Tradition Through the Looking Glass: Part 1

Thomas Bauer’s Culture of Ambiguity and how not to talk about Religious Tradition

Apr 12, 2023

This is part 1 of a what is a long-form review work-in-progress of what may be one the most important Islamic Studies book of the last 10 years in academia. It has already inspired quite a few books.

NB: This is a long-form review as I wanted to wrestle with some of the issues without worrying about details such as word-count, details that are not so lightly dismissed by editors. Perhaps I can spin it off into the wider world, as I would like. On the other hand, neither is it quite finished, hence why it’s a part 1 and not a whole unit, with some editing required here and there, which I will do simultaneously. I would also like any feedback for if, as I intend to, seek to publish in a different format, any feedback would strengthen or highlights it’s - I’m sure - many shortcomings. As for the moment, let’s get on.

Part 1 can be found here.

Part 2 can be found here.

Part 3 can be found here.

1. Introduction

There are many ways to talk about what a religious tradition is. At its most simple is the observation that it requires at least two components. Firstly something which is handled and passed one, and the other being, someone who carries this thing which is handled. The tradition which is handled is those things, that mishmash of beliefs, culture, ethos, embodied practices, and those carriers being those peoples, those nations, those ethnic peoples, and cultures that pass that mishmash set of things over an extended period of time. One supposes that we can assume that traditions are what peoples that carry them and the peoples that identify with those very things being carried. So we say that, Catholics carry or rather pass on Catholic things, or traditions, and Native Americans pass on Native American traditions, and Hindus pass on Hindu traditions, and so on.

But of course this doesn't work as neatly as we would like. When we say for example that Catholics pass on Catholic traditions we just so happen treat vastly disparate kinds of people as if they're one unified homogenous people. We could also fairly wonder to that extent those things that are carried - those traditions, beliefs and rites, how long whether centuries, or even decades, without having changed. After all when we say that this tradition has been passed on to us from generations, we assume quite reasonably that we have the same tradition as our forefathers had before. If it has changed unrecognizably or even to a large extent then its arguable that we less carrying our ancestors tradition but that we are instead deceived.

Clearly we need a better account of our tradition then. One idea would be to consider the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. For MacIntyre a tradition simply is “an argument extended through time in which certain fundamental agreements are defined and redefined in terms of two kinds of conflict: those with critics and enemies external to the tradition who reject all or at least key parts of those fundamental agreements, and those internal, interpretative debates through which the meaning and rationale of the fundamental agreements come to be expressed and by whose progress a tradition is constituted.” What is striking about MacIntyre’s formulation is that there is an assumed identity that endures despite the new challenges and adaptions of change that any tradition may face. The meanings of those traditions change of course, and that understanding develops as these discussions occur over time. But the participants of the tradition would recognize that they are participants in the same conversation, or rather series of conversations extended over time, sharing key tenets in shared language and styles of discourse.

Yet, one cannot help but note the prominence that MacIntyre’s gives to its textuality, that insists that primary focus ought to be a tradition’s intellectual aspect, a tradition’s discursivity as it were. Perhaps we can try to qualify this definition by noting the other aspects a tradition can pass on, as for example Talal Asad attempts do. On the other hand, it may simple be more fruitful of to not wonder what a tradition is, but consider how a tradition behaves.

One such example is the remarkable work of Thomas Bauer, professor of University of Munster, and his recently translated A Culture of Ambiguity. A Culture of Ambiguity effortlessly shows its author's thirty years of erudition and has been justly lauded, and indeed the recipient of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award the most prestigious research award in Germany. A book dripping with insights and deep learning that specialists can learn from it, yet written with enough verve and sparkling wit, making it enjoyable for the casual reader. Given it’s theoretical bravura and witty writing style and it’s see why it could be one of the most important Islamic Studies books published in the last decade. Bauer has already inspired a decent number of scholarly work that liberally uses his ideas to to examine the verdant richness of the Islamic tradition, a prominent example being Oliver Scharbrodt’s recently published Muhammad ‘Abduh: Modern Islam and the Culture of Ambiguity.

More pertinently for us, whilst Bauer does not discuss what a tradition is, he is very much concerned what a traditions manifests, or generates; the cultural trait that is characteristic of a religious tradition. Putting it differently, not what a tradition is but rather what a tradition does. More specifically he is interested in the idea of tolerance of ambiguity, a culture trait or phenomena that some cultures have, he claims, in plenty, while others are found wanting. In his book, he argues that Classical Islam has tolerance in abundance as do we post-modernists, whilst on the other hand modern Islam, be they fundamentalists or of a liberal variety, by contrast are impoverished, and this, he argues, is due to the sins of the Western Enlightenment. Stated in such bald terms, we may be surprised that such an argument could even be made anymore, let alone be published. Yet its credit to Bauer’s erudition, manifest sympathy, least of all his wit, that he nearly succeeds.

So how can is he going to substantiate his argument? Such an argument has to be stronger than based on the stellar intuitions of an intellectual however erudite. Rest assured, Bauer takes us on a wide-ranging tour going from rites of hospitality to the bounds of scholarly dispute, from Near-Eastern attitudes of sex to the fecundity of religious texts, from poetry to politics. If in the end, we may persist that his argument is less definitive than he makes out to be, its hard not feel invigorated by what is a glorious saunter through the riches of Islamic civilization.

Setting for a moment all these superlatives aside, I should tell you that this is a critical essay. Indeed, I will argue that Bauer’s a deeply flawed argument. As much as the intolerance of ambiguity is a worthy concept that immediately develops fresh insights, insights I’m sure likely yield harvest in more than just Islamic studies. Yet we need to be clear-eyed about the value of such a conceptual schema, especially with regard to its claims to being a prism or a criteria by which we can compare and contrast cultures. Indeed its precisely because Bauer does such a good job of his argument that it will attract a fair number of emulators, and precisely why his argument warrants the a close examination of what exactly its limitations are, as well as it’s insights. I am going to argue, that central to Bauer’s argument is a flawed understanding of what is a religious tradition; and that despite writing with refreshing historical sympathy to classical Islam, his animus towards modern Islam betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what religious tradition actually is, and does, and ought to do. But all of this is getting ahead of ourselves - let’s take a closer look at what Bauer actually means when he says classical Islam was culture with a high ‘tolerance of ambiguity’, which I will interchangeably refer to as ambiguity for short.

2. Ambiguity and its many varieties

Bauer borrows the ‘tolerance of ambiguity’ from psychology, and the work of Else Frenkel-Brunswik who introduced it in the 1940s. She observed that those who are not willing to accept an emotional ambivalence also exhibited, on cognitive level, a high degree of intolerance of ambiguity. Consequently she argued for two varieties of personalities, either tolerant or intolerant, and assumed that it was a basic variable of psychological orientation one has towards life. She also demonstrated a connection between racism and an intolerance of ambiguity. Bauer reports, that her celebrated work has been supplemented with newer research that seems to unearth relationships between ambiguity and other basic variables of personality, such as rigidity, dogmatism. In sum, Bauer concludes that notion of an ‘tolerance of ambiguity’ has a substantive basis in psychological fact and it can offer a significant contribution to the studies in the human and social sciences.

Perhaps a good way to appreciate the intuitive appeal of Bauer's arguments are not facts of human cognition but rather the mundane reality that human history is overflowing with diversity - almost a truism that only young people, the truly insular or captive ideologues would dispute. It is a not large step, and certainly not an unreasonable one to say, if the world is inherently complex and messy, then its a measure of a religious tradition1 to manage these diverse facts on the ground. Accordingly, some cultures would seem to conform this diversity within the narrow confines of certain truths. On the other hand, Bauer seems to suggest, plausibly I would argue, that the best cultural traditions are those with a high tolerance of ambiguity, and therefore most successful in managing life's messiness, reconcile its various parts, ameliorating any ill-effects and to the extent that is possible, harmonising contradictory elements, in short, domesticating life’s inherent ambiguity.

Bauer argues that it is possible that we can explore the extent to which different cultures accept ‘experience, equivocality, vagueness, complexity, and plurality, and how they deal with these experiences’. He contrasts cultures who seek to eliminate anything smacking of equivocation, creating a black and white world of categorical truths, with those who accept the inevitable and are content to ‘domesticate ambiguity’. In the latter, while unlimited ambiguity may be controlled, there is no attempt to obliterate it. A culture that tolerates, perhaps even values ambiguity, instead of seeking to eliminate it; any ambiguity is reduced and managed so one can live with it. He notes that people in different cultures have common ways of responding to ambiguity just like they respond differently family, body and sex, and treats them as revealing of a mentalite, that reveals characteristic traits that cultures exhibit differently.

2.1 Between Classical and Modern Islamic attitudes to ambiguity

It was only a few centuries ago, Bauer argues, that classical Islamic civilization2 was a society that in fact tolerated and appreciated ambiguity. He observes that Islamic medieval society was not a society that failed to resolve contradiction because of a lack of intellectual capacity, but did ‘not aspire to resolve it’. Its members faced ambiguous realities with poise and self-assurance. For some, equivocation was even welcomed and they positively enjoyed the effect that ambiguity produces.

In a tantalisingly brief history, Bauer shows the extent to which Islamic scholarship and as a civilization as a whole was enchanted by ambiguity. From its very inception, and in order to study the language of revelation, the Islamic civilization was culture that beheld a fascination with language thereby steeping itself in ambiguity. This manifested in the creation and compilation of dictionaries, or Arabic lexicography. This continued with studies of how words can hold contrary meanings, by studies in metaphor, texts that demonstrated how poetics and stylistic can be a subject scientific analysis, how metaphors can serve not only to obscure but to clarify meanings, all of whom were published in hundreds of texts, glosses and commentaries that showed the extent to which rhetoric was a foundational science of Islamic scholarship. Bauer argues then, that this continuous literary training served as a kind of ’ambiguity training’ for Muslim scholars, that generated scholars with limber minds when approaching problems and texts and that this continuous ’ambiguity training’ led to ambiguity more readily accepted into other areas life.

By contrast, Bauer argues that modern Islam has undergone a radical transition, displaying very little tolerance today. Contemporary muslims, whether fundamentalists or liberal reformers - and it has to be said that Bauer’s book cannot see beyond this unhelpful dichotomy - both suppose to know the one true meaning in the Quran. Classical scholarship, on the other hand, considered that differences of opinions were seen as a blessing and mercy from God. According to Bauer, too many Western Orientalists and Muslim modernists regard the richness of interpretation that the classical scholars prided themselves on, as evidence of Islam’s decline. On the other hand, for modern Muslim scholarship, it is not about which is the most plausible of the many interpretations but which is the correct and why others are wrong. Not coincidentally, he argues, modern and classical Islam could be located in almost oppose sides of the spectrum of tolerance.

Many Western observers sees the intolerance within Islam’s modern face as Islam's true face, yet in doing so they miss the richness of what it once was. More contentiously, in Bauer's telling, it was the West who was very much to blame for this. Rather unconvincingly to me at least, he attributes this decline to a devastating changes that takes took in the 19th century where rhetoric vanished from school curricula. Poetry was no longer about playfulness but was a focused on kind of romantics, of authentic feeling expressed in a direct manner. Bauer claims, that Arabs began to be embarrassed about their tradition, and even today many intellectuals look at their heritage as degeneracy.

He further notes that this was not only common amongst Arab liberal intellectuals, but a parallel movement within Islamists who were convinced that all spheres must be subject to the rules of Islam, what Bauer considers an ideological representation of what Islam is. Instead they are in fact, according to Bauer, ‘a caricature of the West’s own ideologization and disambiguation of the world.’ Lamenting this as a tragedy, he claims the Western image of Islam that blames its Islam's contemporary faults to its heritage, tallies with the fundamentalists abhorrence of their own history, which they consider an unbroken process of decline. Bauer argues that the hatred of disambiguation lies at the root of both of these readings, and in fact originates from the West, claiming that ‘intolerance of ambiguity in modern Islam is a phenomenon of modernity’.

2.2 Types of Ambiguity in Classical Islam

One of the most insightful aspect of Bauer's arguments is that he is able to show that there is more than one way to be ambiguous.

A characteristic ambiguity of classical Islam was that of an (i) acceptance of plurality of discourses, some of whom may have norms that were mutually incompatible. Bauer argues that there are number of times that scholarly discourses such as jurisprudence and theology, that may exist in parallel and end up setting norms which may be mutually incompatible, and may even conflict. However, what is most important is that the majority of scholars accept this juxtaposition even if there is minority who may want exclusive dominance of one discourse above others, for example as hadeeth, over other fields, for example theology. He argues that all discourses of Islam were at one point hostile with each other yet underwent a regular sequence of integrations of discourses. He cites the example of Imam Shafi who integrated rational discourses in jurisprudence, Imam ‘Ashari who integrated Greek philosophy with Islamic theology without relinquishing the traditionists, of Imam Ghazzali who integrated sufism into mainstream Sunnism. In all cases, the compromise solutions did not mean the original positions were lost, but rather a new middle ground position was formed by which a broad range of positions scaffold themselves on. No opinion or position is wholly negated, rather all positions compete and coexist with each other.

Another characteristic ambiguity of of classical islam was an (ii) acceptance of divergent interpretations, which suffused the whole gamut of Islamic scholarship and heritage, and according to Bauer, one of the most salient divergence between modern and classical scholarship. He notes that one best examples of this can be found in hadeeth science where modern scholarships seems to regard correct (saheeh) and weak (daef) as almost of synonym of truth or falsehood, very different from the sophisticated theory of probability developed by the classical hadith scholarship. Classical Islam accepted that ambiguity was inevitable and scholarship was dedicated to curbing, and shepherding this ambiguity into a manageable system that guaranteed legal reliability. However the ability of classical scholarship to negotiate between competing various shades of grey, did not survive the onslaught of modernity and it not only vanished but it was replaced with an Islam that displayed hostility towards this rich heritage.

Finally, the last type characteristic ambiguity that is that of acceptance of (iii) ambiguous texts, actions, and places, where there is the potential to ascribe to one text, action or place different meanings. According to Bauer, ‘the ambiguous text par excellence is the Quran', and according to Muslim scholarship, the Quran itself being revealed in variant readings and given the fecundity of its language, its verses able to bear so interpretations.

A good example of how classical Islam exhibits its attitude towards ambiguity can be seen in the way the Islamic tradition handles its foundational text, the Quran. For Bauer this serves as an eloquent example of how the classical tradition was able to ‘domesticate ambiguity’ in the face of a potential ‘crisis’, but also revealing the extent to which the Quran is a paradigmatically ambiguous text, perhaps far more than many modern Muslims appreciate. Perhaps a useful way to dip into the argument then, is considering Bauer’s discussion of the variant recitations of the Quran, a case study that not only capture the book’s erudition but also it's blemishes.

Part 2 - Coming soon, hopefully within the next two weeks. Please make share comments and any feedback. Criticisms are especially wanted. As are issues of editing.

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