In Search of Lost Meaning
The Quran is an obscure text: many verses indeed present difficulties regarding their meaning. Muslim scholars over the centuries have often failed to find a convincing interpretation of passages they did not understand, as evidenced by the multitude of contradictory interpretations. Scholars often end their discussions with the phrase that has become a refrain for them: "and Allah knows best" (Allahu ‘alam). This clearly challenges the idea that there is an unbroken chain of transmission going back to the prophet: if that were the case, the meaning of the Quran would have been transmitted along with its text. Thanks to the historical-critical method, it is fortunately possible to recover the original meaning of many passages of the text, which had been lost along the way.
