The Quran: Reading the 'Signs'

The Quran is a strikingly self-referential scripture and offers its audience both direct and indirect instructions regarding how one should understand and approach its verses or "signs." The Quran uses the term "signs" (ayat) to refer not only to its own verses, but also to a wide variety of natural and supernatural phenomena that serve as indicators of God's presence and guidance. This Quranic usage of the term "signs" provides a profound key to its interpretation, indicating that its meaning is discerned through the engagement of the reader who is spiritually (and sincerely) attentive not only to scripture but to the world around and within him/her. If Quranic teaching is actualized at the nexus of sign and reader, then there can never be only one interpretation of Quranic verses, as attested in the rich diversity of interpretations found in the traditional genre of Muslim Quran commentary. It also suggests, however, that the fullness of Quranic meaning continually and indefinitely reveals itself through its varied readers.

By engaging the theme of "signs" in the Quran, this lecture by Maria Dakake, Ph.D., will address what the editors of the recently published HarperCollins Study Quran collectively hoped it would offer, namely a text that would make the diversity of traditional Muslim Quran interpretations accessible to non-Arabic readers. Dakake will also reflect upon her own personal experience in coming to terms with her role in engaging the Quran in a contemporary context through this project.

Dakake researches and publishes on Islamic intellectual history, Quranic studies, Shiite and Sufi traditions, and women's spirituality and religious experience. She was one of four editors of the HarperCollins Study Quran, which provides a verse-by-verse commentary on the Quranic text (November 2015). This work draws upon classical and modern Quran commentaries, making the rich and varied tradition of Muslim commentary on their own scripture, written almost exclusively in Arabic and Persian, accessible to an English-speaking audience for the first time in such a comprehensive manner. She is also currently working with Daniel Madigan on a co-edited volume, The Routledge Companion to the Quran, and is working independently on a monograph on the concept of religion as a universal phenomenon in the Quran and Islamic intellectual tradition. Dakake is Chair and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at George Mason University.