Jens Tomas Anfindsen, HRS
BBCs reportasje later til å være
skrevet i eufori:
Turkey is preparing to
publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam –
and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.
[
… ] Commentators say the very theology of Islam is being
reinterpreted in order to effect a radical renewal of the religion.
[ … ]»Unfortunately you can even justify
through alleged hadiths, the Muslim – or pseudo-Muslim – practice of female
genital mutilation,» he says.
«You can find messages which say
‘that is what the Prophet ordered us to do’. But you can show historically how
they came into being, as influences from other cultures, that were then
projected onto Islamic tradition.»
The argument is that Islamic tradition has
been gradually hijacked by various – often conservative – cultures, seeking to
use the religion for various forms of social control.
Leaders of the Hadith project say
successive generations have embellished the text, attributing their political
aims to the Prophet Muhammad himself.
Revolutionary
Turkey is
intent on sweeping away that «cultural baggage» and returning to a
form of Islam it claims accords with its original values and those of the
Prophet.
Det er en kjerne i dette som er
meget interessant, nemlig at en genuin historisk-kritisk tilnærming til
hadithene faktisk har potensial til å vise at en rekke hadither er mye senere
enn hva muslimske teologer tradisjonelt har trodd, og at det med stor grad av
sannsynlighet kan fastslås at de er blitt til i en spesifikk historisk kontekst
som ikke har noenting å gjøre med hva Muhammed faktisk gjorde og sa.
Dersom en slik erkjennelse
skulle synke inn i det islamske etablissementet, selv hva angår hadither som
regnes som sahih, det vil si sikre,
ja da ville dette være en teologisk revolusjon, og da kunne dørene
muligens åpnes for nytolkninger. BBC hevdet at det var presis dette som
foregikk i
Ankara-prosjetet:
But this is where the revolutionary nature
of the work becomes apparent. Even some sayings accepted as being genuinely
spoken by Muhammad have been altered and reinterpreted.
Men alt dette virker nesten for
godt til å kunne være sant. For det første fordi en islamsk teolog som gav seg
til med å sette spørsmålstegn ved autensiteten av en hadith som regnes som sahih, kunne bli
regnet som apostat av mer konservative islamister, og således risikere livet for
i det hele tatt å vurdere denne muligheten. Og for det andre fordi en
rent negativ påvisning av at en hadith ikke er historisk, ikke gir grunnlag for
noen positiv forandring og nytolkning av Muhammed virkelig skulle ha
sagt.
Muligheten for at den historisk-kritiske
metode kan nå islamsk teologi er riktignok interessant, og tilløp til en slik utvikling bør hilses
velkommen. Men man gjør kanskje klokt i å holde tilbake den stående
applausen allerede ved de aller første rykter om at noe slikt skulle være
trappene.
I dette tilfellet skulle det da
også vise seg at forskningslederen i Ankara-prosjektet, Mehmet Gormez, finner
det påkrevet å dementere BBCs reportasje ganske så ettertrykkelig:
«Make no mistake, we
are not after modifying or revising the Hadith,» Mehmet Gormez, deputy
director of the religious affairs authority Diyanet and supervisor of the
project, told IslamOnline.net in a phone interview.
«What we are actually doing is re-classifying, re-categorizing the
Hadith and translating it into Turkish, no more no less.»
A hadith literally means «saying,» but in the Islamic
technical sense, a hadith refers to the sayings of the Prophet, the Prophet’s
acts, the Prophet’s tacit approval of an action or practice, or the Prophet’s
attributes, whether physical or moral.
Gormez said the three-year project has to do with a new understanding of
the Sunnah and Hadith and accordingly making them more understandable to
today’s Turks.
He added that Turkish scholars working on the project, which will be
completed by yearend, are taking early Muslim scholars, who had already revised
the Hadith, as their basic reference.
«We have compiled all hadiths and read them to reclassify them
anew,» he explained.
«We have also taken
into account the unauthentic ones or those attributed falsely to the Prophet
because to understand the true Hadith, you really need to (understand) the unauthentic
sayings.»
Muslim scholars believe Hadith is integral to the understanding of
Qur’an, since they are inseparably linked to each other.
They say it is impossible to understand the Qur’an without reference to
Hadith because the Qur’an is the message and the Hadith is the explanation of
the message by the Messenger himself.
Western FussGormez, a British trained
theologian, said the re-classified Hadith will come in multiple volumes.
«It might be five or even six volumes; we are still not
decided.»
He shrugged off media suggestions that Turkey was re-writing
the Hadith and creating a new Islam.
«They made too much fuss and took the project out of its real
context.
«We are neither fashioning a new Islam nor dare to alter the
fixtures maxims of Islam,» Gormez said emphatically.
«The Western media have read what are doing from a Christian
perspective and understood it in line with their Christian and Western
cultures.»
When it comes to Islam, Gormez said, the Western media is used to
focusing on women’s status and jihad.
Several British newspapers on Wednesday, February 27, ran stories on the
Turkish project .
The Guardian headlines the story as «Turkey strives for 21st
century form of Islam.»
A day earlier the BBC reported the project under the headline «Turkey in radical
revision of Islamic texts.»
Gormez also refuted claims they would and edit out some hadiths,
especially about women.
«No Muslim in the right mind would dare delete any hadith or tamper
with the Prophet’s heritage.»