The Imperial Reification of the Qur‘an

Abstract

The Qur‘an, the holy text of Islam, is not simply a text liable to interpretation. It is a social relation mediated by a number of agencies that reify its messages in a number of ways. Over the millennia, the West managed to assert its intellectual hegemony over the forms and the types of the reification of the Qur‘an. The West is today the key mediating agency that has transformed the message of the Qur‘an, removing its original cultural tenets from their context and alienating Muslim societies from social and political practices that could lead to an understanding between Christianity, Islam and left-wing forces in Eurasia and the globe.