Wahrheitsanspruch und Humanität - Progressive muslimische Religionstheologie zu religiöser Differenz und Menschenwürde
Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
Final Report Abstract
One of the fundamental insights that emerges from the encounter with different anthropological approaches in contemporary Muslim discourse is the inseparable connection of anthropology and (qurʾānic) hermeneutics. For every analytical approach to a theological anthropology or to the question of the ‘dignity’ and determination of man (regardless of the methodology or research perspective) is inevitably confronted with hermeneutical premises and assumptions, and must therefore take into account its own interpretive practice and local constraints in a self-reflective manner. With respect to the qurʾānic discourse, one of the major implications of hermeneutic self-reflection is a critical analysis of the inherent tendency of any interpretation of the Qurʾān to restrict in a conceptualising manner the variety of meanings inherent to this discourse and its narratives, and thus to diminish its open dialogue to a ‘meta-narrative’ (theological, legal or religio-philosophical). But the awareness of the dialogical, trialogical or multilogical quality of the qurʾānic discourse also enables a new understanding of the interlinked levels of identity-based, existential and anthropological discourses that underlie the theological premises of the Qurʾān and constitute the specific functionality of its narratives. Of the cognitive advances that are generated by the analysis of the diverse hermeneutical approaches a few examples are highlighted below, subdivided into literary, hermeneutical, anthropological and legal-philosophical perspectives of research. From the perspective of literary studies, the attention is to be directed to: a) the trialogicality or multilogicality of anthropological narratives in the Qurʾān, whose critical revision of earlier interpretative traditions is revealed only by their embedding in a trialogical or multilogical context, determined by old Arabian, Jewish and Christian anthropologies; b) the functionality of the Qurʾān’s narrative rhetoric as well as the corrective reconfiguration of rabbinical revisions of biblical myths; and c) the epistemological function of (e.g. Jewish) demarcations from other (e.g. Christian) interpretations of biblical narratives for the understanding of qurʾānic references. From the hermeneutical perspective, the attention is to be directed to: a) the genealogy of the qurʾānic proclamation, which fits into an established inter-religious dialogue, combining affinity with and divergence from Jewish and Christian traditions, and seeking to overcome their exclusivism and particularism; b) the genealogy of the religious normative in the framework of a continuous inner-qurʾānic interpreting discourse, whose special characteristics (typology, intertextuality, exemplarity) have the potential to lead the incorporated Late Antique traditions and mythical narratives to a normative interpretation; c) contemporary approaches to the Qurʾān that start with different (contextual) discourse dynamics for their hermeneutic referentiality, and thus reflect the perspectivity, temporality and contextuality of its interactive and productive discourse. From an anthropological perspective the attention is to be directed to: a) the socio-political contextuality and functionality of anthropological motifs and traditions in the process of a continuous recalibration of qurʾānic anthropology; b) the re-definitions of biblical anthropological accounts (exemplarily Adam’s dominium terrae) in the course of the inner-qurʾānic appropriation and transcendence of the rabbinical criticism of Christian anthropology; c) the dynamism and openness of the qurʾānic discourse on man, which opposes an essentialising concept of ‘dignity’ as well as the concept of a homogeneous anthropology. It therefore allows an anthropological multiperspectivity of man, which enables not only different evaluations of a religiously independent humanity, but also different determinations of religious normativity. From a legal-philosophical perspective, the attention is to be directed to: a) the heterogeneity and plurality of conceptions of freedom and human dignity in the cultural sciences as well as in the Muslim-theological discourse and b) the potential of new intentional determinations of Islamic law (especially the concepts of the maṣlaḥa and maqāṣid) regarding its relationship to traditionally disadvantaged groups of people. These interlinked levels of (hermeneutical, anthropological and legally normative) discourses demonstrate the advantages of critical interactions between different research perspectives in a scientific approach to the topic of “man in the context of Islamic/qurʿānic anthropology”. The analyzed hermeneutical approaches are consistent in the view that honour (or dignity) as a fundamental anthropological topic must ultimately be legitimised by a transcendental source or a divine creative act in order to remain distinct from conventional honours, which are hierarchically divided and limited.
Publications
- New approaches to human dignity in the context of Qur'ānic anthropology : the quest for humanity, Cambridge 2017
Braun, Rüdiger (ed. with Hüseyin Çiçek)
- Reasoning Humanity: Toward a Contextual Reading of the Qur'anic Anthropology, in: New approaches to human dignity in the context of Qur'ānic anthropology : the quest for humanity, Cambridge 2017, S. 179 ff.
Braun, Rüdiger
- Respons: »Anmerkungen zur Rekonfiguration des Heiligen(den)«, in: Sola Scriptura - die Heilige Schrift als heiligende Schrift. Hrsg. N. Hamilton. Leipzig 2017. Beihefte zur ökumenischen Rundschau; Nr. 116. S. 183 ff.
Braun, Rüdiger
- Textautorität und Dekanonisierung – Zeitgenössische muslimische Zugänge zum säkularen Topos Menschenwürde im Horizont einer historisch sensibilisierten Exegese des Koran, in: Fachzeitschrift für Recht und Islam (ZRI) 2017, 1-13
Braun, Rüdiger
