RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

Review of Qur’anic Research, vol. 5, no. 8 (2019)

Khaleel MOHAMMED

David in the Muslim Tradition: The Bathsheba Affair

Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015. Pp. 227

Hardcover US$99.00. ISBN 978-0739197158

The biblical story of the Israelite king David son of Jesse contains multi-dimensional elements regarding his achievements as a leader, a military strategist, a conqueror, a pious man of considerable intensity, a lover, and a monarchist. Coming from a modest background at a time when King Saul of Israel was in decline, David earned admiration and fame in the biblical narrative hardly known among other biblical heroes (1 Samuel 18:6–7). Consequently,

David secured for himself a place in the pious imagination of the Abrahamic religions, and in their rich literature, which portrays him as a complex personality with unique leadership potential that sets him apart from other biblical leaders in the drama of the covenantal struggle between God and His people. Occurring at the apex of David’s religio-political leadership, the Bathsheba storyline is perhaps the most controversial narrative element in RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

David’s story. It stands out as an oddity in the overall narrative of David’s excellence, of his otherwise outstanding achievements in securing his people among other, rather hostile, neighbouring tribes or nations. The Qurʾān (Ṣād 38:20–26) makes strong reference to the biblical account of the episode with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12. More so, the qurʾānic commentaries through the centuries that followed the advent of Islam enriched the Islamic tradition with a variety of interpretations of David’s story. The mention of David in the Qurʾān and in the Islamic tradition had the prophetic purpose of setting the Muslim prophet

Muḥammad in the same line as the biblical prophets. It is within the genre of tafsīr (qurʾānic commentary) that Khaleel Mohammed’s David in the Muslim Tradition: The Bathsheba Affair makes its mark in the important study of the Bathsheba narrative detail of David’s story. With the introduction and the conclusion chapters, the monograph is segmented into a total of seven chapters.

Mohammed’s monograph could be read on three different levels. Firstly, it can be seen as a study of the inception and development of the tafsīr genre, in and through the qurʾānic references to David’s affair with Bathsheba within Sūrat al-Ṣād (Q 38:21–25), which reflects the biblical narrative of 2 Samuel 12:1–13. The author distinguishes between different historical periods of the tafsīr genre: the formative period; the golden age of classical tafsīr; the era of qurʾānic super-commentaries; and the period of modernity to later modernity. “Super- commentaries” and “later modernity” are the author’s own choice of words, intended to highlight the particularities of each period with respect to tafsīr. What follows is a short chapter of comparative study with Jewish and Christian accounts related to the Islamic interpretative accounts of David’s affair with Bathsheba. The author clearly does not want to ignore the indebtedness of Islam to the two earlier Abrahamic religions, but to show that the RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org shift in interpreting David’s affair with Bathsheba away from its immoral characteristic is not confined to Islam.

Second, David in the Muslim Tradition could be read as a study of the development of the

Islamic doctrine of ʿiṣmah, a doctrinal teaching on the infallibility of prophets who were understood as immune from scandalous moral effect upon their communities.1 Mohammed studies the development of the doctrine of ʿiṣmah within both the Sunni and the Shiʿi sects throughout the centuries. Basically he asks, how did the doctrine of ʿiṣmah influence the exegetes in their interpretation of the Bathsheba narrative element of David’s story? The author’s major point is the power of doctrinal formation, such as ʿiṣmah, over the development of the tafsīr and how doctrines were slowly assimilated into the interpretative process of the

Qurʾān.

Third, the book could be read as mini-biographies of major exegetes of each aforementioned historical period. The biographical details of each selected interpreter within the history of tafsīr solidify the idea that behind the development of this genre were Muslim scholars who hailed from different racial and intellectual backgrounds. Several of the exegetes mentioned in the monograph are well known to today’s scholars of Islamic studies (e.g., al-

Ṭabarī, al-Zamakhsharī, Ibn Kathīr, etc.); others are less known, but Mohammed highlights their contribution as legitimately part of the Islamic tradition nonetheless. Of course, the contributions of all exegetes were also indebted to their particular madhāhib (legal schools) and their intellectual formation drew from a variety of sources: ḥadīth, fiqh, reading techniques of the Qurʾān, philosophy, medieval scholastic reasoning, philology, and Arabic lexicography.

1 While this is not the standard definition of ʿiṣmah, in medieval Islam a Muslim ruler (be he prophet, sultan, or imam) was the “state”; what happened to the ruler happened to the state. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

The introductory chapter presents a clear menu of how each chapter is organized, a concise history of tafsīr, the author’s methodology, and the overall purpose of his monograph.

It is a rather important chapter which leads readers in a systematic fashion toward what lies ahead in the historical analyses of qurʾānic interpretation, and to reflect on the role that

Islamic history plays in Islamic intellectual formation. Before engaging the formative period, the author links the early tafsīr with the ḥadīth style of writing in order to receive its legitimacy or its authoritative voice.2 He skilfully explains the different interpretative techniques that are taʾwīl (elucidation), tafsīr (interpretation), and raʾy (speculative interpretation). Mohammed adopts al-Ṭabarī’s approach for his analytical study of David’s interlude with Bathsheba, relies on Walid Saleh’s comprehensive tafsīr categorization, and uses

Qurʾānic Arabic lexicography for understanding the subtle meaning of scriptural words. In addition, his discourse on isrāʾīliyyāt should not be overlooked, as exegetes after al-Tabarī began to rely less on these biblically-oriented sources and even to disregard them as authentic.

Overall, the purpose of Mohammed’s monograph aims at understanding the development of the Islamic exegetical tradition focussed on the Bathsheba affair of David’s story.

Clearly, Mohammed’s methodology is rooted in the Islamic tradition, along with modern scholarship regarding the link between ḥadīth and tafsīr. As much as one could accept

Mohammed’s approach to the study of David, the author comes out at the end of the book with some critical evaluations. He criticizes the religious side of the tradition that prevents individual creativity in the research into the indebtedness of Islam on Judaism and

Christianity—the growing distrust of the isrāʾīliyyāt is one example.

2An idea borrowed from Walid Saleh who wrote that tafsīr in ḥadīth-written format was intended to give tafsīr an authoritative voice. See his “Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of Tafsir in Arabic: A History of the Book Approach,” JQS 12 (2010): 27. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

The chapter on the formative period shows a twofold process of development of the genre of tafsīr. The first is the move from oral tradition to the compiling and writing down of reports (in ḥadīth style), and the second entails differentiating the early period of compilation from subsequent short intermediate periods of compilation before the classical era started.3

The early stage of compilation started by the end of the Umayyad dynasty and developed further in the early stage of the Abbasid dynasty. As far as tafsīr is concerned, Mohammed’s point is that the exegetical content was short and depended mostly on the assumption that the role of interpretation relied more on Muḥammad as prophet of Islam and on his immediate

Companions than on his followers. The interpretation of the Qurʾān was not extensive, did not go verse by verse, during the formative period; rather, it was a more general interpretation covering several verses of the Qurʾān at once. Scholarly reliance on the biblical sources was comfortable and without strong prejudices. Concurrently, it was an era of strong development of Arabic philology and grammar. The author selected seven tafāsīr from this period: Ibn ʿAbbās

(d. 68/687); Ibn Jurayj (d. 150/767); Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 150/767); Sufyān al-Thawrī (d.

161/778); al-Sanʿānī (d. 211/826); the Shiʿi Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896); and Hūd b. Muḥakkam al-Hawwarī (d. 290/903).

The overall tone of their interpretations focused mostly on the immoral nature of

David’s deliberate move to acquire Bathsheba while getting rid of her spouse Uriah. All the concise material at hand of their interpretations focuses on David’s reaction of intense penance. This type of interpretative style (the moral interpretation) clearly relies on the biblical detail (reflected in the isrāʾīliyyāt) of Bathsheba’s story along with ḥadīth accounts

3 The author (on top of page 56) sets the length of the classical era of tafsīr from the 3rd/9th to 13th/18th century. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org transmitted from generations after Muḥammad’s Companions. However, in the short but later stage of the formative period, David’s pursuit of Bathsheba started to be interpreted as less scandalous, even though the exegetes still noted that he got rid of Uriah. Mohammed questions why, at a time when exegesis did not include any reference to ʿiṣmah or even to taḥrīf

(corruption of scripture), exegetes focused less on the moral aspect of David’s affair with

Bathsheba.

Mohammed offers a new understanding of tafsīr, that before Islamic doctrines were making their way into the interpretative genre reliance on biblical accounts was still in fashion. So too the ḥadīth style of reporting was common during the formative period. At the same time, the seed to move away from the isrāʾīliyyāt did not germinate quickly, since in the next stage of tafsīr the Muslim exegetes started to adopt a more doctrinal, philosophical, and rational-based style of exegesis.

Mohammed’s chapter entitled “The Golden Age of Classical Tafsīr” is the locus of his book, given the importance of the chapter’s contribution to the science of interpretation in the era heralded by al-Ṭabarī, who infused the ḥadīth with law, grammar, and ijtihad (independent reasoning). Al-Ṭabarī included contradictory views as well, furnishing his tafsīr with an encyclopaedic range unseen before, with the result that his tafsīr became a model for future exegetes. Of the eleven exegetes that Mohammed studied, almost all were of Persian origin, except for Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), who was a Spanish Sufi.

The doctrine of ʿiṣmah slowly made its way into the classical tafsīr collections; rightly, the author claims that al-Ṭabarī was familiar with the concept of ʿiṣmah but it was not strongly doctrinal in nature in his lifetime. What al-Ṭabarī added to the exegesis of the formative period was the heroic profile of Uriah who, al-Ṭabarī insisted, was not martyred in the first battle. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

Also, al-Ṭabarī understood the episode as a test of David’s righteousness, similar to the trials of other prophets, including Muḥammad. In any case, al-Ṭabarī’s David had every intent of getting rid of Uriah, who was martyred in the third battle. David consequently felt guilty and intentionally practised repentance.

In the same chapter, we are presented with a taste of the Shiʿi perspective on David’s trial. Al-Qummī (d. 307/919), for example, assessed David’s error only as “unfitting” for a prophet, because the doctrine of ʿiṣmah was still developing within Shiʿi thought and was, at this stage, reserved largely for the Imams. Only later did ʿiṣmah include prophets, angels, and other apostles (68). By the time of al-Ṭūṣī, the concept of ʿiṣmah was already influencing tafsīr, as seen in the fact that David’s deed was no longer understood to have been a sin. Rather,

David’s lust was assessed as a baseless accusation and as deriving from a weak narrative.

Similarly, al-Zamashkharī (d. 538/1144) did not embrace accounts that shamed David’s lustful deed.

The Sunni understanding, as seen through al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), is largely that the past and future sins of prophets are forgiven by God [Q Fatḥ 48:1]. According to the author, al-

Māturīdī, for example, opted not to comment about David’s deed with Bathsheba.

Furthermore, for Ibn ʿArabī, his Sufi orientation did not allow him to exonerate David. Lastly, there was a general movement during the classical tafsīr period (3rd/9th—13th/18th c.) to move away from declaring David’s lustful deed as sinful, which Mohammed maintains was due to the process of integrating the doctrine of ʿiṣmah into the science of tafsīr.

Mohammed’s fourth chapter shows that the shift towards exculpating David grew stronger in period of the qurʾānic super-commentaries. The reason for this, writes Mohammed, had to do with the increasing mistrust of the isrāʾīliyyāt’s sources, which were replaced by RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org stronger reliance on the doctrine of ʿiṣmah. The super-commentaries, according to the author, were characterized by less lengthy chains of transmission, which eased the memorization process. Seven exegetes are studied here: Abū ‘Abdallāh al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1273); ‘Abdallāh b.

‘Umar al-Bayḍāwī (d. c. 691/1291)4; Abū’l-Barakāt ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Nasafī (d. 710/1310);

Abū’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Khāzin (d. 741/1340); Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalūsī (d. 745/1344);

Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373)5; and Mawlā Muḥsin al-Kāshānī (d. 1091/1681). There are more

Spanish representatives in this group than in the previous one.

Mohammed notes that al-Qurṭubī and al-Bayḍāwī seemed to acknowledge that David sinned and God rebuked him, after which David repented. But neither of these exegetes found

David guilty in marrying Bathsheba, since it was common practice for a man to ask a husband to divorce his wife in order to marry her himself. Within the super-commentaries, David’s behaviour was no longer considered lustful by the other exegetes of the period. It became unacceptable to accuse David of wrongdoing given that he was a prophet under God’s protection. The Islamic interpretation started to move away from understanding David’s actions with Bathsheba as shameful, the reading that had prevailed in the isrāʾīliyyāt.

Mohammed explains this shift as due to the prevalent role of ʿiṣmah in the rational interpretation in the period of super-commentaries; and, as consequence of the method of rationality introduced by al-Razī (d. 313/925), the Islamic tradition started to laud David as a prophet rather than castigate him as a sinful man.

The fifth chapter, which covers modernity to late modernity, shows the era as rather unique in terms of exegetical development. It was the period of the decline of the Ottoman

4 Mohammed gives two different dates for his death: 691/1291 (p.11) and 685/1286 (p. 113). 5 Mohammed gives two different dates for his death: 774/1333 (p.13) and 774/1373 (p. 116). A death date of 1333 could not be verified. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org empire, as seen by the author, characterized by nepotism and corruption that prevented the empire from catching up with modernity. The same era was also one of colonialism, which had its influence on many interpreters. As a consequence, many of the exegetes selected are

Muslim reformers from India, Egypt, Yemen, and Iraq. Notably, the exegetes that Mohammed chose were al-Shawkānī; Muhammad ʿAlī; ʿAbdullah Yūsuf; Sayyid Abū’l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī; Sayyid

Qutb; Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabaṭabāʾī; Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī; and Muhammad Asad. Many of these exegetes were not trained in the classical tradition of tafsīr (such as Qutb and ʿAlī), but

Mohammed regards all of them as associated with the golden age of interpretation; at the same time they had political motivation in their exegeses either as a reaction to modernity or to the prevalent tension among Muslims towards the modern state of Israel.

In the period of modernity to later modernity, exegetes had mixed views about David’s sins and the role of ʿiṣmah in interpretation. ʿIṣmah was still evolving, especially in the Shiʿi theology of the period. The mistrust of the isrāʾīliyyāt and the reliance on the Qurʾān continued;

David sinned in the flesh but he had to be forgiven because of his prophetic status and to govern better; and, lastly, ʿiṣmah as a doctrine deepened to encompass credibility in the leadership of prophets. For Mohammed, Asad took a different view of the doctrine. To him,

ʿiṣmah was not an innate quality of a prophet; rather, it had to be earned. Therefore, with modernity, Muslim interpretation took a more human understanding of prophets in their struggles.

There is a rather surprising chapter in Mohammed’s monograph which deals with the

Islamic influence on the later Jewish tradition with respect to David. Although the concept of

ʿiṣmah is not the motivating factor for the shift in the Jewish approach to their prophet, there is similar toning down in regard to the sin of David with Bathsheba. For example, by the time RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org of the Babylonian Talmud, according to Mohammed, David was exculpated from his shameful deed. His marriage to Bathsheba was no longer seen as sinful since it happened after Uriah’s death. The new Jewish view understands the narrative in 2 Samuel as depicting God’s patience with David more than as God’s punishment and subsequent acceptance of David’s repentance.

Mohammed concludes that as far as tafsīr is concerned there is an evolution in the interpretation of the story of David in the Islamic tradition due to the following factors: 1) the early efforts of compilation to preserve what could be from the oral tradition; 2) the growing mistrust of the isrāʾīliyyāt; 3) a move to exonerating the prophets of sin due to the influence of

ʿiṣmah; 4) the taḥrīf accusation against non-Islamic Abrahamic scriptures; 5) and the influence of different Islamic centres on the compilation of tafsīr reports. Also, the author points to the difficulty of reaching the original meaning of the qurʾānic pericope of Q 38:21-25 when the history of interpretation restricted personal interpretation, bi’l-raʾy, while mistrusting the indebtedness to the supposed Jewish sources which lay behind the Muslim accounts of the stories of prophets.

The monograph raises relevant questions and concerns regarding the intricate relations of tafsīr both with other disciplines of the Islamic tradition and those outside it. On the one hand, one may question the role of taʾwīl and raʾy in the evolution of tafsīr; on the other hand, what did it take after the formative period of compilation to discriminate against the isrāʾīliyyāt sources? In the early days after Muḥammad’s death converts from Judaism and

Christianity were allowed to incorporate the isrāʾīliyyāt into the Islamic interpretive tradition; but early conversion to Islam was a slow process, and could conversion be the only reason behind such tolerance? RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

In as far as the influence of religious doctrines on Qur’ānic interpretation are concerned, the author concentrates on ʿiṣmah, given that David had a prophetic mission for his community. What about other doctrines? For example, the Shiʿi creed or credal ideas around waʿd and waʿīd (pertaining to the qurʾānic God’s promise to forgive and/or punish doers of evil deeds) could also be explored in the tafsīr. Besides, is there any reconciliation between the doctrines of ʿiṣmah and waʿd and waʿīd as far as sins of prophets are concerned? This tension between the two doctrines could have been a balanced addition to the monograph with respect to the presumed absence of any clemency from Uriah in response to David’s pleas for his forgiveness, while standing at Uriah’s tomb, for having married Uriah’s wife.

Another aspect of the doctrine of ʿiṣmah is its importance regarding the privileged status of prophets. What about the status of their communities? The prophet’s state of spiritual privilege presumes protection either from errors or the effects of the errors of prophets upon their communities. This may be because what happens to a prophet’s dignity filters to his community. The mentioned doctrine does not necessarily justify the errors made by prophets; however, the doctrine provides a venue for the study of the human side of prophets when they are under spiritual protection that ʿiṣmah assumes. Mohammed suggests that only when the concept of ʿiṣmah gained the status of doctrine did some tafāsīr start to eliminate interpretive narratives that undermined David’s prophetic status. Mohammed’s monograph opens a new approach for addressing major doctrines as lenses for viewing how the greatness of prophets manifests when they are under duress. Overall, ʿiṣmah as a doctrine contributed to the formation of the theology of prophets—prophetology—already in place in several tafāsīr. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org

Given the importance of the research behind Mohammed’s monograph, there are some minor hiccups. First (and this reviewer is more sympathetic than critical), there is inconsistency in transliteration and a misspelling. For example, in the opening chapter, on page 10, the major work of al-Zamakhsharī is written correctly as al-Kashshāf but the reference to the same work on top of page 12 is written without a long “ā,” as al-Kashshaf. On page 42,

“opne” is meant to be “open” in the phrase: “camped in the opne.” Lastly, on page 69, the transliteration of fa fazi’a should be fa-faziʿa—meaning “he became afraid.” All these are minor errors and do not compromise the seriousness of Mohammed’s research and message.

Second, on page 56, there is a historical detail I question about the effective authority of the caliphate, when the author writes, “This distinction is easily found in the years between

850 C.E. and 1250 C.E., when the dominance of the Islamic caliphate was at its zenith, before the fall of Baghdad and the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate.” Compare this to what

Mohammed later wrote on page 111, with a proper footnote reference to Hugh Kennedy’s expertise on the Abbasid caliphate, “Ever since 945 CE, the office of the caliph had been purely ceremonial, used as a symbol of religious authority by whichever faction that was in power.” 6

The latter is more historically accurate, since the caliphate suffered in Baghdad where some

Abbasid caliphs were not sovereign either due to the influence of their Turkish guards, or after the arrival of the Shiʿi Buyids to Baghdad by the middle of the 10th century.

Apart from these minor issues, Mohammed’s monograph is of high research quality with its emphasis on doctrinal influences, such as ʿiṣmah, on the evolution of the tafsīr. It is a well-written, easy-to-follow, organized academic work with important biographical detail on

6 Hugh Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World (Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 2004), xix. RQR | Review of Qur’anic Research Shari Lowin, Editor [email protected] www.iqsaweb.org lesser -known Muslim interpreters. It is a good source for scholars interested in theological concepts, especially “prophetology,” embedded in tafsīr.

Sami Helewa, S.J. Campion College, University of Regina