‘Ilm al-Tafsir and Critical Discourse Analysis: A Methodological Comparison

Abstract

The methodology of 'Ilm al-Tafsir and the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) highlight the similarities and differences in leveraging the text as research data beyond the level of the text's structure. Questions on similarities and differences between methodologies are addressed in the present study. This study, therefore, compares the similarities and the differences between the methodology of 'Ilm al-Tafsir and the methodology of CDA. Based on the comparison, the present study also constructs a religious discourse analysis model. The selected methodology of 'Ilm al-Tafsir is al-Sabuniy's in Safwat al- Tafasir (1979), while the chosen methodology of CDA is Fairclough's 3D (1992;1995). The universal principle of discourse and the linguistic goals in the philosophy of language is applied in the analysis. Similarities and differences were identified in the production, meaning and interpretation. The findings strongly suggest that the two methodologies have circumstances which lead to the use of language, the production of language, the features of texts, the nature of meaning and the means of interpretation. One of the main focuses of the comparison is on the differences that constitute barriers to the adoption of CDA for religious discourse analysis, specifically the critical approach towards the sickle and the fixed elements. The obstacles to this alternative are presented in order to prove that there is a linguistic approach that is capable of linking language with social elements. The findings thus have implications for the relatively new methodology of religious discourse in linguistic studies.

Created After, From, and For the Man?

“…34 Tafsīr has in fact been characterized as discourse analysis by its very nature. 35 Aiming to evaluate the diachronic development of the exegetic discourse identifiable in Quranic commentaries, my study also benefits from a genealogical approach. This use of the concept of genealogy was introduced by Friedrich Nietzsche and later made famous in reconstructing historical trajectories by Michel Foucault.…”

Full Issue

“…A Preliminary Study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica • 28 Mahīdān to translate it. 35 What follows is the text of this PsAH work, which includes another interesting narrative that explicitly sets this text apart from al-Ustuwaṭṭās and asserts an Indian provenance for its content: Kanaka the Indian said: This is the book I translated from [another work by] my esteemed sire Aristotle when I was composing my book describing the planetary rūḥāniyyāt and their activity, influences, actions, and properties. I was so thorough I did not leave anything unmentioned.…”

“…34 The aim was to turn the Pamphylian coast into a commercial hub between the Southwest Asian trade, the eastern Mediterranean (more specifically Cyprus), and even Armenian Cilician territories. 35 The exact location of the caravanserai is a matter of conjecture. Kırkgöz, where the sources that feed the Düden River emerge, is a possible location.…”

“…34 Madalena Sáez Pommés has observed that Manuēl's negotiations may have been a pretext for him to stay on at the Catalan court for a while. 35 After the fall of Sis, Manuēl himself was held as a prisoner in Aleppo, where, according to Dardel, he became a "sarrasin." 36 Through the intercession of Lewon V, Manuēl managed to gain his liberty and move to Europe.…”

“…61, fol. 437v, reproduced in E. Tisserant, Codices armeni Bybliothecae Vaticanae Borgiani, Vaticani, Barberiniani, Chisiani (Rome: Typis polyglottis Vaticanis, 1927) [35][36]Yovhannu Dardeli Žamanakagrut‛iwn,[58][59] Though Kostandin may have had distant blood relations with the royal family or may have been connected to them through earlier intermarriages (on which see Ter-Petrosyan, Xač‛akirnerǝ ew hayerǝ, 428-34), his ascension to the Armenian throne through election was indeed unprecedented in the history of the Cilician state. Two nephews of the Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 29 (2021) Mariun: An Exiled Queen's Pilgrimage and Death in Jerusalem • 245 the seventeenth-century Chronological History of Armenian Cilicia, mentions that King Kostandin and his sons died of the plague in 1356 in Sis.…”