The Living Criterion
A Journey of Dismantling Religious Deception and Recovering Qur'anic Consciousness
The Qur'an is a living criterion that addresses the human being directly; recovering its effect begins by freeing consciousness from the intermediaries that turn revelation into a static legacy or an instrument of authority.
Summary
An intellectual journey that returns to the Qur'an as a living criterion that frees consciousness from tutelage and religious deception. The book dismantles the mechanisms through which popular religiosity is produced, and the deployment of religious concepts by inherited tradition, authority, and politics, then calls for the recovery of responsible individual Tadbur and for reading the Qur'an from within.
Central Idea
The Qur'an is a living criterion that addresses the human being directly; recovering its effect begins by freeing consciousness from the intermediaries that turn revelation into a static legacy or an instrument of authority.
Arguments
- The Qur'an defines its concepts from within, through context and the interconnections among verses.
- Inherited tradition is a human reading open to discussion and does not take the place of revelation.
- Popular religiosity may become an instrument for distancing the human being from direct Tadbur.
- Freeing the intellect and reviving individual responsibility are two conditions for recovering Qur'anic consciousness.
Chapters
The Book's Methodology
Exegesis (tafsīr) of the Qur'an through the Qur'an and the clear Arabic tongue
The Book's Objectives and Themes
Reviving the living nature of the Qur'an and freeing the text from inherited molds
Dialogues of the Criterion: An Encounter in the Mountains
A dialogical introduction to the journey of consciousness and questioning
Part One
Dismantling Systems of Deception and the Formation of Consciousness
Popular Religion and Exegesis (tafsīr)
How people are distanced from the Qur'an and understanding is hemmed in
Predestinarian Decree
How the will of the ummah was paralyzed in the name of faith
Excerpt
We offer not so much a new exegesis (tafsīr) as an authentic return to the text, freed from all veils, in the hope that it may be a step toward a genuine Qur'anic awakening that illuminates, for the individual and society, the path out of contemporary civilizational disorientation.