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Criticism By Mufti Mudasir On Method Of Tafsir By Ghamidi Sahab
Here i quote his criticism;
Some Observations on Javed Ghamidi Sb’s Quranic Hermeneutics.
(Mufti Mudasir)
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is indeed one of the most brilliant Islamic scholars of our time. Like many others, I have learnt enormously from his scholarship and hold him in high esteem. Unlike the traditional scholars who often castigate him for his allegedly unorthodox views on many issues, I am fascinated by his textualist approach which offers some brilliant insights. However, I also see the inadequacies of such an approach. In the following write-up I want to say something about the problems intrinsic to a textualist approach to the Quran.
It is well known that
Ghamidi sb uses the word سياق و سباق but what he means by it is the inner context of the Quran not its historical context. I think that an unresolved tension between these two senses of the word “context” can be seen if one takes a comprehensive view of Ghamidi sb’s project. I will try to explain why.
In the video I am sharing above, Hassan Ilyas sb, who represents the views of Javed Ghamidi sb, is answering a question about child marriage in Islam. Hassan Ilyas defends the right of the state to set a minimum age for marriage and criticizes the traditional scholars’ position that the state has no right in such matters.
It is very intriguing that Maulana Amin Ahsan Islahi whose Quranic approach Javed Ghamidi sb follows had written a strong rebuttal of the recommendations of the report of a committee called Family Commission Report during the regime of President Ayub in Pakistan. Among the reforms recommended by the Family Commission was the one pertaining to fixing the minimum age of marriage. Arguing from a verse of Surah Nisaa about giving orphans their wealth once they grow up, the Commission had said that the Quran stipulates “rushd”(intellectual maturity) implying thereby the capacity to take care of oneself and managing one’s wealth, as the criterion for handing over their wealth to the orphans. The Commission was in effect saying: If the Quran stipulates ” rushd ” for handing over their wealth to the orphans, why can’t “rushd” be taken as the condition for marriage? They thus used this argument to state that physical maturity (puberty) is not enough in the case of marriage. Something more, that is, intellectual maturity, should be laid down as a condition for marriage (Hasan Ilyas seems to be saying the same thing in his repeated mention of “rushd”). But Maulana Amin Islahi, invoking the same verse which uses the word nikaah, حتى إذا بلغوا النكاح ( meaning the age of nikaah, i. e. puberty) came down heavily on the Commission, arguing that an inference like this from the Quran only reveals how pathetic the Commission’s understanding of the Quran is. He concluded that the Quranic verse is categorical that puberty is the age of marriage because it uses the word nikaah for puberty ( حتى إذا بلغوا النكاح actually means حتى إذا بلغوا عمر النكاح). Islahi also points out that some people may not attain “rushd” even at a later stage of their lives, say 20 or 25. How can then “rushd” work as the requirement for fixing the minimum age of marriage?Looking at the problem from a textualist point of view, i. e., the hermeneutics of Islahi (and by extension, Javed Ghamidi), the argument appears quite sound. How then does Hasan Ilyas put the blame of getting young children married on fuqaha and fiqh is a question worth asking. It is at such points that a strictly textual approach espoused by Ghamidi sb and his followers reveals its weaknesses. On the one hand every injunction of the Quran is accepted as categorical. On the other hand it is tacitly acknowledged that some verses need a reinterpretation or at least a new application in consonance with the demands of the contemporary times. It seems that even Ghamidi sb and his followers realise that a textualist approach is fraught with certain problems (although they won’t acknowledge this) and therefore some form of contextualism is inevitable.
The truth is that without taking a contextualist hermeneutics seriously such problems as the one discussed in the video cannot be tackled successfully. There are several instances where what was unproblematic for the age in which the Quran was revealed ( what we today call child marriage is just one such thing, slavery is another. For the most part of human history people got married at an age which we would today call child marriage) came to be seen as deeply problematic in another age. Having seen the demerits of child marriage, we are perfectly justified to move beyond the apparent meaning of a particular verse if its application seems problematic in a changed context. The ills of child marriage are too obvious to be debated. As Hassan Ilyas rightly says, we need to decide such matters in the light of our experience and sense of justice. But what is missing in his presentation is the recognition that Classical fiqh, despite its limitations, had some form of inner dynamism, some inner flexibility that allowed it to adapt to the changing circumstances (as can be seen in the example of nikaah namah of Ottoman ulama referred to by Hassan Ilyas). Contrary to this, the textualist hermeneutics of Ghamidi school, if it adheres strictly to its principles, seems to admit of no such flexibility and adaptation, no concession to the changing context seems admissible because that would require moving beyond the apparent meaning of the text.
In fact instances of a contextualist approach can be seen from the earliest history of Islam. An example that comes to my mind is regarding the punishment of theft in Islamic law. It is reported that Hazrat Umar, the second Khalifa, suspended the punishment during a period when thefts had increased due to a famine. The reason was obvious. You can’t enforce such a penal action in a situation where people are starving. In a discussion Ghamidi sb, refusing to let go of his textualism, says Hazrat Umar did not “suspend” the punishment, he “acted” on it. Now Ghamidi sb is not denying that Hazrat Umar did not implement the punishment. His argument can be summarized like this: Of course Hazrat Umar ruled that the thieves’ hands can’t be amputated. But in doing so Hazrat Umar was not suspending the Quranic injunction but applying it because such a concession (if one may call it that) is inbuilt in the Quranic ruling itself.
(One gets the feeling that Ghamidi sb is straining the text a bit too much here. This he does to keep intact his textualism).
I will end my short piece with an example which reveals the fissures in Ghamidi sb’s textualism because here he himself sees the necessity of contextualizing. This one is regarding the verse of the Quran related to the women as witnesses. Against the opinion of the traditional ulama, Ghamidi sb holds that the shahaadah of women in all cases is equal to that of men except the debt contracts and other such transactions about which the Quran is talking (the Quranic verse is actually about writing down of contracts of debt. It says: ‘Call in two of your men as witnesses. But if two men cannot be found, then call one man and two women out of those you approve of as witnesses, so that if one of the two should forget the other can remind her. Surah Baqarah Verse 287). Answering a question put to him by Shehzad Saleem, Ghamidi sb clearly “contextualizes” the verse when he says اس زمانے کے حالات کے لحاظ سے بات کہی گئی ہے جس میں عورتیں گھر سے باہر کم نکلتی تہیں۔ . Here he seems to have no option but to acknowledge that some Quranic rulings are contextually embedded. In his answer, however, he does not tell us how the ruling stands today in the changed circumstances when women are equally well-educated and the chances that they might err in remembering correctly in comparison to men are very little. He is silent about it even in his tafseer Al-Bayan. This, I think, is because he does not want to open the Quran to a contextualist reading.
Hope answer will be given! @Irfan76 @UmerQureshi
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Criticism By Mufti Mudasir On Method Of Tafsir By Ghamidi Sahab
updated 3 weeks, 3 days ago
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The words carry with them their cultural, historical and logical connotations and nuances. When context is emphasised all these are considered. Take the example of thief’s punishment. The word thief, as Ghamidi saheb indicated in his tafseer, is an adjective and adjective is used for something habitual or permanent. Thefore the punishment of chopping off hand is for a thief, not for every act of stealing. Therefore it has to be qualified by the judge whether the person is a THIEF or he it is an occasional theft. Hazrat Umar suspended the punishment in compliance with the spirit of the directive.
Ghamidi saheb has made it clear that the witness of an educated or well informed women in the monetary matters should be equal to that of a man. Qur’an mentioned the reason for having two women in such matters that If the reason or cause is not there the directive is not implemented.
In the instance of child marriage or limiting the minimum age of marriage, Qur’an doesn’t talk about it. It is the matter of application that one infers that Qur’an is in the favour of one’s point. But actually Qur’an doesn’t mention it. In the matters of applications the differences cannot be ruled out and it doesn’t nullify or weaken the principles.
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