awareness of God’s existence, which affects a human person’s whole being and action. She points out that taqwā has many different aspects and that while all human beings have the same potential for it, most only partly implement it. Preference for one of the many different aspects of taqwā is not justified.14 Even the theologically central aspect of tawḥīd (the unity and uniqueness of God) would not be a sufficient criterion. So, according to her approach, it is absolutely possible that even human beings who do not believe in the one and only God have or implement taqwā or certain aspects of it. In support of this theory, she emphasizes the Qur’anic statement that God left no people without revelation (Q 10:47, 16:36). This means that God has sent a messenger to all people; all are in possession of divine guidance and revelation and so are justified to follow their own way.
Results: Dialogical hermeneutics as a
Tensions between contexts: e.g., original and contemporary contexts
Another tension is that between the texts’ original and a contemporary context that might be totally different. Here as well, it seems important to relate both claims to each other and mutually to limit these claims. To consider only the original context may hinder a lively debate on the meaning of texts. And if only the contemporary context is considered, the text is cut off from the nourishing semantic stream of its tradition.
Tension between sacredness and profanity of texts or rather a divine origin of the text and cultural-historic experience What does the sacredness of texts establish? On the one hand, the text can be understood as an essential and direct expression of divine or transcendent revelation, in the sense of knowledge that cannot be obtained otherwise.
This truth from above would be more important for the meaning of the text than the context. On the other hand, the text could also be understood as a culturally and historically caused expression of an experience with the divine or the transcendent. This would imply that the meaning of the text is strongly related to a specific time in a particular culture and society.
Talking about the sacredness of texts takes place in the field of tension between these two poles.
Tension between a hermeneutics of trust and a hermeneutics of suspicion
The last example relates to the tension between the attitudes in which a text is encountered. Is it an attitude of appreciation or of critical distance?
A hermeneutics of trust acknowledges the text and views its meaning as a bridge towards the other. This is very important for dialogue. But texts can also bear problematic statements. To find disturbing and challenging meanings of the text is the function of a hermeneutics of suspicion. Especially where the text is promising heaven on earth, a hermeneutics of suspicion points at those who might be excluded.
Our thesis is that understanding in multi-perspective dialogue succeeds when we are able to balance both contact and contents. None of the poles can be permanently overemphasized without throwing dialogue and understanding into crisis. An awareness of these tensions is required.
The tensions cannot be eliminated but, rather, their presence is desirable.
Processes of understanding: dialogical hermeneutics as dialogical co-construction
A second important result of our experiment was the discovery that interpretation takes place in a shared process of meaning making. The meaning and interpretations that were developed throughout the dialogues could only occur because this dialogue took place. This is not to say that all the interpretations that emerged during the dialogue were shared by all participants. But all of these meanings and interpretations constituted a shared stock that all the participants could use. Because the meanings were dialogically connected, making meaning was more of a process than a fixed result. Dialogical understanding in fields of tension has nothing to do with a harmony-seeking hermeneutics of “cuddling.” On the contrary, dialogue is a challenging space of debate and thought. For an understanding of dialogical theology, this means implementing practice and reflection. Dialogical theology thus remains dependent on people of different religious and non-religious affiliations coming together and entering into a conversation. Dialogical theology needs thinking spaces for its development in which diverse voices, positions and faces are present to each other and dialogically make meaning together.
Transformative Readings
of the Qur’an
Developing Islamic Theology in the European Context
Safet Bektovic
Introduction
In recent decades, the question of a new interpretation of Islam in the European context has been raised in discussions on the integration of Muslims in Western Europe. Being considered a crucial part of the future development of Islam, Islamic theological thought has become very topical for many researchers of Islam, not least for politicians. In this contribution, I will discuss the legitimization of the idea of European Islamic theology, explore further dimensions and perspectives of Islamic theological thought in Europe and discuss its relevance to the training of imams and Muslim identity in Europe.