Muslims believe that the Qur'an is God's word, as told to the Prophet Mohammed in Arabic through the angel Gabriel in the 7th century. Today, as the community's social needs have almost entirely changed since that time, should this holy book be interpreted differently?

"Yes," says Prof. Abdullah Saeed, a noted Muslim scholar.

Saeed, the Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, challenged a widely held traditional view - that the Qur'an is God's eternal speech and is therefore unrelated to any particular context.

"This is a key issue in the 21st century today as [Muslim] scholars are dealing with human rights, gender equality, citizenship, rights of non-Muslims, especially in relation to the ethical/legal texts [in the Qur'an]," Saeed told the participants - academics, research students, clergy and journalists - at the Witherspoon Institute's recent seminar, "The Quran in the Modern World," held at the Princeton Theological Seminary.

"From a traditional view of Islam, you must look at how the Qur'an explains itself, then go to the traditions of the Prophet [Hadith, meaning reports of statements or actions of Muhammad, or of his tacit approval or criticism of something said or done in his presence], and then to the first generations [of Muslims] as to how they understood the text." Saeed said.

The view that a change in social and political realities can have no bearing on the interpretation of the Qur'an leads many to reduce exegesis to a mere linguistic exercise, said Saeed, who spent his early education at traditional Islamic seminaries in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Qur'an, Saeed said, was an oral text for 22 years at the time of the Prophet. The very first word revealed to the Prophet was "recite." "The spoken word functions in a specific context," he stressed. "For those who were in immediate contact with the Prophet, the question of interpretation as a formal endeavour did not arise, as the Qur'an was coming to them in their own language, in bits and pieces, and in a particular context - social, political, economic, cultural, intellectual. It made perfect sense to them; they could relate to it."

"The writing [of the Qur'an] was done to preserve," Saeed said. Part of the Qur'an had been written down during the time of the Prophet, but it was put together as a book after his death. When the Qur'an was written down and became a closed book, "it lost something very important: the big picture or the overall context."

That's natural for any text, not just the Qur'an, Saeed said. "When a text moves to another time, we try to reconstruct that big picture. We go back, as much as we can, to that period or time." And today, "we have a cumulative tradition of what that big picture was like. But what we have is an incomplete sense of that big picture."

Saeed used the example of the description of the paradise, which the Qur'an says will have trees and rivers among other things. In Mecca and Medina, where the Prophet received the revelation, there were no rivers; it was a desert region, he explained. "So for the people there, this description of the paradise was very attractive. The description was relevant to their context. But it may or may not be so for a person who lives in another part of the world, for example, in a place where rivers often flood."

Saeed also quoted Sura 4:34: "Men are maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient , guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great."

To understand the Qur'an, as well as controversial verses like 4:34, he said, "understanding the context is absolutely essential." "What did that [verse] mean to the first generation of Muslims? We need to go back to the 7th century" and look into the issues they were facing.

The Maldivian-born scholar added that many ask him what is the mainstream view on women, or generally on the Qur'an. "No one can define or decide what the mainstream view is. For those who hold a particular view, it is very mainstream for them. There are many schools of thought in Islam. There are endless debates on various issues in Islam," he said.

The tafsir (the Arabic word for exegesis) tradition is also rich and complex, Saeed said, as he briefly explained three classical Sunni tafsirs and how each of them interpreted the first part of Qur’an 4:34.

Some tafsirs use reasoning - as opposed to solely looking for answers within the text - than the others.

Tafsir al-Tabari, by the Persian scholar Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (838-923), relies on both the text and reason, he said. This tafsir interprets Qur’an 4:34 maintaining that God has given certain advantage to some over others (irrespective of whether they are men or women).

Tafsir al-Razi, by thetheologian and philosopher Muhammad ibn Umar Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149-1209), relies heavily on reason. On Qur’an 4:34, it says men have been given preference in inheritance only because they are maintainers of women, as per the provision for dowry and providing for the needs of the wife.

On the other hand, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, by Syrian historian and Qur’an scholar Ibn Kathir (1301–1373), relies heavily on the Qur’an and Hadith texts for interpretation, Saeed said. Ibn Kathir sees the husband as the master, superior to the wife, and does not allow leadership roles for women. Today’s Salafis rely heavily on this tafsir, he added.

"There are some very progressive ideas in the Qur'an, but many such ideas were marginalized in the early development of Islamic law," Saeed said. In the early period of Islam, many hadith were fabricated and attributed to the Prophet. A number of such hadith appear to suggest that women are inferior to men, he added. "When Islamic law was developed, scholars perhaps relied on some such hadith in their understanding of the role of men and women in society.”

Muslims regard hadith of the Prophet as a commentary on the Qur'an, as the Prophet experienced and understood the book first hand and put it into practice, Saeed explained. Saeed's sessions at the seminar drove one point home: while revelation is divine, interpretation of that revelation is a human endeavor, and can change in a changed context. He made a case for a contextual interpretation of the Qur'an in the modern world as opposed to the traditional textual approach.

"One could argue that there is nothing sacred about the personal interpretation given to a verse even by a Companion of the Prophet, or by a Successor or by early imams," Saeed writes in the introduction of his book, "Interpreting the Qur'an." "Their understandings, like ours," he adds, "are limited by context and culture and may or may not be relevant outside their culture, their context."

Saeed proposes that Muslim scholars today should explore the tradition in light of contemporary experience, including modern knowledge and method of research.

"The methodologies, terminology and concepts provided by the classical scholars of exegesis are not necessarily relevant for all times and places, or invariably applicable as the sole source of understanding the Qur'an."