Обсуждение:Ши‘изм
Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān / Shīʿa
Literally, “party/followers.” The term shīʿa occurs eleven times in the Qurʾān, with the first use in Sūrat al-Anʿām ( q 6, “The Cattle”) and the last in Sūrat al-Qamar ( q 54, “The Moon”). The word itself is lexically derived from the Arabic verb shāʿa, yashīʿu, meaning “to spread, disseminate, divulge, publicize or become known,” and in this sense occurs once, in q 24:19: “Those who love to spread (an tashīʿa) scandal among the believers….” The primary meaning of the term shīʿa (pl. shiyaʿ and ashyāʿ) that is conveyed in the Qurʾān is that of factions, communities, people with similar views and faith, followers and supporters, as portrayed in q 37:83, “Verily Abraham (q.v.) was surely among the followers [of Noah; q.v.]” (wa-inna min shīʿatihi la-Ibrāhīm; see parties and factions ).
q 6:65 speaks of God's power to reduce humankind to factions (aw yalbisakum shiyaʿan), with exegetes offering varying opinions as to whether shiyaʿ meant the Jews and Christians in particular or the consequence of arbitrary human conflict (see jews and judaism; christians and christianity; religious pluralism and the qurʾān). Al-Qummī (fl. mid fourth/tenth cent.; Tafsīr, ad loc.) alludes to religious differences and ʿAlī b. ¶ Muḥammad b. al-Walīd (d. 612/1215; Tāj, ad loc.) to community dispute after the Prophet. q 6:159 refers to those who split their religion and become disparate groups (kānū shiyaʿan), and q 30:31-2 exhorts believers not to be part of them (see religion; belief and unbelief). q 28:4 addresses Pharaoh (q.v.) who arrogantly created divisions among his people (wa- jaʿala ahlahā shiyaʿan). The plural form ashyāʿ in q 34:54 as interpreted by al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923; Tafsīr, ad q 54:51), refers to those who had intensely questioned the truth (q.v.), while q 54:51 addresses the polytheists (see polytheism and atheism ) among Quraysh (q.v.), warning them about how communities in the past had been destroyed (kamā fuʿila bi-ashyāʿihim; see punishment stories ).
q 15:10, on the other hand, employs the term to portray communities to whom messengers (see messenger ) had been sent: “Indeed, we sent [messengers] before you among communities of the past” (arsalnā min qablika fī shiyaʿ al-awwalīna). Twice in q 28:15 it is used for Moses (q.v.), exegetes agreeing that shīʿatihi meant the religion of Moses, just as they explain min shīʿatihi in q 37:83 as Abraham following Noah's religion. In Ibn al-Walīd's Tāj al-aqāʾid, these verses appear inter-textually to reflect religion as affection for ʿAlī (see ʿalī b. abī ṭālib ) alongside the prophetic tradition regarding Noah's ark (q.v.), which states that true believers are henceforth called shīʿa.
Thus, in four instances ( q 6:65, 159; 28:4; 30:32), the term shīʿa has been used to convey the meaning of factions while on four other occasions the word is applied to ancient communities of faith to whom prophets were sent (q.v.; q 15:10; 28:15 twice; 37:83; see prophets and prophethood ). When the Qurʾān speaks of shiyaʿ al-awwalīn and shīʿatihi, it essentially refers to previously rightly-guided communities (see ¶ generations ), but kānū shiyaʿan is used in the divisive sense, while the plural ashyāʿ is applied to formerly erring people (see error; astray), and min kullī shīʿatin in q 19:69 means communities in general.
In post-qurʾānic Arabic writings, the word shīʿa can be used in either a qualified or unqualified form, as definite or indefinite. The word can be used in a construct phrase to indicate the “followers” of a particular individual: shīʿat Muʿāwiya, for example. Invariably, when the term is found with the definite article (al-) and no other qualifier, the followers of ʿAlī are meant: al-shīʿa are the “followers [of ʿAlī]” (shīʿat ʿAlī), those who, as described in Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī's (d. ca. 322/934) Kitāb al-Zīna, were intimate with ʿAlī during the lifetime of the Prophet (see also shīʿism and the qurʾān; family of the prophet; people of the house; politics and the qurʾān).
- Bibliography
- Primary
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān, Kitāb al-Zīna, ed. in ʿAbdallāh al-Sāmarrāʾi, al-Ghuluww, Baghdad 1972
Bayḍāwī, Anwār
Ibn al-Walīd, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, Tāj al-ʿaqāʾid wa-maʿdin al-fawāʾid, Beirut 1967
Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, Kitāb al-Kashf, ed. R. Strothmann, London 1952
Naṣr b. Muzāḥim Abū l-Faḍl al-Minqarī, Waqʿat Ṣiffīn, ed. ʿA.M. Hārūn, Cairo 1962, 19813
Qummī, Tafsīr
Ṭabarī, Tafsīr
id., Taʾrīkh
Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh
Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf
- Secondary
M.M. Bar-Asher, Scripture and exegesis in early Imāmī Shiism, Leiden 1999
S.H.M. Jafri, Origins and early development of Shiʿa Islam, London 1979, 20002
A.R. Lalani, Early Shīʿī thought. The teachings of Imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir, London 2000
W. Madelung, The succession to Muhammad. A study of the early caliphate, Cambridge 1997
W.M. Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought, Edinburgh 1973, Oxford 19982
J. Wellhausen, The religio-political factions in early Islam, ed. R.C. Ostle, trans. R.C. Ostle and S.M. Walzer, Amsterdam/New York 1975
- Cite this page
Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān / Shīʿism and the Qurʾān
- Article Table of Contents
- The attitude of the Shīʿa to the Qurʾān
- Principles and methods of Shīʿī exegesis
- Major Shīʿī exegetes and their works
- Bibliography
At present, the Shīʿīs, who differ from the Sunnī majority concerning the legitimacy of the political and spiritual succession to Muḥammad, comprise about ten percent of the Islamic community. Like the Sunnīs, they enjoy a rich tradition of scholarship in Islamic sciences, including both ḥadīth collection and classification as well as qurʾānic exegesis. Just as their conception of the legitimate leadership of the Muslim community evolved differently from that of their Sunnī counterparts, so, too, did their understanding of the Qurʾān itself. The following, therefore, will discuss, first, the attitude of the Shīʿa towards the Qurʾān and then provide an overview of the principles and methods of Shīʿī exegesis. It will conclude with a presentation of some of the major Shīʿī exegetes and their works.
- The attitude of the Shīʿa to the Qurʾān
One of the bones of contention between Sunnī and Shīʿī Islam concerns the integrity of the Qurʾān. The Shīʿa (q.v.) disputed the canonical validity of the ʿUthmānic codex, the textus receptus, of the Qurʾān (see collection of the qurʾān; codices of the qurʾān) and cast doubt on the quality of its editing, alleging political tendentiousness on the part of the editors — namely, the three first caliphs (see caliph ), particularly the third of them, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23-35/644-56). Shīʿī (mainly Imāmī) criticism of the qurʾānic text was most severe in the first centuries of Islam (see politics and the qurʾān; textual criticism of the qurʾān). The editors were accused of falsification ( taḥrīf) of the qurʾānic text by both the omission of some phrases and the addition of others (see revision and alteration ). Moreover, the claim that the Qurʾān had been falsified is one of the principal arguments to which early Shīʿī ¶ tradition resorted to explain the absence of any explicit reference to the Shīʿa in the Qurʾān.
In Shīʿī qurʾānic commentaries many traditions are found accusing the Companions of the Prophet (q.v.) of violating the integrity of the qurʾānic text. In one of these traditions, cited in the commentary ( tafsīr) ascribed to the Imām Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/873-4), it is stated that “Those whose ambitions overcame their wisdom (alladhīna ghalabat ahwāʾuhum ʿuqūlahum, i.e. the ṣaḥāba) falsified (ḥarrafū) the true meaning of God's book and altered it (wa-ghayyarūhu)” (ʿAskarī, Tafsīr, 95; cf. Kohlberg, Some notes, 212 and n. 37). A treasure trove of such traditions is Kitāb al-Qirāʾāt (known also as Kitāb al-Tanzīl wa-l-taḥrīf) by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī (fl. late third/ninth century), of which an annotated edition is in preparation by M.A. Amir-Moezzi and E. Kohlberg. A similar tradition — which, however, does not blame the Companions of the Prophet for the falsification — is found in the Qurʾān commentary of al-ʿAyyāshī (d. ca. 320/932): “Had the book of God not been subject to additions and omissions, our righteousness would not have been hidden from any [person] of wisdom” (lawlā annahu zīda fī kitāb Allāh wa-nuqiṣa minhu mā khafiya ḥaqqunā ʿalā dhī ḥijan; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 25). In a similar tradition it is stated: “The [Qurʾān] contained the names of [various] persons, but these names have been removed” (kānat fīhi asmāʾu l-rijāl fa-ulqiyat; ibid., i, 24). The commentator does not attempt to validate this general claim with examples of texts that, in his opinion, have been altered.
Just how unspecific these traditions are can be demonstrated by an account ascribed to Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), cited in relation to verse q 2:79: “On leaving the house of the [caliph] ʿUthmān, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ met ¶ the Commander of the Faithful [ʿAlī; see ʿalī b. abī ṭālib ] and said to him: ‘O ʿAlī, we have spent the night on a matter with which we hope God will strengthen this community.’ ʿAlī answered him: ‘I know how you spent the night: you have falsified, altered and changed (ḥarraftum wa-ghayyartum wa-baddaltum) nine hundred letters/words (ḥarf); falsified three hundred letters/words, changed three hundred letters/words and altered three hundred letters/words. [And then ʿAlī added this verse, q 2:79]: Woe to those who write the book (q.v.) with their hands and then say, ‘this is from God’” (fa-waylun lilladhīna yaktubna l-kitāba bi-aydīhim thumma yaqūlūna hādhā min ʿindi llāhi; ibid., i, 66). It is obvious that the figures quoted here are not to be taken at face value, just as the three different verbs used to describe the editorial activity ( ḥarrafa, ghayyara and baddala) in no way indicate discrete falsification techniques (see forgery; corruption).
Numerous Shīʿī utterances refer to the nature of the original text of the Qurʾān prior to its alleged corruption by the Sunnīs. In a well-known tradition, which appears in the writings of most early Imāmī commentators, Imām Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. ca 114/732) declares: “The Qurʾān was revealed [consisting of] four parts: One part concerning us [the Shīʿa], one part concerning our enemies, one part commandments (q.v.) and regulations ( farāʾiḍ wa-aḥkām; see virtues and vices, commanding and forbidding; boundaries and precepts; law and the qurʾān) and one part customs and parables ( sunan wa-amthāl; see parable ). And the exalted parts of the Qurʾān refer to us” (wa-lanā karāʾim al-Qurʾān; ibid., i, 20 and 21 where a tripartite division is suggested; cf. also the following sources, in which allusion is made to division into either three or four parts: Sayyārī, Qirāʾāt, tradition no. 11; ¶ Furāt, Tafsīr, 1, 2; Kulaynī, Kāfī, ii, 627-8; Goldziher, Richtungen, 288). Other accounts refer to the length of the original Qurʾān. It is believed to have contained 17,000 verses (q.v.; Sayyārī, Qirāʾāt, tradition no. 16). q 33 is given as an example of a text that in the original Qurʾān was two and two-third times longer than Sūrat al-Baqara (“The Cow,” q 2; ibid., tradition no. 418; see sūras ), which in turn was longer than the version in the ʿUthmānic codex (ibid., tradition no. 421).
The discrepancy between the qurʾānic text and the Shīʿī viewpoint is not necessarily one that a “correct” interpretation can remedy. This discrepancy results from a textual gap between the incomplete qurʾānic text found in the possession of the Sunnīs and the ideal text that, according to Shīʿī belief, is no longer in anyone's possession but will be revealed by the Mahdī in the eschatological era (see eschatology ).
Later, beginning in the fourth/tenth century, in the wake of the political and social changes that Shīʿism underwent, a tendency to moderation became apparent, and some of the criticism became muted. Imāmī-Shīʿī scholars — among them Muḥammad b. al-Nuʿmān, better known as al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/ 1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067), one of the eminent Imāmī-Shīʿī exegetes, and Abū ʿAlī l-Faḍl b. Ḥasan al-Ṭabarsī (d. 548/1153) — held that although the text of the Qurʾān as we have it is incomplete, it does not contain any falsifications. In other words, what is found in the ʿUthmānic codex is the truth but not the whole truth since it does not include all the revelations made to Muḥammad (see revelation and inspiration ). (On the various positions taken by Imāmī- Shīʿīs on this question, see Kohlberg, Some notes.)
¶ Despite the moderate views expressed by these and other Shīʿī scholars, the opinion that the Qurʾān was falsified has been perpetuated throughout the history of Shīʿism and persists to this day. Prominent scholars in Iran during the Ṣafavid period — including Muḥammad b. Murtaḍā al- Kāshānī, known as Muḥsin al-Fayḍ (d. 1091/1680), Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107/1693 or 1109/1697), and Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1110/1699 or 1111/1700) — revived the debate about the integrity of the Qurʾān, basing their anti-Sunnī polemics upon traditions extant in the early Shīʿī corpus of tafsīr and ḥadīth (see ḥadīth and the qurʾān ).
One of the most radical works ever written on this matter is the Faṣl al-khiṭāb fī taḥrīf kitāb rabb al-arbāb by the eminent Shīʿī scholar Ḥusayn Taqī Nūrī l-Ṭabarsī (d. 1320/1902). In this work Nūrī brought together a great number of traditions referring to the question of the falsification of the Qurʾān. A recurrent tradition on which Nūrī bases his argument in favor of taḥrīf draws an analogy between the Shīʿīs and the Jews (a notion that in itself is very common in Shīʿī literature): “Just as the Jews and the Christians (see jews and judaism; christians and christianity; people of the book) altered and falsified the book of their prophet [sic; see prophets and prophethood ] after him, this community [i.e. the Muslims] shall alter and falsify the Qurʾān after our Prophet — may God bless him and his family — for everything that happened to the Children of Israel (q.v.) is bound to happen to this community” (inna l-yahūd wa-l-naṣārā ghayyarū wa-ḥarrafū kitāb nabiyyihim baʿdahu fa-hādhihi l-umma ayḍan lā budda wa-an yughayyirū l-Qurʾān baʿda nabiyyinā ṣallā llāh ʿalayhi wa-ahlihi li-anna kulla mā waqaʿa fī banī Isrāʾīl lā budda wa-an yaqaʿa fī hādhihi l-umma; Nūrī, Faṣl, 35; ¶ whence Brunner, The dispute, 439; see community and society in the qurʾān ). It should be stressed, however, that Nūrī's extreme anti-Sunnī tone was criticized even by the Shīʿī scholars of his day. Nevertheless, the question of taḥrīf never ceased to be a burning issue in Shīʿī-Sunnī discourse, to the point that “there is hardly a new book on the general subject of the qurʾānic sciences whose author can afford not to include a long chapter dealing with taḥrīf” (Brunner, The dispute, 445; see traditional disciplines of qurʾānic study ).
Significant as it may be, the claim of forgery — i.e. that issues relating to the Shīʿa were deliberately omitted from the Qurʾān — is not the sole argument used by Shīʿī authors to explain the absence of any explicit mention of the ahl al-bayt/Shīʿa in the Qurʾān (see people of the house ). Two additional arguments are (a) the Qurʾān contains hidden meanings, which the exegete should decipher (see polysemy ) and (b) the Qurʾān teaches principles while tradition expounds their details.
The most common approach explaining the absence of references to the Shīʿa in the Qurʾān asserts that it is in the nature of the Qurʾān to speak in symbols and codes (see metaphor; similes; symbolic imagery) and according to this approach it should come as no surprise that the Qurʾān does not mention the Shīʿa explicitly: those who know how to read between the lines can decipher the passages that allude to the Shīʿa. This is the principle underlying the broad attempt to interpret many obscure qurʾānic verses ( mubhamāt) as well as some quite clear ones, as referring to the Shīʿa. Even a cursory reading of the early Shīʿī tafsīrs reveals how wholeheartedly this approach was embraced by Shīʿī commentators.
The other approach — that the Qurʾān ¶ teaches principles while tradition expounds their details — is expressed, for example, in the answer al-Bāqir gave to one of his disciples concerning the reason ʿAlī is not mentioned in the Qurʾān:
Say to them [i.e. to those who put this question to you]: God revealed to his messenger [the verses about] prayer (q.v.) and did not [explicitly] mention three or four [prayers] until this was interpreted by the messenger. So also he revealed [the verses about] the pilgrimage (q.v.), but did not reveal the injunction “encircle [the Kaʿba (q.v.)] seven times.” So too is the meaning of the verse [ q 4:59] “Obey God and obey the messenger and those in authority (q.v.) among you.” This verse was revealed in relation to ʿAlī, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 276; see obedience; kings and rulers).
According to this tradition, the reason ʿAlī and his disciples are not mentioned explicitly in the Qurʾān is that the Qurʾān, by its very nature, restricts itself to general principles; it presents religious laws and general rulings yet does not go into details, a prerogative reserved for the interpreter. This tripartite argumentation in no way suggests that these were three separate approaches to the problem, each exclusive of the other. Rather, the three together demonstrate the problems that Shīʿī exegetes faced and the attempts they made to resolve them.
- Principles and methods of Shīʿī exegesis
Shīʿī exegetes, perhaps even more than their Sunnī counterparts, support their distinctive views by reference to qurʾānic proof-texts (see exegesis of the qurʾān: classical and medieval ). A major distinction is that the Shīʿī exegetes attempt to find in the Qurʾān explicit references to such themes as the imāms' (see imām ) ¶ supernatural and mystical qualities, their authority to interpret the Qurʾān and other religious scriptures, or such major Shīʿī doctrines as the duty of loyalty (q.v.) to the imāms ( walāya) and dissociation from their enemies ( barāʾa).
A fundamental principle of Shīʿī exegetical tradition is that the authority to interpret the Qurʾān is reserved for ʿAlī and his descendants, the imāms. In a well-known ḥadīth, cited in both Sunnī and Shīʿī sources, Muḥammad is said to have declared: “There is one among you who will fight for the [correct] interpretation of the Qurʾān just as I myself fought for its revelation, and he is ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib” (inna fī-kum man yuqātilu ʿalā taʾwīl al-Qurʾān kamā qātaltu ʿalā tanzīlihi wa-huwa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 27; Shahrastānī, Milal, 189; and cf. Gimaret and Monnot, Livre, i, 543, and n. 231, where further sources are cited; also Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 209-10). This idea of ʿAlī and (implicitly) also his descendants being presented by the Prophet himself as interpreters of the Qurʾān is also deduced from other traditions, the most famous of which is “the tradition about the two weighty things” ( ḥadīth al-thaqalayn), i.e. the two things that Muḥammad is reported to have bequeathed to his believers. There are significant differences between the Sunnī and Shīʿī exegetical traditions regarding both the identity of these two “things” and the interpretation of the ḥadīth. According to one version, they are the book of God ( kitāb Allāh) and the Prophet's practice ( sunnat nabiyyihi, Ibn Isḥāq-Guillaume, 651; see sunna ). Other versions of this tradition, recorded in both Sunnī and Shīʿī works, mention as the thaqalān the Qurʾān and the family of the Prophet (q.v.; ahl al-bayt). The explanation given in Shīʿī sources as to the discrepancy between the two versions of this tradition is that while in Sunnī exegesis the practice ¶ of the Prophet is considered a tool for interpreting the Qurʾān (and is therefore mentioned in conjunction with the book itself), in Shīʿī tradition the family of the Prophet plays the equivalent role: only through the mediation of the imāms, the descendants of the Prophet, are both the exoteric ( ẓāhir) and the esoteric ( bāṭin) meanings of the qurʾānic text revealed to believers. The thaqalān are further viewed as being forever intertwined with each other (lan yaftariqā) or, in the words of al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067): “This tradition proves that [the Qurʾān] exists in every generation, since it is unlikely that [Muḥammad] would order us to keep something which we cannot keep, just as the family of the Prophet, and those we are ordered to follow, are present at all times” (Ṭūsī, Tibyān, i, 3-4). The distance from here to the creation of the metaphor describing the imāms as “the speaking book of God” ( kitāb Allāh al-nāṭiq) is short indeed (see e.g. Bursī, Mashāriq, 135; Ayoub, The speaking Qurʾān, 183, n. 17; Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 200).
The authority of the imāms as interpreters of the Qurʾān is reiterated in many traditions other than the ḥadīth al-thaqalayn. One tradition defining the many functions of the imāms includes their role as interpreters of the Qurʾān: “We know how to interpret the book [i.e. the Qurʾān] and how to speak clearly” (naʿrifu taʾwīl al-kitāb wa-faṣl al-khiṭāb; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 28).
These as well as numerous other traditions have but one purpose — to make clear that those qualified to interpret the Qurʾān are the imāms, and that this right was bestowed upon them directly by God. In the absence of the imāms, the duty of the text's interpreters is restricted to preserving traditions in their name and making these available to believers (see teaching and preaching the qurʾān ). The interpreters are thus no more than a ¶ vehicle and, at least theoretically, are not authorized to pronounce their own views (ibid., i, 27; Qummī, Tafsīr, ii, 397).
Among Shīʿīs, as among other religious circles and groups operating on the fringes of society, allegory, typology and secret codes became favorite methods of interpreting the Qurʾān. Nevertheless, only heterodox factions such as the Nuṣayrīs and the Druze (see druzes ) went so far as to view the inner meaning of the Qurʾān as the exclusive, binding authority. At times such techniques derive from an elitist outlook, one which maintains that religious secrets (q.v.; see also hidden and the hidden ) should be concealed from the masses and be the unique privilege of the elect. Sometimes it derives from an existential necessity: religious and ideological minorities may find themselves in danger as a consequence of overt and careless expression of ideas unpalatable to the ruling majority (see heresy; theology and the qurʾān). And indeed, the fact that many Shīʿī factions throughout their history flourished under Sunnī rule required the use of survival techniques both in everyday life and when committing their religious doctrines to writing. Shīʿī scholars had to walk a fine line: on the one hand, they wished to give whenever possible expression to their real intentions; on the other hand, they had to make sure that the expression of such ideas did not arouse the wrath of their Sunnī opponents. This is one of the clearest manifestations of the doctrine of precautionary dissimulation (q.v.; taqiyya).
An illustration of the allegorical approach ( taʾwīl) of Shīʿī Qurʾān exegesis may be seen in the interpretation of the night journey of Muḥammad referred to in the first verse of q 17 (Sūrat al-Isrāʾ, “The Night Journey”; see ascension ). Although aware of the conventional interpretation of this verse as referring to an ¶ actual journey during which the Prophet was borne from Mecca (q.v.) to Jerusalem (q.v.), Ismāʿīlī as well as Nuṣayrī authors interpreted this passage as a symbol of the spiritual progress of the imāms or other persons within the divine realm. (For the Ismāʿīlī approach, see e.g. al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān, Asās al-taʾwīl, 337; for the Nuṣayrī interpretation, see the epistle of the Nuṣayrī author Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥusayn b. Hārūn al-Ṣāʾigh [fl. fourth/tenth century] in Bar-Asher and Kofsky, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī religion, 89-97.)
Ismāʿīlīs tend to employ allegory to, inter alia, interpret Muslim law. Thus, for example, “the pillars of Islam” are given in Ismāʿīlī writings symbolic meanings: the five obligatory prayers correspond to the five divine ranks ( ḥudūd) in the Ismāʿīlī hierarchical system; almsgiving (q.v.; zakāt) means that those with knowledge should provide reliable mentors to guide the people (see knowledge and learning ); fasting (q.v.; ṣawm) entails observing silence and not betraying religious secrets to the uninitiated; pilgrimage to Mecca, the house of God (see house, domestic and divine ), symbolizes an audience with the imām, since God's knowledge resides with him (Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 218, paraphrasing Kitāb al-Iftikhār, 240 f., by the prominent Ismāʿīlī dāʿī Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī [d. ca. 361/971]). It is worth mentioning that this tendency, prevalent in Ismāʿīlism, is shared by Ghulāt groups such as the Nuṣayrīs and the Druzes. A significant difference, however, should be noted. Moderate allegorists — e.g. Imāmī Shīʿī and most Ismāʿīlīs — maintained that the allegorical interpretation that extracts the true meaning of the Qurʾān does not aim to invalidate the plain meaning of the text (see e.g. Bar-Asher, Scripture and exegesis, 122-4). Heterodox groups, in contrast, often held that allegory was the only correct interpretation and thus belittled and even ¶ ignored the revealed meaning of the texts.
This distinction became especially glaring with regard to legal matters. Consistent allegorical interpretation led its practitioners, more often than not, to adopt antinomian attitudes toward the religious precepts of the Qurʾān, and once a law assumed a symbolic meaning its literal meaning, according to these circles, was no longer binding. A blatant antinomian interpretation of the pillars of Islam is offered e.g. by the fourth epistle of the Druze canon (al-Kitāb al-Maʿrūf bi-l-naqḍ al-khafī; an unpublished critical edition of this epistle is offered by Bryer, The origins, ii, 31-50; cf. De Sacy, Exposé, ii, 673).
Shīʿī Qurʾān exegesis is further characterized by a radical anti-Sunnī bias. Many qurʾānic verses whose apparent meanings have a negative connotation or refer generally and vaguely to evil or to evildoers (see good and evil; evil deeds; oppression) are taken, through allegorical or typological interpretation, to refer to specific historical luminaries of Sunnī Islam. Negative qurʾānic terms such as baghy (insolence; see insolence and obstinacy; arrogance; pride), faḥshāʾ (indecency; see adultery and fornication; chastity; modesty), munkar (dishonor), al- fujjār (the wicked), al- mufsidūn fī l-arḍ (corrupters on earth; see corruption; oppression), al- shayṭān (Satan; see devil ), al-maghḍūb ʿalayhim (those against whom [God] is wrathful; see anger ), al-ḍāllūn (those who are astray; see error; astray) and the like are interpreted as referring to the enemies of the Shīʿa in general or to specific persons among them, in particular the first three caliphs, two of Muḥammad's wives (ʿĀʾisha and Ḥafṣa [q.v.], the daughters of the first and the second caliphs, respectively; see also wives of the prophet; ʿāʾisha bint abī bakr), the Umayyads and the ʿAbbāsids. In an utterance attributed to al-Bāqir he goes so far as to state that “every occur-¶ rence in the Qurʾān of the words ‘Satan says’ is [to be understood as referring to] ‘the second’ [namely the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb]” (wa-laysa fī-l-Qurʾān [shayʾ] wa-qāla al-shayṭān illā wa-huwa al- thānī; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, ii, 240). In another tradition, cited in the same source, a more general formulation of this idea is also attributed to this imām. To Muḥammad b. Muslim (d. 150/767), one of his disciples, the imām said: “Whenever you hear God [in the Qurʾān] mentioning someone of this nation in praise, it refers to us [i.e. the Shīʿa]; and when you hear God denigrating people who flourished in the past, it refers to our enemies” (idhā samiʿta llāha dhakara aḥadan min hādhihi l-umma bi-khayrin fa-naḥnu hum wa-idhā samiʿta llāha dhakara qawman bi-sūʾin mimman maḍā fa-hum ʿaduwwunā; ibid., i, 24; see chastisement and punishment; punishment stories; reward and punishment).
Secret language in Shīʿī exegesis is evident on two levels. The first level, the exegetes believe, is found in the Qurʾān itself; it underlies such obscure or general qurʾānic expressions as al- jibt wa-l-ṭāghūt (see idols and images; jibt), al- faḥshāʾ wa-l-munkar and many others. The second level is added by the Qurʾān commentator himself. When tracing the exegete's method of unraveling the meaning of obscure expressions one often discovers that the exegete not only avoids disclosing the secrets of the text but actually further conceals them. The commentator never claims explicitly that expressions such as those just mentioned refer to Abū Bakr, ʿUmar or other enemies of the Shīʿa; rather, he resorts to code words such as “the first” (al- awwal) and “the second” (al-thānī), ḥabtar, “fox” (usually applied to Abū Bakr “because of his cunning and fraudulence” (li-ḥilatihi wa-makrihi, Majlisī, Biḥār, lith., 4, 378; 9, 65) and zurayq, “shiny-eyed” or “blue-eyed” (referring to ʿUmar; ¶ e.g. Furāt, Tafsīr, 69; see also pre-islamic arabia and the qurʾān ). This physical feature was considered unfortunate by the ancient Arabs (q.v.) and finds an echo in q 20:102, according to which the wicked will rise on the day of resurrection (q.v.) with shiny (or blue) eyes (q.v.; for these and other derogatory appellations, see Goldziher, Spottnamen, 295-308; Kohlberg, Some Imāmī Shīʿī views, esp. 160-7; Bar-Asher, Scripture, 113-20). In other words, the transition from the covert stratum in the Qurʾān to the overt stratum of the interpretation is not direct but undergoes a further process of encoding. The underlying assumption is that every Shīʿī is familiar with these code words which are an integral part of his religious-cultural upbringing.
In other cases Shīʿī exegesis is designed to support the Shīʿī doctrine of the imāmate and concepts derived from it, examples being ʿiṣma (see impeccability ), or the immunity of prophets and imāms from sin (see sin, major and minor ) and error; the intercession (q.v.; shafāʿa) of prophets and imāms on behalf of their communities; badāʾ (the appearance of new circumstances that cause a change in an earlier divine ruling); and, in the case of the Ismāʿīlī, Druze and Nuṣayrī factions, such additional concepts as the cyclical creation (q.v.) of the world and the transmigration of souls (q.v.).
Another current feature of early Shīʿī (mainly Imāmī) exegesis is the use of variant readings ( qirāʾāt) of the qurʾānic text or, in certain cases, the addition of words believed to have been omitted from it (see readings of the qurʾān ). Such textual alterations are based on the assumption that the qurʾānic text is flawed and incomplete. Scholars who held the view that the Qurʾān is corrupt believed that the Mahdī will eventually reveal the true text and uncover its original intention. Examples of ¶ these alterations are the common textual substitution of aʾimma ( imāms) for umma (nation or community) or slight changes to the word “imām” itself. The implication of these variants is that the institution of the imāmate and other principles associated with it originate in the Qurʾān. For example, for q 3:110 most early Shīʿī exegetes read: “You are the best leaders [leg. aʾimmatin rather than ummatin, nation] ever brought forth to humankind” (kuntum khayra aʾimmatin ukhrijat lil-nās); or in q 2:143: “Thus we appointed you midmost leaders” (wa-kadhālika jaʿalnākum aʾimmatan wasaṭan), etc. (For the first verse, cf. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 110; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 218; for the second, cf. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 63.)
Prominent among the other type of alterations is the insertion of certain words generally proclaimed to be missing from the ʿUthmānic codex of the Qurʾān. These are primarily (a) the words fī ʿAlī (concerning ʿAlī) in various qurʾānic verses, among them q 2:91: “Believe in what God has revealed to you [+ concerning ʿAlī]” (āminū bi-mā anzala llāh [+ fī ʿAlī]) or q 4:166: “But God bears witness to what he has revealed to you [+ concerning ʿAlī]” (lākinna llāh yashhadu bi-mā anzala ilayka [+ fī ʿAlī]); or (b) the words āl Muḥammad (the family of Muḥammad) or occasionally āl Muḥammad ḥaqqahum ([deprived] of their rights) as the object of a verb from the root ẓ-l-m (to do an injustice to/to usurp), which appear often in the Qurʾān. Shīʿī commentators believe that this addition stresses that the injustice (see justice and injustice ) referred to by words and verbs derived from the root ẓ-l-m alludes specifically to the injustice perpetrated against the family of the Prophet and his offspring, i.e. the Shīʿa. The same method is applied with regard to other doctrines. The insertion of the words fī walāyat ʿAlī (concerning the [duty of] loyalty to the house of ʿAlī) in several places in the Qurʾān is intended to provide ¶ scriptural authority to the doctrine of walāya, as the addition of the words ilā ajalin musamman (for a given time) to the mutʿa verse ( q 4:24), is meant to emphasize the temporary nature of mutʿa marriage (see marriage and divorce; temporary marriage; sex and sexuality). Less known is the addition of the word mutʿa in q 24:33: wa-l- yastaʿfifi lladhīna lā yajidūna nikāḥan [+ bi-l-mutʿa] ḥattā yughniyahumu llāhu min faḍlihi, “And let those who find not the means to enter into a [+ mutʿa] marriage be abstinent till God enriches them of his bounty” (Sayyārī, Qirāʾāt, tradition no. 372; see abstinence ).
The differentiation between variant readings and additions by the commentators or their sources inheres primarily in terminology. In many places where the commentator introduces a Shīʿī version of a qurʾānic verse, he does so by using typical formulas. The Shīʿī version is preceded by such utterances as (a) nazala Jibrīl [or Jibrāʾīl] bi-hādhihi l-āya hākadhā ʿalā Muḥammad, “thus the verse was revealed to Muḥammad by [the angel] Gabriel” (q.v.; see e.g. ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, ii, 353; and for similar versions, ibid., i, 63; Qummī, Tafsīr, ii, 111); or followed by (b) hākadhā nazalat, “thus [the verse] was revealed” (see e.g. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 142, 297; ii, 21); at other times it is stated that the version cited was the reading of one of the imāms (e.g. ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 217, 218; Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 389). At times even stronger expressions are used to stress that certain passages in the canonical text are incorrect. These include statements formulated in the negative such as (a) ʿalā khilāf mā anzala llāh, “[the version in the textus receptus] contradicts the form in which it was revealed” (see e.g. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 10, which cites q 3:110 or q 25:74 as examples of such verses); or (b) fīmā ḥurrifa min kitāb Allāh, “[This verse] is one of those falsified [or altered] in the book of God” (Qummī, Tafsīr, ii, 295).
¶ In the absence of such a firm declaration it is difficult to decide whether the alteration is a mere commentary or whether the exegete is in fact suggesting an alternative reading to the canonical text despite the absence of such typical expressions as those mentioned above.
On the basis of such a rejection of the “Sunnī” text one might have expected the Shīʿa to insert these alternative versions and additions into the text of the Qurʾān or at least to implement them when the text is read on ritual occasions (see ritual and the qurʾān; recitation of the qurʾān). In reality, however, almost no action was taken by the Shīʿa to canonize their variant readings. One exception is a late attempt reflected in a manuscript of the Qurʾān, said to have been discovered in the city of Bankipore, India, in which, besides the Shīʿī alternative versions to some of the qurʾānic verses, two apocryphal sūras were also included: sūrat al-walāya, “the sūra of divine friendship (i.e. between God and ʿAlī; see friends and friendship; clients and clientage)” and sūrat al-nūrayn, the sūra of the two lights (i.e. Muḥammad and ʿAlī; on this issue, noted by scholars as early as the nineteenth century, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 200-27; The divine guide, 79-91, 198-206; see light ).
This behavior of the Shīʿa reveals a paradox. On the one hand, Shīʿīs are certain that the true version of the Qurʾān is that known to them; on the other hand, not only do they not reject the canonical codex, they actually endorse it (see e.g. Goldziher, Richtungen, 281). This contradiction is typical of the Shīʿa: on the one hand an uncompromising position of superiority was adopted on the theoretical-doctrinal level; on the other hand the constant fear of persecution from the hostile Sunnī environment brought about, on the practical level, a pragmatic attitude that included ¶ the adoption de facto of the ʿUthmānic codex. This tension and paradox is reflected in the many Shīʿī exegetical traditions in which Shīʿī qirāʾāt are mentioned. In some of them one finds the following situation: A disciple of the imām is reading from the (canonical) Qurʾān in the presence of the imām, who tells him that it was revealed in a different version. The imām then proceeds to read the “true” (i.e. the Shīʿī) version. As, however, against such accounts, which underrate the importance of the ʿUthmānic codex, an opposing tendency is sometimes revealed: Someone is reading from the Qurʾān in the presence of one of the imāms, and inserts in his reading the Shīʿī version of the verse. At this point he is stopped by the imām, who instructs him to read according to the version followed by the people (i.e. the textus receptus) until such time as “the righteous savior” (al- qāʾim) shall come with the correct version of the Qurʾān, identical with the one that ʿAlī possessed and bequeathed to his daughter, Fāṭima (q.v.), whence its title muṣḥaf Fāṭima, “the codex of Fāṭima” (see muṣḥaf ).
Other methods of Shīʿī exegesis are based on the word and letter order and calculations of the numerical value of letters (see numerology ). In his interpretation of q 108 ( Sūrat al-Kawthar), al-Sijistānī presents a transposition of the words and letters of the sūra, thus reading into it the Shīʿī tenet of waṣāya, the rank of plenipotentiary among the imāms (Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 218-9). The technique of numerical calculation of letters is primarily applied to the mysterious letters (q.v.; fawātiḥ al-suwar) appearing at the head of twenty-nine sūras. For example, the letters alif, lām, mīm, ṣād (the total numerical value of which is 161) at the head of q 7 (Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, “The Heights”; see people of the heights ) allude, according to an account attributed to ¶ al-Bāqir, to the year 161 of the hijrī calendar (777 c.e.), a year which had been (incorrectly) predicted as the one in which the fall of the Umayyad dynasty would occur (ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, ii, 7-8).
It should further be noted that Shīʿī, and particularly Ismāʿīlī, exegesis is characterized by the use of a secret script designed to encrypt information — mainly names of persons — that the author wishes to conceal for precautionary reasons. Numerous examples of this practice are found in the Kitāb al-Kashf by the dāʿī, Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman (fl. first half of fourth/tenth century), and Mizāj al-tasnīm by the Yamamite Ismāʿīlī Sulaymānīdāʿī, Ismāʿīl b. Hibat Allāh (d. 1184/1770).
- Major Shīʿī exegetes and their works
The earliest Imāmī-Shīʿī Qurʾān commentaries known to us are from the end of the third/ninth century. These include the works of Furāt b. Furāt b. Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī (Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī), al-ʿAyyāshī (Tafsīr) and al-Qummī (Tafsīr), all of whom flourished in the last decades of the third/ninth century and the beginning of the fourth/tenth century, that is, prior to the Great Occultation (al- ghayba al-kubrā) of the twelfth imām, which occurred in the year 329/941. Somewhat later is Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Jaʿfar al-Nuʿmānī (d. ca. 360/971), to whom is ascribed a treatise constituting a sort of introduction to the Qurʾān ( Majlisī, Biḥār, xc, 1-97). Other compositions are the two commentaries ascribed to the sixth and eleventh imāms, respectively: Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr al-qurʾānī, a small exegetical treatise of a Ṣūfī character (see ṣūfism and the qurʾān ) attributed to Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī, a comprehensive commentary of a legendary-mythical nature on the first two sūras of the Qurʾān attributed to Imām Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/874; on which see Bar-Asher, al-ʿAskarī). The most outstanding tafsīrs of the post-ghayba period ¶ are al-Ṭūsī's Tibyān, al-Ṭabarsī's Majmaʿ and the Rawḍ al-jinān wa-rūḥ al-janān, a Qurʾān commentary in Persian by Abū l-Futūḥ Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Rāzī (fl. first half of the sixth/twelfth century). Some very comprehensive Imāmī-Shīʿī tafsīr works, which are mainly compilations of early sources, were composed in Ṣafavid Iran. The most prominent among these are Taʾwīl al-āyāt al-ẓāhira fī faḍāʾil al-ʿitra al-ṭāhira by Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī l-Ḥusaynī l-Astarābādī (fl. tenth/sixteenth century), Kitāb al-Ṣāfī fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān by Muḥsin al-Fayḍ and Kitāb al-Burhān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān by Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Baḥrānī. Representative of modern Imāmī-Shīʿī Qurʾān exegesis are Ṭabāṭabāʾī's Mīzān and Min waḥy al-Qurʾān by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍl Allāh. Needless to say, exegetical material other than Qurʾān commentaries per se proliferates in all genres of Imāmī-Shīʿī literature. (For a detailed survey of Shīʿī tafsīr works, see Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iii, 302-7; iv, 231-346.)
Ismāʿīlī doctrinal writings include a vast amount of exegetical material but little is known of specific Ismāʿīlī exegetical works. Among the few that have come down to us are Kitāb Asās al-taʾwīl by the dāʿī al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān b. Ḥayyūn Maghribī (d. 363/973) and Kitāb al-Kashf by Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman. (For other Ismāʿīlī exegetical works, see Poonawala, Biobibliography, index, s.v. tafsīr and taʾwīl.)
The Zaydī exegetical tradition remains largely unexplored and most Zaydī works of tafsīr are still in manuscript form. The Zaydī imāms al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm Rassī (d. 246/860), al-Nāṣir lil-Ḥaqq al-Uṭrūsh (d. 304/917) and Abū l-Fatḥ Nāṣir b. Ḥusayn al-Daylamī (d. 444/1052) are among those credited with a tafsīr (Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iv, 255, 261; Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism). A Qurʾān commentary is also ascribed to Ziyād b. Mundhir Abū l-Jārūd, the eponym of the Zaydi-Jārūdī sub-sect, ¶ the Jārūdiyya (Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iv, 251). The work is not extant; excerpts of it are, however, incorporated in al-Qummī's Tafsīr (Bar-Asher, Scripture, 46-56, 244-7). Another outstanding Jārūdī scholar who is credited with a tafsīr is Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Hamadhānī, better known as Ibn ʿUqda (d. 333/947; cf. Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iv, 251). Finally, there is the tafsīr by Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834), one of the best known and most prolific authors of the late Zaydiyya.
There is no evidence that Qurʾān commentaries were written by members of Ghulāt groups (such as the Druzes and the Nuṣayrīs), although the Qurʾān is widely cited and often commented on in their sacred writings. See also persian literature and the qurʾān .
- Bibliography
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- Secondary
B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism and interpretation of the Qurʾān in the theology of al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm. Kitāb al-mustarshid, Leiden/New York/Cologne 1996
M.A. Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin dans le shiʿisme originel. Aux sources de l'ésotérisme en Islam, Paris 1992, 200-27
trans. D. Streight, The divine guide in early Shiʿism. The sources of esotericism in Islam, New York 1994, 79-91, 199-206
id. and C. Jambet, Qu'est-ce que le shî'isme? Paris 2004, 89-97 (on the Qurʾān), 139-78
M. Ayoub, The speaking Qurʾān and the silent Qurʾān.
A study of the principles and development of Imāmī Shīʿī tafsīr, in Rippin, Approaches, 177-98
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id., Scripture and exegesis in early Imāmī Shiism, Jerusalem/Leiden 1999
id., Variant readings and additions of the Imāmī-Šiʿa to the Quran, in ios 13 (1993), 39-74
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