Esoteric Hermeneutics of Qurʾan: Interpretive Freedom(s)

This panel presents a range of important but neglected esoteric approaches to reading the Qurʾan that illustrate the different ways scriptural hermeneutics have served throughout Islam’s history as both a source and manifestation of freedom, whether of humans, texts, or both. Specifically, our papers explore Shiʿi and Sufi interpretative strategies that sought hidden meanings to creatively connect the world of the Qurʾan with the worlds “in front of the text,” forging relationships between scripture and areas of human experience as diverse as history, politics, poetics, and talismanry.  In the case studies surveyed, our panel thus shows how what we understand by the Qurʾan’s reception history should be expanded.  Rather than simply an inventory of different scholastic prescriptions aimed at dictating human thought and conduct, esoteric hermeneutics show how the “Qurʾan in history” has always offered – and itself exhibited – profound freedoms, an irrepressible reservoir of meaning and agency for countless Muslims.