the Qur'an

Explanation

For Mohammed Arkoun, the Qur’an appears as a prophetic discourse that is at once open and historical, not an isolated or closed text outside the conditions of its formation. It is the center around which exegesis, jurisprudence, theology, and later forms of religiosity emerged; therefore, understanding its history and its interpretive history becomes the key to critiquing fundamentalist thought.

Referenced by

• Removing the Qur’anic phenomenon from its isolation
• Historically closing the foundational texts
• The impossibility of fundamentation imposes a historical critique of Islamic reason and modernity
• The religious effect rests on the credal imaginary
• The interpreting community grants the text sanctity
• Historical Islam took shape through the appropriation of the Qur’an and the diversity of belief
• Faith and Islam are historically differentiated
• Ijtihad requires independence from the caliphs
• Belief is read historically and linguistically
• Scientific inquiry distinguishes between faith and reason
• Historical interweaving, not simple succession
• The historical ordering of the surahs changes the meaning
• The historical deconstruction of discourse
• Islamic discourse took shape historically and then closed off
• The first Qur’anic discourse shapes faith dramatically
• Qur’anic discourse elevates the human being
• Prophetic discourse forms existence and meaning
• Arabic Qur’anic studies suffer from methodological and epistemological paralysis
• Prayer and righteous action found the spiritual relationship
• The Islamic phenomenon appropriates the Qur’an
• The Islamic phenomenon is not Qur’anic
• The Qur’anic phenomenon differs from the Islamic phenomenon
• The Qur’anic phenomenon and the Islamic phenomenon
• The Qur’an as prophetic discourse
• The Qur’an took shape historically in a multi-stage context
• The Qur’an is a historical and linguistic event
• The Qur’an is an example of the formation of belief
• The Qur’an is a founding reference, but it can only be understood historically and linguistically
• The Qur’an is an absolute reference
• The Qur’an is an absolute reference, yet it is read as prophetic discourse
• The Qur’an is a multi-stage historical text
• The Qur’an requires historical and linguistic deconstruction
• The Qur’an needs a modern reading that combines history and faith
• The Qur’an defines what is lawful and what is valorized
• The Qur’an opens a spiritual horizon, while historical Islam turns it into systems
• The Qur’an is understood historically and linguistically, not as a transcendent given
• The Qur’an is understood through its internal history
• The historical reading of the religious text
• The modern reading of the religious text brings together science, history, and faith
• A scientific reading of the religious text requires removing it from isolation and freeing it from reductive Orientalism
• Historical disclosure as a liberating step
• The muṣḥaf is an official closed text
• Modern methodologies open up a scientific reading
• The Qur’anic text is the source of secondary texts
• The Qur’anic text is the source, and derivative texts acquire their sanctity from it
• The Qur’anic text is not isolated
• The openness of Qur’anic discourse versus the closure of orthodoxy
• The invalidity of proving modernity through texts
• The late emergence of Qur’anic encyclopedism
• The historicity of basic Islamic concepts
• Temporarily neutralizing the theological aura
• The later formation of doctrines and jurisprudence
• The plurality of approaches to studying the Qur’an
• The text’s formation through a long process of codification
• The differentiation of historical stages
• Distinguishing the Qur’anic and Islamic phenomena
• The communities of the Qur’an are historically built through ethical functions
• Combining historical analysis and faith
• Studying the Qur’an historically does not strip it of its value
• The paralysis of Islamic studies
• The necessity of a critical reading of the Qur’an
• Understanding the Qur’an’s formation in its context
• The sanctity of secondary texts is derivative
• Modernity cannot be ascribed to religious texts
• The post-prophetic realm is a human domain with no inherent sanctity
• The project of critiquing Islamic reason
• Critique of interpretive Orientalism
• Critique of Western Qur’anic studies
• Critiquing the old method opens up a horizon for reading the Qur’an