“Could the differences (of opinions in Islam) be a consequence of contradictions within the source texts of Islam? Since contradictions can lead to ambiguities which in turn can lead to differences.”
We ended our previous article with the above question.
(1.a) If a book contains a real contradiction then it would surely lead to ambiguities that would cause differing interpretations. Sample this:
A book says in its first chapter that God created life from water.
The same book says in its tenth chapter that God created life from clay only.
(b.) The two statements are really contradictory. And being separated by a span of 9 chapters may cause a reader ‘A’ to forget one of the two statements, say the first one, and conclude that God created life from clay only.
(c.) While a second reader ‘B’ might forget the second statement and conclude that God created life from water only.
(d.) A third reader ‘C’ who remembers both the statements might spot the contradiction and shut the book for good.
(e.) Whereas a fourth reader ‘D’ might try to conciliate the two contradictory statements by resorting to mental gymnastics like:
Here the word ‘only’ stands for ‘the only primary constituent’, hence by the statement ‘clay only’, God means that clay is the only primary constituent while there could be many secondary constituents like water and certain gases, hence God mentions water too in the first chapter.
(f.) Another interpreter ‘E’ could make a different rationalization: The purely physical structure of man is based on clay only, but the other aspects of man like his consciousness and emotions have a basis in other materials too.
(g.) Hence ‘E’ would have a slightly different opinion from ‘D’.
(2.) Thus the contradiction would lead to four different opinions:
Opinion of ‘A’: God created life from clay only.
Opinion of ‘B’: God created life from water only.
Opinion of ‘D’: God created life with clay as the primary constituent and other materials like water as secondary constituents.
Opinion of ‘E’: God created life with clay as the basis of man’s physical structure, and other materials like water as the basis of man’s other faculties like consciousness, emotions, etc.
(3.) Although the opinions of ‘A’ and ‘B’ can be dismissed easily as they are based on forgetfulness, a human error. But the opinions of ‘D’ and ‘E’ are genuine as they are based on a serious attempt to explain away a real contradiction in the text.
(4.) So I’ve driven home the point that contradictions can cause differences. So is it conceivable that the differences in Islam too are due to contradictions in its texts? This question had bugged me for quite some time, ultimately becoming one of the reasons that caused my exit from Islam.
(5.a.) I finally deduced that sometimes it’s not real contradictions that cause differences but merely apparent contradictions, for example:
A book says in its first chapter that God created life from water.
The same book says in its tenth chapter that God created life from clay.
(b.) The sense of contradiction here is not real as the two things are not mutually exclusive. That is, both clay and water could be the components that played a role in the origin of man, and this is possible in this case since there is no usage of any word like ‘only’ as was present in the previous example. This is a case of what is called a ‘contradistinction’, not a contradiction!
(c.) And in the texts of Islam, in all the cases I’ve analyzed, there’s no real contradiction in the text, only contradistinctions at play. Else it’s either human errors, or interpretational nuances involved due to hair splitting over secondary matters (as discussed under points 5a to 5q in my previous article).
It goes without saying that I would write about several such cases individually in separate articles.
Stay tuned!