Reading the Law within Narrative: Notes to a Muslim Student

* Note: A gentleman stopped in at the college where I'm employed and asked about resources regarding religion and banking.  He is a Muslim doing Masters level work in a Middle Eastern country.  I sent him the following:

Greetings!  We met last week when you stopped by and chatted with a few of us 

about your thesis you are working on regarding the religious foundations of banking 

practices.  I did a little digging and came up with a few articles that may be of 

interest to you.  

Lending and Interest in the Old Testament by Klaus Issler

Usury in Scripture by Chad Brand

Five Myths About Jubilee by Art Lindsley

Jubilee and Social Justice by Michael Harbin

I would especially recommend the Klaus Issler piece in that it reflects a detailed 

textual analysis of key Old Testament texts, works through interpretative options, 

and provides a wealth of bibliographic data.  There is even a brief mention of 

Islamic banking in footnote # 74 on page 785.

The Chad Brand piece is not as detailed as Issler but he covers more texts.  You 

may notice some interpretative differences between Issler and Brand.

In that you are attempting to compare, integrate and synthesize the various 

textual materials from the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Qur'an I 

thought it might be helpful to consider how the law code functions in the Torah.  

In his massive work God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality in 

the Bible Jonathan Burnside writes:

"One of the most striking aspects of how law is presented in the Hebrew Bible 

is its integration with narrative, by which we mean the specific biblical story of 

God's involvement with humanity.  It is crucial to recognize that bibilcal law is 

not presented as 'codified law' but is integrated 'at every stage' into the wider 

story of God's purposes for Israel, and, beyond that, for the world.  For example, 

the Sinai narrative (see Chapter 2) switches between story (e.g., Exodus 19:1-25); 

law (Exodus 20:1-17); story (Exodus 20:18-21), law (Exodus 20:22-23:33), and 

back to story again (Exodus 24:1-18).  What is true of the Sinai narrative 

(Exodus 19-24) is true of the Pentateuch as a whole.  All of the Pentateuch's 

legal collections are firmly embedded in their own narrative contexts.  This 

means that to be good readers of biblical law, we should not split what authors 

and compilers have joined together.  Nor should we imagine we have arrived 

at the'true' meaning of biblical law when we have 'boiled off' the narrative to 

a set of rules or underlying principles."  (p. 14)

This focus on the narrative context of biblical law is important.  There are 

developments in the law and fresh applications as the narrative of God's 

dealing with his people Israel develops.  Burnside, again, captures this dynamic:

"Biblical law is dynamic.  As we study it, we will see how Torah adapts itself to 

new circumstances.  This is partly because, as we have seen, it is integrated 

into the story of God's involvement with Israel and the world--and this story 

keeps on developing.  Because biblical law is embedded in a story arc, we 

must keep a constant eye on such things as plot, character, and setting.  

We need to know where we are 'in the story' to be able to interpet biblical law." (p. 22)

This focus on narrative as the context for biblical law is unique.  I am not a student 

of the Qur'an but Ida Glaser in an essay entitled "Qur'anic Challenges for the Bible 

Reader" mentions the following point:

"The Qur'an is almost entirely horatory.  Although it contains narrative, nearly 

every story is told as part of an argument or exhortation.  The stories are most 

often used as illustration, as warning or as encouragement, or as indicating the 

pattern of divine and human action through history.  In contrast, Barry Webb 

describes narrative as the Bible's 'master' and 'indispensable' genre."  

(Chapter from The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures edited by D. A. 

Carson, page 1027)

This difference in the Bible's and the Qur'an's understanding and use of narrative 

creates different kinds of interpretative communities with varying interpretative 

expectations.  Glaser notes that, in regards to the Bible, "the form is as much a 

part of the revelation as is the content." In seeking to determine what the form 

of the Bible  tells us about its content Glaser notes the following four points:

* If the Bible is largely narrative rather than exhortation, that implies an emphasis 

on the history of God's covenant interaction with his world rather than on his 

commands to his creatures.

* If it includes the prayers of God's people, that implies an emphasis on a two-way 

relationship between God and humanity rather than on prophetic words from God 

to people.

* If it includes human wisdom and questioning about death and suffering, that 

implies an emphasis on human response to God.

* If a large proportion of the Gospels is given to accounts of the crucifixion and 

resurrection, that implies an emphasis on God's finding a way to deal lovingly 

and justly with covenant breaking rather than on judgment of disobedience.  

(p. 1049) 

I hope that my comments and quotation are helpful in your interpretative 

endeavors. 

I would recommend Burnside's book to you.  His first chapter--"The Character 

of Biblical Law"--is important reading for understanding the nature of biblical 

law and how to properly interpret it.  Also, he has two full chapters that may 

be of more direct relevance to your thesis: chapter 6 "People and Land"; 

chapter 7 "Social Welfare."

 Please feel free to interact with my thoughts.  I wish you well in your 

research and writing.

Richard Klaus

Is the Qur'an Sufficient?

I’ve been reading Nabeel Qureshi’s book No God But One: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity (Zondervan, 2016).  The book is very good on a number of topics.  Scattered throughout the work are comments on how Muslims approach the Qur’an.  This is instructive since it is easy to fall prey to the idea that since Muslim’s have a holy book therefore they treat it the same as Christians do their holy Scriptures.  Evangelical Christians have spoken of various attributes of the Bible as Scripture.  For example, Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 1994) speaks of four characteristics of Scripture:

1.     Necessity: The necessity of Scripture means that the Bible is necessary for knowing the gospel, for maintaining spiritual life, and for knowing God’s will, but it is not necessary for knowing that God exists or for knowing something about God’s character and moral law. (p. 116)

2.     Authority: The authority of Scripture means that all the words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. (p. 73)

3.     Sufficiency: The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. (p. 127)

4.     Perspicuity/Clarity: The clarity of Scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it. (p. 108)[1]

In contradistinction to these concepts within evangelical Christianity, Quereshi brings out the difference within Islam.  Within Islamic teaching regarding the Qur’an there is the doctrine of abrogation.  Qureshi writes:

“Grasping the orality of the Quran helps with understanding the controversial phenomenon of abrogation.  While Muhammad was still alive, he would give recitations that cancelled previous ones.  In other words, he would tell his followers that certain portions of the Quran he had relayed before were no longer to be recited as part of the Quran.  This was met with resistance, as people asked him how the Word of God could be cancelled.  The response is recorded in 2.106 of the Quran, which asserts that Allah can substitute verses in his divine scripture because ‘he has power over all things.’

Qureshi goes on to note how this doctrine of abrogation comes to negate the sufficiency of the Quran:

“Not all abrogated verses were left out of the text of the Quran, though Muslim scholars have classically taught that there are multiple types of abrogation, including abrogation of text-not-law and abrogation of law-not-text.  In other words, they teach that Allah intended certain verses to be recited but not practiced, and other verses to be practiced but not recited.  For these reasons, Muslim scholars turn to the records of Muhammad’s life, the hadith, for clarification.  In addition, as we have already seen, more Islamic practices actually come from hadith and not from the Quran.

“This is why Muslims do not believe the Quran is sufficient for Islamic practice, but it requires authoritative hadith.  Very few Muslims believe in the sufficiency of the Quran, and these ‘Quran only’ Muslims are often deemed heretical by mainstream Muslims.” (pp. 109-110—bold-face added)

In a later discussion of the issue of putting apostates to death Qureshi returns to these concepts:

“Some Muslims point out that the Quran does not command the killing of the apostates, and arguably they are correct.  But Islam is not a sola scriptura faith; it has always used hadith to supplement the Quran.  Anyone who prays the five daily prayers would have to admit this, because not only are the words for the prayers not given in the Quran, even the number of daily prayers is not mentioned.  The Quran mentions only three daily prayers, and it does not delineate the words or postures for any of them.  Although there are legitimate ‘Quran-only’ Muslims, they have always been an extreme minority in Islam.  Most Muslims who argue against the law of apostasy using a Quran-only approach are using reasoning that would radically alter their Islamic practice if applied consistently.

“Alone similar lines, some peaceful Muslims argue against the law of apostasy based on Quranic verses such as 2.256, which says, ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’  In order to say this, though, they are also disavowing Muhammad’s example.  Muhammad did not interpret that verse in that manner, as his actions in hadith repeatedly show.  That is why, classically, Muslim theologians have listed 2.256 among the abrogated verses we discussed in the previous chapter.  Ibn Kathir, for example, says 2.256 was abrogated by 9.29, which tells Muslims to fight Jews and Christians.  Popular Muslim scholars have vociferously defended these traditional interpretations throughout the twentieth century.” (p. 136—bold-face added)

In light of Qureshi’s discussion it does appear that the traditional Islamic view of the Quran does not include a notion of sufficiency.  Morevover, the vast amount of material from hadith literature that needs to be considered for a right interpretation of the Quran it appears that the concept of perspicuity is also severely compromised.[2] 

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     [1] Grudem uses the language of “clarity” in his Systematic Theology but I like the older term “perspicuity.”  Grudem himself uses the older term in a 2009 presentation “The Perspicuity of Scripture.”  Available online: http://www.waynegrudem.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Perspicuity-of-Scripture-for-Themelios-Word-97-3.pdf.

     [2] The words of James White are appropriate as well: “A careful and fair comparison of the literature of biblical exegesis produced by believing Christian scholarship with that of believing Islamic scholarship is striking.  The intricate, complex studies found among Muslims in the hadith sciences is the closest parallel to the in-depth, original-language-based exegesis of the New Testament among Christians.  The Muslim battleground of debate on these issues is focused upon Islamic tradition, while for believing Christians it is focused upon the text of Scripture itself.”  What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an (Bethany House, 2013), 163.