Through the Lens of Modern Hermeneutics: Authorial Intention in al-Ṭabarī's and al-Ghazālī's Interpretations of Q. 24:35

Abstract

The article explores the meaning of Q. 24∶35 (the ‘Light Verse’) through the interpretations of al-Ṭabarī and al-Ghazālī, and with reference to their respective hermeneutics and interpretive methods, which are compared to modern hermeneutical debate. The central argument is that the methodologies of al-Ṭabarī and al-Ghazālī are in line with the modern hermeneutical position that a text's meaning is what its author intended to communicate (E.D. Hirsch, Jr), as opposed to what its interpreter makes of it (H-G. Gadamer). A medieval Islamic equivalent to Gadamer's hermeneutics can be found in Ismāʿīlī exegesis, which is methodologically opposed to that of al-Ṭabarī and, also, al-Ghazālī. It is suggested that Q. 24∶35 itself is a statement of the hermeneutics of ‘authorial intention’, which implies that the Qur'an's meaning is what God intended to communicate, and the meaning of the term taʾwīl is reassessed in terms of its meaning, literally, ‘to retrieve God's intended meaning from interpretation’. On a secondary level, by exploring the hermeneutics of these two scholars and comparing this with modern hermeneutics, the study offers a critique of a recent reading of Ashʿarī theory of language and interpretation, and its political implications.