Nouman Ali Khan – Western Quranic Studies Israiliyyat – Ep. 10 – The Quran Library

Nouman Ali Khan
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AI: Transcript ©
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If you do an investigation of our own

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history, our own Fiqh tradition, our own Tafsir

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tradition, it's not as cut and dry black

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and white as we're presenting it post-colonialism.

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That kind of material, you know, later on

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you find, you know, Azhari scholars and even

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before them people like Ibn Kathir in his

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Tafsir, Al-Alusi in his Tafsir, who are

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very negative about Isra'iliyyat.

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And if they see, you know, patriarchy as

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the source of all problems, then the Tafsir

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tradition just reflects that patriarchy.

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That is to say, it's all men talking

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from male perspectives and sidelining women perspectives because

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you don't find really in history and tradition.

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You can barely, if at all, find a

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female Mufassira.

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So what are we doing now?

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Well, what are you reading?

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Who's that?

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Handsome fella.

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Yeah, I'm just, I saw myself in a

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book.

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So what's this book called?

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Muslim Qur'anic Interpretation Today, Media Genealogies and

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Interpretive Communities.

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So, of course, I knew that.

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I'm just asking you rhetorically.

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This is by Professor Johanna Pink, who is

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the lead investigator on the Global Qur'an

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Project, which I was privileged to be part

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of for a little while.

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And I happen to know that she's written

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about you in here, and you had your

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first opportunity to meet her just recently at

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a conference.

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I did.

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So in general today, inshallah, we're talking about

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Western non-Muslim writings on the Qur'an,

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but it's actually a bit broader than that.

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Some of these people actually are Muslims.

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But it's also a little bit unfair to

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just lump it all together based on the

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religion of the author, because there are topics

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here that fit in with other things that

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we've talked about, and we could certainly have

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kept it in there.

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But I thought it might be helpful to

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look at it.

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Just as Western Academic Islamics.

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As a group to see some of the

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trends and the patterns and the issues that

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are being raised there.

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So I don't have that many such works

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in print, to be honest, but these are

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the ones that I do have.

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Based on the last discussion about Qur'an

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translations, this is one by Bruce Lawrence, which

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is the Qur'an in English, a biography.

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It's quite a nice treatment of the subject.

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I didn't steal it from a library.

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I bought it from an ex-library.

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This is one called The Art of Reciting

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the Qur'an by Christina Nelson.

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I read this when I found it in

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Cairo in 2004, and I was so surprised

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at this treatment of the issue of Qur

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'an recitation.

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It was so thoughtful and insightful.

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And the author actually interviewed some of the

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great famous Qur'an reciters, like I'm sure,

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I think Sheikh Alhusri, Sheikh Minshawi, Abul Basir,

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and she examined the kind of overlaps, but

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also distinction between Qur'an recitation and music.

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She herself is both an Arabist, a student

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of Arabic cultures and language, and of ethnomusicology,

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as it's called, so different musical approaches.

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That's Sheikh Mustafa Ismail on the front, I'm

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pretty sure.

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So I actually invited her to come to

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do some lectures in the UK in 2006.

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So we did at Edinburgh, Cambridge, and at

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SOAS in London.

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So, lovely lady.

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The Man in the Qur'an by Yusuf.

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He's got a few important books, looking at

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the semantics of the Qur'an, words and

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how they're connected, the concepts.

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Semantic fields is one of the key words

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in his semantics of the Qur'anic.

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Oh, I had some this morning.

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So this actually is a very influential book,

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and certainly useful.

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And I've seen over at Marcus Tafsir, they

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actually did like a kind of roundtable type

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thing on this book.

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Oh, really?

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Here are a few books from Edinburgh University

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Press, my own book, inshallah, will be coming

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out from them.

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So I'm interested in their back catalogue of

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works on the Qur'an.

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We've got How to Read the Qur'an

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by Karl Ernst.

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It's a very popular book.

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It's been printed a lot of times.

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Qur'an Historical Critical Introduction by Nikolai Sinai,

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whom you've also met a couple of times.

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And Islam and Literalism by Robert Gleave.

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It's not specifically in Qur'anic studies, but

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definitely has a lot to do with literal

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expressions and what that means in the context

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of Qur'an and Hadith and so on.

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These are by a couple of Muslim brothers,

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actually.

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Ramon Harvey and Peter Coppins, both of them

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friends of mine.

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So the Qur'an and the Just Society

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was Ramon's first book based on his PhD.

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His supervisor was Professor Abdul Halim, just like

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myself.

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And he's done a lot of great work

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since then, continues to publish and also is

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the editor of a series on Islamic scripture

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and theology at Edinburgh University Press.

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And this one on Seeing God in Sufi

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Qur'an Commentaries by Peter Coppins.

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He's very strong in tafseer studies and he's

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got a lot of interesting papers.

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One of his recent papers was about, I'm

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trying to remember the actual title of it,

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but it was about whether over time the

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appreciation for ambiguity and complexity wore off in

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works of tafseer.

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So he's looking at how the toleration and

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the respect for multiple opinions has actually remained

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more stable than people tend to think in

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the modern period.

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It just completely collapsed.

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I mean in that regard there's an important

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book, not specifically Qur'anic studies again, but

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this is an important book which I actually

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wanted to show you, especially.

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And I haven't read it yet, but to

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be honest it's just the title.

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The title for me carries so much meaning.

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Part of the history of Islam, interesting.

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Generally speaking or broadly speaking his argument, and

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it's written in German originally and then it's

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just recently been released in English as well,

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is that throughout Muslim history there's been a

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lot more acceptance of the fact that things

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can sometimes be a little bit indeterminate, a

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little bit ambiguous.

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And that even applies to a discussion.

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One of the discussions he does touch on

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was what we just said about qiraat and

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the fact that there are multiple ways of

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reading.

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And sometimes you can have even a discussion

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about is this the better way, is that

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the better way.

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So there's a search for the best answer

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to that question, but not necessarily to say

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there is only one answer and every answer

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must be wrong, everything else must be deleted,

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everything else must be ignored.

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You're able to say well this is a

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qiraat that we read and we respect the

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other qiraat and they exist together.

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There's no sense of panic from that.

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And that applies in various different fields where

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an appreciation of ambiguity is something which is

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very healthy.

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So he's kind of making that argument but

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he's also making a point that this appreciation

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plummeted in the later periods and that is

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part of the intellectual crisis that Muslims are

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suffering from today.

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So personally I think there's a lot of

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value in his argument even if one could

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debate over specifics.

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So I think you know some of these

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books already.

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So you must have read Neil Robinson.

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I have.

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Discovering the Quran.

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Contemporary approach to a veiled text, yes.

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One of the first western books I read

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on the Quran.

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And Professor Abdel Halim, you might have read

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this one.

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He's got various of his essays that are

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compiled in a few.

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No I haven't read that one.

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Books like this.

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So Professor Abdel Halim of course has had

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a very important role as being a professor

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of Islamic studies and Quranic studies in SOAS,

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University of London.

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He has made space for plenty of other

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people, myself included, to be part of the

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Western Academy and to be part of those

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discussions.

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And you know showing that we can respect

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each other, we can have different methodologies and

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points of view and we can get along

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one way or another.

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This is a friend of mine from Al

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-Azhar University.

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He did his PhD at Birmingham on a

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Quranic critique of terrorism.

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Quite a nice book.

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This is one which I haven't read yet

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but the topic seemed so worthwhile that I

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bought this one.

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The Quran and the aesthetics of pre-modern

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Arabic prose.

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So again linking Quran within the broader study

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of literature and therefore helping to understand how

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claims about the Quran and its beauty and

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its perfection, how they fit in.

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Oh this is actually here the first orientalist

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book on the Quran that I bought.

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So I don't remember when it was but

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this was the first one.

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I'm pretty sure it's from Princeton University Press.

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The Quran's self-image by Daniel Madigan.

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Does he mean by that the way the

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Quran describes itself?

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Yeah, how it presents itself and almost how

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it sees itself.

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So this has given rise to a number

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of other studies that followed from this.

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Self-referentiality of the Quran.

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There's at least one edited volume on that

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by Stefan Wilder.

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We met a French scholar who's written one

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which the title is the Quran according to

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itself.

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We've also met this author, a good friend

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of mine, Merijn Van Poota.

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So this is his book which has recently

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been released with Brill Press in the Netherlands.

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Quranic Arabic from its Hijazi origins to its

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classical reading traditions.

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So he takes a lot of interest in

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the history of Arabic language.

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He's studying it from the perspective of a

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historical linguist and Arabist and he is interested

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in looking at what you can understand about

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the language of the Quran from its manuscripts

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and from its consonantal text and then from

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how people have vocalized and pronounced it according

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to the qiraat and the reading traditions.

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So from that he makes some novel claims

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as well about the language of the Quran.

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But importantly this helps us to get past

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certain oversimplifications that we make.

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Oftentimes people think that classical Arabic equals Quranic

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Arabic.

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Of course classical means that post-Quranic how

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things were classified and became standardized and rules

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were set in place.

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Once you look at those rules as you

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and you look back at the Quran you're

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like oh it's not following those rules.

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So then it can set you into disarray

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and then you get people coming along saying

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oh the Quran is ungrammatical.

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So I have a video with Merijn actually

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where we talk about some things and the

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last point in the video was specifically about

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this question.

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Is there a grammatical error in the Quran?

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And his answer was well there's no such

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thing as a grammatical error.

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So no it doesn't.

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Just because for him as a linguist the

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idea and the category of grammar like that

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they look at language as a natural flowing

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process.

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Modern linguists will say that Scottish English is

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just as valid as any.

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And why shouldn't it be?

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That's yeah this is why you like Merijn.

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So we've got lots here but maybe a

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kind of subset which is worth highlighting is

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that there are lots of books published in

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you know talking about gender in the Quran

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and I don't have that many of them

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but I have a few that I've picked

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up over time.

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So we have had the opportunity to meet

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at least one of these authors.

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Yeah we did.

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Selene Ibrahim a recent book on women and

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gender in the Quran.

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I haven't yet read it but I plan

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to.

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And this one by Hadiya Mubarak.

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We saw a bit of her speech.

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Yeah.

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This book she was the one online.

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Yeah she was online.

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Yeah I read a little bit of this

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book yesterday.

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It seems very interesting.

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So what I think is she's trying to

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show due regard to the Seer tradition which

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is strange for a western academic but that's

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what she's trying to do.

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I didn't get to her conclusions yet but.

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So sometimes you do find with people who

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are writing in this kind of field that

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they have a certain disdain for the commentarial

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tradition.

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Yeah.

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And if they see you know patriarchy as

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the source of all problems then the Tafseer

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tradition just reflects that patriarchy.

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That is to say it's all men talking

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from male perspectives and sidelining women perspectives because

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you don't find really in our history and

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tradition you can barely if at all find

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a female Mufassirah.

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If they were doing that then it just.

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It was interesting.

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So we're at this.

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It didn't get published and so on.

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They had a session on women in the

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Quran and at the convention and all these

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western academics are sitting there all of them

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female and some of them almost all of

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them or no two-thirds of them Muslim

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at least.

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Almost all of them yeah.

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Yeah and so a let go of this

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narrative.

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It's unacademic.

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We just have to look at people in

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the Quran.

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Why are we looking at women in the

00:14:43 --> 00:14:48

Quran or putting a gender lens on this

00:14:48 --> 00:14:48

text.

00:14:48 --> 00:14:51

It's actually creating a bigger problem than solving

00:14:51 --> 00:14:51

it.

00:14:51 --> 00:14:54

Like this was the internal conversation they're having.

00:14:54 --> 00:14:55

So it's interesting.

00:14:56 --> 00:14:57

There are certainly big conversations.

00:14:58 --> 00:14:59

I mean I would say one of those

00:14:59 --> 00:15:01

conversations is represented by the fact that well

00:15:01 --> 00:15:06

these books and in particular Hadi Mubarak's is

00:15:06 --> 00:15:08

sort of saying that we need to give

00:15:08 --> 00:15:12

more attention to the craft of Tafsir than

00:15:12 --> 00:15:13

we have done.

00:15:13 --> 00:15:16

We shouldn't just dismiss that because yes that's

00:15:16 --> 00:15:16

the point she was making.

00:15:16 --> 00:15:20

There are people who operate within the Tafsir

00:15:20 --> 00:15:23

paradigm and she's particularly pointed to Ibn Ashur

00:15:23 --> 00:15:27

who are able and show how you can

00:15:27 --> 00:15:31

come up with in a way novel interpretations

00:15:31 --> 00:15:34

and solutions that are yet within the framework

00:15:34 --> 00:15:38

of legitimate Tafsir exercise.

00:15:39 --> 00:15:41

So yeah a lot of debate also surrounds

00:15:42 --> 00:15:43

this book.

00:15:43 --> 00:15:45

This book was quite a strong intervention.

00:15:45 --> 00:15:48

Aisha Hidayatullah's book on feminist edges of the

00:15:48 --> 00:15:52

Quran and I've read some chapters of it

00:15:52 --> 00:15:54

but basically the argument and what caused the

00:15:54 --> 00:15:58

controversy is she despite coming from a feminist

00:15:58 --> 00:16:01

perspective is saying you know the attempt to

00:16:01 --> 00:16:05

read the Quran as fully egalitarian and you

00:16:05 --> 00:16:08

know and therefore all about equality between men

00:16:08 --> 00:16:11

and women has sometimes gone too far.

00:16:11 --> 00:16:14

Sometimes the authors before her have gone too

00:16:14 --> 00:16:16

far in assuming that that's the case and

00:16:16 --> 00:16:19

therefore sort of reading into reading onto the

00:16:19 --> 00:16:19

text.

00:16:20 --> 00:16:22

Imposing some views onto the text.

00:16:22 --> 00:16:27

So she's a bit more let's say pessimistic

00:16:27 --> 00:16:31

about the Quran you know fulfilling that need

00:16:31 --> 00:16:34

that some people have you know experienced to

00:16:34 --> 00:16:37

find that egalitarian spirit.

00:16:37 --> 00:16:40

So I think that we all probably would

00:16:40 --> 00:16:42

believe in some level of you know on

00:16:42 --> 00:16:45

some level at least that the Quran is

00:16:45 --> 00:16:46

advocating equality.

00:16:46 --> 00:16:48

It's just that in what forms, in what

00:16:48 --> 00:16:53

circumstances, in what manifestations that's where interpretations differ.

00:16:55 --> 00:16:58

But I personally think that this field you

00:16:58 --> 00:17:00

know in a way is happening within western

00:17:00 --> 00:17:04

academia more than it's happening within you know

00:17:04 --> 00:17:06

as a Muslim conversation amongst Muslims.

00:17:06 --> 00:17:07

I don't know if that's fair to say

00:17:07 --> 00:17:10

but it's just my observation and I think

00:17:10 --> 00:17:12

that is a shame.

00:17:12 --> 00:17:15

I can understand how it's happened because I

00:17:15 --> 00:17:18

think just the fact that women's voices get

00:17:18 --> 00:17:20

marginalized so then they have had to find

00:17:20 --> 00:17:23

a space where they can actually make the

00:17:23 --> 00:17:23

argument.

00:17:23 --> 00:17:24

So this is an observation about what's happening

00:17:24 --> 00:17:26

in western academic studies but I have observations

00:17:26 --> 00:17:29

about this subject as per what I see

00:17:29 --> 00:17:31

in the Muslim world whatever little I have

00:17:31 --> 00:17:31

traveled.

00:17:32 --> 00:17:35

So the reality of it is there's a

00:17:35 --> 00:17:41

conservative you know normative Islam that's spread across

00:17:41 --> 00:17:42

the you know a huge chunk of our

00:17:42 --> 00:17:44

population that says we don't need to we

00:17:44 --> 00:17:46

already had this figured out there's no reason

00:17:46 --> 00:17:48

to revisit these issues.

00:17:48 --> 00:17:49

We're fine the way we are.

00:17:49 --> 00:17:50

I don't know why you need to bring

00:17:50 --> 00:17:53

this discussion on our shores and our homes.

00:17:54 --> 00:17:55

Islam gave equality 1400 years ago.

00:17:55 --> 00:17:57

Islam already took care of all of this.

00:17:57 --> 00:17:58

We already solved this problem.

00:17:58 --> 00:17:59

This is not our problem.

00:17:59 --> 00:18:00

This is somebody else's problem.

00:18:00 --> 00:18:01

Great.

00:18:02 --> 00:18:03

Of course no problem at all.

00:18:03 --> 00:18:04

It's not a problem at all.

00:18:04 --> 00:18:04

Everything is fine.

00:18:05 --> 00:18:09

Yeah so there's the everything is fine narrative.

00:18:10 --> 00:18:12

At the same time you have young men

00:18:12 --> 00:18:14

and women and actually even working professional men

00:18:14 --> 00:18:18

and women in Muslim countries in massive numbers

00:18:18 --> 00:18:22

that are completely disenfranchised from what they know

00:18:22 --> 00:18:24

about Islam on the issue of gender.

00:18:25 --> 00:18:28

They're thinking it in their own circles.

00:18:28 --> 00:18:29

They're saying it if you provide them the

00:18:29 --> 00:18:31

freedom to speak their mind then they're saying

00:18:31 --> 00:18:32

it also.

00:18:32 --> 00:18:35

I've experienced this firsthand on multiple accounts and

00:18:35 --> 00:18:39

they need a room for that conversation that

00:18:39 --> 00:18:43

is not allowed to take place.

00:18:44 --> 00:18:46

So what that does if there's a need

00:18:46 --> 00:18:48

to discuss something, figure something out, talk it

00:18:48 --> 00:18:52

out, explore it even academically at a level

00:18:52 --> 00:18:55

and at a level that everybody can participate

00:18:55 --> 00:18:59

in then you get enough people that are

00:18:59 --> 00:19:00

just being suppressed so much.

00:19:01 --> 00:19:02

The analogy I give is if you press

00:19:02 --> 00:19:04

down on a spring and you keep pressing

00:19:04 --> 00:19:07

and keep pressing then eventually something will give

00:19:07 --> 00:19:08

and it will explode.

00:19:09 --> 00:19:11

So there's an element within the Muslim population

00:19:11 --> 00:19:15

now in different countries that's exploded and they're

00:19:15 --> 00:19:18

like you know what away with Islam, away

00:19:18 --> 00:19:23

with this patriarchal nonsense and there's like far

00:19:23 --> 00:19:28

left feminism or death kind of like you

00:19:28 --> 00:19:32

know almost a militancy and we look at

00:19:32 --> 00:19:35

those women that are protesting and you know

00:19:35 --> 00:19:37

speaking out and all of it and we

00:19:37 --> 00:19:38

look at them as the problem.

00:19:38 --> 00:19:39

They're not the problem.

00:19:39 --> 00:19:45

They are actually the result of an unaddressed

00:19:45 --> 00:19:46

pain point as far as I'm concerned.

00:19:46 --> 00:19:49

Like there's an issue, there's a discussion, there's

00:19:49 --> 00:19:51

a narrative that needed addressing, there were questions

00:19:51 --> 00:19:53

that needed to be answered and the answers

00:19:53 --> 00:19:55

that were being provided we say that they

00:19:55 --> 00:19:56

represent Islam.

00:19:56 --> 00:20:00

I say that we chose the convenient copy

00:20:00 --> 00:20:03

-paste answers and not realizing that those answers

00:20:03 --> 00:20:06

aren't enough and that requires more investigation.

00:20:06 --> 00:20:08

And those answers that were comfortable to those

00:20:08 --> 00:20:13

who are comfortable being comfortable which for the

00:20:13 --> 00:20:14

most part I'm saying men.

00:20:15 --> 00:20:17

So we don't have to revisit anything because

00:20:17 --> 00:20:19

it doesn't affect men.

00:20:19 --> 00:20:20

You'd be surprised it's also a good number

00:20:20 --> 00:20:23

of women that are in a traditional setting

00:20:23 --> 00:20:24

and they're comfortable with tradition the way it

00:20:24 --> 00:20:25

is.

00:20:25 --> 00:20:26

Now the question is when we say we

00:20:26 --> 00:20:29

need to revisit some issues you could think

00:20:29 --> 00:20:30

of this as oh this is a liberal

00:20:30 --> 00:20:30

agenda.

00:20:30 --> 00:20:32

This is rethinking Islam.

00:20:32 --> 00:20:35

There's re-evaluating you know what the Qur

00:20:35 --> 00:20:36

'an and Sunnah say etc.

00:20:36 --> 00:20:39

The problem with that account is that a

00:20:39 --> 00:20:43

lot of what we consider traditional values if

00:20:43 --> 00:20:45

you do an investigation of our own history,

00:20:45 --> 00:20:47

our own fiqh tradition, our own tafsir tradition

00:20:47 --> 00:20:50

it's not as cut and dry black and

00:20:50 --> 00:20:53

white as we're presenting it post-colonialism.

00:20:54 --> 00:20:56

There is in fact an intellectual decline and

00:20:56 --> 00:20:59

some positions are being dishonestly presented as the

00:20:59 --> 00:21:03

only position or the most convincing position when

00:21:03 --> 00:21:05

in matter of fact it's not the most

00:21:05 --> 00:21:07

convincing position.

00:21:07 --> 00:21:09

So this has happened on a number of

00:21:09 --> 00:21:11

occasions with me and in order for me

00:21:11 --> 00:21:14

to grapple with this problem instead of coming

00:21:14 --> 00:21:15

up with a conclusion what I decided to

00:21:15 --> 00:21:19

do was in private sit with traditional ulama,

00:21:19 --> 00:21:22

sit with experts and muhaddithin and say hey

00:21:22 --> 00:21:25

this issue what I'm studying is leading me

00:21:25 --> 00:21:26

to conclusion x.

00:21:26 --> 00:21:28

Can you help me understand where I'm going

00:21:28 --> 00:21:30

wrong here like help me figure this out

00:21:30 --> 00:21:37

and to my shock more often than not

00:21:37 --> 00:21:42

very conservative very traditional ulama are in agreement

00:21:42 --> 00:21:44

with what I'm saying but only in private

00:21:44 --> 00:21:47

settings and the reason for that is not

00:21:47 --> 00:21:49

because they're dishonest the reason for that is

00:21:49 --> 00:21:51

we have a mafia mentality in certain fragments

00:21:51 --> 00:21:55

of the muslim community and if even scholars

00:21:55 --> 00:21:59

speak their mind on something based on their

00:21:59 --> 00:22:01

years of exhaustive study not because they've become

00:22:01 --> 00:22:04

some puppet of a liberal agenda because they're

00:22:04 --> 00:22:06

they've studied something but they're going to say

00:22:06 --> 00:22:09

something that goes against the the the mob's

00:22:09 --> 00:22:12

emotional comfort zone.

00:22:12 --> 00:22:13

Unfortunately there's more than one mob you know

00:22:13 --> 00:22:15

so yeah there's anything you either you're a

00:22:15 --> 00:22:18

simp or you're isis right that's this is

00:22:18 --> 00:22:21

life on twitter right so okay if you

00:22:21 --> 00:22:23

say anything the people on the others you

00:22:23 --> 00:22:25

know the other side are going to just

00:22:25 --> 00:22:27

throw everything at you.

00:22:27 --> 00:22:29

So here we are we've been discussing our

00:22:29 --> 00:22:33

tradition we've been discussing our scholarship now we're

00:22:33 --> 00:22:36

looking at also western scholarship and there's other

00:22:36 --> 00:22:39

things we have to discuss but like we

00:22:39 --> 00:22:42

have to really make a conscious decision to

00:22:42 --> 00:22:48

hold on to right like here's what we're

00:22:48 --> 00:22:50

finding here's what we're going to discuss we're

00:22:50 --> 00:22:52

open to being corrected but we're not open

00:22:52 --> 00:22:56

to being intimidated into silence not by western

00:22:56 --> 00:22:59

criticism because it doesn't match their sensibilities and

00:22:59 --> 00:23:02

not by some social norms that have been

00:23:02 --> 00:23:05

established in the muslim community that don't want

00:23:05 --> 00:23:08

to hear what actual investigation into the quran

00:23:08 --> 00:23:11

into islam is saying because we don't want

00:23:11 --> 00:23:12

to hear that that's not that's not what

00:23:12 --> 00:23:15

i heard when i was growing up sorry

00:23:15 --> 00:23:17

i'm actually not sorry we've got to discuss

00:23:17 --> 00:23:20

it you know so speaking of discussing yeah

00:23:20 --> 00:23:24

um you know we need to have platforms

00:23:24 --> 00:23:27

and avenues through which serious research can be

00:23:27 --> 00:23:31

published so we have got do you like

00:23:31 --> 00:23:33

the transition was you know it was okay

00:23:33 --> 00:23:37

i'll give it five out of so examples

00:23:37 --> 00:23:41

can be journals within the muslim world or

00:23:41 --> 00:23:44

of course there are western journals as well

00:23:44 --> 00:23:46

so i've just got a few examples of

00:23:46 --> 00:23:48

that genre of works here so this is

00:23:48 --> 00:23:52

um this one i think is from egypt

00:23:52 --> 00:23:55

but published in london if i remember correctly

00:23:55 --> 00:24:00

called it's not a very famous one but

00:24:00 --> 00:24:02

there are actually bigger ones that come out

00:24:02 --> 00:24:05

of saudi um but this has some quite

00:24:05 --> 00:24:07

uh prominent authors if you have scanned through

00:24:07 --> 00:24:09

the names you may recognize yeah and this

00:24:09 --> 00:24:11

was one that we picked up when we

00:24:11 --> 00:24:13

went to malaysia the university of malaya have

00:24:13 --> 00:24:17

this journal called quranica they don't know but

00:24:17 --> 00:24:18

they stole that name from me because my

00:24:18 --> 00:24:21

organization quranica used to be yes yes um

00:24:21 --> 00:24:26

that's how i was introduced to you so

00:24:26 --> 00:24:28

this is a quite old edition that i

00:24:28 --> 00:24:31

happen to have with me um but you

00:24:31 --> 00:24:33

know it's just examples of research around the

00:24:33 --> 00:24:36

quran that gets published and you know it

00:24:36 --> 00:24:38

can be in all sorts of topics um

00:24:38 --> 00:24:41

it can be about historical topics or indeed

00:24:41 --> 00:24:44

can be on on things that pertain to

00:24:44 --> 00:24:47

the here and now and the future um

00:24:47 --> 00:24:49

using the quran as you know the basis

00:24:49 --> 00:24:57

for our explorations um this was a conference

00:24:57 --> 00:24:58

that i attended in istanbul they have a

00:24:58 --> 00:25:04

whole series on ottoman this this this particular

00:25:04 --> 00:25:06

one is about ottoman tafsir and then they

00:25:06 --> 00:25:10

have got ottoman hadith studies ottoman kalam studies

00:25:10 --> 00:25:13

ottoman interesting you know also different ones so

00:25:13 --> 00:25:16

this one all about tafsir most of it

00:25:16 --> 00:25:18

is in turkish there were a few in

00:25:18 --> 00:25:20

arabic and then a few in english so

00:25:20 --> 00:25:22

i have a paper in here which i

00:25:22 --> 00:25:27

presented there about it's called the digital mufasir

00:25:27 --> 00:25:31

so it's about the tafsir al-alusi that

00:25:31 --> 00:25:32

was so that i can get into the

00:25:32 --> 00:25:33

ottoman conference i was like i'll make it

00:25:33 --> 00:25:36

about alusi but i'll also make it about

00:25:36 --> 00:25:38

something future facing so i didn't want to

00:25:38 --> 00:25:41

look at it purely historically so what i

00:25:41 --> 00:25:45

discussed in there is um imagine as it's

00:25:45 --> 00:25:47

reimagining the tafsir of al-alusi for a

00:25:47 --> 00:25:49

new era so i said imagine that we

00:25:49 --> 00:25:52

managed to bring al-alusi to our modern

00:25:52 --> 00:25:56

day using a time machine or we went

00:25:56 --> 00:25:58

back to his time with the tools that

00:25:58 --> 00:26:00

we have have this flick through if you

00:26:00 --> 00:26:03

want and he wanted to compose this tafsir

00:26:03 --> 00:26:08

how could we use digital tools to support

00:26:08 --> 00:26:10

the production of that tafsir so the reason

00:26:10 --> 00:26:12

for asking that question is to say well

00:26:12 --> 00:26:14

if we wanted something as good as or

00:26:14 --> 00:26:16

even greater than al-alusi in the future

00:26:16 --> 00:26:20

how can digital approaches to authorship be brought

00:26:20 --> 00:26:23

to bear instead of just doing the same

00:26:23 --> 00:26:26

old book approach which which was the limit

00:26:26 --> 00:26:28

of what they were able to to use

00:26:28 --> 00:26:32

at their time uh so sometimes slightly zany

00:26:32 --> 00:26:36

ideas these are a few issues i have

00:26:36 --> 00:26:39

of the journal of studies i have a

00:26:39 --> 00:26:41

few myself yeah which comes out of suas

00:26:41 --> 00:26:45

and is printed in edinburgh um so these

00:26:45 --> 00:26:47

are the ones typically that i've got a

00:26:47 --> 00:26:51

paper in yes so so i'm sorry the

00:26:51 --> 00:26:53

shaheen affair and the evolution of us all

00:26:53 --> 00:26:55

of us here yeah we talked about that

00:26:55 --> 00:26:58

one yeah uh about the solution and the

00:26:58 --> 00:27:01

evolutionary reading of the quran so that was

00:27:01 --> 00:27:07

in 2018 2019 and then this year i

00:27:07 --> 00:27:10

had this one called fights and flights two

00:27:10 --> 00:27:14

underrated alternatives to dominant readings in tafsir so

00:27:14 --> 00:27:18

yeah journal of quranic studies uh the chief

00:27:18 --> 00:27:21

editor is professor abdul halim so you know

00:27:21 --> 00:27:23

it's got a special place in my heart

00:27:23 --> 00:27:28

but um generally we uh as academics try

00:27:28 --> 00:27:31

to publish in multiple journals and reach multiple

00:27:31 --> 00:27:37

audiences so that's journals now you're ready for

00:27:37 --> 00:27:41

another smooth transition i'm so ready so having

00:27:41 --> 00:27:43

talked about some of the western writings we

00:27:43 --> 00:27:47

have here also uh gabriel side reynolds has

00:27:47 --> 00:27:49

got a couple of books uh which are

00:27:49 --> 00:27:53

very significant and important for us to consider

00:27:53 --> 00:27:56

the quran and its biblical subtext yeah and

00:27:56 --> 00:27:58

this one the quran and the bible which

00:27:58 --> 00:28:01

is kind of uh you know it's a

00:28:01 --> 00:28:03

translation of the quran by ali quli and

00:28:03 --> 00:28:08

karai his name is ali quli karai um

00:28:08 --> 00:28:13

he's a shia translator of the quran but

00:28:13 --> 00:28:15

the footnotes here or the notes that he's

00:28:15 --> 00:28:20

added uh gabriel reynolds has added are essentially

00:28:20 --> 00:28:24

what um western academics have identified in terms

00:28:24 --> 00:28:29

of intertexts or connecting passages from the bible

00:28:29 --> 00:28:32

you know potentially sources from the bible or

00:28:32 --> 00:28:34

elsewhere according to their perspective i mean yeah

00:28:34 --> 00:28:37

um so then of course you know for

00:28:37 --> 00:28:40

muslims it's very straightforward and simple to think

00:28:40 --> 00:28:42

that it's not a source but merely you

00:28:42 --> 00:28:45

know something in common because allah revealed the

00:28:45 --> 00:28:48

quran and he revealed the books uh before

00:28:48 --> 00:28:53

yeah from which these things appear but of

00:28:53 --> 00:28:55

course this ties closely with a genre which

00:28:55 --> 00:28:58

i'm sort of pulling up here which is

00:28:58 --> 00:29:04

called israeli um roughly speaking judaica or judeo

00:29:04 --> 00:29:08

-christian materials um and you know in the

00:29:08 --> 00:29:12

early periods especially and even later uh would

00:29:12 --> 00:29:16

include such things in their commentaries so when

00:29:16 --> 00:29:18

you have stories of the prophets for example

00:29:19 --> 00:29:21

and the quran can often be very brief

00:29:21 --> 00:29:23

and leave out a lot of the detail

00:29:23 --> 00:29:29

for very uh high wisdom reasons yet somehow

00:29:29 --> 00:29:32

when you are writing a commentary it feels

00:29:33 --> 00:29:35

unsatisfactory to just sort of say and we

00:29:35 --> 00:29:36

don't know this and we don't know that

00:29:36 --> 00:29:39

they'd rather say well you know we have

00:29:39 --> 00:29:41

some information that we heard uh that this

00:29:41 --> 00:29:44

prophet actually this person was called that and

00:29:44 --> 00:29:45

this was their name and this is where

00:29:45 --> 00:29:48

they lived and so they add extra details

00:29:48 --> 00:29:51

and the source of that you know typically

00:29:51 --> 00:29:53

isn't from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam himself

00:29:53 --> 00:29:55

which would make it hadith and authoritative but

00:29:55 --> 00:29:58

it comes from you know those who were

00:29:58 --> 00:30:00

around who knew about the previous scriptures converts

00:30:00 --> 00:30:02

from the people of the book or even

00:30:02 --> 00:30:05

maybe sometimes not converts even yeah but discussions

00:30:05 --> 00:30:09

and things that would circulate so that kind

00:30:09 --> 00:30:11

of material you know later on you find

00:30:11 --> 00:30:14

uh you know azhari scholars and even before

00:30:14 --> 00:30:17

them people like ibn kathir and his tafsir

00:30:17 --> 00:30:21

al-alusi and his tafsir who are very

00:30:21 --> 00:30:24

negative about israeliyat especially when they become very

00:30:24 --> 00:30:28

extensive and you know elaborate and beside the

00:30:28 --> 00:30:31

point of what the quran is is focusing

00:30:31 --> 00:30:34

on but if you go to the early

00:30:34 --> 00:30:36

period you find they were fairly easy with

00:30:36 --> 00:30:41

this like they didn't necessarily say these uh

00:30:41 --> 00:30:44

texts and narrations are the authority to interpret

00:30:44 --> 00:30:46

the quran but they just saw it as

00:30:46 --> 00:30:49

reading it alongside you know does no harm

00:30:49 --> 00:30:52

i think western academics at least they didn't

00:30:52 --> 00:30:54

realize they were doing this for me but

00:30:54 --> 00:30:57

they did they got me thinking about israeliyat

00:30:57 --> 00:30:59

a certain way so the old way was

00:30:59 --> 00:31:00

we shouldn't rely on them because we can't

00:31:00 --> 00:31:02

trust what the bible is telling us and

00:31:02 --> 00:31:03

we shouldn't use that to fill the gaps

00:31:03 --> 00:31:05

in the story of the being told by

00:31:05 --> 00:31:09

the quran well and good the western academics

00:31:09 --> 00:31:10

come along and the first thing they notice

00:31:10 --> 00:31:13

is the bible is clearly being contradicted by

00:31:13 --> 00:31:15

the quran in the same story the quran

00:31:15 --> 00:31:17

is telling the story of noah and abraham

00:31:17 --> 00:31:20

and jesus and whoever else in very different

00:31:20 --> 00:31:22

ways so they're common ground and there's also

00:31:22 --> 00:31:25

these divergences right so the first wave in

00:31:25 --> 00:31:27

western academics that i that i have got

00:31:27 --> 00:31:30

familiarized with was that the quran simply got

00:31:30 --> 00:31:33

it wrong there's there's the bible account there

00:31:33 --> 00:31:36

wasn't very good plagiarism so it's plagiarized from

00:31:36 --> 00:31:37

the bible but not a very good job

00:31:37 --> 00:31:40

later waves in western academics comes along and

00:31:40 --> 00:31:43

says actually this doesn't look like plagiarism at

00:31:43 --> 00:31:46

all this looks like a retelling so they

00:31:46 --> 00:31:49

call it the retelling what that means to

00:31:49 --> 00:31:51

them is that the bible has a story

00:31:51 --> 00:31:53

and the quran seems to put a new

00:31:53 --> 00:31:55

spin on that story i look at it

00:31:55 --> 00:31:57

from a confessional iman point of view and

00:31:57 --> 00:31:59

what i look at it as is the

00:31:59 --> 00:32:01

so the quran is taking an existing story

00:32:01 --> 00:32:04

that was not only found in the bible

00:32:04 --> 00:32:07

among the christian and jewish communities but that's

00:32:07 --> 00:32:09

somehow also spread in the arabian region there

00:32:09 --> 00:32:12

is interaction between uh jewish christians and other

00:32:12 --> 00:32:15

other faith communities so it was an interesting

00:32:15 --> 00:32:16

example of that it's not a biblical story

00:32:16 --> 00:32:19

it's a post-biblical story of saints that

00:32:19 --> 00:32:22

was popular among a certain section of christians

00:32:22 --> 00:32:26

so what the quran is doing is it

00:32:26 --> 00:32:29

is taking something that people are vaguely familiar

00:32:29 --> 00:32:33

with and then not in great detail to

00:32:33 --> 00:32:36

contradict everything that they've heard before but actually

00:32:36 --> 00:32:39

tell the most important parts of the story

00:32:39 --> 00:32:42

that number one highlights what has been corrupted

00:32:42 --> 00:32:46

from what's become popular right so then okay

00:32:46 --> 00:32:50

so it's clearly diverging which means the details

00:32:50 --> 00:32:52

about names and lineage and location and all

00:32:52 --> 00:32:57

of that stuff is fine but now oh

00:32:57 --> 00:33:00

that's what really happened so the quran isn't

00:33:00 --> 00:33:01

focused on all of it it's focused on

00:33:01 --> 00:33:05

the part that got needs attention that needs

00:33:05 --> 00:33:07

attention and it's recalibrating it and bringing it

00:33:07 --> 00:33:09

back to a purposeful story so it's no

00:33:09 --> 00:33:13

longer just history or interesting facts or interesting

00:33:13 --> 00:33:17

legends or stories now it's purposeful so studying

00:33:17 --> 00:33:21

the biblical account is actually really beneficial in

00:33:21 --> 00:33:24

not that over simplistically coming back to the

00:33:24 --> 00:33:26

muslim attitude oh we don't take the seer

00:33:26 --> 00:33:29

from these sources because we can't trust them

00:33:29 --> 00:33:32

actually i think we should look at it

00:33:32 --> 00:33:34

from a different lens the quran is offering

00:33:34 --> 00:33:37

us by doing this biblical subtext study an

00:33:37 --> 00:33:39

insight into how did the mind of the

00:33:39 --> 00:33:42

jewish and the christian average jew and christian

00:33:42 --> 00:33:44

and the rabbi and the priest how how

00:33:44 --> 00:33:46

were they processing these stories and when the

00:33:46 --> 00:33:49

quran came along how did they see that

00:33:49 --> 00:33:53

the quran is hitting at some really key

00:33:53 --> 00:33:57

pain points that the most knowledgeable among them

00:33:57 --> 00:34:00

know about right so it's it's doing something

00:34:00 --> 00:34:03

really remarkable here now one of the places

00:34:03 --> 00:34:05

that i thought was the most um fascinating

00:34:05 --> 00:34:08

because musa is such a huge topic in

00:34:08 --> 00:34:11

the quran and moses is you know a

00:34:11 --> 00:34:14

huge chunk of of the old testament is

00:34:14 --> 00:34:16

is a cent he's a central figure really

00:34:16 --> 00:34:19

of the old testament um we have a

00:34:19 --> 00:34:21

story of him that they don't have we

00:34:21 --> 00:34:25

have the musa story and there's it's nowhere

00:34:25 --> 00:34:29

to be found i thought it was profoundly

00:34:29 --> 00:34:31

interesting that this occurs in surat al-ghaf

00:34:31 --> 00:34:35

where if we are to trace our narrations

00:34:35 --> 00:34:37

in our tafasir about what's in the backdrop

00:34:37 --> 00:34:40

of surat al-ghaf there's an attempt to

00:34:40 --> 00:34:43

prove the prophet is not very knowledgeable so

00:34:43 --> 00:34:46

ask him riddle riddle questions right and allah

00:34:46 --> 00:34:49

remarkably tells a story that the supposedly knowledgeable

00:34:49 --> 00:34:52

of their own prophet aren't knowledgeable of regarding

00:34:52 --> 00:34:57

their own prophet because there's no subtext for

00:34:57 --> 00:35:00

the musa story and orientalists are like is

00:35:00 --> 00:35:03

this gilgamesh is this taken from this legend

00:35:03 --> 00:35:06

or that legend i look at his quran

00:35:06 --> 00:35:09

is doing something completely different here it's saying

00:35:09 --> 00:35:11

yep i'll tell you something you didn't even

00:35:11 --> 00:35:13

know about your own prophet a journey he

00:35:13 --> 00:35:14

took that clearly he didn't see fit to

00:35:14 --> 00:35:19

tell you about you know so it seems

00:35:19 --> 00:35:21

that the you know approaching these things whether

00:35:21 --> 00:35:24

you want to term this the study of

00:35:24 --> 00:35:25

israeliyat or you want to think of it

00:35:25 --> 00:35:28

as subtext of the quran it's a very

00:35:28 --> 00:35:32

rich field there's also absolutely uh a need

00:35:32 --> 00:35:35

for for greater precision in the approaches and

00:35:35 --> 00:35:37

i think you've you've done your own moraja

00:35:37 --> 00:35:39

that is to say you've revised your own

00:35:39 --> 00:35:41

stance on that over time as you see

00:35:41 --> 00:35:44

more there are scholars also in the arab

00:35:44 --> 00:35:47

world like this group of scholars led by

00:35:47 --> 00:35:49

dr al-sa'ad al-tayyar and marcus

00:35:49 --> 00:35:54

tafsir published this one and here they're making

00:35:54 --> 00:35:57

the argument to an arab scholarly audience that

00:35:57 --> 00:35:59

you know we need to sort of wind

00:35:59 --> 00:36:01

back some of the negativity towards israeli and

00:36:01 --> 00:36:04

recognize a role that they can play so

00:36:04 --> 00:36:06

i think that there's a further conversation to

00:36:06 --> 00:36:08

be had you know especially with things that

00:36:08 --> 00:36:11

we've gleaned from our experiences and our readings

00:36:11 --> 00:36:13

in in western academia discuss when the time

00:36:13 --> 00:36:16

comes with marcus tafsir and this group what

00:36:16 --> 00:36:19

we did with surat yusuf because that was

00:36:19 --> 00:36:23

a really interesting exercise of the biblical subtext

00:36:23 --> 00:36:25

and how the quran diverges and from what

00:36:25 --> 00:36:27

i came to know later even non-muslim

00:36:27 --> 00:36:31

academics and actually even christian missionaries and people

00:36:31 --> 00:36:34

in the confessional space in the christian space

00:36:34 --> 00:36:36

and the jewish space were actually interested in

00:36:36 --> 00:36:38

what we were doing with surat yusuf and

00:36:38 --> 00:36:41

joseph in the bible yeah so there's a

00:36:41 --> 00:36:45

richness to engaging with those texts but not

00:36:45 --> 00:36:48

just simply throwing things on top of that's

00:36:48 --> 00:36:53

right um so let's conclude this with a

00:36:53 --> 00:36:55

work that i i know that you're familiar

00:36:55 --> 00:36:57

with yeah this is the english version of

00:36:57 --> 00:36:59

it is called the onomastic miracle in the

00:36:59 --> 00:37:01

quran it's a strange word i don't think

00:37:01 --> 00:37:02

many people know onomastic but it's to do

00:37:02 --> 00:37:06

with proper names in the quran especially names

00:37:06 --> 00:37:09

of the prophets and so on and it's

00:37:09 --> 00:37:12

arabic title in the so the the same

00:37:12 --> 00:37:14

author summarized it in english that's what's happened

00:37:14 --> 00:37:16

here but it's called min air jazz the

00:37:16 --> 00:37:22

quran um so he makes a very surprising

00:37:22 --> 00:37:25

kind of argument yeah he does um and

00:37:25 --> 00:37:28

quite bold claims actually which i know some

00:37:28 --> 00:37:32

people find almost disqualifying right in the beginning

00:37:32 --> 00:37:34

that he sees that all languages descend from

00:37:34 --> 00:37:38

arabic yeah this cannot really stand but regardless

00:37:38 --> 00:37:41

of that what he does on a micro

00:37:41 --> 00:37:46

level is he looks at individual names of

00:37:46 --> 00:37:51

for example ibrahim islam and he says well

00:37:51 --> 00:37:55

here's how hebrew scholars have tended to analyze

00:37:55 --> 00:37:57

that name and this is what they think

00:37:57 --> 00:38:00

it means but in the quran we have

00:38:00 --> 00:38:04

a pointer towards another kind of meaning so

00:38:04 --> 00:38:06

he makes an argument based on his knowledge

00:38:06 --> 00:38:08

of semitics and it's interesting he adds something

00:38:08 --> 00:38:10

else so he says he makes the claim

00:38:10 --> 00:38:12

sometimes that biblical scholars got it wrong so

00:38:12 --> 00:38:14

he'll say about abraham it's not a it's

00:38:14 --> 00:38:17

not a hebrew name because he wasn't a

00:38:17 --> 00:38:21

hebrew he is he's in ancient babylonia so

00:38:21 --> 00:38:23

it's a babylonian name so we have to

00:38:23 --> 00:38:25

look at the babylonian language to try and

00:38:25 --> 00:38:27

do the etymology of his name he'll say

00:38:27 --> 00:38:29

about musa instead of looking at mu shay

00:38:29 --> 00:38:32

which is something along the lines of something

00:38:32 --> 00:38:35

in the water ma and shay jewish hebrew

00:38:35 --> 00:38:40

closeness to to mu and shay which fits

00:38:40 --> 00:38:41

the story right but he says no they

00:38:41 --> 00:38:43

wouldn't have they wouldn't have named him in

00:38:43 --> 00:38:45

hebrew because he was raised in the pharaoh's

00:38:45 --> 00:38:48

castle as a prince so he must have

00:38:48 --> 00:38:49

been named in the language of the master

00:38:49 --> 00:38:51

not the because he wasn't raised as a

00:38:51 --> 00:38:53

slave so the name given to him must

00:38:53 --> 00:38:56

not have been in the slave language right

00:38:56 --> 00:38:57

so he says well maybe if we want

00:38:57 --> 00:39:00

to look at explore musa we should look

00:39:00 --> 00:39:03

at ancient egyptian to figure out what what

00:39:03 --> 00:39:06

musa means so he's he he's he traces

00:39:06 --> 00:39:08

i think five or six languages that he

00:39:08 --> 00:39:11

says that foreign names in the quran non

00:39:11 --> 00:39:12

-arab names in the quran can be traced

00:39:12 --> 00:39:15

back to uh the the second part of

00:39:15 --> 00:39:19

his argument is that the quran is situating

00:39:19 --> 00:39:23

these names in contexts which explain the meaning

00:39:23 --> 00:39:25

which explain the meaning of the name so

00:39:25 --> 00:39:29

what he's saying for example with ismail uh

00:39:29 --> 00:39:31

is actually he is does trace it to

00:39:31 --> 00:39:33

hebrew this one and he says it's yashmail

00:39:33 --> 00:39:37

or yashmail which is actually il is their

00:39:37 --> 00:39:40

word for god like allah and then yash

00:39:40 --> 00:39:44

yashma is like yes to listen and yes

00:39:44 --> 00:39:48

my allah is allah listens so ismail is

00:39:48 --> 00:39:49

actually god listens and the story is when

00:39:49 --> 00:39:51

the baby was born abraham is overjoyed and

00:39:51 --> 00:39:53

he says god listens and that becomes his

00:39:53 --> 00:39:57

name right so but that's i think uh

00:39:57 --> 00:40:02

within the jewish understanding as well yes yes

00:40:02 --> 00:40:05

but with the ibrahim for example he says

00:40:05 --> 00:40:08

well it actually means imam yeah i remember

00:40:08 --> 00:40:11

then he says then in the first leader

00:40:11 --> 00:40:14

of many leader of many is what he

00:40:14 --> 00:40:17

breaks it up as yeah but then but

00:40:17 --> 00:40:20

then he gives an arabic imam because it's

00:40:20 --> 00:40:22

like in the in the ayah itself the

00:40:22 --> 00:40:27

first mention of yeah there's a there's a

00:40:27 --> 00:40:30

pointer within the text towards the meaning that's

00:40:30 --> 00:40:31

what he was doing with ismail when he

00:40:31 --> 00:40:37

says you listen right so so he so

00:40:37 --> 00:40:38

he's made these kinds of correlations with about

00:40:38 --> 00:40:40

60 names in the quran so i think

00:40:40 --> 00:40:43

it's a very ambitious project and one which

00:40:43 --> 00:40:46

um again like when we said about the

00:40:46 --> 00:40:49

uh the one by bism massai where it's

00:40:49 --> 00:40:52

quite a radical proposition it throws you know

00:40:52 --> 00:40:55

new ideas onto the table yeah which deserve

00:40:55 --> 00:40:57

to be reckoned with and then you might

00:40:57 --> 00:41:01

find that not everything holds up but even

00:41:01 --> 00:41:03

if 50 of what he says is is

00:41:03 --> 00:41:05

solid and sound it would still be an

00:41:05 --> 00:41:07

amazing thing so one really cool one that

00:41:07 --> 00:41:11

comes to mind is uh david which david

00:41:11 --> 00:41:14

which is daoud to us right and david

00:41:14 --> 00:41:18

is actually deed is um might and david

00:41:18 --> 00:41:21

is the the one of might and the

00:41:21 --> 00:41:27

quran uses aid aid which you know kind

00:41:27 --> 00:41:32

of translates daoud in that way yeah he's

00:41:32 --> 00:41:34

got some interesting ones uh i asked sharif

00:41:34 --> 00:41:36

on our team yeah to evaluate some of

00:41:36 --> 00:41:38

his work and he has criticisms of some

00:41:38 --> 00:41:39

of it he approves of some of it

00:41:39 --> 00:41:42

so it was interesting i put together a

00:41:42 --> 00:41:45

kind of uh a work group to go

00:41:45 --> 00:41:47

through it a bit by bit i have

00:41:47 --> 00:41:49

summarized notes on it if you want them

00:41:49 --> 00:41:54

yeah so so alhamdulillah so this was our

00:41:54 --> 00:41:58

our look at biblical studies there's there's another

00:41:58 --> 00:42:02

there's a section you wanted to do about

00:42:02 --> 00:42:05

yeah so that's that's next that's next okay

00:42:05 --> 00:42:08

inshallah so we'll talk about that everyone hope

00:42:08 --> 00:42:10

you guys are enjoying it we certainly are

00:42:13 --> 00:42:18

goodbye now get out how would you like

00:42:18 --> 00:42:20

to explore the heart of the quran surat

00:42:20 --> 00:42:24

yaseen guided by an important mufasir of the

00:42:24 --> 00:42:27

20th century muhammad al-tahir ibn ashur we've

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put on a special course at the ibn

00:42:28 --> 00:42:31

ashur center going through surat yaseen with a

00:42:31 --> 00:42:34

new translation and a new commentary based on

00:42:34 --> 00:42:37

the important insights of this great exegete head

00:42:37 --> 00:42:40

on over to ibn ashur.com slash academy

00:42:40 --> 00:42:41

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