Muslim Qur’anic Interpretation Today - Media, Genealogies and Interpretive Communities - Johanna Pink
9. Hermeneutics and Methods
Muslim Qur’anic Interpretation Today - Media, Genealogies and Interpretive Communities - Johanna Pink
Johanna Pink [+]
University of Freiburg
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Johanna Pink is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Freiburg. Among her publications are one monograph as well as numerous articles and handbook chapters on contemporary, modern and 18th century Qur'anic exegesis as well as classical Qur'anic hermeneutics. She is currently publishing a collective volume on tafsir and Islamic intellectual history (OUP) and a guest-edited issue of the Journal of Qur'anic Studies on the translation of the Qur'an. Other areas of interest include the history of Egypt and the status of non-Muslims in Muslim religious and legal discourses.
Description
In this chapter, texts from Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Iraq exemplify debates and controversies over Qurʾānic hermeneutics and interpretive methods. These include semantics, the internal chronology of the Qurʾān, the arrangement of the text into verses and suras, the intra-Qurʾānic context of specific verses, and the attempt to read the Qurʾān in light of its aims and guiding message. The chapter also addresses the fundamental opposition between belief in a single truth, on the one hand, and doubt as an interpretive principle, on the other hand.