Linguistics is the key to the Door of Ijtihad

Linguistics is the key

to the Door of Ijtihad

By: Mohamed Hammar | Posted: Sep 16th, 2009

Islam and language have a similar structure. That is what I have come up with after roughly  twenty years of observation.

Language is innate. You can speak it as you live; you do not really learn it. And Islam, too, is the religion of “fitra”(the innate mind) : The leaning towards religiosity has proved to be a matter of genes; it is innate.
And my conclusions so far are :

1. The Chomskyan theories(of linguist Pr. Noam Chomsky) can help extract a generative-and-transformational (2) model or entity from the holy Koran, which I have carried out.

2. Language is libertarian according to Chomsky and other “nativist” (believing in the innate mind) researchers. Islam is libertarian in its essence, too, but so far it has been confined, by propaganda and flawed tradition, to right-wing politics. As language has proved to be akin to Islam, it should then help us re-position Islam in a bid to put it on a safer track; on its genuine track: Left politics.

3.The Koranic model or entity I have extracted  by means of linguistic tools should, therefore and so to speak, help us reproduce a novel religious discourse liable to enhance the quality and message of mosque sermons, to open Islamic lecturing on Muslims’ real life, to make dawah and tabligh ( spreading the good spell of Allah, that is) more enjoyable and challenging to  mainstream believers, as well as to Muslims-to-be. Generative and transformational, is it not?

4. A” novel discourse” signifies you are going to reconstruct the language of Muslims itself, be it Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Indonesian or other language spoken by people intent on speaking out their Islam away from anarchism, strong-headedness, short-sightedness, cross-mindedness, fanaticism or  arbitrary behavior and thought. Here you are back to language. And without doubt you are going to encroach upon many a territory, apart from that of religious education or that of language acquisition...  Generative and transformational, or is it not?

5. The afore-mentioned points mean the following: Linguistics is a reliable key to (re-opening) the Gates of Ijtihad.

Mohamed Hammar

1. According to the linguistic “nativist” school led by Pr Noam Chomsky.

2. Which is Chomsky‘s finding that revolutionized language “learning” approaches and methodologies.

About the Author:

I was born in Tunis, Tunisia.I am a High school teacher of English.I like writing, reading, soccer, cinema.I Write in Arabic, in French and in English. I am working on and putting forward a "scheme" or "strategy" or "method" for renovating Islamic religious discourse and for providing a common platform and model likely to be cloned in education, culture and science; a "method" that is supposed to rest upon an Islam & Linguistics merger called "Applied Religiosity". The whole "effort" is called "The Third Ijtihad" or "Integrationist Ijtihad". And the cultural outcome that is supposed to stem from the science-sustained "method" is to be called "Median Culture" or "al-wassita" in Arabic. In all,the whole process aims at shaping the "Integrated Muslim".

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Comments

[المُعلم]

Thank you Mark. I hope so.

[dissertation]

I thing you are going to go right way.your post is very good and helping us lot thanks for share this useful information.