Çağdaş Batı Literatüründe Kur’an Metnine Yaklaşımlar: Metin Bütünlüğü Arayışları

Abstract

One of the most prominent areas of study in Western-centered Qur’anic studies has been the textual structure of the Qur’an. Until the last quarter of the 20th century, there is a prevailing opinion that the Qur’an has an unsystematic textual structure. With the 1980s, new approaches are beginning to emerge on the basis of the assumption that the Qur’anic surahs have a certain literary unity. These studies are not limited to attempts to determine the unity of individual surahs, and they carried their research areas to surah pairs and surah groups. In order to assess the reasons for such an important evolution in Western studies, process analysis is needed starting from the 19th century, when orientalism was institutionalized, to the present day. In addition, a review supported by comparative analysis between before and after the mentioned break in perspective is required. For this, first of all, an analysis limited to historical-critical methods effective in Qur’anic studies and prominent scholars in Qur’anic researches since the 19th century is carried out. Subsequently, analyzes aiming at determining which theoretical and methodological effects exist in the background of studies on the unity of the Qur’anic text are discussed. Based on the theoretical knowledge obtained in this context, prominent approaches to determine the textual unity of the Qur’an are examined with reference to the reference texts of leading scholars. As a result, it is concluded that the studies in question have a method and content that is of academic quality and deserves further research. On the other hand, it is noted that there are some issues in need of criticism, such as reductionism, generalization, historical data shortage, eclecticism in related studies.