation of Quranic verses by Ibn Arabi and mystics like him to be clearly invalid. Furthermore, to critique this interpretation, at least in this part of the talk, they confine themselves solely to a psychological analysis of the proponents of this idea. The respected Critic says that mystics, including Ibn Arabi, are introverts, and introverts are not comfortable with war; therefore, they interpret the verses of jihad esoterically, resulting in a merciful interpretation—an interpretation that, in the respected Critic's view, is alien to the intention of the author of the Quranic text (the Prophet and/or God).

But it seems we are only permitted to resort solely to a psychological analysis of the proponent of an idea when critiquing a belief that is clearly invalid. For example, if someone says "two plus two equals five," since this is clearly invalid, then, according to the etiquette of critique, we are permitted to set aside epistemological criticism and resort solely to psychological analyses, to critiques such as "the individual is unaware of what they are saying," "they merely intend to jest," or "they are speaking ironically" (for instance, their ironic meaning is that obvious truths should not be denied).

With this point in mind, the question here is: what is the respected Critic's reason for considering the merciful interpretation of mystics like Ibn Arabi to be definitively invalid? In this part of the talk, they briefly offer only one reason: there are dozens of verses calling for war, but merciful verses are few, and merciful narrations are also suspected of being fabricated. Let us set aside the discussion of narrations suspected of fabrication for now and focus on the merciful verses of the Quran. There are not a few commentators who, as it happens, consider the merciful verses (for example, calling for friendship, peace, and vying in good deeds) to be perhaps more numerous than the verses calling for war. But now, for the sake of advancing the discussion, let us assume that the number of merciful verses in the Quran is perhaps far fewer than the verses calling for war. What conclusion follows from this assumption? The conclusion the respected Critic seems to draw from this assumption is that "high quantity indicates greater importance." Let us call this conclusion the "Argument from Quantity."

Is the "Argument from Quantity" necessarily true? The answer is no. Suppose a father/mother, throughout their life, gave their children ordinary advice dictated by daily life, advice like: "Don't waste your money," "Don't put your capital in that bank," and the like. But on their deathbed, perhaps for the first time, at least in this manner, they give their children different advice: "Be kind to others," "Be forgiving," and so on. Can we conclude, merely because these final pieces of advice from the father/mother were perhaps fewer in number than their other advice, that the final advice is less important than their other advice? It seems that mere quantity here is not the sole arbiter for distinguishing more important advice from less important advice. In other words, the "Argument from Quantity" is not necessarily true.

Now suppose that the verses calling for war were far more numerous than the merciful verses in the Quran; the mere higher quantity of verses calling for war compared to the merciful verses would not, in itself, be a sign that the war verses are more important than the merciful ones. To demonstrate the greater importance of the more frequent verses, it seems one must provide an independent reason beyond (or at least in addition to) frequency—a reason that shows, for example, that for the Quran, war at any cost is the principle and peace the exception. Such a reason has not been provided, at least in this part of the esteemed critic's discussion.

The conclusion is that the "argument from quantity" cannot refute a merciful interpretation of the Quran (at all, or at least not on its own)—let alone demonstrate that this interpretation is clearly invalid. Consequently, since a merciful interpretation of the Quran is at least not clearly invalid (if it is invalid at all), one cannot merely resort to the psychology of the proponents of this interpretation to critique it.

2. Conflation of Levels

Nevertheless, it might be said that the esteemed critic was merely seeking to state the "cause" of the formation of the idea of the Quran being merciful, as well as the cause of its expression by the proponents of this idea, and did not intend to move from the etiology of the belief to an assessment of its truth or falsehood. To explain the matter, the esteemed critic themselves, particularly in their enlightening lectures on "critical thinking," has aptly pointed out that in critical thinking, to evaluate a claim, one must distinguish four levels so that a claim can be accurately assessed without committing a fallacy:

1. The first level is what led to this claim being formed in a thinker's mind; what psychological and sociological factors came together to create this claim in that thinker's mind. For example, what psychological and sociological factors came together for someone to believe that "A is B."

2. The second level is that, having come to believe for whatever reason that "A is B," why did this individual utter this claim and not keep it concealed in their heart? For what psychological and/or sociological reasons did this individual "express" this claim?

3. The third level is whether this claim of mine that "A is B" is true or false, justified or unjustified.

4. The fourth level is what psychological and/or sociological effects and consequences follow from this claim of mine that "A is B."

The first and second levels have no bearing on the truth or falsehood of a claim. And if we take truth to mean correspondence with reality and falsehood to mean non-correspondence with reality, then the negative effects and consequences of a claim are not proof of its falsehood, nor are the positive effects and consequences of a claim proof of its truth.

Critical thinking tells us that for the epistemic evaluation of a claim, we must deal solely and exclusively with the third level, and nothing else. If, in the epistemic evaluation of a claim, we slip into the first, second, or fourth levels, we have committed a fallacy. Now the question is: did the esteemed critic merely intend to address the first and second levels, or the third level?

Since this lecture series pertains to "psychology," it is probable that the author merely intended to address the first and second levels. However, it seems that the esteemed critic, at least on the margins of a psychological discussion, is seeking to critique the merciful interpretation of the Quran by Ibn Arabi and his like, and not merely discussing the recognition of the psychological causes of a belief. Up to this point, there is no objection to the esteemed critic. Everyone has the right, in any situation they deem appropriate, to assess any interpretation of a text (religious or non-religious) while observing the etiquette of critique, and no one has the right to deprive the critic of their rights for doing so, or even to have a negative moral evaluation of the critic.

A possible objection, however, arises where the esteemed critic, by resorting to the "argument from quantity," seems to have conflated the first and second standpoints with the third. It appears that, from the esteemed critic's perspective, the "argument from quantity" against a merciful interpretation of the Quran can render this interpretation manifestly invalid, and a belief that is manifestly invalid can then be criticized merely by resorting to the first and second standpoints—that is, by merely speculating about the causes of that belief. In this piece, however, we have tried to show that the "argument from quantity" cannot invalidate the belief in a merciful interpretation of the Quran (let alone demonstrate that this belief is manifestly invalid), and consequently, a belief that is not manifestly invalid cannot be criticized merely by resorting to the causes of its formation and/or expression.

3. Just War

A final point is that the esteemed critic's presupposition seems to be that "war is bad" and "peace is good." Hence, it appears that someone who interprets the verses of war in favor of the verses of peace seeks to impose a merciful coloring upon these verses and empty them of their "non-merciful" content. But the idea that "war is always bad and peace is always good" is an idea that, at the very least, proponents of the "just war" theory do not accept. From the perspective of this group, sometimes war is good, such as a defensive war, and sometimes peace is bad, especially if it is highly likely to pave the way for a catastrophic war. In other words, from the viewpoint of proponents of "just war," violence can be divided into two categories: "legitimate violence" and "illegitimate violence." The conclusion is that, to demonstrate that the merciful interpretation of the Quranic verses is erroneous, the esteemed critic must, among other things, also show that the call to war in the Quran is a call to illegitimate violence.[2]

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[1] Researcher in Islamic biomedical ethics, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London.

[2] I extend special thanks to my learned and kind friend, Dr. Javad Heydari (Shahed University, Tehran), who graciously reviewed the first draft of this piece with a critical eye. His suggestions led to extensive changes in the text.

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