Dr. Andrew G. Bostom

The writer is Associate Professor of Family Medicine, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the author of The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, and, Sharia Versus Freedom—The Legacy of Islamic Totalitarianism.

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PART 2 (for part I, click here)

Dissenting glosses on Koran 1:7 certainly do exist, but they remain marginal. Al-Razi (d. 1209), dubbed “independent-minded,” and willing to stray from analyses of the Koran reliant upon “tradition-based exegesis,” i.e., “sayings of the Prophet and first generations [of Muslims],” provides perhaps the best “classical” era example in his respected Koranic commentary. But al-Razi, who argues for a more qualified general interpretation of Koran 1:7, “it is possible to say that the former [those incurring wrath] are the unbelievers, and the latter [those who are astray] the hypocrites,” still concedes,

“The well-known opinion [among exegetes] is that those who incur wrath are the Jews, based on: ‘those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath’ (Koran 5:60), and that those who are astray are the Christians, based on: ‘…who went wrong in times gone by, who misled many, and strayed (themselves) from the even way’ (Koran 5:77).”

More importantly, as Professor Gordon Nickel has described with elegant understatement, Al-Razi, so-called champion of the “self-evident truths of reason” sanctioned merciless jihaddepredations against all non-Muslims per his glosses on Koran 9:5 and 9:29, rendering his “iconoclastic” gloss on Koran 1:7 no barometer of rational ecumenism. Al-Razi, linked:

“…the theological error that he attributes to the People of the Book [Jews and Christians, primarily] with a command to fight them. He even seems to suggest that the imposition of jizya [the deliberately humiliating poll-tax tribute]  was a ‘kindness’ that the People of the Book did not deserve….[their] false faith…and no other reason…made them deserving of Muslim attack ‘until they pay the tribute readily, having been humbled’….‘accepting the jizya from them and sparing their lives is a great blessing for them’.”

Nickel adds,

“In the case of idolaters, however, there was no question at all of their deserving kindness. In his comments on Q [Koran] 9.5, the so-called ‘sword verse’, al-Razi explains the phrase, ‘…kill the mushrikin [idolaters] wherever you find them…’. The exegete simply writes, ‘That is the command to kill them without restriction, in any time and in any place’.”

The gloss of “al-Manar modernist” (named after the periodical, “Al Manar”, [“The Lighthouse”]), Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), is perhaps most often touted—at present—as representing this ostensibly more “ecumenical” interpretation of Koran 1:7. Rather ironically, Abduh’s disciple, and collaborator on the Al-Manar Koranic commentary, Rashid Rida (d. 1935), contradicted his mentor’s gloss (pp. 66-68) some 30 pages later (pp. 97-98). Although Rida acknowledged a weakness in the transmission chain of a hadith account (cited previously) supporting the traditionalist view, he re-affirmed Ibn Kathir’s gloss (quoted earlier), and addedanother concordant exegesis by al-Baghawi (d. ~1117-1122), who also referenced Koran 5:60 and 5:77:

“It is said: ‘Those who invoked wrath’, are the Jews, and ‘those who went astray’ are the Christians. For Allah Almighty penalized the Jews with wrath, as it is said: ‘They are the ones who Allah has cursed and who incurred His wrath.’ (5:60) And He penalized the Christians with straying, as it is said: ‘Do not follow the inclinations of a people who have already gone astray.’ (5:77)”