Quranic Commentaries

THE

STUDY URAN A New Translation and Commentary

Seyyed Hossein Nasr Editor-in-Chief Caner K. Dagli

Maria Massi Dakake Joseph E. B. Lumbard General Editors

Mohammed Rustom Assistant Editor

HarperOne An Imprint ofHarperCollinsPnblisher1

�RANIC

COMMENTARIES Walid Saleh

The �ranic interpretive tradition,-tafiir, is one of the most voluminous of Islamic literary genres, second only to the legal tradition. All gi::nerations of Muslims in nearly every Islamic land have consistently produced �ranic commentaries that reflect their outlook on fundamental issues confronting Muslim societies, making this genre a continuous record of what Muslims of different lands and different ages -have thought on V'\rious topics. Yet it is also the mos_t unpredictable ofgenres: unlike other Islamic sciences, which systemadzed their methodological underpinnings, the �ranic commentary tradition never established unanimous rules for how to interpret the �ran. There was more than one hermeneutical theory in medieval Islam. Indeed, most commentators availed themselves of more than one method in the sarne work. C_ompetition invariably led t6 ext'ensive exchange among theo­ logical camps �nd �chools. Nd,nethele'ss, in the c�assical 'period, the ta/sir fradition displayed far ID()r,e unity than in the modern period. Many modern exegetes have abandoned the dictates and methodologies of the classical tradition, interpreting the �ran according to ideological stances that reduce the subtleties of the revela­ tion -�() the predileqions of human being� in the present world.

_

Difficulties in Assessing 'theLiterature

MdSt of the Western' scholarly studies available toda{are devoted to the earliest ph�se of the �ra��c exegetical tradition, the pre-Tabari (Mubammad ibn Jarir �l-Tabarl, d. 310/923) phase., There are noticeably fewer studies on dassi�al exegesis, or post-Tabari literature.1 There are •several reasons for this state of affairs. Perhaps 1. Tafsir in this article refers to the Sunni and Shiite_ exegetical traditions and, more specifically, the surviving tradition written in Arabic. A history of tafsir that accounts for the output of all different schools a!)d in many diffen:nt languages is a project not likely to be attempt�d anytime soc;m. Moreover, a, history of che genre of tafsir, cvc_n when li1T1ited to one school, \yil!always hayc to live with the fact that many major works of tafsir haye been lost. In the case of the Muctazilite tradition, the situation is irredeemable; most of the works of this school have not survived. For a survey of studies on early ttz/Sir, see, Herbert Berg, The Development ofExegesis in Early Islam: .T Authenticity of Muslim Literature ftom the Formative Period (London: Curzon, 2.000). Sr

Q_URANIC COMMENTARIES

164 6

the first is the sheer volume of the material at hand; many of the classical corn� mentaries-whether published or in manuscript form-run to thousands of pages or folios. This vast literature presents us with methodological problems about how to approach and study it. Indeed, tafiir studies still lack the basic tools that would allow scholars the possibility of assessing the parameters of the field. We have nei­ ther a complete inventory of tafiir works, 2 nor, apart from a few monograph stud� ies on some famous exegetes,3 detailed studies of individual authors or works. As a result, we have rims far been unable to develop an accurate outline of the historical development of tafiir. The second reason that has so far stood in the way of a systematic approach to the field is that the scholarly investigation of classical tafiir has been on the whol.e col\: strained by what is available in print. The titles that remain confined to manuscript form are so numerous that any notion that what already exists in print is sufficiently representative to enable us to draw a picture of the genre should be forsaken. There are bound to be significant and seminal works of tafiir that are still untow:hed, works whose assessment would not only fill gaps in our knowledge of the history10f this genre, but are also likely to modify what we think of the cultural significance of tafiir. mention should be made of John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Jvfethods of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1977); see also Meir Bar-Asher, Scripture a�d Exeg�; sis in Early lmdmi Shiism (Leiden: Brill, 1999). Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamisi:he n Koranauslegung (1920; Leiden: Brill, 1970) remains foundational in the field and a must-read: 2. The two classical biographical dictionaries on tafsir authors are neither studied by Westerll sthcllc ars nor available in translation. Al-Suyii�i's Tabaqdt al-mufassirin, ed. cAli cumar (Cairo: Maktabat

Wahbah, 1976), and Shams al-Din al-Dawiidi's book with the same title and editor (Cairo: Makt;b�t Wahbah, 1972) have not been mined by the scholars in the field. The recently published inventory of tafsir manuscripts al-Fihris al-shdmil li'l-t1mith al-carabi al-isldmi al-makh{u{,