The Authority of Revelation and The Contextualization of Qurʾānic Interpretation: The Hermeneutical Contestation Between Fahruddin Faiz and Adian Husaini
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24235/tys38z08Keywords:
Qurʾānic interpretation; Fahruddin Faiz; Adian Husaini; authority of revelation; contextualizationAbstract
This article examines the epistemological contestation over the legitimacy of hermeneutics in Qurʾānic interpretation through a critical comparison of Fahruddin Faiz and Adian Husaini. Previous studies have commonly framed the debate through a binary of acceptance and rejection, without sufficiently distinguishing the ontological status of revelation, theories of meaning, the role of the interpreter, the function of context, the authority of tradition, and the limits of interpretive plurality. This qualitative library study employs a comparative-textual design. Its primary corpus consists of Faiz’s and Husaini’s works that directly address hermeneutics and Qurʾānic interpretation, while secondary sources include philosophical hermeneutics, Qurʾānic methodology, and scholarship published in national and internationally reputable journals. The analysis applies six symmetrical epistemological dimensions and tests the internal consistency of each argument. The study finds that Faiz develops an adaptive-dialogical orientation in which text, context, and contextualization interact productively, whereas Husaini advances a critical-protective orientation emphasizing the revelatory status of the Qurʾān, the determinacy of certain meanings, and the discipline of the exegetical tradition. Both reject undisciplined interpretation and recognize the need to relate scripture to lived reality, yet they differ over the legitimacy of Western hermeneutical theories, the productive role of readers, and the scope of interpretive plurality. The article proposes limited methodological complementarity: selected hermeneutical tools may be employed at the level of the historicity of interpretation, provided that they remain constrained by philological analysis, Qurʾānic textual structure, the exegetical tradition, a hierarchy of semantic certainty, and intersubjective procedures of validation.
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