Abstract:

In the last two centuries, an increasing number of Muslim scholars have adopted a modernist/decontextualisation approach to the interpretation of the Quran. This adoption is attributable to their worldviews or philosophical approaches that have changed over time. Instead of looking for primary and contextual meanings of words and miraculous events addressed in the Qur’an, they prefer to look at the connotative meanings, which are out of the context. This review argues that such decontextualized interpretations substantially contradict Quranic principles and contextual meanings of miracles. Muslim and non-Muslim, classical and modernist approaches to the Quranic miracles need to be reconsidered, so as to avoid or reduce misinterpretations. For this aim, the author has applied a diachronic (semantic) method of reviewing different approaches to definitions or conceptions of miracles in Arabic dictionaries, Islamic literature, classical standpoints, and modernist viewpoints.

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