In his view, the Quran made Islamic Arab culture a `culture of the text` () par excellence, but because the language of the Quran is not self-explanatory, this implied Islamic Arab culture was also a culture of interpretation (). Abu Zayd emphasized "intellect" () in understanding the Quran, as opposed to "a hermeneutical approach which gives priority to the narrated traditions [ hadith ]" (). As a reflection of this Abu Zaid used the term (interpretation) for efforts to understand the Quran, while in the Islamic sciences, the literature that explained the Quran was referred to as (commentary, explanation).