Aural epistemology: Hearing and listening in the text of the Qur’an

This article takes the Qur’an’s discourse on the sense of hearing as part of its greater world of emotion and affect, wherein sense perceptions can be understood as part of its felt landscape. Taking the prevalence of the Qur’an’s recitation in tradition and the Qur’an’s own discourse about orality and revelation as a starting point, the paper examines the understanding of the sense of hearing found within the text. Specifically, in the Qur’an, the sense of hearing is linked to ideas of cognition and comprehension. Understanding of the discursive content or meaning of a message is obtained through hearing.