Abstract
Contextual interpretation of the Qur’an has grown in popularity with the rise of Islamic modernism, mostly because of the need to reform Islamic thought and institutions. Although Qur’anic contextualism is a modern concept, this study argues that its theoretical origins can be traced back to classical Islamic scholarship. Most of the Islamic theological schools, as well as the Akbarī School (the school of Ibn al-‘Arabī), a prominent representative of philosophical Sufism, acknowledged the contextuality of the Qur’an by distinguishing between transcendent divine speech and its limited manifestation in human language. Furthermore, Shams al-Dīn al-Fanārī of the Akbarī School developed a hermeneutical theory in which he questioned the authority and the nature of Qur’anic exegesis and emphasized the idea that the Qur’anic text can have multiple meanings, due to the multiplicity of perceptions in different human contexts. I propose that, of the thinking in pre-modern Islamic scholarship, Akbarian scriptural hermeneutics best accommodates the modern practice of reading the Qur’an contextually.
Highlights
Contextual interpretation of the Qur’an has grown in popularity with the rise of Islamic modernism, mostly because of the need to reform Islamic thought and institutions
“extremes,” Ash‘arıand Māturıdıtheologians made a distinction between eternal divine speech and its created form, holding that divine speech somehow was transformed to human language
Hermeneutical theories presented by the Akbarıschool should be analyzed in relation with its ontological theories because it discusses both subjects through the same concepts and terminology
Summary
‘Alıibn Ah.mad al-Wāh.idı (d. 1075), a renowned medieval Qur’an commentator, is reported to have made the following statement about Muh.ammad ibn al-Husayn al-Sulamı. 1925), a scholar and a statesman from Ottoman Turkey who played a major role in the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, one of the bases of Shari‘a law is human reason, which has the power to discern what is good and bad in this world This concept is crucial to Seyyid Bey because it permits him to assign greater authority to reason in interpreting sacred texts and formulating laws. Since the divine speech acquires a certain shape in and according to the Prophet, who lived in a certain socio-historical context, an understanding of that context is critical for Rahman to comprehend the message of the Qur’an thoroughly. He introduces his theory of what he calls “double movement” in the interpretation process When applied to the controversial issue of polygamy, for example, Abu Zayd’s hermeneutical method leads to the conclusion that the direction of revelation in the Qur’an points to the tacit message of the text, which is the prohibition of polygamy (Abu Zayd 1999)
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