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Al-Māwardī’s Commentaries on the Anthropomorphic Qurʾānic Verses
Abstract
The Shāfiʿī jurist al-Māwardī (d. 1058) is best known today for his works on Islamic law and political thought. But his work of Qurʾānic exegesis (tafsīr), al-Nukat wa-l-ʿuyūn fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, remains understudied, especially when compared to those of al-Ṭabarī, al-Zamakhsharī, and al-Rāzī. Yet among al-Māwardī’s writings, the Nukat was the work on which most of his biographers fixated when they accused him of espousing Muʿtazilī views on certain matters of theology. For instance, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 1245), the author of a biographical dictionary of Shāfiʿī jurists, devotes half of his biographical entry on al-Māwardī to this very issue, deeming the Nukat to be harmful to its reader’s faith because it contains “unorthodox” Muʿtazilī views presented in a concealed fashion. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s allegations that al-Māwardī’s harbored closeted Muʿtazilī views would be transmitted in later biographical dictionaries, including those by al-Subkī, al-Suyūṭī, and al-Dāwūdī. This paper evaluates these allegations by revisiting al-Māwardī’s Nukat, in particular his commentaries on seemingly anthropomorphic Qurʾānic verses pertaining to God’s bodily attributes (ṣifāt Allāh) such as His hands, face, and eyes. It argues that although al-Māwardī often interprets these verses metaphorically and in line with the Muʿtazilī belief that God cannot have any human attributes, for the most part, he avoids wading into controversial discussions and does not delve into the debates that surround these verses. At times, he simply glosses over a verse without providing commentary. This paper will also situate al-Māwardī’s commentaries on the anthropomorphic verses in relation to other medieval Sunni and Shiʿi commentaries to bring his views into sharper relief. Its notoriety among later scholars notwithstanding, al-Māwardī’s Nukat remains an important milestone in Islamic intellectual history. It serves as a testament to a moment in Islamic history when Muʿtazilī ideas were in such vogue that they entered the tafsīr work of a prominent Shāfiʿī jurist. Furthermore, it speaks to the intellectual flexibility and experimentation that was characteristic of the Buyid period, such that Muʿtazilī theological views co-existed side by side with views considered “orthodox” by later Sunni scholars.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Islamic World
Sub Area
None