We Cannot Escape Metaphysics: Why Every Islamic Interpretation Rests on Deeper Assumptions

 

We Cannot Escape Metaphysics: Why Every Islamic Interpretation Rests on Deeper Assumptions

 

Adis Duderija

Many Muslims today want to focus on what they see as practical questions: How should we interpret the Qur’an? What is God’s justice? Who has religious authority? What rights do human beings possess? How should revelation relate to changing historical circumstances?

These are important questions. But there is a deeper issue that often goes unnoticed. Before we answer any of them, we already carry certain assumptions about reality itself. Philosophers call these assumptions metaphysics. Put simply, metaphysics concerns our most basic beliefs about what is real, what has value, how power works, what it means to be human, and how God relates to the world.

This is why every account of Islamic hermeneutics presupposes a metaphysics of meaning. Every account of divine justice presupposes a metaphysics of moral value. Every account of religious authority presupposes a metaphysics of power. Every account of human dignity presupposes a metaphysics of personhood. And every account of revelation presupposes a metaphysics of God-world relations.

The question is not whether Muslims have metaphysical assumptions. The question is whether we are aware of them.

Hermeneutics and the Nature of Meaning

Take Qur’anic interpretation. Muslims often disagree about the meaning of particular verses. We usually think these disagreements revolve around grammar, hadith, or legal methodology. But beneath these debates lies a more fundamental question: What is meaning?

For many traditionalists, the meaning of a verse is largely fixed and stable. The role of the interpreter is to recover that meaning through linguistic analysis and reference to authoritative scholarly traditions. By contrast, thinkers such as Fazlur Rahman and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd argued that meaning emerges through an interaction between text, context, and reader. The Qur’an’s guidance remains constant, but its significance unfolds in new historical circumstances.

This disagreement is not simply methodological. It reflects different metaphysical assumptions about the nature of meaning itself. Is meaning a fixed object that exists independently of readers, or is it something relational that emerges through interpretation? Before we discuss how the Qur’an should be interpreted, we already have assumptions about what meaning is.

Divine Justice and the Nature of Goodness

The same is true when Muslims discuss God’s justice.

One of the most important debates in classical Islamic theology took place between the Mu’tazilites and the Ash’arites. The Mu’tazilites argued that human reason can recognize good and evil because moral values have a real and objective character. God commands justice because justice is good.

Many Ash’arite theologians, on the other hand, emphasized God’s absolute sovereignty. Actions are good because God commands them. Divine will is the ultimate source of moral obligation.

This debate was not merely about ethics. It was about reality itself. Does goodness have a reality that reason can discover, or is goodness wholly dependent upon divine command? Different understandings of divine justice emerge because different metaphysical visions stand behind them.

Even today, contemporary Muslim arguments about human rights, gender equality, and religious freedom frequently reflect these competing assumptions, even when participants do not explicitly acknowledge them.

Religious Authority and the Nature of Power

Muslims also disagree about religious authority. Who has the right to interpret Islam? Traditional scholars? Religious institutions? Individual believers? The broader community?

These disagreements are often presented as legal or procedural matters, but underneath them lies a deeper question: What makes power legitimate?

A strongly hierarchical understanding of authority sees religious knowledge as flowing from God through established scholarly lineages. This model emphasizes continuity, expertise, and obedience to learned authorities.

Others emphasize shura (consultation), collective reasoning, and the participation of the wider community. Still others advocate forms of ijtihad that allow individual Muslims greater interpretive responsibility.

Here again, the issue is not simply institutional. It is metaphysical. Is authority primarily something possessed by certain individuals and institutions, or is it something that emerges through relationships and communal deliberation? Our answers reveal our assumptions about the nature of power itself.

Human Dignity and the Nature of Personhood

Contemporary Muslim discussions about human rights often invoke the concept of karamah (human dignity). The Qur’an declares that God has honored the children of Adam. Yet what precisely gives human beings this dignity?

Different theological traditions offer different answers.

Some emphasize rationality. Others stress humanity’s role as God’s vicegerent (khalifa) on earth. Sufi traditions often highlight humanity’s capacity to reflect divine attributes through spiritual transformation. Contemporary Muslim thinkers frequently stress the relational and social dimensions of human existence.

None of these perspectives is simply a moral slogan. Each rests upon a particular understanding of what a human person is.

This becomes especially important in debates about artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, gender, disability, and environmental ethics. Before deciding what rights humans possess, we must first ask what humans actually are. Every account of human dignity therefore presupposes a metaphysics of personhood.

Revelation and the Relationship Between God and the World

Perhaps the most significant issue concerns revelation itself.

How does the eternal word of God relate to history? How can a divine message be expressed through seventh-century Arabic language and culture while remaining relevant for all times and places?

Different Muslim thinkers have offered different answers because they hold different views of the relationship between God and the world.

If God is understood primarily as a transcendent sovereign who acts upon the world from outside, revelation may appear as a fixed set of divine instructions delivered into history. If God is understood as dynamically engaged with creation, revelation may be viewed as an ongoing encounter between divine guidance and human historical experience.

Modern debates about contextual interpretation, maqasid al-shari’a, and ethical reform are therefore not simply arguments about legal methodology. At a deeper level, they are arguments about how God relates to creation.

Bringing Metaphysics Back Into the Conversation

Too often Muslims imagine that metaphysics is an unnecessary distraction from practical concerns. In reality, it is the hidden foundation of every practical concern. We cannot discuss interpretation without assumptions about meaning. We cannot discuss justice without assumptions about value. We cannot discuss authority without assumptions about power. We cannot discuss dignity without assumptions about personhood. And we cannot discuss revelation without assumptions about God and the world.

Recognising this does not solve our disagreements. But it helps us understand them more clearly.

Many contemporary debates within Islam appear to concern specific rulings, doctrines, or methods. Yet beneath the surface they often reflect competing visions of reality itself. Once these deeper assumptions are brought into the open, conversation becomes more honest and more fruitful. We can begin to see that disagreements are not merely about isolated verses or legal rulings. They are about the very nature of truth, justice, humanity, and God.

In the end, every argument about Islam is also, whether we realize it or not, an argument about reality. And that means every serious discussion about Islam eventually leads us back to metaphysics.