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“As Time Grows Older, the Qurʾān Grows Younger”

This article explores the role of ambiguity in the Qurʾān. It examines the concept of ambiguity, its ethical function in literature, and its reception in the tafsīr tradition with special reference to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) exegetical programme. Further, and by way of focusing on the narrative genre of the Qurʾān, the article analyses a Qurʾānic pericope, Q. 12:52-53, to illustrate the extent to which ambiguity impacts on the text, and what that means for the ethical teaching of Qurʾānic narratives. Without denying that ambiguity is located in the reader too, the article argues that ambiguity resides in the Qurʾānic text itself, and that this ambiguity has the function of expanding the Qurʾān’s interpretive universe and ethical potential.