THE QUR'AN IN WESTERN ACADEMIA: COLONIZED AND DECOLONIZED APPROACHES

Abstract

The West has had a close academic relationship with Islamic studies, both during colonization and decolonization, and has presented a corpus of great scholarly works on Islam. Specifically, colonization was a typical practice of European nations from the sixteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century, as they attempted to enlarge their empires and gain access to new markets and resources. It involved the founding of settlements or gaining control of a region with the intention of enlarging their empires and fostering trade and commerce, and was often involved in the exploitation of resources and people, resulting in profound cultural and economic changes. During this period, the ideology of racial and cultural superiority held that Europeans were inherently superior to other races and cultures. During this era, they also entered Muslim territories and decided to pursue research, train their own scholars, and try to cast doubt on Islam's overall doctrines and the Qur'an in particular. So most of them declared the Qur’an to be the written book of Prophet Muhammad. Contrary to colonization, decolonization started after World War II. It is a complicated and multidimensional process that includes political, religious, cultural, social, and economic factors aimed at erasing the impacts of colonization. Briefly, colonizers viewed the Qur'an as a historical artefact and denied its revelation. In contrast, de-colonizers challenge these assumptions and seek to reclaim the Qur'an's authenticity as a divinely revealed text. So this research work will compare colonized and decolonized views of the Qur’an at the Western academic level, analyzing how they differ from one another. It will compare and explain two approaches in order to better comprehend the evolution of Qur’anic studies in the West.