From Ricoeur's Hermeneutic Arc to Tripartite Interpretive Stages in the Thought and Works of Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani

Interpretation (Ta’wil) in the Sufi discourse of enthusiasm, namely in the works and thought of Ayn al-Quzat, is regarded as a fundamental principle. In his philosophical mysticism, which comprises a hierarchical and graded design, every concept has a beginning and an end. The spiritual seeker moves from the starting point to the end point and at the end he undergoes various stages to reach the final. Ayn al-Quzat’s tripartite interpretive stages find ontological facet, in addition to epistemological status, in light of the three-tiered epistemological-perceptual orders of "reading", "knowing", and "reaching"; an interpretive hierarchy that ultimately leads to an esoteric transformation and the opening of the eyes and heart to a new realm and horizon. In Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic arc, the interpreter or reader undergoes the stages of “explication”, “understanding”, and “self-appropriation” while interacting with the text. In “explication”, the reader examines the structure of utterances and pays attention to words’ semiotics. In the stage of “understanding”, the interpreter or reader seeks to fathom the depth of the meanings and unveil the author’s implicit propositions. “Self-appropriation” is the final stage of understanding through which semantic data transform the interpreter and make him/her achieve a different understanding of him/herself. In this study, we attempt to draw an analogy between the tripartite interpretive stagesof Ayn al-Quzat and Ricoeur's hermeneutic arc. Besides pointing to the similarities and differences of these two interpretive/hermeneutic approaches, we attempt to elucidate the interpretive arc in the intellectual system of Ayn al-Quzat.