Formulation of the claim
In Arkoun’s reading, the Qur’an is a textual corpus that combines closure and openness at the same time.
Explanation
This claim means that the Qur’anic text cannot be reduced to a single characteristic; on the one hand, it is structurally defined as a text existing in its own right, and on the other, it remains open to multiple horizons of understanding and reading. For this reason, Arkoun does not treat the Qur’an as a bloc closed off to one final meaning.
Within this horizon, the notion of closure and openness is connected to the way Arkoun approaches foundational texts in general: they have their historical and linguistic limits, but they are not exhausted by one fixed interpretation. In this sense, the claim does not deny the presence of the text; rather, it rejects confining it to a single, self-sufficient reading.
Its place in the book’s argument
This atom belongs to the broader argument that seeks to reconsider how the Qur’an is read within contemporary Islamic thought. It stands at a midpoint between the sacredness of the text on the one hand, and the need to open it to the questions of history and meaning on the other, which brings it close to theses that criticize interpretive rigidity and search for broader possibilities of understanding.
Limits of the claim
This atom should not be taken to mean denying the Qur’an’s stability or questioning its authority, nor should it be understood as a call to deconstruct the text or strip it of its unity. What is intended is a description of its mode of textual presence in Arkoun’s reading, not a value judgment on it.