Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah (Arabic: محمد أحمد خلف الله, 1916-1991) was an Egyptian Islamic modernist thinker and writer.[1][2]
In 1947, Cairo University refused his doctoral dissertation presented to the Department of Arabic entitled The Narrative Art in the Holy Qur'an (al-Fann al-qasasi fi al-Qurʾan al-karim), as he suggested that holy texts are allegoric and that they should not be seen as something fixed, but as a moral direction.[3] As a pupil of Amin al-Khuli , he stated that one can study the Qur'an from a literary point of view.[4] Indeed, the aim of Muhammad is to convince people. So he uses all rhetorical ways at his disposal, which includes metaphors, biblical and pre-islamic narratives. In Khalafallah's opinion, historical truth is not the main goal, but rather the religious and ethic sense conveyed by these stories.[5] Khalafallah has been accused to treat the Speech of God as if it was a human product. Yet, he does not question the authenticity of the revelation.[6] He takes up a traditional theme, that of the inimitability (iʿjaz) of the Qur'an - the first title of his thesis was Min asrar al-iʿjaz, (“On the Secrets of the Qurʾan’s inimitability").[7] He was fired from his teaching position and transferred to the Ministry of Culture.[3]
Afterwards, he started a thesis on a non-religious subject and received his doctorate in 1952. He ended his career at the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.[3][1]
His doctoral thesis has finally been published in 1954.[8] His master's thesis, al-Jadal fī l-Qurʾān (“Polemic in the Qurʾān”) has been published with the title Muhammad wa l-quwâ l-mudadda ("Muhammad and the opposition forces"), Cairo, 1973.[9][10]
He wrote Mafāhīm Qurʼānīyah ( "Quranic concepts"), published in arabic in 1984,[11] al-Qur'ân-wa mushkilat hayâti-nâ l-mu'âsira ("The Qur'an and our contemporary problems") and al-Qur'ân wa l-dawla ("The Qur'an and the State"). But these works are less innovative than his doctoral thesis.[12]
al-Fann al-qasasi fi al-Qurʾan al-karim on archive.org (in arabic).
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