Hypotheses, Research Statements, and Theoretical Framework

To fully understand “green reinterpretations” of the early Islamic authoritative sources, it is necessary to consider whether their perception of reality or “ontology”, including the natural universe, is different from that of today. Several theorists, including anthropologist Philippe Descola, have argued that multiple ontologies exist, but this theoretical framework has not yet been applied to the Qur’an and early Islamic sources, upon which all later Islamic manifestations are in one way or another based.

The Quranatura research questions are: How is nature, and its relation to humans/culture, understood in the Qur’an, prophetic traditions, and classical Islamic philosophy? In what ways are such understandings translated and reinterpreted in modern and contemporary Islamic exegetical and environmental efforts?

The originality and impact of this project lie not only in meeting the need for a critical, analytical, and theoretical approach to Qur’anic nature and its various pre-modern and modern interpretations, but also in nuancing and challenging the “greening” of historical, religious, and philosophical texts in our contemporary world. Inevitably shaped by a modern and Western perception of reality, Quranatura will offer a well-founded scientific frame for studying the nature/culture division in past and present, as well as for self-reflection of the current “anthropocene” situation. While the project is not activist in itself, Quranatura taps into essential questions of how nature and humans coexist and the ways in which religions – Islam in particular – may contribute to civic engagement as pertains to the current world climate and environmental issues.

The theory-pluralistic frame of Quranatura is derived from History of Religion and Anthropology. Following Descola, Quranatura contends that the distinction between nature and culture is relatively recent. Based on the relation between humans and nature, Descola presents four ontologies, which he argues to be characteristic of cultural expressions through human history: totemism, animism, analogism, and naturalism. While we (post-)modern people seem to believe that there is only one reality, Descola claims that such a perception – naturalism – has only dominated since the Renaissance.

The Quranatura hypothesis is that the Qur’an, prophetic traditions (see subproject 1), and Islamic philosophy (see subproject 2) show an overall analogistic perception of reality, while modern and contemporary Islamic reactualizations of these pre-modern, religious, and philosophical sources, represented here by tafsīr ʿilmī (see subproject 3) and Qur’anic botanic gardens (see subproject 4), are generally naturalistic or at least striving towards a naturalistic ideal.

The implications of such ontological differences must be considered. While naturalism is a dualistic perception of reality, analogism is monistic. In the former, nature is seen as an independent domain regulated by laws and studied by the natural sciences. Beyond nature, there is a human domain consisting of ideas, emotions, and symbols, often denoted as “culture”. While human bodies belong to the natural domain (humans and nature are made from the same material), humans contain something unique inside: they have a “soul”. In analogism, however, there is no distinction between what is outside (nature) and what is inside (culture). Instead, focus is laid on everything being different; the world is full of variations but not chaos. Here, the ideal is a harmonic order of such multiplicity, often arranged in systemic hierarchies, e.g., with a god at the top. Though this early form of categorizing is presumably a predecessor for the ability of scientific classification, analogistic categories are yet different. Taking the Qur’an as an example, a naturalistic categorization of animals would be based on species. However, the Qur’an articulates that every camel is distinct (Q 35:28), but also acknowledges that a category of “all camels” can be constructed. This categorization means that (cross-species) distinctions are equally valid, namely those camels and other animals that may be slaughtered or eaten (Q 5:103; 6:142). Sometimes humans and animals are set within the same category as well (Q 16:49).

Quranatura consists of four interlocking subprojects, corresponding to the hypothesized historical transformation from analogistic (SP1–2) to naturalistic ontologies (SP3–4). While SP1 will analyze nature in the Qur’an itself, SP2–4 will represent three connected and intertextually influenced reinterpretations of Qur’anic nature in different historical contexts. Three themes will further unite the subprojects: 1) Ways of categorization, 2) Cognition of nature, and 3) Ideals of “science”.