20. The difficult texts

The question: there is in the texts what I cannot stomach: slavery, the rulings concerning women, the penalties, and fighting. So how can this be from a God who is just and merciful?

The answer in two lines: this chapter settles no particular question and is in no position to — it gives you a method of looking and tells you plainly: there is real disagreement among the specialists in these questions, and whoever claims that every difficulty in them is resolved in a line has promised you what he cannot make good, and the first place where you discover that will bring down for you everything else he has said. And all four of the matters named in your question are dealt with in this chapter, not one of them.

First: separate four things that the question runs together

A man who complains of 'the hospital' has put nothing right until he says: is your complaint of the doctor, or of the nurse, or of the insurance scheme, or of the man on the reception desk? For these are four different parties in responsibility and in remedy, and a single complaint that gathers them all reaches nobody.

And your question is put together out of four in the same way:

And whoever does not separate them is answered about something other than what he asked, and so comes away with the impression that the answer is an evasion — and he may well be right in what he supposes, because the running together happens often enough on the answerer's side.

Second: the text and how people understood it — under a strict condition

The traffic code is written in a book, and the conduct of the policeman in the street is another thing. The divergence between the two is a fact that cannot be denied, and it does not by itself establish that the code said what the policeman did.

But this separation has a condition without which it does not hold: that it be applied on both sides. For whoever says 'that is their understanding and not the text' whenever he is hard pressed, and then argues from the understanding of the early generations wherever it suits him, has used two rulers. And how people read the text for centuries is inside the question and not outside it — even though it is not the text.

Third: a narrative and a ruling — and the criterion I was asked for and did not give

In the minutes of a committee there is a line that reads: 'The committee resolved to close the street on Friday.' A man who reads it ten years later and closes the street every Friday has turned an incident into a rule. And some of what is held up for scandal out of the texts on fighting is of this kind: a report of one particular incident, with its two parties and its own time.

And I say of this comparison what was said to me about it, because it is right: it pulls towards the objector's side and not towards mine. For the minutes of a committee are a human document with a date and a circumstance of its own, and if the texts are the minutes of meetings then that is a step along the road of 'this is a book of its own age' and not along the road of 'this is speech above time'. So the comparison shows the distinction between a report and a ruling, and does not establish that the text contains a report and a ruling — and the second claim is the one I need, and the example does not give it. So I take from it what it gives and leave what it does not give.

And the limit of this move is in the same line: its reverse does not hold either. For whoever refers every ruling back to a historical incident until nothing is left in the text that says anything at all has voided the text under cover of understanding it. And absolute historicism is abolition going by the name of interpretation.

So when is a text the narrative of an incident and when is it a rule?

And it was put to me: I grant you the rule, now give me the criterion; for 'do not use two rulers' is a condition of fairness and not a standard of reading, and the two sides go on throwing the same charge at one another with nothing to settle it. And that is a fair demand, and here are marks by which one may reason — marks and not a machine to be cranked, and I say so before I set them out:

1. The form of the address. A report about determinate people, by their names and their time and their place, is not a general address hung upon a description rather than a name. And 'so-and-so did such a thing on such a day' is not 'whoever does such a thing, his ruling is such'.

2. Is the ruling hung upon a description that passes away, or upon an entity that does not? For if it is hung upon a description — such as a state of war in progress, or a treaty broken — then the description is the operative ground, and when it goes its attachment goes with it. And this is a settled principle with nothing invented in it.

3. Did those first addressed act on it after the incident had passed, or did they confine it to that incident? For what the generation that witnessed the incident did is a strong indication of which of the two they understood.

4. Does its meaning change when it is read joined to what comes before it and after it? For cutting a sentence out of its place manufactures a ruling that nobody ever laid down — and this happens on the objector's side and the defender's side alike.

And the names of these marks in the science of usul are well known — the general and the particular, the ascertaining of the operative ground, and the occasions on which a text came — and I go no further than naming them, because working them out is not the business of this book nor within the competence of the man writing it. My aim is to point you to the fact that there is a disciplined craft in this field, not to hand you a key with which to open the rulings for yourself — and whoever sold you that key cheated you.

And the truest thing I have to say about these marks: they narrow the disagreement and do not end it. There remains after them a place where two scholars differ and each of them has used a single ruler. And this is the condition of every text that is interpreted, and no peculiarity of this text, and I say it because whoever promised you a decisive settlement promised you what does not exist in the craft of interpretation at all.

Fourth: the hardest thing in the field — slavery, and I do not dodge it

And this is the clearest matter in which the weight of the question shows itself, so I do not lighten it.

And the account commonly given in the writings of the defenders — and I set it out as just that, and not as what most of those who have written hold: that slavery was a worldwide institution standing in every civilisation of the day, and that the law narrowed some of its entrances and widened its exits — by manumission, by expiations and by encouragement — and that there came in it no express abolition at a stroke.

And here is where the difficulty lies, and I say it without softening it: the man who says 'I would have expected a divine text to say: no more slavery from this day' is asking a sound question. And the answers the scholars give to it vary: some of them speak of gradualness in an institution on which the economy of the whole world rested, and some of them speak of the closing of the entrances reaching the goal without a sudden demolition. And among them are answers that convince and answers that do not, and I do not claim to you that the matter is settled with me or with them.

And what can be said without dispute is this: that the door was closed in practice throughout the world, and that those of the armed groups of our own time who tried to revive it were met with wide repudiation from the scholars across their differing schools.

Fifth: and the three that remain — and I do not pick the easiest of them

A questioner asked about four and I have answered about one, and it is the only one in which I have a comfortable answer. And that is a choice that shows, and it is worse than saying nothing about all four: whoever answers the easiest of them and says nothing about three has given the impression that he has answered the whole field. So here are the three, and I settle none of them, but say of each one only this: where the weight really lies, where the disagreement stands, and what will not serve as an answer.

1. The rulings concerning women. And most of what is complained of in this field — and the statement here is my own and I attribute it to nobody — belongs in the third box of my table: a custom that has become confused with the religion; keeping a woman from learning, keeping her from going out, marrying her off by force, cutting her out of an inheritance. Some of it has no basis whatsoever — such as the cutting out of inheritance and the barring from education — and some of it has, in the books of the schools, an opinion that can be defended even if others differ from it, and I do not sort between the two here. And this is half an answer and not an answer, because behind it lies what is actually in the text and in the understanding settled upon it for centuries: the questions of testimony, of male authority in the household (qiwāma), of inheritance and of divorce. And in each of them there is a real contemporary disagreement among those working in jurisprudence, not between a Muslim and someone else but among themselves. And I do not settle them, nor do I set out for you 'the wisdom' behind them — for grounding a ruling in a wisdom we suppose, and then arguing from it, brings the ruling down on the day the wisdom falls, and it is among the weakest things written in this field and among the most plentiful. And what I do say is this: these questions are not answered in a page, and whoever answered them for you in a page has chosen an opinion for you and called it the religion.

2. The penalties. And here is where the four boxes are run together most: for there is a difference between a text in which there is a fixed penalty, and conditions of proof that the scholars made so severe that the penalty scarcely falls at all, and the practice of a state that imposes it with no condition and no looking into anything. And whoever argues against the first in the shape of the third has argued against something that was never laid down. And this taking apart is sound and I do not offer it as a complete answer: there remains after it a question about the kind of penalty itself and not about its conditions, and it is a standing question which I do not deny and do not settle.

3. Fighting. It is the one that the third section touched with the mark of 'a narrative and a ruling', and I do not claim that that mark takes it all in. For the statement that some of the texts are a report of particular events is right in some of them, and a claim needing to be made good in others — and there is in them what is a general ruling in the matter of war and peace, over the working out of whose operative ground the scholars have differed with an old and well-known difference. And I offer you no weighting in it. What I do say with certainty is one thing, and it lies outside the place of the dispute: that what the armed groups do today was met with repudiation from the scholars across their differing schools, and I know of no considered opinion that supports it — and this is what I know, not a sweep by which I have taken in everyone who has written. And I said in the chapter on the wars how it was manufactured, and I do not repeat it.

And I say one thing about all three: I have not answered. And no answer is not an answer, but it is more honourable than a manufactured answer that falls the moment it is looked into.

Sixth: the moral intuition set against the text — the debt I contracted in the eighteenth chapter

I conceded there that there are in the field those who hold to objective moral truths, and that a settled intuition, on that reckoning, is evidence to be weighed and not a feeling to be leaned on for comfort. And I said that I would untie the knot here, so here is the untying of it as far as I am able:

1. If the intuition is evidence, then the encounter is between two pieces of evidence, and not between evidence and an emotion. And this stops me from saying to you 'that is a feeling with no argument in it' — and I will not say it.

2. And the two are weighed by their strength and not by which side they come from. So the intuition is looked into: is it an intuition general to the sons of Adam in every age, or the intuition of one particular era? The intuition that torturing a child for nothing is vile is of the first kind, and much of what we hold today with complete certainty was not held with certainty two centuries ago, and will be looked upon two centuries from now as we look upon those who came before us. And the text is looked into in the same way: is it decisive in its establishment and in what it signifies, or a place for reasoned judgement? For most of what is complained of is not decisive in what it signifies, and this is a wide field.

3. And the truest thing I have to say: after this weighing there may still remain a place where a strong intuition and a plain text run against each other. And whoever told you that this does not happen has promised you what he cannot make good. And what I have at that place is not an answer but an ordering of the question: that the intuition and the text both hang upon a prior matter — is there a God who has spoken? If there is not, then the text is the speech of men, to be weighed against the intuition, and there is no difficulty. And if there is, then the question becomes: which of the two is the firmer with me, my knowledge that this is his speech, or my intuition in this particular matter? — and this is a question that is not answered in general, it is answered in each matter on its own, and its answer differs as the strength of the two sides in it differs.

4. And I concede the price of this ordering: it refers the matter back to the question of existence once again. And this referring back recurs in this field until it has come to look like a way of escape, and I shall call myself to account for it in the ledger of debts a little further on.

Seventh: and who settles the particular question?

Not this book. And whoever wants a particular ruling settled must go to the specialists — and I put two conditions to you in choosing whom to ask:

1. That he set before you both opinions and not one, and name those who hold each of them. 2. That he give you his grounds and not only his ruling — for the man who gives you the conclusion without its evidence is asking of you a trust you have no way of checking.

And beware of two sorts: the man who answers you about everything in a minute without hesitating, and the man who tells you 'do not ask'. Both of them are selling you ease and not an answer.

Eighth: to overturn an argument is not to have an answer

And the most useful thing I have learned in this field is this distinction. And the truest example of it comes from outside our own circle: a believing philosopher wrote a whole book on the problem of evil in which he makes no claim to set out the real reason for God's permitting evil, and whose declared aim is to establish that the argument does not succeed, not to explain evil `van-inwagen-2006-evil`.

And the limit of this reference, and it is a mistake that was pointed out to me and put right in the body of the text: I had written 'and he states plainly that he does not know why God permits evil', and that is a denial of knowledge that he did not make — what he says of his story is that he believes parts of it and disbelieves none of it. What I have is that a defence does not claim to set out the real reason, not that its author declares his own ignorance. And it is a distinction of just the kind this section is about.

And the difference between the two is everything: to show that the objection does not compel is one thing, and to know the wisdom behind it is another. And whoever ran the two together promised what he did not have, and then lost his reader's trust in the very place where he did have a sound answer.

Ninth: the ledger of debts — because a promise scattered about is forgotten

And something heavy was said to me in this field which deserves to be set down in its own words: that every one of the five chapters ends with a draft drawn on a chapter that has not been read yet, so that the book becomes a book of debts with a debtor in it and no creditor; and if the chapter that pays never comes, then what the writer has done is to disarm his opponent and give him nothing — and that is an emptying of the field and not fairness.

And this is right in what it describes, and I accept it. What I am able to do is two things: to gather the debts in one place where they are read together and so can be called in, and to say of each of them who is owed it and when it falls away:

And the difference between the first three and the fourth is a difference to be stated plainly: the three are debts I acknowledge and whose creditor I name, and the fourth is a declared refusal and not a debt. And whoever runs the two together will suppose that I am promising him what I do not intend.

As for 'you disarmed me and gave me nothing' — I say: yes, and that is precisely what this field is for, and I claim nothing else for it. Its aim is to put out of the arena arguments that will not serve — on both sides, for I have put out as many of ours as I have put out of yours — so that the arena may be left to the question that deserves it. And whoever sees in that an emptying of the field has a case; and whoever sees it a clearing of the ground before the bout has a case too. And I do not bind you to either.

And the limit of this chapter, and it is the limit of the whole field: I have not removed the difficulty from you, and I never claimed to. My aim is to prevent two errors: that the whole religion be thrown out over a question that has not been examined yet, and that you be told there is no question at all. And you are free to leave here still holding your difficulty — and that is a more honourable position than an ease you bought with an answer you never examined.

And a condition I lay upon myself at the end of the field: I said in the eighteenth chapter that whoever lies about his opponent has lost with him every page that comes after. And this is a condition on me before it is a condition on anyone else, and I was held to it in this field in three places — 'Galileo was never imprisoned', and 'Roger White framed it', and the attributing of a plain statement to the philosopher of the problem of evil that 'he does not know why God permits evil' when he never said it — and all of them were put right in the body of the text and not in a footnote that gets folded away, and the pointer to the error was left standing where it was. And whoever finds a fourth is free to throw the book out, and I have no complaint against him.