Historical Vocabulary of the Qur’an: Symbolic or Realistic? An interview with Ayatollah Ma‘rifat

There are three viewpoints concerning the stories (qaṣaṣ) and the historical events mentioned in the Qur’an:
The first viewpoint regards these stories as real and objective facts brought up for educating the audiences.
The second view is that these stories are symbolic and imaginary and are employed by the Qur’an for the valuable purpose of guidance and education, and for displaying values and counter-values.
The third view, which has recently been introduced and named as “Modern Islamic Thought”, is on one hand allegedly faced with the disapproval of the historical events of the Qur’an by scientific evidences, and on the other, believes in the Qur’an as being revelatory. Thus, defending the rightfulness of the Qur’an, it contends: although such events – as the story of Moses and the Pharaoh – are not historically real, but since they had been popular as folklore literature among the audiences of the revelation era and the Arab community had believed in them, the Qur’an has also made reference to and used them for the educational and guiding purposes and as conforming with the community. This, however, has never been to say that it has accepted those events.
In this interview, Ayatollah Ma‘rifat gives an extensive report on this viewpoint and then rejects it and views it as an uninformed defense of the Qur’an. He believes the first viewpoint is provable. In chapter five of his latest book, “Misconceptions and Refutations”, which is published after years of scholarly endeavors, he has pointed out the evidences of the Qur’anic stories. This book is already reviewed in the issue No. 33 of the present Quarterly.