Interfaith Dialogue in Islam

In the British period, men again began to divorce their wives in one sitting. Now Muslim jurists belonging to the Hanafi school of law revived Umar’s order and made instant triple talaq valid. The Hanafi jurists cited Umar’s precedent, but this reference was unwarranted, because Umar had done so by way of an executive order while, in the later period, Hanafi jurists did so by issuing a fatwa. Moreover, Umar would also flog men as deterrent punishment, while Hanafi jurists were not in a position to flog anyone. In such a scenario, my advice to Hanafi Muslims is to take the Supreme Court’s verdict as a reminder and review their practice. They should consider uttering talaq thrice in one go as a case of a decision having been taken in anger and consider it only one as talaq – as had been done during the time of the Prophet. Why is there difference among scholars when it comes to the commentary (tafsir) or interpretation of the Quran? Tafsir involves application of the Quran. When you do commentary of a verse in an applied way, there will naturally be differences in interpretation. For example, the Quran says, ‘Do not worship idols’. (31:13) About this, one commentator would say it means one should not worship stone idols, while another would say it also means that one should not give excessive importance to human beings, as that would mean making them one’s idols (object of veneration) instead of God. So, wherever there is an issue of application of the verses of the Quran, there will be differences. Consider another example. The Quran says at one place: Fight in God’s cause against those who wage war against you. (Quran 2:190) A certain commentator would say this verse means that fighting is an eternal teaching of the Quran. However, another would say this is a temporary injunction and the verse relates to a period when there were no world bodies such as the United Nations, no pacts between countries and no universal norms governing relations between nations. But now since we have all of these, there is no need for going to war. The only option before people and nations today is that of peaceful negotiation. So, two different commentators would give different interpretations of this verse. Even in the Gita there are differences in commentary. For example, Mahatma Gandhi has said that war mentioned in the Gita is meant in the spiritual sense, that is one should engage in ‘spiritual war’, while there are some other scholars who say that war in the Gita is real physical war on the battlefield. So, there will always be such differences. This is the case even when it comes to the interpretation of the Constitution of India.