Nasr Abu Zayd - Humanistic Hermeneutics of Islam

Humanistic Hermeneutics of Islam

From the beginning of his academic career, he developed a renewed hermeneutic view of the Qur'an and further Islamic holy texts, arguing that they should be interpreted in the historical and cultural context of their time. The mistake of many Muslim scholars was to see the Qur'an only as a text, which led conservatives as well as liberals to a battle of quotations, each group seeing clear verses (when on their side) and ambiguous ones (when in contradiction with their vision). But this type of controversy led both conservatives and liberals to produce authoritative hermeneutics.

This vision of the Qur'an as a text was the vision of the elites of Muslim societies, whereas, at the same time, the Qur'an as an oral discourse played the most important part in the understanding of the masses. Nasr Abu Zayd called for another reading of the holy book through a humanistic hermeneutics, an interpretation which sees the Qur'an as a living phenomenon, a discourse. Hence, the Qur'an can be "the outcome of dialogue, debate, despite argument, acceptance and rejection". This liberal interpretation of Islam should open space for new perspectives on the religion and should account for social change in Muslim societies.

That is why Abu Zayd's analysis can find in the Qur'an several insistent calls for social justice. For instance, when Muhammad was busy preaching to the rich people of Quraysh, and did not pay attention to a poor blind fellow named Ibn Umm Maktūm who came asking the Prophet for advice, the Qur'an strongly blames Muhammad's attitude (chapter 80:1–10).

As well, he found a tendency to improve women's rights, arguing that the Qur'anic discourse was built in a patriarchal society, and therefore the addressees were naturally males, who received permission to marry, divorce, and marry off their female relatives, hence, it is possible to imagine that Muslim women receive the same rights. The classical position of the modern ‘ulamā’ about that issue is understandable as "they still believe in superiority of the male in the family".

Abu Zayd promoted a view on modern Islamic thought by critically approaching classical and contemporary Islamic discourse in the fields of theology, philosophy, law, politics, and humanism. The aim of his research was to substantiate a theory of humanistic hermeneutics that might enable Muslims to build a bridge between their own tradition and the modern world of freedom of speech, equality (minority rights, women's rights, social justice), human rights, democracy and globalisation.