Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2022)
Tafsir in the Non-Arab Muslim World - II

Articles

Inscribing Persian in the Arabic Cosmopolis: Case Study of Qur’ānic Exegesis from Khorasan

https://doi.org/10.55831/ajis.v7i1.461

Published 07.05.2022

  • Majid Daneshgar
    • ,
  • Sajjad Rizvi
Majid Daneshgar
Oriental Studies Department, University of Freiburg, Germany

Sajjad Rizvi
University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Abstract

Scholarly discourse on the Persianate tends to focus on the influence of Persian in Iran and further east, and often occludes the way in which the Persian language is inflected and present in the Arabic cosmopolis further west. Similarly, the formation of ‘Islamic classics’ and scholarly genres including exegesis tends to ignore the role of Persian works (and texts produced in a Persianate context). Through a case study of Qur’ānic exegesis in Persian and its reception west of Iran, we demonstrate how Persian is inscribed into the Arabic cosmopolis such that the development of post-classical exegesis should place these works alongside the major Arabic classics of al-Ṭabarī, al-Thaʿlabī and al-Basīṭ; in effect, we contend the study of Qur’ānic exegesis cannot ignore the study of Persian exegesis. Through examining rare manuscripts, we show how scholars read, copied and promoted Persian tafsir in Arabophone contexts. Not only does this study follow up on and test some earlier scholarly works dealing with the circulation of Persian translations of the Qur’ān and its commentaries as well as the scholarly impact of the Persians further west, it indicates the contribution of Persian exegesis to a normative understanding of the Islamic exegetical traditions at the heart of the madrasa. 

Keywords

Persianate tafsir, Arabic cosmopolis, Khorasan, Levant, Nisapur

PDF

References

  1. Ágoston, Gábor, and Bruce Masters (Eds). “Baghdad.” In Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Facts on File, 2008.
  2. Ahmed, Shahab. What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.
  3. Al Ghouz, Abdelkader. Brokers of Islamic Philosophy in Mamlūk Egypt Shams ad-Dīn Maḥmūd b. ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1348) as a Case Study in the Transmission of Philosophical Knowledge through Commentary Writing. ASK Working Paper 24. Bonn: Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg, 2015.
  4. Alshaar, Nuha (Ed). The Qur’ān and Adab: The Shaping of Literary Traditions in Classical Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2017.
  5. Amanat, Abbas, and Assef Ashraf (Eds). The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Space. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
  6. Bauer, Karen (Ed.). Aims, Methods, and Contexts of Qur’ānic Exegesis: 2nd/8th–9th/15th C. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2013.
  7. Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Practising Diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate Gifts and Material Culture in the Medieval Islamic World. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
  8. Bevilacqua, Alexander. The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and European Enlightenment. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018.
  9. Browne, Edward G. “Description of an Old Persian Commentary on the Ḳurʾán.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, no. 3 (1894): 417-524.
  10. Brunner, Rainer. Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
  11. Bulliet, Richard W. “The Political-religious History of Nishapur in the Eleventh Century.” Islamic Civilisation 950-1150 (1973): 71-91.
  12. Chiabotti, Francesco, Eve Feuillebois-Pierunek, Catherine Mayeur-Jaoue and Luca Patrizi (Eds.). Ethics and Spirituality in Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
  13. Dabashi, Hamid. The World of Persian Literary Humanism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
  14. Al-Dāghistānī, ʿAlī Afandī Ḥilmī, Fihrist al-Kutub al-Fārisiyyah waʾl-Jāwiyyah al-Maḥfūẓah biʾl-Kutub-khānah al-Khidīwiyyah al-Miṣriyyah [Handlist of the Persian and Jawi Books kept in the Khedival Library in Cairo]. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿUthmāniyyah bi-Miṣr, 1888).
  15. Daneshgar, Majid. “A very old Malay Islamic Manuscript: Carbon Dating and Further Analysis of a Persian-Malay Anthology.” Indonesia and the Malay World (2021): 1-12.
  16. Daneshgar, Majid. “I Want to Become an Orientalist Not a Colonizer or a ‘De-Colonizer.’” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 33, no. 2 (2020): 173-185.
  17. Daneshgar, Majid. “Persianate Aspects of the Malay-Indonesian World: Some Rare Manuscripts in the Leiden University Library.” Dabir 8 (2021): 51-78.
  18. Daneshgar, Majid. Studying the Qur’an in the Muslim Academy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
  19. Fahras al-Shāmil liʾl-Turāth al-ʿArabī al-Islāmī al-Makhṭūṭ, ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, al-Maṣāḥif al- makhṭūṭah wa-makhṭūṭāt rasm al-Maṣāḥif [Comprehensive Catalogues of the Arabic Islamic Manuscript Tradition: Qurʾānic Sciences and Qurʾān Codices], vol. 2. Amman: al- Majmaʿ al-Malikī li-buḥūth al-Haḍārah al-Islāmiyyah, Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt, 1989.
  20. Flood, Finbarr Barry. Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval Hindu-Muslim Encounter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
  21. Formichi, Chiara. “Introduction.” In The Routledge Handbook on Islam in Asia, edited by Chiara Formichi, 1-13. London: Routledge, 2022.
  22. Frye, Richard N. The Golden Age of Persia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1975).
  23. Görke, Andreas, and Johanna Pink (Eds.). Tafsir and Islamic Intellectual History: Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014.
  24. Green, Nile (Ed.). The Persianate World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019. Gunasti, Susan. The Qur’ān between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic: An Exegetical Tradition. London: Routledge, 2019.
  25. Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbasid Society. London: Routledge, 1998.
  26. Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
  27. Ingenito, Domenico. Beholding Beauty: Saʿdī of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
  28. Al-Iṣfahānī, Shams al-Dīn. Tasdīd al-qawāʿid fī sharḥ Tajrīd al-ʿaqāʾid [Contriving the Principles in Commentary on the Summation of Belief]. Edited by Khālid b. Ḥamad al- ʿAdwānī. Kuwait: Dār al-ḍiyāʾ, 2012.
  29. Al-Isfarāyinī, Abū al-Muẓaffar Shāhfūr b. Tāḥir b. Muḥammad. Tāj al-Tarājum fī Tafsir al- Qurʾān liʾl-Aʿājim, vol. 1. Edited by Najīb Māyel Haravī and ʿAlī Akbar Elāhī Khorāsānī. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e ʿilmī o farhangī, 2006.
  30. Jasanoff, Maya. Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750–1850. New York: Random House, 2005.
  31. Kara, Taushif. “Provincializing Mecca? (1924–1969)” Global Intellectual History (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/23801883.2021.1939504.
  32. Keeler, Annabel. Sufi Hermeneutics: The Qur’ān Commentary of Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  33. Kia, Mana. Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin Before Nationalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020.
  34. Kodo, Tasada. “An Aspect of Islamic Culture in China.” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 16 (1957): 75-160.
  35. Kulinich, Alena. “Beyond Theology: Muʿtazilite Scholars and their Authority in Rummānī’s Tafsir.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78 (2015): 135-148.
  36. Leslie, Donald Daniel, and Mohamed Wassel. “Arabic and Persian Sources Used by Liu Chih.” Central Asiatic Journal 26, no. 1/2 (1982): 78-104.
  37. Lumbard, Joseph. “Decolonizing Qur’ānic Studies.” Religions 13, no. 2 (2022): 176. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020176.
  38. Mahdavī, Yahyā. Qiṣaṣ-e Qurʾān-e Majīd: bar-gereftah az Abū Bakr ʿAtīq Nayshābūrī mashhūr bih Sūrābādī [Stories from the Glorious Qurʾān reported by Abū Bakr ʿAtīq Nayshābūrī known as Sūrābādī]. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Dāneshgāh-e Tehrān, 1968.
  39. Matīnī, Jalāl (Ed.). Tafsir-e Qorʾān-e Majīd, vol. 1. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Bonyād-e Farhang-e Irān, 1970.
  40. Mayeur-Jaouen, Cathérine (Ed). Adab and Modernity: A Civilising Process? Leiden: Brill, 2020.
  41. Mortel, Richard. “Zaydi Shiism and the Hasanid Sharifs of Mecca.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19 (1987): 455-72.
  42. Mourad, Suleiman. “The Muʿtazila and their Tafsir Tradition.” In Tafsir: Interpreting the Qur’ān, vol. 3, edited by Mustafa Shah, 267-280. London: Routledge, 2013.
  43. Muʿīn, Moḥsen. “Darvāzajakī, Aḥmad b. Ḥasan.” In Islamic World Encyclopedia 17. Tehran: Dāʾerat al-maʿāref-e bozorg-e eslāmī, 2014.
  44. Murata, Sachiko. Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.
  45. Murata, Sachiko. The First Islamic Classic in Chinese: Wang Daiyu’s Real Commentary on the True Teaching. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017.
  46. Al-Musawi, Muhsin S. The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015.
  47. Nair, Shankar. Translating Wisdom: Hindu-Muslim Intellectual Interactions in Early Modern South Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020.
  48. Neglia, Giulia Annalinda. The Cultural Meaning of Aleppo: A Landscape Recovery for the Ancient City. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2020.
  49. Al-Nisābūrī, Qāḍī Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd. Tafsir Baṣāʾir-e Yamīnī. Edited by ʿAlī Ravāqī. Tehran: Mīrās-e Maktūb, 2019.
  50. Nīshābūrī, Muḥammad ʿAbdullāh Ḥakīm. Taʾrīkh-e Nīshābūr. Translated by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khalīfa. Tehran: Ketāb-khānah-ye Ibn Sīnā, n.d.
  51. Petersen, Kristian. Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
  52. Pfeiffer, Judith (Ed.). Politics, Patronage, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
  53. Pollock, Sheldon. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
  54. Ricci, Ronit. Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
  55. Rizvi, Sajjad. “Reversing the Gaze? Or Decolonizing the Study of the Qur’ān.” Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (2021): 122-38.
  56. Roemer, Hans. “The Safavid Period.” In The Cambridge History of Iran vol 6: The Timurid and Safavid Periods, edited by Peter Jackson and Laurence Lockhart, 189-350. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
  57. el-Rouayheb, Khaled. Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  58. Russell, Alex. The Natural History of Aleppo Containing a Description of the City, and the Principal Natural Productions in its Neighbourhood. Together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases; Particularly of the Plague, 2nd ed., vol. 1. London: G. G. and J. Robinson, 1794.
  59. Saleh, Walid A. The Formation of the Classical Tafsir Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Thaʿlabī. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
  60. Saleh, Walid A. “The Introduction to Wāḥidī’s al-Basīṭ: An Edition, Translation and Commentary.” In Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur’ānic Exegesis (2nd/8th–9th/15th C.), edited by Karen Bauer, 68-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2013.
  61. Saleh, Walid A. ‘The Last of the Nishapuri School of Tafsir: al-Wāḥidī and his Significance in the History of Qur’ānic Exegesis.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 126 (2006): 223-243.
  62. Saleh, Walid A. “The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Bayḍāwī: A History of Anwār al-Tanzīl.” Journal of Qur’ānic Studies 23, no. 1 (2021): 71-102.
  63. Sands, Kristin. Sufi Commentaries on the Qurʾān in Classical Islam. London: Routledge, 2006.
  64. Seyller, John William, et al. The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India. Washington, DC: Freer Gallery of Art, 2002.
  65. el-Shamsy, Ahmed. Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. Shouyi, Bai. Zhongguo Yisilan Shi Cunguo (Manuscripts of the History of Islam in China). Yinchuan: Ningxia Peoples’ Press, 1982.
  66. Stark, Ulrike. An Empire of Books: The Naval Kishore Press and the Diffusion of the Printed Word in Colonial India. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008.
  67. Tafsir-e Qorʾān-e Karīm. Tehran: Bonyad-e Farhang-e Īrān, 1965.
  68. Tarajmproject. “Tarajim.” Accessed March 1, 2022. https://tarajm.com/people/64723.
  69. Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī. Aḥlām fīʾl Siyāsah. Cairo: Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalābī, 1935.
  70. Truschke, Audrey. Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.
  71. Tschacher, Torsten. “Islamic and Sanskritic Imaginaries in Southeast Asia.” In The Routledge Handbook on Islam in Asia, edited by Chiara Formichi, 51-65. London: Routledge, 2022.
  72. Vagelpohl, Uwe. Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
  73. Wansbrough, John. Qur’ānic Studies: Sources and Methods for Scriptural Interpretation. London: Oxford University Press, 1977.
  74. Wherry, E. M. A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran: Comprising Sale’s Translation and Preliminary Discourse, vol. 1 (London: Kegan Paul, 1896).
  75. Winter, Stefan. The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  76. Wolff, Samuel R. “Mortuary Practices in the Persian Period of the Levant.” Near Eastern Archaeology 65, no. 2 (2002): 131-137.
  77. Yahaghi, Mohammad Jafar. “An Introduction to Early Persian Qur’ānic Translations.” Journal of Qur’ānic Studies 4/2 (2002): 105-109.
  78. Yosef, Koby. “Cross-Boundary Hatred: (Changing) Attitudes towards Mongol and “Christian” Mamlūks in the Mamluk Sultanate.” In The Mamluk Sultanate from the Perspective of Regional and World History Economic, Social and Cultural Development in an Era of Increasing International Interaction and Competition, edited by Reuven Amitai and Stephan Conermann, 149-214. Bonn: V&R Unipress Bonn University Press, 2019.
  79. Zadeh, Travis. The Vernacular Qur’ān: Translation and the Rise of Persian Exegesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2012.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.