Author: Nicholas D. Kristof
Publication: The New York Times
Date: August 4, 2004
URL: http://nytimes.com/2004/08/04/opinion/04krist.html
"The virgins are calling you," Mohamed
Atta wrote reassuringly to his fellow hijackers just before 9/11.
It has long been a staple of Islam
that Muslim martyrs will go to paradise and marry 72 black-eyed virgins.
But a growing body of rigorous scholarship on the Koran points to a less
sensual paradise - and, more important, may offer a step away from fundamentalism
and toward a reawakening of the Islamic world.
Some Islamic theologians protest
that the point was companionship, never heavenly sex. Others have interpreted
the pleasures quite explicitly; one, al-Suyuti, wrote that sex in paradise
is pretty much continual and so glorious that "were you to experience it
in this world you would faint."
But now the same tools that historians,
linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years
are beginning to be applied to the Koran. The results are explosive.
The Koran is beautifully written,
but often obscure. One reason is that the Arabic language was born as a
written language with the Koran, and there's growing evidence that many
of the words were Syriac or Aramaic.
For example, the Koran says martyrs
going to heaven will get "hur," and the word was taken by early commentators
to mean "virgins," hence those 72 consorts. But in Aramaic, hur meant "white"
and was commonly used to mean "white grapes."
Some martyrs arriving in paradise
may regard a bunch of grapes as a letdown. But the scholar who pioneered
this pathbreaking research, using the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg for
security reasons, noted in an e-mail interview that grapes made more sense
in context because the Koran compares them to crystal and pearls, and because
contemporary accounts have paradise abounding with fruit, especially white
grapes.
Dr. Luxenberg's analysis, which
has drawn raves from many scholars, also transforms the meaning of the
verse that is sometimes cited to require women to wear veils. Instead of
instructing pious women "to draw their veils over their bosoms," he says,
it advises them to "buckle their belts around their hips."
Likewise, a reference to Muhammad
as "ummi" has been interpreted to mean he was illiterate, making his Koranic
revelations all the more astonishing. But some scholars argue that this
simply means he was not "of the book," in the sense that he was neither
Christian nor Jewish.
Islam has a tradition of vigorous
interpretation and adjustment, called ijtihad, but Koranic interpretation
remains frozen in the model of classical commentaries written nearly two
centuries after the prophet's death. The history of the rise and fall of
great powers over the last 3,000 years underscores that only when people
are able to debate issues freely - when religious taboos fade - can intellectual
inquiry lead to scientific discovery, economic revolution and powerful
new civilizations. "The taboos are still great" on such Koranic scholarship,
notes Gabriel Said Reynolds, an Islam expert at the University of Notre
Dame. He called the new scholarship on early Islam "a first step" to an
intellectual awakening.
But Muslim fundamentalists regard
the Koran - every word of it - as God's own language, and they have violently
attacked freethinking scholars as heretics. So Muslim intellectuals have
been intimidated, and Islam has often been transmitted by narrow-minded
extremists.
(This problem is not confined to
Islam. On my blog, www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds, I've been battling
with fans of the Christian fundamentalist "Left Behind" series. Some are
eager to see me left behind.)
Still, there are encouraging signs.
Islamic feminists are emerging to argue for religious interpretations leading
to greater gender equality. An Iranian theologian has called for more study
of the Koran's Syriac roots. Tunisian and German scholars are collaborating
on a new critical edition of the Koran based on the earliest manuscripts.
And just last week, Iran freed Hashem Aghajari, who had been sentenced
to death for questioning harsh interpretations of Islam.
"The breaking of the sometimes erroneous
bonds in the religious tradition will be the condition for a positive evolution
in other scientific and intellectual domains," Dr. Luxenberg says.
The world has a huge stake in seeing
the Islamic world get on its feet again. The obstacle is not the Koran
or Islam, but fundamentalism, and I hope that this scholarship is a sign
of an incipient Islamic Reformation - and that future terrorist recruits
will be promised not 72 black-eyed virgins, but just a plateful of grapes.
