An Examination of the Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd’s Stance toward the Esoteric Interpretation and Its Criticism based on the Viewpoint of Allama Tabataba’i

Ta’wil (esoteric interpretation) is one of the main concepts taken into consideration for long by the Shī‘a and Mu‘tazila for the understanding of the divine verses. The Traditionists have always had a negative view to esoteric interpretation and their exegetes have avoided this concept and have taken this avoidance to be the correct practice. In the modern times, Abu Zayd – a Mu‘tazila thinker – deems esoteric interpretation as the true understanding of the Qur’ān. He believes that today we can connect with the Qur’ān and have a qur’ānic life through esoteric interpretation. He also believes that this type of interpretation revives the Qur’ān in the modern time. The article at hand uses a descriptive-comparative method to report and criticize the viewpoint of Abu Zayd toward esoteric interpretation based on the viewpoints of Allama Tabataba’i. The findings reveal that what he labels as esoteric interpretation is semantically and conceptually different from what Allama Tabataba’i calls esoteric interpretation. Allama Tabataba’i takes esoteric interpretation an effort to attain the profound knowledge of the Qur’ān which cannot be expressed merely by the words, while Abu Zayd considers esoteric interpretation as era-bound understanding of the Qur’ān. Of course, there might be a common point between the two stances: the deep understanding of the Qur’ān can help solve the present-day and future problems of the human.