Rescuing the Wretched:
Between Universal and Particular Readings of Q. 4:75
Rumee Ahmed,
Colgate University
The identification of the verse 4:75
of the Qur'an as an appeal for universal social justice is intriguing in
its possibilities. The verse reads, "And what is wrong with you that you do not fight for the cause of Allah and the
wretched men, women, and children whose cry is: 'Our Lord! Rescue us from
this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from you one who will
protect; and raise for us from you one who will help!'".
A surface, or, plain-sense reading of this
verse appears to exhort believers to fight in the way of God in order to
emancipate the weak and oppressed.
Historically, this mode of reading has been rhetorically useful for
political groups as a clear justification for diverse social agendas. A close
reading reveals that the verse lends itself to multiple interpretations.
I will discuss two historical
interpretations of this verse in detail and will refer to them, for the purpose
of this discussion, through the terms "universalist" and "particularist".
These are not meant to be reified
categories, but helpful heuristic devices that describe different methods of
reading. Based on the mode of reading
that one chooses, the text takes on a discrete meaning for the reader that does
not exhaust the possibilities of meaning, but provides a rubric for
understanding and acting upon the text.
Although I argue that a reading that transcends "universalist" and
"particularist" labels is required, it is instructive to understand the two
methods of reading and their approaches to the text.
Within the universalist and
particularist paradigms of reading, there are three nouns in verse 4:75 that
are ambiguous as to their immediate reference.
As such, different interpretations of the reference result in discrete
and disparate meanings for the verse as a whole. The first noun is the direct object plural pronoun suffix "you
all (kum)" that is utilized in the
opening phrase, "What is [wrong] with you
all that you do not fight in the cause of Allah?" The second is the verbal noun that connotes the "wretched (mustaḍ"afīn)" individuals from amongst men, women
and children. In the context of this verse the wretched are only known
pragmatically, through their cry to be saved from oppression.
The third noun that demands denotation in this
verse is the "this town (hādhi hi
l-qariyah)" within which these wretched souls are trapped.
The town is only known ontologically,
through the presence of its oppressive citizens. The perceived reference of these nouns, the "you all", the
"wretched" and "this town", determines particular readings of the passage and,
thus, its application in various contexts.
The first of these nouns, the "you all (mā lakum)", engages an unnamed
audience directly as a second-person address.
Depending on the perspective of the reader, the addresser may be
speaking to a third-party, whether past or present, or may be addressing the
reader herself, or both. If one were to
assume this last option - that of God addressing all believers in all times -
then the other ambiguous nouns obtain a reference that gives a particular
meaning to the verse. The "you all"
becomes at the same time an intimate "you", in that it addresses the potential
reader directly, as well as a "you all" that encompasses the community that
views itself as addressee. This reading
suggests that the address exhorts all believers regardless of their context and
the exhortation thus becomes unbound from hermeneutically limiting
constraints, such as time and space.
Though
viewing the "you all" as intimate and universal collapses any contextual
limitations of the exhortation itself, the hortative content may still be open
to interpretation. However, the passage
threatens to lose meaning unless "the wretched" and "this town" are themselves
understood as intimate and universal terms.
Were the wretched peoples or the town historical entities divorced from
the practical reality of the reader, then the verse would relinquish hortative
immediacy for the reader. Thus, in
order to preserve the verse as an intimate and universal exhortation, "the
wretched" and "this town" must also be understood in intimately knowable and
universal terms. Hence, the vernacular,
universalist reading of the verse says to the reader, "Why are you not fighting
when there currently exist (and have existed) wretched people who are crying
out from their city of oppressors for a savior?"
In
order for the reader reading in a universalist mode to maintain the integrity
of Q. 4:75 as a meaningful address, she must find a contemporary reference for
the remaining two ambiguous nouns contained in the verse.
As a result, the verse applies to any and
all places wherein the reader perceives individuals in a wretched state, and
the verse questions the reader's lack of physical action against the oppression
that leads to such wretchedness. The
reader, then, is forever under question until either the oppression that leads
to the cry of the wretched has been eradicated or the reader has dedicated
herself to the eradication of that oppression through physical means.
That the means be physical and violent is
unambiguous in this verse, given the use of the Arabic phrase "tuqātilūna fī sabīl
Allah", which means "you fight for the cause of God" as opposed the phrase
"tujāhidūna fī sabīl
Allah", which can mean "you struggle for the cause of God".
This reading sets up a worldview wherein to
be right - or more accurately, to not have something "wrong with you" -
requires one to constantly identify cities of oppression through the cries of
their inhabitants and to fight against them.
This action clears one of blame and also justifies one's actions as
dedicated for the cause of God.
Exegetes
who proffer this reading do not deny that Q. 4:75 may have been understood in a
particularist, and thereby contextually limited, manner by the Madinan
community. However, they argue that the
circumstances that obtained there were merely a conduit for the revelation of
this verse that calls for a broader call to fight against the oppression of the
wretched.[1]
A universalist reading has found favor
amongst many contemporary exegetes who argue for the transcendental import and
holistic meaning of all Qur'anic verses.
Amin Ahsan Islahi, for example, points out that this verse compels
believers to be constantly fighting against oppression, and warns against
particularizing any of the ambiguous nouns to a specific time and place, lest
believers become complacent and not fight.[2] Syed Qutb makes a similar move, saying that
even if the ambiguous nouns may have had particular references in the past,
they should be understood as tropes symbolizing the eternal struggle between
the "Abode of Islam" and the "Abode of War".[3]
With
regard to the universalized meaning that this reading imparts upon "the
wretched", the reading compels the reader to consider the standards by which
wretchedness is measured. Within the
confines of the passage, wretchedness is only known through its pragmatic
result; that is, in the cry of a people to their Lord for deliverance.
It would appear that the mere presence of a
group of people who call to their Lord for a savior and decry the oppression of
the people of the town in which they dwell would fulfill the minimum
requirements of wretchedness. However,
basic prudence requires the reader to determine whether every caller is, de
facto, wretched. Certainly the reader
would be wise to question the call of criminals or the insane, not to mention
agent provocateurs or self-serving politicians. Such practical concerns would require the reader to limit the
qualifications of "the wretched" through some devised rubric that is not
provided in the verse itself. Perhaps
the wretched are those who cannot help themselves and so must call for a
savior. Perhaps they are those who no
longer hope for the rectification of the townspeople and only want to be
delivered from them. Or perhaps they
are limited to those who begin their call with, "Our Lord", and perhaps further
limited to those who speak to their God in Arabic. The universalist reader is presented with options of
interpretation that can expand or restrict their definition of "the wretched".
The pressing question that the universalist
reader must answer is whether she is required to act only when it is her Lord
being called to, or whether she is compelled to act when any divine being is
invoked?
The
final noun to be denoted in the universalist paradigm is "this city".
In every instance, "this city" is, for the
reader reading in a universalist mode, always "that city", meaning a city other
than the one in which the reader resides.
It cannot be the city within which the reader resides, or else she would
either be from amongst "the wretched", in which case she is not being
addressed, or from the "oppressors", in which case the reader is an object,
rather than the subject, of the address.
The reader is therefore constantly being sent out of her hometown to try
to aid "the wretched". If the reader
resides in a town in which there is no oppression and no wretched, and is not
at the same time fighting against another town where oppression is occurring,
then the reader has something wrong with her.
The reader may have a hometown where she lives, but until there are no
more cries from the wretched, the reader's energy is constantly directed
outward. It is interesting to note that
in a universalist reading, this verse does not appear to address the more
likely scenario of the addressee living in a society wherein oppressors and the
wretched coexist with such righteous believers as the reader, the latter of
whom are incited to fight against the oppressors to help the wretched.
Rather, the wretched in this passage are
praying for deliverance from their city, to a city where they presume that they
will not face similar oppression. That
is the city of the addressee, which for the wretched is a seemingly utopian
society containing neither oppression nor wretchedness.
The city is the desire of the oppressed and
its existence compels its inhabitants to liberate others in less fortunate
locales. Though it has not been
historically understood as such, it may be that the verse loses its hortative
effect on the universalist reader if she lives in a society with even a hint of
either oppression or wretchedness.
The
universalist reading, though expansive and powerful in its exhortation, by no
means exhausts the hermeneutical possibilities of Q. 4:75.
It has been contended that the "you all" in
the beginning of the passage is not, in fact, a universal reference.
Rather, it may be read as particularly
addressed to the prophet Muhammad and his early community in Madinah, in
accordance with the "occasion of revelation" literature surrounding this verse.
In this more particularist mode of
reading, the contemporary reader removes herself to a degree from the address
and understands the verse as inextricably tied to the historical context of its
revelation. The reader may choose, like
the 4th century legal scholar Abū Bakr
al-Jaṣṣaṣ,[4] to view the
ethos she gleans from the verse as relevant to her personal life, or to simply
approach the verse as a particular historical instantiation that does not
transcend its time and place. In either
case, the "you all" would seem to refer directly to the fledgling community of
believers in Madinah who, having just emigrated from boycotts and persecution
in Makkah, were struggling to set up a polity of their own.
Many believers from Makkah were barred from
making the journey to Madinah due to societal pressure, whether manifested
through physical restraint or perceived threat. The "you all", then, is read to be an appeal to the people of
Madinah to help the wretched people who are still stuck in "this city", which,
according to this reading, most certainly referred to pagan Makkah.
This
reading alleviates the reader from both immediate questioning and immediate
action, but also leads one to question the ethos of the passage.
Why are the early Madinan Muslims,
themselves poor and suffering, asked to fight to aid "the wretched"? From a materialist standpoint, it would seem
that the Madinans were themselves wretched, both in terms of financial
stability and political clout. However,
in light of verses 97 and 98 of Chapter 4 of the Qur'an, it would appear
that "wretchedness" is measured neither by property nor political subjugation,
but by mobility. "Surely," reads the
verse, "as for those whom the angels cause to die while they are unjust to
their souls, [the angels] shall say: 'In what state were you?' They shall reply: 'We were wretched in the
earth.' [The angels] will say: 'Was not
Allah's earth spacious, so that you could have migrated therein?'
So these it is whose abode is hell, and it
is an evil resort" (4:97). In this
verse, the angels challenged the wretchedness of their interlocutors by citing
their potential mobility and failure to capitalize on that potentiality.
Wretchedness, in this conception, is not a
title that is achieved by simply living in an oppressive environment.
To the contrary, those who find themselves
in an oppressed state are expected to journey to a place wherein they would no
longer be wretched. Therefore, someone
who is truly wretched would be unable to make this transition.
This definition of wretchedness is further
enforced by the next verse, "Except those who are (really) wretched from among
men, women and children, who have not in their power the means nor can they
find a way (to escape)" (4:98). The
wretched, in the context of verses 97 and 98, are defined as those who cannot
escape their surroundings and are forced to live amongst oppression.
Although
a restriction of "the wretched" to individuals who cannot migrate from an
oppressive environment is not exclusive to a particularist reading,
particularism encourages such a reading given the previous identification of
"this city" with Makkah. In the
historical setting in which the verse was revealed, the Muslim community was
settled in Madinah, which presumably was not self-identified as a city of
oppression. Rather, Makkah, run by the
opposition Qurayshite pagans, was the archetypal city of oppression highlighted
by the Madinan verses of the Qur'an.
Hence, it would appear that, reading in a particularist mode, "the
wretched" would be most easily identified as Muslims living in Makkah without
the means to migrate to Madinah.
Once
"the wretched" have been understood as the unwilling Muslim residents of
Makkah, the "oppressors" mentioned in the verse can also be positively
identified beyond a vague notion of wrong-doers. Certainly, the Qur'an suggests that there was something
special about the oppression present in the city of Makkah that required the
migration of Muslims from its borders. Muslims were not similarly expected to migrate from Abyssinia or the
Yemen, places where they were also marginalized--though not
persecuted--communities. Amongst
exegetes reading in a particularist mode,[5] however,
persecution was not a significant factor in labeling Makkah as oppressive.
Rather, the majority posited that the oppression being referenced in the verse
was actually the polytheism that dominated the practice of Makkans at the
time. Citing the sage Luqman's claim
that "polytheism is the greatest oppression,"[6]
these exegetes suggest that the belief system propagated by the Makkans was, in
fact, oppressive in and of itself, and therefore whoever could escape its influence must.
In this light, the exhortation for the
Madinans to fight becomes extremely specific.
The verse as a whole is then understood in a particularist reading as
follows: "What is wrong with all you Madinan Muslims that you do not fight for
the cause of Allah and those Muslims who cannot escape Makkah, who cry out 'Our
Lord! Rescue us from this town of Makkah whose people practice polytheism'?"
The
ethos of war derived from this verse in a particularist mode is one that
justifies itself almost exclusively on theological grounds.
The cry of a people who could not escape
Makkan polytheism warranted physical confrontation to correct the problem - the
problem here not being their marginalized or persecuted state, but their
inability to migrate from a polytheistic society. The verse suggests that any Madinan who would say that fighting
for that cause was unnecessary or unwarranted would have something wrong with
them. Not only is the primary concern
theological, but the sanction for fighting is dependent almost entirely upon
divine decree. As Professor Kelsay
points out, the Prophet was forbidden from fighting before the revelation of this
verse. Instead, he was commanded to
preach only and to try to change the minds of his oppressors. At that time, there
would be something wrong with the Prophet and his community if they did fight, thus leaving the wretched to
fend for themselves. A few years after
the revelation of this verse, Muhammad signed the treaty of Hudaybiyah.
At Hudaybiyah, he enacted an agreement with
the Makkans that forced the Madinan Muslim community to return any fleeing
Makkan Muslim back to Makkah. In the
context of the verse under study, the treaty of Hudaybiyah would seem to have
aided the oppression of these refugees, or at the very least, perpetuated their
wretched state. A small time later, the
Prophet was commanded to fight the Makkans again, after the Makkans were
accused of breaching the treaty of Hudaybiyah, until oppression in its entirety
was eradicated. Certainly, historical
circumstance played a role in the changing decrees, but at each stage the
action of the community was predicated on Divine sanction.
God determined whether the wretched were to
be fought for and when oppression warranted physical confrontation.
The particularist reading defines a "just
war" as one that is sanctioned by God, and defines the actors in the war - the
just, the oppressors and the wretched - in almost exclusively theological
terms.
We
are presented, then, with two modes of reading Q 4:75.
The universalist reading places the believer
in constant question, sending her out to fight against wrongs where she sees
them. The particularist reading looks
in from without, onto a community that knows when to fight based on God's
decree and defines right and wrong theologically. While these poles of reading are heuristically helpful approaches
to the verse, it is important to highlight a third method of reading that was
employed by the vast majority of medieval exegetes, which is a sort of mixture
of both methods. Many medieval scholars
suggested that the exhortation at the beginning of the verse was universal,
placing all believers in all times in question and encouraging them to
fight. The second part of the verse,
however, they read particularly. These
exegetes posited that the wretched were the Muslims of Makkah who could not
migrate and equated oppression with polytheism.[7]
The equation of "oppression" with polytheism
and the assertion that the hortative introduction is universal incites
believers to identify theological excesses around them, to the exclusion of all
other forms of oppression. However, the
identification of "the wretched" with the Muslims of Makkah appears to limit
the possibility of physical violence to correct that oppression to
circumstances that precisely mirror those of the immobile Makkan Muslims.
Depending on the rubric the reader devises
in equating the circumstance of a contemporary people to the Makkan Muslims,
the verse might be read as applicable only in the rarest of circumstances or
wherever Muslims are unable to migrate from pagan-dominated societies.
Of
these historically articulated options of reading, the universalist reading
appears more palatable to modern conceptions of morality, whereby the reader is
constantly called to work for social justice.
At the same time, this reading allows for an interpretation of the text
that justifies an exhortation to struggle against injustice broadly
defined. The inherent vagueness of
terms in a universalist reading allows for the text to be interpreted narrowly
to justify the theological or political machinations of the reader.
In any case, while the possibilities of the
universalist reading concerning justice are appealing, the historical context
of revelation constantly lurks in the background, threatening to collapse
hermeneutic possibilities into a single particularist reading.
Of course, most exegetical discourses on
this verse are a mix of these approaches, moving from universalist to
particularist with impunity. The
holistic meaning derived from the text is predicated on the identification of
the ambiguous nouns referenced in the verse, which exegetes are warranted to
define as either universal or particular, based on their understanding of the
text. No one scheme of definition is
more intellectually honest or dishonest than another; the vagueness inherent in
the text allows for multiple, valid readings.
What,
then, can be said about the "correct" reading of the verse?
If one reading cannot be justifiably
privileged over another, how can meaning be confidently derived from the
text? The very existence of multiple,
valid readings suggests that the polar logic of "right and wrong", or even
"better or worse" may not apply to the reading of this verse.
The most that can be said about a proffered
interpretation is that it is "relatively better or worse for the particular
reader interpreting in a particular context".
Such relativity is unsatisfying when the wretched are calling out for
salvation and the reader is prescribed with liberating them through potentially
violent means. Relativity, however,
need not be a weakness of the text, but a strength that the vagueness imparts
onto the text. If any one reading
cannot be ontologically privileged over another, then no reading can claim
exclusive legitimacy. Hence, the very
existence of multiple, valid readings proscribes the reader from dogmatically
adhering to or forwarding a singular thesis concerning the verse.
In order to circumvent a situation wherein a
plurality of readers see themselves as charged with a violent mandate to free
those whom the reader views as oppressed, a complex logic must mediate the interpretation
the verse. To avoid the dogmatism that
accompanies either a universalist or particularist reading, this logic must be
one that combines the various interpretations available, a community of
interpreters, and a resistance to noumenal truth claims.
A
detailed outline of such a logic of reading is beyond the scope of this paper,
but acknowledging the need for such a reading complicates the relationship of
war and the text, and may frustrate any attempt to articulate an overarching
theory of just war that emanates from the text. But it may be that any attempt to pin down such an ethos is itself
misguided, if not impossible. Perhaps
the text subverts justifications for war that appeal to a desire to establish
functioning and just societies without paying close attention to the excess and
transgression that inevitably accompanies war.
Or, in a more positive light, it may be that the discomfort generated by
this verse is a reflection of the Qur'anic conception of war overall.
It may be that the Qur'an recognizes
that war is always ideologically, politically, economically and otherwise
motivated by material gain; and so recognizing that reality, discusses the
underlying theological aspects of that motivation. It may well be that this verse is not delineating a situation
wherein war is acceptable, but is purposely referencing war in a manner that
does not ease our conscience and calls our attention to the discomfort that
should accompany any discussion of war.
[1] Zamakhshiri, al-Kashshāf, 1:523.
[2] Islahi, Tadabbur-e-Qur'ān, vol.2, pg. 336.
[3] Qutb, Fi
Ẓ
il āl al-Qur'ān, from altafsir.com,
4:75, pg. 9.
[4]
Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥk
ā
m al-Qur'an, vol. 2, pg. 241.
[5]
See for example, Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr
al-‘Aẓīm 1:641, Shawkani, Fatḥ
al-Qadīr, 396.
[6] Qur'ān,
31:13.
[7]
See for example, Tabarī, Tafsīr
al-Tabarī 4:171, Qurtubi, al-Jāmi‘
al-Aḥkām al-Qur’ān 5:268, Razi, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr, 4:141.
Editorial Comment: Due to the limitations of HTML coding, some of the transliterations in this article may not exhibit the more precise linguistic symbols provided by the author.
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