Study of the Backgrounds and Elements of Rationalism among the Exegetes of the Great Khorāsān

علوم قرآن و حدیث

Article 2, Volume 45, Issue 1 - Serial Number 90, May 2013   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/naqhs.v45i1.14552

Authors

Parvīz Rastgār^* ; Muḥammad Taqī Raḥmatpanāh

Abstract

Interpretation of the Qur’ān – in the periods it has gone through – has been carried on with various trends and methods. The rational (jurisprudential) interpretation is one of the two major types of the Qur’ān interpretation, whose accurate time of beginning is not known. This type of interpretation was formed since mid-2nd/8th century and its core concept included intellect and ijtahād (legal reasoning). This trend was the reflection of the epistemic principles similar to the religious beliefs of that time, the scientific-cultural advances of that period, and non-epistemic developments like government and politicsofthatage.
In some exegetical writings we encounter with various interpretations such as exegetical schools, ways of exegesis, schools of exegesis, orientations (ittijāhāt) of exegesis, and variegation (alwān) of exegesis, each one of which, in proportion to the research subject, have clarified an aspect of this Islamic science. In this writing, with a historic and geographical study of the great Khurāsān, we attempt to elucidate the backgrounds and elements of the tendency of the exegetes of this territory towards rational exegesis; the exegetes who had carried out a great enterprise in freeing the science of exegesis from its stagnancy and single-dimension status (i.e. atharī – narrational exegesis) and bring it to dynamism and fruition.
Presenting two examples of the Khurāsāni exegetes who had no fear of applying rationalism to exegesis and proceeded to deal with this outstanding and unprecedented task, we seek in this writing to find the backgrounds of rationalism in the great Khurāsān. Prevalence of Abū Ḥanīfa’s jurisprudence in Khurāsān, the passing of Silk Road through Khurāsān, and the rationalism of the mawālī (the freed slaves) are stated to be among the reasons for this rationalism.

Keywords

great Khurāsān; exegetical schools; rationalism; intellectual exegesis