How Should We Understand The Concepts Of The ‘Islamic Tradition’ And ‘Islamic Authenticity’?
By Dr. Adis Duderija, New Age Islam
12 March, 2014
Introduction:
Often we come across
in literature on Islam phrases/concepts such as “the Islamic tradition”
(Turath) or “Islamic authenticity” (Asala). This literature also,
especially that of non-academic nature, more often than not, does not
attempt to clearly define what is meant by these concepts despite their
obvious importance. How should we understand these concepts? What are
their respective natures? This short article aims to provide a concise
discussion on this issue. It is a modified version of part of my book Constructing a Religiously Ideal "Believer" and "Woman" in Islam (Palgrave, 2011) sections of which can be read here: http://malaya.academia.edu/AdisDuderija/Papers.
1. How Should We Understand Islamic Tradition As A Concept?
The word tradition or heritage (Turath)
in classical Sunni Islamic thought is usually linked to concepts such
as continuity, stability, authenticity and authority. It literally means
‘handing over’ of Islamic practices and beliefs. In its broader sense, Turath
can be characterized as a cumulative religio-historic construct with a
central intellectual core, primarily the Qur’an and Sunna, and a number
of later developed doctrines derived from its core pertaining to
philosophy, theology, ethics, jurisprudence, legal theory, mysticism as
well as certain sociological and political attitudes and notions.
The concept of
tradition includes the idea that it consists of a number of competing
interpretations which, at times, can be mutually exclusive, all of
which, nonetheless, are regarded as being constitutive of it. These
competing interpretations are result of differences in the nature of
‘communities of interpretation’ which engage in the interpretation of
the textual sources of the tradition. These communities of
interpretation can be historical, sociological or textual. What is
common and thus gives rise to these communities is the fact that they
“share certain epistemological assumptions, concerns and basic values”.
This, in turn, enables them to share and objectify their own subjective
experiences by sharing particular epistemological assumptions,
linguistic practice and/or overlapping way of talking about meaning”.
Communities of interpretation, however, “do not necessarily agree on a
whole host of determinations of meaning.”
Tradition is therefore
like a rich, dense tapestry consisting of many interlacing or at times
parallel running threads all of which put together give the tapestry its
unique design. To use another metaphor, tradition is like a flowing
river emanating from its source (in the case of the Islamic tradition
the Qur’an and Sunna), and its tributary streams, and all those who
drink from this river, regardless how far they are from the spring, are
seen as part of the tradition.
Moosa uses an apt analogy from the science of biology to describe th
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