Formulation of the claim
Synchrony and historicity are complementary methods in Arkoun’s reading of the text.
Explanation
Synchrony deals with the text at a specific moment in its history, examining its structure and meaning as they appear within a particular temporal slice. Historicity, by contrast, follows the transformations of the text and the changes it undergoes over time, as well as shifts in its reception and use.
For Arkoun, neither method is meant to cancel out the other or replace it. The most accurate understanding of the text passes through combining attention to its structure at a given moment with attention to its changing course in history.
Its place in the book’s argument
This claim falls within Arkoun’s project of critiquing modes of reading that settle for only one aspect of understanding. It is connected to his broader call, in the book, for a reading of the Qur’an that brings together analysis of historical structure and attention to the conditions in which meaning takes shape, rather than relying on a single approach that confines the text to one dimension.
Limits of the claim
This claim does not mean equating the two methods in every use, nor turning them into a ready-made substitute for all other tools of understanding. What is intended here is their complementarity within the horizon of reading, not a final account of every possible study of the text.
Brief evidence
Arkoun holds that synchrony and historicity are complementary methods in reading the text. Synchrony examines the text at a specific moment in its history, while historicity follows the transformations of the text and the changes it undergoes over time. For Arkoun, neither is asked to cancel out the other or replace it.
Related links
History Arkoun