ETJC in the News: The “Conscientious Pause” in Reading the Qur’an

In Junaid Jahangir’s provocatively titled “Muslims Who are Just Saying No to the Qur’an” in the Huffington Post discusses the crisis of conscience experienced by Muslims upon reading verses in the Qur’an such as 4:34, the proof-text for rulings permitting and limiting domestic violence against female partners. In these cases, readers have just “said ‘No’,” in the words of Amina Wadud, to accepting that God could permit such an injustice and thus struggle for alternative readings.

Perhaps such challenging issues require radically alternative approaches such as those applied in the context of verse 4:34 on beating disobedient wives.

In this context, U.S.-based Dr. Juliane Hammer has commented on Dr. Khalid Abou Fadel’s phrase “conscientious pause,” according to which in the conflict between conscientious conviction and the scriptural text, precedence goes to the former. Dr. Hammer also states that Dr. Amina Wadud extended this notion further by “saying No to the Qur’an.”

Likewise, Toronto-based Dr. Laury Silvers has stated that not all possible interpretations of the Qur’anic commands and prohibitions are ethically equal. Her opinion on struggling with the Qur’anic text to reach the most ethical expression of the divine will reminds me of Orthodox Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s book Wrestling with God and Men.

Click through the link to read the entire piece