The Verse at The Gate — and a Koranic Debate

Is the Koran a “created” or an “uncreated” book?

This question might sound vague and even meaningless to many modern minds, but it was a crucial one among Muslims during the initial centuries of Islam. Indeed, there were bitter disputes and even clashes between those who gave different answers.

Those who thought that the Koran was “created” were mainly the followers of the Mutazilite school. They were also known as “Rationalists,” because they made emphasis on the role of human reason in understanding God’s will. For the Mutazilites, both the Koran and human reason were created by God, and a believer had to use both of them in harmony to make a sense of the world.


Rationalists versus Traditionalists

On other side, there were the “Traditionalists,” which were spearheaded by Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. They were skeptical of reason, which they saw as a potential to lead men astray. They rather insisted on the “imitation” of the Prophet: a Muslim had to try to emulate all the details of the life of Muhammad, instead of using his own judgment.

If reason was one issue that divided the Mutazilites and the Traditionalists, the nature of the Koran was another. The question I mentioned — whether the Koran is a “created” or an “uncreated” book — was actually their toughest bone of contention. The Mutazilites said that the Koran is a “created” book, which meant that it presented God’s message to a specific society at a specific point in time. The Koran’s principles were eternally valid, they said, but its “wording” was affected by temporal realities. So, they said, the Koran should be interpreted by looking at its context — and with the help of reason.

The Traditionalists, on the other hand, believed that Koran was “the uncreated word of God.” This meant that the Koran existed in eternity with God himself. So its verses could not have been influenced by the context of a specific period in human history. They thought not only the principles but also the literal details of the Koran were eternally valid.

The dispute between the two groups lasted for centuries, until when the Traditionalist won over the others around the 13th century. But the Mutazilite thought did not totally disappear. Moreover, new schools emerged which found middle ways between the two opposing view. The Maturidi school, which became popular mainly among the Turkish speaking peoples, was the most popular of these compromises. On the other hand, the strictest form of Traditionalism survived in the form of Wahhabism — which is the official faith of today’s Saudi Arabia.


Enter Zeynep Sultan mosque

What made me recall all this “Islamic hermeneutics 101” knowledge is the recent controversy in the Turkish media about a Koranic verse (5/51) put on the entrance of an Istanbul mosque by its imam. “O you who believe! Do not the Jews and the Christians as your friends and protectors,” the verse reads. “They are the friends of one another; any of you who takes them as friends is one of them.”

The daily Hürriyet made a news story out of this Koranic display, which apparently commended Muslims to not to be in good terms with Jews and Christians. Can each verse of the Koran be displayed like this, the paper asked, or should Muslims be a selective?

Then some secularist commentators started to question whether the Koran should be taken seriously at all. Fellow TDN columnists Burak Bekdil took a similar line yesterday in his piece, “The 'script' at Zeynep Sultan Mosque.” According to Mr. Bekdil, “dogmatic Muslims” had to stop being “selective.” They had to either take everything literally, or stop taking the Koran as a guide in daily life. Otherwise, according Mr. Bekdil, Muslims would end up in being unprincipled. At least, he argued, that was the case with the vice president of the Religious Affairs Directorate, who asked the imam of the aforementioned mosque to remove that Koranic verse on Christians and Jews. “Why does he not approve the ‘script' at the Zeynep Sultan mosque,” Mr. Bekdil asked. “On what grounds?”

Yesterday, an answer came from the vice president of the Religious Affairs Directorate, Dr. İzzet Er. “We have commended our imams to use verses that will not create misunderstandings” he said. Then he explained the problem in this particular case:

“Misunderstandings take place when verses are taken out of their context. This verse relates to a war situation… At the time, Muslims were at war with Jews and the verse was basically warning them for not establishing close links and passing information that could amount to war secrets. In peace, the verse does not apply, and all Muslims are indeed supposed to be friend with other peoples.”
Dr. Er also noted to the famous motto of the Turkish Sufi sage Yunus Emre, “Loving all creation for the sake of the Creator,” as the Islamic ideal. He could also have pointed out to another Koranic passage, 60/8-9, which indeed puts the controversial verse about Jews and Christians in context:

“God does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you in religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them... God merely forbids you from taking as friends those who have fought you in religion and driven you from your homes and who supported your expulsion.”


A principled effort

Here is my take on the whole affair: Turning some particular Koranic verses into slogans might indeed create big problems, because these verses need to be understood within their contexts. (Similarly, quotes from the books of Joshua or Leviticus could give very harsh messages, by which most contemporary Jews and Christians would not stand.)

Therefore, it was indeed a mistake to put the “don’t take Christians and Jews as friends” verse on the gate of a mosque. There are many other verses of the Koran which are not bound with context — such as the ones relating to God’s majesty, mercy or justice, or human morals — and which can be freely quoted. But not all verses are like that.

Making this distinction is not treason to God’s word, as some fundamentalists would angrily claim — and some secularists would sarcastically conclude. No, quite the contrary, it is indeed a sincere and principled effort to understand what the divine message really means. It is also the effort which will help creating a bright future for the Muslim world — if there will ever be one.


Writer : Mustafa Akyol