Abdulrahman Helli

Wednesday, 22 June 2016, 5.00 pm - 6.30 pm |
Forum Transregionale Studien, Wallotstr. 14, 14193 Berlin

Freedom of Belief and the Qur'an: A New Approach


Abdulrahman Helli

(EUME Fellow of the Freie Universität Berlin 2014-16)

Chair: Islam Dayeh
(Freie Universität Berlin / Zukunftsphilologie)

(In Arabic with English translation)

Abstract
The question of religious freedom has assumed great significance in the discourse of modern Muslim scholars since the late 19th century. Having pride of place as Islam’s central text, the Quran was the main refuge of Muslim scholars seeking fresh answers to intricate and dire issues such as jihad, apostasy and freedom of thought.
In his talk, Dr. Helli will speak about his current project, a rewriting of his book on "Freedom of Belief and the Qur'an", first published  in 2001, that discusses the possibilities of Intertwining classical theoretical tools of legal reasoning and  modern techniques of semantic analysis on the issue of freedom of belief. His study seeks to provide a coherent account of the seemingly contradictory utterances of the Quran; and to show the  possibilities of interpretation these tools may provide under specific historical circumstances or mental paradigms.
His new approach to the Qur’an is based mainly on separating issues of war from their supposed religious backgrounds and re-embedding them into the broad Qur’anic ethical values of freedom and justice.

Abdulrahman Helli was Associate Professor in the Department of Islamic Theology (Usul al-Din) at the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Aleppo University, Syria.  He was a founding member of the “Syrian Writers Association” in 2012, and a founding member of al‐Multaqa al‐Fikri (Intellectual Forum for Innovation) in 2000. He has published widely in Arabic in the field of religious studies. Among his books are: The Messages of all Prophets: One Religion and Many Laws (2015), Tafsir: A Textbook (Aleppo University 2012), On Qur'anic Concepts (2011), The Dilemma of Religious Education in the Muslim World, a Debate with Khalid (2007). The forthcoming studies: "Introduction to curriculum of research and writing" (book), " Qur'anic  vision of Prophets calls and the question of universality",  "Approaches to Qur'anic  purposes: A Historical Study". He has been a EUME Fellow in the academic year 2013/14, and a EUME Fellow of the Freie Universität Berlin since the academic year 2014/15, and worked on the project "The Hermeneutics of The Absolute and the Relative: Religious Pluralism in the Hermeneutics of the Qur'an”.

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