Guiding the Sound Mind: Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Tafsir

and Rhetorical Interpretation of the Qur’an in the

Post-Classical Period*
Shuruq Naguib**

Akl-ı Selîme Rehberlik Etme: Klasik Dönem Sonrasında Ebussuud’un Tefsir’i ve Kur’an’ın
Belâğî Tefsiri
Öz En kapsayıcı yönüyle bu makalenin amacı, genellikle çağdaş tefsir araştırmalarında
ihmal edilen klasik dönem sonrası tefsirini incelemek ve bu aşamada şekillenen tefsir gele-
neğinin iç dünyasını kavramaya çalışmaktır. Bu sebeple makale, çeşitli kaynaklarda belâğî
yorumlama özelliğiyle Zemahşerî ve Beydâvî’nin tefsir eserleriyle aynı seviyede değerlen-
dirilerek büyük bir övgüye layık görülen Ebussuud’un (ö. 982/1574) İrşâdü’l-akli’s-selîm ilâ
mezâya’l-kitâbi’l-kerîm (Kitâb-ı Kerîm’in Üstün Anlam İncelikleri Konusunda Akl-ı Selîm’e
Rehberlik Yapma) adlı Kur’an tefsiri üzerinde yoğunlaşmaktadır. Temelde bu çalışma,
İrşâd’ın hem kendi metnini ve hem ortaya çıktığı bağlamı incelemekte, özellikle belâğat
ve Kur’an tefsirinin kesiştiği noktada Ebussuud gibi onaltıncı yüzyıl Osmanlı ulemasının
tefsir alanındaki meselelerinin şekillenmesinde rol oynayan entelektüel tartışmaları ve fikir
alışverişlerini ele almaktadır. Temsil ve onun bir türü olarak istiare, çalışmamızın metin
ve bağlam incelemesinde temel malzemeyi oluşturmaktadır. Konuyla ilgili İrşâdü’l-akli’s-
selîm’den getirilen ve Ebussuud Efendi’nin bir tefsir aracı veya üslubu olarak temsili, nasıl
temellendirip uyguladığını gösteren örnekler, titizlikle incelenerek önceki tefsirlerle muka-
yesesi yapılmıştır. Sonuç olarak bu çalışma, bir klasik dönem sonrası tefsiri olarak İrşâd’ın
temel özelliklerini yansıtmakta ve tefsirin 16. Yüzyıl Osmanlı entelektüel dünyasındaki
fikri ve siyasi önemiyle ilgili bazı gözlemler ve tespitler içermektedir.
Anahtar kelimeler: Ebussuud, Kur’ân Araştırmaları, Tefsir, İrşâdü’l-akli’s-selîm ilâ
mezâya’l-kitâbi’l-kerîm, Osmanlı Entelektüel Tarihi, Klasik Dönem Sonrası, Belâğat,
Cürcâni, Temsil, İstiare

* I am greatly indebted to Colin Imber for drawing my attention to the exegetical work
of Ebu’s-su‘ūd and for his indispensable guidance with the sources. I am also very
grateful to the guest editor, Seyfi Kenan, for his many constructive comments and to
the History of Ottoman Thought Study Group for inviting me to present an earlier
version of this paper to the Ebusuud and His World of Thought Meeting II (Harvard
University, ISAM and Sabancı University, Dec 2011).
** Ph. D., Lancaster University.

Osmanlı Araştırmaları / The Journal of Ottoman Studies, XLII ( 0 3), - 1

 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

The scope of studies on the literary genre of tafsīr is generally limited to clas-
sical exegesis from al-Šabarī to Ibn Kathīr,1 and modern exegesis since the nine-
teenth century.2 Much of the tafsīr produced after Ibn Kathīr (d.774/1371) and
until Muģammad ‘Abdū (d.1323/1905) remains neglected largely due to the dom-
inant perception that in the post-classical period described as the ‘Period of
Decadence,’3 scholarly production within the Islamic disciplines was ‘moribund
repetition’4 of the intellectual achievements of past generations. This is often at-
tributed to an unceasing process of scholastic explication and instruction aided
by different literary forms of commentary (e.g. sharģ, ta‘līqa and ģāshiya), which
became the means for preserving and transmitting established knowledge. This
enduring view has been recently challenged by studies on Islamic law5 and Ara-
bic rhetoric for example.6

1 In his description of formal tafsīr, Norman Calder marks the beginning and end of
the classical period with the works of these two exegetes. “Tafsīr from Šabarī to Ibn
Kathīr, Problems in the description of a genre, illustrated with reference to the story
of Abraham,” in G.R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, eds., Approaches to the
Qur’ān (London: Routledge, 1993), 101-140. Jane Dammen-McAuliffe takes a similar
position when delineating “The Tasks and Traditions of Interpretation.” Following
her account of classical tafsīr, she “jumps six centuries” - from Ibn Kathīr to modern
Qur’an interpretations - apparently presupposing the futility of the tafsīr genre in
the period in between. Dammen-McAuliffe, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the
Qur’an (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 181-209, 199.
2 See, for example, J.J.G. Jansen, The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt (Lei-
den: Brill, 1974).
3 In terms of historical periodization, the beginning of the ‘post-classical’ period varies
from one historical model to another but is generally placed sometime between the
sack of Baghdad in 1258 and the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks in 1516, while its
end is marked by Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. See, for example, Roger Allen
and D. S. Richards, eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature
in the Post-classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 5-6; see
also Isa Boullata’s review of this book in Digest of Middle East Studies, vol. 16, issue 1,
2007, 108–113, 108.
4 William Smyth, “Controversy in a Tradition of Commentary: The Academic Legacy
of al-Sakkākī’s Miftāģ al-‘Ulūm”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 112, no.
4, 1992, 589-597.
5 A notable example is the work of Wael Hallaq on Islamic Law, particularly Author-
ity, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001).
6 See the work of William Smyth “Controversy in a Tradition of Commentary”, 1992;
“Some Quick Rules Ut Pictura Poesis: The Rules for Simile in Miftāģ al-’Ulūm,”
Oriens, vol. 33, 1992, 215-229; “The Canonical Formulation of ‘Ilm al-Balāgha and al-

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

In light of the common observation in these studies that the literary legacy of
this period should be accorded greater attention, the overarching aim of the pa-
per is to gain an insight into tafsīr after Ibn Kathīr. For this purpose, the paper
will examine the sixteenth century Qur’an commentary Irshād al-‘aql al-salīm ilā
mazāyā al-kitāb al-karīm (Guiding the sound mind to the benefits of the Noble
Book) by Abū al-Su‘ūd (Ebu’s-su‘ūd hereafter)7 Muģammad b. Muģiyy al-Dīn
Muģammad b. Muŝšafā al-‘Imādī (896/1490- 982/1574). This examination in-
volves both the text and its context, prioritising the study of the world of the ex-
egete to understand the historical and intellectual backdrops against which the
exegetical text was produced. This will be achieved through: i) exploring the ex-
egete’s status and the reception of his work as construed within the genre’s self-
narrative by biographical historians, bibliographical compilers, and scholars of
tafsīr (Section 1); ii) investigating Irshād’s historical linkages to other exegetical
works; and the clues these linkages provide for reconstructing a picture of the
intellectual context of Irshād’s production (Section 2) and for iii) expounding
the debates on rhetoric which informed Irshād’s exegetical approach (Section 3).
The historical study of context is then followed by the literary analysis of the
text itself, its content, method and formal characteristics by means of a close
reading of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s interpretation of Q. 33:71-72. This will help illustrate his
interpretive method in comparison with past exegetes (Section 4). The conclud-
ing Section 5 will briefly reflect on the broader historical implications of Irshād’s
production.

1. Locating Ebu’s-su‘ūd the exegete

The choice to examine Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Irshād al-‘aql al-salīm ilā mazāyā al-kitāb
al-karīm was initially guided by a brief comment in Colin Imber’s monograph on
this Ottoman jurist. Imber noted that the Ottoman biographers of Ebu’s-su‘ūd,
once Muftī of Istanbul and the longest-serving Shaykh al-Islam at the height of the
Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, considered his tafsīr together with the
classical commentaries of al-Zamakhsharī (d.538/1144) and al-Bayēāwī (d.685/1285)

Sakkākī’s Miftāģ al-’Ulūm”, Der Islam, vol. 72, issue 1, 1995, 7-24; and, more recently,
Allen and Richards, eds., Arabic Literature in the Post-classical Period, including the
chapter by William Smyth on “Criticism in the Post-Classical Period”, 387-417.
7 Transliteration of the names of famous Ottoman scholars is provided in the first in-
stance according to both Arabic and Turkish, then according to Turkish thereafter.
However, the bibliographical details of Arabic sources written by Turkish scholars are
all transliterated according to the Arabic script. All transliteration follows the IJMES
style guidelines.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

to be the greatest contributions to the tafsīr genre.8 Further investigation of bio-

graphical and bibliographical material confirmed that Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Irshād acquired
status in the post-classical tafsīr tradition. His Ottoman peers received it with ac-
claim. Even before it had been completed, Šāshköprīzāde (d.968/1561 ), author of
the famous biographical work al-Shaqā’iq al-nu‘māniyya as well as a jurist and exe-
gete, composed a short panegyric on Ebu’s-su‘ūd and his Qur’an commentary
when he reviewed a part of Irshād sent to him by Ebu’s-su‘ūd himself.9
Later Turkish, Indian and Arab cataloguers concur that Irshād is written in
an exquisite style of Arabic which, according to Ģajjī Khalīfa (d. 1057/1657),
earned Ebu’s-su‘ūd amongst the most prominent of his contemporaries the epi-
thet khašīb al-mufassirīn (orator of the exegetes).10 The seventeenth century
Yemeni historian ‘Abd al-Qādir al-‘Aydarūs likens Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s eloquence in Ara-
bic to the native fluency of the ancient pure Arabs.11 In support of his view, he
recorded the words of Shaykh Qušb al-Dīn, a muftī who met Ebu’s-su‘ūd in
943/1536 when the latter was Judge of Istanbul. Qušb al-Dīn was highly im-
pressed with Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s literary eloquence and superiority, and marvelled that:
“for someone who never journeyed to the homelands of the Arabs, this [ability]
is, without doubt, a divine gift.”12 Though Ebu’s-su‘ūd was an accomplished lin-
guist, described as an ‘imām ahl al-lisān’ in one source,13 it is his exegetical prow-
ess that is mainly extolled by seventeenth century scholars and cataloguers. An

8 Colin Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd: The Islamic Legal Tradition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1997), 18; Ģajjī Khalīfa (=Kātib Chelebi), Kashf al-žunūn ‘an asmā’ al-kutub wa-l-
funūn, ed. Muģammad Sharaf al-Dīn Yāltqāyā and Rif‘at Bīlka al-Kilīsī, 2 vols. (Istanbul:
Wikālat al-Ma‘ārif, 1941, reprinted in Beirut: Dār iģyā al-turāth al-‘arabī, n.d.), vol. 1,
65; Abū al-Ģasanāt Muģammad ‘Abd al-Ģayy al-Lakhnawī (d. 1304/1886), al-Fawā’id
al-bahiyya fī tarājim al-ģanafiyya (Lahore: al-Mašba’ al-Muŝšafā’ī, 1293/1876), 36.
9 ‘Alī b. Bālī (= Manq ‘Alī), al-‘Iqd al-manžūm fī žikr afādil al-rūm, the supplement
to Aģmad b. Mūŝšafā Šāshkubrī Zāda’s (Šāshköprīzāde) al-Shaqā’iq al-nu‘māniyya
fi ‘ulamā’ al-dawla al-‘uthmāniyya, both works printed in one volume (Beirut: Dār
al-kitāb al-‘arabī, 1975), 340.
10 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 65.
11 al-‘Aydarūs, ‘Abd al-Qādir b. Shaykh b. ‘Abd Allah (d. circa 1034/1624), Tarīkh al-nūr
al-sāfir ‘an-akhbār al-qarn al-‘āshir, ed. Aģmad Ģālu et al (Beirut: Dār ŝādir, 2001),
319. Cf. al-Lakhnawī, al-Fawā’id, 36; al-Shawkānī, Muģammad b.’Alī (d.1250/1834),
al-Badr al-šāli‘ bi-maģāsin man ba‘d al-qarn al-sābi‘, 2 vols. (Cairo :Dār al-kitāb al-
islāmī, n.d.), vol.1, 261.
12 al-‘Aydarūs, Tarīkh al-nūr al-sāfir, 320.
13 Maģmūd b. Sulaymān al-Kafawī, Katā’ib a‘lām al-akhyār min fuqahā madhhab al-
Nu‘mān al-mukhtār, Kitābkhaneh-yi majlis-i shūra-yi millī, Tehran, 2 vols., MS
87827/11361 & 11362, see vol. 2, MS 87827/11362, f. 263r.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

Ottoman author of one of few bibliographical works devoted to tafsīr describes

him in hyperbolic terms as “muftī of the peoples and sultan of the exegetes.”14
Two centuries later, al-Shawkānī (1250/1834), a reformist Yemeni scholar and ex-
egete, is still expressing great enthusiasm for Ebu’s-su‘ūd and his Irshād, deeming
it “one of the greatest, most excellent and most accurate works of tafsīr.”15
Such views are the more intriguing given that from his first appointment as
Judge of Bursa (939/1533) until his death (982/1574), Ebu’s-su‘ūd spent a lifetime
greatly preoccupied with the practice and administration of law;16 and that, as
Imber correctly observes, of his literary legacy the work for which he has become
well-known according to his Ottoman biographers is not one of jurisprudence
but one of tafsīr.17 Later biographers maintain a similar view. In a nineteenth
century Indian biographical dictionary of Ģanafī scholars, Ebu’s-su‘ūd is, inter-
estingly, listed as ‘the Qur’an exegete’: “Abū al-Su‘ūd al-mufassir al-‘Imādī.” 18 A
secondary aim of the paper is, thus, to investigate Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Qur’an com-
mentary, Irshād,19 in order to shed light on the reasons for its outstanding recep-
tion, and its success in securing a place in the exegetical tradition as indicated by
a good number of supercommentaries and glosses written on it by scholars from

14 Aģmad b. Muģammad al-Adirnawī (d. ca. 11th/17th century), Šabaqāt al-mufassirīn, ed.
Sulaymān b. Ŝāliģ al-Khizzī (al-Madīna: Maktabat al-‘ulūm wa-l-ģikam, 1997), 398.
15 al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-šāli‘, vol.1, 261.
16 For a detailed biography of Ebu’s-su’ūd in English, see Imber, Ebu’s-su’ud, 8-20. Cf.
Joseph Schacht, “Abu’l-Su‘ūd,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn), vol. 1 (Leiden:
Brill, 1979), 152-3. For biographies in Arabic, see in addition to the sources referenced
in notes 9 & 11, ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 439-454; Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī (d.
1061/1651), al-Kawākib al-sā’ira bi-a‘yān al-mi’a al-‘āshira, 3 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-fikr,
1997), vol. 3, 31-3; Ibn al-‘Imād, Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-Falāģ ‘Abd al-Ģayy b. Aģmad,
Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab, 10 vols., ed. ‘Abd al-Qādir and Maģmūd
al-Arna’ūš (Damascus: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1993) vol. 10, 584-6.
17 Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd, 18.
18 al-Lakhnawī, al-Fawā’id, 5.
19 The edition cited hereafter is Tafsīr Abī al-Su‘ūd aw Irshād al-‘aql al-salīm ilā mazāyā
al-kitāb al-karīm, 5 vols, ed. ‘Abd al-Qādir Aģmad ‘Atā (Cairo: Maktabat al-riyāē al-
ģadītha, 1971). ‘Atā’s edition is based on earlier prints of Irshād in Cairo, as well as the
earliest manuscripts available in Dār al-kutub al-miŝriyya (n.d.). I compared ‘Atā’s edi-
tion to the Leipzig manuscript copy of Irshād on the parts discussed in this paper and
found it accurate in all cases (Leipzig University Library, no. 12, 2 vols., MS.or.333 &
MS.or.334, dated 1203/1789, see waqf note, MS.or.334, 1r). For text-mining purposes,
i.e. searching across the text for certain key terms, I used the digitised edition available
through the academic website www.altafsir.com launched by the Royal Aal al-Bayt
Institute for Islamic Thought.

5
 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

the Levant, North Africa and Egypt.20 It is noteworthy that these continued to
appear until the second half of the nineteenth century, for example, Ģāshiyat al-
Saqqā ‘alā tafsīr al-mawlā Abī al-Su‘ūd by the Azharite scholar Ibrāhīm b. ‘Alī b.
Ģasan al-Saqqā (d. 1298/1881), a contemporary of the Egyptian reformist thinker
and exegete Muģammad ‘Abdū.21
These glosses and supercommetaries suggest that Irshād was incorporated
into religious education. The sources contain some supporting evidence that it
became a core text of the religious curriculum in several parts of the Ottoman
Empire. In 998/1590, few years after Ebu’s-su‘ūd died, the Levantine historian
Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī (d. 1061/1651) recounts his study of Irshād with one of
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s students who introduced and taught the text during his service as
Judge of Aleppo.22 The sources also mention that Tunisian scholars taught and
commented upon Irshād during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.23 By
the nineteenth century, al-Shawkānī asserts, Irshād had reached all the Ottoman
provinces and protectorates, becoming a major reference work for various disci-
plines.24
More significantly, a number of formal works of Qur’an commentary make
frequent references to Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s exegetical opinions in Irshād, for example:
Rūģ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān by Ismā‘īl Ģaqqī of Bursa (d. 1127/1715); al-Baģr

20 Ģajjī Khalīfa records three incomplete commentaries on Irshād, see Kashf, vol. 1, 66;
Ismā‘īl Pāsha al-Baghdādī records another four in Idāģ al-maknūn fī-l-dhayl ‘alā kashf
al-žunūn ‘an asmā’ al-kutub wa-l-funūn, ed. Muģammad Sharaf al-Dīn Yāltaqāyā and
Rif‘at Bīlka al-Kilīsī, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Wikālat al-ma‘ārif, 1947, reprinted in Beirut:
Dār iģyā al-turāth al-‘arabī, n.d.), vol. 1, 64 and vol. 2, 497 & 579; and another one
in al-Baghdādī, Hadiyyat al-‘ārifīn fī asmā’ al-mu’allifīn wa āthār al-muŝannifīn, 2 vols.
(Istanbul: Wikālat al-ma‘ārif, 1951, reprinted in Beirut: Dār iģyā al-turāth al-‘arabī,
n.d.), vol. 1, 344. I came across two other commentaries: one by Shaykh Maģmūd
Maqdīsh al-Ŝafāqsī, mentioned by Muģammad al-Fāēil Ibn ‘Āshūr (d. 1973) in al-
Tafsīr wa-rijāluh (Cairo: al-Azhar, majma’ al-buģūth al-islāmiyya, 1970), 114; and an-
other by the Egyptian Shaykh al-Saqqā, see note 21 below.
21 MS 1/182 [250] al-Saqqā 28478, al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya, Cairo.
22 al-Ghazzī (d. 1061/1651), al-Kawākib al-sā’ira, vol. 3, 32.
23 Ibn ‘Āshūr refers to an extensive commentary written by Shaykh Muģammad al-
Zaytūna which he began in Tunis and continued to work on during his travels to
teach tafsīr in Egypt, Mecca and Medina. See al-Tafsīr wa-rijāluh, 113-4. This com-
mentary is recorded by Ismā‘īl Pāsha as completed in 1129/1717 under the title Mašāli‘
al-su‘ūd wa fatģ al-wadūd ‘alā irshād shaykh al-islām Abī al-Su’ūd, see Idāģ, vol. 2,
497-8.
24 al-Shawkānī, al-Badr al-šāli‘, vol.1, 261.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-majīd by the Moroccan sufi Ibn ‘Ajība

(d.1244/1828); Rūģ al-ma‘ānī fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-‘ažīm wa-l-sab‘ al-mathānī by
the Iraqi scholar al-Alūsī (d. 1270/1854).25 The diverse locations of the authors
of these commentaries corroborate al-Shawkānī’s observation on the wide-reach
of Irshād, which he himself relied upon in his Qur’an commentary Fatģ al-
Qadīr. But this could not have been achieved without Irshād gaining a place in
the learning and teaching of tafsīr. Contemporary traditional tafsīr works such
as al-Tafsīr al-wasīš by Muģammad Sayyid Šanšāwī (b.1928-2010), the late
Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar, and Ŝafwat al-tafāsīr by the Syrian Shaykh
Muģammad ‘Alī al-Ŝabūnī (b. 1930-) also draw on Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s tafsīr. These re-
current citations in the tafsīr genre, where citation is a formal characteristic in-
dicating recognition of past authorities,26 is evidence of the status which Ebu’s-
su‘ūd acquired within the exegetical tradition. Further investigation of his
influence on later exegetes is beyond the scope of this study but suffice it to say
that the sustained exegetical interest in Irshād - across time, place, and genres of
scholastic (supercommentaries and glosses) and formal tafsīr writing - is a clear
sign of an enduring influence on Qur’an commentary beyond its initial promo-
tion by the Ottomans.27

25 I used the digital search facility of www.altafsir.com to trace citations of Ebu’s-su‘ūd

across this repository’s extensive tafsīr corpus. The search yields results by the Qur’anic
verses under which the citation was made. For example, in his interpretation of Sūrat
al-Baqara, Ismā’īl Ģaqqī cites Ebu’s-su‘ūd and Irshād in the course of his discussion
of verses 3, 13, 82,102, 104, 129, 135, 221, 256, 285. Not included here are tafsīr works
which make the occasional reference to Ebu’s-su‘ūd. This search method is useful in
excavating formal citations and identifying potential locations of intertextualities. A
more comprehensive appreciation of the impact of Ebu’s-su‘ūd on later exegetes re-
quires closer textual examination.
26 Calder, “Tafsīr from Šabarī to Ibn Kathīr,” 101-104.
27 Ģajjī Khalīfa recounts that, in 973/1566, on receiving the manuscript of the incom-
plete tafsīr (up to Qur’an 38, sūrat Ŝād) sent with Ibn Ma‘lūl, Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s son in
law, Sultan Süleyman I bestowed great rewards and honours on Ebu’s-su‘ūd; and that
when Irshād was completed by the following year, it was widely copied and circulated
throughout the Ottoman Empire. See Kashf, vol. 1, 65. Cf. Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ud, 18-19.
On dates and copies, Adem Yerinde contends that on the basis of the autograph and
other copies the incomplete manuscript was sent to Süleyman I in 972/1565 and the
tafsīr completed in 973/1566 (Adam Yerinde, “Ebussuud’s Tafsir and Its Copies”, an
unpublished paper presented at the History of Ottoman Thought Study Meeting II,
Istanbul: Sabancı University, 14-15 December 2011). Yerinde’s finding is lent support
by Ģajjī Khalīfa’s citation of Muģammad al-Munshī’s comments on Irshād which

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

Well-known modern writings on the history of tafsīr similarly assign Ebu’s-

su‘ūd a place amongst the renowned Qur’an exegetes, and seem to generally
echo the remarks of pre-modern biographers and cataloguers. One such work is
Tārīkh al-tafsīr by Qāsim al-Qaysī (1876-1955), late Muftī of Baghdad. According
to al-Qaysī, Irshād is the first complete work of tafsīr by an Ottoman Shaykh al-
Islam.28 The only Shaykh al-Islam before Ebu’s-su‘ūd to have written a tafsīr
worthy of note in al-Qaysī is Aģmad b. Sulaymān Ibn Kamāl Pāsha
(Kemālpāshazāde, d. 940/1534) who reached Sūrat al-Ŝāffāt (Q. 37)29 but died
before completing it.30 Al-Qaysī also observes that Irshād was one of the earliest
Qur’an commentaries to be printed in the late nineteenth century in Egypt,
which substantiates the observation that it was one of the key exegetical texts
around that time. Al-Qaysī, however, is more reserved in his assessment of the
tafsīr work itself and tempers down earlier remarks on the great exegetical triad
of al-Zamakhsharī, al-Bayēāwī and Ebu’s-su‘ūd, commenting briefly that Irshād
“is appended [in mention] to these two works of tafsīr…because it is another ver-
sion of them with very few additions.”31
Ibn ‘Āshūr (d.1973), Tunisian scholar and exegete, dismisses this view in Al-
Tafsīr wa-rijāluh, emphasising Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s ‘linguistic genius’.32 He argues that
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s attentiveness to aspects of al-Zamakhsharī’s commentary which al-
Bayēāwī disregarded,33 as well as the coherence and accuracy of his investigation
of these two ‘outstanding works’34 is what rendered Irshād an essential reading.35
In his seminal work Al-Tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn, Muģammad Ģusayn al-Dhahabī

include two chronograms that place the sending of the incomplete manuscript in the
year 972 and its completion in the following year.
28 Qāsim al-Qaysī (1876-1955), Tārīkh al-tafsīr (completed in 1944 and published post-
humously, Baghdad: Mašba’at al-majma’ al-‘ilmī al-‘irāqī, 1966), 130. However, there
appears to have been an earlier but less famous tafsīr work written by the Ottoman
Shaykh al-Islam Aģmad b. Ismā‘īl al-Gūrānī (d. 893/1488). Al-Gūrānī’s Ghayat al-
amānī fi tafsīr al-kalām al-rabbānī is a short (one-volume) and apparently basic work
by the standards of the tafsīr genre. It was completed in 865/1461 and dedicated to
Mehmed II, the Conqueror. See Kashf, vol. 1, 1290.
29 al-Qaysī, Tārīkh, 81; cf. Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 439.
30 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 227.
31 al-Qaysī, Tārīkh, 130.
32 Ibn ‘Āshūr, al-Tafsīr wa-rijāluh, 109.
33 Ibid, 111.
34 Ibid., 112.
35 Ibid., 113.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

(d. 1976),36 late Egyptian Minister of Awqāf, is in accord that Irshād is more than
simply a merged edition of al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī. Rather, al-Dhahabī
concludes following an analysis of several excerpts from Irshād that Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s
linguistic method of analysing the syntactic (i.e. sentence) structure of the
Qur’an to reveal the deeper meanings is almost unprecedented, and that his in-
terpretative insights are only attainable by “the most endowed with knowledge
of the subtle [meanings] of the Arabic language.”37
Al-Dhahabī, who employs the pre-modern classificatory division of tradition-
based (bi-l-ma’thūr) and opinion-based (bi-l-ra’y) tafsīr, places Ebu’s-su’ūd to-
gether with nine other exegetes as those who best represent the exegetical school
of permissible independent opinion (al-tafsīr bi-l-ra’y al-jā’iz). Among those are
some of the most prominent exegetes in Islamic history such as al-Fakhr al-Rāzī
and al-Bayēāwī.38 Like earlier cataloguers, al-Dhahabī too praises Irshād’s elo-
quence. He is most keen, however, on underlining the extraordinary novelty of
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s rhetorical interpretations of the Qur’an, considering him to have
surpassed all preceding exegetes.39
This survey of Irshād’s reception and status since its completion in 973/1566
confirms Colin Imber’s observation on the perceived significance of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s
contribution to the literary genre of tafsīr. It further draws our attention to two
important observations made about Irshād by biographers, historians and mod-

36 Muģammad Ģusayn al-Dhahabī, al-Tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn, originally a doctoral the-

sis completed for the ‘ālimiyya degree at al-Azhar in 1946, and first published in 1970,
3 vols. (Cairo: Maktabat wahba, 2000).
37 Ibid., vol. 1, 248.
38 Ibid, vol. 1, 205-206. The nine exegetes are in this order: the Persian exegetes al-Fakhr
al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), Mafātīģ al-ghayb; al-Bayēāwī (d. 685/1286 ), Anwār al-tanzīl
wa asrār al-ta’wīl; and Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī (d. 710/1310), Madārik al-tanzīl wa
ģaqā’iq al-ta’wīl; the Iraqi exegete al-Khāzin (d. 741/1340), Lubāb al-ta’wīl fī ma’ānī al-
tanzīl; the Andalusian exegete Abū Ģayyān (d. 745/ 1344), al-Baģr al-muģīš; the Per-
sian exegete al-Naysabūrī al-Qummī (d. ca. 750/1349), Gharā’ib al-Qur’ān wa-raghā’ib
al-furqān; the Egyptian exegetes al-Suyūšī (d. 911/1505), Tafsīr al-jalālayn, and the
less known al-Shirbīnī (d. 977/1569), al-Sirāj al-munīr fī-l-i‘āna ‘alā ma‘rifat kalām
rabbinā al-ģakīm al-khabīr; and finally, after Ebu’s-su’ūd, the Iraqi exegete al-Alūsī
(d. 1270/1854), Rūģ al-ma‘ānī fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-‘ažīm wa-l-sab‘ al-mathānī which is
noted by al-Dhahabī for its reliance on Irshād - a view corroborated by the results of
the preliminary digital search through al-tafsir.com (cited above). See Ibid, 253. Inter-
estingly, al-Zamakhsharī’s al-Kashshāf, a key reference for almost all of those exegetes,
as al-Dhahabī himself admits, is excluded on count of its Mu’tazilism.
39 Ibid., vol. 1, 247.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

ern scholars of tafsīr: primarily, its lineage to the work of al-Zamakhsharī and al-
Bayēāwī, and, secondly, its rhetorical approach to Qur’an interpretation, an ap-
proach closely linked in the genre to the work of al-Zamakhsharī. This raises a
question about the extent of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s indebtedness to these two past exe-
getes. Investigating Irshād’s exegetical lineage would therefore be necessary for
understanding its intellectual context.

2. Contextualising Irshād: Exegetical lineage and intellectual trajectory

Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s narrative in the preface to Irshād about how he came to com-
pose this work is illuminating in this regard. He presents Irshād as belonging to a
genre which matured from a first stage of ‘verification’ during which exegetes
were preoccupied with doing the groundwork of “explicating meanings, con-
structing structures, elucidating purposes, and organising rules according to
what has been transmitted to them,” 40 to a second stage of in-depth examina-
tion during which they devoted their efforts to “showing its [the Qur’an] superb
qualities and revealing its magnificent hidden [meanings] in order for people to
behold the evidence of its inimitability.”41 Ebu’s-su‘ūd locates his own commen-
tary in this latter stage which he clearly associates with a subgenre of tafsīr that
developed from the intersection between the disciplines of rhetoric and the the-
ological concept of the Qur’an’s linguistic inimitability, a point that will be re-
visited later in the discussion. In his view, this second stage reached a pinnacle in
the commentaries of al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144) and al-Bayēāwī (d. 685/1286).
Irshād, he maintains, is the continuation of this subgenre: its very production is
justified as the fruition of decades of reflection upon these two commentaries
which began long before he embarked on writing it:

In earlier days and long past times and years, when I occupied myself with study-
ing and revising them [al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī], and took the stand to
dispute and study them [with others], it occurred to my mind, day and night, that
I should thread together their pearl-like merits in a refined style and arrange the
most brilliant of their marvels in an elegant order.42

Although Ebu’s-su‘ūd proclaims his indebtedness to al-Zamakhsharī and al-

Bayēāwī alike, there is evidence that he cultivated a special interest in al-

40 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol.1, 3.

41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., 3-4.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

Zamakhsharī’s tafsīr, widely known as al-Kashshāf. During his years as professor

at one of the prestigious Eight Colleges (1527/8-1533) of al-Fātiģ (Mehmed II)
mosque in Istanbul, al-Kashshāf was the main work of tafsīr which Ebu’s-su‘ūd
taught. A sixteenth century jurist and a former student, ‘Abdu’l-Kerīmzāde, re-
called that he “heard from him al-Kashshāf on Qur’anic exegesis and al-Bukhārī
on the prophetic traditions.”43 There is also evidence that Ebu’s-su‘ūd continued
teaching al-Kashshāf during his years as judge. The Ottoman biographer ‘Alī b.
Bālī (d. 992/1584) relates that a Ģasan Beg employed in the service of the Grand
Vizier Rustum Pāsha befriended Ebu’s-su‘ūd, who was the-then Military Judge
of Rumelia, and studied with him al-Kashshāf starting from the Victory Chapter
(Q. 48).44 This motivated Ebu’s-su‘ūd to write a gloss on al-Kashshāf during the
Hungarian campaign in 1541.45 Ģajjī Khalīfa confirms the story, adding that
Ebu’s-su‘ūd actually taught al-Kashshāf during the Hungarian campaign, writing
for this purpose a gloss entitled Ma‘āqid al-širāf fī awwal tafsīr sūrat al-fatģ min
al-Kashshāf (The Nodes of New Treasures in the First Part of the Interpretation
of the Victory Chapter in al-Kashshāf).46 Also of note is that in the year Irshād
was completed Sultan Süleyman I issued a decree stipulating the acquisition of
key text books for the imperial colleges,47 quite likely in consultation with Ebu’s-

43 ‘Abdu’l-Kerīmzāde also related that in addition to law, prophetic tradition and Qur’an
exegesis, he greatly benefitted from his intensive training with Ebu’s-su‘ūd in the fol-
lowing subjects: “semantics, rhetoric, and [literary] embellishment; the special char-
acteristics and benefits of speech; oratory; and prose composition.” See al-Kafawī,
Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 265v. The memoir is also cited in Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ud, 11-12.
44 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 444.
45 Ibid.
46 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 2, 1480-1. Later cataloguers list variant titles such as Ma‘āqid
al-nažar (The Nodes of Thought), see al-Adirnawī, Šabaqāt, 399; and Ma‘āqid al-
širāz (The Nodes of Adornment), see Isma‘īl Pāsha, Hadiyyat al-‘ārifīn, vol. 2, 254.
Ma‘āqid al-nažar is thought to go up to the Victory Chapter, and to have been studied
after formal tafsīr classes. The variance may be due to confusion over the title but, in
light of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s continued academic interest in al-Kashshāf, there is no reason
why these titles may not have been a series of glosses on this work written for teaching
purposes at different stages of his career.
47 Shahab Ahmed and Nenad Filipovic, “The Sultan’s Syllabus: A Curriculum for the
Ottoman Imperial Medreses Prescribed in a fermān of Qānūnī I Süleymān, Dated 973
(1565)”, Studia Islamica, no. 98/99 (2004), 183-218, 191-2. Ahmed and Filipovic argue
that this fermān laid out the curriculum for the imperial colleges in an act of educa-
tional reform largely influenced and implemented by Ebu’s-su‘ūd. However, it was
pointed out by the editor of this issue that the imperial medreses were a private en-
dowment, and that this part of the fermān most likely relates to the medreses’ library

11
 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

su‘ūd who enjoyed a close relationship with the Sultan.48 It is not insignificant,
therefore, that the first book named in the decree is actually al-Zamakhsharī’s
tafsīr work al-Kashshāf;49 and, that of the twelve tafsīr works which constitute
third of the required books, four are supercommentaries on al-Kashshāf and one
is the related work of al-Bayēāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl.50
The view that al-Kashshāf was the epitome of the tafsīr genre was not unique
to Ebu’s-su‘ūd. Kemālpāshazāde, his predecessor as Shaykh al-Islam, similarly
produced a number of glosses on al-Kashshāf.51 In fact, al-Kashshāf, is unparal-
leled in the level of literary interest it attracted in the history of the tafsīr genre.52
The conventional coupling of al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī in the sources,
not the least in Ebu’s-su‘ūd, emerged by way of heeding the caution often voiced
against al-Kashshāf ’s Mu‘tazilism.53 The later exegete al-Bayēāwī condensed al-
Kashshāf’s “grammatical, semantic and rhetorical” discussions in his commentary

needs and is thus an aspect of endowment administration rather than a stipulation of

curriculum reform.
48 On Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s relationship with the Sultan, see Ibid., 193-194, particularly footnote
28; cf. Imber, Ebu’s-Su‘ud, 15. In addition, an anecdote in ‘Alī b. Bālī which highlights
the strong friendship between the two relates the severe punishment which ‘Arabzāde
received by orders of the Sultan for appointing one of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s students in the
Süleymāniye as lecture repeater, a lowly job in the college system. Ebu’s-su‘ūd com-
plained to the Sultan and the result was a fatwā that anyone who insults the Shaykh
al-Islam would be dismissed permanently from his post, beaten severely, and banished
from the land. ‘Arabzāde was beaten publicly in Süleymān’s court and banished to
Bursa. See al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 349.
49 See the translation of the fermān booklist in Ahmed and Filipovic, “The Sultan’s Syl-
labus”, 196.
50 See Ibid., 196-198.
51 Al-Adirnawī mentions several glosses by Kemālpāshazāde on al-Kashshāf, Šabaqāt,
373; but Ģajjī Khalīfa mentions one only, Kashf, vol. 2, 1481.
52 Ģajjī Khalīfa’s entry on al-Kashshāf lists the titles of dozens of well-known supercom-
mentaries and glosses from the 13th to 17th centuries. Compared to other tafsīr works,
this is probably the longest entry in Kashf. See Kashf, vol. 2, 1475-1484.
53 Two centuries earlier than Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) warned against the
heresies of al-Kashshāf in his Muqaddima fī usūl al-tafsīr (Cairo: Dār al-jīl li-l-šibā‘a,
n.d.), 87. A century later, the historian Ibn Khaldūn (d.808/1406) expressed similar
concerns in his famous Prolegomena: “If the student of the work [al-Kashshāf] is ac-
quainted with the orthodox dogmas and knows the arguments in their defence, he is,
no doubt, safe from its fallacies.” Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah, 2nd revised edition,
trans, Franz Rosenthal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), vol. 2, 447.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

Anwār al-tanzīl wa asrār al-ta’wīl,54 providing a theological antidote for the stu-
dent of tafsīr against al-Zamakhsharī’s ‘theological incorrectness’.55 Al-Bayēāwī’s
Anwār became a necessary supplement for those interested in the rhetorical in-
sights of al-Kashshāf. Its summaries and explanations also gained popularity for
their own merit, giving rise to numerous glosses and supercommentaries which
addressed all or parts of it.56
Although the primacy of al-Kashshāf remained uncontested because of its his-
torical and intellectual precedence as the first tafsīr work dedicated to rhetorical
interpretation, Ottoman scholars of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s milieu in the sixteenth century
wrote far more commentaries on al-Bayēāwī’s work than on that of al-
Zamakhsharī.57 A possible reason is that Anwār was part of the foundational
tafsīr curriculum, whereas al-Kashshāf was studied at a higher stage as evidenced
in Šāshköprīzāde’s autobiographical account of his own education (further ex-
amined in Section 3).58 It was also very common at this stage of education to
study primary texts through secondary works (commentaries, marginal notes
and glosses), and Anwār al-tanzīl, though a formal tafsīr work, was also a com-
mentary on al-Kashshāf. It is not unlikely then that the scholastic commentaries
on Anwār were aimed at a wider student readership.59 For example, among those
who commented on al-Bayēāwī in Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s milieu are Muģiyy al-Dīn
Muģammad b. Muŝliģ al-Dīn al-Qujuwī (Muģyiddīn el-Qojevī, d. 950/1543, son
of the mystic guide of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s father,60 and a relative of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s own
teacher Sayyidī Muģammad al-Qujuwī/Seydī Mehmed el-Qojevī61). Muģyiddīn

54 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 187.

55 Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Qur’anic Christians (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), 53; cf. Frederick Denny, ‘Exegesis and Recitation’, in Frank Reynolds et
al, eds., Transitions and Transformations in the History of Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1980),
108.
56 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 186-194.
57 See al-Adirnawī’s chapter on the famous exegetes of the ninth century in Šabaqāt,
358-404. Of the eighty exegetes he discusses, fifty wrote glosses on al-Zamakhsharī
(twelve) and al-Bayēāwī (thirty eight).
58 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 325-331.
59 According to an anecdote which shows that al-Bayēāwī’s tafsīr was in high demand,
Šāshköprīzāde vowed to feed his students during Ramadan by copying and selling
al-Bayēāwī’s tafsīr once every year. The copy used to fetch three thousand dirhams,
enough to feed his students for the whole month. See al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 338.
60 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 206.
61 For Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s mention of Seydī Mehmed el-Qojevī, see ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-
manžūm, 364.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

el-Qojevī wrote an eight volume commentary on Anwār al-tanzīl intended as a

tafsīr primer for the beginner. It became very popular, and he later produced an-
other significantly revised edition which copiers merged with the first one be-
cause of the high student demand.62 Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s own father also produced a
gloss on al-Bayēāwī,63 known as Ta‘līqat al-Iskilībī.64
Reasons for this avid attention to the Qur’an commentaries of al-
Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī can be attributed primarily to the importance of
the religious discipline of tafsīr,65 as reflected in the list of books required for the
imperial colleges in 1565.66 But why these two tafsīrs? And, why al-Kashshāf at all,
especially in light of its unorthodox theological content? There is no one expla-
nation for the centrality of al-Kashshāf and Anwār in the tafsīr activities sur-
rounding Ottoman education during the sixteenth century. There are, however,
a number of varied but interrelated factors which may have contributed to the
significance of these two works. Some of the more evident ones are: i) The fun-
damental necessity for the study of Arabic for religious education, which encom-
passed tafsīr, Ģadīth, law and theology; ii) the rise of the college (madrasa) sys-
tem as the key provider and regulator of religious education,67 hence, iii) the
institutionalisation of the primacy of language studies in the colleges;68 and iv)
the emergence of the Ottoman college as one of the main routes for entering
and rising in the administrative hierarchy of the Ottoman Empire, at the centre
of which was the judiciary which drew its members from the ranks of college
professors.69 Competence in the Arabic language, obviously, would have been
necessary for anyone who aspired for a career as a college professor and judge.
Ottoman college students must have striven to achieve the high levels of Arabic
proficiency requisite for the advanced study of the religious disciplines to

62 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 187.

63 Ibid., 192.
64 al-Adirnawī, Šabaqāt, 369.
65 For example, the three ijāzas which the historian Šāshköprīzāde recalls all list tafsīr
first and, afterwards, all other subjects. See al-Shaqā’iq, 327-8.
66 Ahmed and Filipovic, “The Sultan’s Syllabus”, 191-2.
67 This is a development which George Makdisi masterfully delineates in his book The
Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1981).
68 Michael G. Carter, “Humanism and the Language Sciences in Medieval Islam”, in
Asma Afsaruddin & A. H. Mathias Zahniser, eds., Humanism, Culture, and Language
in the Near East (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 27-38.
69 Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd, 8.

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progress in their college careers. Mastery of Arabic would have characterised the
most successful, as exemplified by Ebu’s-su‘ūd and his remarkable career progres-
sion from a college teacher to Shaykh al-Islam. It is not inconceivable, then, that
the linguistic disciplines became more than auxiliary forms of religious knowl-
edge instrumental for legal reasoning. Knowledge and expertise in the linguistic
disciplines including rhetoric likely became a marker of high culture and pres-
tige for the Ottoman intellectual class of college professors and legal bureaucrats
in a way not too dissimilar to the more secularly oriented study of adab (literary
studies or studia adabiyya,70 incl. literature, poetry and grammar) for the Umayy-
ad and Abbasid milieu of secretaries and administrators during the eighth and
ninth centuries.71 With the rise of the scholastic tradition, literary and linguistic
studies became religiously anchored in works of rhetorical Qur’an commentary.
Interest in al-Kashshāf, a commentary only narrowly addressing matters of law,
attests to this shift.
More specific reasons which account for al-Kashshāf’s prominence is that it
captures in its hermeneutic effort the convergence in the tenth and eleventh cen-
tury of two trajectories: the trajectory of Arabic literary studies and that of the
theological preoccupation with the miraculous nature of the Qur’an. This con-
vergence was ultimately established through the work of the Persian Ash‘arite
scholar ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078)72 who firmly defined the Qur’an’s
miracle in terms of its linguistic and literary beauty.73 Both his works Asrār al-
balāgha (Secrets of Eloquence) and Dalā’il al-i‘jāz (The Evidence of Inimitability)
developed a concept of the Qur’an’s literary inimitability on the basis of a linguis-

70 Noteworthy is that early Adab works, concerned mainly with prose and poetry ap-
preciation, provided the concepts and terms associated with Arabic literary theory in
general, including rhetoric and poetics (which also provide the basis for rhetorical
interpretation of the Qur’an). See Smyth, “Criticism in the Post-Classical Period”,
394.
71 On the study of Adab, see Asma Afsaruddin, “Muslim Views on Education: Param-
eters, purview, and possibilities”, Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, vol. 44, 2005, 143-
178, especially159-163.
72 I will refer to him as ‘Abd al-Qāhir hereafter in order to distinguish him from the later
scholar al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī who will also be discussed in the paper.
73 Earlier arguments about the inimitability of the Qur’an ranged between notions of
miraculous effect (ŝarfa, God preventing any imitations of it), content (ghayb, infor-
mation about the unknown), and language (unsurpassable style) of the Qur’an. Issa
Boullata, “The Rhetorical Interpretation of the Qur’ān: I‘jāz and related topics” in
Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the Qur’an (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1988), 139-157.

15
 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

tic theory of eloquence (balāgha): eloquence resides in how the structure of mean-
ings and ideas (ma‘ānī) is effectively expressed through the word arrangement
(nažm), particularly of figurative speech. Rhetorical devices, such as metaphor
and metonymy, are the ‘fulcrum’ of this effectiveness.74 In his two works, ‘Abd al-
Qāhir applied his theory of eloquence to a selection of poetic and Qur’anic ex-
amples. It was not until the following century that a more systematic application
of his theory to the whole Qur’an was attempted by al-Zamakhsharī in a work of
tafsīr.75
Al-Kashshāf became the definitive work not only for the subgenre of rhetori-
cal tafsīr but also for the study of Arabic eloquence, as epitomized in the Qur’an.
Through the work of both ‘Abd al-Qāhir and al-Zamakhsharī, analysis of the re-
lation of the semantic to the grammatical (or, more precisely, the syntactic)
structures of the Qur’an’s figures of speech to reveal its asrār (secrets, deeper
meanings) emerged as important in and of itself, and not as ancillary to the
study of law. The convergence between literary and tafsīr studies, brought about
by these works, resulted in an independent interest in the cultivation of a taste
for Arabic rhetoric and poetics in order to grasp the beauty of the Qur’an; and,
thus, strengthened the intersection between culture (study of language, literature
and poetry) and religious piety (attention to the divine word), also evident in
other aspects of Muslim civilisation. From the thirteenth century onwards, al-
Kashshāf was at the centre of the scholastic linguistic, literary and tafsīr studies,
stimulating a striking number of glosses and supercommentaries.76 The intellec-
tual engagement with al-Kashshāf represents, therefore, not so much a concern
for fathoming the depths of the Qur’an’s meaning as the primary source of law,
but a genuine interest in linguistic and literary studies.
To a certain degree, this considerable and constant preoccupation with al-
Zamakhsharī also endured due to the theoretical interests of central Asian schol-

74 See ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, Dalā’il al-i‘jāz, ed. Maģmūd Muģammad Shākir (Cairo:
Maktabat al-khanjī, 1984). ‘Abd al-Qāhir proposes that to grasp the effectiveness and
benefit of speech in general (pp. 64-5), figurative speech should be examined and
explained (p. 66).
75 See Muŝšafā al-Juwaynī, Manhaj al-Zamakhsharī fī tafsīr al-Qur’ān (Cairo: Dār al-
ma‘ārif, 1968), 214-260; and Issa Boullata, “The Rhetorical Interpretation of the
Qur’ān,” 147.
76 See note 52 above. In light of its place in the college curriculum and the intellectual
interest it garnered, one might venture to speak speculatively of ‘al-Kashshāf studies’
as a subfield in its own right, though this would require further historical and textual
investigation to substantiate such claims.

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ars in the work of ‘Abd al-Qāhir in the following centuries.77 Of great signifi-
cance is al-Sakkākī’s (Abū Ya’qūb Yūsuf b. Abī Bakr d.626/1229) elaboration of
‘Abd al-Qāhir’s theory in his complex magnum opus, Miftāģ al-‘ulūm (Key to the
Sciences, widely known just as al-Miftāģ) where he proposed a tripartite para-
digm for the study of language (ŝarf and naģw, i.e. morphology and grammar in
the first two parts) and eloquence (balāgha, technically rhetoric). In this final
part, al-Sakkākī introduced a formal distinction between ‘meaning’ and ‘rhetori-
cal devices’, thus establishing in his theoretical treatment of eloquence the two
subfields of ‘ilm al-ma‘ānī (the science of meanings) concerned with the study of
syntax (sentence structure) and meaning, and ‘ilm bayān (the science of expres-
sion) which focuses on figurative usage and rhetorical devices. This, no doubt,
reflects not only the influence of ‘Abd al-Qāhir on balāgha, but also that of al-
Zamakhsharī who considered ma‘ānī and bayān the two foremost essential disci-
plines in his interpretation of the Qur’an.78 Al-Sakkākī’s integration of linguistic
and literary studies in al-Miftāģ generated a number of influential supercom-
mentaries between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries that would become es-
sential in the scholastic curriculum. The most famous of these works devoted
much attention to al-Miftāģ’s third part on ma‘ānī and bayān.79
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s own education attests to al-Miftāģ’s importance and, indeed, to
the centrality of linguistic and literary studies to religious education. In a mem-
oir preserved by his biographers, Ebu’s-su‘ūd recounts that his elementary edu-
cation with his father covered three key texts including Sharģ al-Miftāģ, an in-
fluential commentary on al-Sakkākī’s work by the Persian scholar al-Sayyid
al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d.816/1413). The other two, Ģāshiyat al-Tajrīd and Sharģ al-
Mawāqif, are theological glosses also by al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī.80 Interestingly, Sharģ
al-Miftāģ is the only text Ebu’s-su‘ūd studied twice with his father, probably due
to the difficulty of the subject area as well as to its perceived significance to his

77 On al-Sakkākī’s contribution, see William Smyth, “The Canonical Formulation,” 8.

78 al-Zamakhsharī, Abū al-Qāsim Jār Allāh Maģmūd b.‘Umar, al-Kashshāf ‘an ģaqā’iq
ghawāmiē al-tanzīl wa ‘uyūn al-aqāwīl fī wujūh al-ta’wīl, 6 vols., ed. ‘Ādil Aģmad ‘Abd
al-Mawjūd et al (Cairo: Maktabat al-‘ubaykān , 1998), vol. 1, 86.
79 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 2, 1763. For a list of all supercommentaries and glosses on
Miftāģ al-‘ulūm, see Ibid., 1762-7.
80 The first is a commentary on Nāŝir al-Dīn al-Šūsī’s (d.678/1274) theological primer
Tajrīd al-kalām and the second is another commentary on ‘Adud al-Dīn al-Ījī’s al-
Mawāqif fī ‘ilm al-kalām. These appear to have been standard texts taught at the lower
colleges. Ahmed and Filipovic observe that the lower colleges in the educational hier-
archy, as laid out by Mehmed II, were actually known as Ģāshiyat al-Tajrīd madrasas.
See “The Sultan’s Syllabus,” 191-2.

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education.81 The attention of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s father to his son’s linguistic and liter-
ary training is especially noted by the late sixteenth century Ottoman historian
Maģmūd al-Kafawī (d. 990/1582) who observes that under his father’s rigorous
tutelage Ebu’s-su‘ūd excelled at a young age in literary studies, poetry and belles-
lettres, and surpassed his peers in balāgha (the science of eloquence).82 Moreover,
biographers draw attention to Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s later studies with Müeyyedzāde
(‘Abd al-Raģmān b. ‘Alī al-Mu’ayyad of Amasya, d. 922/1516)83 whose intellectual
lineage goes back to al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī and the famous Shirāz school.84 Ebu’s-
su‘ūd derived a special sense of honour from his studies with Müeyyedzāde,85 a
scholar renowned for his erudition in the literary arts, the Arabic language, rhet-
oric and tafsīr. Acquiring solid training in these subjects must have contributed
to Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s noted abilities in teaching them to his aforementioned student
‘Abdu’l-Kerīmzāde who recalled benefitting greatly from his linguistic and liter-
ary studies with Ebu’s-su‘ūd.86
Evidently, Ebu’s-su‘ūd had excellent knowledge of these disciplines, but by
no means was he the only one well-trained in them. There is ample evidence in
the Ottoman biographical literature that linguistic and literary studies were fo-
cal to the learning of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Ottoman milieu and to their exegetical and

81 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 440.

82 al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 264r; cf. al-‘Aydarūs, Tarīkh al-nūr al-sāfir, 319.
83 In addition to his father, Ebu’s-su‘ūd gives details of two other teachers in the ijāza
(a license to teach) he composed for his student ‘Abd al-Raģmān Sheikhzāde, cited
in ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 363-4. The two teachers are Müeyyedzāde and
Seydī Mehmed el-Qojevī. Their individual biographies can be found respectively in
Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 176 & 182.
84 al-Kafawī provides a detailed account of Müeyyedzāde’s seven year journey to the ini-
tially Ash‘arī Shirāz school associated with famous scholars such as al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī
and the great philosopher of the seventeenth century Mulla Ŝadrā. It was unusual,
however, for established Turkish scholars of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
to travel outside of the Ottoman Empire for further education but Müeyyedzāde had
to leave for political reasons. In Shirāz, Müeyyedzāde studied with the prominent
Persian scholar and theologian Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawwānī (Davānī) whose father was a
student of al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī. On Bayezid II’s succession in 888/1483, Müeyyedzāde
returned first to Amasya then to Istanbul where his Shirāz education and intellectual
connections highly impressed his Ottoman contemporaries. See Katā’ib, vol. 2, ff.
252r-253v.
85 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 363-4.
86 See note 47 above.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

intellectual preoccupations more generally.87 Two prominent sixteenth century

scholars can serve as illuminating examples. Šāshköprīzāde, one of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s
notable contemporaries and three years his junior, offers a rare insight into Ot-
toman education in his extensive autobiographical account on the subjects, texts
and topics he studied with his teachers, and his later independent learning after
he became a teacher himself. The other example is Kemālpāshazāde, Ebu’s-
su‘ūd’s influential predecessor as Shaykh al-Islam and one of the most prolific
writers of his time whose legacy of writings provides a model of the intellectual
preoccupations and the literary output which ottoman religious education stim-
ulated.
Like Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Šāshköprīzāde studied al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s Sharģ al-Miftāģ,
but only after a long foundational course in Arabic morphology and grammar,
followed by a period of focused study of theology.88 He was in his late twenties
when he began to study Sharģ al-Miftāģ with Muģiyy al-Dīn Muģammad b. ‘Alī
al-Fanārī, (Fenārīzāde Muģyiddīn, Shaykh al-Islam from 948/1541-2 to
951/1544-5), continuing independently for eleven years after his first appointment
in the College of Dimotica in 931/1524-5.89 Šāshköprīzāde’s dedication and per-
sistence in the study of Sharģ al-Miftāģ are unmatched except by his studies of
Ŝaģīģ al-Bukhārī, and serve to shed light on why Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s early mastery of
the text was particularly recalled by him and admired by his biographers. Shortly
after Šāshköprīzāde began studying Sharģ al-Miftāģ, he began studying al-
Zamakhsharī’s rhetorical interpretation of the Qur’an, al-Kashshāf, with Seydī
Mehmed el-Qojevī circa 929/152390 (one of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s three teachers, with
whom he might have studied the same text some years earlier91), thus substanti-
ating the view that al-Kashshāf was already part of the higher studies curriculum,
and that, more significantly, it complemented an advanced course in Arabic lin-

87 This evidence raises doubts about George Makdisi’s conclusion that the literary arts
deteriorated with the rise of the medieval college which gave greater importance to
the study of law. See Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, 76-7.
88 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 326-7.
89 Ibid., 328.
90 Ibid., 327.
91 Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s first appointment as teacher in the college of Inegöl came sometime
between 1516 and 1520 (See Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd, 10) right after he had become one
of Seydī Mehmed’s close students, see ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 440. This
means that Ebu’s-su‘ūd began his studies with Seydī Mehmed at least a decade before
Šāshköprīzāde.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

guistic and literary studies mainly focused on al-Sakkākī’s formulation of these

disciplines.92
Šāshköprīzāde also studied al-Bayēāwī’s Anwār at different stages and ac-
quired a license in tafsīr from at least two of his teachers.93 He eventually com-
posed works in tafsīr, Arabic language and rhetoric, in addition to other histori-
cal, juristic and theological writings.94 But his key works include several
commentaries on Arabic rhetoric related to al-Sakkākī’s al-Miftāģ, for example:
a commentary on al-Miftāģ’s third part on eloquence [balāgha], covering the sci-
ences of meaning and rhetoric; an extensive critical gloss on al-Ījī’s (‘Aēud al-
Dīn, d. 756/1355) al-Fawā’id al-ghiyāthiyya, a specialist commentary on the same
part of al-Miftāģ;95 and an incomplete supercommentary on al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s
Sharģ al-Miftāģ.96
Interest in language, rhetoric and tafsīr is similarly evidenced in Kemālpāsha-
zāde’s enormous literary legacy which largely remained in draft form according
to biographers. It comprises original works, glosses, commentaries, and a large
number of treatises estimated between one hundred97 and three hundred in to-
tal.98 Kemālpāshazāde is often compared in his erudition and prolificacy to the
encyclopaedic Egyptian scholar Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūšī (d. 911/1505) but perceived
as far more rigorous and superior to al-Suyūšī,99 especially in Arabic literary

92 Another evidence of the linkage between these two texts in the sources is recorded
by Ģajjī Khalīfa where he mentions that Qušb al-Dīn Maģmūd b. Muŝliģ al-Shirāzī
(d. 710/1310), the author of one of the earliest commentaries on al-Miftāģ, entitled
Miftāģ al-Miftāģ (Key to the Key), intended to incorporate a gloss on al-Kashshāf to
complement his commentary. See Kashf, vol. 2, 1763.
93 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 327-8.
94 Ibid., 230. ‘Alī b. Bālī names three treatises by Šāshköprīzāde on specific chapters and
verses of the Qur’an (Q 112, Q. 5:6 and Q 2:29); see al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 338-9; cf. Ģajjī
Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 854 & vol. 2, 1084.
95 al-Ījī’s al-Fawā’id al-ghiyāthiyya is a concise theoretical summary of al-Sakkākī’s discus-
sion of Arabic eloquence, intended for an expert audience according to ‘Āshiq Ģasan,
its editor. See al-Fawā’id al-ghiyāthiyya (Cairo: Dār al-kitāb al-miŝriyya and dār al-
kitāb al-lubnāniyya, 1991), 29.
96 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 339.
97 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 227.
98 Taqiyy al-Dīn al-Tamīmī al-Ghazzī (d. 1010/1601), al-Šabaqāt al-saniyya fī tarājim
al-ģanafiyya, 4 vols. (incomplete), ed. ‘Abd al-Fatāģ al-Ģilw (Cairo: al-Majlis al-a‘lā
li-l-shu’ūn al-islāmiyya, 1970), vol. 1, 411.
99 Ibid., 412.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

studies and legal theory.100 Several of his more known works indicate that
Kemālpāshazāde’s rhetorical, literary and linguistic preoccupations constitute a
strong strand of this legacy,101 intersecting with his interest in al-Zamakhsharī’s
rhetorical interpretation of the Qur’an. One of his master pieces, it is claimed, is
a comprehensive gloss on al-Kashshāf, highly praised for incorporating and com-
menting upon the best of al-Kashshāf glosses.102 Kemālpāshazāde further pursued
his interest in rhetorical exegesis in his own tafsīr work, which despite remaining
unfinished, was deemed significant enough to be entered into bibliographical
lists of influential tafsīr works.103
Like Šāshköprīzāde, Kemālpāshazāde’s interest in Arabic rhetoric was intel-
lectually anchored in al-Sakkākī’s al-Miftāģ, and, like him, Kemālpāshazāde
produced a supercommentary on al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s Sharģ al-Miftāģ,104 even-
tually writing his own critical though incomplete commentary on al-Miftāģ it-
self, entitled Taghyyīr (Altering) al-Miftāģ,105 which stimulated supercommen-
taries in its own right.106 Kemālpāshazāde’s critique of al-Sakkākī transpires in
another treatise on metaphor, which attempts to update the medieval taxono-
my of figurative speech.107 The significance of this treatise arises from its en-
gagement with a major controversy in the field of Arabic rhetoric that had per-
sisted since the early fourteenth century, and to which Ebu’s-su‘ūd was drawn
with implications for his hermeneutic approach to the Qur’an. For this reason,
it deserves a closer examination in the following section. Suffice it to emphasise
here that the intersection of rhetoric and tafsīr through the sub-tradition of
‘Abd al-Qāhir and al-Zamakhsharī, and the type of concerns and preoccupa-
100 al-Lakhnawī, al-Fawā’id, 14.
101 See, for example, Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 566, 758, 846, 847, 853, 881, 887, 889, 894
and vol. 2 1621, 1651, 2054.
102 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 2, 1481; al-Adirnawī, Šabaqāt, 373.
103 Such as in Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 439.
104 Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 227; Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 2, 1766.
105 See Ibn Kamāl Pāsha, “Risāla fī bayān anna ŝāģib ‘ilm al-ma‘ānī yushārik al-lughaw-
iyy”, al-Maktaba al-Azhariyya, Cairo, MS 1583, collection 3; printed and edited in
Muģammad Ģusayn Abū al-Futūģ, Thalāth rasā’il fī-l-lugha l-ibn al-Kamāl (Beirut:
Maktabat lubnān, 1993), 179-193.
106 Ģajjī Khalīfa refers to a number of Ottoman commentators who completed and com-
mented upon Taghyyīr, Kashf, vol. 2, 1766; Taghyyīr is also listed by Isma‘īl Pāsha,
Hadiyyat al-‘ārifīn, vol. 1, 141.
107 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 2, 847. This treatise was edited and published recently; see
Ibn Kamāl Pāsha, “Risāla fī taqsīm al-majāz”, ed. Jabr Ibrahīm Barrī, Dirasāt al-‘ulūm
al-ijtimā‘iyya wa-l-insāniyyah (Amman), vol. 38, no. 2, 2011, 491-505.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

tions this intersection stimulated in ensuing works, was an important stream in

Ottoman intellectual life in the sixteenth century as evidenced in Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s
education, Šāshköprīzāde’s account of his own learning, and Kemālpāshazāde’s
literary legacy.

3. The post-classical controversy on metaphor and Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s

contribution to it
One of the major controversies which dominated the study of rhetoric be-
tween the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries revolved around the classification
of different types of metaphor. The underlying problem was precisely located at
the intersection of rhetoric and tafsīr which, broadly defined, was about the rela-
tion between the theory of metaphor and Qur’an hermeneutics, as will become
clear below. At the centre of the controversy was the question of whether the
rhetorical device of tamthīl (analogy-based metaphor) should be subsumed un-
der the category of isti‘āra (one-word metaphor, lit. borrowing).
This question can be traced back to the work of ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī in
the eleventh century, especially his Asrār al-balāgha where he distinguished be-
tween two types of metaphor: i) isti‘āra, a simple metaphor which occurs at the
lexical level and involves borrowing a word for a meaning other than its original
one because of a noticeable association between the two as in the standard ex-
ample ‘I saw a lion’ in reference to a man who has courage, the most obvious at-
tribute of a lion;108 and ii) tamthīl, a composite metaphor which is made up of
“one or more sentences,”109 and involves a comparison between two different
conditions as in the expression “the bow has been taken by its maker” in refer-
ence to the return of the caliphate to the rightful caliph.110 The ‘bow’ itself bears
no similarity to the caliphate so it is not borrowed for it as ‘lion’ is borrowed for
the brave man. The likeness, here, is more complex; it is between the condition
of the bow and the condition of the caliphate, both of which are represented as
returning to their rightful owner.111 The individual words making up the analogy
(tamthīl) are used literally but the metaphorical meaning is a mental image
which obtains from the aggregate meaning of these words. A degree of interpre-

108 ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, Asrār al-balāgha, ed. Maģmūd Muģammad Shākir (Cairo &
Jedda: Dār al-madanī, 1991), 33.
109 Ibid., 108-9.
110 Ibid, 258.
111 Ibid., 259.

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tation is required to depart from the literal meaning and arrive at the intended
one.112
Although the distinction is clearly argued in ‘Abd al-Qāhir, the controversy
ensued from his suggestion that the grammatical structure of tamthīl (analogy-
based sentence metaphor) undergoes contraction like isti‘āra (word-based meta-
phor) as when ‘I saw a man like the lion’ is contracted into ‘I saw a lion’ as a re-
sult of borrowing the word ‘lion’ for ‘man’. The standard example of tamthīl in
the manner of isti‘āra is when the expression ‘I see you in your hesitancy like
someone who is moving one foot forward and the other backward’ is contracted
into ‘you are moving one foot forward and the other backward.’113 Here, the ex-
pression which describes a physical condition (moving forward then backward)
comes to signify the abstract condition of hesitancy.
This led al-Sakkākī to consider isti‘āra the fundamental form of metaphor
under which tamthīl should be classed,114 a view that would become popular de-
spite critics like al-Khašīb al-Qazwīnī (d. 724/1338, author of the Talkhīs, a sum-
mary of al-Sakkākī’s al-Miftāģ) who insisted on the independence of tamthīl.115
In the wake of al-Miftāģ, rhetoricians oscillated between al-Sakkākī’s view that
isti‘āra includes analogies on the one hand (referred to as ‘isti‘āra tamthīliyya’),
and, on the other, ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s position that tamthīl is an independent type
of metaphor because isti‘āra proper involves borrowing a single word to signify a
related meaning that displaces its original one, whereas in tamthīl no such dis-
placement of word meaning occurs; rather, the metaphorical meaning is under-
stood intellectually from the sum of all the words constituting the analogy.116 By
the fourteenth century, most rhetoricians seem to have generally accepted the
fundamentality of isti‘āra and considered tamthīl one of its branches. The term
isti‘āra tamthīliyya gained wide currency, and the terms of the controversy, ini-

112 Ibid., 139 & 385.

113 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Dalā’il, 68-9.
114 Abū Ya’qūb Yūsuf b. Abī Bakr al-Sakkākī, Miftāģ al-‘ulūm, ed. Akram ‘Uthmān Yūsuf,
1st edition (Baghdad: Dār al-risāla, 1982, published with the assistance of Baghdad
University, 1980/1981). See especially his definition of all metaphor as simple or one
word (mufrad, p. 593), and his assertion that all analogies are isti‘āra, one-word bor-
rowings (p. 606).
115 See, for example, al-Qazwīnī’s sub-chapter on critiquing al-Sakkākī, al-Iēāģ fī ‘ulūm
al-balāgha, ed. Ibrahīm Shams al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 2003), 236-
240; cf. Smyth’s summary of these criticisms, “Controversy in a Tradition of Com-
mentary”, 592.
116 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Asrār, 258ff.

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tially about the independence of tamthīl from isti‘āra, shifted to the problem of
whether isti‘āra tamthīliyya occurs at the level of a single word like isti‘āra proper
or requires a grammatically composite structure – a sentence or more - in a man-
ner akin to that described by ‘Abd al-Qāhir.
This shift in the controversy was historically embodied in the memorable
fourteenth century debate which took place in 791/1389 between the Persian
scholar Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftazānī (d. 792/1390) and al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, his rival in
Timūr’s Court (Tamerlane, d. 807/1405) in Samarqand.117 Unsurprisingly, the
literary context of the debate was al-Kashshāf and al-Taftazānī’s supercommen-
tary on it, and it was centred on the interpretation of Q. 2:5 (Those are upon
[‘alā] guidance from their Lord118).119 Al-Zamakhsharī had interpreted the verse
as an analogy (tamthīl) likening the condition of perfect and steadfast adherence
to divine guidance to the condition of a person who mounted atop of something
and was securely riding it.120 Al-Taftazānī elaborated on this analysis, consider-
ing the verse an instance of a word-based metaphor that is simultaneously deriv-
ative and analogical (isti‘āra taba‘iyya tamthīliyya): i) it is derivative (taba‘iyya)
because it is based on a meaning (that of ‘mounting’) not directly signified by a
word in the verse but which is related to and derived from the preposition ‘alā
(upon/atop of ) that occurs in the verse’s grammatical structure; ii) it is an analo-
gy because the basis of the comparison (mounting atop of something) is a con-
dition made up of a number of things whereby being firm and steadfast in right-
guidedness is likened to mounting and riding atop of something.121
Al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī challenged this explication on the basis that: i) a single
word (mufrad) signifies a single idea even though this idea may be composite
117 For a historical summary of how the intellectual disagreements between al-Taftazānī
and al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī shaped the writings of both authors, see Smyth, “Controversy
in a Tradition of Commentary”, 590-595. Smyth, however, offers no substantive com-
ment on the content of both the literary and the court debates between these two
scholars, and treats the controversy as unchanged from the twelfth to the fourteenth
centuries, which is contrary to the textual evidence discussed in this section of the
paper.
118 The Koran Interpreted, trans. Arthur Arberry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
All translations of Qur’anic passages hereafter are based on Arberry.
119 For a historical account of the intellectual dispute and court rivalry between al-
Taftazānī and al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, see al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, ff. 141r-150v; for a brief
reference to it, see Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 222.
120 al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 145r; cf. al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, vol. 1, 158.
121 Ibid.; cf. al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s account of al-Taftazānī’s opinion, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-
Mušawwal, ed. Rashīd A‘raēī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 2007), 383.

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(murakkab) at the intellectual level, such as the idea of lion which is made up of
a number of things (courage, animal nature etc); ii) whereas, the analogy-based
isti‘āra or isti‘āra tamthīliyya is a form of comparison comprising two sides, each
side expressing a condition ‘extracted’ from a composite grammatical structure
(and not just one word) that signifies a number of ideas relevant to the compari-
son; iii) therefore, analysing the metaphor in Q. 2:5 as occurring in the preposi-
tion ‘upon’ through its derived meaning “mounting” could only form the basis
for a derivative one-word metaphor such as isti‘āra taba‘iyya but not the compos-
ite metaphor isti‘āra tamthīliyya which requires at least a sentence or two (Empha-
sis added);122 iv) in contradistinction, an analysis of Q. 2:5 as a case of isti‘āra
tamthīliyya would require that ‘upon’ is understood as an indicator (qarīna, and
not the locus of the metaphor itself ) for the restitution of the composite (but
implicit) grammatical structure expressing the condition of ‘someone mounting
something securely and riding it’, to which the condition of being steadfast in
faith is being compared. 123
The court debate ended in al-Taftazānī’s intellectual defeat, his withdrawal
from public life and consequent death within a short period of time.124 Its mem-
ory, however, served to augment the interest among later scholars who contin-
ued with no less fervour to debate the simple-composite dichotomy of metaphor
and the classification of tamthīl. Kemālpāshazāde’s above-mentioned treatise
Risāla fī taqsīm al-majāz is unmistakably framed by these two questions, provid-
ing a review of the intellectual trajectory of this problem from ‘Abd al-Qāhir to
al-Taftazānī. His own position reflects the success of al-Sakkākī’s view that
isti‘āra is inclusive of tamthīl.125 The problem of classifying metaphors received
further special attention in other works by Kemālpāshazāde.126 Šāshköprīzāde,
the other Ottoman scholar discussed in the previous section, also addressed it in
his work, which supports the view that this became one of the key intellectual

122 On this specific point, cf. al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-Kashshāf (Cairo:
Mašba‘at al-bābī al-ģalabī, 1966), 157.
123 This account of al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s arguments is based on both al-Kafawī’s summary
of the court debate in Katā’ib, vol. 2, ff.145r-146v, and al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s personal
and theoretical reflections on it in al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-Mušawwal, 383-5.
124 al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 144r; Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 29.
125 Ibn Kamāl Pāsha, “Risāla fī taqsīm al-majāz”, 499.
126 Kemālpāshazāde refers to some of his other relevant writings such as another treatise
on Taqsīm al-isti‘āra, and a further discussion of partial and total tropes in his su-
percommentary on al-Taftazānī’s Talwīģ which is a commentary on the legal theory
work, Tanqīģ al-usūl, by Ŝadr al-Sharī‘ah al-Bukhārī (d.747/1346), see Ibid., 500.

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problems of Arabic rhetoric at the time.127 But, more significantly, the debate it-
self was re-enacted again in the Ottoman milieu of the sixteenth century and re-
corded by contemporary and later historians alongside the fourteenth century
debate of al-Taftazānī and al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī.128 Evidently, the interest of Otto-
man scholars in the simple-composite metaphor dichotomy, and how the argu-
ments were played out in the debate between the two fourteenth century Persian
scholars was substantial;129 a second debate embodying the intellectual engage-
ment of Ottoman scholars with this problem was, perhaps, inevitable.
The protagonist of the sixteenth century re-enactment was no other than
Ebu’s-su‘ūd, and his rival was the contemporary Persian exegete Muģammad b.
Kamāl al-Tāshkandī, a relative from his mother’s side.130 The debate took place

127 Šāshköprīzāde composed two related treatises entitled al-‘Ināya fī taģqīq al-isti‘āra
bi-l-kināya, see Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf , vol. 2, 1173; and Masālik al-khalāŝ min mahālik
al-khawāŝ in which he, like Kemālpāshazāde, defends the position of al-Taftazānī, see
al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 150v.
128 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 221; al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, ff. 148v-149r.
129 A telling anecdote, related by Šāshköprīzāde, reveals the significance this debate ac-
quired in Ottoman intellectual life. According to Šāshköprīzāde, when the famed
Transoxianan astronomer, mathematician and religious scholar ‘Alī b. Muģammad
al-Qushjī (d. 879/1474) arrived in Istanbul, Khwājazāde (d. 893/1488), Judge of the
city at the time, led a delegation of Ottoman scholars to welcome him on board of
his ship. Soon after they met, al-Qushjī and Khwājazāde debated the causes of low
and high sea tides, and their conversation evoked the memory of the Taftazānī-Jurjānī
debate, leading to another long but amicable debate during which Khwājazāde, who
supported al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, sent one of his servants home to fetch a gloss he wrote
on the matter for al-Qushjī to read. In the end, the newly arrived scholar al-Qushjī
commended Khwājazāde’s gloss out of tact despite his support for al-Taftazānī. See
al-Shaqā’iq, 99; Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 223. Of interest also is al-Kafawī’s long
discussion of the debate under his biography of al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, a discussion per-
vaded by personal and intellectual sympathy for al-Taftazānī. Al-Kafawī’s reflections
on his longstanding intellectual dilemma, his efforts to arrive at an impartial answer
and his personal account of the debate between Ebu’s-su‘ūd and al-Tāshkandī are
all revealing of the profound impression this debate left on Ottoman scholars. See
Katā’ib, vol. 2, ff. 141r- 151v.
130 There are no dates for al-Tāshkandī in the sources, but al-Adirnawī suggests he died
around the end of the sixteenth century. See Šabaqāt, 403. He was a cousin of Ebu’s-
su‘ūd through ‘Alī al-Qushjī (see the previous note), the paternal uncle of Ebu’s-
su‘ūd’s mother and the teacher of his father. According to al-Kafawī, Ebu’s-su‘ūd
referred to al-Tāshkandī as ibn al-khāl (maternal cousin). See Katā’ib, vol. 2, ff. 148r
& 149v.

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in 980/1572 during al-Tāshkandī’s visit to Istanbul on his way back from Hajj. It
was provoked, perhaps deliberately, when at a banquet prepared in his honour
by Ebu’s-su‘ūd, al-Tāshkandī enquired about which one of the two scholars, al-
Taftazānī or al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, Ebu’s-su‘ūd supported in his tafsīr. On learning
it was al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Tāshkandī challengingly asserted the correctness
and predominance of al-Taftazānī’s view, and that it had also been the view of
earlier authoritative exegetes such as al-Bayēāwī.131 Sensing an attack on Irshād,
Ebu’s-su‘ūd defended al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s understanding of tamthīl as well as his
application of it in his own tafsīr.132
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s argument against al-Tāshkandī was largely predicated on the
objections of al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī (see above) to analysing Q. 2:5 as a derivative
analogical metaphor (isti‘āra taba‘iyya tamthīliyya). These two rhetorical devices,
reasserted Ebu’s-su‘ūd, are mutually exclusive because isti‘āra taba‘iyya is a sin-
gle word structure whereas tamthīl is grammatically composite.133 Al-Tāshkandī,
like al-Taftazānī, contended that a composite meaning could be extracted from
a single word, for example: the condition of being alive is made up of a number
of things (a body that grows, senses and voluntarily moves), all of which are as-
pects of the single idea of ‘human being’.134 Ebu’s-su‘ūd rejected al-Tāshkandī’s
approach as a form of philosophical deliberation (baģth falsafī) inappropriate
for the rhetorical analysis of the Qur’an. An interpretation of the Qur’an, main-
tained Ebu’s-su‘ūd, relies not on the logicians (ahl al-manšiq) who straddle be-
tween propositions and definitions, but on the rhetoricians (arbāb al-balāgha)
because they delve into the ‘special meanings’ and the ‘beneficial effects’ of the
Qur’an’s language. The rhetoricians’ linguistic approach, argued Ebu’s-su‘ūd, is
the most appropriate for observing the grammatical indicators (dalā’il) of the
Qur’an’s inimitability and superior style, as attested by its linguistic structure.135
The heated debate which continued for five hours found its way into the histo-
ry of memorable disputations,136 and motivated al-Tāshkandī to write an apolo-
gia for the role of logic and kalām in Qur’an hermeneutics - a rare instance of

131 al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2., f.149v.

132 Ibid.
133 Ibid., f.149r.
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid.
136 Ģajjī Khalīfa entered it under a short section on famous intellectual debates, stating
that this was commonly viewed as one of the greatest debates on al-Taftazānī and al-
Sharīf al-Jurjānī. See Kashf, vol. 1, 221.

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philosophical reflection on hermeneutic theory and practice in the post-classi-

cal period.137
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s objection to al-Tāshkandī’s ‘philosophical’ approach to inter-
pretation could be perceived as reflecting a dimension of religious conserva-
tism vis-à-vis philosophy. At a closer look, however, it conveys Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s
perception of a tension between the purposes of philosophical and rhetorical
approaches to interpreting the Qur’an’s eloquence. Two observations must be
made first before explaining Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s position. One is that al-Tāshkandī,
according to al-Kafawī’s account, was not contesting the relevance of rhetori-
cal analysis. Nor was the earlier debate between al-Taftazānī and al-Sharīf al-
Jurjānī about the relevance of rhetorical analysis. Post-classical Qur’an exegesis
between the fourteenth and sixteenth century in central Asia was, as already
demonstrated, generally framed within the approach of ‘Abd al-Qāhir and al-
Zamakhsharī in which balāgha (the study of eloquence) became perceived as
fundamental to understanding the Qur’an. This approach emphasized the
rootedness of meaning in language as a medium between the interpreter and
divine truths. Understanding the layers of signification in a text perceived as
both poetic and true depended on the construal of a rational justification that
is based on indicators (qarīna, dalīl) present in the linguistic structure for the
departure from the ‘real’ lexical meaning to the ‘real’ abstract meaning. The
rhetorical analysis is thus grounded in logic.138 The second is that despite his
objections to the logicians’ philosophical approach, Ebu’s-su‘ūd is, neverthe-
less, faithful to this linkage between rhetoric and logic. The rhetorician, as he
declared in the debate, is searching for grammatical indicators in the text
which would justify the meanings he obtains. So, where does the tension lie if
there is neither a question about the necessity of rhetorical interpretation nor
of its need for a logical basis?

137 The title of al-Tāshkandī’s treatise is “Risāla fī fann al-tafsīr wa-l-uŝūl wa-l-furū‘ wa-l-
manšiq wa-l-kalām”. See Ibid., vol. 1, 880. While still in Istanbul, he also wrote a
supercommentary on al-Bayēāwī’s commentary on Sūrat al-An‘ām (Q. 6) which he
dedicated to Sutlan Selim II; see Ibid., vol. 1, 192. This treatise, too, could have been
part of al-Tāshkandī’s response to the debate as well as an aspect of his intellectual ri-
valry with Ebu’s-su‘ūd, replicating the latter’s dedication of Irshād to Sultan Süleyman,
Selim’s father.
138 See ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s argument on the role of textual indicators in deducing mean-
ing, Dalā’il, 263; see also, for example, al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s definition of tamthīl in
Kitāb al-Ta‘rīfāt where he refers to the syllogistic basis of this rhetorical device (Beirut:
Maktabat Lubnān, 1985), 69.

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In the debate, Ebu’s-su‘ūd seems to have been ultimately concerned about

the relation between language and ideas: that is, the agreement (in the degree of
complexity) between the ideas expressed and the grammatical structures express-
ing them. This theory of language, since ‘Abd al-Qāhir, was explicated and ex-
emplified by tamthīl which he considered a fundamental structure (aŝl) of
discourse,139 involving a comparison between two conditions. The more intel-
lectually complex the comparison is, the more fundamental is the need for a
sentence or more.140 On the other hand, the logician’s approach, represented in
the debate by al-Tāshkandī, is disproportionate: a single word in the text suffices
as the substratum for a complex abstract meaning so long as it provides a logical
linkage between text and meaning. The overemphasis on logic in the field of
rhetoric has been associated with al-Sakkākī, who argued that all types of meta-
phor, including tamthīl, are word-based (mufrad).141 Al-Taftazānī, a prominent
defender of al-Sakkākī’s view, reiterates that tamthīl “does not require a compos-
ite grammatical structure.”142 This instrumental approach to language appears to
enlist the rhetorical devices in the service of logic.
A strand critical of al-Sakkākī’s approach to metaphor and more faithful to
‘Abd al-Qāhir’s position on the necessity of agreement between form (language)
and content (ideas) emerged in the supercommentaries of al-Qazwīnī and al-
Sharīf al-Jurjānī, both of whom critiqued their predecessors for misrepresenting
‘Abd al-Qāhir’s approach, and particularly argued against the linguistic reduction
of analogy to a single-word unit.143 Al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, for example, developed a
cognitive argument to defend the necessity of agreement between grammatical
structure and the ideas conveyed: the mind understands a composite idea in its
totality without observing its parts unless the grammatical structure comprises
the relevant words which draw attention to these parts.144 This notwithstanding,
the majority of Ottoman scholars sided with al-Taftazānī,145 including
Šāshköprīzāde and al-Kafawī who recounts Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s dispute with al-

139 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Asrār, 27.

140 Ibid., 108.
141 A sympathetic commentator like al-Taftazānī notes al-Sakkākī’s fascination with the
concepts and terminology of kalām, see al-Mušawwal (Lucknow: al-Mašba‘ al-‘ālī,
1878), 535; cf. Smyth, “The Canonical Formulation”, footnote 20, 18.
142 al-Taftazānī, al-Mušawwal, 620 ff.
143 al-Qazwīnī, al-Iēāģ, 231, 233 & 237; al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-Mušawwal,
379, 380-1, 383-7.
144 al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-Mušawwal, 380-1.
145 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 222.

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Tāshkandī.146 Ebu’s-su‘ūd is one of few who defended al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī. His

studies with Müeyyedzāde who is intellectually associated with al-Sharīf al-
Jurjānī could be the reason. More clues about Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s stance in the debate
can be garnered by examining Irshād - the main literary source for his approach
to language, rhetoric and tafsīr - to which we turn our attention now.
The first case of an extensive tamthīl analysis in Irshād occurs in the course of
his commentary on Q. 2:7 (God has set a seal on their [the disbelievers] hearts
and on their hearing, and on their eyes is a covering, and there awaits them a
mighty chastisement). In the course of commenting on this verse, he offers the
most detailed theoretical discussion in Irshād of this type of metaphor and of
how it should be employed in analysing the meaning of Qur’anic discourse.147
The subject of the analogy, here, is the condition of the heart which had under-
gone what made it resistant to beneficial aspects of religion. It is likened to the
condition of a place ready-to-use for important purposes but then sealed and its
utility prevented. Both sides of the comparison are composite (murakkab). Ebu’s-
su‘ūd goes on to explain that the composite grammatical structure is partly ex-
plicit, partly implicit. The portrayal of the ready-to-use but sealed place (i.e. the
object of the analogy) revolves around the image of sealing which is indicated in
the word khatama ([he] sealed); the rest of the structure is implicit though clearly
aimed at in the sentence and could be restituted by ‘imagined’ words that realise
the full structure.148 None of these words (whether employed explicitly or indi-
cated implicitly) can individually achieve the analogy despite contributing to its
composition. And, none of them is therefore transferred from their original
meaning when considering this type of metaphor (i.e. tamthīl):

Rather, the figurative transference [of meaning] occurs in the majmū‘ (sum, total).
And, given that the majmū‘ means the sum of the meanings of these words which
are not metaphorically borrowed in the usual way here; and that the condition
‘extracted’ from these words together is not an original meaning for them; and
that, accordingly, no transference from an original meaning takes place when the
words signifying the condition [of the sealed place], object of the analogy, are
used to represent the condition [of the resistant heart], subject of the analogy; this
cannot, therefore, be classified as an isti‘āra - a type of linguistic metaphor where
one word is used for a meaning other than that for which it is normally used. That

146 In the end, it is one of Šāshköprīzāde’s treatises that finally convinces al-Kafawī to
side with al-Taftazānī, see Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 150v.
147 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol. 1, 65.
148 Ibid.

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is why the early preeminent authors like al-Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qāhir and his peers
considered tamthīl a type [of metaphor] in its own right.149

Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s argument is remarkably faithful to ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s view that

tamthīl involves no lexical transference (isti‘āra) in meaning neither of the word
nor of the sentence. The analogy is essentially intellectual (‘aqlī) in that it resides
in the mental image which obtains from the sum of all the words in the sentence
structure.150 ‘Abd al-Qāhir described it as the meaning of the meaning (ma‘nā
al-ma‘nā), whereby the direct meaning of the words leads you to another intel-
lectual meaning through the image.151 It is for this reason that Ebu’s-su‘ūd, like
‘Abd al-Qāhir, views tamthīl as an independent type of metaphor different from
isti‘āra.152 And it is for this reason, too, that Ebu’s-su‘ūd parts with al-Sharīf al-
Jurjānī’s acceptance of the term ‘isti‘āra tamthīliyya’153 despite defending him in
the debate with al-Tāshkandī and drawing on parts of his commentary on
Q. 2:7.154
In Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s analysis, the sentence is cumulative (majmū‘), and its mean-
ing dependent on the structure (tarkīb) and needs a degree of intellectual
processing before it is determined. Unlike a word, therefore, the sentence does
not have an established ‘original meaning’ (mawēū‘) that can be borrowed.155
This is the reason why tamthīl, which is sentence-based, cannot be classified as
an isti‘āra, as he categorically states elsewhere in Irshād.156 Ebu’s-su‘ūd correctly
concludes at the end of his interpretation of Q. 2:7 that this is the view of the
early rhetorician ‘Abd al-Qāhir and the reason why he deemed tamthīl an inde-
pendent type.157 He explains that, conversely, those who accept that sentences
149 Ibid.
150 Ibid.
151 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Dalā’il, 263.
152 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol.1, 65.
153 al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-Kashshāf, 155. Al-Sharīf admits that this term
was coined by al-Sakkākī for his notion of a word-based tamthīl. However, it seems
that in view of the currency it gained, al-Sharīf was not averse to using it interchange-
ably with tamthīl provided that it is understood as referring to composite borrowing.
154 The phrasing of some ideas here in Irshād is taken almost verbatim from parts of
al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī’s commentary on Q. 2:7. cf. al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā
al-Kashshāf (Cairo: Mašba’at al-bābī ģalabī, 1966), 156-7; and al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-
Mušawwal, 389-390.
155 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol.1, 65.
156 Ibid., vol. 2, 278.
157 Ibid., vol.1, 65; cf. ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Asrār, 27.

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do have an original lexical meaning consider tamthīl a type of composite borrow-

ing which later rhetoricians called isti‘āra tamthīliyya,158 whereby the whole
phrase or sentence (e.g. sealing a place) is directly borrowed for the subject of
the analogy (the resistant heart).159 This view is critically described by Ebu’s-
su‘ūd as motivated by a reductionist approach to the classification of metaphor.160
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s critique is aimed at later rhetoricians, possibly, including al-Sharīf
al-Jurjānī who unequivocally explains tamthīl in terms similar to the ‘reduction-
ists’: “if it is a case of tamthīl, what is borrowed is a composite structure [com-
prising] several words, some of which are articulated and the rest is intended in
the will.”161
To sum up, Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s disagreement with al-Tāshkandī is over the reduction
of rhetoric to a science serving the logician concerned with finding a linguistic
anchor in the text for the ideas he garners from it, where the smallest grammati-
cal unit (a word or preposition) would suffice as the substratum for a composite
meaning. Against this position, both al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī and Ebu’s-su‘ūd empha-
sise, through tamthīl, that complex ideas are generated through composite syntac-
tic (sentence) structures, hence asserting, more broadly, the relation between lan-
guage and ideas. In view of that, interpreting the text requires analysing how the
mode of expression constitutes the ideas expressed. Beyond this, however, the two
seem to theoretically diverge. Ebu’s-su‘ūd regards the explanation which al-Sharīf
al-Jurjānī espouses to be reductive at a different level. Tamthīl is more than al-
Sharīf ’s definition of it as a simple process of transferring the meaning of a whole
sentence. Rather, as Ebu’s-su‘ūd explains, tamthīl is the construction of an image
(taŝwīr bi-ŝūra162) without changing the signification of the words or the sentence
they make up. In tamthīl, what is figurative is the image not the words. It is effec-
tive as a rhetorical device because the image guides us toward an abstract meaning
which would have been otherwise concealed:

Tamthīl is a pleasant, subtle means to harnessing imagination for the mind so as to

bring it out of a state of incomprehensibility. It is the most powerful instrument
for making the unwitting idiot understand; and for curbing the hostility of the

158 Cf. Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol. 2, 278.

159 Ibid., vol.1, 65-6.
160 Ibid.
161 al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, al-Ģāshiya ‘alā al-Kashshāf, 156-7; cf. Kemālpāshazāde’s definition
of isti‘āra tamthīliyya, “Risāla fī taqsīm al-majāz”, 499.
162 See Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s commentary on Q. 2:17, Irshād, vol. 1, 87; cf. his commentary on Q.
2:26, Ibid., 124.

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unruly, defiant [person]. And why not, when it [tamthīl] lifts the veil away from
aspects of the hidden intellectual meanings [ma‘qūlāt] by featuring them as things
clearly perceived through the senses [maģsūsāt], hence, portraying the unknown
as known and familiarising the unfamiliar?163

The construction of the tamthīl image, accordingly, involves an intellectual

and not a linguistic transference as the ‘reductionists’ contend; that is the trans-
ference of abstract meanings to perceptible ones. Interpreting tamthīl is the in-
verse of this. It requires analysing the things perceived through the senses and
portrayed in the image in order to disclose the hidden abstract meaning. The
difference between Ebu’s-su‘ūd and those he considers ‘reductionists’ is that their
analysis stops at the sentence level. He, on the other hand, is concerned with the
image because the image, not the words, is the locus of the ‘real’ meaning. Yet
Ebu’s-su‘ūd is not only interested in the hermeneutic potential of the tamthīl im-
age to make the ‘idiot’ comprehend, but also equally in its aesthetic qualities
(pleasantness, subtlety), and its transformative psychological effect on the (un-
ruly, defiant) recipient.
In this, Ebu’s-su‘ūd appears yet again more sharply attentive to ‘Abd al-Qāhir
than his predecessors including al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī. He closely follows ‘Abd al-
Qāhir’s approach to tamthīl as an ‘artistic’ type of metaphor that is more power-
ful than simple types of borrowing. This cannot be fully appreciated unless it is
understood in light of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s commitment to ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s approach to
the Qur’an as a miracle in its eloquence. In Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s own terms, the Qur’an
stands out as a brilliant linguistic construction (mabnī ‘alā nahjin ‘abqaryy). 164Yet
while the Qur’an is an extraordinary phenomenon inimitable by human beings
(khārij ‘an šawq al-bashar), it employs the eloquent ways of the Arabic language.165
In ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s work, the most eloquent forms of Arabic are those which con-
struct aesthetically pleasing, intellectually stimulating and psychologically effec-
tive poetic imagery,166 the most evocative of which is tamthīl,167 for exactly the
163 Ibid., vol. 1, 87.
164 Ibid., vol. 1, 37.
165 Ibid., Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s scattered discussion of the Qur’an’s linguistic inimitability reflects
the orthodox doctrine of i‘jāz which matured at the hands of ‘Abd al-Qāhir, but
which also preserved the older idea of knowledge of the unseen (ghayb) as a dimension
of the Qur’anic miracle. For example, see his commentary on Q. 11:14, Ibid., vol. 3,
20; cf. ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Asrār, 394.
166 See Kamal Abu Deeb’s section on tamthīl in ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s work, Al-Jurjānī’s Theory
of Poetic Imagery (Surrey: Aris and Phillips, 1979), 274-282.
167 See ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s description of the powerful effect of the tamthīl image, Asrār, 115.

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reasons which Ebu’s-su‘ūd iterate above: that it ‘excites the imagination’ because
it harnesses those remote or hidden abstract meanings (the unfamiliar ma‘qūlāt,
as Ebu’s-su‘ūd puts it) by portraying them in the image of things we know with
more certainty and intimacy through the senses (the familiar maģsūsāt).168 This
intensifies the effective power of tamthīl because it forges a psychological/emo-
tional bond with the abstract meaning by appealing to what we know as inti-
mately as we know ‘the beloved’.169 That is why tamthīl is the noblest art of elo-
quence for ‘Abd al-Qāhir,170 and a most powerful rhetorical instrument for
Ebu’s-su‘ūd.
This is revealing of how Ebu’s-su‘ūd attempts through his exegetical effort to
revive the vigour and depth of ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s approach to rhetoric and poetic
imagery, as attested in the case of tamthīl. But it is also quite significant in that it
offers an instance against the view that post-classical rhetoric was mainly defined
by the scholastic commentaries which ‘displaced’ the original works themselves,
such as those of ‘Abd al-Qāhir.171 Noteworthy is that Ebu’s-su‘ūd was not alone
in critically engaging with later rhetoricians by a return to ‘Abd al-Qāhir.172 But
when compared to some of the key contributors to the tamthīl controversy, he
reveals a more profound awareness of ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s subtle approach to tamthīl’s
hermeneutic, artistic and aesthetic dimensions - an awareness honed through
the sustained interaction between founding text and subsequent commentaries
which that controversy exemplifies.
The tamthīl controversy brought back these rhetoricians not only to ‘Abd al-
Qāhir but also to al-Zamakhsharī’s tafsīr work al-Kashshāf. This is not surprising
as it became evident in the course of tracing Irshād’s intellectual lineage that al-
Kashshāf was central to tafsīr studies between the thirteenth and the sixteenth

168 This is the gist of ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s longer description of the effect of the tamthīl im-
agery, see Ibid., 121-2.
169 Ibid., 121.
170 Ibid., 119.
171 Cf. Smyth’s observation that ‘Abd al-Qāhir is displaced by later commentators, “Con-
troversy in a Tradition”, 596.
172 For example, Kemālpāshazāde rejects al-Sakkākī’s prescriptive approach to grammar
(naģw) which, he argues, is mainly concerned with the correctness of grammatical
structure but not its effect on configuring the meaning. He dedicates a treatise aimed
at reviving ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s comprehensive approach toward the science of meanings
(ma‘ānī) in which the study of form (grammatical structure) and content (meaning)
should be entwined in order to analyse the effect of speech. See Ibn Kamāl Pāsha,
“Risāla fī bayān”, 179-193.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

centuries, and that this largely contributed to the coalescence of the two disci-
plines of tafsīr and rhetoric in the post-classical period. The on-going rhetorical
debates such as the one on tamthīl must have reciprocally influenced scholarly
engagement with al-Kashshāf and its cleansed rendition by al-Bayēāwī. The need
for a new tafsīr that considers these two works in light of the intellectual elabora-
tion of the key debates in the discipline of rhetoric and their influence on
Qur’an commentary seems to have been the intellectual motive behind Irshād.
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s autobiographical comment in the preface about his strong ambi-
tion to ‘thread together’ these two works in one work of tafsīr,173 supplementing
them with ‘the precious insights’ and ‘subtle points’ of other relevant (and later?)
works is suggestive of this motive though not explicit.174
To investigate the extent to which Irshād engages with al-Zamakhsharī and
al-Bayēāwī, and the degree to which this engagement reflects insights gained
through later rhetorical debates such as that on tamthīl, the next section will
provide a comparative analysis of these three exegetes’ interpretations of Q. 33:
71-72, a passage from the Chapter of the Clans posing a noted exegetical chal-
lenge for rhetorical interpretation of the Qur’an.175

4. Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Rhetorical Interpretation Compared to al-Zamakhsharī

and al-Bayēāwī

Whosoever obeys God and His Messenger has won a mighty triumph. We offered
the trust (amāna) to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they re-
fused to carry it and were afraid of it; and man carried it. Surely he is sinful, very
foolish (Q. 33:71-72).

The keyword in the exegetical treatment of this passage is the word amāna
(trust). Al-Zamakhsharī understands amāna contextually in light of the preced-
ing verse on the triumph of the obedient (Q. 33:71).176 He explains that the ‘obe-
dience’ mentioned in Q. 33:71 is referred to as amāna (trust) in Q. 33:72 to mag-

173 Previously cited in Section 2 of this paper.

174 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol. 1, 4.
175 See Ignaz Goldziher’s discussion on Q. 33:71-72, Die Richtungen der Islamischen Ko-
ranauslegung, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1952), 133; Wolfhart Heinrichs,“Takhyyīl and
its traditions”, in God is Beautiful and He loves Beauty, ed. Alma Giese and Christoph
Bürgel (Bern: Peter Lang, 1994), 227-247, 230ff.
176 al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, vol. 5, 102.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

nify the importance of obeying God. He then proposes two different

interpretations of the response of the heavens, earth and mountains and what it
means to ‘carry’ the trust in the sense of obedience to God. According to the
first interpretation, the verse refers to the obedience of the cosmic bodies to God
in the only way appropriate for them; that is as inanimate things they were una-
ble to resist God’s will to create them. Inviting the cosmic bodies to carry the
amāna, their refusal, and their fear of it should all be understood figuratively (as
majāz). Similarly, ‘man carried it’ does not refer to his acceptance of a real offer
to carry the amāna. Rather, his carrying of it refers to wrongfully withholding
what is due to another because a trust could be conceived of as something or
someone ‘riding’ the entrusted person until rightfully discharged. Al-
Zamakhsharī adduces several examples of idiomatic expressions in support of
this meaning. In the final paraphrase, the refusal of the cosmic bodies to carry
the amāna means that they could not but discharge the trust (in their being in-
voluntarily obedient to God), whereas man refused but to carry it without ful-
filling it. Man is then described as foolish and ignorant for failing to do what
would cause his eternal happiness even though he is capable of it.177 According
to this reading, al-Zamakhsharī considers the smaller units (e.g. refused, afraid)
of the verse to be figurative (majāz) but their cumulative meaning to be real
(ģaqīqa).
The second interpretation proposed by al-Zamakhsharī shifts the attention
from ‘carrying’ in the sense of non-fulfilment to carrying as indicative of the
‘immensity’ of man’s obligations and the heaviness of this burden- the burden
which God’s largest, strongest, and hardest creations refrained from bearing and
upholding autonomously, whereas man carried it despite his weakness and fee-
ble power then failed to fulfil it. These inanimate bodies are personified in a
style common to the Arabic language. The personification involves portraying
(taŝwīr) the immensity, difficulty and heaviness of bearing and fulfilling the
amāna. The portrayed image affects the soul of the hearer because it is more en-
gaging and agreeable, and its meaning more accessible.178
Al-Zamakhsharī’s analysis and terminology are unmistakably suggestive of
the analogy-based metaphor (tamthīl). He, however, notes an incongruity be-
tween the nature of the image in this verse and the tamthīl image in the standard
example (used by ‘Abd al-Qāhir) of the undecided person portrayed as moving
one foot forward and another backward. Al-Zamakhsharī argues that this old

177 Ibid.
178 Ibid., 103.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

analogy is straightforward, and based on two real and known conditions, how-
ever, the condition of offering the ‘trust’ to inanimate bodies, their refusal and
fear of it is ‘muģāl’ (impossible or absurd). The question, then, according to al-
Zamakhsharī, is: “how could tamthīl be correctly constructed on the basis of
what is impossible?”179 He maintains that the object of the analogy (offering the
‘trust’ to cosmic bodies) is hypothetical (mafrūē), and that hypothetical things
could be imagined in the mind (tutakhayyal) in the same way like verified things
(muģaqqaqāt). Al-Zamakhsharī seems to consider this verse still a type of tamthīl
where the analogy is based on a hypothetically imagined condition in which the
immensity and difficulty of the ‘trust’ is illustrated by imagining it as if it were
offered, refused and dreaded by the cosmic bodies.180
Both interpretations betray al-Zamakhsharī’s Mu‘tazilite anxiety about attrib-
uting action and free will to inanimate things. The first interpretation is remi-
niscent of a much earlier - and marginal - reading of ‘carrying the trust’ as signi-
fying non-fulfilment of material debts.181 The second one better reflects
al-Zamakhsharī’s engagement with ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s theory of metaphor. Interest-
ingly, ‘Abd al-Qāhir precisely anticipated this type of theological concern but
maintained in response that attributing action to inanimate things is common
in the Qur’an,182 and fairly standard in Arabic as when someone says ‘my love
brought me to you’ without actually ascribing free will to love.183 This was ap-
parently not a sufficient safeguard for al-Zamakhsharī against perceiving the de-
picted condition of cosmic bodies as true (like the movement of feet in the case
of the undecided man). Al-Zamakhsharī, instead, analyses the image in this
verse as based on a phantastically imagined (tutakhayyal) condition. He seems to
be drawing here on another type of metaphor in ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s work known as
takhyyīl.184 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, however, distinguished clearly between takhyyīl and

179 Ibid.
180 Ibid.
181 See Muģammad b. Jarīr al-Šabarī’s (d. 310/922) citation of ‘Abd Allāh b. Mas‘ūd’s
opinion (d.32/653), Jāmi‘ al-bayān ‘an ta’wīl āyy al-Qur’ān, 1st edition, 24 vols., ed.
‘Abd Allāh b. Muģsin al-Turkī (Cairo: Dār Hajr, 2001), vol. 19, 202.
182 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Asrār, 386.
183 Ibid., 388. In his discussion on attributing actions to inanimate things, ‘Abd al-Qāhir
explicitly criticises the excesses of the rationalists (the Mu‘tazilites) and the literal-
ists (the anthropomorphist) who interpret the Qur’an in light of their theological
concerns in a way detrimental to its meaning. See Ibid., 391-4.
184 Heinrichs concurs that al-Zamakhsharī treats this verse as an example of takhyyīl, and
suggests that al-Zamakhsharī may have considered it a special case of tamthīl. See
“Takhyyīl and its traditions”, 230ff.

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 GUIDING THE SOUND MIND

tamthīl. He applied the term takhyyīl to a type of imagery in Arabic poetry which
has no true or verifiable meaning at any level, almost bordering on the absurd
such as when the white hair of old age is portrayed as desirable in reality.185 What
distinguishes tamthīl from takhyyīl, in ‘Abd al-Qāhir, is not the plausibility of
the image, but tamthīl’s reference, ultimately, to an abstract meaning which is
true regardless of whether the image represents verifiable or hypothetical condi-
tions. In fact, ‘Abd al-Qāhir emphasises that the less straightforward and more
artistically unique186 and composite the tamthīl image, the more effective it is.187
These rhetorical aspects, however, are overtaken in al-Zamakhsharī by his theo-
logically motivated concern to determine the plausibility and verifiability of the
image.188
Al-Bayēāwī, on the other hand, drops the terminology associated with rhe-
torical analysis altogether, so terms like tutakhayyal, taŝwīr, and tamthīl are not
employed in his interpretation of this verse. Nonetheless, he begins with al-
Zamakhsharī’s contextual understanding of ‘amāna’ as obedience. He reproduces,
with some minor emendations, al-Zamakhsharī’s paraphrase of the verse accord-
ing to his second interpretation: that the ‘trust’ is so immense to the extent that
if offered to these large cosmic bodies - and they had sense and perception - they
would refuse it and dread bearing it; whereas man carried it despite his weakness
and feeble power, and was described as ignorant because most people fail to ful-
fil this ‘trust’.189 Al-Bayēāwī then cites three other interpretations of the verse
which can be summarised as follows:

185 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Asrār, 267.

186 Ibid., 122-3.
187 Ibid., 139ff.
188 It has been suggested that ‘Abd al-Qāhir himself is motivated by theological concerns
more than previously thought. The argument, however, is based on the obvious, that
‘Abd al-Qāhir’s work is informed by an underlying and broad theological claim that
the Qur’an contains true meanings. See Margaret Larkin, The Theology of Meanings:
‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s Theory of Discourse (New haven: The American Oriental So-
ciety, 1995), especially 164-171. Unfortunately, however, Larkin makes no effort to ad-
dress Kamal Abu Deeb’s in-depth analysis of how ‘Abd al-Qāhir develops an advanced
theory of poetic imagery that is unfettered by theology, see Al-Jurjānī’s Theory of Poetic
Imagery.
189 Nāŝr al-Dīn ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar al-Bayēāwī, Anwār al-tanzīl wa-asrār al-ta’wīl, al-
ma‘rūf bi-tafsīr al-Bayēāwī, 5 vols., ed. Muģammad ‘Abd al-Raģmān al-Mar‘ashlī
(Beirut: Dār iģyā’al-turāth, wa-mu’asasat al-tārīkh al-‘arabī, 1998), vol. 4, 240.

38
 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

i. The ‘trust’ signifies both the involuntary obedience in nature and the voluntary
obedience of free-willed man. ‘Offering it’ means both willing it in nature and
demanding it from the human being; and ‘carrying it’ means the betrayal of
the trust by not rightfully discharging it (as in al-Zamakhsharī’s first interpre-
tation).
ii. Cosmic bodies were created with perception and the verse describes a real cos-
mic event.
iii. The ‘trust’ could mean intellect (‘aql) or obligation (taklīf). Accordingly, ‘offer-
ing the trust’ to the cosmic bodies would mean determining their suitability
to bear it. Their refusal is involuntary due to their natural unpreparedness for
this, whereas man’s carrying of it means having the readiness and natural apti-
tude for it. He is sinful and ignorant because he normally succumbs to wrath
and lust, which would make ‘aql a better interpretation of the trust in this case
because one of its functions is to control these two powers, and the obligations
(takālīf) are intended to help improve them and curb them.190

Al-Bayēāwī steers away from a figurative interpretation. In his rendition of

al-Zamakhsharī’s paraphrase, he restitutes to the verse a conditional grammatical
structure (i.e. if the cosmic bodies had sense and perception and were made that
offer, they would have refused it) whereby the words would then be understood
literally. All three further interpretations are also literal. Aside from the most lit-
eral one which assigns perception and will to cosmic bodies (ii), the other two
interpretations (i & iii) are more subtle in the way they render a literal reading
of the verse. By shifting the meaning of ‘trust’ away from only signifying the
obedience expected from man (to include involuntary obedience (i), or mean
intellectual ability (iii)), the verse no longer contains a personification, and the
meaning of offering, refusing and dreading all become appropriate to inanimate
things. What is obvious is that in al-Bayēāwī’s effort to produce a more ortho-
dox commentary that incorporates the insights of an unorthodox exegete like al-
Zamakhsharī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s rhetorical approach is totally abandoned on this
occasion. This is overturned in Ebu’s-su‘ūd who will foreground the verse as a
case of tamthīl.
Ebu’s-su‘ūd follows al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī in reading the ‘trust’
(amāna) in the sense of obedience in light of the previous verse. His interpreta-
tion, however, considerably develops this contextual linkage further:

190 Ibid.

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After the great importance of obedience to God and his Prophet is clarified by
explicating the painful chastisement for those who rebel against it [Q. 33:64-8],191
and the mighty triumph of those who observe it [Q. 33:71], the great importance
and difficulty of the religious obligations [takālīf] which require this obedience
are illustrated in what follows by way of analogy (tamthīl) [Q. 33:72]. It is then
declared that their observance of obedience or neglect of it [Q. 33:73] comes after
their acceptance of and commitment to [fulfil these obligations].192 (Emphasis
added)

Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s contextual analysis of Q. 33:72 goes beyond the simple lexical

linkage established by his two predecessors between verses Q. 33:72 and Q. 33:71,
whereby they read the word ‘trust’ (amāna) as signifying obedience. In his above
paraphrase, ‘obedience’ is more than the meaning of the ‘trust’, which he pro-
poses to read more specifically as the religious obligations (takālīf ) requiring
obedience: it is developed into a broader contextual theme linking Q. 33:72 to a
number of preceding verses, and carried forward to his interpretation of the next
and final verse of the Chapter of the Clans Q. 33:73 (That God may chastise the
hypocrites, men and women alike, and the idolaters, men and women alike; and
that God may turn again unto the believers, men and women alike. God is All-
forgiving, All-compassionate), as outlining the consequence of observing or ne-
glecting obedience to God.193 But it is in Q. 33:72, as Ebu’s-su‘ūd explains, that
obedience is exemplified and elucidated by way of tamthīl, the analogy-based
metaphor. Tamthīl is, henceforth, not a second interpretation as in al-
Zamakhsharī but the very mode in which the verse illustrates the contextual
theme of obedience underpinning this whole section of the Chapter of the
Clans. Not surprisingly, Ebu’s-su‘ūd offers no alternative interpretations for this
verse.194 And, although he does incorporate elements of his predecessors’ inter-

191 The verses are as follows: “God has cursed the unbelievers, and prepared for them a
Blaze [64], therein to dwell for ever; they shall find neither protector nor helper [65].
Upon the day when their faces are turned about in the Fire they shall say: Ah, would
we had obeyed God and the Messenger! [66] They shall say, Our Lord, we obeyed
our chiefs and great ones, and they led us astray from the way [67]. Our Lord, give
them chastisement twofold, and curse them with a mighty curse!’ [68]” (Emphasis
added)
192 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol. 4, 436-7.
193 Ibid., 438.
194 Some of the other interpretations in al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī are relegated by
Ebu’s-su‘ūd to the end of his discussion not of this verse but the next (Q. 33:73) and
cited as unnamed opinions. Ibid., 438-9.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

pretations (e.g. al-Bayēāwī’s third interpretation of amāna as signifying takālīf),

his approach is quite different from that of his predecessors in that it is entirely
focused on systematically analysing the tamthīl image. He breaks up the image
into constituent parts each representing a different but related idea in the fol-
lowing manner:

– The religious obligations (takālīf) are represented as the ‘trust’ to alert attention
that these are protected duties which God entrusted to those who are legally
accountable, obligating them to observe these duties obediently and compli-
antly, and to be careful and perseverant in fulfilling them, and to perform them
without missing any requirements;
– And the weighing of religious obligations against the aptitude of the heavens
and other cosmic bodies is represented as an ‘offer’ made to them so as to reveal
the great extent of care for these obligations, and to depict the desire that the
cosmic bodies do accept them;
– And the natural inaptitude of the cosmic bodies to accept the offer as their re-
fusal and fear of these obligations in order to intensify awe of them and cultivate
a sense of their great importance;
– And [the possibility of ] accepting the offer as ‘carrying’ so as to exemplify the
difficulty associated with these obligations by representing them as comparable
to the heavy bodies which [in order to be carried] require the strongest and
greatest physical force which the likes of cosmic bodies have. 195

The ‘meaning’ (al-ma‘nā) of all this is that: “the ‘trust’ is so immense to the
extent that if these large cosmic bodies, a model of strength and toughness, were
entrusted with observing religious obligations - and they had sense and percep-
tion - they would refuse and dread bearing it.”196 This interpretation is very close
to al-Bayēāwī’s paraphrase which is itself based on al-Zamakhsharī’s second in-
terpretation. What marks Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s approach is his method of analysis. He
distinguishes this ma‘nā as the ‘intended’ (maqŝūd) but not the explicit meaning
expressed in the verse because “speech was diverted from its ordinary ways of ex-
pression to the mode of tamthīl by portraying (taŝwīr) the hypothetical in the
image (bi-ŝūrat) of the actual.”197 The upshot of this distinction is that the mean-
ing of the verse could not be fully grasped unless the image (ŝūra) generated by
tamthīl is analysed. This is why Ebu’s-su‘ūd is most interested in the image when

195 Ibid., 437.

196 Ibid.
197 Ibid.

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dealing with this verse; and that, following ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s approach to tamthīl,
he treats the image as a complex idea that is the sum of several ideas which must
first be interpreted individually before the overall (and intended) meaning is
reached. His analysis appears organised in a manner resonating with al-Sharīf al-
Jurjānī’s cognitive argument in support of tamthīl’s composite structure: that the
different parts of a complex idea can be observed only when there are relevant
words in the sentence drawing attention to them. As evident in his above treat-
ment, Ebu’s-su‘ūd expends his effort on explaining, one by one, the words and
phrases which represent and draw attention to the different ideas constituting
the analogy. His overall interpretation is the meaning (al-ma‘nā) culminating
from interpreting the meaning of these parts. This unmistakably corresponds to
‘Abd al-Qāhir’s idea of ma‘nā al-ma‘nā.
Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s approach stands in contrast to that of al-Bayēāwī; for whereas
the latter presents this interpretation at the start of his commentary as if it were
a readily available paraphrase, Ebu’s-su‘ūd establishes it as the result of a careful
examination of the levels of meaning in the structure of the verse. Moreover, he
diverges from both his predecessors in shifting the focus of the interpretation
from ‘man’, his carrying of the trust and non-fulfilment of it, to the sequence of
the cosmic bodies. The statements that ‘Man carried it [the trust]’ and that ‘he
is sinful, very foolish’ do not constitute part of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s analysis of the
tamthīl image, but are discussed separately afterwards. The underlying reason is
that tamthīl involves a contraction of the analogy where one side of the compari-
son (e.g. difficulty of religious obligations) is dropped and substituted by the
other side (e.g. the cosmic bodies and their responses to the offer) – a point
which Ebu’s-su‘ūd had previously explained in relation to the case of the sealed
heart. On the other hand, the comparison between ‘man’ and ‘the cosmic bodies’
in carrying the trust is explicit in the structure of the verse, thus, not part of the
tamthīl image. Nevertheless, Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s brief interpretation of man’s carrying
of the trust, and his foolishness and sinfulness, is predicated upon the meaning
of the image.198 This meaning is then carried forward to the interpretation of
the next verse (Q. 33:73) where the theme of obedience is considerably reempha-
sised and extended.199
In conclusion, the overall meaning Ebu’s-su‘ūd finally reaches is not substan-
tively different from that of al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī. Yet his application
of rhetorical analysis, as illustrated above, marks his approach as noticeably more

198 Ibid.
199 Ibid., 438.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

systematic in method and coherent in style. Remarkable too is the consistency

between his theory and application of tamthīl. Conceptualising tamthīl as an in-
tellectual rather than a linguistic metaphor (see Section 3 above), Ebu’s-su‘ūd is
primarily concerned with the ideas constituting the image where the intended
(intellectual) meaning subsists, and not with the lexical and/or grammatical
analysis of the sentence. Not only that, but his method is revealing of the cogni-
tive and psychological effects of the different parts of the image which, for ex-
ample: alert attention to the protected status of religious obligations; exemplify
their difficulty; reveal the extent of care for them; and increase awe of them and
cultivate a sense of their great importance (See translation above). Grasping the
effect of the image is not superfluous, but contributes to the intelligibility of
meaning and its psychological effectiveness. This is so, as Ebu’s-su‘ūd maintains,
because through the image the intended meaning is more effectively actualised
and clarified, and, thus, why the mode of tamthīl rather than ordinary speech is
employed.200 Analysis of this mode is then necessary for understanding the ideas
it embodies, their effect on shaping the meaning, and their impact on the hearer.
This is really the core of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s stance in the controversy on tamthīl,
which he expressed both in his debate with al-Tāshkandī and in Irshād; that form
(mode of expression) and content (ideas) are organically related. It is also why
he insisted that a rhetoric which enables the understanding of the Qur’an and
the appreciation of its eloquence should be focused on analysing how this rela-
tionship is constitutive of meaning and its effect, and not on merely establishing
a logical linkage between text and idea. In this, Ebu’s-su‘ūd is drawing on the in-
tellectual trajectory of earlier rhetoricians such as al-Qazwīnī, but especially al-
Sharīf al-Jurjānī who defended and further explicated ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s theory of
metaphor against the dominant influence of al-Sakkākī. To achieve this task of
rhetorical interpretation, Ebu’s-su‘ūd creatively synthesises aspects of the two au-
thoritative commentaries of al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī to provide the
grounds on which he legitimates the retrieval of ‘Abd al-Qāhir’s original ap-
proach, and to masterfully illustrate its exegetical potential in a way that these
two exegetes could not do.
Turning back to the broad aim of this paper which is to gain an insight into
post-classical tafsīr, a few preliminary remarks are due on the formal characteris-
tics of Irshād as a Qur’an commentary from that period. Measured against Nor-

200 Ibid. Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s full comment is as follows: “ŝurifa al-kalām ‘an sananih bi-taŝwīr al-
mafrūē bi-ŝūrat al-muģaqqaq rawman li-ziyādat taģqīq al-ma‘nā al-maqŝūd bi-l-tamthīl
wa-tawēīģih.”

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man Calder’s description of the classical tafsīr genre,201 it is needless to say that
Irshād preserves the regular format of lemma and comment in interpreting the
Qur’an ad seriatim. Apart from that, however, it differs from classical commen-
taries in two major ways.
The first is the near absence of named exegetical authorities. A linked feature
is that the exegetical discussion in Irshād does not revolve around selecting or as-
sessing other opinions. As shown above, the two past exegetes central to Irshād,
al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī, are only identified in the preface and not in the
actual tafsīr; and their interpretations not cited but reworked and synthesised in
a way that serves Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s approach. In brief, the sense of an exegetical com-
munity in conversation which pervades classical tafsīr texts is absent from Irshād.
One of the striking features of Irshād in this respect is how Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s exegeti-
cal voice is distinctly foregrounded and autonomous – perhaps the mark of the
unprecedented authority which evolved with the role of Shaykh al-Islam in the
first half of the sixteenth century.
Secondly, the simultaneous recourse of the classical tradition to various scho-
lastic disciplines (law, theology, prophetic history, Sufism, rhetoric, syntax, lexis,
and allegory) in interpreting the Qur’an, is substituted in Ebu’s-su‘ūd by an ap-
proach which gives primacy to rhetoric. Most notably, law, of which Ebu’s-
su‘ūd’s was the highest authority of his time, does not constitute a key discipline
against which he formally measures the Qur’an.202 To be conceded, however, is
that his interpretative choices can still be coloured by his juristic outlook, which
cannot be missed, for example, in his redirection of the meaning of amāna from
obedience generally to takālīf more specifically. Comparing Ebu’s-su‘ūd with al-
Zamakhsharī, theological preoccupations do not govern his exegetical effort.
This emerges clearly, for instance, in the way Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s rhetorical analysis of
the tamthīl image in Q. 33:72 displaces the theological concern which distracted
al-Zamakhsharī from examining the image itself to digressing on whether
tamthīl could portray an implausible condition. It would be reasonable to claim
that if al-Kashshāf is a figurative interpretation of the Qur’an that aligns the text
with Mu‘tazilī theology, Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Irshād is an interpretation of the Qur’an’s
figures of speech.

201 For a definition of the formal characteristics of the classical tafsīr genre, see Calder,
“Tafsīr from Šabarī to Ibn Kathīr”, especially 101-6.
202 For example, his commentary on the wuēū’ verse (Q. 5:6) is notably brief in light of
the myriad aspects of prayer and purity laws that could be expounded upon in con-
nection with this verse. See Irshād, vol. 2, 14-17.

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In this light, Irshād appears to represent a turning in the post-classical period to-
ward a specialised form of tafsīr. The Islamic disciplines in this later stage had
achieved a greater stability: the need for proving their instrumentality to the Qur’an,
or for substantiating their claims by harnessing the meaning of this divine text had
likely diminished, thus overshadowing the ideological goal and permitting a growing
focus on the rhetorical and poetic appreciation of the Qur’an as evident in Irshād.

5. Re-contextualising Irshād: The convergence of intellectual

aspiration and political will
There are several indications in the sources that there was an aspiration in the
sixteenth century for the Ottomans to produce a formal work of tafsīr. Süley-
man I appears to have taken a special interest in the production of a work of
tafsīr by a Shaykh al-Islam. Already mentioned is that Kemālpāshazāde, one of
the most influential holders of this office, worked until his death in 940/1534 on
a tafsīr work which he never completed. But while there is no evidence that he
undertook the task as a result of a formal assignment, Fenārīzāde Muģyiddīn,
the Shaykh al-Islam succeeded by Ebu’s-su‘ūd, was paid a high daily stipend of
two hundred dirhams to teach Qur’an commentary and compose a tafsīr work.203
Like Kemālpāshazāde, Fenārīzāde Muģyiddīn failed to complete the work before
he died in 954/1548. The demanding office of Shaykh al-Islam, and the positions
of military judgeship which normally precede it, seem to have hindered the
completion of these works of tafsīr.204 In his preface to Irshād, Ebu’s-su‘ūd makes
a point of how his administrative duties as judge prevented him from fulfilling
his enduring aspiration to compose a tafsīr work, but that following his appoint-
ment as Shaykh al-Islam, he realised that his life might end before he could have
ample time for completing the tafsīr.205 Soon after, he embarked on composing
Irshād,206 seizing the chance to write whenever he could.207

203 al-Kafawī, Katā’ib, vol. 2, f. 251v; Cf. Šāshköprīzāde, al-Shaqā’iq, 229.

204 The lamentation that Ottoman scholars would have composed great works had they
not been encumbered by office is a recurrent literary motif in historical biographies,
reflecting a certain general discontent with the material legacy of Ottoman religious
thought. A good example is the aforementioned Khwājazāde, an influential scholar
perceived as surpassing Persian, Turkish and Arab scholars of his time but who has left
a small number of works. Šāshköprīzāde notes that Khwājazāde lamented that public
office wasted many a great talent including his own. See al-Shaqā’iq, 81.
205 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol.1, 5. For a translation of parts of Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s account, see
Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd, 18-19.
206 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol.1, 6.
207 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 444.

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Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s keenness on producing a formal tafsīr work rather than a book

of fiqh is noteworthy. According to an anecdote cited by Colin Imber, when
Ebu’s-su‘ūd was once asked if he would compose a book on important legal
questions, his response was that he felt shame before the Ģanafī jurist Ibn al-
Bazzāz (d. 827/1424) and his legal compendium, al-Bazzāziyya.208 Imber sug-
gests that Ebu’s-su‘ūd may have considered his juristic abilities inadequate.
While this may be so, Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s response also discloses his perception of the
adequacy and great accomplishment of the juristic tradition more generally. In
comparison, his aspiration to compose a new tafsīr work seems to convey the
opposite. That is, not only his self-confidence as exegete but also his view of the
inadequacy of the tafsīr genre and the exigency of the task – a task encoded in
the full title of Irshād: “Guiding the sound mind to the benefits of the Noble
Book”. The key term in this title is ‘benefits’, mazāyā (sing. maziyya), a word at
the heart of the endeavour of rhetoric as an Islamic discipline since ‘Abd al-
Qāhir who defined it as the aspect of beauty that resides in the meaning rather
than the wording of eloquent speech.209 The ‘mind’, the second key term in the
title, must exert its utmost in contemplating the meaning of the sentence before
it is able to elucidate, prove and identify the linguistic indicators of such benefits
(mazāyā) of speech.210 Accomplishing a tafsīr which revives the purpose of rheto-
ric as ‘Abd al-Qāhir envisaged it, and which restores to the tafsīr tradition a liter-
ary purpose by composing a rhetorical Qur’an commentary for an Ottoman
scholarly milieu with an evolving interest in rhetoric and Qur’an exegesis, ap-
pears to have been the intellectual aspiration behind Irshād.
Further impetus came from Süleyman I. The Sultan’s interest in tafsīr may
have developed under Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s influence. One piece of evidence is his previ-
ously cited 1565 decree, which gave precedence to tafsīr books, designating al-
most third of the order list to the subject (twelve out of a total of thirty nine
texts). Also, it was earlier in that year that the Sultan, too eager to wait, request-
ed to see a copy of whatever had been completed of Irshād.211 He, then, issued
the imperial order summoning a college teacher from Rhodes by the name of
Badr al-Dīn to assist Ebu’s-su‘ūd in the final stage.212 On completion, Ebu’s-

208 Ģajjī Khalīfa, Kashf, vol. 1, 242; Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd, 20.

209 ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Dalā’il, 64.
210 Ibid., 65.
211 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 444.
212 The fermān dated 17th Rajab 972/1565 is cited in Ahmed and Filipovic, “The Sultan’s
Syllabus”, footnote 28, 193-4.

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 S H U RU Q N A G U I B

su‘ūd befittingly dedicated Irshād to the Sultan.213 The Sultan’s “ardent desire” to
see Irshād,214 and his warm reception of the completed work,215 not to mention
the efforts of Fenārīzāde Muģyiddīn who may have been formally assigned to
write a tafsīr work and the 1565 decree, suggest that his was an active involvement
that goes beyond a personal religious and/or intellectual interest cultivated un-
der Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s influence.
With the Ottomans’ success in extending their power and authority over the
Arab Muslim world in the early sixteenth century, including Mecca and Medina,
the Ottoman Sultan became the “Servant of the Two Noble Sanctuaries”,216 a ti-
tle laden with religious meaning which not only reinforced the Ottomans’
Caliphal claim, but also anchored the religious identity of their rule in the site
of Islam’s origins. The Ottomans were initially perceived by their new Arab sub-
jects as ‘bad, cruel and ignorant Muslims’.217 However, over the next few dec-
ades, they made considerable efforts toward constructing the legitimacy of their
political authority in religious terms. It is during the long reign of Süleyman I
(1520-1566), and with the help of Ebu’s-su‘ūd as Shaykh al-Islam, that the Sul-
tan’s role as defender of shari’a and Sunni Islam was articulated and asserted.218
In the hands of Ebu’s-su‘ūd, the role of Shaykh al-Islam reached its zenith as a
religious office with extended administrative responsibilities for ensuring the
conformity of government to Shari’a on behalf of the Sultan.
Against this backdrop, encouraging the composition of Irshād could be thus
conceived as an effort to extend and maintain control over the very meaning of
the divine book and, hence, over not only the geographical realms of Islam but
also the very realm of its religious truth, the Qur’an. Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s dedication at
the outset of Irshād in which he enumerates Süleyman I’s many claims to sover-
eignty (e.g. his claim to the universal vicegerency of God, to the greater tradi-
tion of caliphate, and to the superior imamate),219 is a literary expression of that

213 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol.1, 4.

214 ‘Alī b. Bālī, al-‘Iqd al-manžūm, 444.
215 See note 27 above.
216 P.M. Holt, Studies in the History of the Near East (New York: Routledge, 1973), 228.
217 For a summary of the Egyptian historian Ibn Iyās’s impression of the Ottomans im-
mediately after they conquered Egypt, see Michael Winter, “Historiography in Arabic
During the Ottoman period”, in Roger Allen and D.S. Richards, eds., Arabic Litera-
ture in the Post-Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 171-
188, 172.
218 Imber, Ebu’s-su‘ūd, 106-110.
219 Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Irshād, vol. 1, 4.

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extension. With a work of Qur’an interpretation composed by the highest reli-

gious authority, the Shaykh al-Islam himself, the Ottomans would become de-
fenders of the birthplace, the law and the central book of Islam.

Guiding the Sound Mind: Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s Tafsir and Rhetorical Interpretation of the
Qur’an in the Post-Classical Period
Abstract The overarching aim of this paper is to gain an insight into the post-clas-
sical tafsīr tradition, which remains largely neglected by contemporary tafsīr schol-
arship. The paper focuses on Ebu’s-su‘ūd’s (d. 982/1574) Qur’an commentary Irshād
al-’aql al-salīm ilā mazāyā al-kitāb al-karīm (Guiding the sound mind to the bene-
fits of the Noble Book), a work highly praised in the biographical and bibliographi-
cal literature for its rhetorical interpretations, and ranked with the commentaries of
al-Zamakhsharī and al-Bayēāwī. The paper investigates both the text of Irshād and
the context of its production, particularly the intellectual debates located at the in-
tersection of rhetoric and Qur’an exegesis which shaped the exegetical concerns of
sixteenth century Ottoman scholars like Ebu’s-su‘ūd. The problem of the analogy-
based metaphor (tamthīl), and its classification as a type of a word-borrowing
(isti’āra) provides the anchoring for the textual and contextual study in this paper.
Examples from Irshād, which illustrate how Ebu’s-su‘ūd theorises and applies tamthīl
as a hermeneutic tool, are closely examined and compared to earlier commentaries.
In conclusion, the paper reflects on the characteristics of Irshād as a post-classical
tafsīr work, and offers some observations on its intellectual and political significance
in the sixteenth century Ottoman world.
Keywords: Ebu’s-su‘ūd, Qur’anic Studies, Ottoman History, the Post-classical Peri-
od, Rhetoric, ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī, Tafsīr, Tamthīl, Balāgha

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