There has been a creative history of scritptural reasoning in Islam. The Qur’an is regarded as the Speech of God, that was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad to spread among the people in Arabia. Both the substance and the style of the Qur’anic revelation demanded that the Prophet become its first and most authoritative conveyer and teacher. Hence, began the long intellectual tradition of deciphering the meaning and the historical context of the text. Naturally, the commuinity that sets out to establish its public order in accord with God’s will cannot take the Qur’an lightly. The role of the scripture as the sole provider of the life – orientational directives is even more critical in the social – political contexts of Muslim societies in different periods. More importantly, if the legitimacy of a public order depends upon Islam, then it has to institutionalize the role of scripture in formulating its policies covering all the aspects of human existence. It is here that the revelation and reason need to reinforce each other in providing substantial solutions to the pressing problems of day to day running of a public order. Muslim scholars have throughout their social and political history developed hermeneutical principles to direct their interaction with the revelation, that is, the Qur’an in order to find ways of generating confidence that God is the ultimate guide of the community. But in this journey to establish the ideal order on earth, Muslims have also stifled their rational – reflective abilities in fear of introducing innovation in matters derived directly from the revelation. That hesitation in confronting the challenges of rethinking the revelation has also reulted in treating the inherited cumulative tradtion, propounded and expounded by past Muslim scholars, as sacrosanct as the revelation itself, thereby depriving themselves of approaching the Qur’an afresh through their own contemporary experience of living in a changed time and place.
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