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Most Quranic exegetes in Northern Nigeria are reducing the Book to an ancient book. They don’t know how to interpret Quran using modern and scientific languages. They prefer to go back to 10th or 11th century to take the opinions of classical scholars like Dabariy or Ibn Kathir.
I’m not saying that the classical scholars were wrong in their interpretation even though I don’t take their views infallible. But they understood Koran according to the available information in their time and we have different information today.
Classical scholars exercised their own “ijtihad” and whether they were right or wrong they would be rewarded according to their intentions. It is time for modern scholars to start using available apparatus in the modern world to reinterpret Quran according to our time.
Koranic knowledge is vast and limitless. This is the reason why Prophet (saw) didn’t sit with his companions to teach them Koranic exegesis in the way modern clerics do, from first verse to last one. He allowed time to show us the miracle of the Koran.
You can find few verses that two or more companions asked the Prophet about their meanings and He answered them. But most verses of the Koran were left for people to come to dig and find their meanings according to information they could gather in their time.
Allah says : “We will show Our signs to them in the horizons of the external world and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that it's (Koran) the truth. Is your Lord not sufficient? He is a witness over all things.” (Fussilat : 53)
Cosmology is now different from the Cosmogony of the classical scholars. Astronomy is different from Astrology and we have more deeper knowledge of Biological Evolution, Quantum Mechanics and Astrophysics today. We could understand some verses more than how they did.
There are serious ways to solve our societal problems by understanding Sociology and Anthropology and combining them with Koranic remedies. Sticking to old idealistic approach of interpreting the Holy Book could not save us.
Even Islamic Theology could best be understood if we connect the knowledge with modern scientific theories. The person who knows Cosmology well would understand God and His greatness more than who don’t know the vastness of space and the illusion of Time.
I thank God that some scholars start to write more on Islamic Quantum Theology to approach the contemporary atheistic world within Islamic communities today. But I can’t count 3 clerics in Northern Nigeria that use the knowledge in their Koranic exegesis.
You know why we have so many atheists today? It is because some “ignorant” Islamiyya teachers taught them anthropomorphism and after graduating from university they understood that universe is too vast for the “man in the sky” circled by his “errand boys”.
The youth would start asking questions, but in our culture asking questions means questioning God! The pseudo clerics turbaned themselves as demigods on earth. They say asking questions is haram and will lead you to hell fire!
A person with inquiring and inquisitive mind couldn’t be stopped from asking questions. He would go to books of Science and Philosophy and with shaky religious foundation start reading Nietschez and Freud. He would find their atheism more rational than the ignorance he gathered.
This is serious, brothers! I know a son of one of the most popular and well celebrated Islamic clerics in Nigeria that joined atheism today! If you think you don’t have any problem today because you take your children to Islamiyya you are fooling yourself.
Future children will ask too many questions on critical issues in Islam. And if you don’t answer them well remember there is internet and search engines at their fingertips. They may end up falling to the wrong hands with wrong information. Please reflect!
