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Majāz al-qur'ān: periphrastic exegesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

John Wansbrough
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As a normative discipline Qur'anic exegesis shares both principles and terminology with the other Islamic sciences, and as such is not likely to have been articulated before the third/ninth century. Prominent in the fully elaborated system, as for example exhibited in the work of al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1143), are the complementary principles of qiyās and taqdīr. While the former is commonly understood to represent the hermeneutical instrument called analogy, a typological description of qiyās will distinguish between applications of the principle which depend upon a textual similarity, and those which are derived from a rational or causal relation. Of the first type it may be said that there are as many kinds of analogy as there are means of establishing external (grammatical and lexical) affinity between different scriptural contexts. Underlying the second type of analogy is a unifying principle (ratio) independent of textual similarities, both explicit and implicit. In theory, if not always in practice, one may differentiate the two types of qiyās by reference to the incidence in each of what I have called the complementary principle of taqdīr. This term, of which the most common rendering ‘supplementation’ (Ergänzung), alluding to only one aspect of the procedure in question, is not quite satisfactory, signifies reconstruction or restoration (Wiederherstellung: restitutio in integrum), namely, of a scriptural context or passage. Now, while the elaboration of grammatical qiyās by the so-called ‘Basran school’ was characterized by an almost unlimited application of that principle, two reservations must be made.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 1970 , pp. 247 - 266
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1970

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References

1 See Goldziher, I., Die Ẓāhiriten, Leipzig, 1884, passim, but esp. 11, 41, 48, 56, 91–3, 184Google Scholar. In ch. iv of my forthcoming book, Qur'anic studies, a description of exegetical, as opposed to hermeneutical, qiyās is essayed. In the following pages discussion will be limited to the devices employed by exegetes to establish textual similarities as a basis for application of qiyās, and more especially to their methods of ‘textual restoration’.

2 See Weil, G., Die grammatischen Schulen von Kufa und Basra, Leiden, 1913, esp. 48–68Google Scholar, but also 26: ‘Das Taqdir ist die Notwehr des Grammatikers im Kampfe für das Qijās gegen die Ueberlieferung’. I find this formulation not entirely felicitous but note that it is qualified by the author's remark, 27: ‘Es (Taqdīr) ist die Kehrseite der Qijāsmedaille’. I should prefer to regard qiyās and taqdīr as originally and essentially separate principles, later incorporated as complementary components of normative exegesis.

3 See Wansbrough, J., ‘Arabic rhetoric and Qur'anic exegesis’, BSOAS, xxxi, 3, 1968, 469–85, and the reference there, p. 469, n. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Ed. F. Sezgin, 2 vols., Cairo, 1954–62, based on five MSS. Introductory chapter, I, 1–19, in which the 39 kinds of majāz are set out on pp. 8–16, with a summary (incomplete) pp. 18–19.

5 Ḥillāwī, Nāṣir, in his A study of Abū ‘Ubaida Ma'mar ibn al-Muthannā as a philologist and transmitter of literary material (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1966), 306–59Google Scholar, renders majāz ‘trope’ and thus assumes for Abū ‘Ubaida the antithesis majāz–ḥaqīqa.

6 In the course of his commentary Abū ‘Ubaida uses also ay and ma'nāhu for this purpose. See below, p. 258.

7 e.g., I, 1, 1. 13, and curiously 1. 20: majāz tafsīr, clearly synonymous with majāz (as in II. 3–7, 11–12). Tafsīr itself was in all likelihood not yet an exegetical terminus technicus, see BSOAS, xxxi, 3, 1968, 470, 473 ffGoogle Scholar.

8 cf. Nöldeke, T., Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, Strassburg, 1910, 9–10, 13Google Scholar.

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10 Al-Jurjānī, , Asrār al-balāgha, ed. Ritter, H., Istanbul, 1954, trans. Wiesbaden, 1959, para. 26.2Google Scholar: idhā tajarrad ‘an taghyīr hukm min ahkām mā baqiya ba'd al-ḥadhf lam yusamma majāzā.

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20 And have thus omitted it there, since it neither fits the rubric nor is it provided with a defining majāz.

21 cf. al-Zamakhaharī, and al-Baiḍāwī, ad xxx, 19Google Scholar.

22 Based on the equivalenceαω: ωα, cf. al-AnbᾱrĪ, Ibn, Inṣᾱf, 478–84(mas'ala 67)Google Scholar.

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24 See above, p. 254, n. 9.

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29 Weil, , Gramm. Schulen, p. 39, n. 1Google Scholar, al-qiyᾱs ‘alᾱ ‘l-shᾱdhdh (hapax legomenon).

30 Weil, , Gramm. Schulen, p. 56, nn. 1, 2, an d p. 79Google Scholar; the term taqdir was also employed to designate restoration(wazn, mithᾱl) of morphological abrasion (AbscMeifung:hadhfli-kathrat dt-isti'mᾱl), cf. op. cit., 11–14, and possibly as a mean s of distinguishing quantitative from accentual (taf'il) scansion, see Weil, , Orundriss und System der altarabischen Metren, Wiesbaden, 1958, p. 40, n. 1 and Anhang BGoogle Scholar; cf.BS0A, XXXII, 3, 1969, p. 495, n. 62Google Scholar.

31 Inṣỳf, 187, cf. Abu ‘Ubaida, no. 22; the same verse may also be interpreted as ellipsis and reconstituted on the supposition of a missing predicate, Inṣỳf, 189, cf. Abū ʽUbaida, no. 3.

32 Inṣỳf, 260, cf. Abū ʽUbaida no. 22; the opposite phenomenon is exhibited in Qur'ān II, 154, . See Keckendorf, , Syn. Ver., 307, but also paras. 24, 115, 155Google Scholar.

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43 This question is examined in ch. ii of my forthcoming work, mentioned above, p. 247, n. 1.

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49 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xxi (variant ), p. 57, n. 49Google Scholar; and cf. Rosenthal, , ‘Job’, 184Google Scholar, and Ecker, , Job, 313 (32.7)Google Scholar.

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55 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xix, p. 53, n. 31Google Scholar.

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59 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. vi, p. 24, n. 11Google Scholar.

60 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. iv, p. 19, n. 14Google Scholar.

61 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. v, p. 23, n. 7Google Scholar.

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64 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. iv, p. 19, n. 16Google Scholar.

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67 Kitᾱb al-amᾱnᾱt wa 'l-i'tiqädᾱt, ed. Landauer, S., Leiden, 1880, 94Google Scholar; cf. refs. Ecker, , Job, p. 243, n. 10Google Scholar.

68 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xxiii, p. 60, n. 64Google Scholar; and Janᾱh, Ibn, Kitᾱb al-luma', 64Google Scholar, with reference to Gen. xxxix, 17, cited there. Cf. Abu 'Ubaida, no. 18.

69 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xiii, p. 39, n. 7Google Scholar; cf. Horovitz, , Koranische Untersuchungen, 5Google Scholar.

70 See above, p. 255, n. 12; Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xxi, p. 58, n. 53Google Scholar.

71 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xix, p. 52, n. 28Google Scholar; Kitᾱb al-luma', 67; and cf. the Karaite argument for Exod. xxxv, 3, based on the distinction between ‘kindling’ and ‘destroying’, cited by Skoss, S., Kitᾱb jᾱmi' al-alfᾱz of David b. Abraham al-Fasi, New Haven, 1936, I, pp. li–liiGoogle Scholar. For variable function of (interchangeable) particles, ef. Abᾱ 'Ubaida, no. 30.

72 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xiv, p. 42, n. 9Google Scholar; see above, p. 257, p. 258, n. 32.

73 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. v, p. 21, n. 24Google Scholar; cf. Strack, , Talmud, p. 97, no. 31Google Scholar; Abu 'Ubaida, no. 22.

74 Galliner, , Psalmen, p. ix, p. 25, n. 4Google Scholar; Abᾱ 'Ubaida, no. 34.

75 Lauterbach, , Psalmen, p. xv, p. 44, n. 14Google Scholar; Abᾱ 'Ubaida, no. 36.

76 Galliner, , Psalmen, p. xxiv, p. 47, n. 7Google Scholar; Abᾱ 'Ubaida, I, 35–6.

77 This problem is, on the basis of external data alone, insoluble, owing both to the state of the manuscript material underlying the (not altogether satisfactory) edition of Majᾱz al-Qur'ᾱn and to the quite extraordinary relationship between the ‘‘Uthmanic codex’ and the several ‘variant texts’, see Nöldeke, , Oeschichte des Qorᾱns, iii, Leipzig, 1938, 57–115Google Scholar; and for Qur''ᾱn xx, 63, cf. ibid., 4–5. Prom internal evidence it could be argued that the mechanism itself of majᾱz (as later of taqdῑr) can only have been devised to meet the problems posed by a more or less fixed text.

78 See the references to Ibn al-Anbᾱrῑ adduced by Weil, , Gramm. Schulen, p. 26, n. 1Google Scholar; and above, p. 257, n. 27.

79 Version arabe du livre de Job, ed. Bacher, W., Paris, 1899, introduction, p. 7, 11. 17–20Google Scholar; cf. Kosenthal, , ‘Job’, 179Google Scholar; Ecker, , Job, 3, and 318 (27.23)Google Scholar; and Bacher, , Bibelezegese, p. 11, n. 2Google Scholar.

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81 See Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, München, 1960, paras. 589–98Google Scholar.

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83 Asrᾱr al-balᾱaha, paras. 21–3, and supplementary 24–6; a less sophisticated refutation of arguments against Qur'anic inajᾱz is found in Ibn Qutaiba (d. 276/889), Kitᾱb ta'wil mushkil al-Qur'ᾱn, Cairo, 1954, 99Google Scholar.

84 1Asrᾱr al-balᾱaha., paras. 23.3, 5.

85 Asrᾱr al-balᾱaha., paras. 23.1, 8.

86 Asrᾱr al-balᾱgha, para. 23.10.

87 Asrᾱr al-balᾱgha, paras. 23.11–16, 26.8, 9; cf. Weisweiler, M., ‘'Abdalqahir al-Curcani's Werk’, 90–4Google Scholar; and Vossler, K., Einführung ins Vulgärlatein, München, 1954, 187Google Scholar.