In his paper,
“The Last of the Nishapuri School of Tafsīr: Al-Wāhidī (d. 468/1076) and his
Significance in the History of Qur’ānic Exegesis,” Walid Saleh, looks at the
gradual privileging of theological constructs over philological readings of the
text as discourse moves towards unifying themes more acceptable to particular
theologies.
Saleh, in my
humble opinion, employs modern textual criticism inter alia to proffer his
thesis. This short review of Saleh’s paper focuses on that aspect of his
critique. In his article, Saleh adduces an example from al-Wāhidī’s al-Basīt in
relation to Q. 93:7
to indicate that the exegetical approach of al-Wāhidī, a philologist, grammarian
and exegete, was, at times, compromised at the hands of Sunni creed that, in his
opinion, had impacted many other exegetes; even al-Zamakhsharī (d. 1144).
In that sense, al-Wāhidī’s al- Basīt, according to Saleh, is at variance with
his later approach to the Qur’ān, for example in al-Wasīt.
Saleh’s thesis and argumentation
are problematic for a number of reasons:
Firstly, even though Saleh’s
assumption that theological views impacted exegetical constructs is corroborated
by textual and other historical evidence quite clearly,
the indication that exegetes as al-Zamakhsharī (known and respected for his
linguistic analyses) and even al-Wāhidī himself (in al-Wasīt), to name two of
the many others, overlooked philological aspects in their attempts to reconcile
the apparent meaning with their overall understanding of the Prophet’s
characterization and is in want of further evidence. There is not enough
evidence provided by Saleh to show convincingly that other meanings or
interpretations privileged by these exegetes were not possible grammatically or
would have been clearly incongruous in the given context of the verse. The
assumption that the literal or apparent meaning of a verse (zāhir) is always the
more accurate one in philological terms is flawed. First of all, a simple
reading of any lexicon of Classical Arabic for instance will show that even in
terms of literal meanings possibilities other than “misguided” etc. do exist for
the word.
Moreover, even in terms of textual analysis based on philology, meanings of
words are seen within the context of sentence(s), paragraph(s), and overall
theme(s), etc. Inter alia, it is often the qarā’in (contextual indicators in a
text) that take preponderance in such analyses for privileging one possible
meaning over another. In looking at these contextual indicators, it is not only
the literal meaning that has to be considered but also the literary use of the
word or phrase in a certain context.
This aspect is significant in itself irrespective of whether the idea of
infallibility of the prophets as constructed by the Sunni scholars in question
is necessarily evidenced by the Qur’ānic text or not.
An aspect of these contextual
factors one has to take into consideration is that, despite such references in
the Qur’ān to certain instances of irregularity in some prophets in relation to
Divine expectation of them,
there are evident characterizations of the Prophet in terms of inerrancy in
communication of Divine logos as well as in terms of being on the “right” fitrah
(nature): for example, the character of Abraham is often invoked as an epitome
of monotheism in the context of the Prophet’s own mission.
It is very hard to imagine that, with this interpellation of the monotheistic
identity, retaliatory comments from the Prophet’s opponents would not have
emerged in relation to his past polytheism if that had been the case and that
the Qur’ān then would not have countered that criticism just as it did in terms
of comparatively lesser accusations of his being a poet, someone possessed, etc.
Even in terms of extraneous evidence outside the Qur’ānic text, it is hard to
imagine that narratives would not have found their way into mainstream hadīth
literature and would not have been widely invoked or discussed at some point or
the other in relation to characterizations of the Prophet. Entertaining the
possibility of systematic or progressive eradication of such reports is equally
untenable if one understands the nature of transmission of reports of various
kinds, both ahād and mutawātir. Early, public manifestations of polytheistic
proclivity in the Prophet should have become a major issue later.
Finally, internal context of the
text of the sūrah itself becomes an impediment to readily accepting Saleh’s
thesis. As adumbrated before, literary use of the word has to be understood in
its context. For example, in Antony’s famous speech in Shakespeare's Julius
Caesar, continual reference to Brutus as “honorable man” will not be understood
as figurative only by a novice. As already mentioned, even in terms of literal
meanings, possibilities other than “misguided” etc. do exist for dāll. If modern
textual analysis has to be employed to critique earlier constructs in history,
it is also important to look into other possibilities in modern interpretations
of import. Saleh’s thesis, therefore, will also have to compete with modern
textual interpretations by exegetes who, on the bases internal, textual evidence
of the sūrah and philology, proffer that “you were wandering [in pursuit of
guidance]…” is a more plausible a translation of the word in this context.
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