Sunday, 6 March 2011

Tafseer al Meezan: A Review

Here's the method of tafseer/exegesis of the Qur'an employed by the author of Tafseer al Meezan, as stated on the Hawza website.

"The exegete explains the verse with the help of other relevant verses, meditating on them together - and meditation has been forcefully urged upon by the Qur'an itself - and identifies the individual person or thing by its particulars and attributes mentioned in the verse.
No doubt this is the only correct method of exegesis. "

So is this method correct, what do our ahadith and classical scholars say?

معاني الأخبار - الشيخ الصدوق - الصفحة ١٩٠

Ma'ani al Akhbar by Shaikh Saduq (ra), Page 190

(باب) * (معنى الحديث الذي روى عن الباقر عليه السلام أنه قال: ما ضرب رجل القرآن بعضه ببعض إلا كفر

 

Section on the meaning of the hadith narrated from Imam al Baqir (as) that he said: "A man does not strike a portion of the Qur'an with another portion, but that he does kufr."


1 - حدثنا محمد بن الحسن - رحمه الله - قال: حدثنا الحسين بن الحسن بن أبان، عن الحسين بن سعيد، عن النضر بن سويد، عن القاسم بن سليمان، عن أبي عبد الله عليه السلام قال: قال لي أبي عليه السلام: ما ضرب رجل القرآن بعضه ببعض إلا كفر. وسألت محمد بن الحسن - رحمه الله - عن معنى هذا الحديث فقال: هو أن تجيب الرجل في تفسير آية بتفسير آيه اخرى

 

Told us Muhammad b. al Hasan(ra) who said: Told us al Hussain b. al Hasan b. Abaan, from al Hussain b. Sa'eed, from al Nudhr b. Suwaid, from al Qasim b. Sulaiman, from Abi Abdullah(as) who said: Said to me my father(as): "A man does not strike a portion of the Qur'an with another portion, but that he does kufr." 

 

And I (i.e. Shaikh Sadooq) asked Muhammad b. al Hasan (Shaikh Saduq's teacher) about the meaning of this hadith so he said: "It is that the man answers regarding the tafsir of an ayah by tafsir of another ayah."

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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous20 March 2011 at 05:48

    Allah has said: ...and We have revealed the Book to you explaining clearly everything (16:89). Is it possible for such a book not to explain its own self? Also He has described the Qur'an in these words: a guidance for mankind and clear evidence of guidance and discrimination (between wrong) (2:185); and He has also said: and We have sent down to you a manifest light (4:174). The Qur'an is, accordingly, a guidance, an evidence, a discrimination between right and wrong and a manifest light for the people to guide them aright and help them in all their needs. Is it imaginable that it would not guide them aright in its own matter, while it is their most important need? Again Allah says: And (as for) those who strive hard for Us, We will most certainly guide them on to Our ways (2 9: 69). Which striving is greater than the endeavor to understand His Book? And which way is more straight than the Qur'an?

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  2. Anonymous20 March 2011 at 15:40

    LOLZ...the person don't know the meaning and difference between تفسير and ضرب...of course it is forbidden to strike and negate a verse with another verse of Koran but it is allowed to explain a verse of Koran from other verse....

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  3. Nader Zaveri22 April 2012 at 10:54

    Brother do you realize that the person who is doing the tafseer of the word "darb" is one of our greatest hadeeth scholars from the classical age? No scholar has questioned Ibn Walīd's tafseer of the word "darb".

    Some scholar can have one issue with this hadeeth which is whom Ibn al-Walīd's is getting this hadeeth from al-Hussayn bin Abaan. There is no clear authenticity for him except for the fact that Ibn al-Walīd is narrating from him.

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  4. cosmic anarchist17 June 2012 at 13:06

    The Book of Allah is that through which you see, you speak and you hear. Its one part speaks for the other part, and one part testifies to the other.

    (Nahj al Balagha, Sermon 133)

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  5. Sa'id8 July 2012 at 00:33

    Assalamu Aleikum,

    I asked a Sheikh (he was a scholar from Ayatullah Sheikh al Fayadh (ha) in Karbala) about this.
    He told me that the meaning is that when someone tries to refute an ayah by another ayah he is a kafir.

    wassalam

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  6. Elmaddin al-Rafidhi1 June 2014 at 18:08

    حدثنا محمد بن موسى بن المتوكل رضي الله عنه قال: حدثنا على ابن إبراهيم بن هاشم عن أبيه عن الريان بن الصلت عن علي بن موسى الرضا عن أبيه عن آبائه عن أمير المؤمنين عليه السلام قال: قال رسول الله (ص): قال الله جل جلاله: ما آمن بي من فسر برأيه كلامي وما عرفني من شبهني بخلقي وما على ديني من استعمل القياس في ديني
    Muhammad ibn Musa ibn al-Mutawakkil - may God be pleased with him - narrated that Ali ibn Ibrahim ibn Hashem quoted on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rayyan ibn al-Salt, on the authority of Ali ibn Musa Al-Reza (s), on the authority of his father (s), on the authority of his forefathers (s), on the authority of the Commander of the Faithful (s) that God’s Prophet (s) said: God - the Exalted the Magnificent - said, "Whoever interprets My Words according to his own viewpoint has no faith in Me. And whoever considers Me to be similar to My creatures does not recognize Me. And whoever makes comparisons in my religion does not believe in My religion."

    Source:
    al-Saduq, "Uyun al-Akhbar al-Rida a.s", 1/107, hadith 4

    Grading:
    Hadi al-Najafi, "Mawsū`ah Aḥādīth Ahl al-Bayt", 9/243

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