Kader (Dec 2023)
The Discussions Regarding the Belonging of the Qur’ānic Words in the Tradition of Tafsir and the Critique of Them
Abstract
It’s understood that God aimed to communicate with human beings and send messages to them by creating the first man as the first prophet. To exemplify, God desired to be understood by them while sending the Torah in Hebrew, the Bible in Syriac, and the Qur’ān in Arabic. However, his Hebrew speech has a different nature from his Syriac, and his Arabic word has a different essence from his Hebrew and Syriac. Based on this reality, when viewing the history of Islamic thought, it is seen that scholars have tried to understand the nature of the speech of God and make sense of it. Essentially, understanding and grasping the words of God are an effort to look from the physical realm to the metaphysical one. Despite this fact, the scholars, as the indomitable seekers of truth, are searching for clues to say about it. While some of them consider the “divine speech” as an attribute of God, many others view it as a “divine act”. It is also admitted by all of them that whether being attributive or an act of God, the reflection of the divine speech is the Qurʼān. In this sense, three approaches have been put forward to the question of the belonging of the Qurʼānic words. In compliance with the dominant and preferred point of view among these views, the Qurʼān belongs to God in terms of wording and meaning. Accordingly, the revelation of the Qurʼān, which was revealed to the Prophet Muḥammad, consists of both wording and meaning. Therefore, there is no intervention or contribution of Gabriel or Muḥammad in constituting the Qurʼān. According to the second approach, the meanings of the Qurʼānic text belong to God; however, its words pertain to Muḥammad. This perspective indicates that Gabriel revealed nothing more than the meanings of the Qurʼān. Muḥammad understood the meanings conveyed to him and then uttered them in Arabic expression patterns and phrases. In conformity with the third approach, the meanings of the Qurʼānic text belong to God, however, its words pertain to Gabriel. In other words, only the meanings of the text were given to Gabriel, and its words were formed by him. In the present study, the mentioned approaches, which are asserted by scholars about the belonging of Qurʼānic words, first will be explained in a descriptive style. Subsequently, they will be evaluated in terms of the integrity of the Qurʼān, its natural historical atmosphere, and the transmissions of the Qur’ānic exegesis (riwāyāt) of the classical period from an analytical point of view. To put it briefly, it can be said that there is no disagreement among scholars in the field of the belonging of the meanings of the Qurʼānic text to God. The main disagreement is whether the Qurʼānic words belong to God, Gabriel, or Muḥammad. Considering the integrity of the Qurʼān, its natural historical atmosphere, and tafsir transmissions regarding the circumstances of sending down the Qurʼānic revelation, it has been determined that the prevailing view is more coherent than the other two views.
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