Taha Jabir Al-Alwani’s Renewal (Tajdīd) of the Hermeneutics and Discourse Surrounding Scripture: An Analytical Study

Abstract

This paper is a rereading of Taha al-Alwani’s intellectual project as part of the contributions of the Islamic Knowledge School as well as the renewal of religious discourse in the Arab and Muslim sphere. It is therefore an attempt to explore al Alwani’s positions and critical views regarding precedent projects and trends, whether revivalist, reformist or modernist dimensions, thus uncovering the nature of alternatives he proposed to reconsider and transcend the problematics that these trends faced in terms of vision and method. It argues that the Quranic cognitive theory, in its epistemological and ontological dimensions, is one of the most significant alternatives and cognitive paradigms that enabled him to avoid reproducing precedent renewal projects., thus going beyond them and embracing a different epistemic horizon, through an emphasis on the centrality of the Quranic text. In other words, his point of departure was from the text to discourse and not vice versa, according to three epistemic principles: the combination of reading the revelation and reading the universe; the structural unity of the Quran; and the language of the Quran.