When tradition meets modernity
There’s something that everybody who has anything to do with the Centre for Islamic Theology (ZIT) notices especially: the numerous interfaces and the amount of dialogue with other disciplines in the field of the Humanities – pedagogics, history, law, philosophy, literary and linguistic studies, Christian and Jewish theologies – to name just a few. The focus of the faith-based subject is an academically substantiated examination of various aspects of the faith. The basis and the guideline for many research projects is the “theology of mercy” described by Prof. Mouhanad Khorchide. This not only, in an initial step, places the Quran in an historical context and looks for traces of mercy in this, but also, in a second step, puts these traces in a modern context.
At ZIT, in a Quran project bearing the same name, a team of researchers headed by Mouhanad Khorchide is working on the first historical-theological Quran commentary, taking into account processes of appropriation, transformation and demarcation between Islam and the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The aim is to analyse, and provide a commentary on, a wide range of topics in the Quran in the light of the theology of mercy. This approach – continuing to see the Quran as the Word of God, but at the same time as an historical text – is seen as being something new. The initiators see no contradiction in this, when tradition comes up against modernity. “Placing verses of the Quran in their historical context has always been a familiar practice in Islamic theology,” says Prof. Dina El Omari, who is responsible for the volume dealing with ‘Women in the Quran’. “What is new, however, is reading the text using the hermeneutical key of mercy – as well as close dialogue with other religious traditions. The aim is also to link up with the exegetic tradition by considering selected exegetes, each in their historical context, and benefiting from the content of their interpretations which support a modern understanding of the Quran.” Accordingly, the body of the text consists of verses from the Quran and the commentaries handed down on each of them. The project is taking a particular look at the pre-modern Islamic scholars at-Tabari, az-Zamakhshari, ar-Razi, al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir. Their exegetic writings date back to the period between the 9th and the 15th centuries CE.
The commentary comprises not only a descriptive but also a normative part. Both of these are closely interlinked. “We’re putting both the verses and the commentaries of the exegetes in their historical context,” Dina El Omari explains. Then follows the analysis of the verses of the Quran. “From this we derive their significance for us today and for a modern understanding of the Quran.” The first volume of the Quran commentary produced in this way in German was published by Herder in 2018.
Research being undertaken at ZIT takes up other pressing questions of the day. For example, Prof. Milad Karimi, the editor of the current yearbook of the philosophy of Islamic religion, has collected a series of articles on environmental protection from an Islamic point of view. The research being carried out by Associate Prof. Asmaa El Maaroufi focuses on bioethics, animal ethics and environmental ethics. Prof. Cefli Ademi teaches Islamic law and its methodology. Dina El Omari examines questions relating to gender and Islam. The fact that imams and religious teachers – as well as social workers – are trained at ZIT is also reflected in the themes upon which research is being undertaken. Research at ZIT relating to religious education thus support a process in society which is in full swing: the path towards Islamic religious instruction in schools.
Brigitte Heeke