On Nouman Ali Khan's YouTube Tafsir - ethics and self-reflection

Like other special guests in recent years, Nouman Ali Khan attracted hundreds of worshipers to the grand Gatesville Mosque in 2019.  He seems to be part of a phenomenon in which middle-class mosques in recent years in Cape Town expended great effort and money to attract the biggest crowds. 

Given his popularity and wanting to know more about his appeal, I decided to look for him on Youtube. I watched the first lesson that came up in my search. It was a discourse on the Prophet Dawud (David) from the 38th chapter in the Qur'an (Sad 38:17-25). 

Khan presented a very clear and moving account of Dawud, his status as a prophet, and his reaction to a group of intruders who demanded that he judge between them. He began his talk with a short criticism of Muslim scholars who related this event to Biblical accounts. Muslims, he proclaimed, had a different and more correct version of the story which did not implicate the Prophet in impropriety.

He then proceeded with an interpretation that emphasised the ethics of judging between two individuals. Overwhelmed by the rude intrusion of the complainants, the Prophet Dawud made a hasty decision. In the case in question, he only listened to the person who had one sheep and complained that his rich compatriot who had ninety-nine wanted his as well. The Prophet Dawuod “understood that We had tried him” (Qur'an) and according to Khan, corrected himself. Khan dwelt on the theme of making fair judgments, by listening to both sides of a story. In this interpretation, the man with 99 sheep was wronged by not being heard by the Prophet. 

It was an impressive delivery, executed with great flair and conviction. I could begin to appreciate how thousands of followers turned to him for advice and guidance on social media.

I decided to read a number of commentaries to see how he produced such a compelling account. On the one hand, I was impressed by how Khan had managed to wade through the complexity of the exegetical literature to produce a clear and simple message on Islam’s ascendancy over previous scriptures, and its message of justice. 

On the other hand, this retelling was taking away an important and deep self-reflection embedded in the verses, and brought up by many commentators from al-Tabari in the 9th century onwards. Like Khan, most of these commentators also seemed to work with the doctrine that Dawood was a prophet of God who should not be accused of moral impropriety.

But unlike Khan, most of them retold the Prophet Dawood's alleged attraction to a beautiful woman he had seen bathing. All commentators with the exception of Ibn Kathir mentioned this in one way or another. Many also mentioned that the Prophet had asked that her husband be sent at the head of battle until he was killed. And they say that the Prophet then married this woman. One commentator offered a lexical analysis of the word for sheep (na’ja) and suggested it could also refer to a woman or wife, thus pointing to a direct relationship between the verses of the Qur’an and its Biblical version. 

In the exegetical (tafsir) tradition, then, this event or versions thereof was told just enough to allude to the Biblical story.  While skirting directly the implication of the Prophet’s deeds, an impropriety was implied. 

But most of all, premodern commentators insisted that this was a story of temptation with which the Prophet Dawud was tested. They did not say he failed, but they emphasised the fact that he realised his temptation. Their meditations turned around the very verse that Khan asked his audience to skip: "And [suddenly] Dawood understood that We had tried him: and so he asked his Sustainer to forgive him his sin, and fell down in prostration, and turned unto Him in repentance." (Quran 38:24).  This is a prostration (sajda) verse which, when heard or read, requires an immediate prostration. The prostration was a ritualised embodiment of reading and listening to a particular verse. In the story of the Prophet Dawud, it embodied his realisation that he was being tested (fatannahu)

Nouman Ali Khan offered an attractive message on ethics and justice. Prefaced with the conviction that Islam was better than other religions, he confirmed an unquestioned truth and guided his listeners towards ethical virtue.

But he avoided an uncomfortable truth in this exposition. In this particular case, the ethic of justice without deep introspection seems to truncate the message of the Prophet Dawud. Preaching about justice without a prostration misses an important method of the Qur’an. 

But Khan did demonstrate an uncomfortable truth of modern Islamic discourse. Many modern middle-class Muslims like to listen to lectures on the superiority of Islam over other religions. And they accompany this with the conviction that they ought to be just to merit this distinction. Of course, it helps to know that they can keep their "99 sheep." But they often stop short of taking that additional step into the self, the step exemplified in Prophet Dawud’s prostration. 

While scholars of religion and media stress the importance of mediation, they too often ignore the ethical choices and constructions made in the process. There may be considerable value in following this line of research more extensively than what I have shown in this brief review. 

Encounters of Decolonization. Do we have to chose between Excellence and Commitment?

At the University of Cape Town recently, we were privilege to listen to two outstanding contributions on decolonizization. Professors Vivek Chibber and Mahmood Mamdani addressed the challenges of decolonizing the post-colonial University. Both put forward compelling models and ideas, and opened up a wide-ranging agenda for the future.

Chibber and Mamdani put decolonization struggles in South Africa in a historical frame. Putting the exceptionalism of South Africa in the dock, they asked us to reflect on Indian and the East African experiences of anti-colonialism and decolonization.

Chibber was clearly committed to a Marxist project that he wanted to revive and strengthen. He was critical of what he called de-universalizing gestures in Indian subaltern studies which he claimed ignored capitalist and neo-liberal hegemonies at local and global levels. He was dismissive of the cultural turn that deflected attention from class and capital. I am not convinced that this was an accurate reflection of subaltern studies.

But his talk and seminars made a valuable point of the dominant capitalist framework that pervades the globe. Any alternative cannot afford to ignore this status quo. But the cultural language, which also pervades class and decolonization struggles in South Africa and elsewhere, cannot be so easily dismissed. I believe that all struggles have cultures - and these must be reflected upon as critically as the economic conditions in which we live.

Mamdani was equally committed to a de-colonizing political project. Also taking us out of South Africa, he presented the contrasting epistemological projects of Makarere (Uganda) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania).  Mamdani compared the political commitment of Walter Rodney with the academic excellence of Ali Mazrui. In his framework, Chibber may be characterized as following a Rodnean approach.

In this gesture, then, I am asking that we put Mamdani in conversation with Chibber. Or that we use southern categories to frame discussions going forward.

Both Chibber and Mamdani called us to listen to experiences elsewhere. I believe that it is time that we engage in more discussions with decolonizing experiments across time and space.  Across time, it means that the post-colonial project in the 1960s should be brought up for critical engagement. Often, the postcolonial turn is identified as intellectual discussions that have greater currency in New York and London. Mamdani opened the window to the postcolonial  in the South.

They both also showed us how not to think about intellectuals in the South in undifferentiated ways. Again, I found Mamdani more useful in how he brought the value of Mazrui and Rodney into conversation with each other. But he should have been more critical of them - he left us thinking how to hold the balance between excellence and commitment. In my view, this choice is not one that we should be forced to make. Perhaps we need to ask why we have to chose? How have intellectual projects been shaped and framed so that theory and application are separated from each other? what is the nature of theory that eschews commitment and application?

Moreover, I would like to insert a critical Western voice to this discussion. Some western voices are also critical as we know, but they are also located in place, and not as universal as they seem to be, or seem to be read as such. By way of example, I can share Arendt whose The Human Condition we are reading in a reading group in the Department of Religious Studies. Arendt was engaging in a critical reading of the Western canon in the 1950s by comparing the West with Athens. Using Athens as a contrasting model, she presented a view of Western Enlightenment which she argued erased the truly political. Her deeply critical and  historical comparison was another way of provincializing Europe. Reading her critically, we have been asking how she erased the medieval in a typical modernist Western trope.

In summary, I  think of them as epistemological encounters that help us to rethink the nature of the university, knowledge, economy, society, values, past, and future.

Going forward, I think that we need more robust and collaborative debates and conversations over particular and general issues facing us in the next few weeks, months and years.

Revelation between Remembering and Forgetting

It is 13 years since one of the iconic Imams of Cape Town passed away. Imam Bassier was an Imam in the Bo-Kaap who had touched the lives of many people in his mosque and neighorhood. Moreover, he was a frequent visitor to the Robben Island, and offered a word of solace to those incarcerated there for many years. He was designated as the Muslim chaplain, but did not limit his concern to his particular flock (or Mureeds as would be called in Cape Town).

When reminded about his death anniversary, I asked his son to share with me the chapters of the Qur'an to which he was attached. I have become aware of this personal feature of the Qur'an in the lives of Muslims. Recently, Ebrahim Rasool mentioned that he was fond of reading Surah Zumar when he was in prison during the 1980s. He said that he found all he needed to pull him through. I had also heard others who were attached to certain verses or chapters of the Qur'an - many also for listening to melodious recitations that they had heard for many years.

I have not yet asked Rasool exactly  what attracted him to this chapter, and will never be able to ask the Imam. But I generally let my imagination lead me as I read and reflected on their favorite recitations.

This morning, I decided to share my thoughts on one of the chapters that meant so much to Imam Bassier. It was the the oft-repeated Surah al-A'la. And I focussed on some of its verses (87:6-9):

We shall make thee recite, to forget not save what God wills; surely He knows what is spoken aloud and what is hidden.We shall ease thee unto the Easing.Therefore remind, if the Reminder profits

Ostensibly addressed to the Prophet, the verses have perplexed commentators. They said that the Prophet used to be anxious to repeat quickly what Gabriel conveyed to him, lest he forget. This verse then provide support and confirmation that he would not forget.

But working with the idea of a fixed and definite revelation, these commentators were baffled what to do with a revelation that God wills to be forgotten. I have not read any convincing answers.

In his commentary, Martin Lings has suggested that the verses refer not to the Prophet, but to us normal mortals. He takes the meaning to refer to the flow of knowledge, and how it changes with the advance of time. Knowledge, as we know from modern science, is open to revision and development. But still I was not convinced.

I prefer to stay with the notion of anxiety that the commentators read into these verses. I think that they were right. In relation to revelation, I can imagine that remembering and forgetting might cause a certain anxiety when it is connected to something as weighty as revelation.

Forgetting revelation can be unnerving - especially in Muslim culture which frowns and castigates those of us who have memorized and then forgotten. More generally, we feel threatened by its moral and ethical demands.

Revelation, when elevated to a high level, generates anxiety by its very nature.The Qur'an, as most of us relate to it, unnerves us.

But is this not a metaphor for something deeper on remembering and forgetting. I know from recent neuroscience that both are very important for living a sane life. But what does it mean with regard to revelation?

Perhaps the next verse provides a hint on how to think of revelation and knowledge remembering and forgetting:

surely He knows what is spoken aloud and what is hidden.

If "spoken aloud" stands for that which is remembered, and 'hidden" for that which is forgotten, then we might think differently about remembering and forgetting. We might then backtrack and apply this to remembering and forgetting revelation - whether the Prophet or ordinary people like us.

Can we figure out everything, of the Qur'an and our relation to it - that which is hidden and open? Maybe we should let the flow of remembering and forgetting do its work. Do not try too hard to remember (put everything in the open), sometimes things are better forgotten (hidden). Only God knows both at the same time.

But what does this have to do with Imam Bassier? I remember him as a leader who seemed to have overcome the anxiety that comes with remembering or forgetting. Imam Bassier reminded me of someone who exuded confidence and composure. He let life flow, with him in it. There are people among us who exude this value - do not forget them and keep them hidden.

The Ethics and Aesthetics of Belief and Disbelief

In the last two years, I have had the privilege of sharing some reflections on the Qur'an in a mosque near our home. This weekend (16 July 2017), I decided to share some ideas from a paper that I presented in Morocco recently. I started with trepidation since I know of the gulf that separates an academic talk and a discussion in a mosque. And I remembered Ibn Rushd's (Averroes) apt warning!

Anyway, this is the verse:

Abuse not those to whom they pray, apart from God, or they will abuse God in revenge without knowledge. So We have decked out fair to every nation their deeds; then to their Lord they shall return, and He will tell them what they have been doing (Q 6:108; translation from Arberry)

I asked if anybody in the mosque had heard the first part of the verse. I had the impression that this was a popular verse since it is often quoted by some Muslim scholars when asked about how Muslims should respond to insults heaped upon God or the Prophet Muhammad. None of 15-odd men in the mosque had heard of it. And my audience included a few who were not unaware of the public atmosphere of Islamophobia in recent times in some countries.

So even though I had decided to speak on the second phrase, I had to briefly elaborate on the first part as well. It was a call to set aside the gods from acrimonious human exchange. Insults and abuse should not be directed at the special or sacred (to use the Christian theologian Paul Tillich's definition of religion).  An alert reader or listener might detect a selfish motive behind this advice.

Alternatively, we might think of this as the Golden rule of Jesus' sermon on the mount - but now applied to the sacred that is cherished by those who abuse. But there is still a lingering expectation of mutuality in this rule - which might not take away the tinge or the aroma of selfishness.

Of course, if one thinks that the sacred is an absolute abomination, or alienation (Feuerbach), or neurosis (Freud) or opiate (Marx), then there might be no need to desist from abusing it. This is an idea of the sacred that exists in many circles in the modern world today. The sacred that some people believe in is rejected in its totality. In this case, the golden rule, if applied, would be to the human person but excluding what he or she may treasure and cherish.

Let me return to the second part of the verse which I wanted to focus on in my talk; and which I think sheds sheds some light on the first part.

So We have decked out fair to every nation their deeds.

This part of the verse has not been as extensively cited or discussed in recent dialogical exchanges over religion and mutual abuse. I have not heard anybody who cites the first part of the verse elaborate on the second part. And I did not expect anybody in the mosque to have heard of it. And this time, I was correct in my assumption.

There is a long history of commentary on this phrase. I submit that the the phrase points to the close relation between truth and beauty. It reminds listeners and readers that the sacred, truth and values,  including the ultimate decision of  believing or disbelieving, is founded on appearance. More than mere appearance, truth is rooted and founded on an aesthetic (a judgment of beauty and form). And that aesthetic is the basis on which beliefs, judgments and values are held. Beauty and truth are held in a tight embrace.

But there is a sting in the tail. An aesthetic judgement might be misleading or open the road to felicity. Beauty comes with truth, but does not guarantee it.

And more interestingly, for this reading that I am suggesting, the verse asks believers to recognize this adornment in the belief held by those who insult God. That might be a tall order which will be difficult for most. Recognizing the difficulty of fully appreciating that another person sees beauty where one only sees error and falsehood, I think that the verse takes on a 2-stage ethical reflection.

I would suggest that in the first part of the verse, we are asked to stop the cycle of insults. Someone has to stop - and it would be good to be that person.

Then, the second part of the verse ventures a more difficult ethical stance. Here, we are told that the foundation of a person's belief who insults your God lies in an aesthetic judgment made by the person who holds that belief. The aesthetic and moral judgment is not merely rooted in arrogance, stupidity or laziness, but on what the other truly thinks is beautiful.

The delicacy of belief and aesthetic is captured by the Adalusian exegete al-Qurtubi's reference to a rhetorical of prayer of Umar (the second caliph of Islam) in his reflection of another verse in the Qur'an that repeats this theme of aesthetics and truth. Reportedly, Umar turned to God and asked: “What will you make beautiful for us?” This question, I propose, exposes the precariousness of moral judgment. It locates moral judgment on aesthetics, which is necessary and inevitable. But that judgment is possibly misleading. So Umar (ra) asks God what He will make beautiful for him (hoping and trusting that it will be the good). 

I submit that this verse might be a good foundation for thinking about unbelief in a deeply respectful way.