Nor does it help that every Muslim sect, society and state has developed differing versions of religious law.The fact that Islam's main text, the Koran, is regarded as the actual word of God necessarily assigns a paramount place to the interpreters of this text.
Such a doctrine was likely to diminish the influence of the learned doctors, the interpreters of the sacred text, who found themselves defending ʿAbbāsid legitimism; in addition, the doctrine demanded exceptional moral and religious qualities of the caliph, for it went so far as to authorize rebellion against a wicked sovereign.
The meanings derived from the interpretation of the text are a fusion of what the "actor" says and what it means to the interpreter in a socio-historical context.
Many interpreters transpose and reconstruct parts of the text in response to suspected textual corruption.
In contrast with the Recorder Voice, the Appraiser Voices (Interpreter and Adjudicator) employ language that is more explicitly evaluative, thus bringing the subjective views of the authorial voice to the surface of the text (Coffin 2006, 152).
If they fail to do so, the interpreter must revise his or her understanding of the text accordingly.
The first restraint on subjective distortion is the interpreter's own common sense; the last is the reaction of the text itself: "what are you trying to make of me?" The interpreter's freedom is inextricable from the interpreter's respect and responsibility, in Hamann's view.
Gadamer's anti-psychologism thus leads him to the view that the meaning of the text is not only rediscovered by each generation of interpreters; it changes with each generation of interpreters.
In film the director is often, expressly or indirectly, the co-author of the text; in the theater, no matter how he "conceptualizes," he is the interpreter of a given text.
This is possible because although the interpreter's individuality and the individuality expressed in the text are constitutively different, the interpreter may overcome her own point of view in order to get a grasp on the meaning of the text.
