Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah
Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah was an Egyptian Islamic modernist thinker and writer. He is known for advancing the
literary interpretation of the Quran.
Biography
Early life and education
Khalafallah was born in 1916 in Sharqīyah Province, Lower Egypt. His early education included traditional Islamic schools and a government school. He then studied at Dār al-ʿUlūm. He later attended the Faculty of Arts at Egyptian University, which eventually became Cairo University, graduating in 1939. He earned his M.A. in 1942, presenting a thesis on “Al-jadal fīal-Qurʿān”. This work was published as Muḥammad wa-al-quwā al-muḍāddah. Afterward, he took up a position as a tutor at the university.Thesis controversy
In 1947, Cairo University refused his doctoral dissertation presented to the Department of Arabic entitled The Narrative Art in the Holy Qur'an '', as he suggested that holy texts are allegoric and that they should not be seen as something fixed, but as a moral direction. As a pupil of Amin al-Khuli, he stated that one can study the Qur'an from a literary point of view. The Qur'an uses all rhetorical ways at its disposal, which includes metaphors, biblical and pre-islamic narratives to convince people. In Khalafallah's opinion, historical truth is not the main goal, but rather the religious and ethic sense conveyed by these stories. 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. He takes up a traditional theme, that of the inimitability of the Qur'an - the first title of his thesis was Min asrar al-iʿjaz,. He was fired from his teaching position and transferred to the Ministry of Culture.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.
His doctoral thesis was finally published in 1954.