Exposing Islam

Qur’anic Interpretation

Tradition, Crisis, and the Struggle to Stay Relevant

Islam claims that the Qur’an is timeless, perfect, and clear.
Yet for over 1,400 years, Muslims have been trying to explain what it actually means.

This essay examines that contradiction — how a book claimed to be clear, comprehensive, and divinely authored gave rise to an elite class of interpreters, endless debates, and modern apologetics that try to retrofit 7th-century verses into 21st-century science, politics, and morality.

I. The Origins of Tafsir: A Text That Needed Explaining

The Qur’an presents itself as:

“Clear Arabic” (Q. 12:2)
“Fully explained” (Q. 6:114–115)
“A complete guidance for mankind” (Q. 16:89)

Yet even by Muhammad’s death in 632, the need for explanation was apparent. Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir) began as early as his cousin Ibn ‘Abbas, who was tasked with making the Qur’an intelligible to others.

The text wasn’t self-evident.

It required:

Legal interpretation (fiqh)
Grammar and syntax analysis
Recourse to hadiths
Prophetic biography (sira)
Pre-Islamic poetry

A "clear book" shouldn’t require centuries of interpretive scaffolding. But the Qur’an did — and still does.

II. Exegesis for the Elite: A Religion of the Specialists

Until the modern era, Qur’anic interpretation was largely the domain of scholars — not the everyday Muslim. Why?

Because understanding tafsir required mastery of:

Classical Arabic grammar
Legal theory (usul al-fiqh)
Hadith sciences
Rhetorical devices
Historical context

The result? Tafsir became taqlid: rigid, canonized commentary. The average Muslim was encouraged to recite, not question.

Islam became a religion of ritual repetition, not rational engagement.

III. The Tafsir Crisis: Why Modern Muslims Reopened the Qur’an

Colonialism shattered the illusion that the Islamic world could survive on old interpretations.

Western science outpaced Islamic thought
Colonial governments imposed secular law
Modernity demanded relevance, not ritual

A new wave of exegetes — led by Muhammad 'Abduh — emerged, calling for:

Ijtihad (independent reasoning)
Practical relevance
Adaptation to modern life

But the Qur’an had no guidance on electricity, railroads, human rights, parliamentary democracy, banking, or space travel. So these interpreters had to improvise.

IV. Genre 1: Scientific Tafsir — Qur’an Meets Copernicus

Scientific exegesis (tafsir 'ilmi) attempts to show that modern science is hidden in the Qur’an.

“We’ve sent down to you the Book as an explanation of everything.” — Q. 16:89

From this, Muslim scholars concluded:

Stars produce original light, but planets do not (Q. 6:97)
Aeroplanes are prophesied (Q. 17:1)
Satellites are referenced (Q. 41:53)
The hydrogen bomb is implied (Q. 74:33–38)

This isn’t exegesis. It’s eisegesis — reading modern knowledge into an ancient text.

French Muslim apologist Maurice Bucaille made this famous in The Bible, the Qur’an and Science — claiming the Qur’an contains no scientific errors.

But this approach backfires.

Logical Problems:

The Qur’an speaks of the seven heavens, shooting stars as missiles, and sperm coming from between the backbone and ribs — all false.
Scientific exegesis selectively interprets — cherry-picking verses, rewording phrases, and avoiding context.

Historical Fact:

Medieval Muslim scholars like al-Shatibi rejected scientific tafsir outright. They understood that the Qur’an addressed 7th-century Arabs, not NASA.

V. Genre 2: Philological Tafsir — Grammar Wars in God's Book

If the Qur’an was perfect Arabic, why did it confuse Arabs?

From the earliest centuries, Muslim scholars noticed:

Unusual word choices
Broken syntax
Ambiguous grammar

Grammarians like Az-Zamakhshari and Abu ‘Ubayda tried to justify these oddities using poetic devices or pre-Islamic vocabulary.

Even modern thinkers like Muhammad ‘Abduh avoided full commentaries because of the grammatical mess the Qur’an sometimes presents.

Key Insight:

If the Qur’an’s language wasn’t clear, and if even early Muslims needed dictionaries, poetry, and hadiths to decode it — how can it be “clear guidance for all mankind”?

It isn’t.

VI. Genre 3: Practical Tafsir — The Battle for Relevance

In a modern world that:

Rejects polygamy
Criminalizes wife-beating
Embraces gender equality
Uses banks and interest
Governs by democracy, not divine law

...what should Muslims do with a book from the 7th century?

Practical tafsir tries to make Islam work in the modern age without discarding the Qur’an.

Enter Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849–1905):

He tried to balance reason and revelation — using ijtihad to adapt Islamic law for modern life.

But this opened Pandora’s Box.

If ijtihad is valid, who decides what gets reinterpreted?
If Qur’anic laws must fit modern norms, why claim they’re eternal?
And if everything in the Qur’an is reinterpretable, what does it still mean?

VII. The Tafsir Trap: The More You Explain, the Less Clear It Becomes

Ironically, the more tafsir is written, the less clear the Qur’an appears:

“If the Qur’an is so clear, why does it need so much explaining?”

You now need:

Hadiths (which Muslims admit are full of fabrications)
Sira (biographies of Muhammad written 150–200 years after his death)
Grammar books
Dictionaries
Fatwas
1,000+ years of tafsir to "explain" a supposedly timeless book

Final Irony:

Muslims claim the Bible is corrupted because it requires interpretation.

Yet they rely on an ocean of interpretation just to understand their own “unchanged” book.

VIII. Conclusion: The Qur’an Is Not a Timeless Manual — It’s a Time-Locked Artifact

The entire genre of Qur’anic tafsir is proof that:

The Qur’an is not universally understandable
The Qur’an does not answer modern questions
The Qur’an is not logically or grammatically flawless
The Qur’an needs human effort to make it useful

If a divine book requires centuries of human interpretation to make sense — then the book is not divine. It’s deficient.

Muslim exegetes like Muhammad ‘Abduh tried to make the Qur’an modern. But in doing so, they exposed the real issue:

The Qur’an cannot be both timeless and context-bound.
It cannot be both crystal clear and endlessly debatable.
It cannot be divine and man-dependent at the same time.

🧠 Final Challenge to the Reader:

If the Qur’an really is “fully explained,” “clear,” and “a guidance for all mankind” — why does it need 1,400 years of explanation just to function?

And if it needs to be reinterpreted to stay relevant, how can it claim to be the final, perfect revelation?

These are questions no tafsir can answer — because the problem is not the interpretation.

The problem is the book.