Part 1: If "there are no wrong interpretations," then why do we even need Hazar Imam to interpret our faith for us? | Ignition Question #5a

nonickname ⋅ August 27, 2019

We often hear "there are no wrong interpretations" of our faith. But is this idea at odds with what Mawlana Hazar Imam and Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah have told us about our personal interpretations? Or has the emotional, spiritual, experiential side of faith (where mistakes can't happen) been confused with its intellectual side (where mistakes can happen)? And has the "right to interpret" been confused with "being right?" In Part 1, of this two-part Ignition Question, we look at these questions and suggest we should not focus our personal efforts on trying to be "right" about our interpretations -- but simply "less wrong."

About Ignition Questions

Ignition Questions offer forward looking questions, related to our community, for the Jamat to reflect over, first individually and then with a few friends, over coffee, in an effort to find innovative answers which we hope they will share with the community.

Some Ignition Questions may highlight what we feel might be unrecognized challenges or issues and offer our opinions, ideas or alternative perspectives (in a sense, just thought experiments), however, we do not insist on either our opinions over the challenges or our alternative perspectives. Although we merely float them all for everyone's consideration, some may find our opinions helpful. Nevertheless, we hope the new and alternative perspectives will spark others to build upon them.

Ignition Questions are inspired by Mawlana Hazar Imam's 1986 guidance:

In dealing with the issues that lie ahead of us, we will look at them straight in the face, we will ask the hard questions. If we cannot find immediate answers, we will go on asking the same questions until In'sh'allah, we are inspired to find the answers, but we will not give up. We will not go back to an obscurantism, to a form of intellectual retreat into something which is neither beneficial for the present and certainly not constructive for the future.... And we must have the courage to ask the questions and to seek the answers.

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Background Context

For some Ignition Questions, the background context we set out, to help properly frame the issue, are detailed and long while others, are brief and short.

In a 1975 interview, Mawlana Hazar Imam said Ismailis believe "the only true interpretation" of our faith is "what the Imam says":

Roger Priouret: What is your role as head of the community?

Aga Khan: It is two-fold. The Imam must direct Ismailis on the practice of their religion and constantly interpret the Qur'an for them according to our theology. On the spiritual plane, the Imam's authority is absolute. Ismailis believe therefore that what the Imam says is the only true interpretation possible. This is fundamental to our religion ...

Yet, on the other hand, in 2003, at the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), he said the Qur'an permits each of us to hold our own, personal interpretations:

This freedom of interpretation is a generosity which the Qur'an confers upon all believers, uniting them in the conviction that All-Merciful Allah will forgive them if they err in their sincere attempts to understand His word.

So how do we reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements, from the Imam:

that only the Imam's interpretation is correct,
but, also, we are entitled to our own, personal interpretations?

The answer, we believe, lies in second half of his remarks at IIS: "the conviction that All-Merciful Allah will forgive [Muslims] if they err in their sincere attempts to understand His word."

In other words, just because our faith permits us to hold our own, personal interpretations, that does not automatically mean they are correct or valid. In fact, despite our sincerity, our personal interpretations can be, and may very well be, incorrect. And, for these mistaken interpretations, Hazar Imam says we hope that Allah will forgive us.

In other words, just because our faith permits us to hold our own, personal interpretations, that does not automatically mean they are correct or valid. In fact, despite our sincerity, our personal interpretations can be, and may very well be, incorrect. And, for these mistaken interpretations, Hazar Imam says we hope that Allah will forgive us.

This point is so fundamental, even Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah said the same thing in his 1954 autobiography. That although we may each hold our own, personal interpretations, they are not necessarily valid or correct and, therefore, Muslims pray Allah forgives us for "mistaken interpretations":

[T]hat the Qur'an is constantly open to allegorical interpretation ... leads also to a greater charity among Muslims, for since there can be no cut-and-dried interpretation, all schools of thought can unite in the prayer that the Almighty in His infinite mercy may forgive any mistaken interpretation of the Faith whose cause is ignorance or misunderstanding.

If Hazar Imam says Ismailis believe the only true interpretation of our faith is his, can our individual interpretations (no matter how contradictory) also all be correct, and none wrong? And, if they are all correct, why then do both Imams say Muslims hope Allah will forgive us for mistaken interpretations? Would mistaken interpretations arise from the experiential side of faith, the side where Allah blesses us to with His grace, or from the intellectual side, where our fallible, limited, human minds try and make sense of the limited knowledge we have about faith, striving for intellectual satisfaction as opposed to emotional satisfaction?

Would mistaken interpretations arise from the experiential side of faith, the side where Allah blesses us to with His grace, or from the intellectual side, where our fallible, limited, human minds try and make sense of the limited knowledge we have about faith, striving for intellectual satisfaction as opposed to emotional satisfaction?

In other words, is the idea that "there are no wrong interpretations" a confusion of the emotional, personal, spiritual, experiential side of our faith (where mistakes can't happen) with its intellectual side (where mistakes can happen)?

Indeed, one could even ask "if there are no wrong interpretations, then why do we even need the Imam to interpret the faith for us?"

In 2003, in Madagascar, Hazar Imam, said pluralism of interpretation does not mean all interpretations are automatically correct:

we will accept pluralism of interpretation ... but this does not mean that we will try to give-up ourselves into, or accept, a compromise which neither has any theological value ...

Again, if "there are no wrong interpretations," how can Hazar Imam say some have no theological value?

From another perspective, the idea that "there are no wrong interpretations" suggests faith is some sort of democracy, where a consensus of some majority of people or theologians declare one interpretation as the "correct" or authoritative interpretation. However, in a 1985 interview, Hazar Imam, like previous Imams, flatly rejected this idea:

ITV: Are you a democrat?

Aga Khan: Insofar as a [sic] institution can be democratic, yes. There are areas where in the interpretation of faith, democracy cannot, cannot play.

In other words, whether in science or faith, truth is not democratic, determined by consensus or a majority.

The simple fact is that we cannot avoid having different interpretations and differences among ourselves. It is inevitable and expected. Our individual and unique insights, knowledge and life experiences colour all our interpretations and understandings -- of everything, even Hazar Imam's guidance.

The simple fact is that we cannot avoid having different interpretations and differences among ourselves. It is inevitable and expected. Our individual and unique insights, knowledge and life experiences colour all our interpretations and understandings -- of everything, even Hazar Imam's guidance. We all start from different places. And so rather than thinking there are a dozen or two schools of interpretation of Islam, one could say there are 1.7 billion interpretations. And, similarly, there are, ostensibly, 15 million interpretations of the Ismaili faith. But, as the Imams explained above, that does not mean they are all automatically correct, and none mistaken.

On the contrary, as is obvious and Hazar Imam reminds us, time and time again, only Allah is perfect. As limited, fallible human beings, without an all-encompassing, perfect knowledge about every aspect of the faith, we are in a constant state of error and none of our interpretations is ever absolutely correct or final. They will always have some error or shortcoming. As Hazar Imam has said:

A central element in a truly religious outlook, it seems to me, is the quality of personal humility -- a recognition that strive as we might, we will still fall short of our ideals, that climb as we might, there will still be unexplored and mysterious peaks above us. It means recognising our own creaturehood, and thus our human limitations. (2006, Portugal)

[T]he world's great religions warn against righteousness -- yet too many are still tempted to play God ... rather than recognising their humility before the Divine. (2007, France)

And so, just because Islam permits you to have your own, personal interpretation of the faith, don't assume it is correct. It could be wrong, and most likely is, in some way, simply because we're human.

In other words, we should never confuse the emotional, personal, spiritual, experiential side of our faith (where mistakes can't happen) with its intellectual side (where mistakes can happen). And then, on the intellectual side, we should never confuse our right to interpret with having the right interpretation.

In other words, we should never confuse the emotional, personal, spiritual, experiential side of our faith (where mistakes can't happen) with its intellectual side (where mistakes can happen).

And then, on the intellectual side, we should never confuse our right to interpret with having the right interpretation.

So what's the solution? How do we get the right interpretation if our own, personal interpretations are always wrong to some degree?

A long time ago, as Chairman of Wesco, Charlie Munger (the billionaire business partner of Warren Buffett) wrote in a letter to Wesco shareholders that:

Wesco continues to try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric. ... It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying, `It's the strong swimmers who drown.'

Similarly, instead of obsessing with trying to always be correct, always be right, about our interpretations, perhaps we should simply try to make them less wrong, but then we must admit they are imperfect, mistaken, in some way. Modern society has little tolerance for mistakes and, in the process, has also made us uncomfortable with uncertainty and imperfection. However, as imperfect, fallible humans, perfection or absolute certainty is impossible. It's a fantasy. Imperfection and the uncertainty, that flows from it, is a fact of life.

Perhaps our task (or "personal search" if you prefer), shouldn't be focused on the impossible goal of being "right" or certain, but focused, instead, on reducing our errors and mistakes. Indeed, Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah said exactly this, in his seminal 1899 Usul-e Din (The Essence of Religion) farman.

And so in faith (as in life), perhaps our task (or "personal search" if you prefer), shouldn't be focused on the impossible goal of being "right" or certain, but focused, instead, on reducing our errors and mistakes. Indeed, Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah said exactly this, in his seminal 1899 Usul-e Din (The Essence of Religion) farman:

The essence of religion is to abandon false conceptions. (1899, Dar es Salam)

Notice he did not say the essence of religion is being right or perfect. He assumes we are, and always will be, imperfect, because only Allah is perfect. Instead, what he said was the essence of religion is to try and be less imperfect, less wrong. Each "false conception" abandoned is one less imperfection. Obviously we can't abandon all false conceptions and become perfect, like Allah. Now it goes without saying, thinking we are the "least wrong" -- that is, the most perfect among the imperfect -- would be audacious and lack intellectual humility.

In that same farman, Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah also said:

Your religion teaches you to think deeply and apply your reason. (1899, Dar es Salam)

But why should we think deeply and use our reason? To understand our faith better or more deeply? However, whenever we think and use our reason, we draw conclusions and some may still be incorrect, just as scientists regularly misunderstand or misinterpret their data. After all, we're still fallible humans, not perfect like Allah. But reflecting, thinking deeply and using our reason does give us the opportunity to perhaps see and correct some of our mistakes and be a little less wrong.

Since everyone is mistaken to some degree, this also means no one, except the Imam, may claim their interpretation of the faith is correct and, thereby, indirectly judge someone else's wrong. However, just because we should not judge anyone else's interpretation as wrong, it does not mean that that interpretation is correct. It can still be wrong. Obviously something does not just automatically become correct just because you haven't passed judgment on it. It is what it is, regardless of judgement.

Just because we should not judge anyone else's interpretation as wrong, it does not mean that that interpretation is correct.... However, on the other hand, whenever you disagree with someone's interpretation on faith, haven't you, in your mind, if you're honest with yourself, really decided that, to you, their interpretation is incorrect in some fashion? In reality, haven't you passed judgment about their interpretation even if you don't express your disagreement?

However, on the other hand, whenever you disagree with someone's interpretation on faith, haven't you, in your mind, if you're honest with yourself, really decided that, to you, their interpretation is incorrect in some fashion? In reality, haven't you passed judgment about their interpretation even if you don't express your disagreement? In other words, if, as human beings, when we disagree with something, we can't help feeling something with is wrong with it, in some way, (whether or not we say it out loud or not), does it make even sense to suggest "there are no wrong interpretations" since we can't avoid thinking it anyway?

So rather than suggesting that "there are no wrong interpretations," in a superficial attempt to just avoid judgements our minds can't avoid making, should we, instead, just explain our personal interpretations and worldviews while listening and learning from others', judging and correcting our own interpretations and worldviews so, over time, they become less wrong? As Hazar Imam said, in 2006, in Pakistan:

New knowledge is a constantly unfolding gift of God -- but it is rarely something that is achieved in isolation.

In other words, perhaps we should humbly accept that, as imperfect, fallible humans, we are actually in a permanent state of imperfection, and then perpetually try, as one aspect of our personal search, to just be a little less imperfect: a little less wrong. And that means, sometimes, we have to change our minds, our positions, on important issues -- whether about our interpretations of faith, our worldview, or any other knowledge -- no matter how deeply we cherish our beliefs or positions.

Continued in Part 2 of this Ignition Question which asks:

Have you ever changed your own interpretation of Hazar Imam's guidance after hearing someone else's point of view? (Click here)

In Part 2 we introduce a new perspective on open-mindness and see what "abandoning false conceptions" about faith actually looks like in practice.

Ignition Question(s)

Is the very idea that there are "no wrong interpretations" of faith, as is often suggested and believed, at odds with what the Imams have told us about our personal interpretations of the faith?

Specifically, they have told us:
- we will "accept pluralism of interpretation" but not accept what has "[no] theological value,"
- individually we have the right to personal interpretation, but every personal interpretation is not automatically correct and so we pray "that the Almighty in His infinite mercy may forgive any mistaken interpretation,"
- our task, as imperfect humans, and "the essence of religion is to abandon false conceptions" about our faith.
Is the idea that there are "no wrong interpretations" of faith a confusion of the emotional, spiritual, experiential side of faith (where mistakes can't happen) with its intellectual side (where mistakes can happen)?