Formulation of the Claim
Qur’anic discourse is founded on the dominance of a supreme speaker.
Explanation
Arkoun understands Qur’anic discourse as a discourse presided over by a speaker whose authority is not contested, so that hegemony becomes part of the very structure of the utterance itself rather than a merely incidental feature of it. Thus, the text is not read here as a compilation of scattered statements, but as a discourse that asserts its presence through the speaker who speaks from a higher position.
This idea is connected in Arkoun’s work to a way of reading the Qur’an from within its discursive system, where the authority of the dominant voice emerges in guiding meaning and determining the field of reception. In this sense, the matter is not confined to the content of doctrine, but extends to the form of discourse and the way it acts upon the reader.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom appears within Arkoun’s attempt to describe the discursive structure of the Qur’an before moving on to the questions of critical reading and the limits of traditional understanding. It is linked to what the book presents as observations about the nature of Qur’anic discourse as a discourse of high rhetorical and spiritual authority, understood only within its own conditions.
Limits of the Claim
This atom should not be taken as a judgment on the value of the text or on its truth, but rather as a description of its discursive structure as Arkoun reads it. Nor does it imply a denial of multiple levels of meaning or of different modes of reception.