Uses of the term
“Political Interpretation”
Among Islamic and Other Writers
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
It is well known that a single term may carry different meanings for practitioners of different disciplines, according to their conventions and usage. The term “sound”, for example, has a specific meaning in the science of hadith that differs from its meaning in jurisprudence. It is therefore unsurprising that “the political interpretation of religion or Islam” is used with different meanings according to the differing specialisms and intentions of those using it.
Here we may identify three uses of the term “political interpretation”:
The first use:
Political interpretation is an interpretation that makes the beliefs, acts of worship and all the prescriptions of Islam means and causes for establishing a political system that achieves material justice and worldly happiness among human beings. It interprets religion comprehensively, as a total picture in which the political dimension is a fundamental unit of religion: the purpose of the prophetic message cannot be known without politics, the full meaning of beliefs cannot be understood, the importance of prayer and other acts of worship cannot become clear, the stages of piety and excellence cannot be traversed, and the purpose of the Night Journey and Ascension cannot be comprehended except through politics. In short, without politics, the entire religion remains empty and unintelligible, as though three quarters of it had been removed. See An Introduction to the Interpretation of Islam, p. 73.
In this sense, it makes the political dimension of Islam the intended overarching foundation and desired end. Everything else is intended subordinately rather than in its own right, or is merely a means serving the political objective.
This is the meaning intended in all the research and publications of the Center for Studies in the Interpretation of Islam, in explaining, criticising and warning against it. Its details and explanations can be understood by studying that research and those publications.
The second use:
Political interpretation is a methodical intellectual and research interpretation that starts from the claim that everything related to religion, including beliefs, disciplines, practices, achievements, effects and historical developments, is subject to political causes, either wholly or partly. According to this “interpretation”, the fundamental factor in religion’s formation and course is political authority, political disagreements and political conflicts, rather than scholarship and religiosity. It conceals political objectives behind religious expressions and uses this as a means of obtaining political benefits.
Many Orientalists, secularists and modernists have adopted this theory, straining to support it through individual pieces of evidence and historical events. They exaggerate, obscure the facts and remove events from their natural contexts, then claim that the writing of the Qur’anic codex, the recording of hadith and Islamic jurisprudence, the rulings of governance in Islamic law, the emergence of creedal sects or legal schools, and other matters were primarily “political” in origin: either to please certain rulers and consolidate their power, to oppose and antagonise them, or because of fanaticism and factionalism in political conflicts.
Dr Sultan ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Umayri described, documented and criticised this intellectual and research tendency in his study entitled The Political Interpretation of Creedal Questions in Contemporary Arab Thought. The subject of his book is unrelated to the political interpretation of Islam among Islamic movements in the first sense described above.
The third use:
The political interpretation of the Qur’an: this third usage corresponds to the meaning of “exegesis” in Qur’anic studies, where exegesis relates to precise scholarly specialisms and is qualified by a particular discipline, such as linguistic exegesis, thematic exegesis, juristic exegesis (the rulings of the Qur’an), or rhetorical exegesis. The intended meaning of “the political interpretation of the Qur’an” is that of “political jurisprudence”: researching and studying verses, hadiths and rulings relating to politics in order to establish Islam’s general political theories or detailed political rulings.
There is no difficulty with this usage. Jurists have investigated these questions under “the rulings of governance in Islamic law”, either in separate books or within their works of Qur’anic exegesis, hadith commentary or jurisprudence.
However, singling out and emphasising the term “the political interpretation of the Qur’an” will lead to exaggeration of the political dimension of religious rulings. This appeared clearly in The Political Interpretation of the Qur’an: A Study of Epistemological Principles, by the Iranian writers Abu al-Hasan Hasani, Amin Azimi, Husayn Ahmadi Safidan and Mansur Mir Ahmadi, translated from Persian by Wa’il Ali, Center for Civilisation and the Development of Islamic Thought, Beirut, first edition, 2018.
It is therefore important to distinguish between the different uses of “political interpretation” and to identify the meaning intended and emphasised by the Centre.