我在本书中尝试向讲英语的读者介绍古兰经的一些学科。一个人对古兰经了解得越多,并将其运用于生活,就越能接近安拉。我希望穆斯林能够在两种令人不快的极端之间走中间道路。第一种极端是袖手旁观,声称伊斯兰知识不是普通信众的事,应当留给该领域的专家。这种态度使穆斯林大众对自己的宗教深陷无知。凡是不致力于学习伊斯兰的人,很可能忙于各种活动,而这些活动将在审判日成为遗憾之源。这种态度还会导致一个结果,这一结果在忏悔章中受到了严厉的批评:犹太教徒和基督教徒把他们的祭司和拉比当作主,而不是把安拉当作主,盲目地追随他们,即便他们禁止了安拉为他们所允许的事物,并允许了安拉所禁止的事物。135

I have attempted in this book to acquaint the English-speaking reader with some of the sciences of the Qur’aan. The more one understands of the Qur’aan and applies in one’s life, the closer one comes to Allaah. I hope that Muslims will steer the middle course between two unpleasant extremes. The first is to throw up one’s hands, claiming that Islaamic knowledge is not the business of the layperson, and that it should be left to specialists in the field. This attitude has left the Muslim masses in deep ignorance of their religion. Whoever is not busy learning about Islaam is likely to be busy in a wide variety of activities that will be a cause for regret on the Day of Judgment. This attitude also leads to a result that was severely criticized in Soorah at-Tawbah. The Jews and Christians took their priests and rabbis as lords in place of God by blindly following them when they prohibited what God had made lawful for them and made lawful that which God had prohibited.135

第二种极端是，某人读过几本伊斯兰书籍后，便自认为已经有学问了。这类人觉得有责任去纠正周围人的“错误”：当他们看到别人做了自己不熟悉的事情，或者听到某处有人说某种做法是错的，而自己却从未研究过学者们在该问题上的各种观点及其证据时，便会这样去做。我希望这本书能让这类人明白伊斯兰学问的复杂性，尤其是因为书中所呈现的内容，与阿拉伯文所写的相关著述相比，只是冰山一角。

The second extreme is to consider oneself learned after having read a couple of books on Islaam. Such persons feel duty-bound to correct the “mistakes” of those around them when they see them doing something they are unfamiliar with, or when they have heard somebody somewhere say that a certain practice is wrong, but they themselves have not studied the different positions of scholars on the issue along with their evidences. I hope that this book will impress upon such people the complexity of the Islaamic sciences, especially since that which has been presented here is the tiniest tip of an iceberg compared to what has been written on the subject in Arabic.

我希望读者即使从这本书中一无所获,也能带走一把衡量标准,用以评判那些对《古兰经》提出解释之人的言论。我们生活在这样一个时代:非穆斯林非常热切地希望穆斯林重新诠释我们宗教(deen)的渊源。此类努力的根本,就在于重新诠释《古兰经》。穆斯林对非穆斯林的重新诠释相当警惕,但穆斯林自身却在倡导一场整体的重新诠释运动。这一运动在居住于西方或在西方受训的穆斯林中尤为强烈,它将西方工业文明的许多假设视为不言而喻的真理,并主张穆斯林对伊斯兰(Islaam)的理解与实践必须迎合这些假设。

I would hope that if the reader gets nothing else out of the book, that he or she will leave with a standard by which to measure the statements of those who are offering interpretations of the Qur’aan. We live in a time when non-Muslims are very eager for the Muslims to reinterpret the sources of our deen. Fundamental to such efforts is reinterpretation of the Qur’aan. Muslims are fairly wary of nonMuslim reinterpretations, but there is a whole reinterpretation movement being advocated by Muslims. This movement, which is especially strong among Muslims living or trained in the West, takes many assumptions of western industrial civilization as self-evident truths which must be accommodated in the Muslims’ understanding and practice of Islaam.

这场运动的一个主要方法是：先对某个问题确定立场，然后再去寻找证据来支持它。他们最喜欢的手法之一，是围绕某个问题，依据某节经文来立论，而且往往是按照他们自己新提出的解释，同时却无视那些使其解释无法成立的其他经文。一个典型的例子就是对《黄牛章》第62节的歪曲注释。

One of the main methods of this movement is that a position on a given issue is taken, then evidence is sought to support it. One of their favorite tactics is to argue on the basis of a particular verse on an issue, often according to their own new interpretation, while ignoring other verses which make their interpretation impossible. A classic example of this is the distorted tafseer of verse 62 of Soorah al-Baqarah

他们说，这节经文明确证明犹太教徒和基督教徒也是信士，我们都是兄弟，进入乐园的唯一条件就是信仰安拉和末日，并行善功。然而，历代穆斯林学者都是结合《妇女章》第150至151节来解释这节经文的。

They say this verse is clear proof that Jews and Christians are believers, that we are all brothers and that the only criteria for entry into paradise are belief in Allaah and the Day of Judgment along with good deeds. However, Muslim scholars throughout history have interpreted this verse in light of verses 150-1 of Soorah an-Nisaa’:

这段经文明确指向犹太人和基督徒：犹太人否认耶稣和穆罕默德（愿二人平安）是先知，基督徒则否认穆罕默德的先知身份。136

This passage clearly refers to the Jews, who deny that Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them both) were prophets, and the Christians, who deny Muhammad’s prophethood.136

那么，既然犹太教徒和基督教徒听说过穆罕默德（愿主福安之）并拒绝他的先知身份，他们怎么还能被许诺得到报酬，且无所恐惧呢？一个如此解读《黄牛章》经文的人，实际上是让《古兰经》自相矛盾，而这本身就是一种不信的立场。因此，穆斯林学者的共识是，这节经文有两种可以成立的解释。第一种是：在穆萨（摩西）时代信仰安拉并遵循其所派先知的犹太教徒，以及在尔撒（耶稣）时代信仰安拉并遵循其所派先知的基督教徒，被许诺得到这一报酬。另一种是：在穆罕默德（愿主福安之）的使命降临之后，所说的报酬属于各宗教群体中那些信仰安拉和末日、行善（依最后的启示所界定），并信仰穆罕默德（愿主福安之）是派给他们的先知的人。137 这两种解释顾及了所有证据（为简明起见，这里仅提及其中一小部分），而第一种解释则没有做到这一点。

How then could Jews and Christians who heard about Muhammad (r) and rejected his prophethood be promised that they would get a reward and have nothing to fear? A person who interprets the verse from Soorah al-Baqarah in that way has taken a position that requires the Qur’aan to contradict itself, which is in itself a position of disbelief. Therefore, the consensus of Muslim scholars is that there are two valid possible interpretations of the verse. The first is that Jews at the time of Moses and Christians at the time of Jesus who believed in Allaah and followed the prophet sent to them have been promised this reward. The other is that after the mission of Prophet Muhammad (r), the stated reward is for those among the various religious groups who believe in Allaah and the Last Day and do good as defined in the final revelation, having believed in Muhammad (r) as a prophet sent to them.137 These two interpretations take into account all of the evidence (of which only a fraction has been mentioned for the sake of brevity), while the first does not.

另一种需要警惕的常见手法，是仅依据经文词语的字面语言学含义来解释《古兰经》。为了使这类解释听起来有道理，就必须无视圣训。你会看到有些人仅仅因为某段圣训只由少数几位圣门弟子传述，便加以拒绝！这种方法论历来是各种偏离正道的伪伊斯兰团体的一个普遍特征。

Another common technique to be wary of is tafseer of the Qur’aan solely on the basis of linguistic meanings of the words. For such tafseers to sound plausible, the Sunnah must be ignored. You see some of them rejecting a hadeeth because it was only reported by a handful of sahaabah! This methodology has been a common feature of deviant pseudo-Islaamic groups throughout history.

希望读者读完这本书后，能够辨识出此类受议程驱使的重新诠释中的种种缺陷。我祈求真主引导我们所有人走向祂所喜悦的道路，并使我们免于在后世遭受毁灭。

Hopefully, the reader, after finishing this book, will be able to recognize the flaws in such agenda-driven reinterpretations. I ask Allaah to guide all of us to that which pleases Him and to save us from ruin in the hereafter.