This paper studies how medieval Sunnite Muslim exegetes from al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) to Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373) understood the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa and other Ḫ.L.F-derived terms. While previous scholarship has examined how exegetes generally understood the term, this paper scrutinizes the exegetical commentaries (tafsīr) chronologically in order to discern the semantic and terminological shifts accompanying different commentaries over time. It demonstrates the importance of an intertextual approach in placing tafsīr literature in dialogue with writings on the caliphate in works of theology (kalām) and law ( fiqh). Overall, the paper argues that the legal and theological development of the Sunnite theory of the caliphate provided exegetes with new clusters of terminology associated with the caliphate to enrich their commentaries on the Ḫ.L.F verses. This process was in turn catalyzed by the systematization of the caliphate discourse and the canonization of the four-caliphs thesis during the Sunnite Revival.
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Ibid., p. 409-411.
Ibid., p. 405-411.
Claude Gilliot, “Exegesis of the Qurʾān: Classical and Medieval”, in Encyclopedia of the Qurʾān (eq), ed. Jane McAuliffe, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2002.
Ibid., p. 211; al-Qāḍī, “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 396; Mahmoud Ayoub, The Qurʾan andItsInterpreters, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1984, i, p. 3.
Ibid., i, p. 228; id., The Commentary on the Qurʾan: An Abridged Translation of Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl al-Qurʾān, transl. John Cooper, Wilferd Madelung and Alan Jones, New York, Oxford University Press, 1987, i, p. 208.
Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, i, p. 228-229; id., Commentary, p. 208.
Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, i, p. 229; id., Commentary, p. 210.
Al-Ṭabarī, Ǧāmiʿ al-bayān, i, p. 230; id., Commentary, p. 210. Emphasis mine.
Ibid., ii, p. 446-447.
George Makdisi, “The Sunni Revival”, in Islamic Civilization, 950-1150, ed. Donald Sydney Richards, London, William Clowes & Sons Limited (« Papers on Islamic history », 3), 1973, p. 155.
Ibid., vii, p. 115.
Ibid., i, p. 95.
Ibid., v, p. 90. See also al-Samarqandī’s commentary on this verse where, in explaining the term ḫalīfa as one who takes the place of another before him, he writes: “before him [i.e. David], prophethood (nubuwwa) used to inhere in one tribe and kingship (mulk) in another; but God granted both to David”. Al-Samarqandī, Baḥr al-ʿulūm, iii, p. 134.
Al-Māwardī, al-Nukat wa-l-ʿuyūn, iv, p. 477. This very statement is also used by al-Māwardī in his Aḥkām to support his claim that the caliph ought to be addressed as ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh instead of ḫalīfat Allāh. See id., al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya, ed. Aḥmad Ǧād, Cairo, Dār al-ḥadīṯ, 2006, p. 39; transl. Wafaa Wahba, The Ordinances of Government, Reading-London, Centre for Muslim Contribution to Civilization-Garnet Publishing, 1996, p. 15-16.
Ibid., ii, p. 326.
Saleh, Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition, p. 208-209.
Al-Qāḍī, “The Term ‘Khalīfa’ ”, p. 410. For al-Walīd ii’s quoting of Kor 2, 30 in his testament, see al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīḫ, iii, p. 1759; translated in Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 118-126.
Ibid., p. 924; David Johnston, Earth, Empire and Sacred Text: Muslims and Christians as Trustees of Creation, London, Equinox Publishing Ltd (« Comparative Islamic Studies »), 2010, p. 285.
Al-Māwardī, Aḥkām, p. 13-15; id., Ordinances, p. 1-3; al-Ġazālī, Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya, p. 155. See also Ibn al-Ǧawzī, al-Miṣbāḥ al-muḍīʾ fī ḫilāfat al-Mustaḍīʾ, ed. Nāǧiyya ʿAbd Allāh Ibrāhīm, Baghdad, Al-Awqāf Press, 1976, i, p. 93, where he claims, “Verily the caliphate is a deputyship in place of God (niyāba ʿan Allāh) regarding His servants and His lands and the implementation of His commands and judgments (tanfīḏ awāmirihi wa-aḥkāmihi).”
As S.R. Burge argues, “Even when a preferred reading is not expressly given, the form and arrangement of the selection of readings may provide an indication of an exegete’s personal view.” Burge, “Search for Meaning”, p. 64.
Norman Calder, “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the description of a genre, illustrated with reference to the story of Abraham”, in Approaches to the Qurʾan, ed. Gerald R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, London-New York, Routledge (« Routledge/soas series on contemporary politics and culture in the Middle East »), 1993, p. 114.
Ibid., xxiv, p. 24-25.
Ibid., xxiv, p. 25.
Josef Van Ess, “Political Ideas in Early Islamic Religious Thought”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 28/2 (2001), p. 153-156; Crone, MedievalIslamic Political Thought, p. 134-135.
See Mona Hassan, “Loss of Caliphate: The Trauma and Aftermath of 1258 and 1924”, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, 2009, p. 110-170. For al-Ǧuwaynī’s political thought, see Wael Hallaq, “Caliphs, Jurists and the Saljūqs in the Political Thought of Juwaynī”, The Muslim World, 74/1 (1984), p. 26-41; Crone, MedievalIslamic Political Thought, p. 234-237. This frequent citing of al-Ǧuwaynī’s ideas on the caliphate will be encountered again later in Ibn Kaṯīr’s (d. 774/1373) commentary on Kor 2, 30.
Ibid., i, p. 281-283.
Ibid., i, p. 284.
Ibid., xiv, p. 342.
Ibid., xii, p. 296.
Jane McAuliffe, “Quranic Hermeneutics: The Views of al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr”, in Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurʾān, ed. Andrew Rippin, Oxford-New York, Clarendon Press-Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 56-57; Calder, “Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr”, p. 120-134.
Ibid., p. 635.
Ibid., p. 54.
Al-Azmeh, “Monotheistic Monarchy”, p. 284. Consider, for instance, the flattering statement addressed to the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil (d. 247/861) that he was ḫalīfat Allāh fī ʿibādihi wa-ḫalīfat rasūl Allāh fī ummatihi. Cited in Crone and Hinds, God’s Caliph, p. 16.
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This paper studies how medieval Sunnite Muslim exegetes from al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) to Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373) understood the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa and other Ḫ.L.F-derived terms. While previous scholarship has examined how exegetes generally understood the term, this paper scrutinizes the exegetical commentaries (tafsīr) chronologically in order to discern the semantic and terminological shifts accompanying different commentaries over time. It demonstrates the importance of an intertextual approach in placing tafsīr literature in dialogue with writings on the caliphate in works of theology (kalām) and law ( fiqh). Overall, the paper argues that the legal and theological development of the Sunnite theory of the caliphate provided exegetes with new clusters of terminology associated with the caliphate to enrich their commentaries on the Ḫ.L.F verses. This process was in turn catalyzed by the systematization of the caliphate discourse and the canonization of the four-caliphs thesis during the Sunnite Revival.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 482 | 43 | 5 |
Full Text Views | 240 | 11 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 100 | 14 | 0 |