Reconstructing al-Dakhīl fī al-Tafsīr as Epistemic Quality Control: Integrating the Epistemic Filter and Interpretive Horizon

Abstract

Contemporary Qur’anic interpretation faces two interrelated methodological challenges: maintaining the epistemic validity of interpretive claims and ensuring their relevance to continuously changing contexts. This article aims to reconstruct al-Dakhīl fī al-Tafsīr from a critical concept primarily concerned with identifying infiltrative elements into an epistemic quality control framework and to functionally integrate it with hermeneutics and Qur’anic contextualism. This study employs qualitative library research using a critical-comparative approach and conceptual synthesis. Primary sources comprise seminal works representing al-Dakhīl fī al-Tafsīr, hermeneutics, and Qur’anic contextualism, while secondary sources include scholarly journal articles, academic books, and relevant studies, with priority given to publications from 2022–2026. Data were collected through documentation and bibliographic searches based on the criteria of relevance, bibliographic traceability, academic authority, and evidentiary contribution. The data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis within a critical-comparative framework, followed by conceptual synthesis through six stages: concept identification, genealogical mapping, reconstruction of epistemological assumptions, comparison of methodological functions, evaluation of strengths and limitations, and conceptual synthesis. The findings demonstrate that al-Dakhīl fī al-Tafsīr can be reconstructed as an epistemic quality-control mechanism through source authentication, linguistic validation, and methodological validation, while hermeneutics and Qur’anic contextualism contribute to historical reconstruction, the extraction of significance, and contemporary recontextualization. Their functional integration generates the Filter–Horizon Model, a sequential but recursive framework that positions epistemic admissibility as a prerequisite for contextual productivity. The model offers a conceptual contribution by establishing a functional division between the epistemic filter and the interpretive horizon, thereby enabling Qur’anic interpretation to remain epistemically accountable and contextually responsive without collapsing the epistemological distinctions among the intellectual traditions brought into dialogue.