The Qur'an

Explanation

The Qur’an is presented as the primary source of Islam and as a discourse that began orally and was only later compiled into writing, with Mohammed Arkoun distinguishing between its transcendent origin and its historical embodiment in the book. In Arkoun’s argument, it is a symbolic text open to multiple meanings, but juristic and orthodox traditions turned it into a single meaning and rigid rulings.

Referred to by

• The Mother of the Book and the embodied Qur’an
• Invoking texts as ultimate authorities
• Orthodoxy imposes a single meaning
• Linguistics
• Islam reshaped Arab society through revelation, rituals, and the state
• In Arkoun, Islam is a relation of surrender and love, not passive submission
• The Islamic proclamation and modern quotation
• The Qur’anic experience produced a new historical symbolism
• Compilation took place under Uthman
• Distinguishing between the Qur’anic and Islamic phenomena
• Qur’anic discourse historically became a tool of legitimation
• Qur’anic discourse is open to multiple meanings
• Qur’anic discourse and living memory
• Qur’anic discourse transcends history
• The Umayyad state reinforces writing and orthodoxy
• The imperial state and the confinement of official Islam
• Religion, society, and power are historically shaped through legitimation and conflict
• The historical rejection of the historical method
• The Sunna as a second foundational source
• Sharia is not only a textual reading
• Oral reason and written reason
• Critical secularization reorganizes religion, modernity, and rights without reduction
• The Qur’an is a discourse with a mythic structure
• The Qur’an is an oral discourse that gradually became a written text
• The Qur’an within a comparative monotheistic horizon
• The Qur’an modified the ethical framework more than kinship structures
• The Qur’an is Islam’s first source
• The Qur’an and the Sunna found the religion, but the Qur’an comes first
• The Qur’an contains multiple levels
• The Qur’an links freedom to obedience
• The Qur’an shapes the morals of the community more than it changes kinship structures
• The Qur’an recombines earlier elements in a symbolic ideological construction
• The Qur’an grants legitimacy to emerging states
• The book is addressed to the general public
• Writing is the basis of the archive and authority
• Dignity in the Qur’anic perspective
• The Arab intellectual faces two decisive options between historical integration and conditional emigration
• The Muslim and Abraham’s stance
• Arkoun’s project liberates thought through a critical historical method
• The historical method and linguistics open a scientific reading of Islamic texts
• The historical method reveals layers of meaning and prevents confusion between origins and representations
• The Qur’anic text between the ideal origin and historical embodiment
• The foundational text cannot be understood directly
• Revelation is broader than the narrow theological conception
• Revelation as heard discourse
• Revelation, Islam, and history are subjects for renewed scientific reading
• Renewing Islamic thought passes through criticism of dogmatism, a multidisciplinary historical reading, and freeing the relationship between religion and modernity
• Revelation’s transformation into a human book
• The concept of God becomes historical
• The equivalence of the muṣḥaf and God’s speech
• Applying Sharia faces practical problems
• Human rights are a modern concept that does not align with older exclusionary systems
• Confusing Qur’anic Islam with juristic Islam
• The orality of revelation
• The difficulty of translating Qur’anic vocabulary
• A symbolic creative efficacy
• Suppression of religious and political opposition
• New values in the Qur’anic experience
• The duration of the Qur’anic experience
• Unity projects remained top-down and were not socially grounded
• The original and Qur’anic meaning of Islam