Different Faces of Critical Traditionalism in Approaching the Quran in Contemporary Indonesia

Abstract

There has been a dynamic development of Islam in contemporary Indonesia as seen from the approaches to interpreting the Quran. One of the trends of thought is traditionalism, which is commonly perceived as a broad category of the school of thought. There is no single entity called traditionalism since it takes on different faces. With specific references to M. Quraish Shihab, Abd Muin Salim and Nashruddin Baidan, this article aims to study all these traditional Muslim thinkers’ views on Quran interpretation by employing a historical approach. The study mainly focuses on, first, the continuity and changes concerning elements initially derived from some sources and elements developed originally and secondly, on response to modern Western legacies of social sciences and humanities approaches. This article will argue that critical traditionalism constitutes many faces. This trend of a mode of thought is viewed from its followers’ insisting on the sufficiency of traditional sources of interpretation, based on argumentations set up primarily by classical Muslim scholars, rationalising traditional argumentations and critical response and clarification to Western approaches in interpreting the Quran.