Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

4. Islamic Hermeneutics

Now we can turn to the question of whether we should expect an Islamic hermeneutics to be governed by any distinctive principles of its own. We might begin with the idea of a religious or "sacred" hermeneutics, and then try to narrow this down further to an Islamic and then aShi'ite hermeneutics. Most writing on religious hermeneutics is about how to interpret religious texts or other phenomena. Thus, we have, for example, the work on hermeneutics and theology of RudolfBultmann , which attempts to "demythologize" our interpretation of religious texts and events.

The demythologizing program proposed byBultmann is designed to show how a plausible reading of scripture can be given that strips away from it what a modern sensibility would find incredible.1 A diametrically opposed view of how to interpret scripture is proposed by AlvinPlantinga , who favors an interpretation based on principles of faith, and argues that this need not involve one in any fallacious question begging.2

In addition to advice about how to read scripture, however, bothBultmann andPlantinga also offer suggestions about the proper manner in which to interpret things, such as history and other cultures, in accordance with religious beliefs, which we might call "religious hermeneutics."

Bultmann follows Heidegger and suggests an existentialist hermeneutics in which one's own existence is risked through the activity of interpretation. By risking one's existence, whatBultmann seems to have in mind is to allow oneself to be affected by what one interprets in unforeseeable ways. Hermeneutics is seen as a way of questioning the object of inquiry, whether a text, a work of art, or historical events. To operate with a religious hermeneutics is to allow oneself to be guided by religious ideas when one poses questions,

….as when one asks, for example, about "salvation," or about the "meaning" of one's personal life or of history, or about the norms of moral action and of order in human community, and the like.. The point, then, is not to eliminate thepreunderstanding but to risk it, to raise it to the level of consciousness, and to test it critically in understanding the text. In short, in questioning the text one must allow oneself to be questioned by the text and to give heed to its claim.3

Of course,Bultmann speaks here of interpreting texts, but the point applies generally to interpretation, and the quoted passage is immediately followed by a discussion of historical understanding.Bultmann argues that any understanding of texts or historical phenomena will rely on our presuppositions, but this is no threat to objectivity, since the result of the inquiry is not presupposed but left open.Bultmann describes his conception of a religious hermeneutics as follows:

.understanding reports of events as the act of God presupposes apreunderstanding of what in general can be called God's act-as distinct, say, from the acts of human beings or from natural events.. Unless our existence were moved (consciously or unconsciously) by the question about God., we would not be able to recognize God as God in any revelation. There is an existential knowledge of God present and alive in human existence in the question about "happiness" or "salvation" or about the meaning of the world and of history, insofar as this is the question about the authenticity of our own existence.4

ForBultmann , and, following him, for vanFraassen , the development of a religious hermeneutics is not a matter of how the world is to be described in theories or beliefs, but in the attitude with which we approach the world and how we relate to our experiences.5

Plantinga , on the other hand, questions the view of science developed in the works ofBultmann and vanFraassen , and in so doing, he offers an alternative religious hermeneutics (although he does not call it that). According toPlantinga , objectifying inquiry, as described byBultmann and vanFraassen , operates within the confines of methodological naturalism. Methodological naturalism is not ontological or philosophical naturalism.

The latter holds that nature, the object of inquiry in the natural sciences, is all there is. Methodological naturalism, on the other hand, is neutral about the question of supernatural existence, but maintains that in the practice of science, one should proceed as though there were no supernatural entities. This means that a scientific account of some phenomenon cannot appeal to such things as the will of God, divine attributes, or angels. There are a variety of ways that methodological naturalism can be elaborated. Some, for example, hold that it requires the banishment of final causes or teleology from scientific discourse.6

However characterized,Plantinga proposes the development of a Christian way of interpretation and of doing science that rejects the requirement of methodological naturalism, at least for some parts of science; and his suggestions indicate that the rejection of methodological naturalism would be most appropriate where hermeneutics is most needed, that is, where questions of interpretation are at issue.

What the Christian community really needs is a science that takes into account what we know as Christians. Indeed, this seems the rational thing in any event; surely the rational thing is to use all that you know in trying to understand a given phenomenon. But then in coming to a scientific understanding of hostility, oraggressioin , for example, should not Christian psychologists make use of the notion of sin? In trying to achieve scientific understanding of love in its many and protean manifestations, for example, or play, or music, or humor, or our sense of adventure, should not we also use what we know about human beings being created in the image of God, who is himself the very source of love, beauty and the like? And the same for morality?7

These "religious" ideas might take place in our science by way of explicitly entering various hypotheses. They might also play other roles: for example they might be part of the background information with respect to which we evaluate the various scientific hypotheses and myths that come our way.8

Plantinga considers various arguments in favor of methodological naturalism, and concludes that although some areas of science may best be conducted in accord with methodological naturalism, there are a number of areas in which methodological naturalism should be rejected.

These statements are consistent with some of the claims reviewed earlier about theIslamization of the sciences, and suggest steps for the development of a religious hermeneutics. Religious hermeneutics may make various religious assumptions explicit, on the basis of which it will offer its interpretations. Secondly, religious hermeneutics may make use of religious background information in order to evaluate hypotheses and theories.Plantinga's work also suggests that there may be cases in which the description of the object of inquiry may be best understood in religious terms.

A third approach to religious hermeneutics is that proposed in the writings ofSeyyed Hossein Nasr. The position taken by Nasr is more extreme than that ofPlantinga .Plantinga does not reject secular hermeneutics tout court as Nasr does. He merely reserves the right of the religious researcher to bring religious beliefs and attitudes to bear on the interpretation of texts and other phenomena. Nasr, on the other hand, sees modern science as infected by atheistic presuppositions.

Modern science is to be replaced by a sacred science that is integrated with a Traditionalist view of metaphysics and epistemology, so that it will offer a unified view of humanity, the world, and divinity, integrated with such metaphysical principles as the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, ontological hierarchy (what Arthur Lovejoy called "The Great Chain of Being"9 ), teleological principles, and much else that would be thoroughly rejected as unscientific by those who consider science bound to methodological naturalism.

This is not the place to adjudicate the conflicts between the views ofBultmann , vanFraassen ,Plantinga , and Nasr. By considering how they treat issues pertaining to interpretation, however, we may suggest three grades of religious hermeneutics.

I. Religious hermeneutics that is exclusively at this level does not allow one to make pronouncements about objective facts, the description and explanation of which are to be left to objectifying inquiry. Religious hermeneutics is concerned with the subjective dimension of the phenomena, of how they are taken to be related to one's own life and existence.

II. Religious hermeneutics operates on several levels in which there may be occasion to suspend the methodological naturalism that normally governs objectifying inquiry:

a) the description of phenomena may be irreducibly religious;

b) religious background information and other principles may be used to evaluate competing hypotheses or theories;

c) irreducibly religious language may be used in the construction of the theories used to explain phenomena, and irreducibly religious concepts and presuppositions may be used to provide an understanding of texts and phenomena.

Specific religious principles, concepts, and other elements may be used as an organizing basis for the development of a "sacred science", which will become a part of a coherent and integrated religious worldview.

In the above sketch of three grades of religious involvement in hermeneutics, there is no intention of suggesting that the first grade is a watered down version of religious hermeneutics to be superseded by the subsequent ones. The grades are distinguished by the extent to which they (potentially) oppose the findings of objectifying inquiry or the dominant modern science. The question of which grade of religious involvement is appropriate may well differ from one area of interpretive activity to another. It may also turn out that the sort of religious involvement that will have the furthest reaching impact on the direction the sciences will take will be that proposed byBultmann ; but this issue cannot be pursued any further here.

Specifically denominational hermeneutics will be species of the generic religious hermeneutics sketched above, although the most revealing classifications of such hermeneutics may not be along denominational lines. For example, a hermeneutics based on a Christian view that presupposes Biblical literalism may be more akin to aSalafi hermeneutics, than to other varieties of Christian hermeneutics.

Further refinements of Islamic hermeneutics can be found through the examination of the works of a number of scholars who have sought to understand Islamic intellectual traditions and authors, and to apply them to contemporary debates about science, ethics, politics, society, and other areas. Here I will only very briefly mention two examples, each of which has its own particular importance: Leo Strauss and WilliamChittick , both of whom make points that must be taken into consideration in order to avoid misunderstandings.

In a number of books and articles, WilliamChittick has advocated the recovery and development of an Islamic understanding of God, world, and man.10 Chittick draws heavily on Traditionalist literature, but is not content with nostalgia and condemnation of the moderns. By way of example, he provides a list of principles gleaned from the Islamic intellectual tradition upon which interpretation and understanding can be based. While prevented by limitations of length from considering these points in detail, several of the claimsChittick makes deserve emphasis.

First, an Islamic hermeneutics will only develop through the recovery of Islamic intellectual sciences. The exclusive focus of Muslims on the transmitted sciences and on a politics of Islamic identity has inhibited the ability of Muslims to think for themselves and apply their intellects to finding thehaqq of things in the world and in themselves.11

Second, an Islamic hermeneutics must be based on the awareness that the sort of understanding provided by its interpretations is no mere accumulation of facts whose aim is control over objects; rather, its aim is wisdom, and wisdom goes beyond what is considered knowledge in the prevalentscientistic worldview. The rejection of scientism and the recognition that one's understanding cannot be simply taken over from some textual source by imitation are also characteristic of the hermeneutic tradition.

It is important to distinguish scientism from modern science. We might have criticisms of how modern science is conducted, of the institutions that support and direct scientific research, or of the way that research is evaluated, but the accusation that modern science claims that no knowledge is legitimate except that which meets the standards of modern science misses the mark.

Modern science makes no claims about the legitimacy of metaphysical principles or of beliefs based on knowledge by presence or on thesensus divinitatis . Such claims about the legitimacy of various sorts of philosophical propositions require argumentation that goes beyond the theories and research findings of the sciences themselves. To his credit, Dr. Nasr has been careful to make this distinction:

You know that I have always criticized Western scientism, but I have never said that we have the choice of not mastering the modern sciences. I have said that we have to absorb Western science within our own worldview and try to criticize it and also integrate and digest it within our own culture and intellectual tradition.12

Leo Strauss developed a hermeneutics that he sought to apply to the texts of Plato,Farabi , Spinoza, and a number of other philosophers. In his hermeneutics, Strauss attempted to defend a classical philosophical understanding of society and politics against what he took to be the misunderstandings of various modern thinkers. Strauss andGadamer were on friendly terms, although they disagreed on a number of points, as well.13

One of the points emphasized by Strauss and conceded byGadamer was the importance of recognizing how a text may contain a hidden message. Strauss took the presence of contradictions in a text to indicate that the author had a hidden message that conflicts with the outward one the reader would be expected to obtain from a superficial reading of the text.Gadamer objects that the presence of contradictions may indicate other things, such as, that the subject discussed cannot be expressed within the confines of logic. Be this as it may, it is certainly to the credit of Strauss to point out the importance of layers of meaning that may confront the reader of texts in the Islamic tradition, since this implies that an Islamic hermeneutics must be ready to offer multiple interpretations of the objects of its study, whether texts or social phenomena.

Notes

1. SeeBultman (1985), passim. It is important to recognize thatBultmann's program of demythologizing is not to be confused with a secularization of textual interpretation. See vanFraassen (2002), 187-189.

2. SeePlantinga (1998).

3.Bultmann (1985), 84.

4.Bultmann (1985), 87.

5. vanFraassen (2002), 194.

6. For more detailed development of the varieties of methodological naturalism, seePlantinga (2009), andPlantinga (1996).

7.Plantinga (1996), 192.

8.Plantinga (1996), 193.

9. See Lovejoy (1936). This survey makes it clear that the sorts of principles that Nasr would use as a basis for sacred science are themselves subject to diverse interpretations.

10. For example,Chittick (1998) andChittick (2007).

11.Chittick (2007), 46.

12. Nasr (2010), 115-116. The writer of the introduction to this volume, Terry Moore, is not sosubtile , as he writes of "the totalitarian claims of modern science." Nasr (2010), xiii, see also xxvi.

13. See the appendix to the second addition ofWahrheit undMethode ,Gadamer (1993), 414- 424;Gadamer (2004), 529-537; alsoGadamer (1984), and Strauss andGadamer (1978).

5. Applied Islamic Hermeneutics

ForBultmann and vanFraassen , there is no ultimate contradiction between science and religion because science is objectifying inquiry while religion speaks to the attitude one takes toward one's existence in all its subjectivity. On this view, it would be a mistake to try to apply a religious hermeneutics to the social sciences, for the social sciences, as sciences, are a part of objectifying inquiry while religious hermeneutics requires us to take a stance toward social phenomena that falls outside the realm of science. In dealing with historical phenomena, however,Bultmann insists that we cannot limit ourselves to objectifying inquiry. Hence, there will be a specifically religious understanding of social phenomena, but no specifically religious social sciences, although there is a specifically religious hermeneutics of social phenomena.

ForPlantinga , on the other hand,

It would be excessively naïve to think that contemporary science is religiously and theologically neutral.. Perhaps parts of science are like that: the size and shape of the earth and its distance from the sun, the periodic table of elements, the proof of the Pythagorean Theorem- these are all in a sensible sense religiously neutral. But many other areas of science are very different; they are obviously and deeply involved in this clash between opposed worldviews. There is no neat recipe for telling which parts of science are neutral with respect to this contest and which are not, and of course what we have here is a continuum rather than a simple distinction. But here is a rough rule of thumb: the relevance of a bit of science to this contest depends upon how closely that bit is involved in the attempt to come to understand ourselves as human beings.1

For Nasr, there will certainly be a sacred form of hermeneutics that is informed by the principles of perennial philosophy. Everything is to be understood in terms of a grand perennial system of principles. Our understanding of all phenomena and texts is to be governed by and integrated into the Traditionalist worldview.

ForBultmann ,Plantinga , and Nasr, the application of a religious hermeneutics will require considerable work. It is not a matter of simply taking note of religious assumptions and cosmic principles and carrying on from there.

The work that these thinkers require for a religious hermeneutics may be compared with what PaulRicoeur called "the hermeneutics of suspicion".Ricoeur used this term for the ways in which Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche understood (or misunderstood) religion.2 While hermeneutics in the tradition from Schleiermacher throughGadamer has sought to understand the other in a sympathetic way, trying to understand, to theextant possible, how the other looks at issues, gives reasons, and offers justifications, Freud, Marx and Nietzsche sought to find reasons for religious views and behavior of which those who display them are unaware. If we ask the religious person why he or she believes in God, answers may be given in terms of religious experience, intuitions, or proofs for the existence of God. To the contrary, Freud, Marx and Nietzsche argue that what lies behind religious belief is a projection of the idea of the father, or propaganda to keep the working classes from revolting, or a tendency for the weak and sheepish to deny to themselves the power of their own wills. This sort of attempt to rely on a psychological, sociological or economic analysis to ferret out underlying causes of thought and behavior of which agents are not consciously aware is also called genealogy.3

Thomas Nagel has suggested that the genealogical method might be applied not only to find the underlying reasons for religious phenomena, but also to discover the underlying factors behind atheism.4 This would provide for a hermeneutics of suspicion in reverse, as it were. Indeed, the suspicion that the effects of sin are behind what on the surface seem to be reasons for heretical beliefs may be found in various religious traditions. In Calvinism, reason itself becomes an object of suspicion.5

Ricoeur proposes a hermeneutics of recollection to enable the researcher who has passed through the gauntlet of the hermeneutics of suspicion to emerge with a more profound understanding of the original intent of the religious texts to be examined. This approach has been criticized as being apologetic. D. Z. Phillips has proposed a hermeneutics of contemplation in order to avoid interpretive programs with fixed ends-either the undermining or defense of religion.6

The hermeneutics of contemplation shares some affinity with the ideal of the philosophical life championed by Leo Strauss, a life of free intellectual inquiry into the truth of things. Phillips, like Strauss, is also more concerned with the task of understanding religious texts, texts that offer theological or philosophical discussions of religious beliefs, and other religious phenomena, rather than with the task of understanding from a religious point of view.

The religious point of view is explored inWestphal's study of the hermeneutics of suspicion.7 Westphal's aim is to show how religious thinkers might benefit from the insights of atheists without accepting the atheism on which their thought is based. He uses religious language to reinterpret Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche, not as they intended to be understood, but as exposing how religion can be falsified when used to satisfy projections of our own needs, or to placate those who are exploited, or to allow the weak willed to feel self-righteous.

In calling Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche the great secular theologians of original sin I have suggested that the hermeneutics of suspicion belongs to our understanding of human sinfulness. The self- deceptions they seek to expose, like those exposed by Jesus and the prophets, are sins and signs of our fallenness.8

Westphal's work suggests how a hermeneutic of suspicion may be transformed into a religious hermeneutics. The hermeneutics of suspicion operates by observing that the reasons that inform the self-understanding of religious agents may be rationalizations that serve to hide baser motives.Westphal transforms this into a religious hermeneutics through the observation that the reasons that appear to support religious behavior may hide a perversion of religion. The recognition of this phenomenon is also suggested in the followingsurah of the Qur'an (n. 107):

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

أَرَأَيْتَ الَّذِي يُكَذِّبُ بِالدِّينِ {1}

1. Did you seen him who denies the Retribution?

فَذَٰلِكَ الَّذِي يَدُعُّ الْيَتِيمَ {2}

2. that is the one who drives away the orphan,

وَلَا يَحُضُّ عَلَىٰ طَعَامِ الْمِسْكِينِ {3}

3. and does not urge the feeding of the needy,

فَوَيْلٌ لِلْمُصَلِّينَ {4}

4. so, woe to those who pray,

الَّذِينَ هُمْ عَنْ صَلَاتِهِمْ سَاهُونَ {5}

5. -those who are heedless of their prayers,

الَّذِينَ هُمْ يُرَاءُونَ {6}

6. those who show off

وَيَمْنَعُونَ الْمَاعُونَ {7}

7. but deny aid.

Here we find a clear example of an apparently religious phenomenon, prayer, that hides a non-religious motive, showing off. The criterion that shows that the prayer is not genuine is the denial of aid. This hardly constitutes a hermeneutics of suspicion, however, since it does not presume that apparently religious phenomena are always caused by hidden factors, but only that under circumstances of sinfulness, they can be.

The application of an Islamic hermeneutics cannot take the route of suspicion, recovery, or contemplation as a general rule for all cases, if these are taken to mean suspicion with respect to apparent motives, recovery of the original message given in a text or phenomenon, or a philosophical neutrality with regard to these issues. Instead, good judgment needs to be applied to each case, keeping in mind that it may be necessary to posit multiple levels of meaning in order to provide the best religious interpretation of the object of inquiry.

Notes

1.Plantinga (1996), 178.

2. SeeRicoeur (1970).

3. From Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. For a critical analysis, seeMacIntyre (1990); also seeWestphal (1998), andLeiter (2004).

4. See Nagel (1998) and the review:Legenhausen (2003).

5. See Wainwright (1995).

6. Phillips (2004).

7.Westphal (1998).

8.Westphal (1998), 288.

6. Islamic Social Sciences

The task of applying an Islamic hermeneutics to the social sciences is complicated by several factors. First, there is the old question about whether there can even be such a thing as social science.

If science is objectifying inquiry, and the interpretation of social phenomena cannot be an objectifying inquiry, it would seem that any social science would be impossible, and, hence that there could be no Islamic social science. Our suggestion is that the objectivity of interpretive inquiry can be preserved through the articulation of the assumptions upon which one's interpretation is based.

The idea that any hermeneutics must begin from one's own perspective does not imply that this perspective cannot itself be articulated and subject to critical examination. Second, if we grant that there can be social sciences, and that hermeneutics will play a significant role in them, would a religious hermeneutics not compromise the scientific nature of the sciences?

The hermeneutical foundations of the social sciences, however, will not be any more scientific for being value neutral or free from religious ideas as long as the values and religious principles that inform the hermeneutics are confessed from the outset. It must be admitted that all of the factors that determine judgment in interpretation may not be transparent to the interpreter; but efforts can be made to set out these factors to the extent possible, develop greater awareness of them, and to examine them critically. This can take place gradually through a dialectical process in which inquiry and interpretation are undertaken.

Further complications arise because of the history of the relations between theology and the social sciences in the past. Although this history is about the attitudes taken by Christian theologians to the social sciences as well as the attitudes prevalent in the nascent social sciences toward Christianity, and a concept of religion generalized from Christianity, it is essential for Muslims to become aware of how the topic of religion and the social sciences has played out in the West if they are to effectively advance a study of the social sciences in accordance with Islam that is able to avoid some of the foibles that continue to occur in other contexts.

Richard H. Roberts outlines five strategies employed by Christian theologians to develop relations between theology and the social sciences.

First, the fundamentalist option involves the repudiation of modernity and concomitant patterns of regression; second, theology can tend towards reductive absorption into the social scientific perspective (ErnstTroeltsch ); third, the theologian may draw upon and use sociological categories as part of his or her essentially theological project (DietrichBonhoeffer , H. R. Niebuhr); fourth, theological and sociological categories can be regarded ascoinherent aspects of an integral 'form of life', 'life-world' or 'phenomenology of tradition' (Edward Farley) which subsists at a remove from the question of modernity; fifth, the theologian may repudiate sociology as heretical secular thought and posit the persuasive option of commitment to the Christian cultural-linguistic practice (JohnMilbank ).1

After a survey of the five mentioned types, Roberts observes that Christian theology's engagement with modern sociology has been marked by discontinuity, if not incoherence. To the five views mentioned, we might also add Roberts' own view, although he describes it as closest to that of Bonheoffer, which emphasizes that the social sciences should be counted among the human sciences, and as such are to be engaged in by the theologian with the aim seeking a "new and active fusion of the human sciences together with the articulation and admission of the human right, following the example ofBonhoeffer , to express a self-transcending identity."2

The project of developing Islamic social sciences cannot succeed unless it is understood that this project will have at least as much of an effect on Islamic theology as it will on the social sciences. Roberts writes:

The fact that theology or metaphysical philosophy may once have provided the basis of coherent identity andlegitimation does not now sanction regressions into a mythic past or the invocation of a utopian futurity when we are faced with the challenge ofsecularisation and modernity. On the contrary, other means have to be found through which tradition(s), Enlightenment and critical reflexivity may be creatively coordinated anew.3

There are various dangers associated with the project of theIslamization orsacralization of the sciences, only some of which are suggested by Roberts' discussion. If beginnings are made toward Islamic social sciences, regardless of how exactly such sciences are understood, these beginnings will be followed with the erroneous idea that it is these new Islamic social sciences that should be studied in the universities of the Muslim world and not the secular atheistic social sciences of the corrupt West.

This would be a grave error because it will be essential for any Islamic or sacred science to stand in a dialectical relationship with the secular sciences. Islamic social science will not be able to flourish without the study of secular social science any more than Islamic philosophy would have been able to flourish without the study of the Greeks. By relying on an Islamic hermeneutics as sketched above, however, it may be hoped that a suitable foundation for Islamic social sciences may be nurtured that will contribute to a sacred science that has sufficient confidence to engage with the modern sciences in fruitful dialogue.

Notes

1. Roberts (2001), 194-195.

2. Roberts (2001), 211.

3. Roberts (2001), 210-211.

7. Concluding Reflections

A number of Muslim writers have suggested that the modern sciences or modern scientism are incompatible with Islam. This claim is more plausibly made about scientism than about the sciences themselves, although it must be admitted that the distinction is sometimes blurred, as when researchers present theories interwoven with presumptions contrary to religious belief. It has been suggested that there should be a revival of "sacred science" or anIslamization of the sciences. This project requires the undertaking of scientific research and theorization within a religious or Islamic conceptual framework. The need to carry out this project is felt especially urgently with regard to the social sciences, in which values and worldview play a particularly prominent role.

Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation and understanding. Although, unfortunately, this study has sometimes been associated with perniciously relativistic views, there is nothing about hermeneutics in the general sense outlined here that requires this. The project of nurturing sacred or Islamized sciences is essentially a hermeneutical project, for it requires the reinterpretation and renewed understanding of the sciences from a religious or Islamic perspective.

The idea of an Islamized science will face the objection that the introduction of religious and metaphysical principles and values is incompatible with science. Science is objectifying inquiry, it will be argued, and this requires science to be free from the interference of religion, metaphysics, and value judgments. To this objection, there are two replies.

First, even the natural sciences are not as neutral as they are advertised to be. Secondly, objectivity does not require neutrality, but only a commitment to the ongoing task of making assumptions explicit.

In this paper, I have suggested three grades of religious hermeneutics that may be employed to cultivate sacred sciences: (I) religious understanding at the subjective level; (II) a rejection of methodological naturalism with regard to (a) the description of phenomena, (b) the evaluation of theories, and (c) theory construction; (III) the positive integration of successful theories into a coherent religious worldview.

Muslim scholars can only hope to develop religious hermeneutics along the lines suggested here through the recovery of the Islamic intellectual sciences, the conscious rejection of thescientistic worldview, and an engagement with the sciences aimed at wisdom. For the wisdom thus sought to have depth, it is essential for researchers to consider the multiple layers of meaning to be found in the texts and other phenomena that serve as objects of inquiry.

A hierarchical stratification of levels of meaning that begins with the exterior/interior (zahir /batin ) division will take shape, insha ' Allah, through dialogue with the secular sciences as researchers draw on the Islamic intellectual traditions to elaborate hermeneutical foundations for Islamic social sciences.