The Criticism of Liberal Muslims Against Ulum al-Qur’an: A New Tendency in the Interpretation of al-Qur’an

Ulum al-Qur’an is one of the earliest knowledge known among Muslims. It comprises of various essences of important sciences which help to improve the comprehension of verses in al-Qur’an. Among those sciences are pertaining to Nasikh Mansukh, Asbab Nuzul, Nuzul al-Qur’an, Makki and Madani verses and others. However recently, there is a tendency among the Liberal Muslims to use Hermeneutic for Quranic Interpretation and criticizing Ulum al-Qur’an. Hermeneutic is a science of interpreting the Bible which contains rules and law to complement interpretation. Therefore, it is the aim of this paper to discuss those criticisms which promote al-Qur’an as a mere product of culture but not as the pure words of God. This study applies the contents analysis on several of the Muslim Liberal works related to the Quranic Interpretation and Ulum al-Qur’an. The findings of this study show that those works have negative impact that can undermine the credibility of the knowledge of Quranic exegesis as well as to lower down the Islamic knowledges as a whole.