The Controversy of Text and Reality at Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid

Each text presents a set of concepts about itself, and the culture that embraces the text, or which is embraced by the text, in turn raises a number of facts about it. Abu Zeid goes to the end of this dialectical relationship between text and culture to say his sentence, which has become a curse on him and the Pope to throw it denies the divine source of the text. He says: ((The text in fact and substance cultural product)). This fact is the source of the text ("in fact and in culture for more than twenty years"). "The belief in the divine source of the text, and hence the possibility of any prior existence of its actual existence in reality and culture, is not inconsistent with the analysis of the text by understanding the culture to which it belongs." Thus, the dialectic of the text / reality reaches its climax in Abu Zayd's discourse, without contradicting his belief in the divine source of the text, but negates the contradiction even with the former existence of the in-kind presence. If, at the same time, Of the text goes back to obliterate this axiom [axiomatic text form through culture] and thus distort the possibility of scientific understanding of the phenomenon of text)). Does AbuZayd contradict himself here when he criticizes faith in a metaphysical existence before the text, and then decides not to contradict this belief with the formation of text in culture? In the first case, Abu Zeid seems to be consistent with his approach. In the second case, it seems that he was under the pressure of the mainstream Islamic discourse and he believed in the metaphysical existence of the text. He had to offer this "satisfaction" and evidence that faith in that metaphysical existence was always criticized by Before Abu Zayd, on every occasion he addresses it - and will witness this statement - and, on the other hand, there is no meaning to talk about culture, form and production (concepts used by Abu Zeid) if we believe that the text had a previous presence on the culture and Indeed.
Language is, of course, the first manifestation of text in culture, "and the choice of language is not the choice of an empty receptacle, if this is confirmed by contemporary religious discourse. Language is the most important tool of the community in perceiving and organizing the world. We are talking about the language of the paradox of culture and reality, and therefore we can not talk about the text of the differences of culture and reality as long as it is written within the framework of the linguistic system of culture)).
The fact that the Qur'an is a message as it describes itself, "The message is a communication relationship between a sender and a receiver through a code or language system." And since the sender in the case of the Qur'an [God] can not be the subject of scientific study, The scientific entrance to the study of the Qur'anic text is the introduction of reality and culture, the reality that organizes the movement of human beings who speak the text and organizes the first future of the text, the messenger, and the culture embodied in the language.
Abu Zeid then shows the other side of the dialectical relationship between text and reality. The text being a cultural product is "(for the Qur'an, the stage of formation and completion). But after this stage the text became the product of culture" (meaning that it became the predominant dominant text, The other texts and the legitimacy of which is determined). And "The difference between the two stages in the history of the text is the difference between its extraction from culture and its expression and between its supply of culture and its transformation."
The text is not only a passive carrier of culture, but it has its own effectiveness in embodying culture and reality, embodying it ("an embodiment that reconstructs its data in a new format"). In the second stage, the culture ((its own mechanisms in dealing with the text and re-read and interpret)).
In the curriculum.
Abu Zaid is based on this study (mainly the linguistic input). The linguistic texts have two main functions:
First, they ("are only ways to represent reality and to reveal it in particular effectiveness").
Second - "(its communicative function which assumes a relationship between a speaker and a communicator and between transmitter and receiver).
In Abu Zeid's view, the linguistic approach is "(the only approach possible in terms of compatibility with the subject matter and lesson). And it starts here from two Muslim truths:
The first is that Islam is based on the two fundamentals of the Qur'an and the prophetic Hadith.
Second - ((These texts [= texts of the Koran and modern] did not receive the full and final in a moment
Samah Abdallah
One, but linguistic texts formed over a period of more than twenty years)).
The bearish dialectics and the rising dialectics.
This is followed by the talk about the Prophet (r) (the first receiver) of the text, and then the talk about reality under the titles of " Reasons of descent "," Makki and civil "and" copyist and copied ")). These (in Abu Zeid 's opinion) are always the approaches (adopted by contemporary religious discourse).
The rising dialectic is represented by the approach, which begins with the senses and the eyes up, starting from the facts and the axioms, reaching the unknown and revealing what is hidden. This is what Abu Zeid sees as his method.
Abu Zeid hopes to overcome two problems in his curriculum:
The first is that the dilemma of the first approach is that it depends on meditation, and therefore it is liable to indulge in rhetorical narratives.
(Ii) the risk of falling into the "ready-made answers" and the "ideological confusion" spiral.
The concept of Revelation.
The phenomenon of revelation was not a paradox of the reality of Arab culture. Although "talking about revelation in the Qur'an brings us to a more complex field where the process of communication / revelation between two parties does not belong to the same existential order, yet this concept - the concept of communication between different existential levels - Arab culture before Islam). Abu Zeid believes that "the connection between the phenomena of" poetry and the priesthood "in the Arab mind, and the associated Arab belief that communication between humans and the jinn is the cultural basis of the phenomenon of revelation itself.
"If we think that the Arab culture before Islam would be free of these perceptions, it would be impossible to absorb the phenomenon of revelation." Hence, we do not find contemporary Arabs to descend on the Qur'an as an objection to the phenomenon of revelation itself, but rather the objection was focused either on the content of the words of revelation or on the person of the revelation to him.
Abu Zeid is trying to apply what he talked about the concept of formation and formation (stage I and II) by reading the phenomenon of jinn and human contact, where this represents the first stage, and then through the use of text for this phenomenon in the second phase where the text is dominant. It is noticed through the reading of the first verses of the "Jinn", ((that the text here is the formulation of the reality form it in a special way, especially re-installed in a new format). And "(the text here and if it represents the reality that belongs to it reshape this reality through its own language mechanisms)" and thus lost ((became the jinn in the text was a Muslim believer condemning his former behavior and condemning the people who were seeking refuge in him " Humans seek help from men of the jinn, and they frighten them. "
Abu Zaid then makes a quick comparison between the concept of jinn in Surat al-Nas and the same concept in Surat al-Jinn on the basis that the first precedes the second in descending order. Vizim between two pictures: ((Image Jinn Khnas Almosos who seek refuge in God from him, and the image of the jinn, which is similar to humans in the division to believers and disbelievers)). (And no doubt that the picture the second picture is a kind of development of the Koran stemming from the compatibility with the data of culture on the one hand and aimed at developing for the benefit of Islam on the other)).
Revelation Koran.
There are three ways to connect God to humans:
The first is revelation, which is what scientists call "inspiration" such as revelation to Moses' mother, to bees, to angels, and to every revelation characterized by privacy and secrecy.
The second: "(speaking behind a veil, and this is his talk to Moses from behind the veil of the tree and the fire and the mountain)".
Third - ((Indirect revelation through the Messenger of the King who suggests the future, God willing, what he wants)). It is known that "this method was the way the Quran was thrown and downloaded").
Abu Zeid then discusses some issues related to revelation:
The first issue - ((How was the connection at the vertical level between God and Jibril and any code used in this connection?)).
The first opinion - what is determined by al-Zarkashi in the proof of the science of the Koran is that (God understood his words Jibril, and is high in the sky, and is high from the place, and learned to read it and Gabriel in the ground and landing in the place)).
This view ((envisages the text of a previous written presence in the Saved Table)) and this view leads to two results:
First - ((wasting the dialectic relationship between text and cultural reality)).
"[...] But linking the multiple levels of significance of the divine origin and the eternal existence led to the closure of the meaning of the text as a result of the impossibility of reaching the levels of meaning in the end."
The second opinion - ((makes the language of Jibril once, and makes it the task of Muhammad again)).
(This assumption assumes that the angels have a language system, and it is assumed, furthermore, that this system is the Arabic language).
The second issue - ((How could this contact with the heterogeneity in nature resulting from different levels of existence?)).
(The answer [based on Zarkashi] is that there is a shift happening at one end of the connection so that it can contact the other party:
One of them is that the Prophet (PBUH) disembarked from the image of mankind to the image of the angels and took him from Jibril, and the second that the king was taken down to humanity until the apostle took it. And the first is the most difficult)).
Abu Zeid goes that "(the first case can be the state of revelation by the year, while the second case is specific revelation in the Koran)).
It is important to note that the concept of "dissociation from humanity" and the shift to ownership in the first revelation is not intended to mean literally the physical transformation as understood by its operative. The change that was observed on the Prophet is a slight change of change, not a shift in the sense that the word " Dislocation "or" dislocation ")).
Abu Zeid then calls the theory of "fiction" by the philosophers and mystics who interpret "prophecy". This means that the transition from the world of human beings to the world of angels is a transition through the effectiveness of the human "imagination" which is in the "Prophets" - by definition and instinct - stronger than in others. Thus, the prophet is in the category of "poets" and "knowers" who (without the use of the "imagination" in both vigilance and sleep), and if these levels are unequal in terms of the ability and effectiveness of "imagination" Without a doubt on the top of the arrangement, followed by the mystic Arif, then the poet comes at the end of the order)).
He also goes on to say that the first stage of Revelation was a "visionary phase" and then "familiarity and familiarity with the continuity of the communication process" - making revelation possible in the case of regular language observation. And Abu Zaid and if he says this in the context of the question "Can we say that ...?" He immediately confirms that the facts come together to respond positively.
Abu Zeid then decides the logical conclusion of these precepts: "Under this perception, prophecy is not a supernatural phenomenon, but it becomes understandable and comprehensible."
The Quran and the Book.
Abu Zeid believes that the word "Quran" is a source of "recitation" in the sense of repeating (recited) not plural (collection).
This is called "Quran" which is a different name. "When the Arabs called their words on the sentence and the detail, [God] called it a Qur'an, as they called it, and some as a verse, and some as a verse. Thus, the text imposes its distinction on the culture through which it is formed.
And the word "book", which is called by the text itself, is a sign of the separation between two stages: the stage of the oral and the codification phase. On the one hand, and on the other hand, the text was "distinguishing itself from the culture of the illiterate" as a book, and it also distinguishes itself from the culture of the "people of the book" as an "Arab book" or an "Arab tongue".
(And when we say that the text has contributed to the transformation of culture from the stage of oral to the stage of codification by the name of "book" itself and by denying the meaning of "revelation" associated with the confidentiality and ambiguity about the meaning of "writing", we do not mean The text is merely a linguistic given, but we mean the effectiveness of the text through the group of people who considered it the basic text)).
Letter and communication.
The message contained in the process of communication / revelation is not specific to the first recipient, but it is a message that needs to be communicated to the people and informed. And ((the fact that the text is a message means that the people who speak to him are all people). (The concept of "download" here must be understood as a download to the people through two intermediaries: the first king, and the second mediator Muhammad al-Bishr). (It is the message of heaven to the earth, but it is not a paradoxical message to the laws of reality in all that is organized in this reality of buildings and the most important cultural construction).
(The "people" are the purpose and purpose of revelation) (f) In such a scenario posed by the text itself, through the culture and language system, becomes the focus on the source of the text and its only a waste of the nature of the text itself, and the waste of its function in In fact, what happened in the religious thought that dominated the heritage, which is still active in our culture to today)).
Source: Book of the concept of text - a study in the sciences of the Koran
Written by Dr. Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid
The 2014 edition of the Arab Cultural Center