Muslim Qur’anic Interpretation Today
Media, Genealogies and Interpretive Communities
by Johanna Pink
This book takes a comprehensive look at the ways in which Muslims interpret the Qur’ān today and at the themes and structural conditions that shape their engagement with their sacred scripture. Muslim Qur’ānic interpretation Today includes boldly innovative approaches as well as staunchly traditional ones. They are represented and performed in all types of media and target a wide variety of audiences. The book aims at making sense of these diverse phenomena by combining an analytical overview of the field with detailed case studies of exegetical texts and media from the 2000s and 2010s. The first part offers a comprehensive introductory survey of the field of contemporary Muslim Qur??nic interpretation. It provides a fresh perspective on present-day discourses by emphasising the historical, social, and political dimensions in which they take place. The second part presents samples from recent exegetical works that exemplify larger themes such as media, interpretive methods, and the diversity of the global Muslim community. Commentaries on the texts and their authors help to contextualise the samples and highlight core themes and features of contemporary exegetical debates. Taken together, the two parts of the book can be read as a spotlight on Muslim Qur’ānic interpretation in a specific period of time, a time of great challenges and tremendous social transformations, some of them obvious and some of them rarely noted.
Introduction Part one: Qur'anic Interpretation Today: A History of the Present 1. The New Centrality of the Qur'anic Message 2. Reconstituting the Exegetical Tradition 3. Frames of Reference 4. Methods and Interpretive Strategies 5. The Global Qur'an in a Diverse World Part Two: Contemporary Readings of the Qur'an: An Anthology 6. Media 7. Aims 8. Traditions of Exegesis 9. Hermeneutics and Methods 10. Beyond the Mainstream Epilogue: The Contested Qur'an: Textual Interpretation and Authority
Johanna Pink is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Freiburg. Among her publications are one monograph as well as numerous articles and handbook chapters on contemporary, modern and 18th century Qur’anic exegesis as well as classical Qur’anic hermeneutics. She is currently publishing a collective volume on tafsir and Islamic intellectual history (OUP) and a guest-edited issue of the Journal of Qur’anic Studies on the translation of the Qur’an. Other areas of interest include the history of Egypt and the status of non-Muslims in Muslim religious and legal discourses.
- By (author) Johanna Pink
"Johanna Pink has published an important monograph, one that will serve as our new guide to the study of contemporary commentary as a globalized endeavor." Religious Studies Review, September 2019 "Pink has produced a fine new study in the field of contemporary Quranic exegesis. It is an irreplaceable resource for scholars and students on Quranic studies." Laviano, Mariangela, Islamochristiana, 45 (2019) ". . . you will delight in every page, because this is the book that you have been waiting for. . . She deftly explains the fundamental structural conditions that influence Qur.an interpretation today: the increased prominence of the Qur.an in Muslim piety; the important and multi-valent role of nation-states; the tension between classically trained religious scholars and pious interpreters with professional backgrounds (physicians, engineers, literature professors, among others); the various kinds of constraining and enabling markets (readers, publishers, and more); and the shifting possibilities afforded by new media forms and new ways to reach, persuade, and discuss interpretative views with audiences and fellow interpreters. . . . broad in scope, bold in its arguments, comprehensive in its evidence, and a pleasure to read." Stanton, Andrea, Review of Quranic Research, vol. 6, no. 3 (2020)
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