This book surveys the development of literal meaning and literalism in Islam and Islamic legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh) in particular. The term literal meaning refers to the meaning that a text is believed to hold “in itself” by virtue of the sound-meaning relationships of words that were “coined” (waḍ‘) at some point in time. Although Muslim debates on how words were coined (see second chapter) are quite interesting and at times entertaining, the origin of language was secondary to the language’s actual existence. In other words, legal theorists contended that the establishment of the “sound-meaning connection” was more important than who established it and when.
Source: American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences