The Semantics of Qurʾānic Vocabulary Between Classical Exegesis and Modernist Hermeneutics: A Foundational Linguistic Study

Ibrahim Ali Khayyāal., Mostafa

doi:10.21608/bfsgm.2025.443567

The Semantics of Qurʾānic Vocabulary Between Classical Exegesis and Modernist Hermeneutics: A Foundational Linguistic Study

Author

Mostafa Ibrahim Ali Khayyāal.

Tanta University

10.21608/bfsgm.2025.443567

Abstract

God revealed the Qurʾān as guidance for all of humanity. Accordingly, uncovering the semantic range of its vocabulary is essential, for such understanding leads to clarity regarding the divine intent and reveals the inimitability of the Qurʾānic discourse. This in turn ensures accuracy in extracting theological meanings, legal rulings, and normative principles that shape the moral and existential frameworks of believers.
This study seeks to illuminate the methodological approaches employed by classical exegetes and philologists in determining the meanings of Qurʾānic vocabulary, in comparison with the perspectives of modernist interpreters. The latter, it is argued, have adopted a distorted approach to Qurʾānic semantics, disregarding established linguistic principles and undermining the sacred status of the Qurʾān by equating it with human texts and subjecting both to the same interpretive rules.
To pursue these aims, the research employs descriptive, analytical, and critical methodologies. Among its principal findings is that modernist interpretive frameworks ultimately aim to strip the Qurʾānic text of its sacred character and to sever the continuity with the classical exegetical tradition by discrediting and marginalizing it under the pretext that tradition stifles intellectual freedom and creativity.
This misdirection stems, in part, from reliance on non-Arabic methodologies rooted in contemporary Western philosophical and linguistic theories, while disregarding the interpretive tools developed by scholars of the Islamic tradition. The claim that Qurʾānic vocabulary is semantically limitless and open to any meaning the reader deems appropriate is shown to be unfounded. While the Qurʾān indeed allows for a multiplicity of valid interpretations, such understandings must remain consistent with the objectives of the Qurʾān, the principles of tafsīr, and the established rules of Arabic philology and semantics.
The study concludes that the interpretive guidelines laid down by classical linguists and exegetes are not restrictions on thought or creativity, but rather a necessary framework that preserves coherence and prevents interpretive chaos in the analysis of Qurʾānic vocabulary.

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