The Dilemma of the Literary Approach to the Qur'an

The principal intention of this article is to discuss some of the difficulties that challenge a literary approach to the Qur'an, an approach that focuses on the Qur'an as basically a literary text. Such an approach was invoked by Amin al-Khuli (1895-1966) as the only approach capable of explaining the inimitability, i'jaz, of the Qur'an. His point is that the acceptance of the Qur'an, and accordingly the acceptance of Islam by the Arabs, was based on recognizing its absolute supremacy compared to human texts. In other words, the Arabs accepted Islam on the basis of evaluating the Qur'an as a literary text that surpasses all human production. The literary method should, therefore, supersede any other religio-theological, philosophical, ethical, mystical or judicial approach. (1) Our analysis is based on the discussion that took place in the 1940s in Egypt around Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah's (1916-98) Ph.D. thesis, presented to the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Fu'ad al-Awwal University (now Cairo University) in 1947. It was entitled Al-Fann al-qasasi fi al-Qur'an alkarim and was written under the supervision of Amin al-Khuli. The nature of the discussion that the thesis raised inside and outside the university will be the main focus of analysis. When the thesis was submitted to the examiners' committee in 1947 to set the date for the defense, the committee members, according to al-Khuli, were satisfied with the academic level, but they demanded some modification. Some information about the thesis was leaked to the media, and a heated polemical debate took place questioning the university academic regulation in a Muslim society that allowed such a thesis. The line of argumentation against the method and the thesis could be summarized as follows: (1) A literary text is a composition of human imagination while the Qur'an represents the word of God that should not be compared to any human discourse. (2) To deal with the Qur'an as a work of literary art, fann, is to suggest that it is written by Muhammad. (3) Furthermore, claiming that the stories of the Qur'an do not present actual historical facts, as the literary approach suggests, is committing the greatest blasphemy that amounts to apostasy. (2) It places the Qur'an in a lower position than a book of history. (3) (4) More insulting to the Qur'an from the point of view of the traditional dogma is to claim that its language and structure is historically determined and culturally formed. It could be easily interpreted to mean that the Qur'an is a human text. (4) The objection against the literary approach to the Qur'an is still very strong in the ongoing debate in modern Islamic thought between the traditionalists and the modernists, on one hand, and between Muslim and Western non-Muslim scholars, on the other hand. It presents to a great extent a continuation of the debate about Khalafallah's thesis, in which classical Islamic thought always plays an undeniable role in justifying the position of all the participants. Khalafallah and his professor al-Khuli relate themselves directly to the Islamic reformation movement initiated by Muhammad 'Abduh (1855-1905), who himself invoked the enlightened Islamic tradition in theology and philosophy. Tracing the literary approach of the Qur'an back to the classical discussion of the doctrine of i'jaz is necessary to analyse the impact of the traditional elements on the modern dispute about the literary approach. This will be dealt with in the first section. The modern Islamic reformation movement, on the other hand--which started, as commonly known, in the middle of the European military and political domination of the Muslim world--will be the focus of the second section. Modernity was imposed from above either by the colonial power or by the post-colonial political regimes. Some of the European cultural and philosophical elements touched upon religious issues that provoked polemic as well as apologetic reaction from Muslim scholars. …