Methodology of Contemporary Qur'an Researchers: A Case Study of Muhammad Arkoun

Like other Muslim intellectuals, Mohammed Arkon, an Algerian intellectual and contemporary Quran researcher, has been concerned with reforming and deducing religious concepts. One of these concerns is the method of understanding religious and Quranic concepts. This approach commences with a revision and rereading of the ancient heritage in this area and then being affected with new humanities studies related to Quranic studies of the intellectual revolution and structural reforms in modernist conceptions and the tendency to modernity, it ends in understanding Qur'anic interpretation and sciences. The following readings are observed in his works: 1. faithful reading. historical reading 3. linguistic reading 4. semiotic reading. The present study attempts to study Arkoun's methodology in Qura'nic studies using a descriptive-analytical method. The important achievement of the research is that it attempts to make a relation between the existing methods in the new world in the methodical understanding of the Qur'an and the theology. However, this effort eventually fails to provide a coherent structure in this respect.