1 Sharing Qurʾānic Meanings: Outlines for a Dialogical Hermeneutic

In “The Qurʾān, a Text of Late Antiquity”, Angelika Neuwirth argues that

at a time when pervasive globalization is leading to fertile encounters and cultural dialogues in art, literature and music (not to mention the economic sphere), it is curious how Arabic studies undertaken in the West and in the East are conducted in mutual ignorance of one another. Do students on both sides of these academic worlds have nothing to share and offer each other? Is the idea of a collaboration to which each academic tradition would bring its expertise unthinkable? These questions, which are desiderata, are today the concerns of many colleagues from international and academic institutions.1

In the field of contemporary qurʾānic studies, the possibility of dialogue between these two academic worlds faces a double challenge. On the one hand, Western scholars lament that in Islamic universities critical methodologies are ignored or condemned. On the other hand, Muslim scholars denounce those methodologies as an ideological enterprise,2 a new form of intellectual colonialism that seeks to undermine the foundations of the Islamic faith based on a partial and biased knowledge of the Arabic language, Arabic culture and the Islamic heritage.3 Although both arguments are lacking in nuance, they are effective and undoubtedly hinder cooperation. The application of historical-critical methods practiced in biblical studies is obviously one of the most challenging questions. The presuppositions and methods of investigation, which include, among other things, identifying the different redactional layers of the Qurʾān, postulating interpolations in the text, and suggesting that the founding text of Islam is the product of a collective entreprise,4 radically contravene Islamic doxa. It is thus easy to understand the difficulty of bringing these two academic worlds into dialogue.

Yet, there is reason to hope that a dialogue between Islamic and Western scholars will develop in the years to come, for several reasons. In the last two decades, the publication of numerous books and articles on the Qurʾān5 has increased opportunities for exchange and debate. One of the most tangible signs of this development is the translations of several scholarly works written in the West.6 Thanks to the internet, Muslim scholars now have immediate and unprecedented access to these translations.7 Many websites support scientific databases relating to the qurʾānic text,8 bibliographic directories of Western scholarship,9 polemical and inter-religious studies,10 and books11 on recent developments in qurʾānic studies. In addition, a new generation of students and teachers is emerging, some of them immigrants from formerly colonized Muslim countries. These scholars facilitate initiatives and cooperation between Western and Islamic universities.12

I Three Modes of Interpretation

In this new global context, three modes of interpretation of the Qurʾān intersect and challenge each other. I call them “Genealogic”, “Anatomic,” and “Anagnostic.” Each mode centers on one pole of the hermeneutic spectrum, i.e. Author, Text or Reader.13 I shall now define them.

The Genealogic mode of interpretation centers on the Author and is characterized by scientific skepticism. Its practitioners openly and systematically acknowledge contradictions in the Qurʾān and their interpretative traditions. They critically examine the master narratives, question the text, and seeks its sources. They analyze the text in its original state, as reflected in manuscripts. They attempt to recover the intentions of the author (or editors).14 They compare the text with “outside texts” whose themes, literary genres, and/or date of composition are close to those of the Qurʾān. The outside texts include the religious and liturgical literatures of late antiquity,15 pre-Islamic poetry and texts written by the first interpreting communities.16 Practitioners of the Genealogic mode also contextualize the qurʾānic corpus by analyzing literary forms and genres and their theological functions. They attempt to determine the different editorial layers of the text and to reconstruct the history of the qurʾānic corpus before its canonization. They treat the Qurʾān as a historical document that reflects the social, political, economic and cultural environment of its author(s).

The Anatomic mode of interpretation centers on the Text. The perspective is synchronic. Drawing upon discourse analysis, practitioners of this mode call into question formal and composition dynamics in the Qurʾān. Numerous scholars have applied semiotic, narrative, semantic and rhetorical methods to the Qurʾān. For example, using Greimas’ semiotic square,17 scholars have established the deep structures of Q Yusuf 12 and the relationships between the ‘actants’ (persons who play active roles in a narrative). By contrast, a rhetorical analysis of the same Sūrah exposes a narrative composed of “a section composed of twelve sequences, distributed in a specular manner in two sub-sections of six sequences (ABCDEF/F’E’D’C’B’A’)”.18 In studies like these, scholars draw on the methods and vocabulary of literary discourse analysis such as intertextuality, intratextuality, metatextuality, and “counter-discourse”, i.e. discourse of the qurʾānic opponents as reported in the text. The notion of “counter-discourse” highlights an internal qurʾānic paradox. How does the founding book of Islam deal with speech that it rejects? To address this paradox, the Qurʾān uses multiple compositional and rhetorical strategies that explain its polemics.19 Practitioners of the Anatomic mode of interpretation treat the Text as a “monument” of human speech.20

The Anagnostic mode of interpretation centers on the Reader. In his “Éloge de la lecture et de l’écriture,” Paul Ricoeur argues: “The text, orphaned from its father, the author, becomes the child of the community of readers. Unable to help itself, it finds its pharmakon 21 in the act of reading.22 Thus, the text “awaits and calls for a reading.”23 The process of reading is dynamic, a repeated back and forth between text and reader. The text unfolds, recreates, and reconfigures the reader’s world.24 The reader mobilizes his as her skills, identity, history and individual experiences. This encounter produces a cooperation25 or conversation26 that allows the reader to create meaning that is potentially in the text. As Umberto Eco states: “The functioning of a text (even a non-verbal one) can be explained by taking into consideration (. . .) the role played by the addressee in its comprehension, its actualization, its interpretation, as well as the way in which the text itself provides for his participation.”27 In qurʾānic studies, the Anagnostic mode of interpretation is illustrated by the scholarship of Nasr Abu Zayd. In his essay, “Towards Understanding the Qurʾān Worldview”, the Egyptian author describes the “worlds of the text” that emerge from the different hermeneutical orientations of the Islamic tradition, e.g., theology, mysticism, law and philosophy. He links his analysis to his personal intellectual journey and his encounters with the qurʾānic text. The open nature of the founding text of Islam and the many communities of readers who interpret the text according to their specific historical, social and cultural situations make a multiplicity of interpretations possible.

These three modes of interpretation presuppose a search for the meaning of the text that privileges either context (the Genealogic mode), the formal and structural singularities of the text (Anatomic mode), or the relationship between text and reader (Anagnostic mode). In other words, each mode of interpretation focuses on one aspect of the hermeneutical spectrum:28 Author, Text, Reader (past and present). No single mode embraces the entire spectrum. Each mode criticizes the limitations and shortcomings of the other modes. The Anatomic mode criticizes the extra-textual analysis of the Genealogic mode, while the latter criticizes the former for neglecting historical context. Similarly, the Anagnostic mode reproaches the other two modes for ignoring the reading process.29

In my view, the inherent limitations of each mode of interpretation create an opportunity for fruitful collaboration. These limitations may be the privileged place in which the three modes may interact with each other. Let me now define the conditions and possible relationships of what I shall call the Hermeneutic Triangle.

II The Space for a Dialogue Between the three Modes: The Hermeneutic Triangle of the...