The Jews who converted to Islam

The People of the Book were:

• the Jews who had the Torah
• the Christians who followed the religion of the Jews

The Jews who lived among the Arabs at that time were themselves Bedouins.

They knew only as much about these matters as is known to ordinary People of the Book, in contrast to learned rabbis.

The majority of those Jews were Himyarites who had adopted Judaism.

When they became Muslims, they clung to the information they possessed, such as information about:

• the beginning of creation and
• the type of forecasts and predictions.

That information had no connection with the Jewish or Christian religious laws they were preserving as theirs. Such men were:

• Ka’b al-ahbar, 97
• Wahb b. Munabbih, 98
• ‘Abdallah b. Salim, 99
• and similar people.

The Qur’an commentaries were filled with material of such tendencies transmitted on their authority. It is information that entirely depends on them.

It has no relation to religious laws, such that one might claim for it the soundness that would make it necessary to act in accordance with it.

The Qur’an interpreters were not very rigorous in this respect.

• They filled the Qur’an commentaries with such material, which originated with the people of the Torah who lived in the desert.
• Those people were not capable of verifying the information they transmitted.

However, they were famous and highly esteemed because they were people of rank in their religion and religious group.

Therefore, their interpretation has been accepted from that time onwards.

Later, scholars applied themselves to verification and critical investigation.

Abu Muhammad b. ‘Atiyah, a recent Maghribi scholar, made his appearance. He abridged all the commentaries and selected the most likely interpretations.

He set that material down in a good book, which is in general circulation among the inhabitants of the Maghrib and of Spain. Al-Qurtubi adopted his method in this respect in another work, which is well known in the East.

The other kind of Qur’an interpretation has recourse to linguistic knowledge, such as lexicography and the stylistic form (balaghah) used for conveying meaning through the appropriate means and methods.

This kind of Qur’an interpretation rarely appears separately from the first kind.

The first kind is the one that is wanted essentially. The second kind made its appearance only after language and the philological sciences had become crafts. However, it has become preponderant, as far as certain Qur’an commentaries are concerned.

The commentary in which this discipline is best represented is the Kitab al-Kashshaf by az-Zamakhshari,104 of Khuwarizm in the ‘Iraq.

However, its author is a Mu’tazilah in his dogmatic views. Therefore, he uses the various methods of rhetoric (balaghah), arguing in favor of the pernicious doctrines of the Mu’tazilah, wherever he believed they occurred in the verses of the Qur’an.

Competent orthodox scholars have, therefore, come to disregard his work and to warn everyone against its pitfalls. However, they admit that he is on firm ground in everything relating to language and style (balaghah).

If the student of the work is acquainted with the orthodox dogmas and knows the arguments in their defense, he is no doubt safe from its fallacies. Therefore, he should seize the opportunity to study it, because it contains remarkable and varied linguistic information.

Recently, an Iraqi scholar, Sharaf-ad-din at-Tibi of Tabriz in the non-Arab Iraq made a commentary on the work of az-Zamakhshari.

• He follows az-Zamakhshari’s work literally, but opposes its Mu’tazilah dogmas and arguments.

He shows their lack of validity, explains that an eloquent style exists in a given verse but it reflects the opinions of orthodox Muslims, and not the dogmas of the Mu’tazilah.

He does that very well, and he also possesses all the various disciplines of rhetoric (balaghah).