People waited outside the Student Health Center on Broad Street to be checked by security guards with metal detectors before entering the center to hear Nasr Abu Zaid discuss being a Muslim in today’s world.
Zaid, author of “Voice of an Exile,” an autobiography about growing up Islamic, was on campus to speak at the latest World Studies’ Crossing Boundaries series, sponsored by the School of World Studies.
“I was very reluctant to come,” said Zaid, an Islamic studies professor in the Netherlands who received the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom of Worship Medal in 2002.
While describing the modern interpretation of the Koran, he said the new interpretation is no better than the old. Instead, he sees the process of rethinking tradition as an ongoing development, which he favors.
“(To) modernize their (Muslims’) lives without relinquishing their spiritual power is a difficult balance,” he told the audience.
The Koran, which was written in the 7th century, is a communication between Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, and Allah.
“The Koran is a living phenomenon,” Zaid said. “No one knows its inner meanings except Allah.”
Dan Smith, who has taught Islamic studies at VCU for four years, said he thinks it is impossible for humans to try to limit the deity by saying their interpretation is the only absolute interpretation of those sacred texts.
“To rethink, to probe deeper is seeking fuller truth of which all scriptures beckon us always,” he said.
Stuart Louder, a sophomore religious study major, attended the talk as an assignment for his Islamic studies class where Zaid earlier talked to students.
“An idea of reinterpreting seems already accepted in Judaic-Christian sects, but in Islam (it) is still coming up as taboo,” Louder said.
A Muslim woman asked Zaid about women’s rights according to the Koran.
“We have to debate this issue,” he said of the interpretation of the Koran expressing exclusive rights to males. “We have to fight a long battle.”
One sophomore psychology major said she was pleased to see Muslim scholars pondering the question of whether the Koran should be put in modern times.
“I’m not saying the Koran should be altered to be present-day compliant,” she said, “but I do think we should look at it with our present state in mind.”