Formulation of the Claim
Mohammed Arkoun draws attention to the danger of reading the Qur’an through the concepts of the present and its immediate problems, because this obscures the historicity of the text and the distance of reception between the time of revelation and the time of reading.
Explanation
Arkoun does not reject understanding the Qur’an in light of the questions of the age, but he rejects projecting onto it ready-made concepts and judgments from the present, such that the text is turned into a mirror of what we want to find in it. Critical reading, in his view, requires attention to the conditions of revelation, codification, and interpretation, and to the transformations that meaning has undergone throughout history.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This idea falls within Arkoun’s call to liberate reading from exegetical self-evidences, and to open the text to broader historical, linguistic, and anthropological questioning. It is connected to the Critique of Islamic Reason and to the critical historical method.
What the Atom Does Not Say
It does not say that the Qur’an is isolated from the present, nor that it calls for abolishing traditional exegesis; rather, it warns against turning the questions of the present into the sole criterion that imposes its meaning on the text.
Brief Evidence
“It is a mistake to project the problems of the present onto the Qur’an”; what is required is a reading that takes account of the historicity of the text and the distance of interpretation. Arkoun does not reject understanding the Qur’an in light of the questions of the age, but he rejects projecting onto it the concepts and judgments of the present as ready-made. Critical reading, in his view, requires attention to the conditions of revelation, codification, and interpretation, and to the transformations that have affected the reception of the text.
Nearby Links
Critique of Islamic Reason Text and History Critique of Reason