Suleman Qaiser

Dr. Basit Bilal Koshul

Logic and Rhetoric in the Quran
23th May 2018

The structural integrity of the Quran and its meaning has attracted inquiry and stirred debate for a
very long time and has continued into the modern period. The western historical and
enlightenment scholars have found the Quran objectionable and disjointed. According to Kant, to
attain enlightenment, one should reject all authority, in all decisions related to the public sphere
and authority should play no role. The basic ideals of Enlightenment are Irreducible dignity of
the individual, equality before the law, the goodness of the material world – human dignity. But
these ideals don’t come from human reason rather authoritative source. Enlightenment is a
response to ethnocentrism in the Bible. It replaced theocentrism with abstract universals and has
interpreted Judeo-Christian tradition in a manner that it reaffirms enlightenment. Fortuyn said,
“Christianity and Judaism have gone through the laundromat of humanism and enlightenment.”
Voltaire stated that the Quran was a rhapsody without liaison, without order, without art
(Farrin 8). The Scotsman Thomas Carlyle said the Quran was a wearisome confused jumble,
crude, incondite, endless iterations, long-windedness...insupportable stupidity, in short (Farrin 8).
The main criticism of the Enlightenment scholars was incoherence: the flow of the Quran was
not like the flow of readings that they were familiar with. They claimed that there was no
chronological and topical clarity in the Quran. They negated the opinions of Arabs on the issue.
For Arabs, hearing the Arabic Quran is the experience which is antithetical to the one that
western scholars had. Umar ibn al Khattab said that Quran softened his heart (Farrin 8).
Moreover, they assumed that the criticism they made had never been made before.
Farrin refutes the longstanding criticism of “disjointedness” and enhances the
appreciation of the organization of the Quran. He points out how a better understanding of the
Quran’s structure can aid in our interpretation of the text.
The whole Quran is arranged according to the law of symmetry, which manifests itself in
the Quran in three different ways: parallelism, chiasm (inverted
parallelism), concentrism. Concentrism has a unique central element and is most prevalent in the
Quran. These three types of symmetry occur in individual chapters and render them cohesive and
tightly structured (Farrin 16). Amin Islahi also argues that most chapters occur as pairs, then
pairs combine to form chapter groups.
To shed light on the structure of the Quran, Douglas indicated the Ring structure of the
Quran, which is the correspondence between the beginning and the end. The middle section of
ring accords with both the beginning and the end, a mark of strong cohesion and unity (Farrin
16). This ring structure also guides the interpretation. According to Douglas, the effect of the
ring structure is to give special emphasis to the pivotal central point (Farrin 17).
Farrin incorporates and develops the works of Douglas and Amin Islai to explain the
structure of the Quran. He discusses the idea of the Quranic chapter as an organic whole, as a
structurally and thematically coherent discourse (Farrin 8). Then he explains another major
organizational principle that chapters tend to occur in pairs (Farrin 23). He points out the
existence of chapter groups and show that they are arranged in concentric order.
Beside the text's formal completeness, Farrin explains the structure’s function as a guide
to its meaning (Farrin 71). He highlights Quranic themes that have special significance by virtue
of their central placement within the rings. Carl Ernst analysis of Chapter 60, The women tested,
revealed in the atmosphere of distrust. He finds that the chapter, regardless of contemporary
circumstances, “preserves at its heart a sublime hope that God may make it possible for affection
to exist between enemies “(Farrin 72).
When the logic of “two-ness” employed by western enlightenment scholars is substituted
by the concept of “three-ness.” It helps us eradicate the established prejudice that the Quran is
irrational and illogical (Ochs). The transformation of “two into three” is another logical lesson to
learn from kepnes’ reading: a lesson about what it means to transform a state of conflict into a
state of the difference without conflict (Ochs 179). Scriptural reasoning is the term used by Ochs,
Kepnes and Koshul to undergo this transformation from “two to three” in two different
ways: Reasoning from Scripture to Logic and Reasoning from Logic to Scripture.
Scripture doesn’t introduce logics, but it transforms them (Ochs 190). Modern scholars
tend to define the limits of human self-awareness and, thus, for what human can say in terms of
propositional logic. Which means what cannot be reduced to the either/ or terms of subject-
predicate logic cannot be spoken or represented (Ochs 191). Kepnes' study suggests that one-
dimensional, or strictly plain-sense, reading would lead to the same propositional logic (Och
190). Multiplicity is something which western Enlightenment scholars cannot afford. They do
one-dimensional reading to understand the meaning of the Quran and they see it as an illogical,
incoherent document without any order. However, this approach of plain-sense reading is deeply
limited. Kepnes’ introduces the notion of “Second reading” to map multi-dimensional readings
and overcome all the limitations that are the product of plain-reading. The second reading is not
a substitute for plain-sense reading, but an addition to it (Ochs 190). The Quran uses a lot of
rhetorical features that can only be understood by using the framework of “second reading.“
Second-reading implies the possibility of an indefinite-series of additional reading to unearth the
deeper complex order of the Quran by uncovering the layer of apparent incoherence (Ochs 195).
Second-reading introduces a rule for the identification of the context of any reading, in that
sense, for what we may label “the activity of bringing any reading to self-awareness" (Ochs 195).
The Rule for Selective Reading, an elemental feature of a map of scriptural second-reading, is
triadic or irreducible to any less than three elements (text + reading + context of reading). It
should be distinguished from the Rule for Mapping Propositions, used by western scholars to
label the Quran as illogical and irrational, is dyadic which indicate only subject and predicate. In
a nutshell, a move from “two to three” can be mapped as a move from one-dimensional reading
to two or more-dimensional reading.
Moreover, Kepnes gives the example of Hagar in Hebrew scripture as well as in Muslim
scripture to illustrate the inconsistencies and the set of contradictory propositions that defy
common logic (Ochs 191). Using the concept of second-reading, these inconsistencies can be
explained. Hebrew scriptures give us the negative impression of Hagar and describe her as a
slave girl from Egypt. Scripture also describes that “Hagar is cast out, but she is also Israel as
cast out”. This reading mapped as a clear contradiction: “it is true both that Hagar is not (or “is
excluded from”) Israel and that ‘Hagar is Israel (as “being excluded”)” (Ochs 191). Both the
narrative that Hagar is Israel and Hagar is not Israel seems contradictory if you use the
framework of plain-sense reading or one-dimensional reading. However, second-reading unfolds
the deeper meaning, draws similarities between Israel and Hagar, and adds context into it. Which
is equivalent to a move from “two to three’’. Ochs also claims that by introducing third, i.e.,
Abraham in the context, which is common to both, a new level of engagement can be achieved
between Islam and Judeo-Christian traditions.
 Reasoning from Scripture to logic has its liabilities. Its source makes it unappealing to
secular reasoners and its product appears to challenge the propositional foundation of
Enlightenment rationality (Ochs 196). Therefore, there is a need to explore a second means of
mapping the rationality of scriptural reading, which is to reason from logic to scripture by
identifying recent models of logic in the West that would be compatible with our maps of
multidimensional reading (Ochs 196). Western reasoners can use these models of logic to
engage productively in dialogue with Qur'anic readers without any trepidation of losing their
standards of rationality.
In Reasoning from Logic to Scripture, the framework proposed by Koshul, called as
“philosophers of the relation” or “philosophers of the three-ness" by Ochs, can be
used. Koshul summarized how Qur'anic Self relates to the biblical Other in the following terms
(Koshul 19).

a. Critical engagement that sees the Self distancing itself from the other
b. Constructive engagement that sees the Other as affirming the Self
c. An invitation by the Self to the Other to come to a common understanding so that both
can work together toward a common goal.
This threefold approach provides the framework through which the contemporary
encounter between the Islamic Self and the modern Western Order. The goal is not to critique-
condemn-replace but redeem-reform-embrace (koshul 31). The latter approach means that
critique should have the aim to redeem like the “philosophic healer” rather than to condemn and
replace. Contemporary Islam should not only challenge the critique-condemn-replace approach
but also the fact that the troubled Self labels that Other as troubling. The threefold approach
described above is what Koshul calls “constructive engagement”. Ochs calls it a move from “two
to three”. Propositional logic fails to develop this “constructive engagement” but “three-valued
logic” or “logic of relations” facilitates the engagement (Ochs 197). By using same propositional
logic, western reasoners when fail to understand the complexities of the Scripture label it as
illogical, irrational and incoherent. But by virtue of the constructive engagement, the self would
invite the Other to a common understanding (Koshul 19). The relational logic helps connect the
isolated elements God, world, and Human in fundamental relations (Kepnes 116).
With the advent modernity, there is a tendency to map rationality to secularism and
irrationality to religion or religious text. The apparent inconsistencies in the scripture when get
highlighted when tried to comprehend by plain-reading. Further, strengthen that claim that
irrationality is part of religion. My conception of rationality was also affected by this kind of
mapping where rationality always gets mapped to secularism and that all reality is physical. The
works of Farrin, Ochs, Kepnes and Koshul help us change this perception and point out the flaws
of this kind of reductionism. Kepnes explain that all the apparent inconsistencies and
contradictions in the religious text give us deeper insight when understood through second-
reading, which plain-scene reading fails to provide. Kepnes’ multidimensional reading is mapped
to rationality by two different ways: Reasoning from Scripture to Logic and from Logic to
Scripture. Hence, the claim that the Quran is illogical, and irrational is utterly flawed. Western
reasoner reached this conclusion because of the limitations of plain-scene reading. Farrin
illustrates the structural integrity of the Quran. The framework provided by Koshul envisages the
common ground that can be built to bridge the gap between religious conservatives and modern
seculars. In a nutshell, the work of these scholars gives me an understanding of the structure and
meaning of the scripture, especially Islamic scripture, and most importantly, it abolished the one
to one mapping of rationality.

Bibliography

Koshul, Basit Bilal and Steven Kepnes. Scripture, Reason, and the contemporary Islam-West
Encounter. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007
Ochs, Peter. From two to three: to know is also to know the context of
knowing.” Koshul, Basit Bilal and Steven Kepnes. Scripture, Reason, and the contemporary
Islam-West Encounter. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007. 177-199