Willy Wonka’s interpretation of the Quran

Language is kinda weird when you think about it. Because language is always imperfect and often not precise. It is an approximation of what happened. And necessarily it is often a rough approximation at that.

The great variability of language has led to the modern idea that words can mean anything you want them to. That isn’t right. You can’t interpret “To Kill a Mockingbird” as approving of Jim Crow. Now, there are many different interpretations of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In fact, there are so many different interpretations that can be drawn from the book that you can’t come away with one definitive interpretation of that text. And that book isn’t even all that complicated.

So while there can’t be one definitive interpretation, it is incorrect to say that all interpretations are correct and the text doesn’t matter at all.

Nowhere do I hear this more than in Islam. The idea that the text is irrelevant to what Muslims feel and believe is constantly stated. This is to avoid the unpleasant fact of how bad the Quran is.

The link above is connected to some group called Intelligence Squared, and the forum is a two-on-two debate with one group arguing that Islam is a religion of peace and the other arguing that it is not. The debate happened more than ten years ago but it seems to be coming up with all sorts of YouTubers linking to it and commenting on it now. That, or the YouTube algorithm notices that I really like Douglass Murray and Ayan Hirsi Ali. Regardless, I found the debate illuminating.

The two classically liberal Muslims argued that Islam can be interpreted as being lovely, tolerant and compassionate towards Jews, Christians and various polytheistic groups, and that the life of Prophet Muhammad can be ignored. Douglass Murray and Ayan Hirsi Ali argued that the Quran, the Hadith and the life of Prophet Muhammad made Islam a problematic faith at its core.

Douglass Murray had the best takeaway line of the night. He said there are three Islams. One is the Quran: the life of Muhammad and the Hadiths. The second is Islamic history. The third is what Muslims believe in and do in current times. Murray expressed some optimism that in the third Islam, many Muslims want to live peaceably and harmoniously with everyone else. However, he warned that the first Islam would make it harder for the live-and-let-live Muslims to succeed. The two Muslims who believed that Islam could be a religion of peace thought that the first kind of Islam could be overcome or ignored. Douglass Murray and Ayan Hirsi Ali probably would have liked to agree, but they did not.

Now, without speaking Arabic or having read the Quran, I side with Ayan Hirsi Ali and Douglass Murray because I realize that words mean something. If words didn’t mean anything, then I could have been given a book advocating for anti-black bigotry and my teachers could have interpreted the book as advocating for classically liberal equality.

But the books I was given in high school obviously advocated for being decent to non-white people. The curriculum really cared about the text of what I was reading. Going back thousands of years, the educated classes have been obsessed with what their kids read as well as what their teachers taught.

It would be an interesting, if unstable, world if what something actually said didn’t have to matter. A realm of pure interpretation, if you will. In fact, living in a world of pure interpretation is quite like living in a world of… “Pure Imagination.”

Hold your breath,

let’s take a dive,

the text comes alive

Come with me and you’ll be

in a world of pure interpretation

Take a look and you’ll see

into modern imagination

We’ll begin with a spin

on a thousand years of Jihad’s interpretations

And our will - will defy

old explanations

Chorus 1

If you want a liberal paradise

read Derrida and deconstrue it

Any sex you want to do it

Want to change the word

There’s nothing to it

<whimsical music starts up>

There is no real life I know to compare with pure interpretation

Living there, you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be

Chorus 2

If you want a liberal paradise

read Derrida and deconstrue it

Any sex you want to do it

Want to change the word

There’s nothing to it

Chorus 1 reinterpreted

There is no real life I know to compare with pure interpretation

Living there we’ll be free if only it could be (sung with greater sadness then in the original)

What makes the song a perfect fit for the idea of infinite interpretations (spoken musically) is that the song and the argument are about a perfect world untethered from anything. The song is much better than the idea, because, unlike the idea, it does not pretend to be anything other than a beautiful fantasy. Something to be indulged in but never taken seriously.