Normative Readings of the Qur'an: From the Premodern Middle East to the Modern West

This article explores the variety of normative claims that both Muslims and non-Muslims have held about the Qur'an by asking two key questions: (1) What separates normative and non-normative approaches to scholarship? (2) What separates study of a tradition from contribution to that tradition?...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Subtitles:Roundtable on normativity in islamic studies
Main Author: Bazzano, Elliott 1938- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press [2016]
In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Koran / Normativity / History
RelBib Classification:BJ Islam
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This article explores the variety of normative claims that both Muslims and non-Muslims have held about the Qur'an by asking two key questions: (1) What separates normative and non-normative approaches to scholarship? (2) What separates study of a tradition from contribution to that tradition? By surveying a multiplicity of scholars—spanning two millennia and disparate geographical regions—this article argues that objectivity is scarcely if ever possible in Qur'anic studies scholarship and that scholars of the Qur'an, Muslim or not, almost always have a normative agenda, whether implicit or explicit. Because the epistemological boundaries between insiders and outsiders are often fluid, recognizing the similarities between so-called insider and outsider approaches to Qur'anic exegesis across the centuries contributes to debates about normative scholarship by helping us to reimagine boundaries of identity, authority, and the struggle for normativity in religious studies scholarship.
ISSN:1477-4585
Contains:Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfv103