Statement of the claim
Earlier exegetes treated mythical stories as real occurrences.
Explanation
Arkoun holds that some early exegesis did not stop at a symbolic or literary reading of mythical stories, but instead shifted them to the level of historical report, geographical description, or cosmological account. They were thus treated as if they were fixed data, rather than as narrative images bearing meaning.
This transformation from myth into fact reveals, in his view, a way of understanding texts that makes religious imagination part of the record of reality. It is what links early exegesis to an epistemic mindset inclined to stabilize meaning rather than to question it historically and critically.
Its place in the book’s argument
This atom belongs within Arkoun’s critique of the modes of reception and interpretation that shaped a traditional understanding of religious texts and narratives. It converges with his broader thesis about the need to reconsider inherited reading tools and not merely accept what older tafsirs established regarding history, the cosmos, and meaning.
Limits of the claim
This atom should not be taken as an all-encompassing judgment on every earlier exegete or on all forms of classical interpretation. What is meant here is a particular interpretive tendency, not a definitive description of all efforts at explanation and interpretation within the tradition.
Brief evidence passage
Allah sets forth an example: a town that was secure and at peace, its provision coming to it in abundance from every place, yet it denied the blessings of Allah, so Allah made it taste the garment of hunger and fear for what they used to do. (al-Nahl 16:112)