A Comparison of the References to Muqatil B
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Journal of Semitic Studies LIII/1 Spring 2008 doi:10.1093/jss/fgm045 © The author. PublishedREFERENCES by Oxford TO UniversityMUQATIL Press B. SULAYMon behalf AofN the (150/767) University of Manchester. All rights reserved. A COMPARISON OF THE REFERENCES TO MUQATIL B. SULAYMAN (150/767) IN THE EXEGESIS OF AL-THA{LABI (427/1036) Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jss/article/53/1/69/1729574 by ANKARA UNIVERSITY user on 08 July 2021 WITH MUQATIL'S OWN EXEGESIS* MEHMET AKIF KOÇ ANKARA UNIVERSITY, TURKEY Abstract Muqatil b. Sulayman’s work is the oldest surviving exegesis which comments on the entire Qur’an from the beginning to the end. Ana- lytical comparisons between different manuscripts of this exegesis and the quotations made by the exegetes, who greatly benefited from Muqatil, give us important information about the history of Quranic exegesis. al-Tha¨labi’s references to Muqatil offer valuable data illumi- nating the role of ‘the changing contents’ of the manuscripts in un- derstanding the history of the exegesis. Changing evaluations and criticism about Muqatil’s personality and his opinions show that the history of Quranic exegesis needs to be further critically studied. Introduction Muqatil b. Sulayman’s exegesis has been studied by modern scholars to enable them to elaborate on the history of early exegetical activi- ties. The investigation of the transmissions of Muqatil in al-Tha¨labi’s recently published exegesis, al-Kashf wa al-bayan ¨an tafsir al-Qur’an1 has also contributed to the elucidation of the early development of exegesis and to the understanding of its nature in the following peri- * My thanks are due to Associate Professor Ismail Albayrak (Faculty of Divin- ity/Sakarya University) for comments and for correcting the English text of my ar- ticle. I am also grateful to Professor Osman Ta≥tan (Faculty of Divinity/Ankara University) for his advisory support during my final English corrections upon edi- torial suggestions. 1 Al-Tha¨labi, al-Kashf wa al-bayan ¨an tafsir al-Qur’an, ed. Sayyid Kasrawi Îasan (Beirut 2004). Because no serious effort has been made to produce a critical edition, this article makes limited use of this edition. The manuscripts of al- Tha¨labi’s exegesis found in Beyazıt Library (Veliyyüddin Efendi no. 130–3), Süley- maniye Library (≤ehid Ali Pa≥a no. 156) and others consulted are used instead. 69 0636-07_Joss08-1_Art04_fgm00469 12/3/08, 3:31 pm REFERENCES TO MUQATIL B. SULAYMAN (150/767) ods. Thus, the exegeses of Muqatil’s and al-Tha¨labi’s are not ran- domly selected as major themes of this study: Muqatil’s work is the oldest surviving exegesis which comments on the entire Qur’an from beginning to end. Now we have this exegesis in published form.2 Due to controversial opinions attributed to Muqatil, he is considered one of the most interesting figures in the history of exegesis. How- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jss/article/53/1/69/1729574 by ANKARA UNIVERSITY user on 08 July 2021 ever, the importance of al-Tha¨labi’s exegesis — for the present study — lies in the crucial role it played in the legitimization of Muqatil’s exegesis. After his death, Muqatil’s exegesis was nearly ignored for one and half centuries by many exegetes, possibly, due to criticism of Muqatil,3 which made him unpopular during this period. Remark- ably, the earliest references to his exegesis are found in the commen- tary of Abu ManÒur al-Maturidi (333/945), which contains more than thirty references to Muqatil’s exegesis.4 Given the voluminous- 2 This exegesis was first edited and published in four volumes by ¨Abd Allah MaÌmud ShaÌata in Cairo during 1979–88. This edition is used in this study. There is another edition (Beirut) of this exegesis which was published by AÌmad Farid in 2003. This edition is of doubtful use, because it lacks any scientific meth- odology. First of all, AÌmad Farid does not make any reference to ShaÌata, who edited and published this exegesis before him. AÌmad Farid claims to be the first editor of this exegesis. However, it is clear that AÌmad Farid benefited from ShaÌata’s edition to the extent that he (Farid) repeats the mistake, which ShaÌata had made in his edition: in the explanation of the verse (3:111), ShaÌata mentions the name of Ka¨b b. Malik (40/660?) mistakenly instead of noting the name of Ka¨b b. al-Ashraf (3/625). See Muqatil b. Sulayman, Tafsir (Cairo 1979–88), I, 295. AÌmad Farid repeats the same mistake without alteration. See Muqatil b. Sulay- man, Tafsir Muqatil b. Sulayman (Beirut 2003), I, 186. 3 Muqatil’s thought in favour of tashbih or tajsim (anthropomorphic) is consid- ered unacceptable by the mainstream of Muslims. See, for example, al-Ash¨ari, Kitab maqalat al-Islamiyyin, ed. Hellmut Ritter (Wiesbaden 1980), 152–3, 209; Ibn Îibban, Kitab al-majruÌin min al-muÌaddithin wa al-∂u¨afa’ wa al-matrukin, ed. MuÌammad Ibrahim Zayid (Aleppo 1396), III, 14; al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Bagh- dad aw madinat al-salam (Beirut n.d.), XIII, 164. Apart from anthropomorhic ten- dencies, Muqatil is also accused of being a Murji’i, Zaydi, liar, Ìadith fabricator to- gether with tadlis (deceiving or concealing some part of the report deliberately). See, for example, al-Ash¨ari, Ki†ab maqalat al-Islamiyyin, 151; Ibn Abi Îatim, Kitab al-jarÌ wa al-ta¨dil (Hyderabad 1952), VIII, 354; Ibn Îibban, Kitab al- majruÌin III, 14-15; Ibn ¨Adiyy, al-Kamil fi ∂u¨afa} al-rijal (Beirut 1985), VI, 2428; Ibn al-Nadim, al-Fihrist (Beirut 1978), 253; Ibn Îazm, al-MuÌalla ed. AÌmad MuÌammad Shakir (Beirut n.d.), II, 35; al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad XIII, 164, 169; al-Shahristani, al-Milal wa al-niÌal, ed. AÌmad Fahmi MuÌammad (Beirut 1948), I, 228; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-kamal fi asma’ al-rijal, ed. Bashshar ¨Awwad Ma¨ruf (Beirut 1992), XXVIII, 450; al-Dhahabi, Mizan al-i¨tidal fi naqd al-rijal, ed. ¨Ali MuÌammad al-Bajawi (Beirut 1963), IV, 173; Ibn Îajar, Tahdhib al- tahdhib (Beirut n.d.), X, 284. 4 Twenty-one of these references are found in Muqatil’s published exegesis. See 70 0636-07_Joss08-1_Art04_fgm00470 12/3/08, 3:31 pm REFERENCES TO MUQATIL B. SULAYMAN (150/767) ness of al-Maturidi’s exegesis one might think that the references to Muqatil’s exegesis in al-Maturidi’s commentary are too few. None- theless, despite the existence of several early exegeses which have come down to us, al-Maturidi retains a unique place because of his extensive usage of Muqatil’s commentary. After al-Maturidi, we see 5 that al-Naqqash (351/962) used Muqatil in his exegesis, and then Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jss/article/53/1/69/1729574 by ANKARA UNIVERSITY user on 08 July 2021 Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (373/983) and al-Tha¨labi benefited from it.6 Two centuries after al-Tha¨labi, several exegetes continued to use Muqatil’s commentary, such as al-Mawardi (450/1058) 260 times in his exegesis, al-™usi (460/1068) 7 times, al-WaÌidi (468/1076) 764 times,7 al-Baghawi (516/1122) 425 times, al-Zamakhshari (538/1143) 13 times, Ibn ¨A†iyya (542/1147) 47 times, al-™abrasi (548/1153) 215 times, Abu al-Faraj b. al-Jawzi (597/1201) approximately 1300 times, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (604/1207) 220 times and the famous tradition- alist Ibn Kathir (774/1372), whose fastidiousness is well known,8 makes 18 references to Muqatil b. Sulayman in his exegesis.9 These al-Maturidi, Ta’ w ilat ahl al-sunna, ed. Fa†ima Yusuf al-Khiyami (Beirut 2004), I, 262, 519, 524; II, 626; III, 18, 261, 306, 420–1, 429, 463, 464, 552, 588, 617; IV, 46, 73, 168, 259; V, 78, 523. The other thirteen references in Muqatil’s pub- lished exegesis have not been found. For these references see ibid., III, 114, 217, 277, 306, 399, 585; IV, 49, 211, 255, 437; V, 17, 80, 437. These references made by al-Maturidi have been investigated by Kıyasettin Koçoglu [see Kıyasettin Koçoglu, ‘Maturidi’nin Mutezileye Bakı≥ı’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Ankara Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü 2005)]. Koçoglu used the manuscript of al- Maturidi’s exegesis, which is now in the Topkapı Palace Museum/ Madina Dept no. 180. Although the editor of al-Maturidi’s published exegesis, Fa†ima Yusuf, did not use the Topkapı Palace Museum manuscript, there is full agreement between the references in both the published and manuscript forms of al-Maturidi’s ex- egesis. 5 In his exegesis, Ibn ¨A†iyya (542/1147) has noted four places, where al- Naqqash narrates from Muqatil. See al-MuÌarrar al-wajiz fi tafsir al-kitab al-¨aziz (Beirut 1993), I, 124, 374; II, 427, 441. Only one of these references was found in the manuscript of al-Naqqash’s exegesis in Süleymaniye library (Hasan Hüsnü Pa≥a no. 40). See Al-Naqqash, Shifa’ al-Òudur fi tafsir al-Qur’an al-karim, 154. This ex- egesis of al-Naqqash contains the explanation of very few verses of the Qur’an. Page numbering of this manuscript is arranged in accordance with modern books. A su- perficial study of this exegesis shows that al-Naqqash uses Muqatil rarely. For two other references to Muqatil see ibid., 151. 6 The transmission of al-Samarqandi and al-Tha¨labi will be dealt with later in this article. 7 This figure only shows the number of references to Muqatil in al-WaÌidi’s work entitled al-Wasi† fi tafsir al-Qur’an al-majid (eds, ¨Adil AÌmad ¨Abd al- Mawjud, AÌmad MuÌammad ∑ira, ¨Ali MuÌammad Mu¨awwi∂, AÌmad ¨Abd al- Ghani al-Jamal and ¨Abd al-RaÌman Uways [Beirut 1994]).