Interpreting Islamic Sacred Texts

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to a Special Issue of Religions devoted to the theme “Interpreting Islamic Sacred Texts.” The interpretation of Islamic sacred texts—most notably the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth corpus—has long stood at the heart of Islamic intellectual, spiritual, legal, and ethical life. Across history, Muslim scholars have developed rich and diverse interpretive traditions, including tafsīr, taʾwīl, uṣūl al-fiqh, theological exegesis, mystical hermeneutics, and literary approaches. In the modern period, these traditions have increasingly encountered new intellectual contexts shaped by colonialism, modernity, secularism, global academic disciplines, and interreligious engagement.

Contemporary scholarship on Islamic texts is marked by both continuity and tension: continuity with classical exegetical traditions and tension arising from modern critical methods, historical consciousness, and comparative frameworks. At the same time, dominant Euro-American academic approaches have often privileged philology, historicism, and textual criticism while marginalizing lived, ethical, ritual, and communal modes of interpretation. This Special Issue seeks to provide a critical and constructive space for examining how Islamic sacred texts have been interpreted—past and present—while attending to questions of authority, power, context, embodiment, and ethical meaning.

Aim and Scope

This Special Issue aims to explore diverse interpretive approaches to Islamic sacred texts across historical periods, geographical regions, and intellectual traditions. It seeks contributions that are historically grounded, theoretically informed, and attentive to the religious, social, and ethical dimensions of interpretation. The issue aligns closely with the scope of Religions by engaging textual interpretation as a lived religious practice shaped by theology, law, ritual, culture, and power relations. Contributions that critically examine modern academic, colonial, and postcolonial frameworks of interpretation are especially welcome.

Suggested Themes and Article Types

In this Special Issue, original research articles and review essays are welcome. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Classical and contemporary tafsīr traditions
• Qurʾānic hermeneutics and theories of interpretation
• Ḥadīth interpretation, authority, and canon formation
• Legal, theological, and mystical readings of sacred texts
• Text, ethics, and lived religious practice
• Gender, power, and interpretation
• Colonial, Orientalist, and postcolonial approaches to Islamic texts
• Comparative and interreligious hermeneutics
• Modern academic methods and their limits

Expected Impact

We hope that this Special Issue will stimulate new research that moves beyond reductive or purely textualist readings of Islamic sacred texts. By foregrounding interpretive plurality and methodological reflexivity, the issue aims to deepen scholarly conversations on Islam, challenge inherited epistemological assumptions, and contribute to more ethically attentive and globally grounded approaches to the study of religion.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, Dr. Jose Abraham (joseabraham@fuller.edu), and CC the Assistant Editor, Katarina Antonic (katarina.antonic@mdpi.com) of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor to ensure proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jose Abraham
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Islamic sacred texts
• Qurʾān
• ḥadīth
• tafsīr
• hermeneutics
• Islamic law
• ethics
• modernity
• postcolonial studies
• lived religion