ABSTRACT
The starting point for exploring the idea of meaning is an understanding that the Qur’an is a communicative act that has a particular purpose. Muslims consider the Qur’an to be God’s speech (kalam). The Qur’an was intended, in the first instance, for a particular audience: Mecca and Medina in the seventh century ce. The communicative act of the Qur’an therefore remains deeply connected to the specific context in which it first occurred, and the relationships between its speaker (God) and the first recipients (the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate followers). Although the Qur’anic message has been actualised and re-actualised throughout the post-prophetic generations, those new contexts also remain connected to the first context of revelation. Considering the Qur’an as a communicative act helps interpreters to conceptualise a set of ideas about meaning that are appropriate to a contextualist reading. This does not require any new theory of meaning. Rather, this approach builds on a range of theories of meaning that exist in Islamic tradition and contemporary thought. When used together, these assist with the project of determining what a contextualist reading of the Qur’an entails.
