Formulation of the Claim
The power of Qur’anic and prophetic discourse rests on its suggestive and meaning-expanding capacity.
Explanation
Arkoun holds that this discourse cannot be reduced to the transmission of informational content; rather, it operates as speech that opens the horizon of signification and calls forth responses broader than immediate meaning. Hence its power is connected to the effect it arouses in religious consciousness—an effect that exceeds the limits of communication and shapes reception itself.
This power is confirmed because the discourse internalizes the experience of the divine absolute within religious consciousness, thereby becoming the bearer of a symbolic and moral authority that multiplies its effect. It therefore acquires an expansive dimension that makes meaning capable of extension and renewal within the experience of faith.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within Arkoun’s analysis of the structure of religious discourse and the way it operates in the Islamic field, where the Qur’an and prophecy are not understood as neutral texts, but as a discourse that affects the formation of the imaginary and consciousness. It supports his broader thesis, which distinguishes between the level of religious speech as a semantic and spiritual energy and later readings that may narrow this horizon or confine it to a single signification.
Limits of the Claim
This atom should not be taken as a comprehensive judgment on the value of every use of Qur’anic and prophetic discourse or of all its historical readings. Nor does it, by itself, explain every religious or social effect that results from it.
Brief Evidence Passage
Having reached this point in the discussion, I would like to say: the recurring, reiterated power throughout history of what we can now call the great Qur’anic paradigm, or the Qur’anic model that sets existence in motion and mobilizes crowds and millions, lies in the ideal, paradigmatic character—on both the structural and ideological levels—of that conflictual situation that took place between the Prophet and his opponents and that was ultimately brought under control in Mecca and Medina. I mean that it ended with the victory of Muhammad and the new religion. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, it lies in the suggestive power of Qur’anic discourse, and in conception, escalation, sublimation, transformation, revolution, rebellion, and uprising. All of these are features that apply to Qur’anic discourse, b
Nearby Links
Readings in the Qur’an Islamic Thought: Critique and Ijtihad