In an age when religion is frequently enlisted as a badge of political identity rather than a domain of spiritual reflection, Muhamad Ali's work on metaphysical exegesis does not offer a new dogma. It extends an invitation: what if we read sacred texts not only through legalistic or doctrinal lenses but also through metaphysical, mystical, and ethical perspectives?
The Qur'an remains consistent in prohibiting speculation about who is entitled to receive God's Mercy and leaves open the possibility that non-Muslims may also receive the Divine gift of grace (rahmatan lil alamin).
Why Metaphysical Exegesis Matters Today
Religious language today is volatile. It gets weaponized in political fights, used to justify exclusion, or invoked to raise tribal flags in global arenas. Yet beneath the accusations and the headlines lies another reality: millions of people still turn to religion for orientation, consolation, and moral formation. When communities fracture along confessional lines, the question we must ask is not only what the doctrine says, but how we read doctrine in ways that shape life together.
Muhamad Ali's proposal invites readers to treat metaphysics not as esoteric ornamentation of theology but as a practical lens. Metaphysics, understood here, names claims about what is ultimately real — grace, transcendence, dignity — and the interpretive humility that comes from recognizing human finitude. Read this way, exegesis becomes a social technology: a method for translating sacred speech into social repair.
Core Idea: Three Axes of Metaphysical Exegesis
A. Metaphysics as Foundation
Only God (the Divine) is absolute; all human claims about how the Divine operates are relative, limited, and particular. This marks a basic ontological split: God as the Absolute Reality; religions and religious meanings as human responses to that Absolute, always shaped by context, language, and institutional life.
Because human statements about God are contingent, hermeneutical stances that treat human doctrines as absolute risk producing normative exclusivism. The Qur'anic tradition itself recognizes multiple legal manifestations of religion (Qur'an 5:48) and stresses universal human dignity (Qur'an 49:13). Metaphysical exegesis shifts emphasis from 'seeking dogmatic vindication' to 'establishing common norms of behavior.'
B. Mysticism and Religious Experience
Inner, mystical experience and the subconscious dimension are sources of religious understanding that cannot be reduced to texts or doctrinal formulas. William James describes mystical experiences as having four distinctive features:
- 1Noetic quality — the sense of grasping genuine insight or illumination
- 2Ineffability — difficulty or impossibility of expressing in ordinary language
- 3Transiency — often brief in duration
- 4Passivity — the experience comes to the subject rather than being produced by effort
If religious experience is treated as legitimate data — not simply dismissed as private subjectivity — interfaith dialogue can begin from shared experiential grounds rather than from doctrinal proof-texts. This shifts the basis of conversation from winning arguments to testing ethical consequences.
C. Ethical-Practical Axiology
Metaphysical exegesis is not an end in itself; it is an instrument for producing concrete social practices — alleviating poverty, advancing justice, preventing religion-based violence, and promoting public welfare. Doctrines and texts should be evaluated by their usefulness when confronted with real problems: does a given interpretation foster inclusion or exclusion? Does it reduce or increase the risk of violence?
Methodology: Interconnectivity of Disciplines
Double Movement (Fazlur Rahman)
Interpreters move in two directions: first, descend from present concerns to recover the socio-historical context in which a passage originally appeared; second, ascend from that historically situated meaning to extract universal, thematic insights applicable today. A metaphysical exegesis requires extracting scripture's ethical and universal claims and testing them against contemporary challenges — religious violence, plural societies, globalization.
Systems Approach (Jasser Auda)
The maqasid (objectives) approach treats scripture as part of a system aimed at protecting collective welfare (hifz al-din, al-nafs, al-'aql, al-nasl, al-mal). If an interpretation undermines systemic aims like security or justice, it should be reconsidered. This orients exegesis away from mere doctrinal validation and toward social policy.
Interdisciplinary Integration
- Use phenomenology and mystical studies (William James, Mircea Eliade) to take inner religious experience seriously as data
- Consult the history of tafsir to map classical responses and their hermeneutical moves
- Apply social science methods (surveys, case studies) to measure how interpretive frameworks affect social cohesion
- Combine these lenses to turn interpretive claims into testable hypotheses about how readings shape behavior
Five Thematic Clusters
1. Unity of Humankind
Diversity is framed as a sunnatullah (a divine ordinance); social ethics of mutual recognition and respect become imperative. Practical implication: teach civic rituals of mutual recognition — shared festivals, joint community service projects, and public school curricula that explain difference without caricature.
2. Plurality of Religious Law
Religions may share existential aims while exhibiting diverse legal prescriptions. Recognizing this plurality does not dissolve conviction; it asks for civility. Where law conflicts with civic peace, negotiated compromise should guide public life.
3. Truth-Claims and Rivalry
Every tradition stakes truth-claims. The challenge is not to pretend disagreement doesn't exist but to manage rivalry so it does not metastasize into domination or violence. Create institutionalized spaces for dispute resolution with a shared commitment to nonviolence.
4. Doctrinal Tensions
Certain doctrines remain contested across faiths. The metaphysical approach encourages critique but refuses to weaponize critique as social exclusion. Develop teaching frameworks that explain contested doctrines historically without reducing adherents to their doctrinal positions.
5. Faith and Deeds as Markers
Textual space exists for interpretations that view faith and righteous action as primary indicators of spiritual worth — opening theological room for recognition beyond confessional boundaries. Promote public rituals that celebrate interfaith acts of service as a core value.
Strengths Worth Applauding
- Balance between text and experience — refusing both rigid literalism and unprincipled relativism, holding space for textual integrity while honoring human experience
- Ethics as the telos of interpretation — interpretation as a means to social betterment addressing poverty, injustice, and violence
- Honest intellectual dialogue — welcoming cross-pollination with philosophical resources without losing touch with Islamic intellectual roots
- Epistemic humility — fostering empathy and reflective restraint rather than dogmatic triumphalism
To move beyond polemics or apologetics, recognizing the limits of human understanding and returning theological discourse to the realm of individual conviction and responsibility before God.
Constructive Critiques
No framework is flawless. The approach needs firmer grounding for including non-Abrahamic traditions and clearer criteria for inclusion. Translating metaphysical exegesis into public life risks co-optation by political actors — what safeguards prevent such misuse? Conceptual calls for interdisciplinary work are welcome but need operational designs: comparative studies of mystical experience, mixed-methods surveys, educational modules that can be piloted. Finally, prioritizing conciliatory verses must be balanced by rigorous engagement with contentious texts.
Conclusion
Metaphysical exegesis across religions is not an exercise in theological capitulation. It is an intellectual-ethical strategy aimed at repairing social life: it encourages asking difficult questions about truth claims while insisting on action that remedies suffering. If implemented carefully — with attention to inclusion criteria, political vulnerabilities, and empirical evaluation — this approach could reduce conflict and strengthen plural coexistence.
It asks two complementary things of us: intellectual courage to question human certainties, and moral commitment to act for the common good. That dual demand is both a heavy task and a worthy call.
Barakallahufiik... والله أعلم بالصواب