The Qur'an by Farid Esack

The Qur'an by Farid Esack

Author:Farid Esack
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2011-10-13T04:00:00+00:00


Occasions of revelation (asbab al-nuzul)

Asbab al-nuzul are those occasions (“asbab”, sing. “sabab”) of the revelation of a chapter or verse, which refer to the time and circumstances or place of its revelation. Asbab al-nuzul were transmitted by the Companions and are subjected to the same scrutiny for reliability as the general Hadith literature. It is thus not uncommon to find some reports regarded as “unsound” or differing reports from the Companions relating to a single revelation. In such cases, the more “reliable” account is preferred or attempts are made to synchronize the apparent contradiction in different accounts. In traditional Islamic studies, asbab al-nuzul forms an important element in the maghazi and sirah studies, which deal respectively with the warfare expeditions and the biography of Muhammad, in interpretation and legal matters. Despite the neglect that it has suffered as a discipline, its significance is evident from the “frequency of the claim that no assistance is greater in understanding the Qur’an than a knowledge of when and in what circumstances its verses were revealed” (Burton, 1977, 16). Describing the function of asbab in exegesis, Rippin says that

its function is to provide a narrative account in which basic exegesis of the verse may be embodied. The standard interpretational techniques of incorporating glosses, masoretic clarification (e.g., with variants), narrative expansion and, most importantly, contextual definition pre-dominate within the structure of the sabab (1988, 2–3).

Rippin also concludes that on many occasions it seems that asbab (occasions of revelation) reports are cited by commentators for no apparent exegetical reason: “They are cited and then ignored” (ibid.). From the context of these citations, though, he opines that they are adduced out of a general desire to historicize the text of the Qur’an in order to be able to prove constantly that God really did reveal His book to humanity on earth; the material thereby acts as a witness to God’s concern for His creation (1988, 2).3 Given the general impression in the Qur’an of a God who is constantly involved in the affairs of humankind, this is certainly a credible reason for citing of a sabab. Al-Suyuti, in fact, says that the constant reminder of the presence of God in the universe is one of the functions of the sabab (1973, 29). “The sabab”, as Rippin says, “is a constant reminder of God and is the rope, that being one of the meanings of sabab in the Qur’an, by which human contemplation ascends to the highest levels even while dealing with the mundane aspects of the text” (1988, 1). While asbab al-nuzul has been regarded as significant in any attempt to understand the Qur’an, it is also evident that there has been considerable skepticism regarding its use. The reasons for this range from a fear of compromising the ontological otherness of the Qur’an to an acknowledgment of the corruption that much of Hadith literature – on which all of the asbab accounts are based – had been subjected to (Dehlawi, 1966, 49). Dehlawi, for example, cautions against



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.