The Philosopher's Qur'an

HDS 3633 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The Qur’an has played a significant role in the formation of philosophical, kalām, and mystical systems throughout the long history of Islam. From the earliest centuries after the rise of Islam to the modern era, Muslim philosophers have frequently appealed to the Qur’an to justify their epistemological and ontological theories. Philosophers such as Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā wrote independent commentaries on particular sūrahs or verses, while others, such as Ṭabāṭabāʾī, produced comprehensive commentaries on the entire Qur’an. Some also wrote allegorical treatises inspired by the Qur’an or devoted to its interpretation.

But this is only one side of the story. We can also look at this relationship from the other direction: philosophical perspectives have themselves shaped different ways of understanding the Qur’an. Islamic philosophy developed through many intellectual and historical influences beyond the Qur’an, from pre-Islamic philosophical works transmitted through the translation movement to religious and political disputes and encounters between different cultures and languages. All of these played a role in the emergence of what we might call “Islamic philosophy.”

In encountering the phenomenon called the Qur’an, philosophers approached it anew and from different perspectives. They not only projected “philosophical” terms and concepts (such as existence, intellect, matter, soul, substance and accident, and cause and effect) onto the Qur’an, but also drew upon their own networks of concepts, categories, and philosophical worldviews to address questions concerning the foundations of the Qur’an and revelation, the nature and function of Qur’anic language, the identity of the God of the Qur’an, and the methods of interpreting its verses.

Although the Qur’anic text has remained the same, the different approaches of Muslim philosophers have continually constructed different Qur’ans, distinct from those constructed by theologians, philologists, political thinkers, jurists, artists, and other readers. The Qur’an has thus been understood and reconstituted through different philosophical perspectives. In this course, we will closely read works by Muslim philosophers to see how they understood the nature of the Qur’an and how they interpreted it. The readings will be comparative. We will read works by different philosophers and compare their approaches to the Qur’an with those found in other traditional commentaries.

Through our readings and discussions, we will see how the Qur’an, from the earliest moments of its recitation and reception, has been open to remarkably diverse and sometimes radically different understandings; how different conceptions of God and theological structures have emerged from encounters with the same text; and how the Qur’an remains open to new and more inclusive possibilities of understanding and interpretation.

Course Notes

Please briefly share, via email, your previous studies or background in philosophy and/or Qur’anic interpretation, along with your motivation for taking this course and what you hope to gain from it. The course will be more accessible to participants who already have some familiarity with the Qur’an and/or philosophical traditions, particularly Greek, Neoplatonic, Scholastic, and Islamic philosophy. Familiarity with mystical traditions is also very welcome.