Extra-Qurʾanic Sources and Gender-Just Hermeneutics

Abstract

Extra-Qurʾanic Sources and Gender-Just Hermeneutics Rahel Fischbach (bio) Indeed, as noted in this roundtable by Hadia Mubarak, gender justice-seeking readings often circumvent or dismiss extra-qurʾanic literature. There are several reasons for this hermeneutical situation. The most apparent is the Qurʾan's status as the primary religious source for Islamic faith and practice. Some scholars consider the exegetical literature—not the Qurʾan itself—to be androcentric and patriarchal.1 Some argue that the extra-qurʾanic material is historically questionable or otherwise insufficiently authentic. Others may shy away from the sheer quantity of extra-qurʾanic literature and the sophisticated hermeneutical strategies necessary for integrating these sources into qurʾanic reading practices. I will reflect on some challenges and possibilities of utilizing extra-qurʾanic exegetical and narrative literature for gender-just readings of the Qurʾan, since a close relation exists between text, context, and reading practices in the meaning-making process. The stimulus for my ponderings was Celene Ibrahim's work Women and Gender in the Qur'an (2020). There, she suggested that certain Medinan passages addressing or alluding to women can be read as "case studies," originally intended to inculcate new, specific values in the early Muslim society (umma).2 My initial reservations regarding her reading concerned the contextualization of those passages using extra-qurʾanic sources including sīra (biography), naskh (abrogation), and nuzūl (the advent of verses) literatures. These sources are historically contested, at times contradictory, and often inconclusive. Single āyas (verses) often have multiple scenarios as possible contextual background. I also thought that relying too heavily on extra-qurʾanic narrative material [End Page 71] could distract from the Qurʾan-centered approach advanced by Ibrahim.3 My own objections admittedly resulted from an unconscious textual and historical positivism. Contrary to postmodern aspirations, many of us remain trapped in the search for authorial intentions and historical authenticity, or, on the other side of the hermeneutical spectrum, we are so preoccupied with language, representation, and textual synchronicity that we cannot but subscribe to a relativist pluralism. Shifting focus to the discursive system in which the Qurʾan is enmeshed, including the aforementioned sources (sīra, aḥādīth, tafsīr, asbāb al-nuzūl), as well as folktales, ritual, pictorial arts, and the like, directs our attention to the complexity of the reading process. Any reading of the Qurʾan is inescapably linked to—or even determined by—extra-qurʾanic material, ritual, ideas, events, assumptions, and translations. The Qurʾan constantly points beyond itself to other texts, to its context, and to its own statements. Through extra-qurʾanic discursive, visual, and performative practices, each part of the Qurʾan evokes a multitude of associations, feelings, ideas, and images. Even people who allegedly pursue a plain reading freed from tradition cannot dispense with that tradition since it will at least determine how they understand certain words and sentences, how they vocalize or punctuate, or where they pause. The more a Qurʾan scholar concerns herself with this context-creating literature, the vaster and more potent her associative framework will be. Great potential lies in reconstructing the narrative, historical, and religious framework through which we read the Qurʾan in terms of a critical rhetoric that views these traditions as living and changing heritage. More precisely, I would advocate for a rhetorical approach to extra-qurʾanic material that enables readers—especially women and other historically marginalized persons—to gain a revitalized perspective on early Muslim history and, ergo, of qurʾanic meaning. Understanding extra-qurʾanic androcentric language in rhetorical-critical terms, that is, as a means for negotiating and creating and hence influencing meaning in specific contexts, aids in embedding one's Qurʾan hermeneutics in the broader tradition while also reimagining that same tradition.4 In the language of Hans-Georg Gadamer (d. 2002), one of the leading twentieth-century figures in hermeneutics, we would focus on and critically revise the horizons of both the text and its readers.5 Rigorously and systematically paying attention to this material has practical advantage: extra-qurʾanic narrative and exegetical literature is vast and [End...