Challenges of Receiving the Qur'an as a Literary Text in Light of Hans Robert Jauss’ Reception Theory

Receiving the Qur’an as a literary text is one of the epistemological responses of scholars to this text in the twentieth century. This kind of reception has a long history in the Islamic heritage, especially in the studies of Qur’anic commentators and scholars, but there are fundamental differences between the literary reading of the Qur’an in the past and in the present. These differences arise from the methods used to analyze and study the literary text. If we look at the Qur’an as a literary text from the perspective of modern theories, we encounter with challenges because the literary text, under in this view, is considered an open and pluralistic text in terms of meaning, during its formation and reception. This article examines the challenges raised by receiving the Qur’an as a literary text in light of "Reception Theory". In this regard, it is observed that the principle of coherence provides us with a criterion for distinguishing interpretations close and far from the truth of the Qur’an and contributes to framing the reader's participation in the process of reading the Qur'an as a literary text from the perspective of modern theories.