Formulation of the Claim
Arkoun’s modern reading of the Qur’an draws on linguistics, history, anthropology, and semiotics.
Explanation
Arkoun links the renewal of Qur’anic reading to drawing on human sciences that disclose the workings of language and the construction of meaning, and that make it possible to view the text within its historical and cultural horizon. The point is not to be satisfied with inherited meaning, but to open reading onto broader tools of inquiry.
This formulation indicates that Arkoun does not isolate the Qur’anic text from the human conditions of its understanding; rather, he calls for approaching it with tools that go beyond traditional exegesis alone. The human sciences therefore appear here as a means of posing anew the question of reading itself.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within Arkoun’s broader argument, which criticizes the closure of a univocal reading and calls for introducing modern tools into the study of religious texts. It converges with his theses in books that address the critique of Islamic thought and the possibilities of humanism and independent reasoning, where broadening the tools of understanding becomes a condition for rethinking tradition.
Limits of the Claim
This atom does not mean that the human sciences replace religious authority or reduce the text to its historical dimension alone; nor does it provide, in this place, a detailed account of a complete applied method.