Deconstructing Islamic Tradition: A Panacea or a Profanity

Abstract

Deconstruction, a keyword in postmodernism and a highly debatable term, challenges logo centrism in all its forms. The theory of Deconstruction rejects the idea of a singular meaning in a text and argues that every individual reader creates his/her own meaning. The theories of Death of author and birth of reader by Roland Barthes and the later the use of Deconstruction by Jacques Derrida made it a significant part of literary discourses. Some Muslim intellectuals such as Mohammed Arkoun, and Muhammad Shahroure have not only challenged the traditional notions of orthodoxy but have also used the post-structural and deconstructive ideological equipment to rethink the ideology of Islam. Arkoun, in his reformist agenda along with his criticism on the Western notions of reformation, contends that the task for Muslim intellectuals today is to mount a critique of traditional Islamic modes of reasoning because they confuse historically rooted traditional interpretations with the content of divine revelation. He has also given lines of action for reform. The deconstruction of the traditional exegesis or orthodoxy is just one dimension of the problem; the reconstruction of the heritage of knowledge passed on by our ancestors is more important. The article consists of the introduction and main tenets of Deconstruction theory proposed by Jacques Derrida and the application of this theory on the reading of Qurʼānic text and possible impact. In this regards a brief review of the theories of Muhammed Arkoun, Muhammad Shahroure has been presented.

Keywords

• post-structuralism
• orthodoxy
• qur’ān
• tradition
• arkoun