Making Meaning Of The Hagar/Hajar Narratives
Discussion 3 Related to the Hagar/Hajar Narratives
The Complexity of the Hagar/Hajar Narratives in the Process of Making Meaning: Sharing Testimonies in the Search to Identify Messages from the Texts
The last two discussions related to the Hagar/Hajar narratives took place at the third group meeting. For the first time in the process one of the participants was the moderator.133 The meeting started with a silent reading of the Hagar/Hajar texts from the Old Testament and the hadith, following Maria’s suggestion.
Discussion 3 was, for the most part, in a more relaxed conversational mode than the former discussions. The participants reflect more openly about their own meaning making than in the previous discussion, perhaps because the focus is not directed intensely at one specific question but shifts more. Some parts of the contributions, particularly toward the end, are formulated as testimonies.
Shirin30: Yes. What I look for in these two texts are … I am not the kind of person who looks at it sentence by sentence ….
Shirin31: But when I read both texts, in particular when I read one verse from the Koran that comments on it, on the story, I don’t find any sign of anyone looking down on Sarah.
Shirin32: It is a kind of message from God to Abraham
Shirin33: that says that I will … that Ishmael and Hagar will wander in the wilderness, if I am correct. And there a new civilization will be established.
Shirin34: After Sarah had a son as well, things became kind of scattered, since faith takes another direction.
Shirin35: What is very important for me is that perhaps it was so that it should go other places than where Abraham originally stayed.
Shirin36: From the Koran I don’t look at this in the same way as one looks at it from the text from Genesis.
Shirin37: But it is, isn’t it, if two women have the same husband, if it becomes kind of a problem. It was like that in the old days, and it is like that now.
Shirin38: But I don’t know why, I can’t say that this particular story should tell us something about that.
133The plan was that Maria and Fouzia would moderate the meeting together in order to have both a Muslim and a Christian sharing the role. Fouzia was, however, prevented from coming, so Maria moderated the meeting alone.
Shirin39: The most important message is that it was supposed to be two nations.
Shirin provides a key for understanding how she usually makes meaning of texts: by looking for the main points and overall messages rather than concentrating on details (Shirin30).
She explicitly mentions both texts in her next sentence, when the question of Sarah’s status arises. Shirin probably remembers that the status of Sarah was addressed in the former meeting (Shirin31). Thus, the earlier conversation is included in the present one, without any further reference, indicating that there is continuity in the process, at least for Shirin.
While addressing both texts, Shirin emphasizes the verse from the Koran cited in the hadith narrative. She thus shows her pre-knowledge about the structure of the text from the hadith: she is aware that it actually consists of two different types of Islamic canonical text, a koranic verse integrated into the hadith narrative. The text she describes as a message from God to Abraham/Ibrahim is exclusively this verse from the Koran (Shirin31-33). She does not refer specifically to the text from the Old Testament.
Shirin observes that there is no mention of Sarah in the koranic verse but rejects any suggestion that this indicates that the Islamic tradition looks down on Sarah. Looking for the main points in the text, she claims that the essential message of the story is not to describe a possible rivalry between two women. The essence of the message is that God created two peoples out of Abraham/Ibrahim’s double fatherhood. The two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, meant the founding of two nations instead of one, and the situation of Hagar/Hajar and Ishmael in the desert created the possibility of establishing a new civilization (a new branch of the family and a new religion) in Mecca.
This message to Abraham/Ibrahim, according to Shirin, is also addressed to later readers of the narrative, since it provides a formative story about the establishment of the Islamic civilization in Mecca – and an explanation of the existence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as willed and planned by God.
Sarah is Abraham/Ibrahim’s first wife, but Ishmael is his oldest son. Shirin refers to Sarah’s giving birth to a son as the point where “faith takes another direction” (Shirin34). Seeing Islam as the original faith, starting with Adam and Eve, and with Abraham/Ibrahim as the first Muslim believer (hanif, or even muslim), this is the point in history where Judaism and later Christianity split from Islam. This reflects the Islamic view that even if Islam is more recent than Judaism and Christianity its roots go back to the origin of humanity. Christianity emerged from Judaism and remains in an ambiguous relation with Judaism in different ways. However, both the Islamic and the Christian traditions recognize that there has been a religious development where other religions have been crucial in the making of the two: Christianity in relation to Judaism and Islam in relation to Christianity and Judaism.
Shirin40: And Hagar wasn’t oppressed.
Shirin41: In our faith we respect both women, Sarah and Hagar.
Shirin42: I can’t see that it is a difference of class … that one looks down on … or that Sarah asks why should Ishmael have the same status as my son. I as a Muslim have never thought like that from our tradition.
Shirin43: What I can see as a difference, perhaps, that if a slave woman … at that time it was a kind of accepted social order to have a slave woman or a slave man, if I am correct.
Shirin’s reference to class and slavery in the texts viewed from an Islamic perspective signals that these categories are unfamiliar to her when discussing the Islamic narrative about Hajar. The question of slave status and social class is, on the other hand, disclosed and is crucial to the plot in the Hagar narrative in the Old Testament. Shirin rejects the view that social difference plays a role in the Islamic version of the narrative, just as she stated that the later religious difference that supposedly emerged from the events of the narrative is not a problem.
Nevertheless, she makes a comment about slavery as an institution as socially accepted “at that time” (Shirin43), referring to the historical context of the narratives. This contextualization of slavery may be an indirect defense of the Old Testament text. Shirin does not, however, use this text’s reference to Hagar as a slave to criticize the canonical Jewish-Christian scripture: instead she finds parallel references to slavery in the Koran (Shirin47):
Shirin44: And since we know that religion is not intended to make a revolution.
Shirin45: It will take the traditions and start with reforms, and …. At least this is my perception of Islam.
Shirin46: The day it came, it did not come as a revolution but as a process to transform society.
Shirin47: That’s why, for instance, in the Koran, you can see that there are some rights for slaves and slave women that one wonders about today. Why was one supposed to accept it in that way?
Shirin48: But afterwards one can see that it was there, just as a lot of other things that ought to change, this was the way it should change.
Shirin49: Today one talks a lot about things in the Koran that ought to be changed and that should be reformed.
Shirin50: Today one cannot accept that there are slaves or slave women. Because society has developed and changed. That is why it can be changed as
well. They couldn’t see then that it was a problem. Today we can see that it is.
Shirin51: There are many things that should be reformed within the religion.
Shirin uses institutionalized slavery as an example of a changed social practice and suggests that the general interpretation of the koranic texts referring to slavery may have changed too as a result. Shirin is not referring to details in the Hagar/Hajar narratives. Instead, she states how social changes, as well as changes in koranic interpretation, should happen from her point of view. From the beginning the way of change was intended to be through reform, rather than revolution (Shirin45-46). Shirin states very clearly a need for change and reform (Shirin49, 51).
In Shirin49, however, it is not entirely clear if Shirin means that the Koran itself ought to change or only its interpretation. Her emphasis on new social structures and new insights that make the reader ask different questions “now” in contrast to “then” (Shirin47, 50) may imply that her focus is on change in koranic interpretation.
Shirin suggests that it is not only religion that has the capacity to change society, social changes can and should change religious practice as well. Shirin establishes a connection between social and religious change. When she emphasizes that the way of change should be reform, rather than revolution, her Iranian background may be playing a role in her dismissal of revolutionary change as a tool in Islam, since she experienced the Iranian revolution in 1979 and left with her family to go to Norway for political reasons some years later.
Aira58: Perhaps I see this a little … when we read these two texts it is very … I feel that they have different mindsets.
Aira59: One of them is viewed, as she said, as status oriented. It seems discriminatory that one sees that Sarah herself gets hurt, that she feels that Hagar is looking down on her.
Aira60: But when she says: Cast out that slave woman … she does not have any respect for her.
Aira61: And this, it seems to me, is not really… for me, I don’t know what you believe, but to me divine revelation is not like that.
Aira62: That this is part of the revelation … it might be that people’s own opinions have entered this because they have traditions like that.
Aira63: Those traditions are present in all tribes when there are two women sharing one man, they have … between them, and one wants more status than the other, and the other wants another status.
Aira elaborates on the relationship between Hagar/Hajar and Sarah and comments on the difference she finds between the Hagar/Hajar narratives in the Old Testament and the hadith.
Shirin mentioned this relationship briefly and claimed that it was not a main theme in the texts.
Aira uses the portrayal of the troublesome relationship between Sarah and Hagar/Hajar in the biblical text to discuss the question if this part of the text qualifies as divine revelation in her view. She uses this to distinguish between the two narratives according to the Islamic doctrine of the divine revelation represented in the Bible: it may be mixed up with people’s opinions, and thus not part of divine revelation (Leirvik 2006: 132-133). Aira takes the conflict between Sarah and Hagar in the biblical narrative to be part of a general human experience across time (Aira63), much like what Shirin stated earlier about the timeless character of a situation where two women compete for one man.
Aira64: Here we don’t find any of this scene instigated by jealousy; it is not even mentioned in the text that she … that Ibrahim had taken one of them away from the place because of Sarah’s wish.
Aira65: When Hagar asked him: “Why do you leave us here, is it God who has told you so?” then he said: “Yes.” This shows that she, Hagar, had great faith in her God and great faith in her husband.
Aira focuses on the narrative from the hadith and uses it in contrast to the biblical narrative: the text from the hadith does not include any description of conflicting interests or jealousy between the two women (Aira64). Sarah’s absence from the hadith narrative is not commented upon. Explaining her presence in Aira’s reflection could be a reference to Shirin’s earlier statements. Or it could be a spillover from the biblical narrative into Aira’s reflection on the text from the hadith.
When Aira moves on to her interpretation of the hadith narrative, she develops the image of Hagar/Hajar further as a model figure with respect to faith in Islam. While being abandoned with the child, she kept her faith in both God and her husband. In Aira65 Hagar/Hajar’s faith in God and in Abraham/Ibrahim seems to be linked together.
Aira66: She knew that Ibrahim would not lie, that he would not let her down if it was not necessary to do so.
Aira67: It comes from the will of God, and when God has said that you … he will not let you down.
Aira68: So she does not become afraid in any way; it is her strong faith. It is conviction. If I had the same conviction and faith in God, I could have sat all alone ….
Aira69: And it says here that she did not show any worry because she has only one child, and then her husband leaves her, she does not have anything to eat or drink, how long can the child stay alive with that bag of water and some dates. There is nothing there. But she had trust in God, and that means that what we see here is strong conviction.
Aira70: And then, we have great respect for Sarah, and here I believe that some of people’s own opinions have come in, and this part of the Genesis story is not a part of revelation as far as I can understand.
Aira71: But if we see this from an entirely feminist perspective, then yes, there are two women, and this and that can happen. But to call Hagar a slave woman is degrading to her status for Muslims.
Aira72: She is … according to our belief, she is the wife of Ibrahim, and he is a great prophet, and God promised Ibrahim that he would make him the father of great nations … and to talk about Sarah and Hagar like this is to show little respect for them.
How can Aira say that Hagar/Hajar knew that Abraham/Ibrahim “would not lie”? The answer comes in Aira67-68, where Aira continues to reflect in the form of a personal testimony on the basis of what she finds to be crucial in the story, namely Hagar’s/Hajar’s faith: To follow the will of God has the consequence that God will not let the believer down. In Aira67-68 Aira establishes a close relation between Hagar/Hajar in the narrative and Muslim believers in general, including Aira herself. These statements show a high degree of identification with the figure of Hajar in the hadith. Through this identification the temporal and spatial gaps between the narrative and experienced reality represented by Aira and other contemporary Muslim believers cease to exist. In the former discussion it became apparent that Aira used the ritual of sa’y as an important reference for her interpretation of the narratives. Here she does not mention the sa’y but only the consequence of faith in God as a shared experience between Hajar, all Muslims, and herself.
According to the British Muslim Scholar Tim Winter, Muslims who engage in the practice of Scriptural Reasoning “see themselves not just as interpreters, but as para-witnesses to the scripture and the exegetic cumulation” (Winter 2006: 110). The background of Winter’s suggested term “para-witness” is the practice of succession (isnad) among Muslim scholars. The historical chain of interpretation is the transmission of living knowledge that does not cease to
influence the believers’ own life, and thus the texts’ interpretation is never far from the context of the believer.134According to Winter, it is the formal restraints on interpretation in the Islamic tradition and its relation to history as an axiom that makes it possible to operate with the term
“para-witness” (Winter 2006: 110).
What is the distinction, then, between being a witness and being an interpreter? Paul Ricoeur discusses the relationship between interpretation and testimony and investigates how the two may be related in biblical interpretation: he claims that, without testimony, hermeneutics lacks perspective and a temporal dimension in history (Ricoeur 1980: 144; Riceour 1980: 144).
Testimonies, on the other hand, need to be interpreted, but this interpretation needs to be done within their own dialectic that, according to Ricoeur, consists of narration and confession (Ricoeur 1980: 154). Aira’s testimony constructs a role for her not only as an interpreter but also as a witness of the narrative from the hadith when including herself in the reception history of the text in the way she does. Her own narrative and confession merges with her making meaning of Hagar/Hajar’s faith.
Aira repeats that she does not regard that part of the Genesis story that relates the conflict between Hagar/Hajar and Sarah as a part of “revelation” (Aira70). Here she refers to the teachings about divine revelation in Islam. Apparently, she does not reflect on the difference between Christianity and Islam regarding the issue of divine revelation since she relates only to the texts themselves and from an Islamic perspective. Her aim is to explain her own interpretation and give her own testimony.
To address a problematic relation between Sarah and Hagar in the Old Testament narrative is possible, according to Aira, if one reads the text only within the interpretative frameworks of feminism (Aira71). She finds this way of discussing irrelevant. She follows up her views of the limits of feminist interpretation:
Aira73: So both of them were promised by God that they would be blessed.
Aira74: So, when we see here it is … the story gives a worldly impression in itself, but the story of Hajar is more spiritual, when I read it .…
Aira75: But we believe in both of them, that Sarah was there, and we respect her, it is possible that it might have been a conflict between them, we cannot deny that.
134Winter claims that Islamic exegesis and interpretation of the Koran and the hadith has followed a different track than the Christian and Jewish traditions. He states that he believes the Islamic tradition has escaped the “reductionist Enlightenment” (Winter 2006: 110) event and “continued in fidelity to classical paradigms of faith, worship and devotion, while the Renaissance re-paganised European thought, and the Enlightenment secularised it”(Winter 2006:
109).
Aira76: But we don’t believe that God creates stories for the sake of stories alone
… that one should create a story about it … to pass on that conflict to us.
Aira77: Both are humans. They can disagree, fall out, or be in conflict. That is not unthinkable.
Aira78: But, at the same time, when you look at both texts, and it is we, Muslims, who believe in the ways of God, he knows that one person will be in this country and spread the message of God there, and the other will spread the word of God there at the other place.
Aira79: I don’t read the text with a typical feminist mindset ….
Aira80: The koranic text shows that he stood there, worried about them, and at the same time prayed to God for them … God, I have left my offspring in a deserted valley, let the people have mercy on them.
The reason why Aira dismisses criticism of the text from a “feminist mindset” (Aira79) may be found in Aira73: According to Aira’s meaning-making of the Hagar/Hajar stories, both women “are promised by God that they would be blessed.” For Aira there is no need to dig into the texts looking for possible relational conflicts between the two women; focusing critically on the conflicts in the texts is to miss the stories’ main message. Aira does not deny that there could have been conflicts between Hagar/Hajar and Sarah, but in order to be able to include this element of human flaw, she moves beyond the frames of the narratives to which she relates (the hadith text and what she evaluates as part of divine revelation in the Old Testament text). She talks about real conflicts, in real lives, where the “now” and the “then” merge as part of human experience. But, in her view, divine revelation is not a place for human conflict-oriented storytelling.
Aira asks: Why should God want to pass this conflict on to us by including it in the revelation? The question indicates that if something is included in the divine revelation, it should be done for pedagogical reasons. The inclusion of the Hagar/Hajar-Sarah conflict in revelation may cause a problem regarding human division, according to Aira: It could potentially create a ground for the conflict between Sarah and Hagar in the narrative to be transferred to the narratives’ readers, inducing the readers (as social agents) to realize the conflicts in contemporary contexts between people identifying themselves (or others) as descendants of either Sarah or Hagar/Hajar. Aira might think that, if the narrative were regarded as divine revelation, it would have a possible greater authority and thus possibly be more likely to be used to legitimize antagonisms. Thus, Aira cannot find room for this conflict in the narrative because she feels that it would not be in accordance with God’s will that a divinely revealed narrative transmit such material to fuel possible forthcoming hostilities.