Labyrinth

The constant search for God’s purpose within every context is a labyrinth that has no end.

What was intended as a straight path has in practice become a labyrinth of meanings.

This metaphor is particularly apt because it is exactly what happened historically and theologically.

Let’s elaborate on that picture:

1. The Original Promise: One Straight Road

The Quran self-confidently presents itself as a guide that brings clarity:

“This is the Scripture wherein there is no doubt, a guidance for the righteous.” (2:2)
“And this is My straight path, so follow it and do not follow other paths, for they will lead you astray.” (6:153)

So Islam began with the ideal of one direction, one truth, one path —an end to the religious maze seen in Jews and Christians.

But precisely that certainty, that absolute trust in one Word,
became the source of a new maze — not of texts, but of interpretations.

2. How the labyrinth came into being

As soon as people started asking:

“What exactly does God mean by this unchangeable Word?”

Branches emerged:
legal schools, theological movements, mystical interpretations, modernist re-readings, feminist, rationalist, fundamentalist…

Every movement claims:

“We are standing in the middle of the path.”

But seen from above, they all turn out to be corridors in the same labyrinth.

3. Of irony

Islam sought to overcome the multiplicity of interpretations , but because it attempted to do so through a text —
a text using human language—it created the very multiplicity it sought to exclude .

The Qur’an sought to replace the human voice with the divine, but by being read, it became human again —
differently each time, in every time, in every language in a changing world of norms, knowledge and consciousness.

4. Philosophical perspective

The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur called this the “hermeneutic circle”:
the reader seeks the meaning of the revelation, but the revelation only acquires meaning after the reader’s context.

Islam dreamed of a linear path from God to man , but instead it got a circular path of meaning —
a labyrinth where each exit leads to a new entrance.

5. Summary

Islam began as a straight line between God and man,
but the human mind has created a multitude of paths from it.

There are three main currents, each forming its own path in the labyrinth :

the orthodox (legal) path,
the mystical (spiritual) path,
and the modernist (ethical) path.

Everyone claims that their path is the “straight way,” but each arrives at a different center.

1. The Orthodox Way — The Path of Obedience

Orientation:
The starting position is: God spoke, man must follow.

The Quran is literal and unchangeable, so the believer’s task is imitation , not interpretation.
Orthodoxy attempts to simplify the labyrinth into a single, straight line —the sharīʿa (divine law).

Feature:

  • Strong legal thinking (fiqh, fatwas, rules)

  • Distrust of human reason

  • “Meaning” = what the Prophet and his companions said

  • Every innovation ( bidʿa ) is a wandering in the labyrinth

Objective:
Escape from confusion by standing still : he who does not move does not get lost.

Problem:
Standing still is impossible. Language changes, context changes. So orthodoxy builds walls around its path, but the walls shift with the times. It wants to find the exit by not walking, but the labyrinth moves around it.

2. The mystical path — the path of the soul

Orientation:
The mystic says:

“The labyrinth is not outside of us, it is within us.”

The text is not a law, but a mirror.
The right path is not a route on earth, but the inner journey to God.

Feature:

  • Symbolic and allegorical reading of the Quran

  • Every verse has an outer ( ẓāhir ) and an inner ( bāṭin ) level

  • The search is personal, loving, endless

Goal:
Not to escape the labyrinth, but to traverse it to its center —where one discovers that its many corridors all radiate one Light.

Problem:
Mysticism alienates the community: those who turn inward speak a language the majority no longer understand.
Orthodoxy calls it foolishness or heresy.

The mystic says:

“The straight road appears crooked to those who stay outside.”

3. The Modernist Movement — The Path of Reinterpretation

Orientation:
The modern reformers say:

“The right path is moral, not legal.”

The Quran contains timeless values ​​(justice, compassion),
but its specific laws are historical.
Therefore, we must continually reinterpret God’s intention .

Feature:

  • Contextual hermeneutics

  • Reading the Quran through the lens of modern morality

  • The text is a starting point, not an end point

  • “Unchangeable” means: the value , not the form , remains

Goal:
Find the exit of the labyrinth through movement — through rereading.

Problem:
Every rereading opens new paths.
There is no end point: every “modern” interpretation becomes outdated.
The modernist escapes dogma, but not endless change.

4. Three ways, three ways of getting lost

Current Direction Way of getting lost
Orthodoxy Standing still in obedience Petrified in dogma; the labyrinth turns without them
Mysticism Inward, toward the inner center Losing touch with the community
Modernisme Forward, towards new contexts Loses ground; meaning keeps shifting

5. The paradox of the labyrinth

Islam envisioned a single path between God and humanity, but humanity brought its own diversity with it: mind, heart, time, history.
This diversity could not disappear. It became the very fabric of Islam.

The straight path exists only within the labyrinth —not outside it.

“The truth of God is one, but the faces through which man seeks it are innumerable.”