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While recounting Noah's story, the Qurʾān refers to a strange narrative motif : an oven (tannūr) from which some water overflows. Insofar as such a motif is hardly explained by the text, it has been and continues to be an issue for the reader. Muslim scholars, who were the first to deal with the Qurʾān, noted the difficulty and tried to solve it by relying on semantics and providing various etiological accounts. Centuries later, orientalists believed they had found the key to this enigma in the rabbinic heritage. But as early as 1867, by publishing his edition of an Arabic catena, Paul de Lagarde drew the attention of the academic world to fragments attributed to Hippolytus of Rome mentioning, in Noah's story, an overflowing oven. For several reasons, it was not until 1995 that a connection was explicitly made between these fragments and the Qurʾan. In the following study, we will pursue this line of research and try to determine the relationship of these fragments to the quranic statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his commentary on the Qurʾān, Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī makes use of various traditional and rational sciences, among them legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh). This science plays a primary role within his exegetical device, since he draws from it many notions and arguments that allow him to propose new interpretations or to refute the opinions issued by his predecessors. The present paper aims to study the contribution of legal theory to al-Rāzī's exegesis. Our purpose is to show how this author uses the hermeneutical rules borrowed from the science of uṣūl al-fiqh and the benefits he derives from them, especially in the debates opposing him to other commentators of the Qurʾān. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reading of verse 2, 184c (wa-ʿalā llaḏīna yuṭīqūna-hu fidyatun ṭaʿāmu miskīnin) in the codex (muṣḥaf) confronted the exegetes with difficult problems to overcome. This is how they were led to come up with several interpretations, one of which in particular won the approval of many of them and was adopted by the first Sunni authorities of the tafsīr (Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Abū ʿUbayd, al-Ṭabarī) even if at the same time it goes far away from the codex statement. We try here to understand the reasons for this apparently absurd choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the origins of the story of the Prophet Muḥammad’s controversial marriage with Zaynab bt Ǧaḥš as well as its transformation and reinterpretation through the centuries. The fact that the story features in different genres of Islamic literature as well as in non-Muslim sources allows for a reconstruction of how and where the story emerged, how it spread and to what extent it was transformed over time. In the course of this reconstruction, the article critically assesses different approaches to the historicity of reports on the life of Muḥammad. With its analysis of later Muslim sources, it also illustrates different strategies of reinterpreting and recasting traditions and shows how societal change and different ideologies influenced the interpretation of the story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how medieval Sunnite Muslim exegetes from al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) to Ibn Kaṯīr (d. 774/1373) understood the Qurʾānic term ḫalīfa and other Ḫ.L.F-derived terms. While previous scholarship has examined how exegetes generally understood the term, this paper scrutinizes the exegetical commentaries (tafsīr) chronologically in order to discern the semantic and terminological shifts accompanying different commentaries over time. It demonstrates the importance of an intertextual approach in placing tafsīr literature in dialogue with writings on the caliphate in works of theology (kalām) and law ( fiqh). Overall, the paper argues that the legal and theological development of the Sunnite theory of the caliphate provided exegetes with new clusters of terminology associated with the caliphate to enrich their commentaries on the Ḫ.L.F verses. This process was in turn catalyzed by the systematization of the caliphate discourse and the canonization of the four-caliphs thesis during the Sunnite Revival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the process of exegesis in light of post-modern literary theories, particularly those regarding hermeneutics and reading. The article considers exegetes in their role as both a reader of the Qur'ān and as the author of an exegesis. Both of these actions, reading and writing, have an impact on the way in which the tafsīr is produced. As a reader, an exegete responds to the text of the Qur'ān in a way which confirms and conforms to his own theology and worldview. As a writer, an exegete attempts to convince his (or her) readers of the validity of his (or her) own views and interpretations of the text. However, the aims and objectives that an exegete has for a work also have an impact on the way the tafsīr is actually shaped. (Post)modern views of reading and writing can explain how a single text can generate such a wide range of interpretations in Qur'änic exegetical works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meaning of the expression "Iram of the pillars" which is found in Kor 89, 7 has been the subject of many debates among ancient Muslim exegetes. The ambiguous signification of this passage has led to a large number of different interpretations and has (seemingly) led to many myths, whether in classical Arabic literature (religious and profane alike) or in modern Western writings. The aim of this paper is to give a critical overview and analysis of the various exegeses for this Koranic verse, to study the developments and history of the Tram myth' and finally, in light of these elements as well as through a Biblical/Midrashic comparative approach, to suggest our own theory of what was certainly the primitive and forgotten meaning of "Iram of the pillars". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Le présent article analyse les ambiguïtés sémantiques de l'expression Asāīr al-awwalīn, citée à neuf reprises dans le Coran. Les commentaires des exégètes musulmans révèlent un profond embarras face à la morphologie et au sens de cette expression. Incluant la tradition exégétique sunnite la plus représentative, notre corpus s'étend également à la littérature orientaliste et aux études coraniques modernes. En y prenant appui, nous examinerons dans un premier temps les différentes explications fournies par les exégètes musulmans et les orientalistes européens. Nous étudierons ensuite les enjeux sous-jacents à ces explications et les manipulations intrinsèques à ce processus herméneutique. Les explications proposées par les uns et les autres découlent en effet de leurs postulats relatifs à la sacralité ou à l'historicité du Coran. L'échantillon analysé ici met ainsi en évidence les équivoques générées par l'emprunt des mots dans le Coran et les solutions contradictoires proposées par les mufassirūn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]