The Word of God

“Jews, Christians and Muslims have wrestled with the meanings of their scriptures, developing in the process elaborate hermeneutic and jurisprudential systems. Medieval Christianity had its four levels of interpretation – literal, allegorical, moral and eschatological – paralleling the Jewish division into p’shat, remez, drash and sod. Islam likewise has its fiqh; its four schools of Sunni jurisprudence and their Shia counterparts; its principles of taqleed, itjihad and qiyas. In all of these systems the task is to find, within the word of God for all time, the word of God for this time.”

The Great Partnership, Chapter 12, p. 221