62literalism.” (In fact, in many instances, some of
which we will address, a purely literal interpreta-
tion leads to a surprisingly liberal outcome.) For me,
vacuousness in itself is a method of approaching
a text. I use the word “vacuous” because an insis-
tence on ignoring apparent contradictions is not
in keeping with literal wording. When you pick
one passage of any text, and I demonstrate that it
appears to contradict another passage, the insis-
tence on being comfortable with those apparent
contradictions and effectively arguing for both po-
sitions at the same time is a method. It doesn’t
make sense to me, but it’s a method beyond mere
literalism, as would be the method of attempting
to reconcile such contradictions. Even agreeing on
what the literal wording is requires a method.
Keeping those two points in mind, what would
be my answer to your question? Well, to the fi rst
point, in Muslim history there have been people,
known as the Mu’tazila, who didn’t insist that the
Qur’an was the eternal word of God. A modern- day
advocate of this position is the Ira nian Muslim phi-
los o pher and scholar AbdolKarim Soroush. The
Mu’tazila became quite prominent until, as always,
power determined which doctrine won. Usually
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