Ingrid Mattson – The Story of the Quran IIIT Hospitality Suite at ISNA 2016
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The speakers discuss their past experiences as graduate students and their use of language in writing for their courses. They emphasize the importance of matching their faith and knowledge with their audience and their use of language in writing for their courses. They also discuss their struggles with teaching Islamic schooling to non- Muslim people and the challenges of matching their voice and knowledge with their audience. They emphasize the importance of understanding the values and principles of the Quran and how it can help teach people how to deal with the depth of the language.
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Thank you very much to triple IT for,
organizing this talk
and for your support over many years
For,
me as a first as a graduate student
and as a professor,
triple a t has also supported the publication
of translations of this book
and,
and also is a major funder of the
chair that I currently hold,
that enabled me to return back to Canada,
my home country.
Very good place to be. Don't worry. I
am putting a lot of pull out couches
all over my house just in case things
turn,
take a bad direction in America after November.
So snap in the sun, you're all welcome
to come to our land.
Well, I'm committing that. So,
just I'd like to just give you maybe,
some background about this book and how the
book came to be and and and developed,
because I think that this is
maybe the most useful thing, information that you
can get from me. Maybe you can get
the book and read it or those of
you who have let me just see. How
many of you have read the book
up to now? So
some. Okay.
So when I,
got my first academic job, well not really
my first, but my full time real well
paid with benefits,
academic job at Hartford Seminary,
I came into a program,
a graduate program for Christian Muslim Relations,
that is
was different than my academic training because I
was trained in a secular,
department near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
here at the University of Chicago.
And I worked a lot at Chicago. I
mean, I tried such a solid foundation
in Arabic language,
in studying manuscripts,
Islamic history,
the history of Islamic thought. So it was
a very solid foundation but at a secular
university,
to some extent,
you know, you kind of have to leave
aside the religious
sentiment and perspective.
It's it's you're studying an object. You're not
really engaged in the living tradition.
It's even the case that many divinity schools
and departments of religious studies still like that.
If you really wanna be engaged
in,
the continuation
of developing a religious tradition,
teaching it and studying it, you have to
go to,
divinity schools or seminars.
That's where people who still practice the religion,
who are religious leaders, who
the religion,
who are religious leaders,
who, are engaged in the continual
interpretation of scripture and theology,
that's where you'll find them,
in
in America or in Canada.
So,
going to Hartford Seminary was very liberating for
me actually because,
It was a place where people,
It was a place where people,
Christians and Muslims with a long history, Christians
and Muslims
who are deeply involved within their religious communities,
are continuing to interpret and teach and study.
So it took me a little while to
to kind of, relax a little bit and
realize that it's alright and these are people
of faith around here
and I came into,
you know, obviously I did a lot of
new things like develop the,
chaplaincy program,
at Hartford Seminary but I also came into
teaching some courses that
had been taught there for some time and
one of them was
a course called,
the Quran.
I think it was called the Quran and
its place in Muslim society. Something like that.
A version of the subtitle of my book.
And it took me a number of years
to really understand how to teach my students.
My students
to find that sweet spot between,
really engaging with the religious tradition, feeling free
to speak from the tradition,
but also
to be comprehensible to people who weren't,
you know, who aren't Muslim.
People of faith, religious people who who study
scripture and and theology and law but from
other religious traditions
or even to teach Muslims from other,
from other, you know, schools of thought within
Islam because our our school was diverse. Sunni,
Shiite,
Christian, Jewish as well as others.
And so this is really the challenge.
Until today, a lot of
Islamic
books and texts
are written in a kind of as if
we live in a kind of silo. As
if as if the Muslims live off, you
know, somewhere else
and the way we write, we use language.
We transliterate
Arabic. Transliterate is how you, you know, write
in English letters and Arabic
word,
for our own consumption, but it's very off
putting,
to non Muslims.
They can't understand. They don't understand the terms
we're using, the way we we
we,
translate things. They're incomprehensible.
There's a lot of Arabic.
And so really my goal was to make
a book that,
first in teaching and then writing the book
out of the course because
I actually wrote this book because I needed
a book for my course,
and I could not find a book that
was suitable
for the kind of teaching that I that
I was doing.
And so I wrote it out of the
course and really tried to use a voice
where I was speaking to everyone
and honestly, that's the world we live in
now.
Isn't it? I mean,
we
It may have been possible,
a few decades ago to say well, this
is a this is a Muslim community. We'll
just write for the Muslims or,
you know, this is We're writing for non
Muslims but we're we're living in a world
now where where what we write, what we
say is accessible and really should be accessible
to all people and if if we believe
something,
or if we have a perspective, we should
be able to say it in a way
that, we're confident about it, we're honest about
it and but also where it's comprehensible
to other people.
So that really was the voice and when
I was writing it, I had I had
about
It was like one of those old medieval
paintings where you see someone and they have
like all the, you know, the saints kind
of kind of raid around them. As I
was writing, I had all of these different
people
that I was thinking, how will this sound
to them? Not to change the meaning, but
would they understand it?
It? You know, so I I thought of
my my adviser, Rudyard de Poggi at the
University of Chicago, you know, a great scholar
of of Islamic intellectual thought,
very rigorous with scholarship.
How would it would how would she find
a mistake in it? Would it seem rigorous
to her?
How about my Christian students who are studying
for the ministry? Would it be comprehensible to
them? And so to bring in as many
people and sort of have that audience in
mind, and I think that's really important when
you're writing a book, is to think about
your audience. You're trying to match your voice
and your knowledge of what you're trying to
achieve
and make it comprehensible
to the audience. So that really was
was my guide as I went along,
in writing
it.
Now,
a lot of people
have commented as soon as the book came
out, there was one comment about it that
surprised me,
which is a lot of people said, well,
it's it's such a it's such an interesting
book because it has so many stories
about women in it or a woman's perspective
or,
you know, something like that. I think that
some of the reviews even say, oh, it's
the, you know, the first major book in
the Quran from a woman's perspective in English
or something like this.
I was not writing from a woman's perspective.
I happened to be a woman.
So I think I happened to know maybe
more women in my circle of friends, my
circle of teachers,
the circle of scholars that I know include
many women.
And that's something that I that I really
noticed,
when I was ISNA president even,
when we would be organizing for this convention,
this very
convention, and we'd have the,
program committee.
So we'd sit in a room and we'd
say well, you know,
let's think about some themes and then we'd
think about some themes and then we'd say,
well, on the board, let's just write the
names of of different people who we think
could speak to that topic.
And I remember the 1st year and sitting
there and, you know, the names the board
filled up with the names
and all very good people.
And I made the comment to my colleagues
and I said, well, that's, you know, all
very good people,
but,
I noticed something,
that
our American Muslim community is approximately
50% women, 50% men, you know, maybe 49,
30, Pretty much half half.
Our American Muslim community is 25 to 30%
African American.
Why is it that this board is 98%
Arab
and Indo Pac men?
And so then,
people said, well, we don't know any German
scholars. We don't know
many African Americans. We have, you know, in
Anand Sahar Raaj, I said, well, you know,
this is the problem
is that we
we first go to our circle of friends
or our circle of acquaintances and that's not
enough.
Right? That's not enough if we're trying to
represent the community,
if we're trying to engage the community, if
we're trying to serve the community.
You have to
so so then I did we didn't really
make a a rule,
but we made a kind of of
principle
that we should check our speakers
against the
the community
and that our speakers and our leaders
should generally reflect the demographics of our community.
And because of that,
now I heard that this convention,
that,
we got some kind of, like, honorary mention
by, a women's organization
for
having,
speakers who
are roughly 50% female and 50% male. So,
that's a really a lot of progress to
do.
Think about that. I'm a person, you know.
I'm a person like any other person and
I'm writing from my knowledge and my experience,
but I happen to to to know some
very interesting stories,
about women
and, so they made it into the book
and,
you know, I did try with some other
voices to really look for scholars. Scholars. I
tried to look for scholars for example or
shi'ite perspectives
or other perspectives to be inclusive.
So that was part of it because if
I'm talking about the Quran
and really my my aim was is to
call the story of the Quran,
was to show how what Muslims believe about
the Quran,
how we engage with the Quran, the diversity
of perspectives, and how Quran meets lights,
you know, lights up the life of so
many Muslims
in in all different ways. So I was
trying to shift perspective throughout the book.
And in that, it was important that I
listened to people. I listened to their stories.
I was able to sit there and I
think for many people, some of the most
compelling part of it are the stories. And
I'll just read a little passage
for for a story that frames,
a major chapter of my book which is
about the transmission of the Quran,
as a text
and I was fortunate when I lived in
Chicago
that,
I was very good friends with a with
a family who were devoted
to making sure that, their children had the
opportunity to study the Quran at a very
deep level.
And there's a wonderful young woman. She was
very young then. She was 12, 14 years
old,
who was deeply dedicated to learning the Quran
with Tajweed,
being certified in it, having an najaza in
it,
and being able to,
to continually memorize the Quran.
And so I was at the party, a
party in Chicago one time when she came
back with her ejazah after a a summer
of studying the
Quran, and getting 3jazah and Tajweed in in
Damascus, Syria,
and Ijazah through the great, scholar of the
Quran, Sheikh Ham, or Morni Deen, and Qur'an,
have mercy on him in his soul.
And so she was able to do that
and I was at the party where beautiful
celebration.
It was like we were we were having
a party for a bride,
where where everyone gathered and sang songs, heard
food, and danced and all women
to to celebrate
this beautiful part of her life and that's
something that I think we also need more
stories about
and and more,
actually a reality in our life which is
this
is to celebrate the beautiful things in our
life and to really bring back ritual,
in
related to the Quran.
So Reem,
I interviewed Reem and I tried to get
a lot of details
about not only the process of memorizing, the
process
of of, being tested,
but but her whole feeling and the atmosphere
around it and it was her I took
her I got a copy of her Ejazza.
I translated it into English. I made a
chain and then I went and this is
where I really use my University of Chicago
research methodology
and went through each scholar in the chain
one at a time
and spent many months researching each scholar,
regaining their biographies,
and and and then once I had a
lot of information, taking
taking stories about some of those people throughout
history, some of those scholars throughout history to
try to show,
really the living tradition of this.
But I wanna read you just this little
part,
that Reem described me when she,
she was in her last summer when she
was really at the final part where she
was being tested.
So,
among her teachers So we have Sheikh Khaledi
and then Sheikh Khaledi has, you know, whole
many many different,
circles,
many different scholars who he certified,
who are designated to work with, the different
women. So she had,
she had at the the the highest scholar,
a female scholar at that time was doctor
Gad and
she had a daughter Hada, and both of
them were,
certified in the 10
dinuclearat
of Leqhoranim.
The 10 different recitations of Leqhoranim.
So,
I'll begin here. For 3 summers, madam Hanna
worked with Reem teaching and testing her on
her Tajweed, memorization, and comprehension. Through a rigorous
process
comprehension.
Through a rigorous process of examination
called probing,
Reem's memorization
was verified
again and again.
The teacher meticulously
documented her progress,
writing the date and outcome of each test
in a special notebook.
Finally, when she was confident
that Reem was ready, she took her to
another woman who had been appointed by the
chef to administer a final test to female
students
before they could be brought to him for
certification.
This woman, who happened to be Madam Hatta's
mother, had been certified as a comprehensive
reciter,
mokhri ajaniyah
by the Sheikh. This meant that she had
mastered not just one recitation of
And Meilus Paoatada from Mercy Adher, she also
passed away a few years ago.
Doctor
Dad pushed Irene hard at her memorization and
recitation.
She verified that Irene had completely mastered the
text as well as the rules of the
Tajweed,
but she also counseled her to prepare spiritually
and mentally for the short
shiv to prove herself.
In the end, success comes from God and
even an accomplished reciter could find herself faltering
if she had been negligent in attending to
her religious duties and spiritual state before the
test.
Finally, when Reem was ready, she was taken
to the house where she would be tested.
When she arrived, Reem found a number of
girls sitting in a plain room awaiting their
examination.
Reem watched as the girls, 1 by 1,
approached a curtain,
behind which sat the shade.
Sometimes a gap in the fabric allowed them
to catch a glimpse of the elderly man
seated on a day bed,
alert but obviously weak.
Renew that the curtain served to protect the
dignity of the frail scholar as much as
it preserved traditional norms of modest interaction
between men and women.
Nevertheless, she sympathized with the girl who, upon
completing her recitation,
pulled open the drapes and said, Oh shit.
I just wanna see you.
So to me, I mean this is just
a fascinating
story. It was a combination
of being able, you know, being able to
tell the story of how the Quran has
been preserved
over 1400
years and reading in her, as I show
in this,
in the chain of transmission,
that she is the 29th person in a
chain and every single
person in the chain is known and I
was able to find them in the University
of Chicago Library,
which is extraordinary.
It's through a lot of hard work that
they're there and even she didn't know much
about the scholars in the chain, you know,
that wasn't part of the education so I
was able to inform her
about, some of the people who she actually
has in her chain and transmission,
but to me, linking that linking that scholarship
with the story of a real person I
mean, because in the end, why does it
matter? You know, it matters because it matters
to Muslims
because this is
this is the most precious part of our
Islam,
you know, is the Quran.
This is the the rock upon which we
we build,
you know, our religion and we return to
again and to then again. So to know
both the story of the text itself, how
it's been
how it's been preserved and retained,
but also what it means to be found.
How it livens up people's lives and that's
what I go on and continue to tell
in the book and talk about the Quran
and its relationship
to healing and illness and rituals around
death and mourning,
the relationship to law,
why if we have, you know,
one of the problems is,
I mean, not a problem, but I would
say that a lot of Muslims will say,
well,
you know, we have hope for Ann so
it's it's we're much better off than Christians
who don't have the original copy of the
bible and that's true. We do have the
Quran to refer to.
At the same time, you can never take
out the human element in interpretation.
The Quran needs to be interpreted, and I
tell the story in, a later chapter of
saying that an idea of an Abiqaadab
who says this to the Huwadabs when he's
arguing with them because the Huwadijah say,
we
we will go by the judgment of God
and we have the Quran. Let's just go
by the judgment of the Quran
and Sayyidina Ali says this Quran is a
book between covers.
It does not speak. We have to speak
for it, which means that there is always
a human element in interpretation.
And so anyone who says, no. What I'm
telling you is just what the Quran says
or what what Islam says even.
We should always push back a little bit
and say, well, that's your understanding.
And I try in chapter 5 to get
a lot of the, you know, the reasons
why there are many different interpretations
based on language,
on grammar, on historical context,
on different theological
understandings
of the role of reason, of the role
of conscience in the interpretation
of the brand,
and I hope that by the by the
end, you you know, once Nelson has read
this book,
one result I I hope that of these
2 is more tolerance among us
about the diversity of Islam, the diversity of
Islamic thought and why it's possible for good,
reasonable
Muslims
to come
to different conclusions about what the Quran really
means.
We know what the Quran says but what
does it mean when the Quran say? What
is the Quran mean when the Quran says
something?
Finally and I'll close-up with this.
I I wrote the 1st edition and then
of course with the 2nd edition, of course,
there were, you know, errors and and and
typos and things to correct,
but I also decided in the 2nd edition,
I I made a few, decided in the
second edition, I I made a few,
I added a few things and in particular,
I added a case study
at the end of chapter 5, and this
case study,
I thought was particular I think it was
chapter 5.
I thought it was particularly
important,
so that we could really see in action
how
different,
why different people could interpret
a critical verse of the Quran in radically
different ways and this is the verse from
Surat Al Nisan,
34,
the so called beating verse or however you
want to interpret it, and so I go
I I give an extensive,
item for this book and, you know, it's
not that extensive, but a fairly extensive review
of the different positions,
that scholars give, what this verse means, and
why they can arrive at different positions.
And that way, it can start to bring
the, you know, the non specialist gives it
some understanding of how scholarly interpretation works and
why it's not as simple as it as
it seems,
And that people who have a,
for lack of a better word, a fundamentalist
interpretation I would say by fundamentalist interpretation, what
I mean by that is
is
taking,
verses of the Quran,
and removing them from the context
of the rest of the Quran, of the
goals of the Quran, of the values and
principles of the Quran,
much less the context of the prophet Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi was the son who lived in,
the context of 7th century Arabia.
So those people who say, well, Quran says
this. This is what Quran says it means
are really doing a disservice
to,
to how Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala revealed the Quran
to the community of the prophet Mohammed Al
Sallam and how Muslims
for many generations after,
you know, really struggled to find how how
did we deal with sections of the Quran
that clearly
are are speaking about
something that was happening actually during the time
of the prophet Muhammad Islam, whether it was
a battle, a particular battle, you know, talking
about the mushdifuglun
or dealing with a particular person. I mean,
what is the lesson that we learn
if we only take a literal,
decontextualized
interpretation,
why would Abu Jagan be in the Quran?
Abu Jagan's dead. You know, a long time
ago, what can you learn
from what the Quran says about Abu Jadah?
What can we learn about what the Quran
says about Anujjadila?
Anujjadila
who was honored by Allah's al Anahu Ta'ala
in the Quran
with with this title, woman who who disputes,
the disputative or argumentative
woman.
Given that the practice that was abrogated
or that was abolished by Les Panawatana
with the revelation
of the of the first passage of Anujandah
which was the practice of Daha.
Given that no one does that anymore,
you know, what can we learn from that?
And this is why we really need to
understand the Quran and its fullness, its principles,
its values, and what impact
what impact those revelations made on the people
and and try to reconnect with that so
that the Quran is also, for us, not
just you know, some people say, if you
contextualize the Quran, you're making the Quran a
historical document. To the contrary,
if you don't contextualize
the Quran, then then you're making a history.
It is by contextualizing the Quran that we
can understand the values, the principles, the impact,
and how Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala speaks to humanity
and how we should try to reflect that
responsiveness
that Allah
has,
when he spoke to the community of Mohammed
Al Sessa and to all of us later.
So with that, I'll end and,
let Javier come out here.