Eleventh International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Despite its widespread reputation as a masterpiece of medieval Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), Abd al-Haqq Ibn Atiyya’s “Precise and Concise method to understand the Qur’an” (al-Muharrar al-Wajiz fi Tafsir al-Kitab al-Aziz) received a number of serious criticisms on account of the deviations towards extreme rationalistic positions held by Mutazili theologians into which the author would have fallen. Whether fair or not, these accusations tell us about the paradoxes of the process whereby certain works become classics in their genre and standards of religious orthodoxy. By examining the specific accusations, my paper shows where and why different ways to apply human reason to the interpretation of Islam’s Sacred Book arrived at conflicting views which eventually went beyond the mere theological debate to adopt crucial political connotations. I also elucidate the significance of Ibn Atiyya's points to expand our present knowledge about the presence of the involved theological schools (i.e. the Asharis, advocating for a “moderate” theological rationalism, on one hand, and the more rationalist Mu`tazilis, on the other) and the level of dissemination of rational or discursive theology (kalam) in the 12th century Islamic West.