A Critique of the Literary Approach of Mohammed Arkoun in the Interpretation of the Quran

Scholars and exegetes of the Qurʾān have focused on the Qurʾān from various perspectives, including its literary dimension. In the early centuries, this approach was limited to the literary sciences of morphology, syntax and elocution, but in the contemporary era, it is a combination of these sciences and new sciences that look at the text of the Qurʾān differently. Some of the modern Muslim scholars such as Amin al-Khuli and his wife Bint al-Shati, Nasr Hamed Abu Zayd and Mohammed Arkoun have, with the aim of updating the message of the Qurʾān and answering contemporary challenges, adopted the literary methodology of the West, such as linguistics and semiotics, and by employing peripheral and internal analysis, they have sought to address the historical, psychological and sociological connotations of the religious text. They treat the Qurʾān as a work of literary art which must be interpreted using the latest literary research methods in the context of its historical exegesis. Of course, they went astray and fell into deviations in this regard. In this article, while describing the general views of the founders of this [modern] literary method, we focus on the views of Arkoun and his opinion about how the Qurʾān was eventually transformed into a book like the Bible, and how the Qurʾān’s composition was influenced by its historical context and the prevailing social and political atmosphere of the community at that time. We subsequently proceed to critique his views and arrive at the conclusion that the text of the Qurʾān is not of human provenance written under the influence of the thoughts of its authors and the prevailing culture of the time; rather, its words are direct divine revelation, written at the time of the Prophet (s) without any change in content or meaning.