Al-Azhar Scholar Says New Interpretations of Quran Needed

IQNA – A scholar and former official of Egypt’s Al-Azhar Islamic University underlined the necessity for new exegeses of the Holy Quran to meet the contemporary era’s needs.   

“We are facing a crisis in understanding the Quran’s goals and the Quranic sciences,” Hamd Salim Abu Asi said in a televised interview.

He said Quran interpretations today are just narrating and analyzing what has been said in the past, ad-Dustur website reported.

Quran interpreters in the past wrote their exegeses based on the culture of their time, he noted.

“Today, we need contemporary interpretations of the Quran as well as contemporary Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) so that we can keep the unchangeable principle and accept changes and reviews (to old views).”

“We need an interpretation that shows human dignity and accepts the views and opinions of others,” he stressed.

God has sent the religion for the salvation of mankind and many of its rulings may change from time to time or in different place, Abu Asi added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he warned of the infiltration of Salafists in Al-Azhar and said the danger of intellectual terrorism (posed by Salafists) is no less than armed terrorism.

Al-Azhar is a historical mosque, Islamic center and Islamic university in Cairo, the capital of Egypt.

A Fatimid Caliph commissioned its construction for the newly established capital city in 970 C.E. It was the first mosque established in the city.

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