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64-633: Regarding the timing and contextual background of the revelation ( asbāb al-nuzūl ), it is a " Meccan surah ", which means it is believed to have been revealed in Mecca, instead of later in Medina. It was revealed around 2-3 years before Hijrah , in a later stage of Muhammad preaching in Mecca . The surah states that Nuh , Ibrahim , Lut , Shuaib , Hud , Saleh , Musa and Muhammad all were prophets of God. All of them endured hardships. For example, Noah

128-458: A qibla ". Most sabab -material, however, locate Q.2:115 in the context of prayers not delivered in the direction of the qibla under various extenuating circumstances, thus dividing it from Q.2:114 . The function of asbāb is most straightforward at the narratological level, where the context given identifies the characters of a story, their motivations, and ambient circumstances which influence their behavior. An extensive example of this

192-545: A " salvation history" ( Heilsgeschichte ) of the Old Testament, whose actual historical core is meager and cannot be detected. On that basis, Wansbrough developed the theory parts of which he qualified as "conjectural "provisional" and "tentative and emphatically provisional", as it implied (in the words of historian Herbert Berg ) that "neither the Quran nor Islam is a product of Muhammad or even Arabia", nor were

256-689: A basically popular religious worship situation where such stories would prove both enjoyable and edifying. One thing common to all these theories is the assumption that the sabab is built around the Qur'ānic verse(s) embedded in it. In his extensive survey of early Muslim traditions regarding Muhammad, Rubin upends this consensus (while preserving Rippin's speculation about the ultimately qassaic /story-teller origins of these reports) by arguing that most asbāb originally started as prophetic biographical material into which Qur'anic verses were only later inserted: To begin with, one should bear in mind that although

320-548: A common Qur'ānic polemical motif). The sabab thus fixes the meaning of the pronoun "ye", and also provides a gloss for the word "right conduct" ( birr ) as the Sunnah of Muhammed. The Sunnahs that are prescribed to be done or said when you read certain verses found in many Surahs of the Holy Quran, such as '' Sujud Tilawa '' Defining the prostration of recitation ( tilawa ) as a movement of prostration resulting from

384-473: A major, independent approach to Qur'anic interpretation. John Wansbrough John Edward Wansbrough (February 19, 1928 – June 10, 2002) was an American historian of Islamic origins and Quranic studies and professor who taught at the University of London 's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where he was vice chancellor from 1985 to 1992. Wansbrough is credited with founding

448-507: A matter of curiosity as well as to contrast the Islamic dispensation with what came before, obviously to the benefit of the former. This imperative, plus the fact that much of the material is contradictory make such asbāb useful only for reconstructing the development of Islamic ideology and identity, rather than the pre-Islamic Arabian past. Legal exegesis is the most hermeneutically complex level of interpretation for several reasons. One

512-418: A seemingly non-proscriptive verse may have actual legal import. Lastly there is the issue of juridical inflation/deflation (the latter termed takhsīs ) where the scope/applicability of the ruling may be radically increased or decreased by exegesis. The asbāb surrounding Q.2:115 have already shown how legal consequences may be injected into a seemingly non- hukmic verse. The asbāb for Q.2:79 demonstrate

576-664: A spider's web, who does not gain any benefit from that. If they knew this, they would not take any protectors besides Allah . This is unlike the Muslim believer, whose heart is devoted to Allah , yet he still does righteous deeds and follows the Laws of Allah, for he has grasped the most trustworthy handle that will never break because it is so strong and firm." Asb%C4%81b al-nuz%C5%ABl Occasions or circumstances of revelation , in Arabic( أسباب النزول - asbāb al-nuzūl ,) names

640-645: Is Q.2:104: 2:104 O ye of Faith! Say not (to the Messenger) words of ambiguous import [ rā'inā ], but words of respect; and hearken (to him): To those without Faith is a grievous punishment. The asbāb put forward by the exegetes cannot establish the meaning of the probably-transliterated word rā'inā , but they generally identify it as some sort of curse or mock which the Jews tricked the Muslims into incorporating into their own greetings. In any case: :Al-Jassās sees

704-474: Is built around the Quranic verses which occur in it... The basic narrative framework is always independent of Quranic verses and ideas; the Quranic data seem to have been incorporated into the sīra story secondarily, for the sake of embellishment and authorization. In other words, no process of spinning a narrative around a Quranic verse seems to have taken place... Quranic materials only began to be applied to

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768-491: Is late, dating more than a century and a half after the death of Muhammad, and that Islam is a complex phenomenon which must have taken many generations to fully develop. When Wansbrough began studying early Islamic manuscripts and the Quran, he realized that the early Islamic texts addressed an audience which was familiar with Jewish and Christian texts, and that Jewish and Christian theological problems were discussed. Criticism of " infidels " in this literature he reasoned

832-501: Is that every ruling must be considered with respect to the corpus of Islamic holy law . If the ruling contradicts some other one, does it abrogate /mitigate its foil, or is it itself abrogated/mitigated? The foil may not always be a particular verse or pericope, but a principle synthesized from multiple rulings. The second, even more basic, complexity resides in determining which verses have legal content. A seemingly proscriptive verse may be made merely polemical by interpretation, while

896-461: Is that of a spider spinning a shelter. And the flimsiest of all shelters is certainly that of a spider, if only they knew. Mustafa Khattab , author of the Clear Quran , notes that "Externally, the web is too flimsy to protect the spider against rain and strong wind. Internally, the spider’s family structure is fragile, since some species are cannibalistic, with the female preying on the male and

960-415: Is the sabab attributed to Ibn Ishāq (al-Wāhidī, Kitāb 22) for verses Q.2:258 and Q.2:260, detailing Ibrahim 's encounter with Nimrod . Because the sabab does not explain why the verses were revealed , only the story within it , though, this report would qualify as an instance of akhbār according to the sabab identification criteria later established by al-Suyūtī . For Muslims the definition of

1024-587: The jāhiliyyah scene (i.e. Arabia's pre-Islamic age of "ignorance") was an important concern, but complicated by their religion's competing claims to be both a stark break with this past as well as a continuation of practices begun by "Islam" in its pre-Qur'anic, ur-religion manifestations, as in worship at the Kaaba . Many "ethnological" asbāb exist for this purpose, with those put forward for Q.2:158 particularly illustrative of their function at this level of interpretation: 2:158 Behold! Safa and Marwa are among

1088-485: The jāhilī scene. The first sabab states that the pagan Arabs practiced this (ur-Islamically sanctioned) ritual, but that they so adulterated it with idolatry that the first Muslims pressed to abandon it until Q.2:158 was revealed. The second sabab provides conflicting ethnological data, stating that the practice was instituted by Muhammed in opposition to the pagans' sacrifices to their idols. These asbāb have no legal incidence; they function merely to settle

1152-401: The asbāb , but not necessarily all of them, were later gleaned from the sīra and later incorporated into the specialized tafsīr and asbāb al-nuzūl compilations. Rubin bases that conclusion partly upon the very stereotyped way in which "linking words" are used to introduce Qur'anic verse into a report. Mostly, though, he relies upon the existence of multiple parallel non-Qur'anic forms of

1216-407: The asbāb al-nuzūl genre. The chief innovation of the genre was organizational (i.e. the collection of asbāb -material within one text) and to a lesser degree methodological, and so while no work prior to al-Wāhidī's Kitāb may be properly called an instance of asbāb al-nuzūl , material of equivalent function exists in the earliest hadith and tafsir . This distinction will be maintained here by

1280-783: The authorship of early Islamic sources, and most famously that the Quran was written and collected over a 200-year period, and should be dated not from the 1st-century AH Hijaz of Western Arabia, but from the 2nd/3rd century AH in Abbasid Iraq. Wansbrough was born in Peoria, Illinois . He completed his studies at Harvard University , and spent the rest of his academic career at SOAS. He died at Montaigu-de-Quercy , France . Among his students were Andrew Rippin , Norman Calder , Gerald R. Hawting , Patricia Crone and Michael Cook . Wansbrough work stresses two points—that Muslim literature

1344-503: The role model of a Prophet of the Old Testament . Thus, Wansbrough argued that the Quran "became a source for biography, exegesis , jurisprudence and grammar" around the 2nd/3rd century AH in Abbasid Iraq (not the 1st-century Hijaz , Western Arabia, as traditionally dated and located). Specifically Wansbrough thinks it must have been completed by Ibn Hisham around the time he composed his Sīra of Muhammad because of

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1408-435: The sabab' s primary function is in haggadic / qissaic exegesis, and that this in turn hints at its origin: The primary (i.e., predominant) function of the sabab in the exegetical texts is not halakhic [juridical] ... the essential role of the material is in haggadic exegesis... I would tentatively trace the origins of this material to the context of the qussās , the wandering story-tellers, and pious preachers and to

1472-599: The "preponderance of Quran-based (historicised) narratives therein". Wansbrough thought evidence for the "seventh-century Hijaz " as the location of the Islam's origins was "[b]ereft of archaeological witness and hardly attested in pre-Islamic Arabic or external sources", but instead owed "its historiographical existence almost entirely to the creative endeavour of Muslim and Orientalist scholarhship". Wansbrough argued that variants of Quranic text are so minor that they are not "recollections of ancient texts that differed from

1536-471: The Prophet (ﷺ) one night, and he started reciting (Surat) Al-Baqarah. I thought that he would bow at the end of one hundred Verses, but he continued reciting; I, then, thought that he would perhaps recite the whole (Surah) in a Rak'ah, but he proceeded on, and I thought he would perhaps bow on completing (this Surah); he then started (reciting Surat) An-Nisa'; he then started (Surat) Al-'Imran and his recitation

1600-485: The Prophet Muhammad should give to a question that was asked to him 2: Comment on events that occurred. 3: The first type is the category of people, as there are verses that only speak to non-mulims and some verses only speak to mulims. Modern scholarship has long posited an origin for the sabab al-nuzūl based largely on its function within exegesis. William Montgomery Watt , for example, stressed

1664-504: The Qur'an). Asbāb أَسْبَابْ is the plural of the Arabic word sabab سَبَبْ, which means "cause", "reason", or "occasion", and nuzūl نُزُولْ is the verbal noun of the verb root nzl ن ز ل, literally meaning "to descend" or "to send down", and thus (metaphorically) "to reveal", referring God ( Allah ) sending down a revelation to his prophets . The reasons for revelation found in the hadiths are divided into types: 1: The answer that

1728-402: The Qur'ān lacks an overall cohesive structure... and does not provide within itself many keys for interpretation. One of the very basic problem is that it is often impossible to tell where one pericope ends and the next one begins. The various levels of interpretation along with their typical problems are listed below in order of increasing hermeneutical complexity: A detailed examination of

1792-399: The Quran as a source of law had been backdated. Wansbrough analyzed the classical Islamic narratives which had been written 150 to 200 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad died with the historical-critical method , especially literary criticism . Thus, he claimed countless proofs that the texts are not historical accounts but later literary constructions in the sense of the concept of

1856-512: The Quran of his time. His main teacher was the famous Quranic commentator al-Thalabi (d. 1036 CE) and Wahidi seems to have enjoyed the support of the Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk . Another important work is by al-Suyuti (d. 1505 CE) which is a slight improvement of al-Wahidi's book. Suyuti wrote his book about four centuries after al-Wahidi. It contains more occasions of revelation compared to Wahidi's work. His work covers 102 chapters ( sura ) of

1920-554: The Quran while Wahidi's work covers 83 suras. The name of his book is Lubab al-Nuqul fi Asbab al-Nuzul (meaning "The best of narrations concerning the circumstances of revelation"). No asbāb works from earlier than the 11th century are known, and it is unlikely that this genre of exegetical literature existed before then. Though there is a section titled Nuzūl al-Qur'ān in Ibn al-Nadīm 's 10th-century bibliographical catalog Kitāb al-Fihrist (including one Nuzūl al-Qur'ān attributed to

1984-411: The Quran. Wahidi's work is not only the first attempt to collect all the material regarding the occasions of revelation in one single volume, but it is also the standard upon which all subsequent works were based. al-Wahidi was born in the city of Nishapur and he died there at an advanced age. He was a poet, philologist, grammarian and Quranic commentator. In fact, He was considered a great commentator of

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2048-532: The Supreme is far removed from every imperfection (Subhana Rabbiyal-A'la)," and his prostration lasted nearly the same length of time as his standing. One theory of Qur'anic verse arrangement proposes a thematic/topical ordering of the verses ( ayat ). This, combined with the Qur'an's allusive literary style (e.g. "the Qur'ānic 'they' which is frequently left ambiguous in the text" ) makes establishing pericopal boundaries difficult, however. Does one verse continue

2112-420: The Supreme is far removed from every imperfection (Subhana Rabbiyal-Azim);" his bowing lasted about the same length of time as his standing (and then on returning to the standing posture after Ruku') he said: "Allah listened to him who praised Him (Sami' Allahu liman hamidah, Rabbana wa lakal hamd)." Then he stood about the same length of time as he had spent in bowing. He then prostrated himself and said: "My Rubb,

2176-640: The Symbols of Allah. So if those who visit the House in the Season or at other times, should compass them round , it is no sin in them. And if any one obeyeth his own impulse to good,- be sure that Allah is He Who recogniseth and knoweth. The verse concerns the ritual practice of circumambulating between the hills of Safa and Marwa; the two asbāb cited by al-Wāhidī both describe the controversy regarding this ritual (Q.2:158's occasion of revelation) by reference to

2240-470: The Uthmanic text" but the outcome of exegesis. "Variants" in the form of multiple versions of the same story within the text of the Quran "are present in such quantity" that they rule out the theory of an "Urtext" (original text) or "even that of a composite edition produced by deliberations in committee". And also that classical Arabic was developed later than the colloquial forms, "contemporaneously with

2304-663: The codification of the Quran." Wansbrough's theories have neither been "widely accepted" nor rejected, according to Gabriel Said Reynolds . By his fundamental criticism of the historical credibility of the classical Islamic narratives concerning Islam's beginnings and his attempt to develop an alternative, historically more credible version of Islam's beginnings, Wansbrough founded the so-called "revisionist" school of Islamic Studies. According to historian Andrew Rippin and religious scholar Herbert Berg lack of interest by non-Muslim scholars in Wansbrough's ideas can be traced to

2368-426: The eve of Islam". and treading on very sacred territory in Islam. Wansbrough's theory about the long process (over 200 years) of writing and collection of the Quran is today considered untenable by many because of the discoveries of Early Quranic manuscripts many of which were tested with radiocarbon analysis (around 2010-2014) and have been dated to the seventh century CE. Students and scholars who also doubt

2432-482: The fact that Wansbrough strays from the path of least effort and resistance in scholarship by questioning the vast corpus of Islamic literature on the history of Islam, the Quran, and Muhammad; "destroying" what had been historical facts without replacing them with new ones; calling for using the techniques of Biblical criticism , requiring competency in other languages than Arabic, familiarity with "religious frameworks" other than Islam, and locations other "than Arabia on

2496-480: The function of asbāb at several of these levels follows. Unless otherwise noted examples all come from Rippin's The function of asbāb al-nuzūl in Qur'ānic exegesis ( BSOAS 51 ). Quotations from the Qur'an are taken from the Abdullah Yusuf `Ali translation . A demonstration of the two lowest-level functions of the sabab may be seen in the exegesis of verse 2:44 : 2:44 Do ye enjoin right conduct on

2560-435: The historical context in which Quranic verses were revealed from the perspective of traditional Islam . Though of some use in reconstructing the Qur'an's historicity, asbāb is by nature an exegetical rather than a historiographical genre, and as such usually associates the verses it explicates with general situations rather than specific events. The study of asbāb al-nuzūl is part of the study of Tafsir (interpretation of

2624-468: The key to all exegesis), al-Suyūtī made significant contributions to it as well, introducing such refinements as limiting reports to only those contemporaneous with the revelation itself (reports related to events described by the verse were reclassified as akhbār ) and developing a sabab selection criterion different from al-Wāhidī's rather mechanistic one of scanning for a select few "marker" introductory phrases. Sabab -material did not originate with

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2688-493: The legal significance of the verse as going beyond merely not saying rā'inā ; the Jews (or the Arabs) said the word to mock others, according to the sabab - therefore mockery is not permitted; nor are double entendres permitted. As these examples amply demonstrate, supporting exegetical literature (e.g. hadith, sabab -material) are often decisive in fixing the legal meaning of a particular Qur'anic verse/pericope. Appealing to

2752-461: The life of the Muslim community. A thorough understanding of the first type of passages, therefore, depend on knowing the circumstances of the events which occasioned them. Such knowledge is an important tool for explaining the meanings of this type of Quranic verses. One function of the sabab report is theological. As Rippin notes: Such reports are cited... out of a general desire to historicize

2816-439: The narrative for most asbāb . By assuming that a report's link to scripture would not be removed once established, the non-Qur'anic (and thus non-exegetic) version of the report is in fact the original one. Rippin takes issue with this last assumption, though, by arguing that the evidence does not preclude the creation of parallel sīra narratives even after the circulation of a supposedly "authoritative" Qur'anic one. The Quran

2880-454: The narratological significance of these types of reports: "The Quranic allusions had to be elaborated into complete stories and the background filled in if the main ideas were to be impressed on the minds of simple men." John Wansbrough , on the other hand, noted their juridical function, particularly with regard to establishing a chronology of revelation for the purposes of such mechanisms as naskh . Rippin in turn rejected this, arguing that

2944-498: The non-Quranic basic narrative framework when the sacred scripture became a standard source of guidance. At this stage, the quṣṣāṣ (story-tellers) could promote the Islamic status of their traditions (originally suspect of biblical influence) by extending to them the divine authority of the Quran. This was achieved by dragging various passages from the scriptures into the narrative. The same Quranic extract could actually be installed in different scenes of Muhammad's life... Some of

3008-567: The opposite: 2:79 Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say: "This is from Allah," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby. Here the reports agree the verse is directed against the Jews, and so a proscription with seemingly broad applicability is almost completely deflated into a polemical filip about Jewish alteration of holy scripture ( tahrīf ). Lastly, as an example of juridical inflation,

3072-546: The original Arab conquerors of the Umayyad empire actual Muslims. He postulated that Islam did not come into being as a new religion on its own but derived from conflicts of various Jewish-Christian sects and from the need for a (fixed) sacred scripture upon which to base the Abbasid code of law: "The employment of scriptural Shawahid in halakhic controversy required a fixed and unambiguous text of revelation ...

3136-458: The people, and forget (To practise it) yourselves, and yet ye study the Scripture? Will ye not understand? A sabab put forward by both al-Wāhidī ( Kitāb 22) and al-Suyūtī ( Lubāb 19) claim this verse was revealed about those Jews of Medina who urged their converted relations to obey Muhammed's example even while they hypocritically refused to do so themselves (such Jewish hypocrisy being

3200-483: The problems of concern for classical Muslim exegetes. These problems span the hermeneutical spectrum, from the most basic units of linguistic meaning to such technical intellectual disciplines as law and philosophy and all points in between. A major underlying difficulty encountered at all levels is the Qur'an's lack of structure. This extends beyond the question of temporal ordering to one of basic unity of thought and expression: It has often been remarked that

3264-402: The raw, unmediated text of the Qur'an as proof of consensus within traditional Islamic law for or against some practice is thus almost always a futile exercise. The earliest and the most important work in this genre is undoubtedly Kitab asbab al-Nuzul ("Book of occasions of revelation") of Ali ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi (d. 1075 CE). al-Wahidi mentions occasions of about 570 verses out of 6236 verses of

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3328-591: The reason that it is a mustahabb when the recitation reaches one of the verses of prostration. this Sujud occurs during the Tilawa recitation of the Quran , including Salah prayers in Salah al jama'ah . There are fifteen places where Muslims believe that when Muhammad recited a certain verse ( ayah ) he prostrated to God . There are also words or supplications that you say after reading certain verses I offered Salat (Tahajjud - optional night prayer) with

3392-424: The result was the Quranic canon. The Quran was written and collected in a long process over 200 years and thus cannot be attributed to Muhammad, being more recent than traditional accounts date it. The person of Muhammad would be a later invention, or at least, Muhammad cannot be related to the Quran. In later times, Muhammad had only the function to provide an own identity to the new religious movement according to

3456-475: The semi-legendary Ibn 'Abbās as transmitted through 'Ikrima ), there is no evidence to believe that most of these works ever existed, or that their ambiguous titles signify texts within the asbāb al-nuzūl genre. In Rippin's detailed examination of pre-18th-century exegetical literature, other works include as follows: Though al-Wāhidī may thus be considered the father of this genre (a view consistent with his rather self-serving depiction of asbāb al-nuzūl as

3520-422: The so-called Revisionist school of Islamic studies through his fundamental criticism of the historical credibility of the Quran and other early Islamic texts , especially regarding the classical Islamic narratives concerning the early history of Islam and his attempt to develop an alternative, historically more credible version of Islam's beginnings. He argued in general for a methodological skepticism of

3584-461: The text of the Qur'ān in order to be able to prove constantly that God really did reveal his book to humanity on earth; the material thereby acts as a witness to God's concern for His creation [ ar-Rahman ]. Indeed al-Suyūtī cites this as one of his understandings of the function of the sabab . The occasion of revelation's primary function, though, is exegetical, and by enumerating its various uses within Qur'anic interpretation we visit nearly all

3648-436: The traditions known as asbāb al-nuzūl occur in the collections of tafsīr - for example, al-Tabarī's - their birthplace is in the sīra , where they do not yet function as asbāb . These traditions only became asbāb when the Quran exegetes gleaned them from the sīra and recorded them in the tafsīr of the Quran. Within the realm of the sīra , these traditions are still without an exegetic function, because none of them

3712-439: The unit of meaning begun by preceding verses, or does it initiate a new one? Sabab -material was used to both erect and pull down such boundaries, as their use with respect to verses 2:114-2:115 illustrate: One report "suggests this verse [Q.2:115] is a continuation of Q.2:114 which concerns the destruction of mosques and thus that this verse, 115, intends that the destruction of mosques does not mean that one can no longer face

3776-447: The use of the term sabab -material for an occasion of revelation which does not necessarily come from a work of asbāb al-nuzūl , and sabab only for one that does. The reasons for asbāb ' s status as a secondary genre are implicit in this bibliographical overview. Its late emergence (well into the classical period) plus its reliance on earlier tafsir works even for its raw material prevented asbāb al-nuzūl ' s emergence as

3840-408: The young eating their own mother." From Tafsir Ibn Kathir : "This is how Allah described the idolators in their reverence of gods besides Him, hoping that they would help them and provide for them, and turning to them in times of difficulties. In this regard, they were like the house of a spider, which is so weak and frail, because by clinging to these gods they were like a person who holds on to

3904-523: Was addressed not to idolaters and pagans , but to monotheists who did not live monotheism "purely". Those observations did not fit to the Islamic narratives on Islam's beginnings, which depicted Islam as coming into being within a polytheistic society. Wansbrough also found that early Muslim legal arguments did not refer to the Quran, along with other indication that there was not "a stable scriptural text" in Rashidun and Umayyad eras, suggesting

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3968-411: Was revealed over a period of nearly twenty three years. Muslim scholars agree that the revelations of the Quran can be divided into two broad types: One type includes passages of the Quran which were revealed in response to specific events, incidents or questions put forward to Muhammad. The second type includes passages of the Quran which were not direct responses to any historical or social development in

4032-516: Was ridiculed often and Abraham was thrown into the fire. But God destroyed their people who transgressed. Verse 40 says So each We punished for his sin; of them was he on whom We sent down a violent storm, and of them was he whom the rumbling overtook, and of them was he whom We made to be swallowed up by the earth, and of them was he whom We drowned; and it did not beseem Allah that He should be unjust to them, but they were unjust to their own souls. The parable of those who take protectors other than God

4096-611: Was unhurried. And when he recited the Verses which referred to the Glory of Allah, he glorified Him (by saying Subhan Allah - My Rubb, the Supreme is far removed from every imperfection), the Great, and when he recited the Verses that mention supplication, he supplicated, and when he recited the Verses that mention seeking Refuge of the Rubb, he sought (His) Refuge. Then he bowed and said: "My Rubb,

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