Negotiative Hermeneutics of Khaled Abou El Fadl: Truth Postponement and Negotiating The Meaning of Text in Speaking In God's Name

Abstract

This study aims to map the ontological and epistemological aspects of Negotiative Hermeneutics through a philosophical approach. Negotiative Hermeneutics is a new hermeneutic model initiated by Khaled Abou El Fadl to criticize gender-biased and misogyny fatwas issued by Al-Lajnah ad-Dā`imah li al-Buhūts al-'Ilmiyyah wa al-Iftā`, or the Fatwa Committee Saudi Arabia. Prioritizing texts understanding through a psychological, social context, and other perspective makes this model different from other hermeneutics. Negotiative Hermeneutics more focuses on the negotiation process for sustainable in the three pillars of hermeneutics: author, text, and reader. This iterative process on linguistic, cultural, etc. This study analyzed the weaknesses of the Negotiative Hermeneutics negotiation movement based on the misogyny fatwa case of the Saudi Arabian Fatwa Committee using the critical discourse analysis method. The results indicated that the text is ontologically sacred and authoritative; authorship of the Quran and the Prophet Sunnah stopped at the first author. The epistemological viewed meaning is obtained from endless negotiations among the three pillars of hermeneutics. The weakness is Khaled's disregard for the fact that the ulama's fatwa depends on royal authority. Last, the significance of this paper, especially regarding the shortcomings in Khaled's theory, is to present evidence that a fatwa produced by the ulama's ijtihad is not autonomous at all, even from the ulama itself, because it is also the result of a bargaining chip between ulama and the royal authority

Keywords

• negotiative hermeneutics
• khaled abou el fadl
• ontology
• epistemology