12 Modern interpretation

of the Qur’an

Differences between textualists and contextualists

Fazlur Rahman

Amina Wadud
220

222

225

Muhammad Shahrour 226

Mohammed Arkoun 227

Khaled Abou El Fadl 228

Summary 231

Recommended reading 231

Notes 232
220 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

M ETHODS OF INTERPRETATION OF THE Qur’an have con-

tinuously changed and developed over the course of Islamic history.
Two of the many different trends are often referred to as the ‘textualist’ and
‘contextualist’ approaches. Today, the textualist approach remains the most
widely adopted by Muslim interpreters of the Qur’an, particularly Sunni
Muslims. In an attempt to understand the Qur’an’s meanings, which are
often assumed to be fixed and unchanging over time, proponents of this
approach engage primarily in linguistic analyses of sources such as the
Qur’an and hadith. In the modern era, an alternative, contextualist approach
is beginning to gain more prominence. In their attempt to understand the
Qur’an’s meanings, of which the essence is assumed to be unchanging,
proponents of this approach argue that textual study must be accompanied
by knowledge of the social, cultural and political conditions of the time of
revelation. In contrast to textualist scholars, contextualists engage not only
in linguistic analysis, but also adopt approaches from alternative fields such
as hermeneutics and literary theory. Thus, in keeping with the history of
continuously evolving Qur’anic exegesis, many modern contextualists are
seeking to develop new ways of approaching the Qur’an.
In this chapter we will discuss:

• The differences between textualist and contextualist scholarship;

• The predominant approach of most Qur’anic exegetes today;
• The approaches of five contemporary scholars of the Qur’an:

– Fazlur Rahman,
– Amina Wadud,
– Muhammad Shahrour,
– Mohammed Arkoun and
– Khaled Abou El Fadl.

Differences between textualists and contextualists

Much of today’s Qur’anic scholarship is based on a textualist methodology.

This methodology also largely dominated exegesis in the pre-modern period.
Textualist scholars rely on a referential theory of meaning to interpret the
Qur’an, drawing mainly on linguistic rather than social or historical analysis.
Scholars who adopt this approach believe that the language of the Qur’an
has concrete, unchanging references, and therefore the meaning that a
Qur’anic verse had upon its revelation still holds for the contemporary
context. For most textualists, the meaning of the Qur’an is static: Muslims
 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN
221
must adapt to this meaning. This approach is prominent in much of today’s
literature on the Qur’an and generally well understood.
In contrast, contextualist approaches are less well known and certainly
much less understood than the more traditional approaches to exegesis. In
general, the scholarship of contextualists is often associated with a form of
Islamic reformism. In comparison to textualist approaches, it is arguable that
contextualists have a more nuanced approach to finding ‘meaning’ in the
Qur’anic texts, although the details of this approach will often vary between
scholars. A common characteristic of contextualist scholars is that they argue
that the meaning of a particular Qur’anic verse (or hadith) is, to a large
degree, indeterminate. Meaning, in this sense, is said to evolve over time, and
is dependent upon the socio-historical, cultural and linguistic contexts of the
text. This approach to exegesis allows a scholar to consider any given word
in the light of its context, and to arrive at an understanding which is believed
to be more relevant to the circumstances of interpretation. Contextualists
further argue that it is never possible to arrive at a truly objective meaning
and that subjective factors will always intervene in our understandings. That
is, the interpreter cannot approach the text without certain experiences,
values, beliefs and presuppositions influencing their understanding.1
Modern contextualist scholars have sought in particular to engage with
the ethico-legal teachings that can be derived from the Qur’an. From a
contextualist perspective, the Qur’an is not considered to be a book of laws,
but one which contains ideas, values and principles that can be applied
through changing times and across different places. In order to arrive at these
ideas, values and principles, a contextualist study of the Qur’an requires
both broad and narrow contexts of the Qur’an to be understood. A broad
contextual understanding allows a single verse to be compared to the overall
intention and context of the Qur’anic text, which includes not only the
Qur’an itself, but also the sunna of the Prophet. The narrow context must
consider what appears directly before and after the verse in question and also
the exact words of the verse itself.
Contextualist studies are also heavily influenced by modern hermeneutics,
which represents a set of principles used in interpretation of texts, and can
also be defined as a ‘philosophical exploration of the character and necessary
conditions for all understanding’.2 Hermeneutics does not attempt to assign
a fixed and stable meaning to a text, rather it presupposes that the meaning
of a text is found in or assigned to it by the people who read it. Thus the role
of the reader in the creation of meaning is emphasized.
Farid Esack, a South African Muslim scholar, discusses this in his work.
He suggests that ‘receiving a text and extracting meaning from it do not exist
on their own’ and so meaning is always partial.3 In his work Qur’an:
222 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

Liberation and Pluralism, Esack states that ‘hermeneutics’ has not been
associated with traditional Islamic scholarship. However, Esack speaks of
developing a ‘hermeneutic of liberation’,4 and also claims that the discipline
of hermeneutics gradually began to influence Islamic scholarship of the
twentieth century. As will be reflected in this chapter’s profiles of modern
Muslim scholars, ‘hermeneutics’ seems to be aligned with reformist and
‘liberal’ scholarship in contemporary Islamic thought. Such ideas directly
confront the assertions of Muslim textualists, who do not assign any
significant role to the reader in the identification of meaning.
This chapter will look at the thought and contributions of five contem-
porary scholars to the understanding of the Qur’an. Among them is Fazlur
Rahman, who played a key role in developing notions associated with
a hermeneutical approach within Islamic studies. Rahman is described as
‘arguably the first modern reformist Muslim scholar to link the question
of the origin of the Qur’an to both its context and interpretation.’5 Following
Rahman, there is an overview of the prominent American scholar Amina
Wadud, a central figure in the formation of a ‘hermeneutics of equality’.6
Another pioneering figure of contemporary Islamic hermeneutics is
Mohammed Arkoun, whose work was influenced by postmodern intel-
lectuals such as Paul Ricoeur, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.
Similarly influenced by postmodernism, Muhammad Shahrour emphasizes
the need to differentiate between the divine and human understandings
of reality. Finally, we will end with an overview of the work of Khaled Abou
El Fadl, a leading scholar of Islamic law and vocal opponent of literalist
interpretations of the Qur’an.

Fazlur Rahman

Fazlur Rahman is best known for his major contribution to modern discus-
sions of reform in Islamic thought. He wrote on a wide range of subjects,
including Islamic education, interpretation of the Qur’an, hadith criticism,
early development of Islamic intellectual traditions and reform of Islamic law
and ethics.
Rahman was born in Pakistan in 1919, and spent most of his adult life
studying and teaching in the UK, Canada, Pakistan and the USA. While
living in England he wrote his dissertation at Oxford University on Ibn
Sina, and subsequently taught Islamic philosophy for eight years at Durham
University. He then moved to Canada, where he was appointed associate
professor at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. He later
returned to Pakistan to take up a position as visiting professor and then
 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN
223
director of the Islamic Research Institute. From 1961 to 1968, while at the
Institute, Rahman advised the then president, General Ayyub Khan, on how
Pakistan could best steer a middle path between modernist and traditionalist
Islam.
During his time in Pakistan, Rahman was criticized by those who wanted
to maintain the dominant socio-religious practices of the time. When this
criticism led to death threats, he sought safety in the United States.
There, Rahman took up the position of Professor of Islamic Thought at the
University of Chicago, a position he held until his death in 1988. One of
Rahman’s students at the University of Chicago was Nurcholish Madjid, a
Muslim scholar who went on to become a leading Indonesian intellectual
and played a major role in broadening Islamic studies and developing Islamic
liberalism and democracy in Indonesia.
Rahman’s methodology has also been applied by other scholars in areas
such as women’s rights, as is evident in the writing of the prominent
American scholar Amina Wadud. Although Rahman spent a large part of
his life in the West, he remained an avowedly Muslim scholar, committed to
reaching and influencing a Muslim audience. Similarly, although he served
as an advisor to General Ayyub Khan, Rahman was active mainly in the
intellectual sphere of academia and did not seek popularity with a general
audience or any direct influence over a political movement.
Rahman firmly believed that one of the primary purposes of the Qur’an
was to create a society based on justice. He also saw the Prophet Muhammad
as a social reformist, who sought to empower the poor, weak and vulnerable.
Thus he viewed the Qur’an as a source from which ethical principles could
be derived, rather than a book of laws. One of the aims of his scholarship
was to help formulate a society devoid of exploitation of the weak. In his
own words, Islam as a religion, and the teachings of the Qur’an in particular,
could be seen as ‘directed towards the creation of a meaningful and positive
equality among human beings. As such the Islamic purpose cannot be
realized until genuine freedom to human beings is restored and freedom from
all forms of exploitation – social, spiritual, political and economic –
assured.’7 His position as a reformist was based on his belief that:

[T]he implementation of the Qur’an cannot be carried out literally in the

context of today because this may result in thwarting the very purposes
of the Qur’an, and that, although the findings of the fuqaha [jurists] or
the ulama [scholars] of Islam during the past thirteen centuries or so
should be seriously studied and given due weight, it may well be found
that in many cases their findings were either mistaken or sufficed for the
needs of that society but not for today.8
224 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

For instance, Rahman argued that the practice of family law in Islamic
history had not accorded females the equal rights to which they appear to be
entitled, based on the Prophet’s example and teachings of the Qur’an:

The Qur’an insistently forbids the male [from] exploit[ing] the female
on the strength of his stronger position in society, and Islam set[s] into
motion the whole complex of measures – legal and moral – whereby sex
exploitation would be completely eradicated. It forbade the recourse to
polygamy under normal circumstances, allowed the woman to own and
earn wealth, declared her to be an equal partner in the society: noting
and allowing for the disadvantages she had in the society of that age. It
laid down the basis of matrimonial life to be mutual love and affection,
and that spouses were like garments unto each other. It strictly regulated
the law of divorce.9

Rahman has been criticized for ‘underestimating the complexity of the

hermeneutical task and the intellectual pluralism intrinsic to it’.10 However,
it appears this issue was not central to Rahman’s thought. His primary
intention, it seems, was to address specific problems he believed needed
attention from the perspective of Muslims who were aware of their own
struggle to remain relevant in a constantly changing environment. His
contribution to the argument for recognition of subjective elements in
Qur’anic interpretation can be seen perhaps more accurately as a forerunner
to the more recent scholarship of figures such as Amina Wadud and Khaled
Abou El Fadl.
In summary, Rahman’s primary contribution to the debate on Islam
in the twentieth century was his assertion that in order to understand
the Qur’an, Muslims must move away from reductionist and formulaic
approaches which do not recognize the Qur’an’s social, historical and
linguistic context. His approach to the Qur’an can be seen as one of the most
original and systematic of the second half of the twentieth century. Similarly,
his emphasis on the context of revelation has had a far-reaching influence
on contemporary Muslim debates on key issues such as human rights,
women’s rights and social justice. Rahman argued that without being aware
of the social and political conditions of the society in which the Qur’an
was revealed, one could not understand its message.11 Despite some
criticisms, Rahman’s approach is increasingly being adopted by Muslims in
their attempts to relate the Qur’an to contemporary needs, and it will likely
continue to be influential among today’s younger generation of Muslim
intellectuals.
 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN
225
Amina Wadud

Amina Wadud is an African-American scholar of Qur’anic exegesis and

gender. In 1992 she produced her first book, a Muslim feminist work of
exegetical principles of the Qur’an entitled Qur’an and Woman: Rereading
the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective.12 The book was endorsed by
a number of Arabic-speaking feminists,13 and included controversial ideas
such as the need to use more gender-neutral language in understanding the
Qur’an.14
Amina Wadud was born into a Methodist family in 1952 in Maryland,
USA. While growing up, Wadud felt like an outsider by virtue of both her
ethnicity and gender. A fellow scholar of Islamic feminism, Asma Barlas,
writes, ‘If race is what defined her in the eyes of her White peers, gender is
what seems to have defined her in the eyes of her Black ones.’15 When she
was studying at university, the 20-year-old Wadud decided to become
Muslim. According to Barlas, Wadud’s position as an African American, and
thus ‘Western’, convert to Islam has enabled her to engage with Islam with
a ‘specific consciousness shaped by her identity’.16 Wadud gained her PhD
in Islamic studies from the University of Michigan in 1988 and at the time
of writing is teaching at the Virginia Commonwealth University.
Wadud occupies a controversial position in contemporary Islamic
thought. A strong advocate of gender equality, Wadud is considered to
belong to the ‘feminist’ movement within Islam. She is perhaps most widely
known for having delivered a Friday sermon in South Africa in 1994, and
more recently for her controversial leading of a group of men and women in
Friday prayers in 2005, acting as the imam or prayer leader. This event was
commented on internationally and led to a number of fatwas insisting that
leadership in prayer is reserved for Muslim men.17
Wadud also positions herself as a postmodernist. She has argued that
postmodernism as a movement advocates ‘rethinking’ and ‘reconfiguring’
the past, a process which Wadud considers necessary in order to create a
future which is more pluralistic and homogeneous.18 This thinking aligns her
with scholars such as Mohammed Arkoun and Muhammad Shahrour,
who have both been influenced by postmodernist scholars. All three have
sought to question the established methods of Islamic enquiry, arguing for
awareness of the subjectivity of supposedly ‘true’ positions.
Wadud suggests that she is engaged in a ‘gender jihad’, a position reflected
in her belief that the Qur’an both liberates and empowers women. She has
criticized some common Muslim narratives as erroneous, such as the claim
that woman was created from man and is thus a secondary creature. Wadud
226 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

argues that there is no Qur’anic support for the belief, common among some
Muslims, that woman was created after man. She cites verses such as Q.4:1,
which speak of the first human being in gender-neutral terms, in support of
her argument: ‘People, be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a
single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the pair of them spread
countless men and women far and wide.’
Wadud emphasizes that the Qur’an does not ‘assign responsibility for the
expulsion of this pair [Adam and Eve] from Paradise to the woman’.19 She
also states that the Qur’an places men and women on the same ontological
level, and she argues that the only basis for differentiation among human
beings, both women and men, is their degree of ‘God-consciousness’
(taqwa). Wadud does not consider the verses which deal with polygamy to
be evidence of the subordination of women to men. Instead, she considers
the key teaching of the Qur’anic verse related to this issue 20 to be ‘concerned
with justice: dealing justly, managing funds justly, justice to the orphans, and
justice to the wives’.21
Wadud’s contribution to the study of the Qur’an has been summarized by
Asma Barlas as follows:

Wadud’s critique of traditional tafsir is meant not only to reveal the

flaws in patriarchal readings of the Qur’an, but also to get Muslims to
realize what is at stake in rethinking their textual strategies, in devising
new interpretative methods, and in including women in the processes of
knowledge creation. She believes this will not only allow the women to
develop a more authentic Muslim identity, but also will reflect ‘new
levels of understanding and human participation’ in religious life.22

Muhammad Shahrour

Muhammad Shahrour was born in 1938 in Damascus, Syria. A civil engineer

and self-taught scholar of Islam, Shahrour has written extensively on Islam
and the Qur’an. As an outsider by profession, he argues that contemporary
Muslims need to reconsider and question Islam’s holy books, an idea which
he expresses in his major work, a study of the Qur’an, Al-Kitab wa al-
Qur’an.23 Shahrour has been influenced by a wide range of intellectuals,
from those as early as the Muslim philosopher al-Farabi (d.338/950),
through to the philosopher of German idealism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and
the English mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead.24
Essential to Shahrour’s thought is his differentiation between the divine
and the human understanding of the divine reality. He also argues that,
 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN
227
owing to developments in science, contemporary scholars are much better
placed than those in the past to understand the ‘divine will’. 25 As such,
Shahrour seeks to create a new framework and methodology for
understanding the Qur’an, and to this end has created his own categories for
approaching the Qur’an.26
Shahrour, like Mohammed Arkoun, seeks to question the established
patterns of reading the Qur’an. The method by which Shahrour proposes to
do this is called ‘defamiliarization’, which involves ‘the explicit wish to
undermine the well-established canon of interpretations and to suggest
alternative ways of reading a text. Andreas Christmann states that Shahrour
wants his readers to understand the Qur’an ‘as if the Prophet has just died
and informed us of this book’,27 thus approaching the Qur’an as if reading
it for the first time.28
Shahrour’s books have attracted much criticism. The response to his work
has been almost entirely negative: ‘Even sympathetic scholars such as Nasr
Hamid Abu Zayd, who himself advocates change and reform, criticize
Shahrour’s methodological naiveté.’29 Others have also accused him of being
an agent of Zionism and of attempting to spread disunity among Muslims.
Shahrour has responded to these criticisms by claiming that such comments
are an easy way of avoiding the discussion he is trying to initiate.
Despite these criticisms, at least one of the dominant ideas in Shahrour’s
thinking on Islam rings true with many contemporary reformist scholars of
Islam. That is, that the Qur’an must be approached in a contemporary
manner; studies or readings of the Qur’an should be considered in light of
developments in other fields such as modern philosophy and linguistics. This
‘contemporary’ approach to the Qur’an appears to be evident in his
application of theories of schools of thought ranging from ‘process theology,
evolutionism, liberalism, Marxism, Sufism, mathematics, statistics, quantum
physics, psychoanalysis, linguistics and communication theory’, 30 in his
analysis of the Qur’an.

Mohammed Arkoun

Mohammed Arkoun was born in Algeria in 1928 and is culturally Berber,

French and Arabic. After studying in Algeria, he gained a PhD from the
Sorbonne in Paris. Arkoun is now widely known as a pioneering scholar of
contemporary Islamic thought. He is credited with broadening the discipline
of Islamic studies by borrowing and developing ideas from sources not
generally associated with Islamic studies. One of his major works is The
Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought.31
228 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

Arkoun went to the Sorbonne just before Algeria’s independence, and

there his intellectual development was enriched by the general changes that
the humanities were experiencing during the 1950s and 1960s. During
this time, ‘the field of humanities . . . was characterized by a search for new
perspectives and approaches, which led either to the creation of new
intellectual movements or to the consolidation of existing theoretical and
methodological approaches’.32 Arkoun’s thinking was also inspired by his
research on the Persian intellectual and Islamic ‘humanist’ Miskawayh
(d.421/1030) and his study of Arab humanism of the tenth century, which
was also the subject of his PhD. He was ‘impressed by the openness and
receptiveness of Miskawayh and his contemporaries to other traditions like
the Greek and the Persian [traditions]’.33
Arkoun is not generally respected by traditionalist Muslim scholars, due
to his secularist approach to analysis of the Qur’an and the apparent
influence on his work of intellectuals such as Derrida, Baudrillard and
Foucault.34 He is also criticized by some for his ‘complex and elusive
expressions, the abundant terminology [present within his writings] and the
lack of systematization’.35
A key element of Arkoun’s thinking is his questioning of Islamic ortho-
doxy, and his view that orthodoxy is ‘equivalent to an ideology’ and is thus
subject to a ‘historical process’.36 Orthodoxy involves a ‘learned culture’,
which is steeped in ‘writing’ and which is expressed through ‘the state’. This
‘orthodoxy’ is opposed by a ‘heterodoxy’, which facilitates a popular (and
populist) culture, which makes use of (the freer, less stable) ‘orality’ and is
present within (or creates) a segmented society.37
In summary, Ursula Günther argues that Arkoun’s thinking displays the
qualities of a rhizome, an idea closely associated with postmodernist
thought. Günther states,

[The rhizome] symbolises a shift of paradigm that has already occurred

at different levels of modern life. It stands for integrity, wholeness and
plurality in contrast to dualism, decomposition and particularism . . . In
this respect Arkoun’s approach bears features of postmodernism.38

Khaled Abou El Fadl

Khaled Abou El Fadl was born in Egypt in 1963. He is a leading scholar

of Islamic law and a traditionally trained Muslim jurist. Abou El Fadl is
a professor at the University of California. Although widely viewed as a
respected scholar, his attacks on some movements within Islam, in particular
 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN
229
the so-called Wahhabism, have led to his receiving numerous death threats.
Among other things, he criticizes Wahhabism for the harsh restrictions it
imposes on women. He argues that an ‘ideology’ such as Wahhabism, which
obliges women to be ‘blindly obedient’ to men, effectively turns men into
demigods.39 He has also argued against the common position among
traditionalist scholars regarding the compulsory wearing of the veil (hijab)
for women, on the basis that women are not explicitly instructed to do so in
the Qur’an. Abou El Fadl also speaks out strongly against all cultural
practices that make women occupy subordinate positions in society. For him
such practices are ‘morally offensive’ and strike at the core of what it means
to be a Muslim.40
One of Abou El Fadl’s major works is Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic
Law, Authority and Women.41 This work seeks to address the role of the
authoritative reader of religious texts, challenging the way in which self-
proclaimed ‘scholars’ of the Qur’an, particularly in modern times, assume
the role of spokespeople on behalf of God. He argues that in many cases,
such ‘scholars’ displace God’s authority, which he describes as ‘an act of
despotism’.42 The introduction to Abou El Fadl’s book draws on the work
of Umberto Eco, among others, in asking questions about whether verses
from the Qur’an call for an ‘open’ or ‘closed’ reading of the text. 43 Abou
El Fadl highlights the importance of focusing on the interaction between the
author of the Qur’an (God) and the reader, and the authoritative reader’s
responsibility, by virtue of this special position as interpreter of the text,
to act as a faithful ‘agent’ for the ‘principal’ (God), and refrain from impos-
ing their own subjective opinions unless they are clearly stated. In seeking to
clarify the position of the reader in understanding the Qur’an, Abou El Fadl
proposes questions such as:

To what extent are my sensibilities and subjectivities determinative

in constructing the text’s meaning? May I or should I submit the text to
my use, and permit my needs to be determinative in constructing a
meaning for the text? If the peculiarities of the reader are determinative,
what then happens to the intent of the author? Should the reader focus
on the intent of the author and consider the author’s intent deter-
minative as to the meaning of the text? Isn’t this more respectful
towards the author, especially when the author is divine? But how can
the intent of the author be ascertained if the author’s motives are not
accessible?44

The framing of a debate in this manner – which highlights the subjectivity of

the reader’s position – is clearly an attack on those who ‘speak in God’s
230 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

name’ by claiming the supposed authenticity and infallibility of ‘literalist’ or

‘textualist’ approaches.
In a similar vein to Arkoun and Wadud, Abou El Fadl also promotes the
idea that there are many possible interpretations of the Qur’an, and opposes
the views of conservative scholars who claim a monopoly on the inter-
pretation of the Qur’an. However, Abou El Fadl argues that the idea of a
‘European Islam’ that is somehow different from Islam in general is super-
fluous, as the classical sources of Islam provide sufficient basis and also
flexibility with which to engage with the issues of Muslims living in the West
as minorities, without having to reformulate Islam entirely. He states,
‘Islamic theology and Islamic law provide everything a Muslim needs to live
in a secular, pluralist, and democratic society: tolerance, acceptance of
pluralism, a rejection of coercion, participation in public life (as long as this
is guided by moral principles), mercy, and love.’45
In debates on how the study of the Qur’an can be developed, Abou El Fadl
has argued against the wholesale adoption of a literary or deconstructive
approach. Instead, he suggests that Muslim scholars and interpreters of the
Qur’an should use an approach that is rooted in the traditions of Islam and
the Muslim experience. His recommendation is that Muslim scholars should
start with the Muslim experience and consider how such discourses might
be utilized in its service.46
Abou El Fadl sees the ideas and methodologies of postmodernism
and post-structuralism as coming from the particular social context and
historical experiences of the West, and thus as not being particularly relevant
to contemporary Islamic thought. Although the questions these philosophies
raise are ‘fascinating’, it is ‘important not to superimpose an epistemology
on Muslims that might not faithfully reflect the Muslim experience’.47
Although Abou El Fadl rejects the relevance of postmodernism to
Islamic scholarship, his strong criticisms of those puritanical elements
which impose a rigid orthodoxy on interpretations of the Qur’an link him
with other movements which have developed in connection with post-
modernism. However, unlike Arkoun and Shahrour, Abou El Fadl’s criticism
of conservative scholars is firmly grounded in Islamic jurisprudential
methodology.
 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN
231
Summary

Some of the important points we have discussed in this chapter include:

• Textualist exegesis generally involves linguistic analysis of textual

sources, and is based on the assumption that the meanings of the Qur’an
are fixed over time.
• Contextualist exegesis involves a range of different techniques, and is
based on the assumption that the meanings of the Qur’an are largely
indeterminate.
• Textualist scholarship is still the most prevalent form of Qur’anic
scholarship among Muslims today.
• Many modern Muslim scholars, including those outlined above, are
beginning to pay greater attention to the importance of context in
understanding the Qur’an.

Recommended reading

Mohammed Arkoun, ‘Revelation’, ‘Exegesis’, in Rethinking Islam: Common

Questions, Uncommon Answers, translated and edited by Robert D. Lee,
Boulder: Westview Press, 1994.
• In these two chapters in particular, Arkoun criticizes traditional
approaches to the Qur’an and its interpretation. He argues for a
rethinking of the exegetical tradition in light of the changing contexts
of modern society. The topics of other chapters in this book range
from ‘Muhammad’, ‘Hadith’, ‘Women’ and ‘Sufism’ to ‘Authority’,
‘Mediterranean Culture’, ‘Secularism’ and ‘Human Rights’.
Farid Esack, Qur’an, Liberalism and Pluralism, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997.
• In this book Esack provides an alternative view of the Qur’an in relation
to modern concepts of liberalism and pluralism. He argues that the
Qur’an recognizes the ideas of freedom, tolerance and pluralism.
Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual
Tradition, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982; ‘Modern Develop-
ments’, ‘Legacy and Prospects’ and ‘Epilogue’, Islam, second edition,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002, pages 212–265.
• In these books Rahman argues that there is a need to reinterpret the
Qur’an. He critically re-evaluates the tradition of Islamic scholarship
232 MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE QUR’AN

in light of socio-historical contexts and also argues that there is a need

to recognize the difference between the Qur’an’s reference to general
principles and its specific responses to historical situations.
Suha Taji-Farouki (ed.), Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

• In this book Taji-Farouki presents a collection of academic articles on

modern Muslim thinkers and their role in rethinking interpretation and
application of the Qur’an. Together, the articles provide the reader with
a broad overview of the major figures in this area and their ideas
regarding modern approaches to the Qur’an.

Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a
Woman’s Perspective, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

• In this book Wadud argues that there is a need for more feminist
approaches to interpreting the Qur’anic text. In support of this argu-
ment, she highlights the fact that most traditional exegetical works have
been written by male scholars within male-dominated socio-historical
contexts. Given that the Qur’an is a book of guidance for both men and
women, Wadud advocates the need for more scholars to read and
interpret the Qur’an from a woman’s perspective.

NOTES

1 Farid Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997,

pp. 73–77.
2 Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, pp. 50–51.
3 Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, p. 75.
4 Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, p. 82.
5 Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, p. 65.
6 Suha Taji-Farouki (ed.), Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 106.
7 Fazlur Rahman, ‘Some Reflections on the Reconstruction of Muslim Society
in Pakistan’, pp. 103–20, Islamic Studies, vol. 6, no. 9, 1967, p. 103.
8 Fazlur Rahman, ‘The Impact of Modernity on Islam’, p. 127, Journal of
Islamic Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, June 1966, pp. 112–128.
9 Fazlur Rahman, ‘The Impact of Modernity on Islam’, p. 111.
10 Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, p. 67.
11 This approach has been rejected by a Turkish scholar, Huseyn Atay, who
argues that the Qur’an needs to be ‘liberated from historical and traditional
culture’; see Taji-Farouki (ed.), Modern Muslim Intellectuals, p. 249.
12 New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.