[ms] The Criticism of Liberal Muslims Against Ulum al-Qur’an: A New Tendency in the Interpretation of al-Qur’an

Abstract

ABSTRACTUlum al-Qur’an is one of the earliest knowledge known among Muslims. It comprises of various essences of importantsciences which help to improve the comprehension of verses in al-Qur’an. Among those sciences are pertaining to NasikhMansukh, Asbab Nuzul, Nuzul al-Qur’an, Makki and Madani verses and others. However recently, there is a tendencyamong the Liberal Muslims to use Hermeneutic for Quranic Interpretation and criticizing Ulum al-Qur’an. Hermeneuticis a science of interpreting the Bible which contains rules and law to complement interpretation. Therefore, it is the aim ofthis paper to discuss those criticisms which promote al-Qur’an as a mere product of culture but not as the pure words ofGod. This study applies the contents analysis on several of the Muslim Liberal works related to the Quranic Interpretationand Ulum al-Qur’an. The findings of this study show that those works have negative impact that can undermine thecredibility of the knowledge of Quranic exegesis as well as to lower down the Islamic knowledges as a whole.