How the Qur’an Shapes the Sunni Community - Ingrid Mattson, PhD

so the first our first speaker will be Professor Ingrid Matson who will be speaking on the prawn in the Sydney community all right good morning sit down my neck um happy to be here with all of you thank Cimarron for inviting me and I'm so happy to be here with Hannah azzam today old friend from Chicago from many days ago so should be a good time 15 minutes for a shorts just a little morsel of the of the topic so I begin many years ago when I was living in Connecticut a well-known Sunni traditionalist scholar and preacher came to my home for dinner I placed dishes of rice and bread and bowls of salad and beef stew on the dining room table buffet style everyone filled their plates and we sat together around the fire in the living room where we ate and chatted after finishing his serving the scholar stood up held out his dish and said headman mazeed is there more after all these years I still remember his words because they immediately responded to them on so many levels as the hosts of the dinner as a fellow believer and as a scholar of the paren who is particularly fascinated with the way Muslims engaged with the paren in all different situations this phrase headman mazeed is of course from the Koran phrasing his request for another serving in the words of the Quran had the immediate effect of elevating the food the meal the gathering more than anything else the Quran brings holiness to our lives human beings are constantly pulled as if by gravity into a state of dull mindlessness no flaw as the Quran says we are mostly clueless like groggy teenagers bumping into walls as we try to get to the kitchen the clues are there says the par n think ponder reflect vo the ayat of the paren it's signs its clues draw our attention to the fact that every part of creation is a wondrous sign of God however what was striking about the shifts use of this particular Quranic phrase headman mazeed to request more food is the jarring contrast between the context of the friendly dinner in which it was articulated and the context in which it occurs in the paren and soda cloth sort of fifty verse 30 which says when on that day we shall say to the Hellfire are you full and it will say is there anymore the pious scholar was citing the paren but the Quran here is giving voice to hellfire ravenous for more iniquitous souls to consume does the quranic context matter what is the added value as it were in citing the quran here was it performative to demonstrate his mastery of the text was it a joke and should the quran be used in that way was he shy to ask for more food and instead of articulating his own desire he was cloaking it in god's words or if each letter each word of the quran is god's word then as much as we turn to it for guidance we can also bring any part of it to any situation at any time in any way each and every bit is special and so muslims name their children not only after prophets and righteous people or to indicate a relationship of servitude to god of the law or amal to law but also name their children paja and Yassin names made up by taking some of the mysterious letters that open a number of sorters of the quran and if these are names why not Byfuglien a name given to an unfortunate Afghan girl I knew by taking a name out of the poor n bustle meaning onion on an episode of little mosque on the Prairie a wonderful Canadian production how many of you seen it's available in the United States at least on YouTube which is a story about a Canadian Prairie Muslim community small town there is a main character is the Imam the Canadian Imam of the mosque named Ahmad in one episode which draws out the story of Omar's increasingly deepening relationship with a non Muslim friend who isn't always a good influence his friend gets him in trouble in fact both of them land in jail after some trouble and the Imam is very angry at his friend so his friend turns to him and says doesn't the plan doesn't the Koran say should old acquaintance be forgot Hamad says that is auld lang syne not the Koran but there's something in that expecting that the Koran has every good value every good sentiment every good principle should be found in the paren it's not only something that Muslims expect but non-muslims expect of us as well there's the famous statement reported from Havana Bass who said if I lost my camels hobbles I would look for it in the book of God we look for everything in the paren but of course the question is when we do that are we simply imposing ourselves upon the text or is might we be even cheapening it at times Quran says we are we created the human being and we know what his soul whispers to him for we are closer to him than his jugular vein in my book the story of the Quran I relate an anecdote told to me by realist man a Syrian American from the suburbs of Chicago who as a teenager was certified in touch weed by the late great scholar of the paren I would hasten Mohideen and quoted thee who died in 2009 in Damascus certainly a mercy for him since you did not have to witness the horror that would overtake his country soon afterwards the ream described her meeting with shkodër d is the final stage in the certification process after having undergone extensive testing by the shifts female senior female disciple god ID and Husseini an accomplished scholar in her own right on the day of the exam ream was brought to the waiting room where she sat with a dozen or so other young women who one by one approach to curtain behind which lay the physically frail but mentally acute scholar on a day bed the chef asked the women to recite from various sections of the Quran to affirm their mastery of recitation the ream described her astonishment at witnessing one of the teenagers who was there with her after successfully completing her exam she pulled open the drapes and said oh I just want to see you when I heard this anecdote I was struck by how it mirrors the per anak description of Moses who having climbed Mount Sinai says my lord show yourself to me so I can gaze upon you it seemed eminently possible to me that having studied the paren so extensively this young woman's intense emotions were now expressed in the form of the sacred disc where she had internalized we all long to be close to God from Moses to George Harrison I really want to see you Lord I believe that the same longing prompted this girl to want to see the one who was for her in a way the penultimate source of the Quran because she quoted these is nad linked his chain of transmission of the Quran links his knowledge of the Quran directly to God the Quran is the most charismatic presence in the Sunni community all other claims of holiness are suspect and contingent contingent despite the pervasiveness of textual renderings of the paren from printed most Huff's and smartphone apps it is the words of the parens spoken out naming a child from it and Vokoun of poetic phrase or saying bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim before an action with which most Muslims ordinary Muslims if we wanted to use a kind of classes term have contact with the paren the paren is still the soundscape of holy space and time it is the pious phrase to decorate a speech it provides the primary substance to foot buzz and many religious talks now most Muslim communities share this cultural sound and landscape so what characterizes the Sunni community in particular in its relation to the paren there's a certain difficulty here for a certainty because the privileged position of the majority is that we do not have to know that much about minority communities to exist because I'm the white male in the in the room here today we assume our normality and all other communities have particularity 'z as an adult convert to Islam I had the fairly common experience that for some time I insisted I was just Muslim and I refused to accept any sectarian identity whatsoever I became a Muslim because the Quran or to be more accurate a translation of the last Jews of the Quran cracked opened my heart so the light of God could illuminate it like the men and women of the first community to hear the paren the person of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him elucidated its message to me I heard about the prophets character from Muslims who I saw it out to teach me Arabic so I could read what I heard recited but at first I wasn't even convinced that I had to become Muslim in the sense of embracing this religious identity and becoming part of this religious community I'd left my childhood religious tradition years before I'd quietly walked out of that room of religion and closed the door behind me but my own reading of the paren led me to the conclusion that I would have to make some lifestyle changes if I were not to deny what I now knew that this was the Word of God but I knew it'd be difficult to live as a Muslim I didn't want this hassle in my life as I was holding back I'm making a commitment to be a member of this religious community I dreamed of the Prophet Mohammed I saw him receiving revelations finding it hard almost painful I woke up and thought okay it will not be easy to bring the paren and all it means into my life but the Prophet Mohammed will show me the way for the Sunni Muslim the Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammed is intertwined inexorably linked with the Quran and shaping shaping the community for a Sunni Muslim the Quran cannot be understood fully and truly without the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad the big question is how do we know the Sunna and for many Muslims that became knowing hadith but of course this has not always been the case Imam Malik the great scholar of Medina whose medinan school is the original school of law believed that the Sunnah was best transmitted through the knowledge through the practice of the community and the knowledge of pious people over time textualism came to dominate traditional Sunni Islam and then was challenged by the by others both from you could say the right and the left and so at this point the question is which one of those or which of those groups represent Sunni Islam if there is a Sunni Muslim community it is vast contradictory and contentious a nation of undefined borders and regular bickering over membership that diversity and dispute ativ ness defines community is a direct result of the fact that both the sunnah and the paren are texts i think we could find one limit or border of the sydney community though at the point where the existence of an interpretive gap is rejected imran began this conference citing idea bin ABI talib words to the Hawaa tidge that this quran is merely a scripture between two covers it does not speak it is men who speak through it for Sydney's the interpretive move between words and their meaning must be justified according to evidence and a methodology that is ostensibly accessible to all rational Muslims who can understand the sources but the belief that it is possible for the meaning of the Quran to be accessible to humanity as a whole that as the slogan says there's no clergy in Islam can leave the Sunni community to a radical egalitarianism that is disruptive and anti-intellectual it can also create a vacuum of authority to be filled by other manifestations of power imperial power for example religious anarchy is reined in by the construction of a foundation of skills and knowledge that can only be acquired through disciplined and supervised study and this on the other hand can lead to to traditionalism that viewers on klaris ISM the recognition of a core set of diverse equally authentic interpretive methods and schools within Sunni Islam is an aspirationally irenic solution to the rejection of the Mamet on one hand although some new Muslims I would say especially traditionalist Sunni Muslims love the amounts and their person and the family of the Prophet that a debate and the need to establish parameters of orthodoxy or the appearance R of on the other the embrace of an ethical pluralism that does not descend into relativism or anarchism is ideally the result of the Sunni approach to the per ad but choice and the proliferation of choices makes us anxious as Barry Schwartz argues very clearly and demonstrates in his book the paradox of choice why less is more the human beings become anxious when we have too many choices and we seek false certainties where we seek ways to manage our choices soon ISM traditional student ISM manage this by denominationalism the different schools of thought the theological schools and the legal schools were in a ways of offering choice within the proliferation of choice of offering 15 minutes o total I see ok didn't understand that sign so there's a lot of sense to denominationalism it is a voluntary embrace of constraints in order to manage this diversity but denominational identity can harden and lead to sectarianism scholars have different levels of charisma there can be a competition for resources and power and just setting an identity just articulating an identity requires or sets the expectation that there are differences it creates mythologies of origin so what is the balance well it's difficult it is not easy to bear the burden of the paren when the Prophet himself received revelation he would sweat the paren is not supposed to be so easy the paren says we offered this trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains but they refused to bear it were wary of it then man picked it up truly his oppressive and ignorant oppressive ignorant this echo is the description of humanity by the angels in the creation story of surah Baqarah why would you put in charge of the earth one who will corrupt it and commit bloodshed God's responses I know what you do not so there are no utopias here just struggle and trusting in God to help us understand it all in the end and to sum up I would say there's a lot to say about a German and about the idea of the community but I would say and maybe we could discuss this more in the question period if you're interested that I think we've moved from a Jamaa to Jamaa and I think that's a good thing I think Ismail which was always challenged even within the Sunni community by scholars of course event a Mia launched a devastating critique of yzma of consensus as something that really did not have a strong methodological foundation but what's to replace it traditionalism itself was characterized by patriarchy by being too close to power and Empire so if we move from a Jew Maya to Jamaa and I think this is this is although the traditionalists would not embrace this I don't think it's simply happening communities are interpreting the Koran communities in the sense of religious congregations different cultures they're interpreted receiving the paren and custom and cultural interpretations a more diffused decision-making process maybe one that really reflects the idea of negotiated understanding is starting to characterize soon ISM in the best parts of it and I think that's good I think it also reflects the Quranic values the fact that the part and identifies terms like motto what is considered to be fair or just or right these terms these Quranic terms that put some some choice and and the decision-making process back in the community is something that I think could help us that I'll and thank you do we want to take it from the audience first in the panel are we yeah or I don't I don't know Homer clarification question yes I wonder if I fear Congress really enjoying about them engine oxygen I wonder if you could complexify a little bit your understanding of each mom and the problems and then your understanding of your sense of jihad as a kind of solution might even began that yeah right so so in the in the theory of a Jamaa is that is that if the community agrees on a an interpretation that it is correct and it was the solution for sunni islam to the problem of uncertainty of wanting to have a certain decision at least for some points for some issues of faith and doctrine and practice and also a way to to answer shi ism as sunni and shi'a ism became sectarian identities if the Shiites had the infallible Imams what did the Sunni community have but what is consensus who are the people who are needed for consensus how do you determine consensus what are the qualifications for it consensus is someone viola mean these are the questions that were asked right within the Sunni Bente Mia is you know very notable for for saying there's no such thing you know the after Heidi's saying there's no such thing as consensus is ridiculous we still see it being a vote invoked until today as as Professor dr. Adnan Madhu knows very well consensus has been invoked to say you know Iijima has been invoked to say things like well women can't lead prayer and so we go back to this question well who says who's who gets to be a scholar and the construction of who's whose bone a few days account for this consensus is something that is being more and more and more and more challenged rightly so I would say now the so what's the alternative the alternative is say no we're going to have a more democratic more egalitarian more open more gender egalitarian consensus to me I just don't see the mechanism for that working very well and I'm very concerned personally with the pastoral needs of Muslims I'm I'm really focused on on the pastoral needs and what I see Muslims do and what they need in community and it seems to me that what they need is is to place emphasis on the community and to say that that when you live in a community that you agree upon certain mechanisms of decision making that you're going to follow and an example would be something like like how do we decide the beginning of Ramadan so you have these claims well the scholars say this this this this position then you have the communities who are living in places especially in places like America and Canada where the average ordinary Muslim is really burdened and I would say oppressed by the that the fetishistic way that traditional scholars rely on traditionalist answers it's oppressive to the ordinary Muslim who can express his or her needs very well and I believe has a right to bring that in and if we look at someone like you know the analysis in-law of people like what a lock of the decentralization of decision-making in Treme Insignia Aslam I think return to something like that is is the way to go I hope you haven't given his time yes you're behaving you're talk do you did you have a question I think question yeah question is a big motion thank you so my question is about so some of you turn a traditionalists will push back until you hear that we like Isis Community Center water standing cannot say this guys about engaging in perception slightly soso the consequences with that approach right so traditionalists have been yelling at violent extremists for centuries saying you don't understand you don't understand you don't understand Islam you don't understand the poor end you don't understand that's not the solution the solution to groups like Isis is political you know there's people with all sorts of crazy views in every society and the question is are they are they you know to have the freedom to say those crazy views is one thing but it's always every every state no matter what state structure that is has limited that speech when it when it has led to or become moved into the the area of physical action of actually harming people with weapons and and guns so I mean the traditionalists say these things but I don't see I mean for for an ordinary and I don't think you need scholars in fact to say these things are wrong in fact sometimes the scholars have them the traditional scholars have the most difficult time justifying their argument that these things are wrong so if you look at that the group of scholars letter to Isis not interested know abdullah bin baya and all of that i mean frankly the tradition is a little bit problematic to say that that the traditionalists were these were the firmest opponents of the abolition of slavery if we look at people like use of an ax behind a stalwart traditionalist scholar who opposed the abolition of slavery against the modernist because he couldn't accept any kind of view that the paren moves us in the direction of moral progress or these kind of goals so now two hundred centuries two hundred years after that two centuries after that the traditionalists have caught up to the modernist view and I don't think I you know I don't place the modernist outside of 70s em I think me know as soon as I'm this is why you know what is the so so what's interesting to me is the ordinate the intuitive view of the ordinary Muslim has always been and I you know I hear it from ordinary just nice pious good ordinary Muslims all the time is of course slavery's wrong like of course this is wrong of course this is that's their immediate belief in the same way you know in the same way and we can't get too much into it now but in the same way that I believe that I mean the first Muslims knew something about God and expected the Koran to affirm their belief like like holoband saliba like like I show when she was slandered like like asma bint amazed when she expected the Koran to speak to what men and women you know I mean so many Muslims expected the Koran to be to stand up for things that were good and you might say I'm veering into Martez ilysm here but I don't think it's I don't think you have to move that far I think the method II but you know theological school can support that that view so the traditionalists I mean Authority and power are two completely different things so the tradition is confused their their authority for power sometimes its power it can be in certain cultural or social context it can be but I don't see it working very well right now frankly you never quote from you we look for everything in the poem but when we do that are we imposing on a prawn or perhaps even cheapening it you I got the imposing can you elaborate on the cheapening yeah I think of when I look at well this this struck me first when I I heard from someone a kind of you know secular Muslim who not an atheist someone who still respects sort of religious people and religion but one time she told me she wanted to come she said oh I want to go with you one time to the moss just during Ramadan I feel like like being with Muslims for Ramadan right and she said my only problem is I every time I hear the Quran recited it makes me think of death it makes me sad and I'm like what and and she said because I just says where I hear when I was growing up that's where I heard all the time it's just the part and constantly being recited when people die and at graves and I that that really hurt me you know as someone who loves the Quran like to think about that that the / mb were sighted had this negative impact because of how it was done and then i thought of how many times I've sat in say conferences or different things where they feel it's necessary for someone to get up and recite the Quran at the beginning and like why like what does it really been bring blessing here or is it become just like I don't know a box that needs to be checked off and and other people are doing other things and it it in a way I think we can cheap in the paren when when we just say okay we'll just bring it everywhere I'm shy sit down Thank You Ingrid

Channel: Boniuk Institute

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Length: 31min 48sec (1908 seconds)

Published: Wed May 18 2016