The holistic approach to the Qurʾān is a commonly used phrase in tafsīr. However, this expression has a range of possible meanings, which I propose to study systematically. In this context, this paper analyzes five contexts for phrases such as “holistic approach to the Qurʾān” and “unity / coherence of the Qurʾānic text.” These are respectively tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi’l-Qurʾān, munāsabāt al-āyāt wa’l-suwar, thematic tafsīr, sūra-based tafsīr and structural studies based on Semitic rhetoric. Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi’l-Qurʾān explains a verse with other verses of the Qurʾān, thus it refers to the understanding of the text in its “inner unity”. Munāsabāt al-āyāt wa’l-suwar argues that the verse and sūra units should have a successive relationship (referring either to the tawqīfī order of the Qurʾānic text or just to its being a literary text), so it searches for a “coherent text.” The expectation of a coherent text, on the other hand, implicitly contains the conception of a holistic text that will emerge from this coherence in the final analysis. Thematic tafsīr proposes to read the verses related to a particular subject of the Qurʾān “as a whole”. Sura-based tafsir, which emerged especially with the 20th century as a response to the Western claims that the suras are not holistic units, seeks to show their unite. As for the structural studies based on Semitic rhetoric defended by scholars like Michel Cuypers and Raymond Farrin, the Qurʾān has some symmetrical structures and therefore “structural unity”. It is among the findings of this paper that each of these approaches has its own concept of unity/coherence (or holism), and the idea of a holistic text essentially expresses the subjective hermeneutics. Accordingly, I will propose a new, more variegated way of speaking about coherence in the Qur’an, with an emphasis on hermeneutics.