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introduction by muhammad shahrur 3Islamic theology and the so-called fundamentals of Islamic jurisprudence.However, we do not claim that this is the only correct interpretationor the only possible way to understand the text. We rejectthe dogmatism of the salafÊ traditionalists and their claim to be inthe possession of absolute knowledge about the Qur"an. Such claimis a violation of Allah’s oneness, as it presupposes that humans canbe equal to God in His knowledge, which to claim is—as verse 43of Sårat al-Ra#d states—truly blasphemous: ‘Say, “God is sufficientwitness between me and you: all knowledge of the Scripture comesfrom Him”’ ( Al-Ra#d 13:43, AH). 4Our study is concerned with the exposition and fresh interpretationof God’s revelation to humankind. It is vital for the reader tounderstand that we follow a different methodology in reading thedivine text of Allah’s Book and that we do not stand in the traditionof scholarly disciplines such as #ulåm al-qur"§n or tafsÊr al-qur"§n. Ourmethodology will be laid out in the separate chapters of this volume,but some of the most important linguistic and philosophic alhermeneuticalaspects that underlie our approach are summarisedin this introduction.Linguistic PrinciplesWe understand the process of reading texts, of whatever type orformat, as a process of communication between the author and thereader/listener via the medium of the text. We believe that it is possiblefor the reader to learn about the author’s intention by readingthe text alone. There is no need to go back to the author and askwhat the meaning of the text is. However, no reader can ever claimrevelation. When the author refers to the conventional understanding of the Qur"an(i.e., the entire Book), the term is capitalized and not italicized in order to distinguishit from al-qur"§n as MS defines it. The same rule will apply for other terms that aredifferently interpreted by MS, e.g., al-isl§m ↔ Islam; al-Êm§n ↔ Iman; sunna ↔Sunna; al-shah§da ↔ Shahada; al-zak§h ↔ Zakah, while in other cases different spelling+ translation indicates a departure from the conventional rendering of the terms,e.g., Muslim-Assenters for al-muslimån or Muslim-Believers for al-mu"minån. For furtherclarifications on the different understanding of the Qur"anic terms, see the Glossaryof Terms and Concepts.4References to the Qur"an will normally include the full name of the såra, itsnumber and the number of the verse that is quoted. If the name of the såra hasalready been given or is mentioned in a footnote, a shorter version is used that onlycites the number of the såra followed by the number of the verse, e.g., 33:35.