Semantics and the Understanding of the Qur'an

The Quranic terms, like the words of any other literary text, are tied to the meanings that the primary audience often understood better. Later meanings or concepts (perceptions) of the words emerge throughout history for a variety of reasons. This article, while distinguishing the "meaning" from "concept", emphasizes the importance of understanding the primary meaning within the framework of semantic principles, and argues that the absence of the primary meaning, both real and virtual, can make the understanding of the Qur'an difficult, complicated, and sometimes unrealistic. Hence, the four Qur'anic words of Ḥashr, Sidrat al-Muntahā, Awliyā, and al-Masjid al-Aqṣā have been studied as examples here, so that by giving importance to the primary meaning understandable for the first audience of the Quran, it gets obvious how the absence of their primary meaning causes the meaning of the text and possibly the author's intention obscure.