Formulation of the Claim
In its first experience, the Qur’an was a heard, chanted, and recited text before it was read visually.
Explanation
Arkoun grounds the Qur’an’s initial presence in hearing, chanting, and recitation, not in visual reading alone. These sonic forms are not a later detail; rather, they are the entry point through which religious consciousness of the text was formed.
In this sense, vocal performance precedes the act of reading, and the believer’s relationship to the Qur’an is based first on auditory reception. This accords with his view of the Qur’an as a living text, one defined in circulation and recitation as much as it is defined in writing.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within the book’s concern with how the Qur’an took shape in religious and cultural history: not only as a written text, but as discourse that is recited, heard, and memorized. It intersects with Arkoun’s questions about the place of recitation in understanding the Qur’an, and about the limits of a reading that confines it to the written page.
It is also connected to the book’s critique of forms of reception that overlook the oral and ritual dimension of the Qur’anic text. The emphasis on hearing here is part of repositioning the Qur’an within the conditions of its first emergence and use.
Limits of the Claim
This claim does not mean denying the importance of writing or of the codex, nor reducing the Qur’an to vocal performance alone. Nor should it be made to bear a categorical judgment on all later methods of interpretation.