Contemporary Critical practices and Quran

This article includes two parts: the first part is a translation of the article: “Contemporary Critical Practices and the Quran” by Mohammad Arkun, a French orientalist (originally Algerian) who analyzes and criticizes the traditional method of Quran’s interpreters and emphasizes the comparison between Quran and the Holy Bible’s researches. He then draws attention to new methods such as linguistics and semiotics and at the end he suggests the three methods of historical, psychological and sociological analysis for Quranic researches. He finally suggests writing a critical encyclopedia about Quran. The second part of this article includes analysis and criticism of Arkun’s views. In this part, first mentioning Arkun’s bibliography and the effects of Arab and orientalism culture on his approaches, positive and negative points of his article are mentioned and his view about “rightfulness” and “Quran being as a heavenly and revealed book” is criticized. Also accepting the necessity of having historical, psychological and sociological analysis regarding Quran’s interpretation, the differences between Quran and the Old and New Testaments are mentioned and Arkun’s view in this regard is criticized.