On November 25, Elvira Kulieva, a doctoral student of the University of Freiburg in Germany, delivered a lecture “Interpretation of sacred meanings: the Muslim genealogy of the Qur'anic commentaries” as part of the IIIT lectures series for CIS countries, organized by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Institute of Knowledge Integration (IKI).
During the presentation, Elvira Kulieva gave a brief overview of the typologies of the Qur'anic commentaries. The audience got acquainted with the main genres and representatives of the tradition. The lecturer also illustrated with examples the polyvalent interpretations of some of the Qur'anic verses and showed how the modern genre of the Qur’an translation fits into the tradition of Qur’anic commentaries. Elvira Kulieva gave more detailed review of two interpretational approaches: the “classical Muslim” approach, which implies an attempt to find the inherent meaning, within human abilities, and the postmodern approach, in which there is no “correct” way to understand any text.
In the second part of the meeting, participants asked about the Qur’an translations, modern authoritative tafsirs, interpretations and studies of the Quran by using feminist optics.
Around 30 participants from different countries, including Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Estonia, attended the lecture.
Announcement of the next lecture will be posted soon on the IIIT CIS lectures and the Institute of Knowledge Integration Facebook pages.
