On Avicenna's Hermeneutical Approach to Interpreting Quran

Although hermeneutics as a systematic theory is a modern area, informally has had a long history especially in the interpretation of sacred textures. In Islamic world, we mostly find it among philosophers and Gnostics that suppose a pure reality beyond the formal aspects of words and phrases. In this regard, Avicenna is the first philosopher who offers independent and formal interpretations of some Quranic Surahs and whose rational and philosophical interpretations of some Quranic Surahs and verses leads to the philosophical attitude in interpreting Quran. On one hand, he finds the verses of Quran symbolic and metaphorical that carries another realms of the meaning and then he aims to discover those; on the other hand, based on his metaphysical basics and philosophical assumptions of the existence, the origin and the resurrection, cosmos and human, soul and body and so on, he represents an innovative interpretation in which religious phrases goes beyond their common meaning and enters to another semantic square and find metaphysical meanings. This article, with a glance to Avicenna's interpretations, studies Quran as interpreted by a philosopher and the process of turning concepts into metaphysical ones. At the end it will evaluate this method of interpretation. Avicenna's interpretations can pave the way to new areas of study in comparative interpretation, methodology, hermeneutics and its history in Islamic flow of thought.