Rotraud Wielandt. Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an. Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Volume 2, Brill Academic Publishers, 2003.
Aspects and Limits of Modernity in the Exegesis of the Qurʾan
Treating early modern and contemporary exegesis of the Qurʾan as a distinct subject implies that there are characteristics by which this exegesis differs noticeably from that of previous times. The assumption of such characteristics, however, is by no means equally correct for all attempts at interpreting passages of the Qurʾan in the books and articles of Muslim authors of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and even where such an assumption holds true, those authors do not always deviate significantly from traditional patterns and approaches. Many Qurʾan commentaries of this time hardly differ from older ones in the methods applied and the kinds of explanations given. The majority of the authors of such commentaries made ample use of classical sources like al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1144), Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210) and Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373) without necessarily adding anything substantially new to the already available interpretations. One should thus always bear in mind that in the exegesis of the Qurʾan there is a broad current of unbroken tradition continuing to this day. Still, in what follows attention will be directed mainly to innovative trends. The majority of the new approaches to exegesis has so far been developed in the Arab countries and particularly in Egypt. Therefore, this part of the Islamic world will be dealt with most extensively.
Elements of novelty include the content as well as the methods of interpretation. When mentioning content, it should be said, first of all, that new ideas about the meaning of the qurʾanic text emerged largely in answer to new questions which arose from the political, social and cultural changes brought about in Muslim societies by the impact of western civilization. Of particular importance among these were two problems: the compatibility of the qurʾanic world view with the findings of modern science; and the question of an appropriate political and social order based on qurʾanic principles which would thus enable Muslims to throw off the yoke of western dominance. For this purpose the qurʾanic message had to be interpreted so as to allow Muslims either to assimilate western models successfully or to work out alternatives believed to be superior to them. One of the problems to be considered in this framework was the question of how qurʾanic provisions referring to the legal status of women could be understood in view of modern aspirations towards equal rights for both sexes. Hitherto unknown methodological approaches sprang partly from new developments in the field of literary studies and communication theory, partly from the need to find practical ways and theoretical justifications for discarding traditional interpretations in favor of new ones more easily acceptable to the contemporary intellect, but without at the same time denying the authority of the revealed text as such. These approaches were usually based on a new understanding of the nature of divine revelation and its mode of action in general.
Kinds of Publications Containing Exegesis of the Qurʾan and Discussing Exegetical Methods
The main place where exegesis of the Qurʾan can be found remains the commentaries. Most of them follow a verse-by-verse approach (tafsir musalsal, i.e. “chained” or sequential commentary). In the majority of cases such commentaries start from the beginning of the first sura and continue — unless unfinished — without interruption until the last verse of the last sura. An exception is al-Tafsir al-ḥadith by the Palestinian scholar Muḥammad ʿIzza Darwaza, which is based on a chronological arrangement of the suras (cf. Sulayman, Darwaza). Some musalsal commentaries are limited to larger portions of the text (known as juzʾ, pl. ajazʾ) that were already in former times looked upon as units (e.g. Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsir juzʾ ʿAmma, 1322/1904-5). Some are devoted to a single sura (e.g. Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsir al-Fatiḥa, 1319/1901-2). In a few cases such commentaries deal only with a selection of suras made by the author for demonstrating the usefulness of a new exegetical method (ʾAʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥman, al-Tafsir al-bayani, see below) or the edifying purpose that the exegesis was originally meant to serve (e.g. Shawqi Ḍayf, Surat al-Raḥman wa-suwar qiṣar). It should also be said that the traditional genre of commentaries which treat verses considered particularly difficult is still being pursued (e.g. Rashid ʿAbdallah Farḥan’s Tafsir mush-kil al-Qurʾan). While it is true that most commentaries have been written for the consumption of religious scholars, some are explicitly designed to address the needs of a more general public. This is true, for example, in the case of Mawdudi’s (d. 1979) Tafhim al-Qurʾan (see below), a commentary intended for Indian Muslims of a certain education who, however, do not possess knowledge of Arabic or expertise in the qurʾanic sciences.
The last decades of the twentieth century in particular witnessed the publication of an increasing number of commentaries which classified key passages of the qurʾanic text according to main subjects and treated verses related to the same subject synoptically. The ideas of exegesis underlying this “thematic interpretation” (tafsir mawḍuʿi) and the pertinent theoretical statements proclaimed in them can vary greatly from one author to the next, as will be seen below; also, in such thematic commentaries, the procedures of determining the meaning of single verses sometimes differ hardly at all from those applied in commentaries of the musalsal kind. Therefore, this thematic interpretation can oscilate between mere rearrangement of textual material and a distinct method of exegesis with new results. Generally, however, thematic interpretation concentrates upon a limited number of qurʾanic concepts judged by the author to be particularly important. This effect has also been achieved by Maḥmud Shaltut in his Tafsir al-Qurʾan al-karim. al-Ajzaʾ al-ʾashara al-ula, who steers a middle course between the musalsal and thematic approaches in not commenting upon the text word by word, but focusing attention on key notions (see Jansen, Egypt, 14).
Where commentaries concentrate on a single, central qurʾanic theme or just a few (e.g. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz b. al-Dardir’s al-Tafsir almawḍuʿi li-ayat al-tawḥid fi l-Qurʾan al-karim), this genre merges into that of treatises on basic questions of qurʾanic theology, such as Daud Rahbar’s God of Justice or — on a less sophisticated level — ʿAʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥman’s Maqal fi l-insan. Dirasa qurʾaniyya. In addition, books or articles written in the field of Islamic theology or law that argue from qurʾanic texts — which most of them do to a great extent — include an element of exegesis. Printed collections of sermons, on the other hand, are not as relevant for exegesis as one might expect, since Islamic sermons are nowadays primarily laid out thematically, not exegetically.
Discussions concerning the appropriate methods of exegesis are often located in introductions placed at the beginning of Qurʾan commentaries. A remarkable early modern case in point is Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s introduction to his Tafsir al-Fatiḥa (5-21, actually Muḥammad Rashid Riḍa’s account of one of Abduh’s lectures). A small separate treatise about the principles of exegesis, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s Taḥrir fi uṣul al-tafsir, was already printed in 1892 (Agra, in Urdu). Since that time quite a few books and articles entirely devoted to methodological problems of interpreting the Qurʾan have been published, most of them since the late 1960’s.
Main Trends in the Exegetical Methods and their Protagonists
1. Interpreting the Qurʾan from the perspective of Enlightenmentrationalism
The first significant innovation in the methods of exegesis, as they had been practised for many centuries, was introduced by two eminent protagonists of Islamic reform: the Indian Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-98) and the Egyptian Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849-1905). Both of them, impressed by the political dominance and economic prosperity of modern Western civilization in the colonial age, ascribed the rise of this civilization to the scientific achievements of the Europeans and embraced a popularized version of the philosophy of the Enlightenment. On this basis they adopted an essentially rationalistic approach to the exegesis of the Qurʾan, working independently of each other and out of somewhat different points of departure and accentuations, but with similar results all the same. Both were inspired with the desire to enable their fellow Muslims in their own countries and elsewhere to share in the blessings of the powerful modern civilization.
For Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the traumatic experience of the Indian mutiny (1857), on the one hand, had roused in him the urge to prove that there is nothing in the Islamic religion which could prevent Indian Muslims from coexisting and cooperating peacefully with the British in a polity held together by a reasonable, morally advanced legal order and founded on scientific thinking. On the other hand, he had personally turned to a modern scientific conception of nature and the universe after many years of exposure to the impact of British intellectuals residing in India. These motives incited him to attempt to demonstrate that there could not be any contradiction between modern natural science and the holy scripture of the Muslims. (For a fundamental study of his principles of exegesis and the underlying ideas, see Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 144-170.)
Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s basic notion for understanding qurʾanic revelation is expounded in his above-mentioned treatise on the fundamentals of exegesis (uṣul altafsir) and put into practice in several other writings published by him: The law of nature is a practical covenant (q.v.) by which God has bound himself to humanity, while the promise and threat contained in the revelation is a verbal one. There can be no contradiction between both covenants; otherwise God would have contradicted himself, which is unthinkable. His word, the revelation, cannot contradict his work, i.e. nature. Sayyid Ahmad Khan complements this assumption with a second axiom: Any religion imposed by God — and hence also Islam, the religion meant to be the final one for all human-kind — must necessarily be within the grasp of the human intellect, since it is possible to perceive the obligatory character of a religion only through the intellect (q.v.). Therefore it is impossible that the qurʾanic revelation could contain anything contradicting scientific reason.
If some contemporary Muslims believe the opposite, this does not stem, in Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s opinion, from the qurʾanic text as such, but from an erroneous direction within the exegetical tradition: The holy book only seems to contradict modern science in certain places if one has not noticed that the passage in question must be understood metaphorically. According to Sayyid Ahmad Khan this metaphorical interpretation (taʾwil) is, nota bene, not a secondary reinterpretation of an obvious meaning of the text, but a reconstruction of its original meaning: God himself had chosen to use certain metaphorical expressions in the text only on account of their currency as common metaphor (q.v.) in the Arabic usage of the Prophet’s day, making them comprehensible to his contemporaries, the first audience for what had been revealed to him. Exegetes must, therefore, first try to understand the text as understood by the ancient Arabs to whom it was adressed in the time of the Prophet.
The practical result of Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s exegetical endeavor on the basis of these principles is to eliminate miraculous events from his understanding of the qurʾanic text as much as possible, as well as all kinds of supranatural phenomena and other phenomena incompatible with his own scientific world view. In the case of doubt, the reasoning of modern science, not the meaning of the text which was most likely accessible to the ancient Arabs, is his criterion of truth (q.v.). He thus explains the prophet’s night journey as an event that took place only in a dream, while the jinn (q.v.) become, in his interpretation, some sort of primitive savages living in the jungle, etc.
Muḥammad ʿAbduh, taking over a well-known idea that can be traced back to the philosophy of the late phase of the European Enlightenment, conceived of the history of humankind as a process of development analogous to that of the individual and saw in the “heavenly religions” educational means by which God had directed this development towards its final stage of maturity, the age of science. According to him, Muslims are perfectly fit for sharing in the civilization of this age and can even play a leading part in it, since Islam is the religion of reason and progress. The Qurʾan was revealed in order to draw the minds of human beings to reasonable conceptions about their happiness in this world as well as in the hereafter. For ʿAbduh this means not only that the content of the Qurʾan conforms to the laws of nature, but also that it informs people about the laws that are effective in the historical development of nations and societies.
In this sense, the whole qurʾanic revelation seeks to bestow God’s guidance (hidaya) upon humankind, and hence it has to be interpreted so as to make it easier for its audience to understand the goals God desires them to attain. Exegetes should devote themselves to the service of God’s enlightening guidance and concentrate their efforts on searching the qurʾanic text to uncover God’s signs (q.v.; ayat) in nature and to discern the moral and legal norms of which the text speaks. This is their proper task rather than digressing into complicated scholarly discussions about the possible sense of individual words and phrases or immersing themselves in a variety of levels of meaning — whether grammatical or mystical — that might be discernible in the text, particularly since these various understandings were quite unfamiliar to the Arabs of the Prophet’s time. In order to grasp that to which God intends to guide humankind, the text has to be understood — and here ʿAbduh agrees once more with Sayyid Ahmad Khan — according to the meaning its words had for the Prophet’s contemporaries, the first audience to which the revelation was disclosed. Moreover, commentators must resist the temptation to make qurʾanic statements definite where they have been left indefinite (mubham) in the text itself — e.g., by identifying persons whose proper names have not been mentioned — as well as the temptation to fill gaps in qurʾanic narratives (q.v.) with Jewish traditions of biblical or apocryphal origin (Israʾiliyyat) since these were handed down by previous generations of scholars who never stripped them of what contradicted revelation and reason (Tafsir al-Fatiḥa, 6, 7, 11-12, 15, 17).
The characteristic features of ʿAbduh’s own exegetical practice are reflected most clearly in his voluminous commentary widely known as Tafsir al-Manar, which has become a standard work quoted by many later authors alongside the classical commentaries. ʿAbduh’s actual share in it consists of the record of a series of lectures that he gave at al-Azhar University around the year 1900 which covered the text of the Qurʾan from the beginning to Q 4:124. His pupil Muḥammad Rashid Riḍa took notes of these lectures which he afterwards elaborated and showed to his teacher for approval or correction. In addition, he complemented the passages based on ʿAbduh’s lectures by inserting explanations which he marked as his own — and in which he displayed a more traditionalist attitude than that of ʿAbduh (cf. Jomier, Commentaire). After ʿAbduh’s death Riḍa continued the commentary on his own to Q 12:107.
ʿAbduh divides the qurʾanic text into groups of verses constituting logical units and treats the text of these paragraphs as a single entity. This corresponds to his view that single words or phrases are not the primary subject of interest for the commentator, but rather the didactic aim of the passage, and that the correct interpretation of an expression can often be grasped only by considering its context (siyaq). His interpretations, which he often enriches with lengthy excursions, do not always consistently follow his own declared principles but show a general tendency towards stressing the rationality of Islam and its positive attitude towards science, while aiming at the same time to eradicate elements of popular belief and practice which he considers to be superstitious. For ʿAbduh, too, in the case of doubt, science is the decisive criterion for the meaning of qurʾanic wording.
Another Egyptian author, Muḥammad Abu Zayd, who published a commentary in 1930, can also be ranked among the exponents of a rationalistic exegesis inspired by a popular appropriation of the European Enlightenment. His book, al-Hidaya wal-ʿirfan fi tafsir al-Qurʾan bi-l-Qurʾan, created a considerable stir and was finally confiscated by the authorities at the instigation of al-Azhar University, which condemned it in an official report (Jansen, Egypt, 88-9). The methodological device hinted at in its title — namely that of explaining particular qurʾanic passages by comparing them to parallel passages which address the same subject in a more detailed way or in similar, though not identical terms — was not completely novel even then, and has been taken up more than once by later commentators, so far without negative reactions on the part of the guardians of orthodoxy. What gave offence was apparently not the methodology so much as the ideas Muḥammad Abu Zayd tried to propagate by making a very selective use of it: He argues that a far-reaching ijtihad is permitted with respect to traditional norms of Islamic law, and he does his best to explain away any miracles and supranatural occurrences in the qurʾanic narratives concerning the prophets.
Some commentaries contain elements of rationalistic exegesis in line with the insights of Sayyid Ahmad Khan or ʿAbduh, but use them only to a limited extent. Among these are Tarjuman al-Qurʾan (1930) by the Indian author Abu l-Kalam Azad and Majalis al-tadhkir (1929-39) by the Algerian reformist leader ʿAbd al-Ḥamid Ibn Badis.
2. The so-called scientific exegesis of the Qurʾan
Scientific exegesis (tafsir ʿilmi) is to be understood in light of the assumption that all sorts of findings of the modern natural sciences have been anticipated in the Qurʾan and that many unambiguous references to them can be discovered in its verses (q.v.). The scientific findings already confirmed in the Qurʾan range from Copernican cosmology to the properties of electricity, from the regularities of chemical reactions to the agents of infectious diseases. The whole method amounts to reading into the text what normally would not ordinarily be seen there. Often trained in medicine, pharmacy or other natural sciences, even agricultural sciences, scientific exegetes are, for the most part, not professional theologians. This kind of exegesis has, however, gained entry into the Qurʾan commentaries of religious scholars as well.
It should be mentioned that Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s commentaries are not themselves devoid of attempts to read discoveries of modern science into the text. As is well-known, he considered the possibility that the jinn mentioned in the Qurʾan could be equated to microbes. He also considered it legitimate to understand the flocks of birds which, according to Q 105, had thrown stones on the People of the Elephant (q.v.), to be swarms of flies which, by their polluted legs, had transmitted a disease to them (Tafsir juzʾ ʿAmma, 158). ʿAbduh’s interest in such interpretations, however, did not parallel that of the supporters of scientific exegesis: He wanted to prove to his public that the qurʾanic passages in question were not contrary to reason by modern scientific standards, whereas proponents of scientific exegesis hope to prove that the Qurʾan is many centuries ahead of western scientists, since it mentions what they discovered only in modern times. Most enthusiasts of scientific exegesis regard this assumed chronological priority of the Qurʾan in the field of scientific knowledge as a particularly splendid instance of its iʿjaz, miraculous inimitability (q.v.), appreciating this aspect of iʿjaz all the more as a highly effective apologetical argument, in their view, to be directed against the West.
The basic pattern of scientific exegesis was not completely new: Several authors of classical Qurʾan commentaries, notably Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, had already expressed the idea that all the sciences were contained in the Qurʾan. Consequently, they had tried to detect in its text the astronomical knowledge of their times, then largely adopted from the Perso-Indian and Greco-Hellenistic heritage. Efforts of this kind were still carried on by Maḥmud Shihab al-Din al-Alusi (d. 1856) in his Ruḥ al-maʾani, a commentary which, however, does not yet show any familiarity with modern western science.
The first author who attained some publicity by practicing scientific exegesis in the modern sense, i.e. by finding in the qurʾanic text references to modern scientific discoveries and advances, was the physician Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Iskandarani; one of his two pertinent books printed around the year 1880 bears the promising title Kashf al-asrar al-nuraniyya al-qurʾaniyya fi-ma yataʿallaq bi-l-ajram al-samawiyya wa-l-arḍiyya wa-l-ḥayawanat wa-lnabat wa-l-jawahir al-maʿdiniyya(i.e. “Uncovering the luminous qurʾanic secrets pertaining to the heavenly and terrestrial bodies, the animals, the plants and the metallic substances,” 1297/1879-80).
The most prominent representative of this tafsir ʿilmi in the early twentieth century was the Egyptian Shaykh Ṭanṭawi Jawhari, author of al-Jawahir fi tafsir al-Qurʾan alkarim(1341/1922-3). This work is not a commentary in the customary sense, but rather an encyclopaedic survey of the modern sciences or, more exactly, of what the author classes with them — including such disciplines as spiritism (ʾilm taḥḍir alarwaḥ). Jawhari claims that these sciences were already mentioned in certain qurʾanic verses, passages upon which his lengthy didactic expositions of pertinent topics are based. All this is interspersed with tables, drawings and photographs. Unlike most other enthusiasts of scientific exegesis, Jawhari did not employ this method primarily for the apologetic purposes, mentioned above, of proving the iʾjaz of the Qurʾan. His main purpose was to convince his fellow Muslims that in modern times they should concern themselves much more with the sciences than with Islamic law; only in this way could they regain political independence and power. Other authors wrote books devoted to the scientific exegesis of qurʾanic verses mainly with apologetic intentions, among them ʿAbd al-ʿAziz Ismaʿil (al-Islam wa-l-ṭibb al-ḥadith, Cairo 1938, reprint 1957), Ḥanafi Aḥmad (Muʿjizat al-Qurʾan fi waṣf al-kaʾinat, Cairo 1954, two reprints entitled al-Tafsir al-ʾilmi lil-ayat al-kawniyya, 1960 and 1968) and ʿAbd al-Razzaq Nawfal (al-Qurʾan wa-l-ʾilm al-ḥadith, Cairo 1378/1959).
Some authors of well-known Qurʾan commentaries who do not rely exclusively on the method of scientific exegesis, but deal with the qurʾanic text as a whole (not only with verses lending themselves to this method), nevertheless practice scientific exegesis in the explanation of particular verses. Thus, elements of tafsir ʿilmi occur, for example, in Şafwat al-ʿirfan (= al-Muṣḥaf al-mufassar, 1903) by Muḥammad Farid Wajdi, in the Majalis al-tadhkir (1929-39) by ʿAbd al-Ḥamid Ibn Badis, and in alMizan (1973-85) by the Imamite scholar Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabaṭabaʾi (d. 1982).
The scientific method of interpretation did not find general approval among Muslim authors who wrote Qurʾan commentaries or discussed exegetical methods. Quite a few of them rejected this method outright, like Muḥammad Rashid Riḍa, Amin al-Khuli (whose detailed refutation of it [Manahij tajdid, 287-96] has often been referred to by later authors), Maḥmud Shaltut and Sayyid Quṭb (for these and other critics of the tafsir ʿilmi and their arguments, see al-Muḥtasib, Ittijahat al-tafsir, 302-13 and Abu Ḥajar, al-Tafsir al-ʿilmi, 295-336). Their most important objections to scientific exegesis can be summarized as follows: (1) It is lexicographically untenable, since it falsely attributes modern meanings to the qurʾanic vocabulary; (2) it neglects the contexts of words or phrases within the qurʾanic text, and also the occasions of revelation (q.v.; asbab al-nuzul) where these are transmitted; (3) it ignores the fact that, for the Qurʾan to be comprehensible for its first audience, the words of the Qurʾan had to conform to the language and the intellectual horizon of the ancient Arabs at the Prophet’s time — an argument already used by the Andalusian Malikite scholar al-Shaṭibi (d. 790/1388) against the scientific exegesis of his time (al-Muwafaqat fi uṣul al-shariʿa, ii, 69-82); (4) it does not take notice of the fact that scientific knowledge and scientific theories are always incomplete and provisory by their very nature; therefore, the derivation of scientific knowledge and scientific theories in qurʾanic verses is actually tantamount to limiting the validity of these verses to the time for which the results of the science in question are accepted; (5) most importantly, it fails to comprehend that the Qurʾan is not a scientific book, but a religious one designed to guide human beings by imparting to them a creed and a set of moral values (or, as Islamists such as Sayyid Quṭb prefer to put it, the distinctive principles of the Islamic system; cf. below). Despite the weight of all these objections, some authors still believe that the tafsir ʿilmi can and should be continued — at least as an additional method particularly useful for proving the iʿjaz of the Qurʾan to those who do not know Arabic and are thus unable to appreciate the miraculous style of the holy book (see Hind Shalabi, al-Tafsir al-ʿilmi, esp. 63-69 and 149-164; Ibn ʿAshur, Tafsir al-taḥrir, i, 104, 128).
3. Interpreting the Qurʾan from the perspective of literary studies
The use of methods of literary studies for the exegesis of the Qurʾan was initiated mainly by Amin al-Khuli (d. 1967), a professor of Arabic language and literature at the Egyptian University (later King Fuʾad University, now University of Cairo). He did not write a Qurʾan commentary himself, but devoted a considerable part of his lectures to exegetical questions and also dealt with the history and current state of methodological requirements of exegesis in his post-1940’s publications.
Already in 1933, his famous colleague Ṭaha Ḥusayn had remarked in his booklet Fi l-ṣayf that the holy scriptures of the Jews, Christians and Muslims belong to the common literary heritage of humankind as much as the works of Homer, Shakespeare and Goethe, and that Muslims should begin to study the Qurʾan as a work of literary art and use methods of modern literary research for its analysis, just as some Jewish and Christian scholars had done with the Bible (al-Majmuʾa al-kamila li-muʾallafat alduktur Ṭaha Ḥusayn, Beirut 19742, xiv, 215-9). He had added that such an approach was not to be expected from the clerics (shuyukh) of al-Azhar, but that there was no reason to leave the study of holy scriptures to men of religion alone — why should people not be entitled to express their opinions about such books as objects of research in the field of literary art, “taking no account of their religious relevance (bi-qaṭʿi l-naẓari ʿan makanatiha l-diniyya)” (ibid., 216)? He concluded, however, that it would still be dangerous in his country to embark publicly on an analysis of the Qurʾan as a literary text. Amin al-Khuli shared the basic idea contained in these remarks and developed them into a concrete program; several of his students, along with their own students, tried to carry it out, some of them not without bitter consequences, as foreseen by Ṭaha Ḥusayn.
According to Amin al-Khuli, the Qurʾan is “the greatest book of the Arabic language and its most important literary work (kitab al-ʿarabiyya al-akbar wa-atharuha l-adabi al-aʿẓam)” (Manahij tajdid, 303). In his view, the adequate methods for studying this book as a work of literary art do not differ from those that apply to any other works of literature. Two fundamental preliminary steps have to be taken: (1) The historical background and the circumstances of its genesis — or in the case of the Qurʾan, its entry into this world by revelation — must be explored. For this purpose, one has to study the religious and cultural traditions and the social situation of the ancient Arabs, to whom the prophetic message was first adressed, their language and previous literary achievements, the chronology of the enunciation of the qurʾanic text by the Prophet, the occasions of revelation (asbab al-nuzul), etc. (2) Keeping in mind all relevant knowledge gathered in this way, one has to establish the exact meaning of the text word by word as it was understood by its first listeners. In accordance with al-Shaṭibi, al-Khuli assumes that God, in order to make his intention understood by the Arabs of the Prophet’s time, had to use their language and to adapt his speech to their modes of comprehension, which were themselves determined by their traditional views and concepts. Hence, before the divine intention of the text can be determined, one has first to grasp its meaning as understood by the ancient Arabs — and this can be done, as al-Khuli emphasizes, “regardless of any religious consideration (duna naẓarin ila ayyi ʿtibarin dini)” (Manahij tajdid, 304). It then becomes possible to study the artistic qualities of the Qurʾan, by using the same categories and by keeping to the same rules as are applied in the study of literary works. The style of the Qurʾan can thus be explored in given passages by studying the principles which determine the choice of words, the peculiarities of the construction of sentences, the figures of speech employed, etc. Likewise, one can examine the typical structure of passages belonging to a particular literary genre. Since works of literary art are characterized by a specific relation between content or theme on the one hand and formal means of expression on the other, al-Khuli attaches particular importance to the thematic units of the qurʾanic text and stresses that a correct explanation requires commentators to consider all verses and passages which speak to the same subject, instead of confining their attention to one single verse or passage (ibid., 304-6). At the same time, al-Khuli’s approach is based on a particular understanding of the nature of a literary text: For him, literature, like art in general, is primarily a way of appealing to the public’s emotions, as a means of directing them and their decisions. He therefore argues that the interpreter should also try to explain the psychological effects which the artistic qualities of the qurʾanic text, in particular its language, had on its first audience.
Shukri ʿAyyad, who wrote his M.A. thesis, Min waṣf al-Qurʾan al-karim li-yawm al-din wa-l-ḥisab (n.d., unpublished, although a critical summary exists in al-Sharqawi, Ittijahat, 213-6) under al-Khuli’s supervision, is reputed to have been the first to carry out a research project based on these principles.
Also among al-Khuli’s students was ʿAʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥman (pen name, Bint al-Shaṭiʾ), his wife. Her commentary, al-Tafsir al-bayani lil-Qurʾan al-karim, is designed in conformity with the main features of al-Khuli’s methodological conception and in its preface explicitly refers to the suggestions received from him. ʿAʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥman consciously selected a number of shorter suras to show in a particularly impressive way the fruits to be gathered by the application of al-Khuli’s method. Each of them constitutes a thematic unit, and the author gives a rough indication of the place of the respective sura in the chronology of the Prophet’s enunciation of the qurʾanic text and expounds the significance of its theme during this time in comparison with other phases of the Prophet’s activity. To illustrate this point, she hints at other relevant suras (q.v.) or parts of them, and discusses questions of the occasions of revelation (asbab al-nuzul). In doing so she attempts to give at least part of an outline of the historical background of the sura under consideration. She highlights the most striking stylistic features of this sura, e.g. relative length or shortness of sentences, accumulation of certain rhetorical figures, frequent occurrence of certain morphological or syntactical patterns, etc., and tries to demonstrate the specific relation of these features to the corresponding theme, citing a host of parallel verses from other suras which treat the same subject or show the same stylistic features. She also considers the emotional effect these peculiarities are meant to have on the listeners and attends to such questions as the impact of qurʾanic rhymes on the choice of words and of the compository structure of the suras. Additionally, she gives a careful verse-by-verse commentary in order to explain every single difficult word and phrase by comparing other qurʾanic verses which contain the same or similar expressions, quoting verses from ancient Arabic poetry, referring to classical Arabic dictionaries and discussing the opinions of the authors of — mostly classical — Qurʾan commentaries. In all this she displays a high degree of erudition. In general, ʿAʾisha ʿAbd al-Raḥman’s commentary, as well as her other publications treating problems of the exegesis of the Qurʾan, have found a favorable reception even among conservative religious scholars, as she avoids broaching dogmatically sensitive points and apparently does not do anything but prove once more the stylistic iʿjaz of the Qurʾan, now on the level of advanced philological methods.
Another student of al-Khuli, Muḥammad Aḥmad Khalaf Allah, faced considerable difficulties in his use of al-Khuli’s approach and was exposed to the anger of leading religious scholars (ʿulamaʾ) at al-Azhar. In 1947 he submitted his doctoral thesis al-Fann al-qaṣaṣi fi l-Qurʾan al-karim to the King Fuʾad University (now University of Cairo). On the basis of al-Khuli’s idea of literature as an instrument of appealing to emotions and directing them according to the author’s intentions, Khalaf Allah had set about studying the artistic means by which, according to his conviction, the qurʾanic narratives were so uniquely and effectively fashioned (Wielandt, Offenbarung, 139-52).
In order to be psychologically effective, narratives need not correspond absolutely to the historical facts. Khalaf Allah even considers other requirements to be much more relevant for this purpose: They must refer to the listeners’ customary language, previous conceptions and narrative traditions — in line with what al-Shaṭibi and al-Khuli had already said about the importance of understanding the original reception of the message. They must be adapted to the listeners’ feelings and mental condition. Finally, they must be well constructed. He thus arrives at the conclusion that the qurʾanic narratives about prophets of earlier times are, to a large extent, not historically true: Although Muḥammad’s Arab contemporaries certainly believed them to be true reports about what actually happened, God used them in the Qurʾan not primarily as historical facts (waqiʿ taʾrikhi), but as psychological facts (waqiʿ nafsi), i.e. as a means of influencing the listeners’ emotions (al-Fann, Cairo 19653, 50, 111). In order to achieve this, God took the subject matter of these qurʾanic narratives from stories and ideas already familiar to the ancient Arabs. Moreover, for the purpose of supporting Muḥammad (q.v.) emotionally during the latter’s often exhausting confrontation with the heathen Meccans, God reflected the Prophet’s state of mind in the qurʾanic stories about earlier prophets by shaping these narratives according to Muḥammad’s own experience.
Obviously, this interpretation implies that the content of the qurʾanic narratives about prophets corresponds for the most part to the content of the Prophet’s consciousness as well as that of the original audience of the divine message. This makes it possible to trace important features of these narratives to what Muḥammad and his Arab contemporaries knew from local traditions or what Muḥammad could have said himself on the basis of his experience. According to Khalaf Allah, however, this correspondence results from the fact that God, the only author of the holy book, had marvellously adapted the qurʾanic narratives to Muḥammad’s situation and that of his audience. Khalaf Allah never doubts that the entire text of the Qurʾan was inspired literally by God and that Muḥammad had no share whatsoever in its production.
Nevertheless Khalaf Allah’s thesis was rejected by the examining board of his own university, one of the arguments being that its results were religiously questionable. Moreover, a commission of leading scholars (ʿulamaʾ) of al-Azhar issued a memorandum classifying Khalaf Allah as a criminal because he had denied that the qurʾanic narratives were historically true in their entirety. A short time later he was dismissed from his position at the university on another pretext.
Occasional attempts at studying the Qurʾan as a work of literary art were also made by authors not belonging to al-Khuli’s school, again, mainly Egyptians (for details up to the 1960’s, see al-Bayyumi, Khuṭuwat al-tafsir al-bayani, 336-9). Sayyid Quṭb’s al-Taṣwir al-fanni fi l-Qurʾan bears witness to the aesthetic sensitivity of the author — who had previously made his name as a literary critic — and contains some cogent observations, but in contrast to the works of al-Khuli’s students it is not based on the systematic application of a method. The longest chapter of al-Taṣwir al-fanni is devoted to the qurʾanic narratives; unlike Khalaf Allah, Sayyid Quṭb does not voice any doubts about their historical truth. In short, it is possible to state that, since the 1970’s, an increased interest in studying the qurʾanic narrative art has emerged (see e.g. ʿAbd al-Karim Khaṭib, al-Qaṣaṣ al-qurʾani fi manṭiqihi wa-mafhumihi; Iltihami Naqra, Sikulujiyyat al-qiṣṣa fi l-Qurʾan; al-Qaṣabi Maḥmud Zalaṭ, Qaḍaya l-tikrar fi l-qaṣaṣ al-qurʾani; Muḥammad Khayr Maḥmud al-ʾAdawi, Maʾalim al-qiṣṣa fi l-Qurʾan al-karim). Cognizant of Khallaf Allah’s fate, however, those authors who have addressed this topic in more recent times have tended to draw their conclusions rather cautiously.
4. Endeavors to develop a new theory of exegesis taking full account of the historicity of the Qurʾan
The school of al-Khuli had already given much importance to the task of recovering the meaning of the Qurʾan as understood at the time of the Prophet and looked upon the Qurʾan as a literary text which had to be interpreted, as any other literary work, in its historical context. Since the late 1950’s several scholars have come to the conviction that the qurʾanic text is related to history in a much more comprehensive way and that this fact necessitates a fundamental change of exegetical methods.
One such scholar is (Muhammad) Daud Rahbar, a Pakistani scholar who later taught in the United States. In a paper read at the International Islamic Colloquium in Lahore in January 1958, he emphasized that the eternal word of God contained in the Qurʾan — which is addressed to people today as much as to Muḥammad’s contemporaries — “speaks with reference to human situations and events of the last 23 years of the Prophet’s life in particular,” as “no message can be sent to men except with reference to actual concrete situations” (Challenge, 279). Rahbar calls urgently on Muslim exegetes to consider what this means for the methods of dealing with the revealed text. In this framework, he attaches special significance to the question of the occasions of revelation (asbab al-nuzul) and to the phenomenon of the abrogation (q.v.) of earlier regulations by later ones (al-nasikh wa-l-mansukh) in the qurʾanic text. He expresses the expectation that exegetes react to the challenges of modern life more flexibly by taking notice of the fact that the divine word had to be adapted to historical circumstances from the very beginning, and that God even modified his word during the few years of Muḥammad’s prophetic activity in accordance with the circumstances.
Fazlur Rahman, also of Pakistani origin and until 1988 professor of Islamic thought at the University of Chicago, proposed in his Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition(1982) a solution for the hermeneutical problem of disentangling the eternal message of the Qurʾan from its adaptation to the historical circumstances of Muḥammad’s mission and discovering its meaning for believers of today. According to him, the qurʾanic revelation primarily “consists of moral, religious, and social pronouncements that respond to specific problems in concrete historical situations,” particularly the problems of Meccan commercial society at the Prophet’s time (hence the process of interpretation nowadays requires “a double movement, from the present situation to qurʾanic times, then back to the present” (ibid., 5). This approach consists of three steps: First, “one has to understand the import or meaning of a given statement by studying the historical situation or problem to which it was the answer”; secondly, one has “to generalize those specific answers and enunciate them as statements of general moral-social objectives that can be ‘distilled’ from specific texts in the light of the socio-historical background and the… ratio legis”; and thirdly, “the general has to be embodied in the present concrete socio-historical context” (ibid., 6-7). A methodological conception coming close to this approach, although confined to the interpretation of qurʾanic legal norms, had already been evolved since the 1950’s by ʿAllal al-Fasi, the famous Malikite scholar and leader of the Moroccan independence movement (cf. al-Naqd al-dhati, 125, 221; Maqaṣid al-shariʿa, 190-3, 240-1).
A remarkable recent development in the arena of theoretical reflection on the appropriate methods of interpreting the Qurʾan is the plea of the Egyptian scholar Naṣr Ḥamid Abu Zayd for a new exegetical paradigm, a plea made in several of his publications, particularly in his Mafhum alnaṣṣ (1990). He submitted this book to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cairo, where he was teaching in the Arabic Department, together with his application for promotion to the rank of full professor.
Abu Zayd’s approach to the exegesis of the Qurʾan continues the tradition of al-Khuli’s school to a certain extent, but at the same time generalizes what had been the starting point of al-Khuli’s methodology, namely his idea about the form in which the Qurʾan can actually be subjected to interpretation. Whereas al-Khuli had stressed that the Qurʾan is, above all else, a literary work and must be analyzed as such, Abu Zayd simply states that it is a text (naṣṣ) and must be understood according to the scientific principles which apply to the understanding of texts in general. His conception of what it means to understand a text is based on a model of the process of communication first introduced by the American mathematician and information theorist C.E. Shannon (in The mathematical theory of information, published in 1947 in co-authorship with W. Weaver) and widely accepted since the 1960’s among experts of linguistic as well as literary text theory. The model can be presented in the following terms: The information contained in a message can be understood only if the sender transmits it in a code (i.e. a system of signs) known to the recipient. According to Abu Zayd this model is necessarily valid also for the process of revelation, in which a divine message is transmitted to human beings: The Prophet, the first recipient, would not have been able to understand the revealed text if it had not been fitted into a code understandable to him, and the same applies to his audience, the people to which it was sent. The code which is understandable to a prophet and to the target group of his message consists of their common language and the content of their consciousness, which is to a large extent determined by their social situation and their cultural tradition. Hence God must have adapted the qurʾanic revelation to the language, the social situation and the cultural tradition of the Arabs of Muḥammad’s time. This has far-reaching consequences for the methods of exegesis: In order to be able to understand the divine message, the exegetes of today have, on the one hand, to familiarize themselves with the code tied to the specific historical situation of the Prophet and his Arab contemporaries, i.e. those peculiarities of language, society and culture that are not theirs any more; only in that way will they be able to identify in the qurʾanic text the elements belonging to this code and to distinguish them from the immutably valid substance of the revelation. On the other hand, they have to translate the code of the primary recipients, the Prophet and his Arab contemporaries, into a code understandable to themselves, i.e. into the language and the social and cultural situation of their own time. This also means that they cannot rely uncritically on the long exegetical tradition from the Prophet’s time to their own: The commentators of past centuries, such as al-Zamakhshari or Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, certainly did their best to translate the divine message into the codes of their respective times, but our time has a code of its own.
Obviously, this methodical paradigm makes it possible to interpret the qurʾanic text in such a way that conceptions corresponding to the social and cultural context of the Prophet’s preaching, but not tenable for the interpreter of today, can be classed as belonging to a bygone historical situation and not obligatory anymore, without discarding the belief in the literal revelation of the Qurʾan and in the everlasting validity of its message. In fact, Abu Zayd has always declared unequivocally that he stays firm in this belief and that it is his conviction that the historical and cultural code in the text of the Qurʾan has been used by God himself, its sole author, and was not brought into it by Muḥammad.
Still, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Şabur Shahin, a member of the promotion board examining Abu Zayd’s publications, voted against his advancement to the position of full professor, charging him, among other things, with a lack of orthodoxy. Several other supporters of traditionalist or Islamist views accused him of heresy (ilḥad) or un-belief (kufr). At the instigation of a member of an Islamist organization, in 1995 a court in Cairo nullified his marriage on the grounds that he had abandoned the Islamic religion and thus could not be married to a Muslim woman. The Egyptian Court of Cassation failed to anull this verdict. As he was in danger of being “executed” as an apostate by Islamist fanatics, he had to accept an appointment at a European university.
Mohammed Arkoun, a scholar of Algerian origin who taught in Paris for many years, arrived at methodological conclusions quite similar to those of Abu Zayd, but by a different theoretical approach. According to Arkoun, the fait coranique, i.e. the fact to which all attempts at understanding the Qurʾan have to refer in the final analysis, is the originally oral prophetic speech which the Prophet himself and his audience believed to be God’s revelation. This speech, which is attested in, but not identical with, the written text of the ʿUthmanic recension of the Qurʾan, was performed in a language and in textual genres tied to a specific historical situation, and in mythical and symbolic modes of expression. It already contains a theological interpretation of its own nature and must be subjected to an analysis of its structure. The whole exegetical tradition is a process of appropriation of this fait coranique by the various factions of the Muslim community. The text as such is open to a potentially infinite range of ever new interpretations as long as history continues, although the advocates of orthodoxy insist on absolutizing the results of a particular interpretation established at an early stage of this process. Any scientific study of the Qurʾan and of the exegetical tradition referring to it has to keep in mind that religious truth, insofar as it can be understood by Muslims as well as by adherents of other “book religions,” becomes effective provided it exists in a dialectical relation between the revealed text and history. Contemporary scholars must use the instruments of historical semiotics and sociolinguistics in order to distinguish particular traditional interpretations of the qurʾanic text from the normative meaning which this text might have for present-day readers.
5. Exegesis in search of a new immediacy to the Qurʾan
All exegetical trends outlined so far — including scientific exegesis, whose supporters claim that the Qurʾan is centuries ahead of modern science — are in one way or another characterized by a marked awareness of the cultural distance between the world in which the qurʾanic message was primarily communicated and the modern world. In contrast to these approaches, the Islamist exegesis tends to assume that it is possible for Muslims today to regain immediate access to the meaning of the qurʾanic text by returning to the belief of the first Muslims and actively struggling for the restoration of the pristine Islamic social order. It is in this later form of exegesis that the author‘s underlying conception of the revealed text often finds expression. For example, Sayyid Quṭb in his Qurʾan commentary, Fi ẓilal al-Qurʾan (1952-65), insists that the Qurʾan in its entirety is God’s message, and the instructions concerning the “Islamic system” or “method” (niẓam islami or manhaj islami) contained in it are valid forever. The Qurʾan is thus always contemporary, in any age. The task is not primarily that of translating the original meaning of the qurʾanic text into the language and world view of modern human beings, but that of putting it into practice, as done by the Prophet and his first followers, who took seriously God’s claim to absolute sovereignty (ḥakimiyya in Abu l-Aʿlaʾ Mawdudi’s term) and set up the perfect “Islamic system.”
One of the consequences of this goal — i.e. achieving the system of the first Muslims in the way they followed qurʾanic instructions — is the marked preference usually shown by Islamist commentators for ḥadith materials in their references to the exegetic tradition. This can be seen in Sayyid Quṭb’s commentary, in Mawdudi’s Tafhim al-Qurʾan (1949-72) and also in Saʿid Ḥawwa’s al-Asas fi l-tafsir (1405/1985), the (largely ill-structured and much less original) commentary of a leading Syrian Muslim Brother. Although these authors quote classical commentators such as al-Zamakhshari, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi or al-Bayḍawi (d. 716/1316) here and there, they suspect them of having succumbed to the corrupting influences of Greek philosophy and Israʾiliyyat. When relying on “sound” ḥadith materials, however, they feel they are on the firm ground of the Prophet’s own commentary and hence also of the intentions of the revealed text as understood by the first Muslims.
The Islamist ideal of subordinating oneself to the divine word as immediately as the first Muslims had done can produce positive as well as questionable exegetical results. This becomes clearly visible in Sayyid Quṭb’s Fi ẓilal al-Qurʾan where the author generally listens to the qurʾanic text with a great deal of personal attention and in relative independence of the exegetical tradition. On the one hand, this attitude of intense and direct listening sometimes enables him to grasp the original meaning and spirit of a given qurʾanic passage more adequately than many exegetes since the medieval period have been able to do. On the other hand, his presumed immediacy also tends to make him ignore or play down points in which the qurʾanic text cannot be easily harmonized with modern ideas.
6. Conceptions associated with the thematic interpretation of the Qurʾan
As stated above, the thematic interpretation (tafsir mawḍuʿi) of the Qurʾan is not always equivalent to a complete break with the exegetical methods applied in traditional commentaries of the musalsal kind. Most authors, however, in reflecting on thematic interpretation, agree to a large extent about the advantages of concentrating one’s exegetical endeavor on a limited number of themes dealt with in the Qurʾan. Two main arguments are put forward in favor of thematic interpretation: It enables exegetes to gain a comprehensive and well-balanced idea of what the divine book really says about the basic questions of belief, and thus reduces the danger of a merely selective and biased reading of the qurʾanic text; and commentaries based on such an interpretation are more suitable for practical purposes such as preparing Friday sermons or religious radio and television addresses, because these kinds of presentations usually have a thematic focus. An additional argument mentioned in support of thematic interpretation is that it allows exegetes to take a more active role in the process of interpretation, bringing their own modern perspective to bear in this process more effectively than the traditional verse-by-verse commentaries, since in the traditional commentaries the interpreter merely reacts to what is said in the text as it occurs, whereas in the tafsir mawḍuʿi he can start from the application of his own questions to the text (Ṣadr, Muqaddimat, 18-22).
Highly problematic and not representative of the prevailing views about tafsir mawḍuʾi is the conception of thematic interpretation advocated in 1993 by the Egyptian philosopher Ḥasan Ḥanafi. According to Ḥanafi, revelation is neither affirmed nor denied by thematic interpretation, since this method deals with the qurʾanic text without any distinction between the divine and the human, the religious and the secular (Method, 202, 210). In contrast to the supporters of the thematic interpretation of the qurʾanic text, he considers the question of the divine origin of the Qurʾan to be largely irrelevant, but this is only partly true where Ḥanafi’s own interest in the qurʾanic text is concerned. Irrespective of whether he personally attributes a religious character to the Qurʾan or not, his interest in interpreting this book and not any other text stems exclusively from the fact that many millions of Muslims believe the Qurʾan to be God’s revealed word and can hence be most effectively influenced by its interpretation. Moreover, in Ḥanafi’s opinion, it is one of the “rules” of thematic interpretation that the commentator should conduct exegesis on the basis of a socio-political commitment, with the added assumption that the interpreter is always a revolutionary (ibid., 203-4). While it is true that every interpretation comes with prior assumptions, there is no reason why they should only be revolutionary. Finally, according to Ḥanafi, thematic interpretation is based on the premise that “there is no true or false interpretation” (ibid., 203) and that “the validity of an interpretation lies in its power” (ibid., 210). By professing this principle, Ḥanafi actually abandons the notion of the hermeneutical circle as a model for interpretation, and, instead, looks upon this process as a one-way street whose only destination lies in influencing the audience according to the preconceived intentions of the interpreter. The notion of the hermeneutical circle, as analyzed in differing forms by Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer and others, implies an interaction between interpreter and text in which the interpreter puts questions to the text on the basis of his own prior conceptions, which are themselves reshaped by the text itself. As Gadamer stresses, the text must “break the spell” of the interpreter’s presuppositions, and its subject matter effects the correction of his preliminary understanding. For Ḥanafi, in contrast, the text has no significance of its own: In his idea of thematical interpretation, the committed interpreter’s prior understanding is absolute, and the text is considered to be relevant only in so far as its interpretation can serve the purpose of enhancing the power of the interpreter’s revolutionary arguments, which are not subject to critical review.
Problems of Gaining Acceptance for New Approaches to the Exegesis of the Qurʾan
New methodological approaches such as those of Khalaf Allah, Fazlur Rahman and Abu Zayd sprang from the widely felt need to extract the permanent tenets of the qurʾanic message from the historical forms in which they were communicated to the Prophet’s contemporaries and to recast them in terms of a modern intellectual outlook. These approaches also showed that this need can be served without abandoning the belief in the divine origin of every single word of the qurʾanic text and the binding character of its basic precepts. Nevertheless, thus far, these approaches have not found wide acceptance among theologians and experts of religious law, and some of them have even provoked vehement reactions on the part of the religious élite. Some of the reasons for this phenomenon can be stated here.
The prevailing traditional exegetical paradigm has remained nearly unchallenged for centuries. It has thus become customary among religious scholars to confuse the permanence of their own way of interpreting the qurʾanic text with the everlasting truth of this text itself and, hence, to consider any attempt at promoting a new approach to exegesis as an assault on the authority of the divine book as such, but at the same time as an attack on their own interpretative authority. The latter is a particularly sensitive issue, as it concerns the social position of the ʿulamaʾ, who have lost much ground in the fields of jurisdiction, public administration, education and academic studies since the early 19th century due to the general secularization of political and cultural structures. Moreover, if one allows new exegetical paradigms based on the acknowledgment of the historicity of the qurʾanic text and all its subsequent interpretations, this leads inevitably to an increasing plurality of competing interpretations. Such a situation would not only be contrary to the interests of the ʿulamaʾ, for whom it would then become more difficult to defend their interpretative monopoly, but also to the intentions of the poorly legitimized present governments of most Muslim states. These governments are accustomed to appealing to the Islamic religion as a unifying ideology in order to mobilize the loyalty of the masses in their favor, and for this purpose a largely uniform understanding of Islam is most suitable. The relationship of mutual dependence of the religious establishment and the government which is nowadays typical of many Islamic countries makes the suppression of disagreeable innovations in the field of exegetical methodology relatively simple. Because of the above-mentioned presuppositions of their own exegesis, Islamists are strongly opposed to permitting a plurality of interpretations based on methods differing from their own. The present situation is additionally aggravated by the fact that methods which imply a more serious consideration of the historical dimension of the qurʾanic text and of the exegetical tradition referring to it are generally associated with the kind of research pursued by orientalists, who in their turn are accused of working for Western colonialism. This makes it very easy to start a massive campaign against any scholar advocating such methods. Under these circumstances, the fact that hardly any Muslim authors have appropriated the methods and results of modern non-Muslim qurʾanic studies is also quite understandable. Rare exceptions to this trend are Amin al-Khuli and Daud Rahbar, both of whom recognized the value of the preliminary chronology of the qurʾanic text established in Th. Nöldeke’s Geschichte des Qorans (GQ). Still, on the basis of hermeneutical conceptions such as those of Abu Zayd and Fazlur Rahman, there will be continued attempts to enter into a far-reaching scientific exchange with non-Muslim scholars without questioning the literal revelation of the Qurʾan.