Formulation of the Claim
Arkoun sees the Qur’an as containing, at the same time, seeds of wondrous wonder and rationality.
Explanation
Arkoun does not approach the Qur’an as a text with a single meaning; rather, he points to the adjacent possibilities it opens up: religious astonishment on the one hand, and a tendency toward rational inquiry on the other. In this formulation, he places the Qur’anic text within a fruitful tension between suggestion and inquiry.
This idea also belongs to his reading, which refuses to reduce the Qur’an to a single use or a single interpretation. The “seeds” here do not mean a ready-made completeness, but latent elements that require a reading capable of revealing their diversity and the history of their formation.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within the broader trajectory in which Arkoun seeks to reopen foundational texts to the possibilities of historical and critical reading, rather than confining them to a closed, certainty-laden discourse. It comes close to his theses on the plurality of levels of meaning in religious text, and on the need to liberate the interpretive field from prejudgments that exclude reason or deny wonder.
Limits of the Claim
This statement should not be understood as asserting that the Qur’an is rational in the modern philosophical sense, or that it is a text reducible to a single dimension. Nor does it mean that the rationality within it is detached from its religious or historical context.