ABSTRACT
Arkoun’s attitude to orientalist scholar-
ship is ambivalent. He acknowledges
that during the colonial period advo-
cates of the historical-critical method
performed a valuable task by opening
up fields of enquiry considered taboo by
most Muslims. These included textual
criticism and the chronological ranking
of the suras, both of which are of vital
importance to the historian. However,
he laments that European Qur ) an spe-
cialists have tended to restrict them-
selves to the philological restoration of
the text and the historical reconstruction
of simple facts, and have largely neglected
methodological issues and questions of
an epistemological nature. Similarly,
those concerned with the history of
exegesis have usually focused on the
works of ‘orthodox’ writers and con-
centrated on translating them or sum-
marizing them for the benefit of non-
Arabists. What is needed, and what
Arkoun urges, is a full-scale rethinking
and revitalization of the discipline in
light of the social sciences. It is relatively easy to grasp what this
might entail as regards the history of
interpretation. Instead of majoring in
the key works of scholars who are con-
sidered orthodox or who stand out
because of their intellectual stature,
researchers would seek to situate exeg-
esis within the history of Islamic con-
sciousness of a given society by drawing
on every scrap of available evidence
concerning people’s beliefs and prac-
tices. They would not neglect writers
who belonged to marginalized groups or
run-of-the-mill orthodox scholars. On
the contrary, the works of such indivi-
duals are invaluable for charting shifts
in the boundaries between the thinkable,
the unthinkable and the unthought.
