Mechanisms of Interpretation: Bridging the Illuminations of the Arabo‑Islamic Heritage and the Horizon of Western Thought

Abstract

This article is devoted to the apprehension of interpretation and to an examination of the terms that refer to the science charged with investigating its questions within Western and Arab scholarship. This study emphasizes an exploration of the modes of relation between the efforts of predecessors and those of their successors in the treatment of interpretive problems, and to presenting its types, foundations, orientations, functions, constraints, and the extent of its connection to the reader. We will also examine the rules that govern interpretive practice in certain Western studies, and those formulated by the usūlīs (fundamentalists), which take into account the nature of the discourse under interpretation, its various states, and the nature of the interpreter, as well as the degree of coherence of the discourse. Finally, we will trace the ranges of openness in the mystical (Sufi) discourse and the widening horizons of interpretation, together with the paths followed by some transmitters of the Sufi word, with a view to standardizing interpretive procedures. We also intend to draw on the legacy of the ancients in the fields of usul and Sufism to offer a reading of the diverse, sometimes antagonistic, Western approaches to the phenomenon of interpretation, with a view to standardizing its methodological criteria.