Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (41 page)

It is clear from this passage that al-Tabari’s basic strategy is definition and substitution. He takes a term that is pivotal to the verse and defines it: “transgression” equals anal sex between men. Al-Tabari supplements definition with substitution. He substitutes his own words for the words of the Qur’an in order to add weight and validity to his interpretation: “It is as if Lut were saying” this and that. This strategy allows al-Tabari to make a speculative assertion as if it were a foregone conclusion: “This reproach [declaring anal sex between men hateful] was the content of Lut’s prophetic message [
risala
]; his purpose was to make this act forbidden.”
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This speculative assertion is not certain from the Qur’an itself. It is not clear that Lut was sent as a Prophet solely (or even primarily) to declare anal sex between men to be forbidden. It is not clear from the Qur’anic text that Lut’s entire prophetic message revolves around sex acts. Rather, this is the conclusion that al-Tabari engineers through his strategy of definition and substitution.

Al-Tabari’s techniques of commentary are very limited and give a very limited interpretation. However, it is the dominant mode of commentary in the classical period, and al-Tabari’s interpretation is echoed in almost all later commentators. Once they were enshrined in classical commentaries, such conclusions were repeated in most commentaries through the present day, especially in commentaries that pretend to be simple “translations.” If we take Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s popular English “translation” of the Qur’an as an example, we find him engaging in very irresponsible translation that promotes a dangerously reductionist way of thinking. In his translation of Surat al-‘Ankabut 29:28–35, where the Qur’an talks about “the lewdness that not has come to before in the wide worlds,” Yusuf Ali describes this “lewdness” as homosexuality which is a “crime against the laws of nature.”
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Al-Tabari’s commentary conflates sexual acts of a specific nature with sexual desire of a particular orientation. He does not distinguish between sexual acts, sexual desire, or sexuality. These terms must be carefully dis-aggregated, according to sociological facts about the human personality and sexual diversity. Does the Qur’an talk about a sexual identity characterized by erotic orientation? Does it address a coupling between two people characterized by this identity? Or does it refer to specific sexual acts? These are specific questions that al-Tabari does not ask or answer.

In fact, his interpretive strategy pointedly precludes the possibility of asking these questions of the Qur’an. Sexuality-sensitive interpretation of the Qur’an needs to ask these questions. When we use methods of analysis and interpretation that are more complex and ethically alert, it becomes clear that the story of Lut is not about homosexuality or homosexuals in any general sense. Let’s turn to two methods of interpretation that can give us new insights into the Qur’an. They can give us insights precluded by the simple denunciation of homosexuality which is content to take a few words or phrases out of context in order to interpret the verses by definition and substitution.

Semantic analysis of the Qur’an is a technique of reading that does not trust simple translation. The Islamic scholars have long been skeptical of the ability of translation to capture the meaning of the Qur’an in another language. Semantic analysis takes this skepticism further and makes an analytic technique out of refusal to trust a word-for-word translation of Qur’anic terms. The Japanese scholar of Islam Toshihiko Izutsu provided the most sophisticated explanation of this technique and demonstrated what it can contribute to Qur’anic interpretation.
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He explained that words have meaning only by being enmeshed in a web of relationships to other words. This is especially true in regard to the Qur’an, which was revealed as scripture and represents the “Speech of Allah” that belongs to its own realm of discourse. The ethical imperatives of the Qur’an can be understood by looking at how its words relate to each other; in effect, its words “define themselves” by grouping into clusters of relationships in “semantic fields.”

One scholar has applied this technique to the sexuality-sensitive interpreta- tion of the Qur’an, in the first serious critical attempt to reassess the Qur’an’s view of same-sex relationships.
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Amreen Jamel analyzed the passages from fourteen surahs of the Qur’an that mention Lut and his relationship to the community of people to whom he was sent as a Prophet.
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While it is clear that Lut’s people were wicked and were destroyed by Divine punishment for their wickedness, it is not clear at all whether the Qur’anic terms that describe their wickedness and destruction are terms that specify same-sex relationships. Jamel’s goal is

to discover the nature of the moral judgements within the Qur’an by raising questions about the Qur’an’s perception of sin. The question that needs investigation is whether the specific moral terminology used within the Lut saga as well as in the rest of the Qur’an provides a direct link to attitudes toward same-sex sexuality.
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To do this, Jamel’s article highlighted the seventeen Arabic root-words that appear in the story of Lut (which carry the weight of ethical condemnation of Lut’s people). The article then analyzed their range of meanings both in the Lut story and throughout the Qur’an where they appear without any relationship to Lut’s people. Jamel charted whether these terms specified sensual or sexual acts or attitudes and whether they were clearly positive or negative in their moral weight. Semantic analysis was used to discover how the Qur’an gave these terms a range of meanings, dependent on how the terms were related to each other and how they were repeated in different contexts.

This method gives a very “literal” reading of the text. It respects the words of the Qur’an not as defined not by human authorities who assign them meanings by definition and substitution, but rather as defined by their placement in relations to other words in the Qur’an itself. The results of Jamel’s systematic and comprehensive study confirm that there is great ambiguity in the Qur’anic retelling of the story of Lut.

While there are no terms in the Qur’an that are uniquely attached to same-sex sexuality, certain terms (e.g. from the roots sh-h-y [as in
shahwa
] and f-h-sh [as in
fahisha
]) are frequently associated with same- sex sexual practices . . . However, these terms are used to qualify morally opposite-sex and non-sexual activities as well. Same-sex indiscretions are, in fact, put on the same ethical plane as all sorts of inappropriate opposite-sex and non-sexual activities. In that form, same-sex sexual abominations [
sic
] are just another form of alienation from God, no different than anything else . . . It is possible to suggest that Lut’s people (specifically the men) were indeed destroyed right after they threatened to assault Lut’s male guests sexually; however, there are others, like Lut’s wife, who are destroyed for non-sexual indiscretions. This example alone

confirms the premise that same-sex sexuality is not the ultimate abomination that causes people to be alienated from God.
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Jamel’s analysis is the first step in a serious analysis of the Qur’an from a sexuality-sensitive perspective. Yet the conclusions are very moderate in comparison with the data the study raises.
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Jamel notes that the terms that the Qur’an uses to denounce Lut’s people are not unique to Lut’s people; some imply sexual activity but are not limited to sexual activity. Jamel’s conclusions could go one step further, to question whether the overall condemnation of Lut’s people was either about their sex practices in general or about the sexuality of specific persons in the community. It is certainly hard to imagine a just God, whose most basic message through the Prophets is that “whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see the results and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see the results” (Surat al-Zalzala 99:7), would destroy women and children because of acts of anal intercourse that could occur only between men. From this vantage point, it would seem that it was not sexual behavior or sexuality for which they were all punished, but rather something far more basic.

It is crucial to pursue this point in Qur’anic analysis beyond the initial study by Amreen Jamel. That study notes how Lut’s people were destroyed after some of their men “threatened to assault Lut’s male guests sexually.” Why did these men threaten to assault them? What was the social, political, and moral context of this assault? Should readers of the Qur’an understand this “sexual assault” as an expression of sexuality (let alone homosexuality) or rather as an exercise of coercive power through rape? These are questions that cannot be answered through the technique of semantic analysis alone. We have to turn to a second technique, to “thematic analysis,” to supplement Jamel’s study and take its analysis to a deeper level of critical re-evaluation of tradition.

Thematic analysis of the Qur’an is based on the insight that the Qur’an is a unique scripture in its form and texture. Unlike the Hebrew Torah, the Qur’an is not a chronological account of a distinct people or tribe; unlike the Christian Gospels, it is not a biographical account of a founding religious figure. The Qur’an’s verses are organized into chapters whose structure is more like a kaleidoscope than a chain. Its central themes radiate out in patterns from a central point (where Divine will impacts human language in the consciousness of the Prophet). These patterns are not subordinated to a chronologically organized story. In the Qur’an, narratives comes as reminders. They are told in short sequences, interspersed with parables, directives, or ethical exhortations, only to be repeated or continued in a different place. This contributes to the Qur’an’s unique power to communicate and move its audience. But this also creates a daunting challenge for those who seek to interpret “what the Qur’an says” about a particular topic. An interpreter cannot just pick one verse and use it as a proof-text to make an authoritative statement, for the same theme could

come up, in different contexts with different shades of meaning, in other places in the Qur’an.

Thematic analysis of the Qur’an embraces this structural characteristic of the Qur’an, while classical commentaries ignore it. A thematic analysis identifies a single theme (be it a concept, an image, or a character) and traces its multiple appearance throughout the Qur’an. It tries to provide a composite picture of the theme, based on its multiple and varied single instances, without privileging one verse over another and trusting that the Qur’an provides a thematic unity underneath all these instances. This type of analysis is basic to all reformist interpretation that searches for an inner unity of the Qur’an beyond the juridical rulings enshrined in the
Shari‘ah
.

Reformist scholars all agree that the task of interpretation today must consider the time, location and an understanding of how tenets and directives respond to the contemporary context. They also share a commitment to the inner unity of the Qur’an and a rejection of random and selective citation.
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To see how this works, let’s take a simple example. When one reads a Qur’anic passage about “water” one should not interpret it solely based on the lexical meaning of “water” as “liquid H
2
O” or on the grammatical placement of the word “water” in a sentence. One should not stop at “water” as a particular subject related to the verse before it or the verse after it. Rather, thematic analysis urges us to interpret “water” in relationship to all other instances in which the Qur’an mentions “water.” This gives us a more holistic basis for interpretation, in which any mention of “water” is not isolated but has a greater meaning created by the varied repetitions of water imagery: as rainfall, as seas, or as a means of ritual purification. The meaning of “water” is more fully and more deeply understood if we take account of the multiple and varied contexts in which it is embedded, rather than ignoring these contexts in order to interpret a single verse. The Qur’an’s repeated and varied references to water is a key to our thinking about
rizq
or how Allah distributes provision to all creatures, forcing us to consider the economics of distributive justice in our societies. Through thematic analysis, “water” forces us to examine the way our economies destroy the environmental interconnectedness that is the apparent conduit for Allah’s continuous creation and provision. In addition, water is linked to sexuality through procreation, for (as al-Ghazali asserted in the quotation that heads this study) “Allah created all things from water,” and al-Ghazali interprets “water” to mean the meeting of male and female sexual fluids with their procreative potential.

This method of analysis is especially useful, even indispensable, when we come to the Qur’an’s more narrative passages. These are frequently about the Prophets who came before Muhammad, including the Prophet Lut. This study will focus here on the narrative of Lut’s struggles as a Prophet, since it is from verses in this narrative that commentators and jurists have made assertions

about homosexuality. The Qur’an does not present this narrative completely in one place. Rather, various parts of Lut’s story are mentioned in different places as reminders. Thematic analysis has trained us to be wary of interpreting one part of this story separate from the composite whole that is created by the repeated and varied presentation of parts of the story in scripture. The deeper meaning of Lut’s struggles will be lost to us if we do not try to construct these textual incidents into a cohesive narrative while simultaneously being attentive to the context of their incidence.

Since the classical period, Muslim scholars have been engaging in thematic analysis of the Qur’an (without announcing the fact) by telling stories of the Prophets. They developed these “narrative re-constructions” into a new genre, called “Stories of the Prophets” (
Qisas al-Anbiya’
). Though this genre was distinct from classical commentaries (
tafsir
), the Stories of the Prophets were in reality a kind of commentary on the Qur’anic verses that mention the various Prophets. Tradition presents the practices of telling these stories as just as old and just as authentic as making explicit commentaries on the Qur’an.
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We have no books that date from this early period. For this study, we will focus on the Stories of the Prophets written by al-Kisa’i.
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Although he wrote in the twelfth century
CCEE
, al-Kisa’i quotes from earlier books that no longer exist.
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Al-Kisa’i is one of the earliest texts that we have in this genre in Arabic, along with other similar books in Persian, to which this study later refers.
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