Report on the forum: Renewal in contemporary tafseer: presentation and criticism

Abstract

This report presents a thorough scholarly documentation of the proceedings of the Forum on "Renovation in Contemporary Quranic Exegesis (Tafseer): Presentation and Criticism," held at the Faculty of Theology (Usul al-Din) at Emir Abdelkader University of Islamic Sciences in Constantine, Algeria. The forum's central problematic revolves around a fundamental inquiry into the nature of renewal (tajdid) in Quranic interpretation, its legitimate parameters, and the distinction between disciplined, constructive renewal that serves a sound understanding of the Holy Quran, and dangerous modernist deviations that threaten the established principles and foundations of Tafsir.

The forum's proceedings were organized across four scientific sessions covering a wide spectrum of themes. The first session addressed the foundational concepts of tajdid and their relationship to Tafsir and Quranic elucidation. The second session featured critical studies of specific modernist methodologies, including the linguistic-structural approach of Muhammad Shahrur, feminist Tafsir of the Quran, and the modernist instrumentalization of the theory of Maqasid. The third session examined practical models of the relationship between contemporary Tafsir and jurisprudential emergent issues (nawazil), as well as pictorial Tafsir of the Quran as a novel contemporary format. The fourth session concluded with precise discussions on principles of Tafsir, the science of Quranic correlations (munasabat), and Qiraat in light of renewal.

The forum concluded with a set of recommendations, most notably: affirming the authenticity of the Islamic concept of tajdid and the necessity of protecting its content from modernist intrusion, delineating the immutable constants that are not subject to change, requiring scholarly and jurisprudential competence in those undertaking the renewal process, and calling upon students of Quranic studies to engage with modernist methodologies in an objective and rigorous academic manner as a means of intellectual fortification against them.