Muslim Qur’anic Interpretation Today - Media, Genealogies and Interpretive Communities - Johanna Pink
10. Beyond the Mainstream
Muslim Qur’anic Interpretation Today - Media, Genealogies and Interpretive Communities - Johanna Pink
Johanna Pink [+]
University of Freiburg
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Description
The Turkish and English samples presented in this chapter reflect the fact that the Qurʾān is not only interpreted by traditional Sunni Arab scholars. There is a wide variety of communities that pursue approaches outside the religious mainstream and have their own ways of engaging with the Qurʾān. Jihadi-Salafis who use the Qurʾān to declare anyone participating in democratic elections an unbeliever, Sufis, Alevis, and the Ahmadiyya movements all read and explain the Qurʾān in widely divergent ways that sometimes have little in common with its interpretive tradition. Often, they are much more concerned with the defense or suppport of specific positions, situated in a particular local context. Such divergent interpretations may therefore also, at times, turn out to be the cause of intense polemics.