Muslim and Non-Muslim voices on Qur'an in the Light of the Clinton Bennett’s Work

Abstract

Qur’an being the last divine book, has undergone a constant change of response from Muslim and non-Muslim scholars in the last fourteen centuries. Everybody has tried to understand Qur’an according to his own experiences and perceptions. These scholars have adopted various attitudes to understand and interpret the Qur’an and Qur’anic knowledges in every face of history. Clinton Bennett is one of the scholars who has compiled and analyzed the various approaches relating Qur’an. Moreover his coined hierarchy seems to be comparatively proper because he has divided the relative scholars into different categories according to his own classification. Muslim attitudes include conservative (Traditionalists/Revivalists), Moderate (Liberal) and the Progressive ones, while non-Muslim attitudes consist of faith sensitive and critical ones. In addition to the elaborations of various scholastic attitudes Clinton Bennett has at times cited his own version therein. In the study underhand we will try to discuss the hierarchy of the Quranic beliefs as visualized by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. We will discuss the class and position of the scholars given by Clinton Bennett to them in his hierarchy and would narrate the contribution of the scholars hereafter. We will also examine and study the relative scholars by our own critical analyzation. This research is descriptive and analytical in nature and presents a detailed analysis of the work, it is based upon.