Hermeneutical Approaches to the Qur’an in Indonesia: A Normative and Socio-Cultural Analysis of Tafsir Methodologies

Abstract

This article critically examines major hermeneutical approaches to the Qur’an in Indonesia traditional pesantren exegesis, Hamka’s contextual-nationalist tafsir, M. Quraish Shihab’s contextual-linguistic approach, and contemporary gender-sensitive hermeneutics through a normative framework combining bayāni, burhāni, and irfāni epistemologies and the maqāṣid al-sharīʿah. Using a normative library study and Gadamerian hermeneutical analysis, the paper evaluates methodological coherence, hermeneutical assumptions, and socio-cultural consequences of these approaches, particularly their implications for pluralism, religious moderation (wasāṭiyya), and gender justice in Indonesia. Findings indicate a hybrid Indonesian hermeneutics that preserves classical textual authority while incorporating rational, contextual, and ethical reinterpretations, yet also faces risks of ideological infiltration and methodological over-contextualization. The maqāṣid framework emerges as a productive normative tool to reconcile textual fidelity with social relevance. The study concludes by recommending greater methodological transparency, incorporation of empirical measures of societal impact, and careful sourcing when asserting historically sensitive claims. The Indonesian experience, the article argues, offers a model for localized yet universal hermeneutical engagement in plural Muslim societies.