An interview with... 

Malise Ruthven on Islamism

Indeed, if you look at some less politically effective religious groups in Egypt, like the Salafists, much of their discourse is consumed with internal bickering about points of detail in the interpretation of religious texts. Yet, at the same time, they will deny that they are into interpretation – they will claim that they simply take the text of the Quran and the Hadith [traditions] as being self-explanatory. But of course anyone who has ever wrestled with the Quran and the Hadith knows perfectly well that it is open to multiple interpretations and that is what gives religious discourses their power – people can find within those texts different manifestations of what they see as being the word of God.

http://fivebooks.com/interviews/malise-ruthven-on-islamism