Mapping Out Religious Approaches to Returning to the Quran: An Analytical Examination of the Modes of Engagement with the Quran in Classical Scholasticism and Modern and Postmodern Intellectualism

The mapping of religious approaches to returning to the Quran becomes possible and feasible through a return to the history of consciousness and under reflection upon the transformations of rationality across its different epochs—from the classical era through modernity and then postmodernity. More specifically, this task must be understood and pursued within the framework of major epistemological formations that have played influential roles in the history of Islamic consciousness. In other words, the understanding and analysis of these diverse modes of returning to the Quran throughout history is a function of identifying the epistemological contexts and theoretical roots connected to a chain of intellectual transformations and the generative and formative relations that produced them. These transformations and relations reflect macro-level shifts in the apparatuses of consciousness that have been operative in Islamic thought and indicate the existence of diverse frameworks of rationality in different historical periods. Accordingly, the present study identifies and analyzes three major approaches to engaging with the Quran: the traditional scholastic approach, the modern intellectualist approach, and the postmodern intellectualist approach. Each of these approaches is the product of particular epistemological conditions and discursive relations that formulate, guide, and represent a distinct form of rationality. The primary focus of this research is to explain the different modes of returning to the Quran and
to extract the epistemological distinctions among these three approaches. (Main objective). In pursuit of this objective, the fundamental question of the research is: within which epistemological foundations and under which theoretical presuppositions have each of these three modes of engagement taken shape, and how have they articulated and configured the relationship among text, rationality, and historical situation within the horizon of the capacities of their place of emergence and the field of their elaboration? In fact, one must ask: how have these three approaches—within the cognitive frameworks arising from their respective epochal relations and through the adoption of their own specific interpretive and discursive methods—been able to offer a coherent yet distinct understanding of the Quran, and what capacities have been effective in reproducing religious rationalities and historically influential reflections that account for the remarkable diversity in the understanding of the Quran across these three periods (classical, modern, and postmodern)? (Main question). Employing an analytical-historical method and within a comparative-critical approach, this study addresses this central question at its various levels and dimensions. It seeks, by relying on the capacities of this method, to reconstruct the epistemological logic, identify interpretive paradigms, and extract the fundamental differences and similarities in these modes of returning to the Quran across the three epistemological domains throughout human history. The crucial point is that this approach enables us to recognize these currents not merely as neutral, time-free models in the field of interpretation, but rather as epistemological formulations that arise from distinct cognitive apparatuses in interaction with historical transformations and the rationality they generate—and then to proceed to understand and classify them accordingly. (Methodology). The results and implications of the research, as reflected and explained in the body of the text, show that these three approaches have brought forth and offered significantly different capacities in returning to the Quran. In particular, the traditional scholastic approach, grounded in the systematic and propositional classical rationality, sought to detect and then deduce “truth” through established interpretive frameworks, linguistic rules, and principles of jurisprudence. The outcome of this approach was a field of exegesis (tafsīr) that itself encompasses diverse currents and saturated the pre-modern world with its reflections and subtle observations. The modern intellectualist approach, relying on analytical rationality, autonomous reason, and contemporary human sciences, advanced a rereading of the Quran within historical and social horizons and organized it through a series of theories rooted in contemporary humanistic reflection. This approach strove to understand and explain the “realities” of Quranic themes on the basis of scientific methodology and modern rationality. Finally, the postmodern intellectualist approach, with its emphasis on critical and situation-centered rationality, has viewed the Quran as a fluid, dialogical, and multi-layered text whose meaning is generated within “situations” and as something interactive and tied to historical, social, and discursive contexts—and has then understood and presented it accordingly. The outcome of this approach has been a kind of open interlocution and continuous dialogue with the Quran as a text whose horizon of meaningfulness remains open. This differentiation, based on recognizing the capacities of these three periods, makes possible a layered analysis of returning to the Quran and an understanding of the mechanisms that gave rise to these three modes of engagement.