59 The contemporary western academic studies of the Quran and the Muslim stance *Iffat Batool Abstract The history of Western scholarship on the Qur‟ān demonstrations that it was directed, by and large, by polemic motifs. The roots of anger and hatred were so entrenched in the literature that it had lasting effects in two folds. On the one side the echoes of the then produced works on the Qur‟ān can be heard in the contemporary western works on the Qur‟ān. On the other hand, influenced the Muslim thought in a way that mostly they reject the Western academic scholarship setting it in the same old prototype of old polemic tradition and orientalism. The recent Western scholarship on the Qur ‟ān try to ensure the Muslims that it had liberated itself from the centuries old chains of bias and hatred. A debate can be witnessed among the western and the Muslim scholars on this issue. The western academicians try to inculcate the idea that the rise of objectivity and the scientific methods in the West has affected the di scipline Qur‟ānic studies. Hence, they claim for a transformation and in the recent western Qur‟ānic studies. Keywords: Qur‟ān, West, Orientalism, Objectivity Introduction: The study of Islam in the West has a long and deep-rooted history more often directed with polemical motifs. 1 Having felt the pivotal status of the Qur‟ān, the western scholars have been engaged in various fields of Qur‟anic studies with different dimensions and approaches. Almost 60,000 books have been written by the western pen covering the topics (Islam and Qur‟ān) during 19 th to mid of 20 th century. 2 It is quite discernable that the majority ideas presented in this literature do not always conform to the mainstream Muslim scholarship on Islam. Moreover, Muslims often associate it with orientalism that had its own political, religious and colonial objectives. Hence, despite the existence of a vast corpus concerning Islam and more specifically the Qur‟ān, the status of the western Qur‟anic scholarship is quite skeptical in the view of majority Muslim scholars. On the contrary, western scholar argue that the past efforts to study the Qur‟ān in the West were shaped by the polemics of the times, the recent scholarship is however more objective and scientific. 3 In fact, they try to inculcate the idea that the rise of objectivity and the scientific methods in the West has affected the genre of Qur‟ānic studies as well and hence, they argue for a transformation in the western Islamic and more precisely Qur‟ānic studies. Therefore, the western scholars hold the view that the Muslims should not discard the *Ph.D Research Scholar, Lecturer, Tafsir Department, International Islamic University, Islamabad. 1 Bennet, Clinton, “New Directions”. In Clinton Bennet, ed. The Bloomsbury companion to the Islamic studies (Bloomsbury: New York. 2013), p. 260. And Rippin, Andrew, “Western scholarship and the Qur‟ān”, in The Cambridge companion to the Qurān, p.236. There are countless writers who as well illustrated to this fact such as Norman Denial, Edward Said, Angelika Neuwirth and others. 2 Said, Edward, Orientalism; Western Conceptions of the Orient with New Afterwards (London: Penguin books, 1995), p.64 3 Voll, John, ” Changing Western approaches to Islamic Studies” in Mumtaz Ahmad, Zahid Bukhari and Sulayman Nyang, eds. Observing the Observer, the State of Islamic Studies in American Universities. (London: The international institute of Islamic thought, 2012), p.29