The Culmination of Tradition-based Tafsīr The Qurʼān Exegesis al-Durr al-manthūr of al-Suyūṭī

354 Pages·2012·2.17 MB·English

The Culmination of Tradition-based Tafsīr
The Qurʼān Exegesis al-Durr al-manthūr
of al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505)
by
Shabir Ally
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Shabir Ally 2012
The Culmination of Tradition-based Tafsīr
The Qurʼān Exegesis al-Durr al-manthūr
of al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505)

Shabir Ally
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto
2012
Abstract
This is a study of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī’s al-Durr al-manthūr fi-l-tafsīr bi-l-
ma’thur (The scattered pearls of tradition-based exegesis), hereinafter al-Durr. In the
present study, the distinctiveness of al-Durr becomes evident in comparison with the
tafsīrs of al- a arī (d. 310/923) and I n Kathīr (d. 774/1373). Al-Suyūṭī surpassed these
exegetes by relying entirely on ḥadīth (tradition). Al-Suyūṭī rarely offers a comment of
his own. Thus, in terms of its formal features, al-Durr is the culmination of tradition-
based exegesis (tafsīr bi-l-ma’thūr).
This study also shows that al-Suyūṭī intended in al-Durr to subtly challenge the
tradition- ased hermeneutics of I n Taymīyah (d. 728/1328). According to Ibn
Taymīyah, the true, unified, interpretation of the Qurʼān must be sought in the Qurʼān
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itself, in the traditions of Muḥammad, and in the exegeses of the earliest Muslims.
Moreover, I n Taymīyah strongly denounced opinion-based exegesis (tafsīr bi-l-ra’y).
By means of the traditions in al-Durr, al-Suyūṭī supports several of his views in
contradistinction to those of I n Taymīyah. Al-Suyūṭī’s traditions support the following
views. First, opinion-based exegesis is a valid supplement to tradition-based exegesis.
Second, the early Muslim community was not quite unified. Third, the earliest Qur’ānic
exegetes did not offer a unified exegesis of the Qur’ān. Fourth, Qur’ānic exegesis is
necessarily polyvalent since Muslims accept a num er of readings of the Qur’ān, and
variant readings give rise to various interpretations.
Al-Suyūṭī collected his traditions from a wide variety of sources some of which
are now lost. Two major exegetes, al-Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834) and al-Ālūsī (d.
1270/1854), copied some of these traditions from al-Durr into their Qur’ān
commentaries. In this way, al-Suyūṭī has succeeded in shedding new light on rare,
neglected, and previously scattered traditions.
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Acknowledgments
My thanks are due to each of the numerous persons who have helped me to
complete this dissertation. My special thanks are due to my advisor, Professor Walid
Saleh, and to the other members of my advisory committee, Professors Todd Lawson and
Sebastian Guenther. I would also like to thank those who have taught me over the years,
including Professors Linda Northrup, Maria Subtelny, Abdel Khaliq Ali, Harry Fox, and
the late Professor Michael Marmura. I would also like to thank each of the several
persons who volunteered their time to sit with me, patiently teaching me the Arabic
language.
I would also like to thank all those individuals in the Department of Near and
Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto who have helped me with the
administrative aspects of student life, especially Anna Souza and Jennie Jones.
I would also like to offer my thanks for the University of Toronto Fellowship
grant. Likewise I thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for
awarding me a Canada Graduate Scholarship. These grants made it feasible for me to
devote much of my time to study and research over the last several years.
I would also like to thank my children for putting up with a father who always had
his nose buried in books for as long as they could remember. Finally, I would like to
thank my wife, for she has sacrificed a lot to see me through my studies. She is a real
blessing in my life.
I dedicate this study to my parents. May God have mercy on them.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... iv
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1
Survey of scholarship .................................................................................... 12
Thesis Outline ............................................................................................... 17
Chapter 1 ....................................................................................................................... 19
The Life and Works of al-Suyūṭī .................................................................................. 19
1.1 Life .......................................................................................................... 19
1.2 Controversies .......................................................................................... 21
1.3 Mujaddid ................................................................................................. 26
1.4 Disappointment and Seclusion ................................................................ 30
1.5 Spirituality ............................................................................................... 35
1.6 Literary Accomplishments ...................................................................... 37
1.7 Unique views .......................................................................................... 40
Chapter 2 ....................................................................................................................... 49
The Composition of al-Durr al-manthūr ...................................................................... 49
2.1 The Author at Work ................................................................................ 49
2.2 The Structure of al-Durr ......................................................................... 49
2.3 Al-Suyūṭī’s Introduction to al-Durr ........................................................ 52
2.4 Al-Suyūṭī’s Purpose in Composing a Tradition-based Exegesis ............ 59
2.5 Acknowledged Sources of al-Durr ......................................................... 63
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2.6 Emphasis on Four Sources ...................................................................... 66
2.7 Unacknowledged Sources of al-Durr ..................................................... 73
2.8 Summary ................................................................................................. 88
Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................................... 92
Legends and Isrā’īlīyāt in al-Durr al-manthūr ............................................................. 92
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 92
3.2 The Mountain Qāf ................................................................................... 96
3.3 The Ascension of Idrīs .......................................................................... 103
3.4 Fallen Angels ........................................................................................ 113
3.5 The Explanatory Power of the Fable of the Fallen Angels ................... 128
3.6 Connecting the Ascension of Idrīs with the Fall of the Angels ............ 132
3.7 Al-Suyūṭī’s Influence on Su sequent Exegeses.................................... 136
3.8 Summary ............................................................................................... 140
Chapter 4 ..................................................................................................................... 142
Reclaiming Wisdom Traditions .................................................................................. 142
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 142
4.2 The Struggle to Redefine Ḥikmah ......................................................... 146
4.3 The Wisdom of Solomon ...................................................................... 157
4.4 Luqmān ................................................................................................. 162
4.5 Al-Shawkānī’s Reaction ....................................................................... 174
4.6 Al-Suyūṭī’s Influence on al-Ālūsī ......................................................... 175
4.7 Indirect Influence on Ibn ʽĀshūr ........................................................... 176
4.8 Summary ............................................................................................... 177
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Chapter 5 ..................................................................................................................... 180
Jesus’ Wisdom and Ṣūfī Exegesis .............................................................................. 180
5.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 180
5.2 The Christ Child and Allegorical Exegesis ........................................... 189
5.3 The Wisdom of the Ascetic Jesus ......................................................... 208
5.4 Summary ............................................................................................... 221
Chapter 6 ..................................................................................................................... 225
Political and Sectarian Exegesis ................................................................................. 225
6.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 225
6.2 ʽAlī as the Patron of Muslims ............................................................... 227
6.3 ʽAlī as the Guide of Muslims ................................................................ 236
6.4 The Seven Civil Wars ........................................................................... 244
6.5 Summary ............................................................................................... 258
Chapter 7 ..................................................................................................................... 262
Variant Readings of the Qur’ān .................................................................................. 262
7.1 Introduction ........................................................................................... 262
7.1.1 The Exegetes’ Attitudes towards Variant Readings .......................... 263
7.1.2 The Importance of Variant Readings for Exegesis ............................ 274
7.2 Variant Readings as a Source of Various Exegeses .............................. 276
7.3 Variants Mentioned by al- a arī and I n Kathīr .................................. 281
7.4 Variants Not Mentioned by al- a arī and I n Kathīr ........................... 295
7.5 Variants Mentioned by al-Suyūṭī Alone ............................................... 303
7.6 Summary ............................................................................................... 307
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Chapter 8 ..................................................................................................................... 312
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 312
Bibliography ............................................................................................... 327

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Introduction
Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) was born in Cairo in 849/1445. He was to
become one of the most celebrated scholars from the medieval period of Islamic history.1
Al-Suyūṭī’s works num er as many as six hundred.2 Among them, his al-Itqān fī ʽulūm
al-Qurʼān (The perfection of the sciences of the Qurʼān) has become a classical textbook
of Qurʼānic studies.3 Moreover, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn is one of the most popular tafsīrs due
to its accessibility and its placement within developed Sunnī orthodoxy. That short
Qurʼān exegesis was begun by al-Suyūṭī’s teacher Jalāl al-Dīn al Maḥallī (d. 864/1459)
and completed by al-Suyūṭī.4
Despite al-Suyūṭī’s fame, however, his massive tafsīr, al-Durr al-manthūr fi-l-
tafsīr bi-l-ma’thur (The scattered pearls of tradition-based exegesis) remains relatively
neglected.5 Yet this work is important for scholarly study, for it gathers traditions from
many ḥadīth sources and classical exegetical texts, some of them now lost.6 That the

1 Roy Jackson, Fifty Key Figures in Islam (New York: Routledge, 2006).

2 McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, “Exegetical Sciences” in Andrew Rippin, ed. The Blackwell
Companion to the Qurʼān. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 403-419, p.404.

3 Al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʽulūm al-Qur'ān, ed. Saʽīd al-Mandūh (Beirut: Muʼassat al-Kutub al-
Thaqāfīyah, 2004), hereinafter the Itqān.

4 Al-Maḥallī and Al-Suyūṭī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (Beirut: Makta at Lu nān, 2000).

5 Al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr fi-l-tafsīr bi-l-maʼthūr, ed. Shaykh Najdat Najī (Beirut: Dar Ehia
al-Tourath al-Arabi, 2001) hereinafter al-Durr.

6 I use the lowercase ḥadīth to depict an individual tradition, and also to denote the massive
literature comprising countless ḥadīths. The distinction will be clear from the context. However, John
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ḥadīth collections are important sources for Qurʼānic commentary has been highlighted
in an article by R. Marston Speight.7 Al-Suyūṭī’s encyclopaedic commentary is justifiably
the culmination of the exegetical genre tafsīr bi-l-ma’thur (exegesis according to
tradition). As a commentary of this type, al-Durr strictly maintains the form of the
discipline, reporting traditional comments with only a very few interventions from the
author.
Al-Durr will be best understood as a response to what Walid Saleh referred to as
the radical hermeneutics of the Ḥanbalī theologian I n Taymīyah (d. 728/1328).8 An
early distinction between tafsīrs of two genres, tafsīr bi-l-ma’thūr and tafsīr bi-l-ra’y
(opinion-based exegesis), was brought into sharp focus in Muqaddimah fī uṣūl al-tafsīr
(An introduction to the principles of exegesis) by I n Taymīyah.9 Such a dichotomy is
misleading, but it has nonetheless become common to refer to exegetical works as being
on either side of the divide. Although no work has proved itself under scrutiny to be
clearly based on tradition only, the work of al- a arī (d. 310/923) has achieved scholarly
recognition as the first major collection of exegetical traditions.10 For the last work of this
genre from the medieval period, scholars usually look to a student of I n Taymīyah, Ibn

Burton prefers to use the uppercase Ḥadīth to denote the literature. See John Burton, An Introduction to the
Ḥadīth (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994) p. ix.

7 R. Marston Speight, “The Function of ḥadīth as Commentary on the Qurʼān, as Seen in the Six
Authoritative Collections,” in Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the
Qur’ān (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) pp. 63-81.

8 Walid Saleh, “I n Taymiyya and the Rise of Radical Hermeneutics,” in Ibn Taymiyya and his
Times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 123-62, p. 125.

9 I n Taymīyah, Muqaddimah fī uṣul al-tafsīr in Musāʽid . Sulaymān . Nāṣir al- ayyār, Sharh
Muqaddimah fī uṣul al-tafsīr li-bn Taymīyah (Damam: Dār I n al-Jawzī, 2007-8).

10 Al- a arī, A ū Ja far Muḥammad b. Jarīr. Jāmi al-bayān ‘an ta’wīl āy al-Qur’ān Tafsīr al-
abarī. Beirut: Iḥya al-Turāth al- Ara ī, 2001.

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