Qur’anic Exegesis and Said Nursi’s Exegetical Methodology

Çoruh, Hakan

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15349-6_5

Hakan Çoruh³

Part of the book series: Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History ((ITLH))

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Abstract

While Chap. 3 presents the main features of modern exegesis, this chapter analyses natures and functions of the Islamic disciplines in the classical period, focusing on what happened to these disciplines in the modern period. After clarifying the methodological reforms in the Islamic disciplines argued by the modernist intellectuals, the chapter provides Nursi’s approach in this context. Then, the chapter scrutinizes the exegetical principles of Nursi on tafsır bi-al-ma’thūr (tradition-based exegesis) and tafsır bi-al-ra’y (reason-based exegesis) with special reference to the views of the early Muslim modernist thinkers.

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Notes

1.
Muhsin Demirci, Tefsirde Metodolojik Sorunlar (İstanbul: İFAV, 2012), 204–5.
2.
Ibid., 206–10.
3.
Ibid., 210–1.
4.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 86.
5.
Demirci, Tefsirde Metodolojik Sorunlar, 208.
6.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 88.
7.
Abu Hamid al-Ghazzālī, Al-Mustasfa, 4 vols., vol. I (Medina: Al-Jamiʿa al-Islamiyya 1413 AH), 3–4, 12.
8.
See al-Suyūtī’s al-Itqān fi Ulūm al-Qur’an.
9.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 88–92; Mehmet Suat Mertoğlu, “Tefsir (Literatür),” in TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, ed. Komisyon (İstanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 2011), Vol: XXXX/292.
10.
Mehmet Paçacı, “Klasik Tefsir Neydi?,” İslāmī ilimler Dergisi II, no. 1 (2007): 7.
11.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 94; Mertoğlu, “Tefsir,” XXXX/292.
12.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 92–4; Mertoğlu, “Tefsir,” XXXX/292.
13.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 95–6; M. Suat Mertoğlu, “Doğrudan Doğruya Kur’an’dan Alıp İlhamı”: Kur’an’a Dönüş’ten Kur’an İslamı’na,” Dīvān, 15, no: 28 (2010/1): 81–4, 90, 100, 104–8.
14.
Siddiqi, Modern Reformist Thought, 3–5.
15.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 96–8; Mertoğlu, “Doğrudan Doğruya Kur’an’dan Alıp İlhamı,” 84, 86–9, 91.
16.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 95, 103, 99, 100–1; Mertoğlu, “Tefsir,” XXXX/291–2; Tahsin Görgün, “‘Yeni’ Anlama ve Yorumlama Yöntemlerinin Fıkıh Usūlüne Göre Durumu,” in İslami İlimlerde Metodoloji / Usul Mes’elesi – I, ed. İsmail Kurt and Seyit Ali Tüz (Ensar Neşriyat: İstanbul, 2005), 691.
17.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 127, 133, 88–9, 145.
18.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 101; Mertoğlu, “Doğrudan Doğruya Kur’an’dan Alıp İlhamı,” 82–3.
19.
Ibrahim, “Contemporary Islamic Thought,” 285.
20.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 102; Mertoğlu, “Doğrudan Doğruya Kur’an’dan Alıp İlhamı,” 81–4.
21.
Açıkgenç, “Said Nursi,” 569; See, Nursi, The Gleams, The Twenty-Eighth Gleam, 397–8.
22.
The Rays, 513; Beki, Kur’ān’ın Yüksek ve Parlak Bir Tefsiri, 30.
23.
Beki, Kur’ān’ın Yüksek ve Parlak Bir Tefsiri, 25.
24.
Vahide, Islam in Modern Turkey, 142, 295.
25.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 94.
26.
Açıkgenç, “Said Nursi,” 568.
27.
Yıldırım, “Said Nursi’nin İşârâtü’l-İ’caz.”
28.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 99.
29.
Nursi, Sözler, 578–9, accessed 19 April, 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.1.578; The Words, 449; Mesnevī, 218.
30.
Q. 11: 44.
31.
Q. 41: 11.
32.
Nursi, Sözler, 579, accessed 19 April, 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.1.579; The Words, 449.
33.
Q. 36: 82.
34.
Nursi, Al-Mathnawi al-Nuri, 40–2.
35.
Nursi, The Words, 464, Al-Mathnawi al-Nuri, 40.
36.
Nursi, The Words, 451.
37.
Qattān, Mabāhith, 337–44; Dhahabi, Al-Tafsīr, 112–147, 183–205; Saeed, The Qur’an, 178; Interpreting the Qur’an, 42–68.
38.
Saeed, The Qur’an, 178–80; Qattān, Mabāhith, 337.
39.
Von Denffer, Ulum al Qur’an, 124; Beki, Kur’ān’ın Yüksek ve Parlak Bir Tefsiri, 198.
40.
Demirci, Tefsir Tarihi, 128.
41.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 96.
42.
Paçacı, “Klasik Tefsir,” 7.
43.
I often compare Nursi with ʿAbduh because ʿAbduh is considered to be the beginning of Muslim modernism, and his views influenced a number of Muslim countries. He can be also seen to be the most influential Muslim intellectual in the modern Muslim world. Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 96; Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 145.
44.
Jansen, The Interpretation of the Qur’an, 27, 29–30; ʿAbduh and Riḍā, Tafsīr Al-Qur’ān Al-Ḥakīm, 24–6.
45.
Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 96.
46.
Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 101–2.
47.
Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran, 16.
48.
Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 32–3.
49.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 19.
50.
Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran, 18.
51.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 19; Brown, Rethinking tradition, 44.
52.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 19–20.
53.
Johanna Pink, “ʿAbduh, Muḥammad,” in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe (Brill Online, 2016).
54.
Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 35; Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran, 16.
55.
Albayrak, “Qur’anic Narrative And Isrā’īliyyāt,” 130.
56.
Jansen, The Interpretation of the Qur’an, 27; ʿAbduh and Riḍā, Tafsīr Al-Qur’ān Al-Ḥakīm, 18.
57.
Nursi, The Letters, 123–4, 140.
58.
Nursi, Mektubat, 553, accessed 19 April, 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.2.553; The Letters, 382.
59.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 23, 17, 20; Muhākemat, 36, accessed 19 April, 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.13.36
60.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 14.
61.
Ibid., 11, 15.
62.
Beki, Kur’ān’ın Yüksek ve Parlak Bir Tefsiri, 198, 25.
63.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 43; Von Denffer, Ulum al Qur’an, 124.
64.
Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran, 16.
65.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 31; Beki, Kur’ān’ın Yüksek ve Parlak Bir Tefsiri, 199.
66.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 219–20; Nursi, İşārāt, 152.
67.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 249.
68.
Nursi, The Letters, 193.
69.
Saeed, Interpreting the Qur’an, 44–6; Von Denffer, Ulum al Qur’an, 125.
70.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 218; Nursi, İşārāt, 150; Tabarī, Jāmi‛ al-Bayān, I/414.
71.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 255; Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, Tafsīru sura al-ḥadīd, 58/1.
72.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 51–2.
73.
Davut Aydüz, Tefsir Tarihi, Çeşitleri ve Konulu Tefsir (Istanbul: Işık Yayınları, 2004), 43.
74.
Saeed, “Qur’an: Tradition of Scholarship,” 7562.
75.
Nursi, The Letters, 365; The Words, 508–9.
76.
The Letters, 90, 29–31, 110, 112.
77.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 168, 197; Nursi, İşārāt, 92, 124.
78.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 217; Nursi, İşārāt, 148.
79.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 23.
80.
Niyazi Beki, “Yeni Bir Tefsir Metodolojisi: Muhakemat Örneği,” Islamic Univ. of Europe-Journal of Islamic Research, no. 5 (2010): 164, 172–3.
81.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 16–8; Beki, “Yeni Bir Tefsir Metodolojisi,” 164.
82.
The Reasonings, 60–1; Muhākemat, 79–80; accessed 19 April 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.13.79
83.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 57–9.
84.
Albayrak, “Qur’anic Narrative And Isrā’īliyyāt,” 128–9, 290.
85.
Ibid., 129.
86.
Ibid., 290.
87.
Saeed, The Qur’an, 181–2.
88.
Von Denffer, Ulum al Qur’an, 130–2; Paçacı, “Çağdaş Dönemde Kur’an’a,” 91–2.
89.
Ibrahim, “Contemporary Islamic Thought,” 285.
90.
Saeed, “Qur’an: Tradition of Scholarship,” 7567.
91.
Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 35–9.
92.
Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 33, 35–6.
93.
Saeed, “Qur’an: Tradition of Scholarship,” 7567.
94.
Jansen, The Interpretation of the Qur’an, 29–30.
95.
Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 101–2.
96.
Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran, 37; Albayrak, Klāsik Modernizmde, 35.
97.
Beki, Kur’ān’ın Yüksek ve Parlak Bir Tefsiri, 198, 25.
98.
See, Yıldırım, “Said Nursi’nin İşârâtü’l-İ’caz”; Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness.
99.
The Reasonings, 11; Muhākemat, 22, accessed 19 April, 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.13.22
100.
Cündioğlu, “Çağdaş Tefsir Tarihi Tasavvurunun Kayıp Halkası,” 51–73.
101.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 11; Nursi, İşārāt, 1, 3, 6.
102.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 8.
103.
Nursi, İşārāt, 9–213; Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 19–277.
104.
The Reasonings, 66; Muhākemat, 85, accessed 19 April, 2018, http://www.erisale.com/#content.tr.13.85
105.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 197.
106.
Ibid., 55, 27, 52.
107.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 75.
108.
Nursi, Signs of Miraculousness, 42–3.
109.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 71.
110.
Beki, “Yeni Bir Tefsir Metodolojisi,” 173.
111.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 18–9.
112.
Beki, “Yeni Bir Tefsir Metodolojisi,” 173, 164; Nursi, The Reasonings, 74–5.
113.
Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 304.
114.
Adams, Islam and Modernism, 125.
115.
Beki, “Yeni Bir Tefsir Metodolojisi,” 165.
116.
Nursi, The Reasonings, 25.
117.
Beki, “Yeni Bir Tefsir Metodolojisi,” 165–8.

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Charles Sturt University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Hakan Çoruh

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Çoruh, H. (2019). Qur’anic Exegesis and Said Nursi’s Exegetical Methodology. In: Modern Interpretation of the Qur’an. Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15349-6_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15349-6_5
Published: 24 April 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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