SOURCE: J. J. G. Jansen, "Introduction: The Koran and Its Interpretation" and "Mohammad Abduh's Koran Interpretation," in The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt, E. J. Brill, 1974, pp. 1-34.

[In the following excerpt, Jansen discusses the history of the Koran's composition, the different viewpoints from which it has been interpreted, and issues surrounding its translation.]

The Koran and its Interpretation

Many sayings have been attributed to Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam. After his death these sayings have been included in the famous collections of Traditions on the life of Mohammed and his contemporaries. One of the most important of these collections, the so-called Al-Gâmi' as-Sahîh of Al-Bukhârî, contains several thousands.¹ Already in the days of Mohammed these ordinary sayings were apparently discernible from certain other utterances of Mohammed, utterances that were thought to be divine: not originating from Mohammed himself, but given to him by God, in dreams, in visions, by means of the Angel Gabriel, in states of religious extasy and otherwise. These supposedly divine utterances were later on to be collected in the Koran.²

The Koran is the very word of God, as all Moslems have believed throughout the ages. Taken literally, this proposition has implications that become evident when one makes a comparison with the Christian view of the four Gospels. Their four writers are known by name: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Each of them wrote in his own words for his own public an account of the divine happenings in the days of Christ. Not so the Koran; its author is not Mohammed, who tells in his own words, though heavenly inspired, about his spiritual intercourse with God. It is God himself who is assumed to be speaking, making statements about himself, occasionally even speaking in the first person. He addresses Mohammed, and through Mohammed, all mankind.³ Students of comparative religion have sometimes suggested that one should not compare the position of the Koran in Islam with the position of the Bible in Christianity. The Koran, having emanated directly from God, is, a student of comparative religion might say, the equivalent of Christ, the Son of God.

As Christian theologians have deduced from Christ's nature his Uncreatedness, so their Moslem colleagues have inferred from the character of the Koran its Uncreatedness. In such a scheme of thought, Mohammed, the first person who brought the message of this uncreated word of God, could be equated with an Apostle like Paul, the first human being to preach the significance of Christ's death and resurrection. In an attempt at explaining the parallelism between the Son of God and the Book of God, a Canadian scholar wrote: "to look for historical criticism of the Koran is rather like looking for psychoanalysis of Jesus."⁴

Although the Uncreatedness of the Koran would seem to preclude interest in the particulars of its descent into this world, Moslem theologians have been interested in its historical background. In the first centuries of Islam they decided for every chapter (sûara) of the Koran for instance whether it had been "sent down" before or after 622, the year in which the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina. They ascertained for each passage the circumstances under which it had been revealed, and produced a small but sizable body of literature on these asbâb an-nuzûl, "causes of the revelation".⁵ But it should be noted that the Egyptian scholar As-Suyfûtî (1445-1505) remarks in his Al-Itqân fî 'Ulûm al-Qur'ân (The mastery of the sciences of the Koran):⁶ "One should not consider the particular causes, the single unique facts, that brought about the revelation of a certain chapter or verse; one should rather pay attention to the general applicability of the wording of the Koran."⁷ In spite of other trends in Koran scholarship, one gets the impression that with most theologians the interest in the historical particulars of the revelation process was not very great. For instance, it appears from the bibliography of books printed in Egypt between 1926 and 1940 that in that period only two titles on Asbâb an-nuzûl were printed.⁸

After Mohammed's death in Medina in 632 the Moslem community had many problems to face. Some of these were of a political nature: Who was going to govern the young community? Could the Prophet have a successor? His task of mediating between God and Man, i.e. of transmitting the Koran, had been unique and peculiar to him. Consequently the revelation of the Koran had come to its end at his death. It could never be continued. About this no discussion arose. However, those utterances of Mohammed that were thought to be of divine origin still had to be collected, had to be written down as far as this had not yet been done, and had to be more or less officially edited. These tasks were carried out under the first Caliphs,⁹ the deputies of the Prophet in his secular functions.¹⁰

The script which the Arabs used in those days was not unambiguous, and the imperfect notation of the vowels and the similarity of the shapes of several consonants brought about a long struggle to remove all ambiguities from the written text of the Koran.¹¹ This process, described by 0. Pretzl in the third volume of the Geschichte des Qorans found its conclusion in the publication of the printed text of the Koran by an Egyptian Royal Committee of experts in 1924.¹² No other edition ever possessed such general authority.

Reverting to the comparison of Bible with Koran, it should be noted that there is—as opposed to the differences described above—also an important and obvious correspondance: both Bible and Koran are texts from the past, written in languages foreign to many of its readers, languages that have changed and developed since the days when these texts were first noted down. Thus most Moslems and Christians need help to interpret, apply and sometimes even translate these texts. Consequently huge libraries of commentaries and (in the case of the Bible) translations have come into existence.

Yet it is not the language problem that has been the historical starting point of the exegesis of Bible or Koran, but the inevitably increasing number of situations not dealt with in the sacred writings. In the case of the Old Testament the need for commentaries arose slowly. There have been periods in which a puzzled believer did not try to find the solution to his new problems in the interpretation of the existing quantity of revelation, but rather hoped for more prophecy in line with earlier revelations to be added to the already existing holy texts. For instance, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, in 586 B.C., the surviving desperate leaders of Judea asked the prophet Jeremiah for new revelations. They did not try to deduce a course of action from Jeremiah's previous words.¹³ In Judaism and Christianity this change of attitude from "hoping for more revelation" to "trying to explain the canonized corpus" took place very gradually.¹⁴ For years there was the possibility that God would send another prophet, for years there was the possibility for a Christian community to receive another authoritative apostolic letter. In the case of Islam, this change of attitude had to take place in a few hours: once Mohammed had died, the source of revelation had definitely dried up. One could not ask him or anyone else for an authoritative apostolic solution to new problems and one could not hope for more revelation to come. It had become imperative to resort to distilling everything out of the extant texts and consequently to resort to an extensive interpretation of them.

The task of supplying the believers with guidance and religious instruction had to be taken over, at short notice, by the theologians, lexicographers, linguists, grammarians and jurists of Islam. We find that the first "professional" among these, Mohammed's nephew Ibn 'Abbâs, was less than fifty years younger than Mohammed himself, and lived as early as 619-670.¹⁵ It is in this light that we should understand the much quoted maxim Al-'ulamâ' warathat al-anbiyâ', "The scholars are the heirs of the Prophets".¹⁶

The 'Ulamâ' have taken their task as heirs of the Prophet seriously. They have devoted tremendous efforts to the Koran, but they have not been the only group of Moslems to have worked on it: also calligraphers, bookbinders, printers and reciters have spent their lives excercising their professions in the service of the Koran. Until recently, the only subject of Moslem primary education was the memorization of the Koran. The amount of intellectual energy that has been dedicated to this task by children all over the Moslem world defies the Western imagination.

The work of the Moslem interpreters of the Koran has always attracted the attention of Western observers of Islam. This may surprise the traditional Moslems, since their own interest in the history of the interpretation of the Koran has been limited. Only in the second half of the twentieth century it is no longer exceptional for Moslem scholars to publish books about the history of Koran exegesis.¹⁷ The only important earlier work is As-Suyfûtî's Tabaqât al-Mufassirîn, (The generations of the interpreters of the Koran), and this book exists only in a Western edition made by the Leiden scholar A. Meursinge in 1839.¹⁸ The Moslem public seems, moreover, traditionally to have been as interested in having the Koran calligraphed or chanted and recited, as in having it interpreted.

The most famous result of Western interest in the history of Koran interpretation is I. Goldziher's Richtungen der Islamischen Koranauslegung, translated into Arabic as Al-Madhdâib al-Islâmiyya fî-t-Tafsîr. ¹⁹As appears from its title, this book is not a chronology of Moslem Koran interpretation, but an attempt at depicting several trends that may be discerned in the exegesis of the Koran, from the beginning up to Mohammed Abduh (d. 1905). It does not give a periodization of the exegetical literature, and, naturally, leaves out many commentaries—widely studied in the Moslem world—that do not contribute to the aim of the book: the elucidation of the Richtungen of Moslem Koran interpretation. In his book I. Goldziher does not mention such commentaries as those of Ibn Kathîr,²⁰ Al-ÂlfÛsî,²¹ An-Nasafî,²² Abû as-Su'ûd²³ or Abû Hayyân;²⁴ and the popular commentary by As-Suyûitî and Al-Mahallî, commonly known as Tafsîr al-Galâlayn,²⁵ is mentioned only briefly in a footnote.

I. Goldziher assumes the existence of five Richtungen, or tendencies, in the Moslem interpretation of the Koran: (1) the interpretation with the help of Traditions from the Prophet and his contemporaries; (2) dogmatical interpretation; (3) mystical interpretation; (4) sectarian interpretation; (5) modernist interpretation. The weak side of this division becomes apparent when we see that Az-Zamakhsharî, who is of the utmost importance for his philological work on the syntactical analysis of the verses of the Koran, is dealt with in the chapter on dogmatical interpretation because of his being a heterodox theologian, a representative of the Mutazilite school of thought.

In the present study we are mainly concerned with what I. Goldziher might have dealt with in his chapter on modernist interpretation. In order to picture modern Egyptian Koran interpretation, the reader is invited to imagine the Koran exegetes—as has been suggested above—as all working together in a large circular reading room, somewhere in the centre of Cairo. They see the Koran and the exigencies of Koran interpretation from three different viewpoints: natural history, philology and the day-to-day affairs of the Moslems in this world.

Yet all writers present use the same reference library. This reference library contains the Koran commentaries by At-Tabarî (d. 923), Az-Zamakhsharî (d. 1144), Ibn al-Kathîr (d. 1373) and Mohammed Abduh (d. 1905). They quote freely from these books, yet rarely mention them by title. They use the same dictionaries: those by Ibn Manzûr (d. 1311), Al-Gawharî (d. 1002) and Al-Fîrûzâbâdî (d. 1414). They also use two other books about the Koran: Al-Wâhidî's compilation of the occasions on which specific verses were "sent down" and As-Suyûtî's introduction to the Koran. These books are considered public property: quotations or borrowings from them are rarely acknowledged. They also utilize the same text of the Koran: the text published by the Egyptian Royal Committee of experts in 1924.

Each of them brought along books of his own, e.g. the Koran commentaries by Abû Hayyân, Ar-Râzî, and Abû as-Su'ûd. In our reading room we find additional literature that has seemingly little or nothing to do with the Koran. We find books on natural history, textual criticism and philology as well as general publications on Islam: tracts by leaders of religious organizations, books on Islamic law, collections of sermons, magazines, journals and newspapers. Many of the first-mentioned works are not original, but adaptations of Western books. Although Western influence is great, it seems mainly to come from indirect sources. It is almost impossible to trace back the exact source of the knowledge of Western ideas, and this has caused some observers to think that these sources might sometimes have been oral.

In the room different kinds of activity are going on. The main concern of some exegetes seems to be to prove that the modern sciences are not in contradiction to the Koran, or even that they can be deduced from the Koran. The exegetes who adhere to this view hold that the Koran could only be properly understood after the natural and technical sciences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had become known in the Islamic world. Their kind of Koran interpretation is called in Arabic tafsîr 'ilmî (scientific exegesis). Tafsîr 'ilmî not only has zealous adherents, but also ardent opponents, who argue passionately that it is a "stupid heresy" (bid'a hamqâ').²⁶ Scientific exegesis will be discussed in the third chapter.

Another group of the Koran interpreters in the reading room considers it their main concern to help their readers to understand the Koran as the contemporaries of the Prophet understood it in the days when the Koran was sent down. According to them, it is not possible to profit from the spiritual guidance the Koran offers without first having understood exactly what the Koranic phrases meant. Their work is not unimportant to Western students of the Koran, to whom, moreover, it is bound to be more interesting than other kinds of Koran interpretation. After all, one need not necessarily be a Moslem in order to be interested in the literal meaning of the Koran. Philological exegesis will be discussed in the fourth chapter.

A third group in our reading room has the day-to-day affairs of the Moslems in this world as their main concern. They wonder in how far the Moslems' doings should be influenced by the Koran. They are, sometimes, worried by the influence of the Western world on Islamic spirituality. They cannot agree with the influence in Egypt of Western ideas about justice and social desiderata as far as these ideas come into conflict with the traditional prescripts of Islamic law. They are not sure whether contemporary Egyptian society is "Islamic" enough. According to them, the message of the Koran should be spread through Egyptian society with the help of the religious organizations and their periodicals, through the sermons in the mosque and through the general press. Practical exegesis will be discussed in the fifth chapter.

There seem to be no Koran exegetes who work exclusively on only one of these three aspects of Koran interpretation. The commentaries which they produce are not monopolized by one of the aspects of their work. But there appear to be a few exceptions. Hanafi Ahmad²⁷ is an exegete who has no real interest in problems other than those raised by Koran interpretation and natural history. Dr. 'Â'isha 'Abd ar-Rahmân Bint as-Shati'²⁸ works almost exclusively on Koran interpretation and philology. However, especially the larger commentaries are heterogeneous, and contain, apart from practical exegesis and edifying sermons, philological and "scientific" digressions.

Many of the exegetes are convinced that the Koran is so rich a book that it would be absurd to limit the number of the meanings of its words and verses to one. In consequence of this they sometimes offer a whole list of possible meanings for one rare word, without venturing to decide which is the "real" or "true" one. Although some contemporary Egyptian Koran scholars²⁹ object to this unwillingness to commit one-self to only one meaning, it is not an untraditional practice. For instance, the Koran exegete Al-Baydâwî (d. 1282) explains the obscure term al- 'Adiyât (and the other feminine plural participles) in the beginning of Sura 100 as referring to angels, stars, souls, horses, or hands of people fighting for Islam.³⁰

The exegetes freely take over each others' ideas. For instance Dr. Bint as-Shâti', professor of Arabic at the secular 'Ayn Shams University, suggests a solution to the problems raised by the oaths sworn in the beginning of Sura 93: these oaths by the morning and the evening, two naturally alternating moments of the day, she assumes to point to the equally natural alternation of periods in which Mohammed received revelation and periods in which he did not receive revelation.³¹ This idea is taken over by Mahmûd Farag al-'Uqda, assistant professor of Arabic at the "clerical" Azhar University.³² This is particularly interesting because the Azhar and the secular universities are two different worlds that have hardly any contact with each other.

However, it is not only ideas which the Egyptian exegetes take over from each other. Every now and then it turns out that whole pages of their works are identical. For instance what Sheikh Higâzî³³ writes about polygamy is identical with the passage on polygamy printed in the commentary by Muhammad 'Abd al-Mun'im Gamâl.³⁴ However, the latter's commentary mentions the former's commentary amongst its sources, and contains (acknowledged) quotations from the Koran commentaries by Al-Alûsî, At-Tabarî and others, so the possibility that it is only accidental that the name of Higâzî is not mentioned in this particular passage cannot be ruled out, nor the possibility that both Koran scholars have made use of a common source.

The Egyptian public's interest does not restrict itself to modern commentaries. Commentaries on the Koran which were written before the twentieth century are also still widely read. The so-called Tafsîr al-Galâlayn, written in 1466/7, saw at least seven editions between 1926 and 1940 in Cairo,³⁵ and the Koran commentary by Az-Zamakhsharî, written in 1131/2, was printed at least five times before 1919,³⁶ and went through no less than three editions between 1926 and 1970 in Cairo.³⁷ It would be difficult to find an occidental capital where a twelfth century Bible commentary was printed three times within even fifty years, or a fifteenth century one which was printed seven times within fifteen years.³⁸

The Egyptian public reads and speaks Arabic. So, naturally, it has no need for translations of the Koran. Yet, especially in the thirties, there have been discussions as to whether it was permissible to translate the Koran. These discussions were intimately connected with the political controversies of the day, especially with Pan-Islamism. The Turkish government, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,³⁹ had abolished the Caliphate and changed the language of the public call to prayer from Arabic to Turkish. The Turkish rulers also wanted the sermons in the Mosque to be preached in Turkish and not in Arabic, and they favoured the translation of the Koran from Arabic into Turkish. In the five prescribed daily prayers recitation of verses of the Koran is obligatory, and "the question of translating the Koran came to be focused on the issue whether or not the Koran in the Turkish language could be used in these prayers".⁴⁰ When the resistance of the Turkish Islamists was overcome by the Atatürk régime, the fight against the translation of the Koran was carried on by the 'Ulamâ' in Egypt.

Rashîd Ridâ took an extreme stand in this controversy. As a "Pan-Islamist" he could not but disapprove of anything that might diminish the unity of the Moslems, such as the abolition of the Caliphate or the translation of the Koran from the original Arabic into one of the other languages used by Moslems, languages which in his eyes served no purpose other than to divide them. According to Rashîd Ridâ, Arabic was the only true language of the Moslem world, and he held the opinion that the Turkish government ought to adopt it as the official language of their country, in order to prove that the Turks had remained within the realm of Islam.⁴¹

Once the political fervour of the issue had abated, the translation debate came to a logical conclusion: the present Egyptian view, represented e.g. by the late Sheikh Mahmûd Shaltût, holds that translating the Koran is a way of interpreting it, and that as such there can exist no obstacles to it. However, the Koran in translation is not so authoritative as the Koran in its original wording. A translation of the Koran, as the late Azhar rector Shaltût remarks, cannot be used as a "root" or "source" of the Islamic doctrine of duties (fiqh).⁴² Given the amount of Christian—sometimes extremely edifying—sermons that are based on clever exploitation of the accidental phrasing of the Bible translation which happens to be used by the preacher, sermons that are sometimes quite contrary to the meaning of the Biblical text in the original language, one cannot but admire the wisdom behind this Moslem attitude. For devotional purposes in the prescribed five daily prayers, however, Shaltût permits the use of a translation of the Koran.

The language of the Koran and (Egyptian) modern standard Arabic are not fully identical. Certain syntactical constructions, certain particles, nouns and verbs occur almost exclusively in only one of these two varieties of Arabic. This difference between contemporary standard Arabic and the seventh century Arabic of the text of the Koran has given rise to elaborate, translation-like paraphrases in modern standard Arabic of the text of the Koran. The largest of these is entitled Al-Muntakhab fî Tafsîr al-Qur 'ân, (The better choice in the interpretation of the Koran). It is a publication of an Egyptian State committee, the "Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs", Al-Maglis al-A 'lâ li-s-Shu 'ûn al-Islâmiyya. Portions of this work have appeared as supplements to the periodical edited by the Council, Minbar al-Islâm.

Examples from Al-Muntakhab are hardly intelligible except in Arabic. For instance, the fourth verse of the first sura of the Koran runs mâliki-yawmi-d-díni. Bell translates this as "Wielder of the Day of Judgment". In this verse one difference between Koranic Arabic and contemporary standard Arabic lies in the use of the last word of the Arabic text, dîn. If this word is used at all in modern writing, it means "faith" or "religion", whereas in the Koran its meaning is "religion", "obedience", or "requital". Al-Muntakhab now paraphrases this verse as "The King of the Day of Requital and Reckoning", using gazâ' "requital" and hisâb "reckoning" to paraphrase dîn. These two words are both directly and unambiguously understandable in modern standard Arabic.

In the preface to Al-Muntakhab the editors inform the reader that they wrote this tafsîr "in order to make [the text of the Koran] fit for translation into a foreign language". There is no reason not to call Al-Muntakhab a translation of the Koran into modern standard Arabic.

Another kind of Koran commentary brought into existence because of the difference between the language of the Koran and modern standard Arabic, are the school commentaries designated for pupils of secondary schools. The most widely distributed and most often reprinted of these is a commentary in thirty small volumes by three authors, Mahmûd Muhammad Hamza, a former teacher at Dâr al-'Ulûm and inspector of secondary and technical education; Hasan 'Ulwân, a former director of a secondary school; and Muhammad Ahmad Barâniq, an inspector of secondary education.⁴³

This commentary is simple: after a passage from the Koran of approximately one page, a list of the Koranic words that are supposed to cause difficulties to secondary school pupils follows. These difficult words are explained in simple modern standard Arabic. After the original Koranic text and the list of difficult words, we again find a translationlike paraphrase of the whole text. This "commentary" may be extremely useful to Western students who have a working knowledge of standard Arabic and who wish to begin their study of the Koran.

Not all Egyptian exegetes working after 1900 tried to write a complete commentary. This is all the more remarkable since all classical commentaries that are still in use are complete, covering word by word the whole text of the Koran, from the first to the last verse. The Arabic term for such a complete uninterrupted commentary is tafsîr musalsal or "chained" commentary. At present, about a dozen twentieth century musalsal commentaries exist.…

Next to these complete "uninterrupted" commentaries we find "topical" commentaries that treat of specific Koranic subjects, e.g. fasting, divorce, woman, or subjects such as leadership. Scholars working on topical commentaries often stress the fact that the "collection" of the Koran was carried out only after the death of the Prophet, and that consequently there is little or nothing "inspired" about the present order of its verses and suras. Times and intellectual habits having changed, there is nothing against the establishment of a topically rearranged text of the Koran, a mushaf mubawwab, as Amîn al-Khûlî argues in his Manâhig Tagdîd (Programs of renewal).⁴⁶

It is impossible—and unnecessary—to draw a sharp distinction between "topical" Koran commentaries and books about the Koran or books about Islam. It would indeed be an unmistakable mark of "pseudo-scholarship" to attempt to do so. Also the distinction between complete and topical commentaries is not clear-cut. A famous intermediate form is the book by the above mentioned Sheikh Mahmûd Shaltût, entitled Tafsîr al-Agzâ' al-'Ashara al-Ûlâ, (Commentary on the first ten agzâ' of the Koran). (Agzâ.' is the plural of guz' "a thirtieth part of the Koran". For recitational, devotional and practical purposes the Koran is divided into thirty guz'. This division is indicated in most editions of the Koran.)

Shaltût in his Tafsîr does not follow the text of the Koran word by word, but he writes elaborately about the central concepts of the suras he treats.⁴⁷ For instance, in his commentary on Sura 2 he talks at length about the word birr, which means according to Lane's dictionary "piety; kindness; obedience to God; goodness;" etc. In Sura 2 it occurs more than five times,⁴⁸ e.g. in verse (172) 177:

It is not virtuous conduct that ye should turn your faces towards the East or the West, but virtuous conduct is that of those who have believed in Allah and the Last Day, … who have spoken truth, who show piety.

For future students of contemporary Islamic thought, Shaltût's Tafsîr will be an important source but it is not a representative example of modern Koran interpretation. Before its publication as a book, this work was printed in the periodical Risâlat al-Islâm, a journal devoted to the "unifying of the denominations of Islam", at-Taqrîb bayn al-madhâhib.⁴⁹

Understandably, Western observers of Islam have been more interested in Koran commentaries which caused a stir in public opinion in some way or other, more than in the dozens of commentaries that have not done so. Probably no Bible commentary which appeared in the Netherlands in the twentieth century ever reached the front-page of a Dutch newspaper, and neither did most Koran commentaries that appeared in twentieth century Egypt attract much attention from Arab journalists. There are, however, in Egypt a few notable exceptions: the Koran commentaries by Muhammad Abû Zayd (1930),⁵⁰ Ahmad Khalafallâh (1947)⁵¹ and Mustafâ Mahmûd (1970)⁵² did draw wide-spread newspaper attention because of their controversial character. For an outsider it is difficult, if not impossible, to make a distinction between the political and theological issues involved in the turmoil created by these books. The same, of course, holds good for other anathematized books in which the Koran is obliquely referred to, and which caused trouble to their authors.⁵³

Much has been written by Western observers of Islam about the commotion concerning these works.⁵⁴ But, again, it should be remembered that even during the heights of the agitation about these "controversial" works, more copies were being printed, sold and studied of the fifteenth century Galâlayn commentary than of any of these former works.

Modern Egyptian Koran interpretation⁵⁵ is still largely traditional. This is demonstrated not only by the interest which the general public take in the "classical" commentaries, but also by the "traditional" contents of many "modern" commentaries. Newness and originality are exceptional; adaptations and modernizations of the contents of especially Az-Zamakhshari are the rule. Often a passage in a modern commentary is hard to understand unless one has first consulted Az-Zamakhsharî or Galâlayn. Modern Egyptian commentaries are thus still part of the great tradition of classical tafsîr, as their voluminousness already suggests: it would not be easy to fill thirty volumes of more than two hundred pages each with original ideas about a text that has been studied for more than a thousand years. The only real innovations were introduced by Mohammed Abduh (d. 1905) and Amîn al-Khûlî (d. 1967).

Mohammed Abduh's Koran Interpretation

Before Abduh⁵⁶ the interpretation of the Koran was mainly an academic affair. Commentaries were written by scholars for other scholars. Understanding a commentary required detailed knowledge of the technicalities and terminology of Arabic grammar, Moslem law and dogmatics, the Traditions of the Prophet Mohammed and his contemporaries, and the Prophet's biography.⁵⁷ The commentaries on the Koran had become encyclopaedias of these sciences, or rather excerpts of encyclopaedias. It took an enormous amount of intellectual energy to profit from the knowledge stored up in the existing commentaries, which treated anything but the "plain" and "literal" meaning of the Koran. To this kind of scholarly exegesis Abduh objected on principle.

To quote Abduh: "On the Last Day God will not question us on the opinions of the commentators and on how they understood the Koran, but he will question us on his Book which he sent down to guide and instruct us".⁵⁸ Abduh intended to explain the Koran in a practical manner to a public wider than merely the professional theologians, an Egyptian public that—according to the modern Moslem apologists—lacked competent religious leaders, suffered from foreign (British) occupation, did not understand the technical sciences and among whom superstition had become predominant. Abduh tries to make his readers, laymen and theologians alike, realize the limited relevance of the traditional commentaries that do not contribute to the solution of the urgent problems of the day.⁵⁹ He wishes to convince them that they should allow the Koran to speak for itself, unobscured⁶⁰ by subtle explanations and glosses.

Abduh's Koran commentaries⁶¹ and their continuations by Rashîd Ridâ did not have immediate succes.⁶² In 1905, more than four years after Abduh's lectures that were to become the Manar commentary had started, Farîd Wagdî complains in the introduction to his own Koran commentary that no commentary existed that was suitable for the layman, devoid of superfluous technicalities and relevant to the turbulent times Egypt was going through.⁶³ Al-Manfalûtî ridicules Abduh (and Qâsim Amîn⁶⁴) in an article originally published in the Moslem newspaper Al-Mu'ayyad,⁶⁵ and this, as the context of the article indicates, some time after Abduh's death.

Eventually, however, Abduh's commentaries became very successful. They are much quoted by later commentators. At present they are held to be authoritative by both progressive and conservative Egyptian Moslem theologians. This success may be ascribed to the interest in them by the gradually rising class of Egyptians that had received an education outside the traditional religious institutions. Literacy had, previously, been limited to Egyptians who had received religious training and who consequently were able to use and understand the traditional commentaries in their original form. After the turn of the century, for the first time in the history of Moslem Egypt, considerable numbers of people had learned to read and write outside the mosque. Increasing numbers of Egyptians were coming into contact with Western non-Islamic culture and began to ask questions for which the traditional commentaries had no answer. Abduh's commentaries appealed to the same groups of literates that established, in 1907, political parties which advocated the granting of a constitution (dustzûr) to Egypt and withdrawal of the British.⁶⁶

In spite of occasional attempts to characterize Abduh as an agnostic,⁶⁷ Abduh's religious attitude would be best described as "rationalist". This is also demonstrable from his Koran commentaries. A short sura like Sura 80, which occupies less than two pages in the Egyptian Royal Edition of the Koran, will provide some examples of this rationalisme religieux which L. Gardet and M.-M. Anawati call Abduh's attitude de base.⁶⁸

The first verses of Sura 80 run:

He frowned and turned away,
because the blind man came to him.
What will he let thee know?
Mayhap he will purify himself,
or let himself be reminded,
and the reminder profit him.⁶⁹

The classical commentaries, as well as Abduh, explain that during a discussion of Mohammed with some Meccan notables a blind man, a distant relative of Mohammed's wife Khadîga, came up to Mohammed, who took no notice of him but "frowned and turned away", continuing his attempts at converting the local dignitaries, who were not blind but, perhaps, visionless. Abduh then adds that these verses prove that the message of Islam should be brought to everyone with a clear intellect⁷⁰ regardless of his social position.

Verses 8 and 9 of this sura read: "As for him who comes eagerly, being in fear, him dost thou neglect".⁷¹ The classical commentaries explain that the blind man was in fear because of his sins, or because of repercussions that might result from his contact with Mohammed, who at that time was on bad terms with the local élite, or because though blind he had no guide.

Abduh on the contrary mentions neither sin nor repercussions nor guide, but explains that the blind man's problem was his thirst for knowledge: he was afraid he would not be able to purify himself from his ignorance, would never be illumined by the light of knowledge, and would be left in the darkness of error. Another illustration of Abduh's rather intellectualist concept of fear is to be found in his comment on Koran 79:26(26): "Surely in that is a lesson for those who fear". Abduh here teaches that "those who fear" can be paraphrased as "those who have the intellect to reflect".

The high importance Abduh attached to the human intellect is also apparent from his treatment of the term Furqân⁷² which occurs in Koran 3:4(3):

There is no god but He, the Living, the Eternal; He hath sent down to thee the Book with truth, confirming what was before it and He sent down the Torah and the Evangel aforetime as guidance for the people, and He sent down the Furqan.⁷³

The word Furqân, which is connected with a root F-R-Q meaning "to discriminate", is left untranslated by Bell. The Dutch Koran translator J. H. Kramers renders the word as de onderscheiding.⁷⁴ The older commentaries explain the word as "anything that makes a separation or distinction between truth and falsity" or "Book of Law revealed to Moses in which a distinction is made between that which is allowable and that which is forbidden." The Galâlayn commentary explains: "The word is mentioned after Torah, Evangel and Koran as a general expression covering the books of revelation not enumerated in these verses". Az-Zamakhsharî writes: "If you would ask me what is meant by al-Furqân I say: the category of heavenly books because they discriminate between truth and falsity". Al-Baydâwî informs us: "It is as if the text of the Koran should be read as follows: He sent down Torah and Evangel as guidance for the people and He sent down all other revelations". Ar-Râzî's explanation of Furqân comes close to the Biblical "knowledge of good and evil", and also At-Tabarî connects Furqân and ethics. Thus, the classical commentaries do not agree as to whether Furqân means 'Holy books' in general or whether it refers to one particular Holy book, but they do agree on two points: thanks to that which is designated as Furqân we distinguish between right and wrong, and Furqân is not of this world but is transcendent. Furqân is definitely something revealed.

Abduh treats of this word in an untraditional way. In the Manar commentary (noted down by Rashîd Ridâ after Abduh's lectures) we read: "Our Teacher and Leader [i.e. Mohammed Abduh] said that Furqân is reason, by which man discern between truth and falsity". This statement does not seem remarkable if one has not consulted the classical commentaries but if one has, it does certainly look suggestive if not provocative: Abduh seems to have replaced revelation by reason. An implication of this view of Abduh seems to be that if one wishes to know why he should not kill, or not ask interest on capital, it is sufficient for him to use his intellect, and he does not need to consult Scripture.⁷⁵

Many Egyptians have acclaimed Abduh's Koran commentaries as new and original,⁷⁶ which they certainly were. This newness, however, is not one of form. In 1903 Abduh published a commentary on the last 30th part of the Koran, Guz' 'Ammâ. In its first edition it contains 190 pages. The suras and verses are not numbered, which is in accordance with traditional usage. The text of the Koran is printed at the top of the page, taking up not more than four lines, the rest of the page is taken up by the commentary, which is printed in smaller type. In the commentary the text of the Koran is repeated, and each word or phrase from the Koran (placed in brackets) is followed by its explanation. Every sura has a brief general introduction, and sometimes there are short digressions on general subjects. The book looks more like a commentary on the words of the Koran than on its verses, pericopes or suras. Its appearance thus does not strike the reader who is acquainted with commentaries such as those by An-Nasafi or Az-Zamakhsharî as new.

The so-called Manar commentary differs in some respects from Abduh's first commentary. Abduh gave a series of lectures on the Koran at the Azhar university, and his Syrian pupil

Rashîd Ridâ attended these lectures and took notes, which he afterwards revised and enlarged. The result was shown to Muhammad Abduh who approved, or corrected as necessary. These lectures began to appear in [the periodical] Al-Manâr, volume iii (A.D. 1900), as the commentary of Muhammad Abduh; since the editor thought it proper, so long as Abduh had read what had been written, to ascribe them to him. The commentary that resulted from this cooperation is known as the Manar commentary.

It was continued by Rashîd Ridâ alone, after the death of Mohammed Abduh, from Sura 4:125 to Sura 12:107.⁷⁷ Rida faithfully indicated, in those parts for which he and Abduh were jointly responsible, where the Master's words ended and where his own enlargements began.

The Manar commentary treats of the whole text of the first twelve thirtieth of the Koran, in twelve volumes, each covering one thirtieth part of the Koran. Every volume contains approximately 500 pages. Departing from traditional practice, suras and verses are numbered. The verses are grouped together in logical unities, pericopes of five to ten verses, followed by several pages of commentary. The commentary, which treats of the whole text of the passages under consideration, is frequently interrupted by long digressions in which general problems of religion and society are discussed. Each volume is preceded by indexes in which one finds in alphabetical order the topics which have been touched upon. These alphabetical indexes, a novelty introduced by the Manar commentary, have been imitated by many later Egyptian Koran commentators. The outward appearance of the Manar commentary reminds one of the Koran commentary by Ibn Kathir,⁷⁸ who also divides the text into pericopes.

The newness of Abduh's Koran commentaries springs from the fresh emphasis Abduh puts on the Koran as a source of hidâya, religious and spiritual guidance.⁷⁹ In Abduh's view the Koran is not primarily the source of Islamic law or dogmatics, or an occasion for philologists to display their ingenuity, but it is the book from which Moslems ought to derive their ideas about this world and the world to come. From this follow Abduh's different ideas about the exigencies of Koran interpretation. The nucleus of Abduh's exegetical system—if the word "system" may properly be used in this respect—is his hesitation in accepting material from outside the Koran itself as meaningful towards its interpretation.

An exegetical rule which, consequently, lies behind all his exegetical work and is repeated throughout his commentaries in different words, is that one should not explain things that are left unexplained, mubham, by the Koran.⁸⁰ (The word mubham, translated in Lane's dictionary as "closed" or "locked, so that one cannot find the way to open it" came to mean, in modern standard Arabic, "obscure, dark, cryptic, doubtful, vague, ambiguous"—Wehr's dictionary—when applied to words.) An example from Sura 2:(55)58 may serve to illustrate the meaning of this. In this verse, God speaks to the Jews during their conquest of the promised land (cp. the contents of the book of Joshua): "Enter this town and eat comfortably from it wherever ye please; enter the gate doing obeisance."⁸¹

The context does not indicate which town the Koran here refers to. Sayyid Qutb and Ahmad Mustafa al-Maraghi suppose that Jerusalem is meant; Az-Zamakhshari, Al-Baydawi, Ibn Kathir and Farid Wagdi think it is Jerusalem or Jericho. Abduh then differs radically from both the ancient and the modern commentators and writes: "We shall not try to determine which town is meant in this verse, since the Koran did not try to determine this either. The importance of the verse does not depend upon the exact determination of such particulars"—but lies in the admonition to thankfulness towards God.⁸² The word "town" in Sura 2: (55)58 can be explained by a synonym if the Koran used a word that is not directly and unambiguously understandable in modern standard Arabic, but further interpretation is impossible: the word is "closed" to further identification—for which there is no need in any case. "If God had considered more details in the text of the Koran to be useful, he would have added them."⁸³

An exegete is thus obliged to explain the text as it stands and not to supply, for instance, the proper names of the persons and places left anonymous by the Koran. An exegete has no right, is in fact forbidden, to identify anything that is left unidentified by the Koran itself.

In order to determine the meaning of a certain verse or word, Abduh makes ample use of its context. This may seem a pedestrian thing to do, but many exegetes before—and after—Abduh confined themselves, when trying to find out what a certain passage meant, to the traditional explanations as given by At-Tabari, Ar-Razi, Az-Zamakhshari and others, attempting to make a sensible choice out of the masses of material these commentaries offer.⁸⁴

Abduh often succeeds in solving problems by considering the context of a problematical phrase.⁸⁵ For instance, in Koran 3:(32)37 we read:

Whenever Zechariah entered the sanctuary to
 see her, he found beside her provisions.
Said he: "Oh Mary, how hast thou this?"
She replied: "It is from Allah; Allah provides
 for whom he willeth".⁸⁶

Al-Baydawi and Az-Zamakhshari state that these "provisions" were "the fruits of summer during winter" or "the fruits of the winter season during the summer". This explanation can still be found in a commentary written by the Egyptian judge Hafiz 'Isa 'Ammar in 1960. Sayyid Qutb, in his commentary on this verse, also alludes to the "numerous stories" connected with the indeed miraculous nature of these divine provisions.

Abduh, however, points out that the end of this passage, "Allah provides for whom he willeth", shows that the mere presence of the provisions presents the miracle, and not their nature. If their nature had been miraculous, Abduh seems to imply, the end of the passage would have run: "Allah provides with what he willeth". Abduh continues his commentary on these verses by saying that taking notice of the context relieves the Moslems of the obligation to believe in a miracle that has been worked by the exegetes. "The Koran explains itself to everybody; there is no need to go into the defence of miracles that are contrary to the plain meaning (zâhir) of the words of the Koran."⁸⁷

Abduh denies the authority and the validity of certain traditions handed down from the first generations of Moslems.⁸⁸ He does not recognize their relevance to the interpretation of the Koran, even though the exegetes of the past have used these traditions extensively. This applies especially to the so-called Isrâ'îliyyât traditions,⁸⁹ of which Abduh's pupil Rashîd Ridâ even maintained that they had been fabricated for the purpose of undermining Islam.⁹⁰ Abduh goes further in this respect than most of his contemporaries and even claims the right to reject any tradition that does not conform to his understanding of Islam and the Koran, whether a Tradition is one of the Isrâ'îliyyât or not, one should not, according to Abduh, "add" to the text of the Koran.⁹¹

Often Abduh uses all three arguments together, as for instance in the beginning of Sura 89 (where the word fagr "daybreak" elicited exegetical speculations): the classical interpretations are rejected because they try to explain something left unexplained by the Koran, do not take into consideration the context and base themselves on a tradition that is suspect—though in this case the "suspect" tradition is ascribed to Mohammed's nephew Ibn 'Abbas.⁹²

Abduh considers the text of the Koran to be generally applicable ('âmm).⁹³ An illustration of what this means may be found in his commentary on Sura 92:(14)14-(17)17:

So I warn you of a fire that blazes
In which shall roast only the most miserable
Avoid it shall the most pious⁹⁴

According to the classical commentaries, the "most pious" referred to in this verse is Mohammed's father-in-law, one of the first converts to Islam,⁹⁵ Abu Bakr, who became Caliph after the death of Mohammed, from 632-634. The "most miserable" is identified as Abû Gahl or Umayya ibn Khalaf, both well-known enemies of the Prophet.⁹⁶ These identifications may be correct, and they may not. The Koran naturally alludes frequently to contemporary events, and such allusions may or may not have been recognized by the first generations of Koran scholars.

Abduh, however, departing from the traditional practice, does not, in the almost eight pages devoted to these verses, mention Abû Bakr, Abû Gahl or Umayya ibn Khalaf, but exhorts, admonishes and warns his contemporaries, pious and impious alike. He concludes his edifying sermon with a small paragraph pointing out that by interpreting these verses in his way, the problems of identifying the "most pious" and the "most miserable" are solved; nothing prevents us from believing that also Abû Bakr is referred to, so he says, but the meaning of these verses of the Koran is general, "as you have seen." (Ma 'nâ al-âyât 1â yazâl 'âmm kamâ ra'ayta, w-Allâhu a'lam.)⁹⁷

Abduh was never a theorist. He was an activist who advocated immediate practical reform. He had a program for the reform of Moslem higher education and for the reform of the administration of Moslem law, but he lacked a consistent overall theory. This also holds good for his activities in the field of Koran exegesis. He reluctantly embarked upon it, we are told, under pressure of his friend, pupil and collaborator Rashîd Ridâ, who was too much of a professional theologian to permit their programs of reform to go without a solid Koranic foundation. It was Rashîd Ridâ also who took upon himself the task to note down Abduh's commentary, but while doing so he added traditions and grammatical analysis, be it with the sole purpose of supporting Abduh's views. For instance, in the explanation of the word Furqân,⁹⁸ Rida adds that Furqân is an infinitive from its root F-R-Q in the same way in which Qur "dn "Koran" is an infinitive from its root Q-R-', and Ghufrân "forgiveness" from its root GH-F-R. He probably says so because an infinitive of this type⁹⁹ is comparatively rare. Although this kind of enlargement is "no doubt beneficial", as Muhammad Abû Zuhra puts it,¹⁰⁰ it is certainly not something which Mohammed Abduh would have done himself. Abduh was reluctant to start another Koran commentary and thus add to the enormous library of exegetical literature, precisely because Koran exegesis had come to mean, for the Moslems of his time, cataloguing such rather pedantic pieces of erudition. He wanted his commentary to be an instrument by which Moslems could help themselves to be guided spiritually by means of the Koran itself. So he wanted Koran commentaries to be without theoretical speculations, grammatical monographs and learned quotations. According to Abduh too often Moslems did not realize that they all were addressed by God in the Koran, and not merely their theologians, in particular the dead ones.¹⁰¹ One can almost compare a Moslem who nowadays reads and chants the Koran, so Abduh complains, with an ass who carries books without being able to understand them, or to share in the belief in their contents.¹⁰²

The method so far discussed behind Abduh's Koran exegesis is interesting. However, the contents of his Koran commentaries are very much determined by what the Manar commentary calls the "need of the times", hâgat al- 'asr. Since the times are in the habit of changing, the commentaries by both Abduh and Rida have lost much of their original importance. However, in some respects they have not lost their actuality.

At the time Abduh lived and worked, Egypt was a part of the Ottoman Empire that enjoyed almost complete self-government. It had been occupied by the British Army in 1882, after the 'Urabi revolt. As a result of this occupation the impact of the West and of Western ideas—but especially of Western technological and military power—was felt more strongly than ever before. Abduh reads into the Koran a command to the Moslems to resist this Western domination, for instance in Sura 2:(27)29 "He is it who created for you what is in the earth."¹⁰³

In his long commentary on this passage, Abduh writes: "Yes indeed, the Moslems have become backward compared with the other peoples of this world. They have fallen back into a state inferior to what they were in before the advent of Islam liberated them from their paganism. They have no knowledge of the world they live in and they are unable to profit from the resources of their surroundings. Now foreigners have come, who snatch these riches away from under their noses. However, their Book interposes itself and exclaims: 'He has subjected to you what is in the heavens.'"¹⁰⁴

At the time Abduh lived and worked, Egypt was a poor country. It had been impoverished by centuries of misgovernment and exploitation by the so-called Mamluks, a military caste maintaining itself by purchase of new members from outside Egypt, mainly from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Poverty and the consequent lack of education had favoured superstition, according to the modern apologists of Islam. Abduh vehemently turned against the popular forms of magic, witchcraft and sorcery practised and believed in in Egypt.¹⁰⁵ Sometimes his tirades against magic (sihr) are more or less forced upon the text of the Koran; for instance while explaining Sura 2:(96)102, "the satans disbelieved, teaching the people magic", Abduh seizes the opportunity to write several pages against magic and sorcery. He concludes: "Magic is either swindle or the result of the application of techniques unknown to the spectators."

Abduh absolutely denies the reality of magic,¹⁰⁶ even where the Koran seems to recognize it, for instance in Sura 114:

I take refuge with the Lord of the Daybreak
from the evil of the darkening when it comes
  on
from the evil of the blowers among knots
from the evil of an envious one when he
  envies.¹⁰⁷

Sura 114 is, in the traditional interpretation, a charm against magic, and the "blowers among knots" are traditionally supposed to be a certain kind of witches. Yet Abduh refuses to connect these verses with magic, and interprets them as a warning against slander and gossip that undo the ties, or the "knots", of friendship.¹⁰⁸

No new Koran commentaries had appeared in nineteenth century Egypt. Abduh and Rida, however, paved the way for the huge quantities of twentieth century commentaries that have appeared since and that still are appearing. In re-awakening the interest in Koran interpretation they also established a link between the Koran and the affairs of man's life in this world. This Abduh did by getting rid of the weight of erudition of the classical commentaries that were too heavy a ballast even for many theologians. He filled the space thus created with sensible, judicious, enlightened and practical short sermons on the problems of Egyptian society in his time.¹⁰⁹ In particular, he emphasizes the need for education, the implication being that only by education could the Egyptians put themselves in a position to oust the foreign occupiers.¹¹⁰

Rida went further in this respect, and enlarged the Manar commentary with purely theological technical essays that were sometimes longer than sixty pages.¹¹¹ In his introduction to its first volume, written in 1927, Rida blamed Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi (d. 1209) for having done the very thing he appears to be doing himself.¹¹² However, Rida's attack on Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi is generally understood¹¹³ to be an attack on Tantawi Gawhari,¹¹⁴ who in 1923 had started a commentary of the kind called 'ilmi, "scientific", in which he endeavoured to prove that the twentieth century scientific findings were already contained in the Koran. Tantawi Gawhari's scientific commentary reads like an old-fashioned outmoded book on natural history, which is every now and then interrupted by verses from the Koran that are somehow associated by the writer of the book with the particular subject from natural history he happens to write about.¹¹⁵ However, the theologian Rashîd Ridâ must have thought it necessary to reformulate and modify some of the ever-recurring themes of Islamic theology,¹¹⁶ and though denying the right to Tantawi Gawhari to fill up a Koran commentary with what the latter regarded as science, he himself felt entitled to treat of dogmatical questions in his Koran commentary, even where the link between the Koranic passage and the dogmatical topic treated of was not obvious.

Abduh, with Rida's help, not only managed to connect the interpretation of the Koran with the daily life of the Moslems, he also held views that were not unfavourable to the philological study of the Koran. The philologist Amin al-Khûlî blames Abduh for not having realized that one cannot profit from the hidâya, "spiritual guidance", of the Koran before one knows the exact "literal" meaning of it as it was understood in the days of its revelation.¹¹⁷ But Abduh's exegetical views, especially his scepticism towards Traditions and other extra-Koranic material from later centuries, did not interfere with philological work on the Koran. The principle repeated throughout the Manar commentary that the Koran should be explained by the Koran (tafsîr al-Qur"dn bi-l-Qur'dn) also stimulated philological work on the Koran.

Abduh emphasizes that God in the Koran addresses the people who lived in the time of its revelation in their own terms and their own language.¹¹⁹ Though intended to clear the Koran commentaries from the legal and Traditional material which had crept into the commentaries in later centuries, this maxim can also be understood as the nearest possible Moslem equivalent of the Western e mente auctoris principle.¹²⁰ Rida, too, subscribes to this argument: in the last volume of the Manar commentary, for which he alone was responsible, he rejects a certain traditional interpretation arguing that it could never have occurred to anyone in the days of the revelation of the Koran.¹²¹

Abduh's views on Koran interpretation and natural history are not fully consistent with his other views. In a famous passage Abduh suggests that the Ginn, intelligent imperceptible spirits referred to in the Koran and important in Moslem folklore, are to be understood as microbes;¹²² in another passage, where the Koran mentions lightning, Abduh talks about electricity, the telegraph, telephone and tramcars.¹²³ In doing so, he too might be accused of bringing into a commentary on the Koran material which is inessential to the spiritual guidance the Koran supplies. He, however, does not, as do later commentators, suggest that these things are in a concealed way actually referred to by the Koran, or that the real meaning of the Koran could only be understood after microbes and electricity had been discovered. Abduh rather wants his readers to realize that Islam is tolerant of all scientific investigation,¹²⁴ and that the Koran is too elevated to be contradicted by modern science,¹²⁵ in the same way in which Christian theologians do not think it important whether the historical information contained in the Bible is accurate or not. The Koran, according to Abduh, is not a book on law, science or history, but the word of God: "Our knowledge of the Koran is our knowledge of God."¹²⁶

Notes

¹ Muh. b. Isma'il a. 'Abdallâh al-Bukhârî, 810-870 A.D., C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (GAR). I 157; Al-Gâmi' as-Sahîh, many editions, e.g. bi-sharh Ahmad b. Muh. al-Qastallânî, Cairo (Bûlâq) 1288 A.H., 10 vls.; "Tradition": cf. Lane, Lexicon, ii, 529a: hadîth "new, recent … a story … a tradition traced up to Mohammad."

² Th. Nöldeke a.o., Geschichte des Qorâns (GdQ). I 20-28; W. M. Watt, Bell's Introduction to the Qur'ân, 18-25; On the hadîth qudsî cf. GdQ I 258-60.

³ It is not certain whether the Koran, at the time of its revelation, was supposed to address all mankind or Mohammed's countrymen only. At present, the Moslems agree that its message is universal.

⁴ W. C. Smith, Islam in Modern History, Princeton 1957, 17 ff.; In the Quicumque Athanasianum we read: … increatus filius …; cf. Schönmetzer, ed., Enchiridion Symbolorum^xxxii, Freiburg 1963, 40; Recently K. Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik I, 1, 11:2: Der Ewige Sohn (435 ff.); MacDonald, Development of Muslim Theology, Lahore 1964, 146-152.

⁵ One of the most authoritative works on this subject is Al-Wahidi, Asbdb an-Nuzzul, GAL I 411, S I 730.

⁶GAL S 11 179.

⁷Al-Itqdn, i, 29: Hal al- 'ibra bi- 'umûm al-lafz aw bikhusûs as-sabab.

⁸ A. I. Nussayr, Arabic Books 1926-1940, 23.

⁹ "Caliph": from the Arabic khalifa, a noun from the consonantal root kh-l-f "to follow, to come after s.o.", hence "to be the successor of s.o."; …

¹⁰GdQ 11 13-15; 47-50; W. M. Watt, Bell's Introduction, 40ff.

¹¹ The difficulties caused by the similarity in the shapes of the letters were eventually mitigated by adding diacritical points.…

¹²Der Islam, xx (1932), 2-3; GdQ III 273. However, the first printed edition of the Koran is due to European scholarship. It was published in 1834 by Gustav Flugel in Leipzig. On the questions raised by the first redaction and the pre-Uthmanic codices, cf. W. M. Watt, o.c., 44 ff.

¹³ Jer. 42.

¹⁴ J. W. Doeve, Jewish Hermeneutics, 52 ff.

¹⁵Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI)², i, 40; F. Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums (GAS) I 25.

¹⁶ A. J. Wensinck, Handbook, 234.

¹⁷ E.g. Mustafa as-Sawi al-Guwayni, Manhag az-Zamakhshari, 1968²; 'Abdallah Mahmûd Shihata, Manhag.. Muhammad 'Abduh.., 1959; Muhammad Husayn ad-Dhahabi, At-Tafsir wa-l-Mufassirun, 1961; 'Abd al-'Azim Ahmad al-Ghubashi, Ta'rikh at-Tafsir, 1971; Abu Yaqzan 'Atiyya al-Gabûri, Dirâsâtfi Tafsir wa-Rigâlih, 1971; 'Iffat Muhammad as-Sharqawi, Ittigâhât at-Tafsir, 1972.

¹⁸De Interpretibus Korani, Ed. A. Meursinge, Leiden 1839.

¹⁹ Translated by 'Ali Hasan 'Abd al-Qadir, Al-Madhâhib al-Islâmiyya fi Tafsir al-Qur'dn, Cairo 1944 & reprinted. Cf. L. Gardet & M.-M. Anawati, Introduction a la theologie musulmane, 26.

²⁰ d. 1373, GAL II 49 & S II 48/9.

²¹ d. 1854, GAL S 11 785 ff.

²² d. 1310, GAL 11 196 (ix) & S II 267/8 (x).

²³ d. 1574, GAL II 438, S II 651.

²⁴ d. 1344, GAL S 11 136.

²⁵ Al-Mahalli, d. 1459 & As-Suyûti, d. 1505; GAL II 114, 145⁶ & S II 179⁶_180. Cp. I. Goldziher, Richtungen, 346.

²⁶ Muhammad Kamil Husayn, Ad-Dhikr al-Hakim, 182.

²⁷ Cf. p. 47.

²⁸ Cf. p. 68.

²⁹ Cf. p. 72.

³⁰ It may not be superfluous to mention here that the belief in a plurality of meanings is also found with Christian theologians. For instance, Thomas Aquinas teaches that "the differing interpretations must all be true ones, and … they must all agree with the context". Thomas quotes from Augustine: "Etiam secundum litteralem sensum in una littera Scripturae plures sint sensus." ("Even in the literal sense one passage of Scripture may contain more than one meaning.") Cf. J. Wilkinson, Interpretation and Community, 186 f., from which these quotations were taken. The problem of ambiguity in literature, especially in poetry, is not as simple as one would like to think, as has been demonstrated by W. Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity.

³¹ Â'isha 'Abd ar-Rahman Bint as-Shati', At-Tafsir al-Baydni², i, 17-26.

³² Mahmûd Farag al-'Uqda, Tafsir Guz' 'Ammd, 98.

³³ Muhammad Mahmud Higazi, At-Tafsir al-Wâdih, iv, 71.

³⁴ Muhammad 'Abd al-Mun'im al-Gamal, At-Tafsir al-Farid, 502.

³⁵ A. I. Nussayr, Arabic Books 1926-1940, nr. 187/2-190/2 & 192/2-193/2, p. 26.

³⁶ Y. A. Sarkis, Mugam, 974-5.

³⁷ A. I. Nussayr, o.c., 141/2 (sic) & Mustafa al-Halabi, 4 vls., Cairo 1966.

³⁸ However, if one would look for biographies of Jesus instead of Bible commentaries and take the eighteenth or nineteenth century instead of the twelfth and the fifteenth century, the results might be different.

³⁹ 1881-1938, in power since 1922.

⁴⁰ N. Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, 487-9.

⁴¹ Muhammad Rashîd Ridâ, Targamat al-Qur'dn wamâ fihâ min Mafâsid wa-Munâfât al-Islâm, Cairo 1925/6; Cf. also Muhammad al-Mahyawi, Targamat al-Qur 'dn al-Karim 'Arad li-s-Siyâsa wa-Fitna li-d-Din, Cairo 1936/7.

⁴² Mahmûd Shaltut, Al-Islâm 'Aqida wa-Shari'a³, 481.

⁴³ Published by Dâr al-Ma'ârif, Cairo.…

⁴⁶ Ahmad as-Sharabâsî, Qissat at-Tafsîr, 163; Amîn al-Khûlî, Manâhig Tagdîd, 304-7. In Nagaf (Iraq) a mushaf mubawwab appeared in 1969, compiled by Muhammad Bâqir al-Muwahhid al-Abtahî, who argues that in Sura 12 the Koran itself systematically arranges the story of Joseph and thus legitimizes systematical arrangement (Al-Madkhal ilâ at-Tafsîr al-Mawdû'î, Nagaf 1969, p. 8). See also: Muhammad Mahmûd Higazi, Al-Wahda al-Mawdû 'iyya fî-l-Qur 'ân al-Karîm, (thesis) Cairo 1970. Cf. further a phrase like "Awwal al-Qur'ân fî hâdhâ at-Tartîb. …" (Abduh, Tafsîr al-Fatiha, 17).

⁴⁷ Cf. Ahmad as-Sharabâsî, Qissat al-Tafsîr, 165 (on Shaltût).

⁴⁸ In verse (41)44; (172)177; (185)189; (224)224. Cf. Jer. 7:22-3.

⁴⁹Risâlat al-Islâm, Magalla Rub' Sanawiyya Islâmiyya, Sâhibhâ Muhammad al-Madanî, Dâr at-Taqrîb bayn al-Madhâhib al-Islâmiyya, Cairo 1949; Shaltût's commentary appears from volume one. Reviews of Shaltût's commentary: Magallat al-Azhar, 32, 112 (June 1960) and 31, 1013 (March 1960).

⁵⁰ A. Jeffery, Der Islam, xx (1932), 301-8 (on Abû Zayd).

⁵¹ J. Jomier, "Quelques positions actuelles de l'exégèse coranique en Egypte révélées par une polémique récente (1947-1951)", Mélanges de l'Institut Dominicain d'Etudes Orientales du Caire (MIDEO) 1 (1954), 39-72.

⁵² Mustafâ Mahmûd, Al-Qur'dn, Muhâwala li-Fahm 'Asrî li-l-Qur'ân, Cairo 1970; previously published in the weekly magazine Sabâh al-Khayr, early in 1970; Dr. Bint as-Shâti"s polemics against it, published originally in the daily newspaper Al-Ahrâm, have appeared in book form: Al-Qur'ân wa-t-Tafsîr al-'Asrî, Cairo 1970. Several prominent theologians air their views on Mustafâ Mahmûd's book in the journal of the Moslem Young Men's Association Magallat as-Shubbân al-Muslimîn, e.g. 157 (1-3-1970).

⁵³ E.g. Tâhâ Husayn, Fî-s-Shi'r al-Gâhilî (1926); or 'Alî 'Abd ar-Râziq, Al-Islâm wa-Usûl al-Hukm (1925). Cp. H. A. R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam, 54, and footnotes.

⁵⁴ In spite of a sizable amount of publications on Khalafallâh's Al-Fann al-Qasasî, one observation seems not to have been made clearly, viz. that in this book Khalafallâh seems to have used the exegetical method called typological by Christian theologians when applied to the Old Testament.

The theory of so-called typological exegesis has its starting point in two passages in the Epistles of Paul: "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come" (Romans 5:14), and "All our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ. (…) Now these things were our examples" (1 Corinthians 10:1-6).

The word 'figure' in the passage from the Epistle to the Romans and the word 'example' at the end of the passage from the Epistle to the Corinthians, are both translations of the Greek noun tupoi, from which the term 'typological exegesis' is derived. In these two passages Paul gives a very special interpretation of Exodus 13:21 (the "pillar of a cloud" which guided the Israelites in the desert), of Exodus 17:6 (the rock which Moses smote and from which the Israelites drank), and to other passages from Exodus, viz. 14:22 and 16:4. (J. Wilkinson, Interpretation and Community, 95 ff.).

Roman Catholic theologians like H. de Lubac and J. Danielou have elaborated these interpretations by Paul into a system that they consider to be applicable to the whole of the Old Testament. (H. H. Miskotte, Sensus Spiritualis, 123-137). However, by reducing the 'pillar' and the 'rock' to 'shadows of things to come', an exegete goes against the intention of the human compilers of the text of the Old Testament and against the intentions of those who canonized these texts. Also, the public to which these texts were primarily addressed, did not think of things to come: to them these texts and the stories told in them had a value of their own.

When, on the other hand, the Koran talks about the Prophets before Mohammed, the stories as told by the Koran always foreshadow Mohammed and have little to do with the history of the Prophet they seem to tell about. (Cf. A. Jeffery, The Koran as Scripture). For instance, the Koran tells how people "put their fingers in their ears" when hearing Noah preach; the first hearers of the Koran will have thought of how Mohammed was ridiculed by his fellow-Meccans when they listened to Noah's story as told in Koran 71:(5)5-(6)7. When they listened to the Koranic version of a prayer said by Noah (Koran 71:(27) 26-(29) 28): "Oh Lord, leave not upon the earth of the unbelievers a household … their every birth will be a scamp unbelieving … O my Lord, pardon me and my parents", they cannot have failed to realize that Mohammed's own parents had died as pagans before the advent of Islam.

Khalafallâh, in his Al-Fann al-Qasasî, hints at the typological method of interpreting the Koranic scripture when, for instance, he writes: "The picture the Koran gives of the Prophets Hud and Shu'ayb and of how they debated with their fellow-tribesmen, is a general picture which applies to every Prophet. It applies to the Arab Prophet Mohammed" (p. 278); and: "If we try to understand the spiritual excitement of Abraham and Moses [when they destroyed the idols of their fellow-tribesmen] we inevitably understand the circumstances under which Mohammed preached" (p. 280).

⁵⁵ The most important new Koran commentaries in the Arab world outside Egypt are: (1) 'Abd al-Qadir al-Maghrabi, Tafsir Guz' Tabâraka (1919, in the style of Abduh's Tafsir Guz' 'Ammd); Syria; (2) Muhammad 'Izza Darwaza (Daruza?), At-Tafsir al-Hadith, a Koran commentary in which the suras are chronologically rearranged, a novelty for the Moslem world; Palestine; and (3) Muhammad at-Tahir ibn 'Ashur, Tafsir at-Tahrir wa-t-Tanwir; Tunis.

⁵⁶ Mohammed Abduh was born a short time before 1850 in the Egyptian countryside. His exact birthplace and date of birth are not known. In 1862 he began to study at the Ahmadi mosque in Tanta. After a spiritual crisis in 1865 he became interested in mysticism. His uncle Shaykh Darwish introduced him to the Shadhiliorder. Young Abduh became an ardent Sufi, and in 1866 he took up his studies at the Azhar University in Cairo. In 1869 he met a certain Gamal ad-Din, known as Al-Afghani, and was strongly influenced by the theories of this political agitator and theologian. Al-Afghani was originally a Persian Shi'ite, educated in a madhhab which still allowed and practised Igtihdd (though in Al-Afghani's madhhab this term did not have the same meaning as in Sunni Islam). (N. R. Keddie, Sayyid Jamâl ad-Din "al-Afghâni", A Political Biography, 1972, 10-37). Al-Afghami's influence may be responsible for Abduh's later emphasis on the urgency of re-opening the "gate of Igtihâd".

In 1877 Abduh completed his studies at the Azhar University. Between 1877 and 1882 he worked as a journalist and teacher. For his participation, or at least involvement, in the 'Urabi revolt in 1882 he was condemned to exile. The days of his exile were spent in Beirut, Syria, Paris and elsewhere. In 1888 he was pardoned, returned to Egypt, and was appointed judge, by the then Khedive Tawfiq Pasha. When in 1892 'Abbas Hilmi became Khedive, Abduh suggested to him reforms of the Azhar University, which were partly carried out. As C. C. Adams pointed out (Islam and Modernism in Egypt, 72), Abduh was never appointed Rector of the Azhar, although I. Goldziher (Richtungen, 321) seems to suppose so.

In 1899 Abduh was appointed Mufti of Egypt. Also he became appointed member of the Legislative Council. He died in Alexandria in July 1905. (C. C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt, 1933, "Muhammad 'Abduh: Biography", Chapter II-IV, 18-103).

⁵⁷ Abduh writes, e.g.: "Hâhaâ ld yanbaghi an yusammâ tafsîr wa-innamâ huwa darb min at-tamrin fi-l-funûn ka-n-nahw wa-l-ma'dni wa-ghayrhimâ", Tafsir al-Mandr, i, 24: and: "At-tafsîr … 'ibdra 'an al-ittilâ' 'alâ mâ qâlhu ba'd al-'ulamâ' fi kutub at-tafsîr", o.c. i, 25. Amin al-Khuli summarizes Abduh's views as follows: "Wa-l-ahamm fi-t-tafsîr an yakun muhaqqiq li-hidâyat al-Qur'ân", and "Al-maqsad al-haqiqi al-ihtidâ' bi-l-Qur'ân"Manâhig Tagdid, 302.

⁵⁸Tafsîr al-Manâr, i, 26.

⁵⁹ o.c., i, 12: hâgat al-'asr.

⁶⁰ o.c., i, 10: higâb 'ald al-Qur'dn.

⁶¹ Abduh's exegetical work consists of: Tafsir al-Mandr, 1900/01 and later; Tafsir Sûrat al-'Asr, 1903; Tafsir Guz' 'Ammd, 1904; Cf. GAL S III 320. Abduh's Tafsir Szirat al-Fâtiha (1905), which contains an important general introduction to Koran exegesis, has also been printed, with enlargements by Rashîd Ridâ, in the beginning of the first volume of Tafsir al-Mandr (1927). Cf. also C. C. Adams, Islam and Modernism …, 199.

⁶² This is admitted by Abduh himself: "Yûgad min ashâbi man ya 'taqid anna tark hâdhâ ad-dars khayr li min qirâ'atih … wa-innaha muthir li-hasad al-hâsidin ii …" (Tafsir al-Manâr, iv, 23). Cp. also Anwar al-Gundi, Tarâgim al-A 'iâm al-Mu 'âsirin, 423: "Lam ta 'rifhû Misr…"

⁶³ Muhammad Farid Wagdi, Al-Mushaf al-Mufassar, preface. (Ed. Kitâb as-Sha'b, n.d., Cairo).

⁶⁴ 1865-1908; an advocate of a certain degree of emancipation of the Egyptian women. (GAL S III 330).

⁶⁵ The articles by Mustafa Luftl al-Manfaluti have been collected in his An-Nazardt (several editions). The article on Abduh and Qasim Amin appears on p. 106 of the 1910 edition. Abduh and Qasim Amin are mentioned on page 112. Al-Manfalfiti's articles appeared mainly in Al-Mu 'ayyad, the newspaper which had also published the articles on feminism by Qasim Amin that were to be collected in his Tahrir al-Mar'a (1899).

⁶⁶ In 1907 three political parties were founded in Egypt. The "literate" character of these organizations may be inferred from the fact that they were centred around newspapers: The Hizb al-Umma around Al-Jarida; 'Ali Yûsufs Hizb al-Islâh around al-Mu'ayyad; Mustafa Kamil's Al-Hizb al-Watani around Al-Liwd. These parties seem to have been more committees of activists than political parties in the present sense of the word. Their programs were, for instance, silent on the gravest problem of Egypt at the turn of the century: the conditions of the peasants, the fallâhîn.

⁶⁷ Cf. my "I suspect that my friend Abdu (…) was in reality an Agnostic" in P. W. Pestman, ed., Acta Orientalia Neerlandica, Leiden 1971, p. 71.

⁶⁸ L. Gardet & M.-M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane.

⁶⁹ Bell's translation.

⁷⁰'aql dhakî.

⁷¹ Bell's translation.

⁷² On the original meaning of the Koranic Furqân, cf. R. Paret, "Furkân" in EI² and W. M. Watt, Bell's Introduction to the Qur'ân, 145-7.

⁷³ Bell's translation.

⁷⁴ J. H. Kramers, De Koran uit het Arabisch vertaald, Amsterdam 1956. Dictionaries render onderscheiding as "distinction".

⁷⁵ Later Egyptian commentators do not always follow Abduh in this abrupt change from a transcendent view of Furqân to an immanent one. Muhammad Abû Zayd is vaguer than Abduh and defines Furqân as the ability to distinguish between truth and error. The possession of this ability is not necessarily limited to Moslems. Darwaza and Sayyid Qutb think that Furqân is an epithet of Qur 'ân, a possibility mentioned in the classical commentaries. Several modern Turkish Koran translations render the text of the Koran in accordance with this view. Amîn al-Khûlî in his Koran dictionary (cf. p. 61) gives three meanings (argument, victory, a name of the revealed book) and thus does not follow Abduh. Ahmad Mustafâ al-Marâghî seems the only Egyptian commentator who accepts Abduh's rationalist interpretation of Furqân.

Abduh's views on the relationship of reason and revelation are discussed in 'Abdallâh Mahmûd Shihâta's Manhag al-Imâm Muhammad 'Abduh fî Tafsîr al-Qur'ân al-Karîm, Cairo 1963, p. 83: Inna al-wahy masdar hidâya, wa-l-'aql al-insânî masdar hidâya, wakilâhumâ yahduf ilâ tahdîd at-tarîq al-mustaqîm fî hayât al-insân wa-ilâ tahdîd ghâyatih fî hâdhâ al-wugûd.. lâ budd an yatawâfaqâ … (etc.)".

⁷⁶ E.g. Shihâta, o.c., p. M; Muhammad Husayn ad-Dhahabî, At-Tafsîr wa-l-Mufassirzûn, iii, 214; Muhsin 'Abd al-Hamîd, Al-Âlûsî Mufassir^an, Baghdad 1968, 4; 'Abbâs Mahmûd al-'Aqqâd, "Tafsîr al-Ustâdh al-Imâm" in Magallat al-Azhar, xxxv, 389b (November 1963).

⁷⁷ C. C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt, 199. This account is based on Rashîd Ridâ's introduction to the first volume of Tafsîr al-Manâr which was for the first time published in its present form in 1927. Cf. Adams, o.c., 273.

⁷⁸ On Ibn Kathîr's influence on Rashîd Ridâ: cf. Shihâta, o.c., 214. According to A. I. Nussayr, Ibn Kathîr's Koran commentary was printed in 1929 (Matba'at al-Manâr) and 1937, which indicates a certain degree of popularity. (A. I. Nussayr, o.c., 170/2 & 171/2).

⁷⁹Tafsîr al-Manâr, i, 17: "Wa-t-tafsîr alladhî natlubuh huwa fahm al-Kitâb min haythu huwa dîn yurshid annâs ilâ mâ fîhî sa'âdathum fî hayâthim ad-dunyâ wahayâthim al-âkhira"; and o.c., i, 25: " Fa-l-maqsad al-haqîqî warâ [funûn wa-shurût at-tafsîr] huwa al-ihtidâ' bi-l-Qur 'ân ".

⁸⁰ Shihâta, o.c., 137, "manhag al-Imâm fî-l-mubham"; Ad-Dhahabî, o.c., iii, 226: "mawqifuh min mubhamât al-Qur 'ân ".

⁸¹Tafsîr al-Manâr, i, 323 and i, 344.

⁸²Tafsîr al-Manâr, i, 324.

⁸³Tafsîr Guz' 'Ammâ, 59.

⁸⁴Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 19: "Yumkin an yaqûl ba'd ahl hâdhâ al-'asr: lâ hâga ilâ at-tafsîr … li-anna al-a'imma as-sâbiqîn nazarû fî-l-kitâb …fa-mâ 'alaynâ illâ an nanzur fî kutubhim wa-nastaghniy bihâ".

⁸⁵ Shihâta, o.c., 35/9: "I'tibâr as-Sûra wahda mutanâsiqa".

⁸⁶ Bell's translation.

⁸⁷ Shihâta, o.c., 38; Tafsîr al-Manâr, iii, 293.

⁸⁸ Ad-Dhahabî, o.c., iii, 239: "Inkâruh li-ba'dal-ahâdîth as-sahîha ".

⁸⁹ The Koran, in relating a story, pays more attention to the message and to the religious values of the events related than to the events themselves. Sometimes the story itself is hardly recorded in spite of the importance the Koran attaches to the religious lessons that can be drawn from it. In this way the text of the Koran evokes many questions as to the details and background of certain narratives. The first generations of Moslems tried to answer these questions. In the case of stories that were recorded both in the Bible and the Koran, they frequently did so by consulting Jewish and Christian converts to Islam. The sometimes biblical, sometimes pseudo-biblical material which thus entered Islam, and the Koran commentaries, are known as Isrâ'îliyyât. Modernist Moslems often reject the Isrâ'îliyyât traditions because of their irrational, miraculous and fantastical character. Abduh writes, in his Tafsîr al-Fâtiha, p. 6: "lâ yutâbiq al-'aql … "it is not commensurate with Reason".

⁹⁰ Cf. Ad-Dhahabi, o.c., iii, 254: Rashîd Ridâ even attempted to refute some Isrd'iliyydt traditions with the help of original Biblical material; Tafsir al-Mandr, vi, 330 ff.

⁹¹Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 347; iv, 268; etc.

⁹² Ibn 'Abbas' reliability is subject to attack e.g. from I. Goldziher, Richtungen, 65-81.

⁹³ As in all scriptural religions it is a recurring point of discussion in Islam whether the Holy Scripture is "general" (Ar. 'dmm) or "specific" (Ar. khâss). If a text is khâss it was revealed with regard to one particular occasion and does not have universal validity. The simplest example of a text that is undoubtedly khâss is the command to Moses "Go to Pharao", since this command did not concern anyone but Moses. It was not addressed to all mankind. If a text is khâss, specific, the exegetes try to deduce the general rule behind the text, (Ar. ta'mnim, "to make general") and to find out how such a general rule can in turn be made applicable to other situations (Ar. takhsis, "to make specific"). If, on the other hand, a text is 'dmm, general, like the Biblical command "Love thy neighbour", it would be wrong to think that this command only addressed a certain pharisee who happened to be in discussion with Jesus. Such a general command addresses other people as well. Thus, Moslem doctrine holds the commands of the Jewish and Christian scriptures to be khâss, viz. addressed to Jews and Christians only, and hence of no importance to others. Many Moslem theologians regard the Koran as khâss unless the text itself contains indications that it is 'dmm. The Andalusian theologian Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), however, considers a text to be 'dmm, if there is no proof of the contrary in the text itself. These problems are discussed in the sometimes rather hair-splitting works on the so-called Usull al-Fiqh. If a text is khâss this has the advantage that there are many ways of constructing the 'illa, "principle", behind such a text. Cf. e.g. I. Goldziher, Die Zâhiriten, 120 ff.

⁹⁴ Bell's translation.

⁹⁵ W. M. Watt, Muhammad at Mecca, 86.

⁹⁶ ib., e.g. 123.

⁹⁷Tafsir Guz' 'Ammâ, 108. Cf. also Shihata, o.c., 45, " 'Umzum al-Qur'dn": "Fa-kull kitâb nazal 'alâ qawm bi-'aynhim … ammd al-Qur 'dn al-karim fa-huwa da'wa 'dmma li-n-nâs gami' ".

⁹⁸Tafsir al-Manâr, iii, 160.

⁹⁹ viz. Fu'lân.

¹⁰⁰ Shihata, o.c., p. T (preface).

¹⁰¹Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 448: "wa-ld siyyamâ idhâ kânû mayyitin ".

¹⁰² ib.: "mithl al-himâr yahmil asfâr fa-lâ hazz lahû min al-imân bi-l-kitâb.

¹⁰³ Bell's translation.

¹⁰⁴Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 250.

¹⁰⁵ Ad-Dhahabi, o.c., iii, 238: "Mawqifuh min as-sihr"; Shihata, o.c., 109; Tafsir al-Manâr e.g. i, 399-405; vii, 311; vii, 247; ix, 45-59, where the digression is terminated by the formula " 'awd ild tafsîr al-âyât".

¹⁰⁶Tafsir Guz' 'Ammâ, 181-3.

¹⁰⁷ Bell's translation.

¹⁰⁸ In his detailed analysis of the contents of the Manar commentary, Dr. J. Jomier touches upon the subject of magic and sorcery, but exclaims that Egyptians might see in the Western attention to this aspect of Abduh's reform proposals a desir de denigrement. Yet two Arab scholars, Dr. Shihata and Dr. Ad-Dhahabi, in their respective books on Abduh's Koran commentaries, do not hesitate to repeat and analyse Abduh's arguments against the popular forms of magic as practised in Egypt at the turn of the century. Cf. Ad-Dhahabi, o.c., iii, 238; Shihata, o.c., 109; J. Jomier, Le Commentaire Coranique du Manâr, 260.

¹⁰⁹ Cf. Tafsir Guz' 'Ammâ, 144.

¹¹⁰ Cf. Shihata, o.c., 71-76.

¹¹¹ A list of such digressions by Rashîd Ridâ in the Manar commentary is found in Shihata, o.c., 238.

¹¹²Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 7: "Fa-huwa yadhkur fi-mâ yusammih tafsîr al-âya fusuil tawila bi-mundsabat kalima mufrada ka-s-samd' wa-l-ard min 'ulum al-falak wa-n-nabdt wa-l-hayawdn, tasudd qdri 'hd 'ammd anzal Allah li-aglih al-Qur'dn".

¹¹³ J. Jomier, Le Commentaire Coranique du Manâr, 48.

¹¹⁴ 1862-1940; GAL S III 326.

¹¹⁵ Cf. J. M. S. Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran Interpretation, 5: "a manual… on biology … ornamented with Koranic sayings."

¹¹⁶ E.g. "Usul as-Shari'a", Tafsir al-Manâr, v, 168-222; "Manzilat as-Sunna min al-Kitdb", o.c., vi, 154-168; "al-I'gdz", o.c., 198-229; etc.

¹¹⁷ Amin al-Khûli, Manâhig Tagdid, 303: "Al-maqsad al-asbaq …".

¹¹⁸ E.g. Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 22.

¹¹⁹Tafsir al-Fâtiha, 8: "Khâtab Allâh bi-l-Qur'ân man kân fi zaman attanzil" etc. (= Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 20).

¹²⁰ Christian interpreters of the Bible sometimes adhere to the view that Bible interpretation should be e mente auctoris, "from the mind of the author", without reading into the text meanings that cannot have been intended by its human author. The Koran, however, has no human author, but is, as Moslems believe, the direct word of God himself. Consequently, it is not very well possible to reject certain interpretations because the author in his time could not have intended them: God is not subject to limitations, of time, of power, or otherwise. It is, however, possible to reject a certain interpretation because the public at the time of the revelation of the holy text could not have understood it.

¹²¹Tafsir al-Manâr, xii, 5.

¹²² C. C. Adams, o.c., 137; Tafsir al-Manâr, iii, 94-6.

¹²³ I. Goldziher, Richtungen, 356; C. C. Adams, o.c., 137; Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 176; but here also we read: "wa-ld yagzuz sarf al-alfdz 'an ma'anihd alhaqiqiyya" etc.; o.c., i, 174.

¹²⁴ C. C. Adams, o. c., 142.

¹²⁵Tafsir al-Manâr, iii, 96; "Al-Qur'dn arfa' min an yu 'aridah al-'ilm'.

¹²⁶Tafsir al-Manâr, i, 26: "Ma'rifatnâ bi-l-Qur'ân ka-Ma'rifatnâ bi-Llâh ta'âlâ". It seems, however, that Abduh did not believe in the Uncreatedness of the Koran: Cf. E. Kedourie, Afghani and 'Abduh, An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam, 13-4 & references.