Signs of The Times - How Do We Situate the Use & Misuse of Scripture? - Yasir Fahmy

And recite (O Muhammad) to them the story of him to whom We gave Our Ayat (signs), but he threw them away, so Shaytan followed him up, and he became of those who went astray. Evil is the likeness of the people who reject Our Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses and signs, etc.), and used to wrong their own-selves. (7:175-177)

Literal meaning is what a text means, regardless of what its author intends to convey or the reader understands to be its message. Qur’anic verses contain the most powerful, prophetic and revelatory passages in religious history. They offer the vision of a meaningful and just life that anchors the religion of one-fifth of the world’s inhabitants. How then do we explain the misuse of texts to validate wanton violence and abhorrent views? In this session we examine Qur’anic legal hermeneutics to explore various competing notions of literal meaning, linked to both theological and historical developments, together with insights from modern semantic and pragmatic philosophies.