Tradition and Ideology in Contemporary S PDF

Die Welt des Islams 50 (2010) 3-59
Tradition and Ideology in Contemporary Sunnite

Qurnic Exegesis: Qurnic Commentaries from the
Arab World, Turkey and Indonesia and their
Interpretation of Q 5:511
Johanna Pink
Berlin
Abstract
is paper analyses the genre of contemporary tafsr, focussing on the attitude of
modern Sunnite exegetes towards Jews and Christians, on the role of dierent
strands of tradition and of ideological bias for their interpretion of the Qurn,
and on the similarities and dierences between Qurnic commentaries from
dierent regions of the Muslim word. It is based on the study of seventeen Qurnic
commentaries from the Arab World, Indonesia and Turkey that have been
published since 1967. e analysis of the authors background reveals that in
recent times, Qurnic commentaries tend to be written by professional male
ulam from a provincial background, usually holding a faculty position in Islamic
theology. As most exegetes aim is to stress the timeless relevance of the Qurn,
few of the commentaries make direct reference to contemporary events. Still, many
of them are, in a very modern way, more concerned with providing religious
guidance than with explaining the Qurns meaning. However, the traditional
explanatory approach is still alive, predominantly in commentators who are
aliated with Egypts Azhar University. Besides the tradition of premodern
Sunnite tafsr, which all commentaries build on to a certain extent, Salaf exegesis
is clearly inuential in the way in which several commentaries strive at disassociating
themselves from Christians and Jews and at building up a dichotomy between
us and them in their exegesis of Q 5:51, which contains an interdiction against
taking Christians and Jews as awliy (a term that is variably understood as meaning
friends, allies, intimates, condants, helpers, or leaders). It is striking that Arab
1)
I am grateful to Elif Dilma and Peter Pink for their invaluable help with any questions
I had about my translations of Turkish and Indonesian texts and to Regula Forster and
Axel Havemann for their useful comments on the draft of this paper.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/157006010X489801

4 J. Pink / Die Welt des Islams 50 (2010) 3-59
commentators, for the most part, show a much more hostile attitude towards
Christians and Jews than their Indonesian and Turkish counterparts.
Keywords
tafsr, Sunnism, Qurnic commentaries, Qurnic exegesis, 20th and 21st century,
Egypt, Syria, Saudi-Arabia, Indonesia, Islam and Judaism, Islam and Christianity
1. Introduction
While there is no lack of studies on modern Qurnic exegesis and,
more specically, new approaches towards Qurn hermeneutics2, the
eld of contemporary Qurnic commentaries has by and large been
neglected by scholars.3 Several individual commentaries have received
a certain amount of attention4, while comparative studies or surveys
2)
For an overview see Rotraud Wielandt, Exegesis of the Quran: Early Modern and
Contemporary, in: e Encyclopaedia of the Qurn II (2002), 124142.
3)
is is equally true for the eld of classical tafsr. Cf. Bruce Fudges assessment that the
study of Qurnic exegesis (tafsr, pl. tafsr) has received far less attention than the text of
the scripture itself, and in so far as it has been studied, it has seldom been treated on its
own terms: Bruce Fudge, Qurnic Exegesis in Medieval Islam and Modern Orientalism,
in: Die Welt des Islams 46 (2006), 115147 [115].
4)
See Ismail Albayrak, Turkish Exegeses [sic] of the Twentieth Century: Hak Dini Kuran
Dili, in: Islamic Studies 43 (2004), 391413; Dale F. Eickelman, Quranic Commentary,
Public Space, and Religious Intellectuals in the Writings of Said Nursi, in: e Muslim
World 89 (1999), 260269; Ismail K. Poonawala, Muammad Izzat Darwazas principles
of modern exegesis. A contribution toward quranic hermeneutics, in: G. R. Hawting and
Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (eds.), Approaches to the Qurn, London and New York 1993,
225246; Imtiyaz Yusuf, An Analysis of Swahili Exegesis of Srat al-Shams in Shaykh
Abdullah Saleh al-Farsys Qurani Takatifu, in: Journal of Religion in Africa 22 (1992),
350366; Charles J. Adams, Abl-Al Mawdds Tafhm al-Qurn, in: Andrew Rippin
(ed.), Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurn, Oxford 1988, 307323;
Mustansir Mir, Coherence In e Qurn. A study of Ilhs concept of nam in Tadabbur-i
Qurn, Indianapolis 1986; Christian W. Troll, A note on the Tafsr-i ani of an
Allh Amritsari and his criticism of Sayyid Amad Khns Tafsr-i Amadi, in: Islamic
Culture 59 (1985), 2944; I. H. Azad Faruqi, e Tarjuman al-Quran. A critical analysis
of Maulana Abul-Kalam Azads approach to the understanding of the Quran, Delhi 1982;
Fahri Gkcan, Commentaire du Coran par Elmall, Paris 1970; F. K. Abbott, Mawlana
Maududi and Quranic Interpretation, in: e Muslim World 48 (1958), 619; J. Jomier,
Le Cheikh anw Jawhar (1862-1940) et son commentaire du Coran, in: Mlanges de
lInstitut Dominicain des tudes Orientales du Caire 5 (1958), 115174. Studies dealing
with the commentaries by al-hir b. shr, Hamka, Sleyman Ate and others are cited
throughout the article.
J. Pink / Die Welt des Islams 50 (2010) 3-59 5
that are at least remotely up-to-date are scarce.5 e few comparative

studies of contemporary tafsr that exist are very often limited to works
in one language, most often Arabic. Besides, there is a large research
gap in the area of mainstream theology. One of the reasons for this
might be a noticeable preoccupation in recent scholarship with exe-
getical approaches that disassociate themselves from tradition, be it by
adopting a reformist, a literary or an Islamist approach towards the
Qurn. Consequently, apart from general hermeneutic theories like
those of Nar mid Ab Zayd or Muammad Sharr, who do not
make an attempt to discuss individual verses of the Qurn systemati-
cally, the only actual modern commentaries of the Qurn that have
attracted a relatively large amount of scholarly attention are the reformist
Tafsr al-Manr by Muammad Abduh and Rashd Ri and the
Islamist commentary F ill al-Qurn by Sayyid Qub.6 On the other
5)
Among the publications that cover specic aspects of the topic are Heribert Busse, Jesu
Errettung vom Kreuz in der islamischen Koranexegese von Sure 4:157, in: Oriens 36
(2001), 160195; Hmida Ennaifer, Les commentaires coraniques contemporains. Analyse de
leur mthodologie, Rome 1998; Mustansir Mir, e sra as a unity. A Twentieth century
development in Qurn exegesis, in: G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (eds.),
Approaches to the Qurn, London and New York 1993, 211224; Mark N. Swanson, A
Study of Twentieth-Century Commentary on Srat al-Nr (24):27-33, in: e Muslim
World 74 (1984), 187203; J. M. S. Baljon, Modern Muslim Koran Interpretation (1880-
1960), Leiden 1968 (with an emphasis on South Asian tafsr). ere is a number of studies
that pertain to particular regions; among them are J. J. G. Jansen, e Interpretation of the
Koran in Modern Egypt, Leiden 1974; S. Musa, e Inuence of Tafsir al-Jalalayn on Some
Notable Nigerian Mufassirun in the Twentieth-Century Nigeria, in: Journal of Muslim
Minority Aairs 20 (2000), 323328; Rasheed A. Raji, Tafsr al-Qurn in Nigeria: scopes,
features, characteristics and peculiarities, in: Hamdard Islamicus 21 (1998), 1522; Abdul
Whid J. Halepota, Sindhi ulamas contribution towards the understanding and inter-
pretation of the Holy Qurn in the modern context, in: Islamic Studies 21 (1982), 118.
Studies dealing with Indonesian and Turkish exegesis will be cited below.
6)
For Abduh and Rashd Ri, see J. Jomier, Le commentaire coranique de Manr. Tendances
modernes de lexgse coranique en gypte, Paris 1954; Jansen, Interpretation; for Qub, see
Olivier Carr, Mysticism and politics: a critical reading of F Zill al-Qurn by Sayyid Qutb
(19061966), Leiden 2003; Yvonne Y. Haddad, e Quranic Justication for an Islamic
Revolution. e View of Sayyid Qub, in: Middle East Journal 37 (1983), 1429. For an
example of studies discussing one, or both, as prototypes of modern commentaries besides
classical works of tafsr, see Jane Dammen McAulie, Quranic Christians. An Analysis of
Classical and Modern Exegesis, New York 1991; Jane Smith, An Historical and Semantic
Study of the Term Islm as seen in a Sequence of Qurn Commentaries, Missoula 1975.
hand, little or nothing can be found about the commentary of

Muammad Sayyid anw, the current Shaykh al-Azhar, about the
commentaries commissioned by the Turkish and Indonesian Depart-
ments of Religion or about Ab Bakr al-Jazirs popular Wahhabite
tafsr, to give just a few examples.
is article intends to provide a survey of contemporary Qurnic
commentaries, giving insight into the contexts they are produced in
and into their authors ideological orientation, as well as the sources
they use.
Obviously, it is infeasible to discuss every work that has been pub-
lished under the label of tafsr in the whole Islamic World during the
period that is commonly labelled as modern, i.e. starting in the late
19th century. I take into account only commentaries that interpret the
whole Qurn verse by verse (musalsal) or those that have been designed
as such, even if their author deceased before its completion or if the
work is still in the process of being published, provided that they cover
signicant parts of the Qurn. is excludes commentaries of specic
sras or parts of the Qurn as well as thematic commentaries.7 Nor do
I look at commentaries that constitute little more than an annotated
paraphrase of the Qurn in Modern Standard Arabic, Turkish or
Indonesian and do not discuss verses at any length; and I only consider
original works as opposed to commentaries that constitute mere com-
pilations of older works. is still leaves a wide range of formats, from
relatively concise three-volume works to extensive thirty-volume com-
mentaries.
Within this genre, I limit the scope of my study to commentaries
that have been published from 1967 onwards.8 Only Arabic, Indonesian
7)
Cf. Mamd Shaltt, Tafsr al-Qurn al-karm. Al-ajz al-ashara al-l, Cairo 1960;
Muammad al-Ghazl, Nawa tafsr maw li-suwar al-Qurn al-karm, Cairo 199295;
and Muhammad Quraish Shihab, Wawasan al-Quran. Tafsr Maudhui atas Pelbagai
Persoalan Umat, 5th ed., Bandung 1997.
8)
Like any starting point one could settle for, this one is, to a certain extent, an arbitrary
one. ere is no single date one could consider a turning pointbe it intellectually,
politically or theologicallyfor all the countries within the scope of this study; not even
the June War of 1967, which would be tempting to settle forbut of course, a commentary
published in 1967 has to have been written before that point. e least that can be said is
that all the commentaries discussed here have been written while the authors countries
were already independent nation states and after the state of Israel had come into existence.
and Turkish commentaries will be discussed. Shiite, Ibadite and other

non-Sunnite commentaries are not taken into account.9
In the rst part of this paper, I will give a brief introduction to each
of the commentaries that full the above-mentioned criteria. I will
shortly present their authors biographical backgrounds, the context in
which they wrote their commentaries, and give a brief description of
the works themselves. While I will not, in the present framework, be
able to asses the commentaries relative inuence conclusively, I will at
least point out a few aspects that might be indicative of their impor-
tance, namely the existence of re-editions and translations, their recep-
tion by other authors and their availability on the internet.
In the second part, I will analyse the way in which the commentaries
discuss one specic verse of the Qurn, namely Q 5:51 which contains
an interdiction of taking the Jews and Christians as awliy. Not only
does this verse pose several exegetical problems, the rst and foremost
of which is the exact meaning of awliy, but it is also a verse loaded
with possible ideological implications concerning the attitude towards
the West, the state of Israel and non-Muslim minorities in Muslim
majority societies. e comparative analysis of the exegetes work on
Q 5:51 will allow for conclusions regarding the authors respective
exegetical approach, the traditions they draw upon as well as the tradi-
tions they omit or reject, their ideological orientation and the role of
their personal and local context. e comparison between Arabic,
Turkish and Indonesian commentaries will allow for additional conclu-
sions concerning the role of the language barrier, the diculties of
translation and the way commentators deal with them.
2. e Commentaries
Seventeen commentaries will be discussed in this article: three from
Indonesia, four from Turkey (one of which is no original Turkish com-
mentary and seems to have been translated from Arabic) and ten from
9)
Any attempt at comprehensiveness has its limits. For example, I could, unfortunately,
not make use of the commentary published by al-Azhars Majma al-Buth al-Islmiyya
(Cairo 1973-86).
various countries of the Arab world10. One of the Turkish and one of
the Indonesian commentaries have been written by a collective of
authors and have been commissioned by government agencies. Without
exception, all the authors are male.
e following brief descriptions of the authors lives and their tafsr
works serve to assess the context in which their commentaries were
written and the aims they pursued; they also oer interesting insights
into a wide range of biographies of 20th century ulam and religious
intellectuals.
A. Commentaries from the Arab World

From among the ten Arabic commentaries, eight have been published
in Egypt. Even if we do not count those three whose authors are not
based in Egypt, Egypt still has produced more Sunnite commentaries
than any other Arab country. is fact underlines the importance of
Egypt as a center of publishing for the Arab world, especially with
regard to religious literature.
e Saudi contribution to modern tafsr, on the other hand, is not
very pronounced. Although two of the Arabic commentaries have been
written by professors at Saudi Arabian universities, none of the two is
of Saudi origin. Moreover, both commentaries are educational rather
than academic works. High-ranking Saudi Wahhabite ulam, like Ibn
10)
I have decided against including al-hir b. shrs Tafsr al-tarr wa-l-tanwr (Tunis
and Benghazi, n.d.), the rst volume of which appeared in 1956 and which was rst
completely published in 1970, because the author, born in 1879 and inuenced by personal
encounters with Muammad Abduh, belongs to an earlier generation of ulam than the
commentators discussed here, which is reected both in style and approach of his very
erudite and extensive commentary. One of the many signicant dierences to the other
Arab authors lies in the fact that he is the only one to come from a family of renowned
ulam and city notables. e other Arab commentators do not seem to pay him any
attention, but interestingly, he is frequently cited by two recent commentaries from Turkey
and Indonesia (Karaman et al. and Muhammad Quraish Shihab, see below), which might
be caused by a renewed interest in the theory of maqid al-shara that is very present in
Ibn shrs commentary, partly owing to the fact that he is rmly rooted in a Maghrib/
Andalusian tradition and thus, unlike any of the other commentators discussed here,
frequently refers to the hir school. For Ibn shrs commentary, see Basheer M. Na,
hir ibn shr: e Career and ought of a Modern Reformist lim, with Special
Reference to His Work on tafsr, in: Journal of Quranic Studies 7 (2005), 132.
Bz and Ibn Uthaymn, have not been prolic in the eld of tafsr; the
most they have produced are fragments of commentaries covering
selected verses or sras.
(1) Abd al-Karm al-Khab (Egypt)11: Al-tafsr al-qurn li-l-Qurn

(30 parts, 15 volumes)12
Abd al-Karm al-Khab was born in 1920 in a village in Upper Egypt.
After having attended a Qurnic school and memorised the Qurn,
he went to a state school and then to Dr al-Ulmthe same teachers
college asan al-Bann and Sayyid Qub had attendedwhere he
graduated in 1937. After having worked as a teacher for a number of
years, he came to work in the Ministry of Pious Foundations (Wizrat
al-Awqf) as a Parliamentary Secretary and, from 1953, as Director of
the Ministers Oce. He was sent into early retirement in 195913 and
after this devoted himself to writing. Despite short spells as a lecturer
on tafsr at the Shara Faculty in Riyad in 1973 and 1975, he was cer-
tainly an autodidact in religious matters.14 He was a prolic writer with
a focus on Qurnic and theological questions and an interest in nding
Islamic answers to contemporary problems. He also wrote biographies
of Umar b. al-Khab, Al b. Ab alib and, interestingly, Muammad
b. Abd al-Wahhb.15
His commentary constitutes, just as the title states, an attempt to
explain the Qurn through the Qurn, i.e. without reference to
external sources. Without making use of traditions about the occasions
of revelation (asbb al-nuzl) or discussing philological problems in
11)
e Arabic commentaries are grouped by country and, within these groups, by date of
completion.
12)
Cairo, ca. 196770. Only the last two volumes carry a date; they have been published
in 1969 and 1970. e foreword in the rst volume is dated 1967.
13)
e reasons for his retirement at age 38 would be interesting to know. Considering the
political climate at the time and al-Khabs biographical background, which is not unlike
that of many Muslim Brothers at the time, it seems likely that a real or alleged membership
in the Muslim Brotherhood might have played a role.
14)
Cf. Murta al-Raaw, Ma rijl al-kr f l-Qhira, Cairo. I (1974). http://aqaed.com/
shialib/books/06/rjalfkr1/ (accessed Sept 2, 2008), 338.
15)
Cf. al-Raaw; see also the list of publications in Abd al-Karm al-Khab, al-Tafsr
al-qurn li-l-Qurn, Cairo n.d. [ca. 1967-70]. XV, 1768; and Abd al-Karm al-Khab,
Qaiyyat al-ulhiyya. II: Allh wa-l-insn, Cairo 1971, 502.
any depth, it states what each verse is supposed to mean, sometimes

with reference to other Qurnic verses. Al-Khab usually does not
address possible alternative meanings or explain the reasons for which
he chose one particular meaning above others. His tafsr is cited by none
of the other mufassirn, and there seem to have been no re-editions or
translations, making it one of the less important works of modern tafsr.
(2) Muammad Ab Zahra (Egypt): Zahrat al-tafsr (incomplete,

5.482 pages)16
Ab Zahra was born in al-Maalla al-Kubr in the Nile Delta in 1898
to a pious family that traces itself back to a Su shaykh whose tomb was
a place of worship in the town. Like many of his generation, the edu-
cation he received was both religious and secular. He studied at a
Mosque in an, then enrolled in a school for shara judges, from
which he graduated in 1925, and acquired a diploma from Dr al-Ulm
in 1927. Subsequently, he started a teaching career at various faculties
and universities, both theological and secular; most notably the Faculty
of Law at Cairo University, where he nally became head of the Shara
Department. In 1958, he retired, but continued teaching and pub-
lishing. His appointment to al-Azhars Islamic Research Academy in
1963 is indicative of the fact that he seems to have gained acceptance
as an lim despite the fact that he had only briey taught at al-Azhar.
His publications show a marked shift from legal to theological topics
in his later years.
At some point, probably during the 1950sthe precise date is not
knownhe started writing a Qurnic commentary for the magazine
Liw al-Islm. He was forced to interrupt his work for political reasons
due to his opposition against Nasser, and continued it when the latters
reign was over. He deceased in 1974 while working on Srat al-Naml
(sra 27);17 his incomplete commentary was published by his family
posthumously, apparently more than a dozen years later. It is rather
16)
Ab Zahras tafsr seems to have been published by Dr al-Fikr al-Arab (Cairo/Beirut)
in 1987 only, according to the certicate of approval by al-Azhar reproduced in Vol. 1,
p. 2. e printed edition has been scanned and made available for download as a PDF le
on at least two websites: http://www.waqfeya.com/open.php?cat=11&book=1274 (June 18,
2008); http://www.almeshkat.net/books/open.php?cat=6&book=3324 (accessed Sept 2, 2008).
17)
Ab Zahra, 311, 14, 22.
extensive and quotes a large number of inner-Qurnic as well as exter-

nal references, like classical works of tafsr, sra, adth and asbb
al-nuzl. Ab Zahra draws his own conclusions from the sources and
aims at precision while taking into account varying interpretations and
occasionally acknowledging multiple layers of meaning.
While the commentary is erudite, it is nevertheless easy to read, using
rhetorical questions and even occasional references to contemporary
issues, which points to its journalistic origins. It is available on several
websites, but its lacking availability in libraries across the world sug-
gests that the number of printed copies that have been distributed is
very limited. Ab Zahra is quoted in the recent al-Tafsr al-tarbaw
by Anwar al-Bz18, but does not seem to have been used as a reference
by any of the other commentaries, with the possible exception of
anw.19
(3) Muammad Sayyid anw (Egypt): Al-tafsr al-was li-l-Qurn

al-karm (15 volumes)20
anw was born in an Upper-Egyptian village in 1928. He received
a religious education, graduating from the Religious Institute in Alex-
andria in 1944, pursuing his studies at al-Azhar and obtaining his doc-
toral degree in tafsr and adth in 1966. He held teaching positions
for Islamic theology at various faculties in Egypt, Libya and Saudi
Arabia until he was appointed Mufti of Egypt in 1986. He became
Shaykh al-Azhar in 1996. He has a reputation for being a moderate
and is often criticised for being too accomodating towards the Egyptian
government.21
His extensive Qurnic commentary has been published between
1974 and 1986. It is heavily indebted to Islamic scholarly tradi-
tion.When dealing with a verse or a group of verses, anw usually
rst presents the potential asbb al-nuzl, explains dicult words,
18)
Anwar Al-Bz, al-Tafsr al-tarbaw li-l-Qurn al-karm, Cairo 2007, d, fn. 1.
19)
See section 3. D of this paper.
20)
Cairo 197486; this article refers to the 2nd edition, Cairo 1992.
21)
Cf. his ocial biography: http://www.alazhar.gov.eg/alazhar/grandimam.aspx (accessed
Sept 2, 2008), and omas Koszinowski, Muhammad Saiyid Tantawi (Muammad Saiyid
anw): Groscheich der Azhar-Universitt in Kairo, in: Orient 37 (1996), 385-391
[391].
paraphrases the verse and then explains it in detail, phrase by phrase,

making frequent reference to classical exegetes like al-abar and Fakhr
al-Dn al-Rz, often quoting or paraphrasing them without adding
conclusions of his own.
e commentary has seen a second edition, but no translations. Like
in Ab Zahras case, between its erudition and its often didactic style,
the target group is not entirely clear. None of the other Arabic and
Turkish commentators refer to anw, but he is frequently cited by
the Indonesian Muhammad Quraish Shihab, who has received most of
his education in Egypt and has strong ties to Egyptian Islamic institu-
tions. anws commentary is one of four Arabic commentaries,
among those discussed here, to be available on Altafsir.com, a website
operated by the Jordanian l al-Bayt Foundation for Islamic ought
that is probably the most comprehensive tafsr site currently in exist-
ence.22
(4) Muammad al-Mutawall al-Sharw (Egypt): Tafsr al-Sharw

(incomplete, 12.832 pp.)23
ere is no lack of studies on this particular Muslim scholar and his
works, owing to his immense popularity in Egypt even after his death
in 1998.24 So far, however, his complete tafsr inasfar as it has been
publishedhas not been examined.
22)
All references to Altafsir.com refer to the commentaries that were available on http://
altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=0&tSoraNo=1&tAyahNo=1&tDisplay=no
&LanguageID=1 on Sept 4, 2008.
23)
Cairo 1991. I have used the second edition (Cairo 19911996). e number of pages
given is based on the edition on www.elsharawy. com (see below, fn. 25).
24)
On al-Sharw and his work, see Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, Muhammad Mutawalli
al-SharawiA Portrait of a Contemporary Alim in Egypt, in: Gabriel R.Warburg and
Uri M. Kupferschmidt (eds.), Islam, Nationalism and Radicalism in Egypt and the Sudan,
New York 1983, 281297; on the cult that developed around him, see Rachida Chih and
Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen. Le cheikh Sharw et la tlvision: lhomme qui a donn un
visage au Coran, in: Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen (ed.), Saints et Hros du Moyen-Orient
contemporain, Paris 2002, 189209; on his earliest tafsr-related works, see J. J. G. Jansen,
Shaikh al-Sharws interpretation of the Qurn, in: Robert Hillenbrand (ed.), Union
Europenne des Arabisants et Islamisants: 10th Congress, Edinburgh, 9-16 September 1980:
Proceedings, Edinburgh 1982, 2228; on the introduction to his commentary, see Roberto
Tottoli, LIntroduzione al Tafsr dello ay al-arw, in: Annali di Ca Foscari 32 (1993),
6382.
Shaykh al-Sharw was born in a Nile-Delta village in 1911. He

received a religious education and went on to study at al-Azhar, from
where he graduated in 1941 with a diploma in Arabic language. In
1943, he started teaching at several Azhar institutes in the Delta.
Between 1950 and 1974, he spent most of his time in Saudi-Arabia
and Algeria, teaching religious subjects. After his return to Cairo, he
started to take part in a religious programme on state TV, Nr al nr,
in which he delivered his exegesis of the Qurn in the form of a sermon
directed to the common people during about a quarter of a century.
For a short period under Sadat, he became Minister of Religious Aairs,
for in spite of his extremely conservative views and a brief aliation
with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth, he always abstained from
criticising the government directly. At the time, he also benetted from
the fact that, due to his long absence from Egypt, he was not associated
with the Nasserists. However, for most of his later life, until his death
in 1998, he was a popular preacher who appeared on TV, published
books, audio and video tapes and a newspaper.25
His Qurnic commentary was thus rst and foremost delivered and
presented on television, which accounts for its enormous success. e
printed version, which is incomplete26, clearly reveals these oral origins.
e commentary is full of repetitions, paraphrases, rhetorical questions;
it explains words and syntactic constructions in a way that people with
little education can understand. It treats the Qurn verse by verse,
without forming larger units, but makes ample reference to other verses
of the Qurn. Apart from that, al-Sharw does not usually mention
his sources or refer to other scholars; very occasionally, the printed ver-
sion contains a reference in a footnote. If al-Sharw mentions the
occasion of revelation at all, he usually does so in a very general way,
without providing names or other details.
While Shaykh al-Sharw was and still is extremely popular with a
predominantly Egyptian middle and lower class audience, his work
does not seem to have had an impact on Muslim scholarship, nor had
25)
Cf. Chih and Mayeur-Jaouen, 190-193.
26)
I could not obtain a printed edition that goes further than sra 18; the scanned pages
of the printed edition that are available on http://www.elsharawy.com/ (accessed Sept 2,
2008) reach Q 37:132, the text on Altafsir.com only goes up to Q 33:63.
it been intended for that purpose. His commentary has not been trans-
lated, nor is it cited by any of the other Arabic or Turkish commenta-
tors. e Indonesian Muhammad Quraish Shihab does mention him
as one of his central sources, though.27 His commentary is also included
in the selection of tafsr works that is available on the website Altafsir.
com.
(5) Anwar al-Bz (Egypt): Al-tafsr al-tarbaw li-l-Qurn al-karm

(3 volumes)28
Virtually nothing could be found about Anwar al-Bz, besides the fact
that he edited Ibn Kathrs abaqt al-fuqah al-shyn29 and Ibn
Taymiyyas Majm al-fatw, the latter together with a co-editor.30
His concise commentary was published by Dr al-Nashr li-l-Gmit,
a Cairo-based publisher whose publication programme reveals an
aliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.31 e same can be said for
the commentary, whose main source is Sayyid Qubs F ill al-Qurn
which is quoted extensively in nearly every section. Another often-used
source is Sad awws commentary, which again owes a lot to
Qubs. Occasionally, al-Bz quotes other commentaries, but is remark-
ably reluctant to refer to works from the classical era like al-abar,
al-Zamakhshar or al-Bayw; he prefers to rely on the commentaries
of Ab l-Sud (d. 1574), al-Shawkn (d. 1834) or the Tafsr al-Manr
(1900-1934). His educational commentary divides the Qurn into
sections of approximately equal length, mostly comprising between
four and twelve verses, and comments on each of those sections as a
whole. He rst explains the meanings of particular words or phrases,
then lists a number of practical and moral aims, usually around three
27)
Cf. Muhammad Quraish Shihab, Tafsir al-Mishbh. Jakarta. I (2000), xiii.
28)
Cairo 2007.
29)
Cairo 2004.
30)
3rd ed. Cairo 2005. e co-editor, mir al-Jazzr, belongs to a group of members of
the Muslim Brotherhood arrested in 2005 (cf. http://www.egyptwindow.net/modules.php?n
ame=News&le=article&sid=407; accessed Sept 2, 2008), which strengthens the assumption
that Anwar al-Bz might be close to, or aliated with, the Muslim Brotherhood.
31)
It includes titles about al-imm al-muassis asan al-Bann, books about Islamic
ideology or strategies to change the system and critical publications about the freedom
of the press.
to four. He goes on to explain the educational content in some detail,

quoting from other commentaries (mostly Sayyid Qubs), and con-
cludes with a few guidelines to be drawn from each section. e com-
mentary is clearly not meant to be a work of scholarship, but rather a
kind of handbook that translates the Qurn into a set of easily under-
standable and applicable rules for the average Muslim. In its structure,
approach and style, it is very similar to al-Jazirs tafsr (see below). As
it has appeared only recently, its impact is dicult to assess. It does not
seem to be available on the internet or to be discussed there at any
length.
(6) Amr Abd al-Azz (Iraq/Egypt/Palestine): Al-tafsr al-shmil

li-l-Qurn al-karm (6 volumes)32
Amr Abd al-Azz was born in al-Fallja in Iraq in 1935. He received
a rst degree in shara studies in Damascus, and obtained his Master
and Doctoral degrees in the same discipline from al-Azhar in Egypt in
1975 and 1977. After having worked as a teacher for 22 years, he
became a lecturer at Jmiat al-Najj al-Waaniyya in Nablus, Palestine,
where he was promoted to the rank of professor in 1990.33 According
to the caption on his commentarys front pages, he specialises in com-
parative qh.
His commentary is of medium length, somewhere in between the
concise educational commentaries and the extensive, erudite ones.
After a very brief introduction to each sra, he comments on it verse
by verse, treating it as a continuous text and thus making it rather dif-
cult to nd individual verses. His approach to the verses varies. Some-
times he starts with the occasions of revelation; at other times, he omits
them and starts with explanations of words. Sporadically, he quotes a
broad spectrum of sources; at other times, he gives no references at all.
His target group, according to the foreword, comprises scholars as well
as students and educated people.34 It is thus rather unspecic, but does
in any case not include people with little or no education. It does not
32)
Cairo 2000.
33)
Cf. his vita on http://www.islamonline.net/LiveFatwa/Arabic/Guestcv.asp?hGuestID=
PVTB5W (accessed Sept. 3, 2008); he acted as a host for live fatw sessions on IslamOnline.
34)
Cf. Abd al-Azz, I, 7.
seem to have been re-edited, translated or cited by any of the other

commentators.
(7) Sad aww (Syria): Al-ass f l-tafsr (11 volumes)35

Sad aww is regarded as the foremost ideologue of the Muslim
Brethren movement in Bathist Syria.36 He was born into a poor family
in the Syrian town of amh in 1935. His education was characterised
by ruptures, but due to his intellectual abilities, he managed to make
it to secondary school. Under the inuence of his teacher of Islamic
religious education, he became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood
in 1953. In the second half of the 1950s, he studied Islamic Law at the
Shara Faculty in Damascus and obtained his degree in 1961. Most of
his adult life was shaped by the conict between the regime and the
Muslim Brotherhood in which he remained an important activist and
ideologue, which caused him to spend many years either in exile or in
jail. In 1966, he left for Saudi Arabia where he wrote the rst of many
books on Islamic thinking and Islamist ideology. In 1971, he returned
to Syria, where he was imprisoned two years later after having organised
non-violent protests against al-Asads proposal for a new constitution
which did not contain a clause making it obligatory for the president
to be a Muslim. It was during the ve years he subsequently spent in
prison that he wrote his Qurnic commentary. ese circumstances
certainly contributed to the high degree in which he identied with
Sayyid Qubs tafsr. After his release from prison in 1978, he went into
exile to Jordan, where he lived until his death in 1989.37
His commentary owes much to Sayyid Qub, whom he quotes exten-
sively; but he also adds a number of own ideas, especially in the way he
tries to explain the logic behind the internal structure of the Qurn.38
He uses a large number of classical references, primarily with regard to
35)
Cairo 1985.
36)
Itzchak Weismann, Said Hawwa: e Making of a Radical Muslim inker in Modern
Syria, in: Middle Eastern Studies 29 (1993), 601623 [601f.].
37)
Cf. Weismann, Radical Muslim inker, 603619. For awws thought, see Itzchak
Weismann, Said Hawwa and Islamic Revivalism in Bathist Syria, in: Studia Islamica 85
(1997), 131154.
38)
For details about the complex structure of awws commentary see section 3. A of this
paper.
the asbb al-nuzl, but his main concern lies in transferring the Qurnic
message to a modern context, using a distinctly political vocabulary.
His analysis incorporates Ibn Taymiyyas concepts of tawd al-ulhiyya
and tawd al-rubbiyya, which also form a central part of Ibn Abd
al-Wahhbs doctrine.39 Due to its complex structure and awws view
of the Qurnic text as an argumentative continuum, the commentary
is hardly practical to consult for information about invidual verses; it
is rather meant to be read as a whole. awws commentary does not
seem to have been translated or re-edited; he is quoted frequently by
the Egyptian Anwar al-Bz, who shares his ideological orientation.
(8) Wahba al-Zuayl (Syria): Al-tafsr al-munr f l-aqda wa-l-shara

wa-l-manhaj (32 parts, 16 volumes)40
Wahba al-Zuayl was born in Dayr Aiyya near Damascus in 1932 to
a farmers family. Like aww, he studied shara at the University of
Damascus. After his graduation in 1952, he went to Egypt, where he
studied at al-Azhar and at the same time obtained degrees in law from
Ayn Shams University and Cairo University. In 1963, he received his
doctorate with a thesis on Islamic Law and returned to Damascus,
where he taught at the University of Damascus and became a professor
in 1975. He also acted as an imm and preacher and is a member of
the Syrian Majlis al-Ift.41 When he published his rst Qurnic com-
mentary in 1991, he was Head of the Department of Islamic Law and
its Schools at the University of Damascus.42
He wrote three commentaries on the Qurn that vary in length.
ree years after the publication of his sixteen volume work al-Tafsr
al-munr followed a concise commentary in one volume43 and another
seven years later a medium-sized commentary in three volumes.44 For
the present study, I will only consider the largest and most extensive of
39)
Cf., e.g., aww, III, 1446. aww was, however, not fully in line with Wahhabite
dogma; for example, he had a distinctly positive view of Susm. Cf. Weismann, Islamic
Revivalism.
40)
Beirut and Damascus 1991; 2nd ed. 1998.
41)
Cf. http://www.zuhayli.net/, accessed Sept. 3, 2008.
42)
See the front page of his al-Tafsr al-munr.
43)
Wahba al-Zuayl, al-Tafsr al-wajz al hmish al-Qurn al-am wa-maah asbb
al-nuzl wa-qawid al-tartl, Beirut and Damascus 1994.
44)
Wahba al-Zuayl, al-Tafsr al-was, Beirut and Damascus 2001.
the three.45 Writing three commentariesone of them large, one of

medium length (was) and a concise one (wajz)is a classical pattern;
in this, al-Zuyl emulates great scholars of the past like al-Wid.46
He is the only one among the commentators discussed here to do so.
Al-tafsr al-munr usually looks at small groups of verses, rst dis-
cussing problems of irb, then explaining words or phrases. After
that, it presents traditions on the occasion of revelation. Subsequently,
it discusses the verses in detail and concludes with a chapter on their
practical legal meaning. is commentary is heavily indebted to
al-abar, al-Qurub and other classical exegetes; however, al-Zuayl
does not always mention his sources.
Al-Zuayls commentary has seen at least a second edition. It is also
included in the bibliography of the commentary published by Karaman
et al. (see below).
(9) Ab Bakr al-Jazir (Algeria/Saudi Arabia): Aysar al-tafsr li-l-kalm

al-al al-kabr (4 volumes)47
Al-Jazir was born in 1921 in South Algeria, where he was educated
in a Su convent (zwiya) until he emigrated to Medina, where he
studied in the Mosque of the Prophet. He received a licence to teach
there and became a professor at the Islamic University of Medina upon
its opening in 1961, where he worked until his retirement in 1406 H.
(1985/86).48
His commentary is conceived as a concise work and, true to its name
(e most simple commentary), it makes for an easy read, aiming at
explaining the Qurn for contemporary Muslims so they can live
according to it and use it as a source of shara. Al-Jazirs method is
very straightforward: he divides the Qurn into groups of several verses,
explains meanings of dicult words or expressions and then expounds
the meaning of the passage in one or two pages. He concludes each
45)
e other ones are too short to be of interest here.
46)
For al-Wids three commentaries, see Walid A. Saleh, e Last of the Nishapuri
School of Tafsir: Al-Wahidi (d. 468/1076) and His Signicance in the History of Quranic
Exegesis, in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 126 (2006), 223243.
47)
Jidda 1987.
_
Cf. http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/
48)
_
, accessed Sept. 4, 2008.
section with a few guidelines derived from the Qurnic text. e works
orientation is distinctly Wahhabite in its rejection of bida, denunciation
of popular Islam and its declared aim of providing a Salaf49 interpreta-
tion of the Qurn. In fact, al-Jazir recounts that the president of the
Islamic University of Medina specically asked him to write a com-
mentary that resembles the Tafsr al-Jallayn, but with a Salaf agenda,
and could replace the former in institutions of religious education. He
explicitly declares his intent to dispense with dierences of opinion
concerning the correct interpretation of verses, to omit interpretations
that deviate from the literal meaning of a verse and to avoid linguistic
analyses. He mentions only four sources: al-abar, Tafsr al-Jallayn,
Tafsr al-Margh (published around 194550) and Abd al-Ramn b.
Nir al-Sads Taysr al-Karm al-Ramn (Cairo 1955-58).51
A new printed edition has been published in 2003 in Medina. e
commentary is available online on the platform Altafsir.com. In 1996,
a Turkish translation was published under the title En Kolay Tefsir. e
commentary seems to be rather popular in Indonesia as well, at least
among those who can read Arabic.52
(10) Abd al-Munim Amad Tuaylab (Egypt/Saudi Arabia): Fat

al-Ramn f tafsr al-Qurn (7 volumes)53
Tuaylab was born in a Nile Delta village in 1921. He was educated in
a Qurnic school, then in an Azhar institute and nally at al-Azhars
49)
e term Salaf, which is often indiscriminately used to describe both reformist trends
in the 19th century and the ideology of political Islam in the 20th century, is problematic,
but I use it for lack of a better category, as it is used by al-Jazir himself, to describe an
ideology that claims to go back to the roots of Islam and aims at emulating the rst
generations of Muslim, largely omitting the tradition of Sunnite scholarship, with a few
exceptions like Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. e Salaf commentators
mentioned here belong to a wide ideological spectrum; some of them are close to the
Muslim Brotherhood, others lean towards much more radical, even jihadist, movements,
which is certainly true for the Davetinin Tefsiri. ey might also be inuenced by
Wahhabism; but while all of them seem to accept the Wahhabites radical denition of
tawd and shirk, not all of them share their rejection of Susm.
50)
Cf. Jansen, Interpretation, 77, fn. 6.
51)
Cf. al-Jazir, 58.
52)
A Google search of Aisar at-tafasir (Sept. 3, 2008) brought up a large number of
Indonesian websites that refer to al-Jazir.
53)
Cairo 1995.
Faculty of eology (ul al-dn), where he obtained his rst degree.

He was promoted to the rank of lim at al-Azhar in the eld of tafsr.
At the same time, he became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He worked as a preacher for al-Azhar during the Palestine and the Suez
crises, but retired from al-Azhar after the rift between the Muslim
Brotherhood and the government in the 1950s and returned to his
village. He then found employment in the Ministry of Pious Founda-
tions in Kuwait; the breakthrough in his career, however, was his move
to Saudi Arabia where he participated in the foundation of the Faculty
for Islamic Studies at King Abd al-Azz University in Jidda. From that
time, he completely devoted himself to the eld of tafsr, rst working
on an English commentary on the Qurn that was commissioned by
the Muslim World League, but never published, then writing a thematic
commentary grouped around central verses of the Qurn, and nally
his Fat al-Ramn, a commentary on the complete Qurn.54
His commentary is rather concise and intended to be easy to read
and not partisan to any theological school or ideology.55 It is certainly
brief and to the point; it discusses groups of several verses, claries the
meanings of dicult words or expressions and then gives the meaning
phrase by phrase. It uses a broad range of inner- and extra-Qurnic
references, making use of a large number of sources, but does not quote
them extensively. In contrast to al-Jazirs commentary, it does not
obviously pursue a Wahhabite or Salaf agenda. In fact, it does fre-
quently not express any opinion at all, occasionally making it rather
dicult for the reader to nd his way between the conicting points
of view about particular exegetical problems.
Tuaylabs commentary is the subject of a very favourable review on
the popular website IslamOnline; it does not seem to have been cited
by any of the other commentators, nor to have been translated or re-
edited.
54)
Cf. usm Tamm, Al-Shaykh Tuaylab .. ib Fat al-Ramn f tafsr al-Qurn,
http://www.islamonline.net/arabic/famous/2004/10/article02.SHTML, accessed Sept. 3,
2008.
55)
Cf. Tamm.
B. Commentaries from Indonesia

ere is a vast number of Indonesian works dubbing themselves tafsir;
however, most of them are, in fact, translations of the Qurn, usually
preceded by a lengthy introduction that, among other things, encourages
the readers to learn Arabic in order to be able to read the Qurn in the
original, sometimes giving explanations of verses in more or less
extensive footnotes.56 Besides a large number of such translations and
extremely concise commentaries, however, there are also several
extensive and detailed works of exegesis.
(1) Hamka (Haji Abdulmalik b. Abdulkarim Amrullah): Tafsir al-Azhar

(30 parts, 15 volumes)57
Hamka is one of the most eminent and most intriguing gures of 20th
century Islamic scholarship and activism in Indonesia. Consequently,
there is no lack of studies on both him and his commentary of the
Qurn;58 some of the works written on him in Indonesian even have
56)
Cf. Howard M. Federspiel, An Introduction to Quranic Commentaries in Contem-
porary Southeast Asia, in: e Muslim World 81 (1991), 149165. Federspiels assessment
that there have only been negligible attempts at translating the Qurn into Malay languages
before the 1920s (cf. Federspiel, Introduction, 151) seems to be not entirely accurate. See:
R. Michael Feener, Notes towards the History of Qurnic Exegesis in Southeast Asia,
in: Studia Islamika 5 (1998), 4776; Anthony H. Johns, Quranic Exegesis in the Malay
World: In Search of a Prole, in: Andrew Rippin (ed.), Approaches to the History of the
Interpretation of the Qurn. Oxford 1988, 257287; Anthony H. Johns, Quranic exegesis
in the Malay-Indonesian world: An introductory survey, in: Abdullah Saeed (ed.), Ap-
proaches to the Quran in Contemporary Indonesia, Oxford 2005, 1740.
57)
Jakarta 1967; enlarged edition: Jakarta 1970. For this study, I have used the edition
that was published in 1987/88, apparently as a reprint of a 1982/83 edition.
58)
See Karel Steenbrink, Hamka (19081981) and the Integration of the Islamic Ummah
of Indonesia, in: Studia Islamika 1 (1994), 11947; Karel Steenbrink, Qurn Interpre-
tations of Hamzah Fansuri (CA. 1600) and Hamka (19081982): A Comparison, in:
Studia Islamika 2 (1995), 7395; Milhan Yusuf, Hamkas method in interpreting legal
verses of the Quran, in: Abdullah Saeed (ed.), Approaches to the Quran in Contemporary
Indonesia, Oxford 2005, 4166; Ahmad Hakim and M. alhah, Politik Bermoral Agama.
Tafsir Politik Hamka, Yogyakarta 2005; Yunan Yusuf, Corak Pemikiran Kalam Tafsir
Al-Azhar: Sebuah Telaah Atas Pemikiran Hamka dalam Teologi Islam, Jakarta 2003;
Zainuddin Roesmar, Tuntunan Berdakwah Dalam Masyarakat Pluralistik. Perspektif Metode
Dakwah Hamka, Pekanbaru 2002.
hagiographic character, attesting to his popularity.59 Hamka was born

in West Sumatra in 1908 to a Minangkabau family of religious scholars
and Su leaders. His father, a religious teacher, was heavily inuenced
by reformist ideas from the Arab world. Hamkas education, both reli-
gious and secular, seems to have been patchy and erratic. His intended
long-term stay in Mecca was cut short when Hamka discovered that
the level of scholarship in the now Saudi-ruled ijz did not meet his
expectations. Around 1927, he started to become active for the Muham-
madiyah, an Islamic social, educational and welfare association, as a
journalist and preacher. He also started writing novels, an activity that
conservative religious scholars frowned upon. For several decades, he
mostly worked as a journalist and writer in Medan and was active for
the Muhammadiyah and the local ulam association. In 1950, he
moved to Jakarta where he became a central gure in the al-Azhar
Mosque that was aliated with the Muhammadiyah and named after
the famous Egyptian place of worship and learning. He soon became
very popular through his books and articles and was one of the most
prominent members of the Islamist Party, Masyumi, albeit not a par-
ticularly active one. In 1960, Masyumi was banned, and in 1964,
Hamka was imprisoned for two years. During this time, he wrote the
entire rst draft of his voluminous commentary on the Qurn. He
later became professor at several Islamic universities, chairman of the
Muhammadiyah, founder and editor of an inuential and popular
magazine and rst chairman of the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (Council
of Indonesian ulam, MUI) founded by President Suharto. He died
in 1981.60
His commentarys name, Tafsir al-Azhar, clearly refers to both the
Jakartan and the Cairene mosque, although it can also be translated as
e most radiant commentary. While Feener calls it one of the most
enterprising endeavours of modern Qurnic exegesis61, Johns attests
this description some degree of hyperbole62 and Steenbrink clearly
states that Hamkas commentary is not a scholarly or academic work
59)
Cf. Abdul Rosyad Shiddiq, Hamka, Jakarta 2000.
60)
Cf. Steenbrink, Hamka, 128144.
61)
Feener, Notes, 62.
62)
Johns, Quranic exegesisintroductory survey, 34.
at all, but rather aims at the propagation of the feelings of religion and
Islam.63 Still, it makes use of a wide variety of classical and modern
sources (which it does not always mention explicitly), mostly from the
Arab world, including the much-revered Tafsr al-Manr and Sayyid
Qubs commentary. It also makes occasional disparaging reference to
the works of Orientalists, which Hamka does not appear to have actu-
ally read or have any deeper knowledge of.64 e commentary is very
extensive and detailed, but not following a clear structure or method.
Sometimes, it discusses the meaning and etymology of Qurnic termini
at length, at other times it delves into recounts of historical events,
and frequently, it features political commentary or even personal rem-
iniscences, which is most unusual for a Qurnic commentary. Hamka
does not only make reference to contemporary events, he also does so
in great narrative detail. e style of his commentary is indeed closer
to a sermon than to a work of scholarship, very much resembling
al-Sharws commentary in this respect.
Hamkas commentary is clearly very popular and inuential in Indo-
nesia, as is evident from the numerous re-editions that have appeared
and the countless books, articles and websites dealing with Hamka and
his commentary in Indonesian language. Muhammad Quraish Shihab
frequently refers to him in his own commentary. Parts of Hamkas com-
mentary are accessible on the internet.65
(2) Departemen Agama (ed.): Al-Quran dan tafsirnya (11 volumes)66

is commentary owes its existence to a directive by the Indonesian
Department of Religion (Departemen Agama) concerning the pro-
duction of a national translation and commentary on the Qurn issued
in the 1960s. e translation was published rst; the commentary did
63)
Steenbrink, Hamka, 139.
64)
For example, he refers to the works of a renowned Orientalist called Young Bull on
Islamic law which, to Hamkas dismay, are part of the curriculum for Islamic Studies at
Indonesian universities. He almost certainly means eodoor W. Juynboll (Handleiding
tot de kennis van de mohammedaansche wet volgens de leer der sjitische school, 4th ed.,
Leiden 1930). Cf. Hamka, IV, 281.
65)
http://www.geocities.com/hamkaonline/, accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
66)
Jakarta 1975. I am using the second, revised edition of 1985/86.
not appear until 1975.67 e original committee that was in charge of

producing the commentary consisted of seventeen members, appointed
by a presidential decree in 1973. Its chairman was Bustami A. Gani, a
professor at the State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) in Jakarta; his
deputy was T. M. Hasbi Ash Shiddieqy68, a famous Acehnese Islamic
theologian and jurist who had written two Qurnic commentaries of
dierent length himself.69 e committee was reformed by a presidential
decree of 1980, when a second edition was about to be prepared; by
then, the task of interpreting the Qurn on behalf of the government
had become part of the national ve-year-plans. e reformation of the
committee was doubtlessly necessary; at least one of the original
members, Hasbi Ash Shiddieqy, had died since the publication of the
rst edition. e chairman of the new committee, which consisted of
15 members70, was Professor Ibrahim Hosen, who was an Azhar
graduate, had been professor for Islamic Law at the State Institute for
Islamic Studies in Jakarta and headed the Fatw Committee of Majelis
Ulama Indonesia (MUI).71 His deputy was Syukri Ghozali, Hosens
67)
Cf. Howard M. Federspiel, Popular Indonesian Literature of the Quran, Ithaca 1994, 64
f., who states that the directive was issued in 1967. is cannot be the whole truth (although
the Suharto regime certainly wanted to make it appear that way, in order to dissociate the
whole project with the Sukarno regime), for the rst volume of the translation was already
printed in 1965.
68)
Teungku Muhammad Hasbi ash-Shiddieqy was born in 1904 in North Aceh, Indonesia,
to a family of religious scholars that traced itself back to the rst Caliph Ab Bakr al-iddq.
Hasbi received a thorough pesantren education and studied Arabic with Arab ulam. He
also studied in the Middle East for some time. From 1928 onwards, he became active in
the Muhammadiyah in Aceh and became a member of the Islamist party Masyumi. In
1951, he moved to Yogyakarta, where he soon attained a high academic reputation and
became a professor of adth at the State Institute of Islamic Studies in 1960. He acted as
dean of the Institutes Shara Faculty until 1972, when he joined the Tafsr Committee.
He died in Jakarta in 1975. Cf. R. Michael Feener, Muslim Legal ought in Modern
Indonesia, Cambridge 2007, 59.; http://melayuonline.com/fr/personage/dig/291/teungku-
muhammad-hasbi-ashshiddieqy/, accessed Sept 6, 2008. His own commentaries appeared
in 1956 (Tafsier Al-Qurnul Madjied An-Nur, Jakarta 1956) and 1966 (Tafsir al-Bayan,
Jakarta 1966).
69)
Cf. Nurul Huda Maarif, AL-QURN [sic!] AL-KARIM WA TAFSIRUH (al-Quran
dan Tafsirnya Depag RI), http://nuhamaarif.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html,
accessed Sept 5, 2008; Federspiel, Popular Indonesian Literature, 46, fn. 16.
70)
Cf. Departemen Agama (ed.), Al-Quran dan tafsirnya. Muqaddimah, 11.
71)
Cf. Martin van Bruinessen, Indonesias ulama and politics: caught between legitimising
predecessor as head of the Fatw Committee and Hamkas successor as

president of MUI.72 Both, along with ve other members of the
reformed committee, had already been part of the original committee.
e commentary consists of eleven volumes, the rst of which con-
tains a lengthy introduction to the Qurn and its exegesis (muqad-
dima), while each of the other ten contain the commentary on three
ajz of the Qurn. e commentary groups the verses into short sec-
tions. After the Arabic text and an Indonesian translation, it describes
their connection to the preceding verses (munsaba), interprets them
verse by verse with reference to the occasion of revelation, and nally
sums up the main teachings of the passage. It mentions four major
sources: Tafsr al-Margh by Amad Muaf al-Margh, which has
been translated into Indonesian and had already served as a basis for
Hasbi Ash Shiddieqys rst commentary; the modernist Syrian lim
Jaml al-Dn al-Qsims (1866-1914) Masin al-tawl;73 and the com-
mentaries of al-Bayw and Ibn Kathr, both of which have been trans-
lated into Indonesian. e authors add that they have used other sources
as well, like Tafsr al-Manr, F ill al-Qurn, R al-Man74 and
so on.75 is seems like a rather random selection. Within the text of
the commentary itself, no sources for the information given are men-
tioned. Its scholarly value is thus rather limited.
e commentarylike Hamkasis not meant nor can it be expected
to be received by an audience outside Indonesia. Even within the coun-
try, the book is currently out of print76, and it is inaccessible on the
internet. Muhammad Quraish Shihab frequently refers to it in his
the status quo and searching for alternatives, in: Prisma e Indonesian Indicator (Ja-
karta) 49 (1990), 5269. http://www.let.uu.nl/~Martin.vanBruinessen/personal/publications/
Ulama_and_politics.htm, accessed Sept. 5, 2008; http://www.library.ohiou.edu/indopubs/
1997/02/02/0008.html, accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
72)
Cf. Steenbrink, Hamka, 413.
73)
For Qsim, see David Commins, Social Criticism and Reformist Ulama of Damascus,
in: Studia Islamica 78 (1993), 169180.
74)
By al-Als al-Baghdd.
75)
Departemen Agama (ed.), Al-Quran dan tafsirnya. Muqqadimah, 12.
76)
Apparently, a new edition was presented in the fall of 2008; see http://www.depag.go.id/
index.php?a=detilberita&id=2108; http://www.depag.go.id/le/dokumen/13Agustus2008.pdf,
accessed Nov. 11, 2008.
recent commentary, but usually in a critical manner, in order to explain

why he favours a dierent translation.77
(3) Muhammad Quraish Shihab: Tafsir al-Mishbh. Pesan, Kesan dan

Keserasian al-Quran (15 volumes)78
When Muhammad Quraish Shihab started publishing his voluminous
commentary (e Commentary of the Light. e Message, Impression
and Harmony of the Qurn) in 2000, he was already a scholar of
renown. He was born in the town of Rappang in South Sulawesi in
1944 to a family of religious scholars. His father, who was a specialist
in Qurnic studies, was the rector of a State Institute for Islamic Studies
(IAIN). Muhammad Quraish Shihab received both a secular education
and religious training at an Islamic boarding school (pesantren). In
1958, he left for Egypt where he studied at al-Azhar University. After
he had obtained a Masters degree, he returned to Indonesia in 1969
where he taught at a State Institute for Islamic Studies, rst in Sulawesi
and from 1984 onwards in Jakarta. Before his move to Jakarta, he had
spent another period of time in Egypt where he obtained his doctorate
from al-Azhar in 1982. He became president of the Majelis Ulama
Indonesia in 1984.79 He also became the IAIN Jakartas rector, but left
in order to become Minister of Religious Aairs under Suhartos
reformed cabinet in 1998; this cabinet, however, lasted only for several
months, until Suhartos fall. His books on the thematic interpretation
of the Qurn, much inspired by Egyptian ulam like Mamd Shaltt,
have attained widespread popularity.80 He is criticised for expressing
reformist views about the headscarf, the wearing of which he does not
consider to be prescribed by the Qurn; he also called for moderation
in dealing with deviant groups like the Ahmadiyyah.81
77)
Cf., e.g., Shihab, Tafsir, III (2001), 123; I (2000), 153.
78)
Jakarta 2000-2003. I have used a reprint of 2007/2008.
79)
Cf. Muhammadiyah Amin and Kusmana, Purposive exegesis: a study of Quraish
Shihabs thematic interpretation of the Quran, in: Abdullah Saeed (ed.), Approaches to the
Quran in Contemporary Indonesia, Oxford 2005, 67-84 [68f.]; http://media.isnet.org/islam/
Quraish/Quraish.html, accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
80)
Cf. Feener, Notes, 66.
81)
Cf. Adian Husaini, Mengkritik Quraish Shihab, http://qosim.multiply.com/journal/
item/70/Mengkritik_Quraish_Shihab; http://www.planetmole.org/indonesian-news/indonesians
-in-focus-m-quraish-shihab.html, accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
Quraish Shihabs endeavour to write a new Indonesian commentary

on the Qurn might have been motivated by the fact that neither
Hamkas commentary nor the one issued by the Departemen Agama
are particularly satisfying from a scholarly point of view. His own com-
mentary certainly is more detailed and thorough than the one by the
Departemen Agama, and more systematic and reliable in mentioning
his sources than Hamkas. His own selection of sources, however, is not
particularly wide and somewhat surprising, not only because it has a
very strong emphasis on modern commentators. Without bias, he cites
the Tunisian exegete al-hir b. shr next to the Iranian Shiite com-
mentator al-abab, both of whom are ignored or shunned by con-
temporary Arab Sunnite commentators. He also refers to Sayyid Qub,
anw and al-Sharw, which is maybe less surprising, given his
strong anity to Egyptian theological discourse, but still does not con-
stitute an ideologically coherent selection. e only classical commen-
tator he mentions in his foreword is the rather little-known Ibrhm
Umar al-Biq (d. 1480) who had been the subject of Quraish Shihabs
doctoral dissertation.82 He does discuss a number of other commentaries
in his introduction83 and occasionally cites dierent classical sources,
like al-Zamakhshar, but the above-mentioned commentaries are the
ones he relies on most frequently. His commentary somehow gives the
impression of an unqualied admiration for any exegetical work written
in Arabic.
Quraish Shihab usually discusses no more than one or two verses at
a time. He starts with paraphrasing the verse or passage in question and
then devotes a lot of attention to analysing the meaning of Arabic words
and discussing their correct translation into Indonesian; in this way, he
avoids falling into the trap of basing his interpretation on misleading
translations, which is something he frequently accuses the Departemen
Agamas commentary of and which can also be said about Hamkas
tafsr. Often, he quotes one of the modern commentaries for additional
explanations, but he does also add his own thoughts. Quraish Shihabs
commentary, despite citing new hermeneutical approaches like Fazlur
Rahmans in its foreword, shows much less interest in understanding
82)
Cf. Shihab, Tafsir, I (2000), xiii.
83)
Cf. Shihab, Tafsir, I (2000), xxi-xxviii.
the Qurnic revelation in its historical context than it does in linguis-

tic details. He seems to be fascinated by scientic and mathematical
approaches that are supposed to support the inimitability of the Qurn
(ijz al-Qurn) and thus stands in the tradition of the tafsr ilm.
e commentary has been reprinted several times and is available in
many bookstores; it seems to be rather widespread in Indonesia, espe-
cially for a commentary of its considerable size.
C. Commentaries from Turkey

e rst original Turkish Qurnic commentary to be published since
the late 1950s84 only appeared in 1989, which constitutes a remarkably
large gap in tafsr production. It can be assumed that this gap was caused
by the specic situation of Turkish university theology, which was non-
existent until 1949 and had a rather low prole until the 1980s, when
the number of theological faculties sky-rocketed.85 It seems that it was
only in this atmosphere, in which theological scholarship had a broad
and supportive institutional framework, and after a new generation of
academic theologians had had the time to grow up, that the time was
ripe for a new endeavour to produce an original Turkish commentary
on the Qurn, which was undertaken by Sleyman Ate.
(1) Sleyman Ate: Yce Kurnn ada Tefsri (12 volumes)86

Sleyman Ate was born in Elaz in Eastern Anatolia in 1933. He
received an informal religious education by a village teacher and a
Naqshband shaykh. At the age of 20, he decided to enrol in an mam
Hatip school and, at the same time, to prepare for the exam that would
enable him to study theology at the University of Ankara. He reached
this goal in 1960 and graduated from the Ankara lahiyat Faculty in
1964. One year later, he became assistant to Professor Tayyib Oki, a
adth specialist of Bosnian origin. He acquired his doctoral degree in
1968 with a thesis on al-Sulams mystical Qurnic commentary. He
84)
mer Nasuh Bilmens Kuran- Kerimin Mel-i lisi ve Tefsiri was published in 1956.
85)
Cf. Mehmet Paac and Yasin Aktay, 75 Years of Higher Religious Education in Modern
Turkey, in: e Muslim World 89 (1999), 389413; Felix Krner, Revisionist Koran Her-
meneutics in Contemporary Turkish University eology. Rethinking Islam, Wrzburg 2005,
49f.
86)
Istanbul 1989.
continued to work as a lecturer, interrupted by his military service

and travels to Arab countries, until he was appointed President of the
Turkish Department of Religious Aairs (Diyanet leri Bakanl), an
oce he held for one and a half years. In 1979, he became professor at
the Ankara Faculty of eology, but spent most of the next few years
in Germany as a researcher and Saudi Arabia as a teacher. He returned
to Turkey in 1982, just at the point when the political climate became
much more favourable for Islamic academic activities. As theological
faculties mushroomed from 1987 onwards, he accepted a chair in
Samsun in 1988 and moved to the University of Istanbul in 1995, from
which he retired in 1999.87
His Contemporary commentary on the Exalted Qurn contains
twelve volumes, the eleventh consisting largely of summaries of central
topics and messages of the Qurn, the last being exclusively devoted
to an unusually broad range of indices. Within the commentary proper,
a detailed analysis of each verse or small group of verses is given, based
on a selected range of sources, from al-abar to the often-quoted Tafsr
al-Manr. Ate does expressly criticise them at times, especially when
he is of the opinion that they stray too far from the original meaning.
In order to expose the latter, he makes extensive use of traditions
recounting the historical context of revelations. At the end of each sra,
the author provides a list of the most important rules that should,
according to him, be drawn from the sra. Ates commentary is the
only one, among the seventeen discussed here, that lists dierent read-
ings (qirt) at the end of each sra, giving the Turkish meaning of
each variant and the reader to whom it is traced back. He does not seem
to discuss the variant readings in the actual commentary on the verses,
however. Occasionally, he includes pictures, which is very unusual for
a Qurnic commentary.88 Its orientation is deliberately modernist.89
87)
Cf. Abdullah Takim, Koranexegese im 20. Jahrhundert. Islamische Tradition und neue
Anstze in Sleyman Ates Zeitgenssischem Korankommentar, Istanbul 2007, 42.
88)
For example, pictures showing the development of the embryo, in the tradition of the
tafsr ilm.
89)
For example, Ate maintains, in contrast to the majority of commentators, that according
to Q 2:62, paradise is open to Christians and Jews as well as Muslims even if the former
do not accept Muammad as a prophet. However, according to Ate, Christians would
have to accept tawd and abandon their erroneous belief in trinity and in the divine nature
of Christ. Cf. Ate, I, 174.
His commentary has received a lot of attention in Turkey and has

been both heavily criticised and applauded as a groundbreaking new
approach.90 Ate maintains that at least 350.000 to 400.000 copies have
been sold; the commentary has seen several editions.91 Unsurprisingly,
it has not evoked any response in the Arab World or Indonesia, where
Turkish is not generally read; but it is frequently cited by the more
recent Turkish commentaries by Bayraktar Bayrakl and Karaman et
al., which bears witness to its scholarly reputation.
(2) Hayrettin Karaman et al./Diyanet leri Bakanl Yaynlar: Kuran

Yolu. Trke Mel Ve Tefsir (5 volumes)92
In 1998, the Turkish Department of Religious Aairs commissioned
four Turkish theologians with authoring a new Qurnic commentary,
which was published by the Diyanet in 2003 and 2004 and thus took
a very short time to complete. However, the Diyanet hastened to make
clearboth in the rst volumes preamble and in a press releasethat
the commentary did not express the Diyanets views and had no ocial
character, but was, as every work of such kind, an individual work con-
taining the authors subjective opinions.93 Obviously, the issue of
Qurnic exegesis is a politically and ideologically loaded one in con-
temporary Turkey, and the Diyanet did not want to take too denite a
stance in it. Nevertheless, it did both commission and print the com-
mentary, and it published a second edition in 2006, which gives the
work at least a semi-ocial character.
e four authors are all linked to Marmara niversitesi in Istanbul.
Hayrettin Karaman, born 1934 in orum in Northern Turkey, was a
professor at the universitys Faculty of eology until his retirement in
200194; Mustafa arc, born in the Central-Anatolian town of Sivas,
is still teaching at said faculty, in addition to his post as Mufti of
90)
Cf. Takim, 76-85.
91)
Cf. Takim, 83.
92)
Ankara 2003/2004.
93)
Cf. Karaman et al., I (2003), VIII; http://www.byegm.gov.tr/yayinlarimiz/anadoluhaberler-
yeni/kaldir/2004/aralik/ah_13_12-04.htm, accessed Aug. 20, 2008.
94)
Cf. http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/kimdir.htm, accessed Sept. 4, 2008. According to
this biography on his personal site, he retired out of protest against the increasing lack of
freedom within the university.
Istanbul.95 Sadrettin Gm, born in 1945 in the district of Erzurum96,

is a professor at Marmara niversitesis Institute of Social Sciences,
which oers postgraduate and doctoral programmes. He belongs to the
Department of Basic Islamic Studies and is a specialist in Qurnic
commentary, whereas his colleage brahim K Dnmez of the same
Department is specialised in Islamic Law.97 While no information about
Dnmez biography could be found, the other three authors are all
graduates of mam Hatip schools and Istanbul Higher Islamic Institute.
e commentary consists of ve volumes and clearly is more indebted
to modern scholarly methods than any of the other commentaries stud-
ied in this article. is shows in the meticulous way in which it provides
bibliographical references as well as in the sources it uses, which include
not only adth, sra, classical and modern works of tafsr, but also
scholarly publications and encyclopaedia articles. It discusses the mean-
ing of problematic words extensively and precisely. e analysis of indi-
vidual verses (which are often discussed in groups of several verses) is
of varying length, omitting some verses completely and devoting several
pages to others.
e commentary seems to have provoked varied reactions, its delib-
erately moderate and scientic orientation and openness to interfaith
dialogue being controversial.98
(3) Bayraktar Bayrakl: Yeni Bir Anlayin Inda Kurn Tefsri

(incomplete, 13 volumes)99
Bayraktar Bayrakl was born in a village in the North-Eastern prov-
ince of Rize in 1947. He attended primary school in his village and
memorised the Qurn. In 1968, he graduated from an mam Hatip
95)
Cf. http://www.istanbulmuftulugu.gov.tr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id
=163&Itemid=211, accessed Sept. 4, 2008.
96)
Cf. http://www.biyogra.net/kisiyazdir.asp?kisiid=3115, accessed Sept. 4, 2008.
97)
Cf. Marmara niversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstits, Enstit Rehberi, 114, http://sbe.
marmara.edu.tr/rehber.pdf, accessed Sept. 4, 2008.
98)
Although the authors do not quite follow Ates position on Q 2:62 concerning the
admission of Jews and Christians to paradise, they maintain that, in accordance with
al-Ghazls view, only the small minority of Jews and Christians who have received correct
information about Islam, have had sucient time to study it in depth and have nevertheless
rejected its truth with nality will be condemned to hell. Cf. Karaman et al., I (2003), 69f.
99)
Istanbul 2001. Eight more volumes are forthcoming.
school in Istanbul. One year later, he took his exams at a secular lycee
as well, enabling him to continue his education at university level. He
graduated from Istanbul Higher Islamic Institute in 1972 and acquired
a degree in sociology from Istanbul University in 1977, having already
worked as a teacher for the past ve years. He then started teaching at
the Higher Islamic Institute which, in 1982, became the Faculty of
eology at Marmara niversitesi. In 1982, he presented a doctoral
thesis at the Department of Sociology at Istanbul University and became
assistant lecturer, then lecturer and nally professor in 1993.100 During
the 1980s, he spent some years in Great Britain and the USA. Both this
and his background in sociology are rather unusual; on the other hand,
his educational career and academic position are quite typical for
Turkish theologians.
His Qurnic commentary in the light of a new understanding is
conceived as a 21 volume work. So far, 13 volumescomprising the
rst 25 sras have appeared.101 He comments on individual verses or
very short groups of two or three verses, structuring his commentary
in a very didactic fashion and paying great attention to the applicabil-
ity of the Qurnic message to everyday life. e moral he conveys is
rather conservative.102 He does not consistently mention his sources,
but what he mentions ranges from classical to modern ones, like Sley-
man Ates work of tafsr or Muhammad Asads Message of the Qurn,
which has been translated into Turkish.
e commentary is too recent to judge its impact. It should be men-
tioned, though, that it has been self-published, albeit in a rather profes-
sional format. It does not seem to have aroused strong reactions either
in the press or the internet.103
(4) Seifuddin El-Muvahhid: Davetinin Tefsiri (incomplete, 8 parts)104

is commentary is very clearly set apart from the other Turkish
commentaries. For one thing, the author is almost certainly an Arab;
100)
Cf. http://www.bayraktarbayrakli.com/ozgecmis.htm, accessed Sept. 4, 2008.
101)
Cf. http://www.bayraktarbayrakli.com/kitaplar/tefsir.htm, accessed Sept. 4, 2008.
102)
Cf. his reference to homosexuality: Bayrakl, VI (2007), 169.
103)
According to a Google search conducted in September 2008.
104)
A printed edition published by the Istanbul-based jihadist publisher Hak Yaynlar
(whose website was accessible in June 2008, but had been closed by September 2008) is
for another, it is radically jihadist in its approach, which is likely to be

the reason for the commentarys current unavailability. As no original
Arabic (or otherwise) version could be found, it seems that the com-
mentary has only been published in Turkey, which is why it is discussed
in this section.
So far, eight volumes of commentary seem to have been issued,
reaching until Q 7:87. e front page of each volume mentions the
publishing house, including its address in Istanbul, but no date. It also
gives the name of the translator, one brahim zsoy, which makes it
clear that the work was not originally written in Turkish. e authors
name is given as eyh Seyfuddin El-Muvahhid105, which is clearly a nom
de guerre indicating a Wahhabite self-identication.106 An Arabic pub-
lication by the same author107 (in this case, he is not titled shaykh, but
duktr) gives no indication of it being a translation, which, together
with the style of the Turkish commentary that leans towards Arabic in
syntax and vocabulary, makes it seem close to certain that the author
is an Arab.
e commentary is rather concise; neither does it go into linguistic
details nor does it mention any sources or demonstrate an interest in
the occasions of revelation or anything else that would distract from
the clear and unambiguous meaning as the author sees it.
listed with many Turkish internet booksellers, but currently out of stock. An e-book version
was available on the publishers website and on the jihadist website http://www.davetulhak.
com, which has been closed as well by now, just like any other connected site. I am referring
to the e-book I obtained when the website was still accessible.
105)
Interestingly, Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of the Dutch lm-maker eo van
Gogh, used to call himself Saifu Deen alMuwahhied (cf. Albert Benschop, Chronicle of
a Political Murder Foretold, http://www.sociosite.org/jihad_nl_en.php, accessed Sept. 4,
2008.). It is extremely unlikely that he is the author of this commentary, but the possibility
cannot be ruled out that it comes from the ideological context of the so-called Hofstad
network to which he was aliated.
106)
Muammad b. Abd al-Wahhb and his followers called themselves al-Muwaidn
those who profess the unity of God. Esther Peskes and W. Ende, Wahhbiyya, in:
e Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. XI (2000), 39.
107)
See al-Muwaid.
D. Conclusions
e commentators biographical backgrounds allow for a number of
interesting conclusions concerning Islamic intellectual and scholarly
production during the past 40 years. Of course, a sample of, all in all,
seventeen more or less detailed scholars biographies cannot be con-
sidered to be representative of the scholarly theological production in
such a vast region of the Muslim World throughout such a long period
of time; nevertheless, some observations can be made that might well
be indicative of larger trends.
First of all, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it is apparent that most of
the commentaries have been written by professional ulam in a modern
sense, i.e. by men108 holding faculty positions in Islamic Law or eol-
ogy; quite a number of them also held positions in the government
administration of Islam, as ministers of religious aairs, mufts or heads
of the Indonesian MUI. Only two, Hamka and al-Sharw, were
famous enough to earn their living by preaching or writing alone; how-
ever, al-Sharw had been an academic before becoming a famous
preacher, and Hamka assumed a faculty position relatively late in his
life, probably in order to gain the credentials his sketchy education
could not provide. Writing a complete commentary on the Qurn is
a time-consuming task, and the marketability of the resulting work of
tafsr is often limited due to its sheer size. us, it is an endeavour
typically undertaken by academics, be it in order to increase their
scholarly renown or be it out of genuine interest.
Two of the commentaries examined here have been written in prison,
just like Sayyid Qubs tafsr had been. Being in jail seems to be, in a
108)
Indeed, all of the exegetes are male. Maybe the rst attempt at writing a Qurnic
commentary that was undertaken by a woman was Zaynab al-Ghazls very short and
unnished Nart f Kitb Allh (Cairo 1994); al-Ghazl was the most famous member
of the Muslim Sisterhood, and her workwhich she consciously did not label tafsrshows
no feminist tendencies whatsoever. Only in 2008 and 2009, the Azhar authorized the
publication of several further very concise Qurnic commentaries written by Egyptian
women, all of them primarily directed at children and youths, and none of them with a
feminist agenda. Cf. http://forum.masrawy.com/News/Egypt/Politics/2008/december/17/
alazher.aspx; http://www.al-masry-alyoum.com/article2.aspx?ArticleID=194484 &Issue
ID=1283; http://www.neelwafurat.com/itempage.aspx?id=egb123608-5124715&search=
books, accessed March 13, 2009.
very practical sense, conducive to undertaking such a time-consuming

task; and being pursued for ones Islamist political orientation obviously
drives some men to return to the fundamentals of their religion, which
is rst and foremost the Qurn.
ose commentators who were not professional scholars all seem to
have been aliated with oppositional Islamist groups, inasfar as it has
been possible to deduce this from their biographies and their writings.
Autodidacts such as aww or Abd al-Karm al-Khab do not seem
to exist among Turkish and Indonesian commmentators, which is most
probably due to the fact that in these countries, Arabic is usually stud-
ied only as part of a career as an lim. Even Hamka, who comes closest
to being an autodidact, had sucient grounding in Islamic theology,
due to his family background, to be sent to Mecca in order to study
Arabic. But Hamka is perhaps more dicult to asses than any of the
other commentators, his life story including the writing of novels as
well as the authorship of a Qurnic commentary, imprisonment as well
as the presidency of the MUI. In any case, it is these autodidacts who
bring forth distinctly Islamist commentaries on the Qurn, a type of
tafsr that does not exist among the originally Turkish and Indonesian
works discussed here.
It is interesting to note that none of the commentators originates
from one of the big, urban centers. e Turkish authors come from
villages or marginalised towns in Northern Turkey or Anatolia. e
Arab commentators, too, usually come from village settings; exceptions
are aww, who came from a poor quarter of amh, and Ab Zahra,
who was born in al-Maalla al-Kubr; both cities, however, are of indus-
trial and agricultural rather than cultural and intellectual importance
to their countries. Few, if any, of the Turkish and Arab authors seem to
have come from wealthy or educated families, which attests to the
increasing access to education that the Middle East witnessed during
the course of the 20th century, but also bears witness to the fact that a
career in Islamic theology is not something typically envisioned by
members of the upper classes.
e Turkish authors all attended mam Hatip schools before enrolling
at Ankaras lahiyat Faculty or Istanbuls Higher Islamic Institute, which
were the only institutions available for the study of Islamic theology
for quite some time in Turkey. None of them seems to have incorporated
a stay in the Arab world into their education109; the Arab scholars, on
the other hand, by and large did not show any inclination to leave the
Arab world either, although some of them were rather mobile within
the Arab world, most often by pursuing studies at al-Azhar, if they did
not come from Egypt, or by assuming a position in the Gulf states.
e three Indonesian scholars under consideration hereHamka,
Hasbi Ash Shiddieqy and Quraish Shihabare distinct in that all of
them come from families with a strong tradition of religious scholar-
ship. None of them originates from Java, although all of them ended
up there in the course of their ascent to the highest ranks of Indonesian
scholars. In contrast to their Turkish counterparts, obtaining part of
their theological education in the Arab world was an important part of
their careers.
It is thus apparent that there are distinct dierences between typical
educational careers of mufassirn in the Arab World, Turkey and Indo-
nesia. What this sample of biographies shows, though, is that the cos-
mopolitan upper classes in the urban centers of the countries under
consideration do not tend to produce religious scholars; those come
from rural areas or towns at the margins of their countries.
3. e Interpretation of Q 5:51
O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends [awliy]; they are friends of
each other. Whoso of you makes them his friends [yatawallahum] is one of them.
God guides not the people of the evildoers.110

.
As mentioned above, Q 5:51 is a very suitable starting point for an

analysis of contemporary commentaries of the Qurn, as it involves a
number of exegetical problems and, at the same time, touches upon
the highly controversial and potentially ideological issue of Muslims
relationship with Christians and Jews.
109)
Sleyman Ate spent some time in Saudi Arabia, but only after having obtained tenure.
110)
Translations of Qurnic verses are taken from Arthur J. Arberrys translation.
Conning ones focus to the interpretation of this particular verse of

the Qurn, however, is problematic, as many of the contemporary
exegetes refuse to treat the Qurn as an assembly of separate and iso-
lated verses. ey often discuss groups of verses that they consider to
be thematic units; some also stress the overall unity of complete sras
and even emphasize structural connections between dierent sras and
passages of the Qurn.111 e following analysis of the commentaries
on Q 5:51 will make an attempt to take the broader inner-Qurnic
context into account, as it is established by the commentators, while at
the same time focussing on the exegetical issues related to the verse
proper.
A. e Place of the Verse within the Qurn

By far the most complex commentary, with respect to its structure, is
Sad awws, who owes much to Sayyid Qub in his method and the
way he divides the sras into sections. In awws opinion, the fth
sra revolves around an axis (miwar) from the second sra, namely
Q 2:26-27 Aspects of these two verses permeate awws discussion of
every part of the fth sra; especially verse 27: ose who break the
covenant of God after ratifying it, and sever that which God ordered
to be joined, and (who) make mischief in the earth: ose are they who
are the losers. at which, according to aww, should be joined are
the believers, and that which should be severed are their ties with unbe-
lievers, as stipulated in Q 5:51. As for the 51st verses place in the
internal structure of the sra, it is, according to aww, the beginning
of the fth section (Q 5:51-66), which, together with the fourth section
(Q 5:41-50), forms the second of three parts of the sra. Within the
seven sections (plus an epilogue) into which he divides the sra, he
forms smaller units of verses (in this case, Q 5:51-53). In his commentary,
he rst discusses each section as a whole and its connection with the
axis of the sra, then provides the general meaning of the section.
After that, he rst recounts the literal meaning, unit by unit, and then
proposes rules to be drawn from the sra, again unit by unit, making
extensive use of the historical context in which the verses might have
111)
Cf. Mir, Sra.
been revealed. He then discusses the place of the section within the sra
and nally adds a large number of additional explanations and extensive
quotations, generally from Sayyid Qubs commentary, concerning dif-
ferent topics connected to the contents of the section.
While awws multi-layered approach is an exception, very few
commentators go to the other extreme of considering each verse by
itself and only by itself. Al-Sharw does so, due to the format of his
television programme in which he commented on one verse after the
other, and the jihadist Davetinin Tefsiri does so as well. Amr Abd
al-Azz is not even much concerned with verses, but mostly goes
through the Qurn phrase by phrase. All the other commentators,
though, discuss verse 5:51 within the context of a smaller group of
verses, usually Q 5:51-53, just like Sayyid Qub112 and Tafsr al-Manr.113
ey consider verses 52 and 53114 to be an explanation of verse 51,
warning the believers against emulating the behaviour of the hypocrites
towards the Jews and Christians and foretelling their downfall.
Only six commentators use the technique of munsaba, i.e. pointing
out how the verse is connected to previous verses. While Ab Zahra
and the Departemen Agama do so, but seem to consider this an oblig-
atory act that does not contribute to their analysis of the verse proper,
aww, Quraish Shihab, the Diyanet commentary and Bayrakl draw
upon the inner-Qurnic context in order to develop their interpreta-
tion of Q 5:51. All agree that there is some type of causality between
the preceding sections of sra 5 and verse 51. However, there are two
distinctly dierent ways to explain the exact nature of said causality:
Either the preceding sections (Q 5:12-50) describe the negative beaviour
112)
For Qub, just like for aww, these three verses constitute a subsection of Q 5:51-66.
e edition used is, Sayyid Qub, F ill al-Qurn, 6th ed., n.p. and n.d.
113)
Only the shorter commentaries by Karaman et al., Tuaylab (both Q 5:51-56) and
al-Bz (Q 5:51-57) choose larger groups of verses in order to t the sections into their
general structure. Quraish Shihab sees Q 5:51-56 as a thematic unit, but does not discuss
this unit as a whole. He interprets verse 51 together with verse 52.
114)
(52) Yet thou seest those in whose hearts is sickness vying with one another to come
to them, saying, We fear lest a turn of fortune should smite us. But it may be that God
will bring the victory, or some commandment from Him, and then they will nd themselves,
for that they kept secret within them, remorseful, (53) and the believers will say, What,
are these the ones who swore by God most earnest oaths that they were with you? eir
works have failed and now they are losers.
of specic Jews and Christians, so that Q 5:51 is mainlyor onlyan

interdiction of taking those who behave in such a way as awliy; or
they explain why it is in the very nature of all Jews and Christians to
be wrongdoers, preparing the believer to understand and accept the
categorical interdiction that Q 5:51 contains, according to this point
of view. While Quraish Shihab and the Diyanet commentary seem to
favour the rst point of view115, which greatly narrows the scope of the
interdiction from the outset, aww and Bayrakl uphold the second
perspective.116
B. e Identity of ose One should not Take as Awliy

ese dierences of opinion are only part of a larger question: Whom,
exactly, are the believers forbidden from taking as awliy? Does the
verse mean all Jews and Christians, or only those who are inimical
towards Islam? And does the inner logic of the Qurnic context not
suggest that all kinds of non-Muslims are meant, instead of only Jews
and Christians?
e question whether the verse only means hostile non-Muslims is,
of course, pointless if one assumes that all Jews and Christiansor all
non-Muslimsare inimical towards Islam by their very nature, like
several commentators do, whether implicitly or explicitly. Conse-
quently, several of them indiscriminately use the term unbelievers
(krn) when talking about the Jews and Christians the verse refers
to, or at least see the krn who are not People of the Book as princi-
pally equivalent to Jews and Christians.117 Al-Sharw even talks of Jews
and Christians as polytheists (mushrikn).118
e other commentatorsincluding all non-Arabsare more care-
ful with respect to the terminology they use; they avoid talking about
unbelievers or even mushrikn in this context, but limit themselves to
using the terms Jews and Christians, People of the Book and non-
Muslims, which indicates that they accord the Jews and Christians a
certain status they do not accord to others.
115)
Cf. Shihab, Tafsir, III (2001), 113; Karaman et al., II (2003), 234.
116)
Cf. aww, III, 1439f.; Bayrakl, VI (2007), 56.
117)
aww, al-Jazir, al-Zuayl, Tuaylab, Abd al-Azz and the Davetinin Tefsiri.
118)
Al-Sharw, 3197.
Quraish Shihab holds the opinion that the verse does neither pertain
to Jews and Christians only, nor to all Jews and Christians, but that it
rather means all those who behave in the negative way depicted in 5:51-
53 and the preceding passages of the Qurn.119
Hamka makes the observation that the verse explicitly talks of Jews
and Christians, rather than using the term People of the Book which,
according to him, would be a honoric title. It would be unsuitable
here, he says, as the verse does not refer to their scriptures that in their
original form did not deviate from the divine truth, but to their frac-
tions who follow their egoistic interests and turned away from the pure
religion of God.120
C. e Meaning of Awliy
e central exegetical problem in Q 5:51 is the correct understand-
ing of the Arabic words awliy (plural of wal) and tawall, both
derived from the root w-l-y. Both words refer to the kind of relation-
ship a believer is forbidden from establishing with Jews and Christians.
e Arab commentators all deem it appropriate to explain or discuss
these terms. All of them basically translate awliy as helpers, sup-
porters, assistants and most of them add a dimension of sympathy or
liking. Nevertheless, there exist among them three distinctly dierent
approaches towards describing the exact nature of the relationship a
believer should not have with Jews and Christians, which are expressed
by three dierent Arabic nouns derived from the root w-l-y. ey choose
the following terms to describe this relationship: muwlh, walya/
wilya121 and wal.
Of these, only muwlh, denoting friendship, seems to have been
used by classical commentators.122 is term is also used by al-Khab,
119)
Shihab, Tafsir, III (2001), 113.
120)
Hamka, VI, 274.
121)
None of the commentators who use this term uses diacritical signs in order to make
clear whether they mean wilya or walya.
122)
At least, this is the case for the commentaries of al-abar, al-Zamakhshar, Fakhr
al-Dn al-Rz, al-Qurub, Ibn Kathr, al-Bayw, al-Jallayn, al-Shawkn and al-Als
al-Baghdd, which are most frequently cited by the modern commentators included in
this study. e editions used are: Ab Jafar Muammad b. Jarr al-abar, Tafsr al-abar.
Jmi al-bayn an tawl y al-Qurn, Cairo 1957; Mamd b. Umar al-Zamakhshar,
anw (but by both of them not exclusively), al-Zuayl, Abd al-Azz,

al-Jazir and Tuaylab. Al-Bz uses it as well, but he more often employs
the noun wal, denoting allegiance or loyalty, in which he emulates
Sayyid Qub. Another commentator who opts for wal is aww,
certainly not by coincidence; both al-B and aww are heavily
indebted to Sayyid Qub, who understands the verse exclusively as an
injunction against giving ones allegiance to anyone but the believers.123
aww points the reader to his previous book, e Army of GodIts
Culture and Values (Jund Allh thaqfatan wa-akhlqan), where he
explained the importance of loyalty to God in more detail. e term
wal (vela in Turkish spelling) is also used by the Davetinin Tefsiri and
by Abd al-Karm al-Khab124. e use of the term wal, with relation
to Q 5:51, clearly indicates a Salaf orientation and constitutes a break
with tradition, for the word wal, although not modern itself, had
not been used by premodern exegetes to explain the meaning of this
particular verse. e same is true for walya, denoting friendship, but
also guardianship or legal power over someone, or wilya, denoting
authority, rule or leadership. Ris and Abduhs Tafsr al-Manr uses
the term interchangeably with muwlh; this holds true for al-Sharw,
too, who says that walya means help from someone who feels an urge
al-Kashshf an aqiq al-tanzl wa-uyn al-aqwl f wujh al-tawl, Beirut n.d. [1996];
Fakhr al-Dn Muammad b. Umar al-Rz, al-Tafsr al-kabr aw maft al-ghayb, Beirut
2005; Ab Abdallh Muammad b. Amad al-Anr al-Qurub, al-Jmi li-akm
al-Qurn, Cairo 1967; Isml b. Umar Ibn Kathr, Tafsr al-Qurn al-am, Cairo n.d.
[ca. 1960]; Abdallh b. Umar al-Bayw, Tafsr al-Bayw al-musamm Anwr al-tanzl
wa-asrr al-tawl, Beirut 1996; Jall al-Dn al-Maall and Jall al-Dn al-Suy, Tafsr
al-Qurn al-karm, Cairo 1966; Muammad b. Al al-Shawkn, Fat al-qadr al-jmi
bayna fannay al-riwya wa-l-dirya min ilm al-tafsr, Beirut 2005; Mamd b. Abdallh
al-ls al-Baghdd, Ru al-man f tafsr al-Qurn al-am wa-l-sab al-mathn, Beirut
1994.
123)
e term wal is also part of the formula al-wal wa-l-bara (loyalty and rejection),
which seems to have been developed by Wahhabite ideologues in the 19th century and plays
a central role in the modern jihadist discourse; Q 5:51 is fundamental to this concept. Cf.
Stphane Lacroix, Ayman al-Zawahiri, der Veteran des Dschihads, in: Gilles Kepel and
Jean-Pierre Milelli (eds.), Al-Qaida. Texte des Terrors, Munich and Zurich 2006, 271296
[291f.].
124)
Which could be an indication of al-Khabs presumed proximity to the Muslim
Brotherhood. He also bases his interpretation of Q 3:28 on the term wal. Cf. al-Khab,
II, 429f.
to help you.125 Ab Zahra and anw, however, both interpret the

term in a sense much closer to rule or leadership. anw denes it as
unity with the enemies of Islam by asking them for help and entering
an alliance with them against the believers.126 Ab Zahra says it means
to accept Jews and Christians as leaders, to become their allies and to
rally under their banner.127 e scope of the interdiction is thus shifted
to a political act of allegiance to unbelievers; in anws case it is nar-
rowed down to those alliances that are directed against believers.
Indonesian and Turkish commentators face the diculty of not only
having to explain the term, but also to translate it. Both Hamka and
the Departemen Agamas commentary translate awliy as leaders
(pemimpin-pemimpin), which is quite in line with Ab Zahras explana-
tion (and rather far from everybody elses). In this, they, like nearly
every other translator, uncritically copy earlier translations into modern
Indonesian, like Mahmud Yunuss (1935) or Ahmad Hassans (1928
56).128 Neither of the two commentaries discusses the meaning of the
word wal or the translation they chose for it at all, thus leaving the
Indonesian reader with the impression that the word in question has
only one unambiguous meaning, i.e. leader. Quraish Shihab, on the
other hand, expressly criticises this translation for being too narrow; in
his opinion, the word wal encompasses a broad range of meanings, all
125)
Al-Sharw, 3195.
126)
anw, IV (1992), 189.
127)
Ab Zahra, 2239.
128)
See Mahmud Junus, Tafsir Alqurnlkarim bahasa Indonesia, 3rd ed., Bandung and
Jakarta 1951, 106; A. Hassan, Al-Furqn. Tafsir Qurn, Jakarta 2006, 203; Zainuddin
H. Hamidy and Fachruddin Hs., Tafsir Qurn. Naskah asli Terdjemah Keterangan,
6th ed., Jakarta 1973, 160; Departemen Agama, Al-Quran dan terjemahnya, Rev. ed., Jakarta
1989, 169; Bachtiar Surin, Adz Dzikraa. Terjemah & tafsir Alquran dalam huruf Arab &
Latin, Bandung 1987, II, 464; H. A. Nazri Adlany, H. Hanae Tamam, and H. A. Faruq
Nasution, Al Quran terjemah Indonesia, Jakarta 1992, 209. Hasbi Ash Shiddieqy curiously
settles for pengendali urusanmu, which means someone in charge of your aairs and is a
translation of wal al-amr, rather than of wal (Hasbi Ash Shiddieqy, An-Nur, II, 1096f.).
e translation by H. M. Kasim Bakry, Imam M. Nur Idris, and A. Dr. Madjoindo,
Al-Qurn-ul-Hakim. Beserta Terdjemah dan Tafsirnja, Jakarta 1964, 71, chooses pembantu
or helper, which is much closer to the meaning the Arab commentators give. Similarly,
the Ahmadiyah translation uses penolong, which also means helper; Ahmadiyah [Panitia
Penterdjemah Tafsir al-Qurn Djemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia], Al-Qurn dengan Terjemah
dan tafsir singkat, 3rd ed., Jakarta 1970, 408.
denoting some form of closeness. What is meant in this verse, accord-

ing to Quraish Shihab, is a degree of closeness that leads to the blurring
and disappearence of all dierences; in this interpretation, he relies on
the Shiite exegete al-abab.129 Ultimately, he refrains from translat-
ing the word altogether, but leaves it as auliya in his Indonesian version
of the verse.
e Diyanet commentary chooses the same approach, translating
wal as veli. All other Turkish commentaries translate the word as dost,
meaning friend and implying a certain degree of intimacy, in com-
parison with arkada, which also means friend, but is not used by any
of the commentators. By translating wal as dost, they follow the still
popular Elmall Tefsri and also the Diyanets ocial translation.130 Kar-
aman et al. and Bayrakl discuss the meaning of the word in much
detail; while the Diyanet commentary maintains that the word denotes
a high degree of intimacy, trust and moral and spiritual agreement,
Bayrakl emphasises that a wal, besides being a friend one can conde
in, is someone in charge of your aairs [vekl], someone you authorise
to solve your problems. is comes close to the leadership approach
favoured by Hamka, Ab Zahra and the Departemen Agama.
D. e limits of the interdiction

If it is thus forbidden to take non-Muslims as awliy, whichever
meaning one accords to the word, what impact does this have on the
everyday relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims? Is a Muslim
allowed to employ a non-Muslim, be friendly towards him or sym-
pathise with him?
Five commentaries, all of them originally Arabicthe Saudi Arabian
ulam al-Jazir and Tuaylab, the jihadist Davetinin Tefsiri, Amr
Abd al-Azz and al-Sharw, who generally has a less than positive
attitude towards non-Muslimsdo not address these questions at all,
thus reading the verse as a categorical interdiction of any kind of close
relationships with non-Muslims.
129)
Shihab, Tafsir, III (2001), 115f.
130)
Cf. http://www.diyanet.gov.tr/kuran/Kuran_Meali/KURAN.pdf, accessed Sept. 8, 2008.
All of the other commentaries express at least some qualications.

Al-Khab, for example, stresses that the verse does neither call for hos-
tility towards non-Muslim and nor for the severance of all ties.131 Both
al-Bz and aww quote Sayyid Qub, who briey mentions the per-
missibility of tolerance (sama) towards non-Muslims; however, the
quotation goes on to emphasise that a Muslim and a non-Muslim have
nothing in common and that their aspirations and ideals will never
meet, making any attempt at interreligious dialogue utterly ridiculous
and even dangerous. Al-B nevertheless points out that keeping up
good relations (usn al-tamul ) is required.132 aww says, after having
quoted Sayyid Qub, that pacts with non-Muslims, especially those
establishing a dhimma relationship, are allowed; like al-Zuayl, he also
regards alliances, treaties and other kinds of interaction with worldly
purposes as permissible, as long as they are necessary or advantageous
for the Muslim community and do not involve an emotional attach-
ment.133 Along the same lines, Ate thinks that alliances with non-
hostile Jews and Christians should be permitted as long as they do not
equal an intimate friendship; furthermore, Muslims should strive to
live in peace with non-hostile non-Muslims.134 Bayrakl, too, sees peace-
ful social relations as desirable, especially as not all non-Muslims are
deceitful; however, those who are not deceitful are, according to him,
rare exceptions that do not aect the overall relevance of the inter-
diction.135 e commentary of the Departemen Agama does not make
any such exceptions; while allowing for interaction between Muslims
and non-Muslims, it advises Muslims to be extremely careful because
breaches of contracts and lies are normal behaviour for Jews and Chris-
tians.136
Hamkas commentary is the most detailed on this matter and shows
clearly how much he is inuenced by the experience of colonialism.
His analysis relies strongly on his rather inaccurate translation of awliy
as leaders. He writes:
131)
Al-Khab, III, 1113.
132)
aww, III, 1441f.; al-Bz, I, 350f.
133)
aww, III, 1444f.
134)
Ate, III, 14.
135)
Bayrakl, VI (2007), 59.
136)
Departement agama (ed.), II, 443f.
is verse makes it clear that the interdiction refers to the act of taking them
as leaders. However, social intercourse between self-condent [or self-aware]
people is not prohibited. For example, now that the countries of the Islamic
world have become free, we will have economic contacts, and we will not
isolate ourselves. [...] Likewise, there is no prohibition against getting along
well with neighbours who have a dierent religion. [...] We, the Muslims,
are allowed to marry women from among the ahl al-kitb without the need
for the woman to embrace Islam rst, because it is the husband who is in
charge of the house, not the wife. However, the legal scholars of Islam agree
that Muslim men who are Muslims only by name are not allowed to marry
a woman who belongs to a dierent religion because the sh might end up
stealing the shing rod. [...] In an Islamic state, the Muslim ruler is allowed
to trust adherents of other religions to hold an oce because the ultimate
leadership lies in the hands of Islam. erefore, there is no reason to worry.
But if misgivings arise, it is not allowed.137
Hamka is the only one of the commentators to mention the relation

between Q 5:51 and the permissibility of a Muslim man marrying a
Christian or Jewish wife.
A number of commentators discuss the nature of permissible and
unpermissible relations with non-Muslims in the light of seemingly
conicting Qurnic verses or prophetic traditions, most often Q 60:8.
Ab Zahra writes:
e second question that arises is this: Is a Muslim allowed to be friends

with a non-Muslim (baynah wa-bayn ghayr al-Muslim mawadda)? Or does
he have to keep himself as far apart from the latter as possible? Our reply is
the following: Two texts have been transmitted that at rst glance seem to
contradict each other. e rst one consists of the prophets words: eir
res [i.e. those of the Muslims and those of the unbelievers] should not be
visible to each other.138 e other one is Gods word God forbids you not,
as regards those who have not fought you in religions cause, nor expelled
you from your habitations, that you should be kindly to them, and act justly
towards them; surely God loves the just. (Q 60:8)
137)
Hamka, VI, 278f.
138)
From a adth transmitted by al-Nis and Ab Dwd. Tafsr al-Manr argues
vehemently against interpreting this adth as a prescription of the total severance of
relations with non-Muslims. See Muammad Abduh and Muammad Rashd Ri, Tafsr
al-Qurn al-akm, 1st ed., Cairo, VI [1911], 428f.
ese two texts can be accomodated with each other in that the rst one
refers to those who cause trouble for Islam and conspire against it, while the
second one explicitly refers to those who mean Islam no harm.139
Ab Zahra then goes on to explain that there are three categories of

non-Muslims. e rst group lives in peace with Muslims and does not
help their enemies. ey should have the same rights and obligations
as Muslims, and it is allowed to show friendship and liking for them
according to Q 60:8. e second category contains those who ght and
conspire against Muslims. It is not allowed to be friends with them.
e third category consists of those who do not show open hostility
towards Islam, but secretly wish for its defeat and support its enemies.
ey should be treated like hypocrites (munqn): Muslims should
live in peace with them and not expose them unless they expose them-
selves, but they should be wary and cautious with respect to them.
anws explanations on this issue are nearly identical with Ab
Zahras, including the rhetorical question at the beginning of the para-
graph and the description of each of the three categories.140 Quraish
Shihab also takes up this categorisation, citing anw as his source.141
Al-Zuayl likewise lists three categories of unbelievers, using dif-
ferent words but making essentially the same distinction as the other
three commentators; he gives the prophetic sra as his source, without
specifying this any further.142 In fact, however, the whole passage is
taken from Amad Mutaf al-Marghs Tafsr al-Margh.143
An important question with regard to the relationship between Mus-
lims and non-Muslims concerns the permissibility of giving non-Mus-
lims employment, within or outside the service of the Muslim state.
139)
Ab Zahra, 2240f.
140)
Cf. Ab Zahra, 2241; anw, IV, 195. Either both of them have used a common
source, which none of them mentions and which I have been unable to identify, or anw,
who published this part of his commentary between 1977 and 1979, has copied Ab Zahra,
who died in 1974. e latter option is conceivable, as Ab Zahra had published parts of
his commentary, including the commentary on the fth sra, in the magazine Liw
al-Islm, probably around 1960. Cf. Ab Zahra, 14, 22.
141)
Shihab, Tafsir, III (2001), 116f.
142)
Al-Zuayl,VI, 224.
143)
Amad Muaf al-Margh, Tafsr al-Margh, Cairo 1953, II, 135.
Ab Zahra, anw and Karaman et al. all emphasise that it is not

allowed to appoint non-Muslims to positions in which they could dis-
cover state secrets or to make them ones condents, else they could
cause confusion.144 Ab Zahra and anw, in this context, both cite
a adth about Umar b. al-Khab who disapproved of the fact that
his governor in Bara, Ab Ms al-Ashar, had a Christian scribe and
told Ab Ms to get rid of him.145
aww quotes the same adth, but cautiously remarks that whether
or not it is permissible to give a dhimm employment is very much
dependent on the circumstances and should be decided in a fatw by
a qualied scholar.146
Ate quotes Rashd Ri on this issue, who in Tafsr al-Manr had
turned against al-Bayws restrictive view. In the passage quoted, Ri
describes a discussion with a Turkish student in which the latter asked
why the state sometimes appoints Jews and Christians as ministers,
senators, parliamentarians or civil servants. Ri replied that this ques-
tion bears no relation to the issue of wilya, which means helping non-
Muslims against Islam but does not prevent the state from employing
qualied non-Muslims who are not hostile against Islam.147 is story
implies that Christians and Jews can even be given high political oces
as long as sovereignty lies with a Muslim ruler, which is equivalent to
Hamkas argument and constitutes the most liberal view among those
expressed in the contemporary commentaries.
Ates endeavor to narrow the applicability of the verse and to qual-
ify its meaning becomes particularly apparent in his summary of the
main rules contained in the sra:
It has been ordained [by God] that not solely Jews and Christians shall be
taken as close friends. Not the establishment of friendship with Jews and
Christians is forbidden here, but taking them as wals, entering into a
relationship of protection. Friendship is one thing, taking someone as wal
is another thing. Muslims have to rely rst and foremost upon themselves,
upon those who belong to them.148
144)
Ab Zahra, 2241; anw, IV, 195: Karaman et al., II (2003), 235.
145)
Ab Zahra, 2240; anw, IV, 190.
146)
aww, III, 1427.
147)
Ate, III, 15.
148)
Ate, III, 90.
E. ey are friends of each other

ey are friends of each other: is simple statement allows for two
dierent interpretations, and it is at this point that the commentators
invariably reveal much of their ideological orientation. e classical
exegetesor at least those who explicitly discuss this issuewere
divided with regard to the question whether the Jews are the Jews
friends, to the exclusion of all others, and the Christians likewise; or
whether Jews and Christians are rmly united in their enmity against
Islam. e implications are far-reaching; for the proponents of the rst
interpretation merely maintain that the adherents of any religion will
only be fully loyal towards their coreligionists, while the proponents of
the second view hold that Jews and Christians are united in conspiracy
and aggression against Islam. Al-abar was rmly in favour of the rst
view, arguing that Jews and Christians are frequently in strife with each
other, and many of the exegetes of the 19th and early 20th centuries
follow him, like al-Als, al-Shawkn, Abduh and Ri, Elmall and
al-hir b. shr. Al-Zamakhshar, al-Qurub, al-Bayw and Tafsr
al-Jallayn, on the other hand, pointed to the Christians and Jews
unitedness in unbelief (kufr) and saw no reason why they should not
be each others awliy, especially against Islam. For Sayyid Qub, it was
an eternal truth, a truth rooted in the nature of things, that Christians
and Jews will be the enemies of the Muslim community in any place
and at any time.149
In contrast to classical exegetes, some of whom did not discuss the
issue, all contemporary commentators deem it worthy of explicit dis-
cussion. Only four of them, however, follow al-abars interpretation:
al-Khab, al-Jazir, the Diyanet commentary, which explicitly refers
to al-abar and Elmall Tefsiri at this point, and Bayraktar Bayrakl.150
aww, on the other hand, maintains that the phrase refers to the
adth which says that unbelief is a single community (al-kufr milla
wida) against Islam and the Muslims; he adds that it would be stupid
to forget this truth.151 e Indonesian Departemen Agama claims that
149)
Qub, II, part 6, 194.
150)
Al-Khab, III, 1114; al-Jazir, I, 540f.; Karaman et al., II, 234; Bayrakl, VI, 57.
151)
aww, III, 1426.
they always help each other among themselves, and they are united in
their enmity towards the believers.152
e remaining eleven exegetes lean towards the latter point of view
while at the same time realising that Jews and Christians have, in actual
fact, often been at odds with each other. Some also feel a need to
account for Q 2:113, which refers to the dierences between Jews and
Christians by stating e Jews say, e Christians stand not on any-
thing; the Christians say, e Jews stand not on anything.
e attempt to balance both aspectsfrequent discordance between
Jews and Christians, but their unity against Muslimscan lead to a
certain amount of confusion, as exemplied in Tuaylabs commentary,
which categorically upholds both the rst and the second point of view.153
Most commentators, though, argue more coherently, saying that in
principle, Jews are loyal to Jews and Christians to Christians, but that
both groups are enemies of Islam and will not hesitate to unite against
it.
Al-Sharw explains, after mentioning Q 2:113:
We are thus facing three parties, Jews, Christians, and polytheists; the
polytheist Quraysh say exactly the same as the two fractions of ahl al-kitb,
even though there are irresolvable dierences among them and each of them
rejects the other one. God says: We have stirred up enmity and hatred among
them. (Q 5:14) How can God, after all this, say ey are friends of each
other? is is a matter that requires the standpoint of belief in order to see
the complete picture. We know that it is true, with respect to those who
deviate from the path of truth, that there are dierences between them about
earthly power, but that they will unite as soon as they face a giant who is
able to tear down their whole construction of lies. is is what we see in real
life: e Army of the Eastin earlier timeswas ghting against the Army
of the West, but as soon as something connected to Islam arrived, they would
come to an agreement, in spite of the Eastern Armys defeat; for Islam and
its way are a threat for both and for their rule, while it is, in reality, a mercy
for them.154
Ab Zahra sees evidence for the Jews and Christians joint aggression
against Islam not only in history, but also in present times:
152)
Departemen Agama (ed.), II, 444.
153)
Tuaylab, II, 768f.
154)
Al-Sharw, 3196.
It seems to me that the verse points to both meanings: e Christians are

loyal towards each other, and the Jews likewise, and both always conspire
against the Muslims, as can be seen in our present times. e entire Christian
world supports the Jews in their seizure of Islamic soil and its transfer to the
Jews. Although they claim to be impartial, they still take sides against the
Muslims and support the establishment of a state on a religious basis.155
Hamkawho is very much inuenced by the experience of colo-

nialismis even more detailed and concrete in the evidence he provides
for the continuing conspiracy against Islam. He acknowledges: Since
the times in which Christ lived, the Jews have been the enemies of the
Christians; and whenever the Christians were in a position of strength,
they took cruel revenge for this enmity. However, he continues, they
are not adverse to collaborating against Islam, which he sees exemplied
in the proceedings of the Indonesian Constituent Assembly that con-
vened at Bandung. While the Islamist party aimed a the inclusion of a
clause that stipulated the application of the shara to all Muslims, the
fractions that were opposed to Islam, according to Hamka, were united
in their opposition against this clause and prevented its inclusion: Cath-
olics, Protestants, nationalist, socialist and communist parties. He then
turns his attention to international events. 1964, he says, Pope Paul VI.
declared an amnesty for the Jewish religion.156 is was, in his opinion,
a political act:
e Jewish powers, who are extremely wealthy, had to unite with the
Christians in their enmity towards the Islamic threat. en, in 1967, the
Arab states were attacked by the Jews within four days, and Jerusalem (Baitul
Maqdis) was seized from the Muslims hands, who had held it for 14 centuries.
en, suddenly, the Catholic Church comes up with the idea of transferring
the sovereignty over the Muslims Holy Landa sovereignty that had been
passed on from generation to generation by the Arabs for more than 1300
yearsto an international entity. In other words: to the United Nations,
while those who have all the power within the Unites Nations are the Christian
states (Catholic France, Protestant America, Anglican Britain) and Russia
(Communist).157
155)
Ab Zahra, 2242.
156)
It is unclear whether he refers to the Popes recognition of Israel in 1964 or to the
declaration Nostra Aetate on the relation of the church to non-Christian religions, which
was passed by the Second Vatican Council and proclaimed by the Pope in October 1965.
157)
Hamka, VI, 274f.
Even though most commentators do not make reference to contem-

porary events, it seems clear that their perception of the relationship
between Jews and Christians is shaped by their political views. While
two of the three originally Turkish commentators follow al-abars
moderate views, which, as mentioned above, had a number of adherents
in early modern exegesis, few of the Arab and none of the Indonesian
commentators do so. In the Arab case, it is safe to say that the Israeli-
Palestinian conict, which Ab Zahra plainly refers to, plays an impor-
tant role; colonial experiences may have had an additional impact. ey
are certainly important for the Indonesian commentators, who are also
strongly inuenced by Arab discourses, as evidenced in Hamkas strong
reaction to the 1967 occupation of Palestine and Quraish Shihabs
general reliance on Arabic sources.
F. e consequences of violating the interdiction

After the nature of the interdiction and the reasons for it have been
explained, it remains to clarify what, exactly, the consequences of taking
Jews and Christians as awliy would be. e verse states: Whoso of
you makes them his friends [yatawallahum] is one of them. God guides
not the people of the evildoers. Does this mean that any Muslim who
makes Jews or Christians his friends is an apostate? Pronouncing such
a judgment would be tantamount to takfr, a highly sensitive issue in
Muslim religious discourse. Consequently, many of the modern exegetes
discuss this portion of the verse with caution. While all of them agree
that a Muslim who takes Jews and Christians as awliy is an evildoer
(lim), and many devote lengthy discussions to the way in which such
a person wrongs himself as well as the Muslims and God, most of them
are hesitant to explicitly qualify him as an unbeliever (kr) or apostate
(murtadd), which would imply that an earthly punishment is required.
Ab Zahra points out that Ibn Abbs interpets the phrase one of
them in the way of an analogy, meaning that he is like them with
respect to his hostility against Islam. However, he prefers al-abars
interpretation that one who takes the Jews and Christians as awliy
really is one of them, and will be judged just like them.158 Still, although
158)
Ab Zahra, 2242.
he quotes a lengthy passage from al-abars commentary, he refrains

from including that part of it in which it is plainly stated that said per-
son is an apostate and has to be executed unless he repents.159 Al-Zuayl
likewise follows al-abar in his interpretation, but not in the pro-
nouncement of the death sentence, even though he reproduces a state-
ment from al-Qurub which explicitly says that a Muslim does not
inherit from someone who thus became an apostate; he apparently is
not as hesitant to address the issue of ridda as he is to make reference
to capital punishment for it.160
anw quotes the same passage from al-abars commentary as
Ab Zahra and al-Zuayl, which states categorically that nobody will
ever take Jews and Christians as awliy unless he agrees with their reli-
gion; however, right after this quotation and not quite logically, anw
adds that if one does make them his friends not because he agrees with
their religion, but merely for the sake of cordial relations, he is merely
a sinner, the gravity of his sin depending on circumstances; this argu-
ment strongly modies al-abars reasoning.161 e Turkish Diyanet
commentary argues along the same lines, referring to Ibn shrs rea-
soning.162
Only the Wahhabite al-Jazir explicitly classies the friendship with
unbelievers against the interests of the believers as ridda.163 e jihadist
Davetinin Tefsiri is completely unconcerned about pronouncing takfr,
stating that someone who takes unbelievers as friends is an unbeliever
(kr) himself, no matter how often he might claim to be a Muslim
and to act in the best interest of Islam.164 Al-Sharw classies the action
of taking unbelievers as awliy as polytheism by hypocrisy (shirk
al-nifq); his tendency to call up the sin of shirk in his commentary on
this verse might be indicative of a certain Salaf tendency.
e Indonesian commentaries take a particular point of view with
regard to the status of the person who takes Jews and Christians
as awliy; it diers distinctly from those of the Turkish and Arab
159)
Al-abar, X, 400.
160)
Al-Zuayl, al-Tafsr al-munr, VI, 228; al-Qurub, VI, 217.
161)
anw, IV, 190.
162)
Karaman et al., II (2003), 234f.
163)
Al-Jazir, I, 542.
164)
Davetinin Tefsiri, commentary on Q 5:51, no page number given.
commentators and seems to reect both Indonesias colonial history

and the situation of a country in which orthodox Muslims are a minor-
ity among those who nominally belong to Islam. In a religious setting
characterised by syncretism and religious pluralism, takfr against all
those who have close relations with adherents of other religions would
have rather far-reaching consequences that the Indonesian commenta-
tors are obviously keen to avoid.
Accordingly, Quraish Shihab, far from condemning those who take
Jews and Christians as their protectors and from declaring them unbe-
lievers, does not even include them in the category of hypocrites. He
thinks that they are not yet rm enough in their belief and still suer-
ing from doubts, which causes them to seek the protection of strong
allies, even if those do not share their religion. ey are not, however,
consciously seeking to deceive the Muslims, and they are certainly to
be considered believers.165
e Departemen Agama commentary explains that those who take
Jews and Christians as close friends will be inuenced by them and
belong to their group without realising it. Eventually, such a person
will become an enemy of Islam, even though that was not his intention
from the outset. Here, too, believers are warned from unwanted results
of their actions, rather than condemned as hypocrites or unbelievers.166
Hamka elaborates extensively on this portion of the verse. He argues
that belonging to them means sympathising, and colonial history
is his prime example.
Please consider how the one thing the peoples of the Christian colonisers
who subjugated the lands of Islam have from the outset made every eort
to do was teaching their language, so that the colonised Muslim population
thinks in the language of the colonisers; their mastery of their own language
then becomes decient, and they will be inuenced by the civilisation and
culture of the Christian peoples who colonised them. e longer this goes
on, the more dwindles the fullment of religious duties within the colonised
umma; the basis of their thought vanishes, and the development of their own
language decreases. Finally, the colonising peoples are those they consider to
be highly developed. [...] eir attitude towards religion is condescending
165)
Shihab, Tafsir, III (2001), 117.
166)
Departemen Agama (ed.), II (2003) , 444.
and cynical, it is full of indierence; they call themselves intellectuals who

demand a rational explanation of religion. But their mind is already
indoctrinated by foreign education so that the truth cannot enter it any more.
[...] It is not their mind, which is sharp and rational, that has changed, but
their soul, so that everything that is good is with the peoples who have
colonised them, and everything that is bad is with the adherents of their own
religion. [...]
Sometimes they still practice the religion of Islam, but the truth of Islam
has already vanished from their souls.
Hamka goes on to describe the example of a practicing Indonesian

Muslim who gave the Dutch inside information on how to break the
resistance of the Acehnese people and concludes: ey have become
Christians without being aware of it.167
Still, like Quraish Shihab, he does not allege that they have inten-
tionally sought to make friends with the unbelievers in order to harm
Islam, but rather that they have been gradually infected by the results
of their relationship with non-Muslims, which is characterised by inse-
curity or an inferiority complex. e solution would lie in strengthen-
ing the belief and the self-condence of Muslims and in educating
them, rather than expelling all perpetrators from the community of
believers.
G. e historical context of revelation and its exegetical relevance

Islamic tradition recounts a number of incidents which are supposed
to have resulted in the revelation of Q 5:51, and sometimes the subse-
quent verses, too. e most commonly transmitted of these occasions
of revelation (asbb al-nuzl) is the one that concerns the anr Ubda
b. al-mit and Abdallh b. Ubayy, who both had allies among the
Medinan Jews. When Ubda b. al-mit publicly disassociated himself
from his Jewish allies and declared his exclusive loyalty to God, his
prophet and the Muslim community, Abdallh refused to follow suit
for fear of losing his Jewish allies whom he thought he needed for pro-
tection. is episode would indicate that the verse was revealed in the
early Medinan period, before 624, while the Jewish tribes were not yet
in a state of war with the Muslim community.
167)
Hamka, VI, 276f.
Another sabab al-nuzl refers to Abdallh b. Ubayys pleading on

behalf of the Jewish tribe of the Ban Qaynuq, with whom he had
been allied and who had been beleaguered by the prophet and nally
submitted to his judgment. Abdallh, the story goes, protested so vehe-
mently against their execution that they were nally merely expelled
from Medina. e verse would thus have been revealed in 624, the year
of the expulsion of the Ban Qaynuq.
A third story refers to the Jewish tribe of the Ban Quraya, who
were beleaguered and nally surrendered. When they asked Ab
Lubba, a companion of the prophet, what Muammad was going to
do with them, he gestured at his throat, indicating their execution by
beheading. is act of conding the prophets plans to his enemies was,
according to some, inappropriate, resulting in the revelation of Q 5:51,
which would then have taken place in 627.
Finally, there is a story about two nameless men who told each other
about their respective Jewish and Christian friends who would protect
them in case of need if they followed them in their religion.
Al-abar, who provides a large number of traditions based on these
basic plots, concludes that there is no evidence for the authenticity of
any one of these stories to the exclusion of the others, but that, which-
ever of them is true, it can in any case be safely assumed that the verses
relate to a hypocrite who did not want to give up his friendship with
Jews or Christians for fear of losing their protection. In any case,
al-abar states that the verse should be interpreted according to its
evident and general meaning, not with specic reference to any occa-
sion of revelation.168
Ten of the contemporary commentators discuss the verses occasion
of revelation in one way or another. Five of them do not draw any con-
clusions from this, however.169
anw and Hamka, on the other hand, follow al-abars argument
almost to the letter in that the interdiction is in force with respect to
all believers at all times, not just in the specic context of revelation.170
Ab Zahra follows al-abar more loosely in stating that the verse
168)
Al-abar, X, 395-398.
169)
Al-Jazir, al-Zuayl, Abd al-Azz, the Departemen Agama and Bayrakl.
170)
anw, IV, 189; Hamka, VI, 279f.
certainly refers to one of the anr who had friends among the Jews; he
draws upon this general context to support his interpretion of the term
wal.171 aww recounts all four episodes and, surprisingly, seems to
regard all of them as true in some way; he points out that they all
describe one of the many manifestations of hypocrisy.172
Sleyman Ate states that the verse must have been revealed when
there was still a large group of Jews in Medina; he concludes from this
that the verse specically refers to a situation of war, when the opposing
group is a threat to the Muslim community and any friendship with
the enemy would result in a betrayal of secrets. is implies that the
verse bears no relevance to peaceful relations with non-Muslims.
Ate refers to a fact that escapes most of the other commentators
attention: All the suggested occasions of revelation would imply that
the verse was revealed prior to the rest of the fth sra, which is generally
agreed to be the last sra or the last but one to have been revealed. e
verse, or the whole paragraph, would thus constitute a later insertion.
aww quotes a lenghty paragraph by Sayyid Qub on exactly this
matter, in which Qub comes to the conclusion that the verse, and
indeed the whole section, must have been revealed before the Muslims
defeated the Jewish tribes of Medina, else it would have made no sense
to warn the hypocrites of being loyal to their Jewish allies. He thus
thinks the verses were revealed prior to the execution of the Ban
Quraya in 627, possibly even before the expulsion of the other tribes,
i.e. in 624 or earlier.173 aww does not, however, draw any conclusions
from this with regard to his interpretation of the verse.
It is apparent that citing potential occasions of revelation is, for many
of the modern commentators (just as for many earlier ones), something
that has to be done, and is often done quite extensively, but does not
have a particularly important exegetical function for any of them; some-
times, it has none at all. A few of the concise commentaries dispense
with it altogether; so does al-Sharw, who possibly did not want to
bore his TV audience with names and details of historical incidents,
171)
Ab Zahra, 2239f.
172)
aww, III, 1427.
173)
aww, III, 1440f.
and the rather recent commentaries by Quraish Shihab and the Turkish
Diyanet.
4. Conclusion
While the contemporary Qurnic commentaries that have been
examined in this article come to rather diverse conclusions with respect
to the exegetical problems pertaining to Q 5:51, the same holds true
for classical commentaries. What, then, is modern about the com-
mentaries discussed here? Which characteristics do they expose that
could not have been found in earlier commentaries?
Direct reference to contemporary events is certainly not something
that distinguishes them. Only three of them make any such reference:
aww quotes a passage from Sayyid Qubs commentary that briey
mentions the oppression against Muslims in various modern nation
states; Ab Zahra refers to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but
only in passing, whereas Hamka discusses modern history extensively
and in much detail, from making comparisons between the represent-
ative church buildings and the remote and modest mosques that,
according to him, have been built in colonial times, to lamenting the
inclusion of the works of Orientalists in university curricula.174
Hamkas obsession with colonialism and contemporary Judeo-Chris-
tian-Atheist conspiracies against Islam is certainly intriguing, but in
this respect, he is clearly an exception and not a typical example of
modern Qurnic exegesis.
However, while the vast majority of recent Qurnic commentaries
is not concerned with current events, there are a few aspects in which
many of them dier clearly from traditional exegesis. For one thing,
there is the way in which some commentators try to construct an inner
logic to the structure of the Qurn, something Sad aww, especially,
is very concerned with. For another, some of the more recent commen-
tariesespecially the ones by Quraish Shihab and Karaman et al.are
taking unusual care to reveal their sources and even to provide detailed
bibliographical references.
174)
Hamka, VI, 280.
Most notably, though, there is something striking and rather untra-

ditional about the approach that many of the commentators take
towards the purpose of their exegesis. ey are not primarily concerned
with meaning, but with relevance or, as many commentators put it,
guidance (hidya). eir aim is to educate, to derive easily digestible
and practicable rules from the Qurnic text, instead of examining and
discussing the text in a detached, scholarly way. In this, even some com-
mentaries that have no obvious inclination to Salaf ideas are reminis-
cent of Sayyid Qubs commentary, which is hugely popular precisely
due to his attempt to make the Qurnic message directly relevant for
believers.
It is due to this approach, which has little to do with understanding
the Qurnic text for its own sake, but a lot with a desire to educate
Muslims, that Bayraktar Bayrakl, to take just one example, writes:
Pedagogues have to raise, within the generations that are educated, an

awareness for the way in which friendships emerge in social relationships,
by teaching their scope of action, dimensions and depths. Generations who
do not know their friends and enemies will not nd their way in the turbulent
life of mankind.175
ere are rather few commentaries who show no tendency towards such
an educational, guidance-oriented approach, but follow traditional
methods and do not even make an attempt at concluding their anal-
ysis with a handy set of rules: anws commentary belongs in this
category, and so do Tuaylabs and Abd al-Azzs; Quraish Shihab and
Ab Zahra likewise are not much concerned with producing guidance,
in spite of the latters brief reference to the occupation of Palestine. All
these scholars are more or less closely connected to an Azharite tradition
and rooted in orthodox Sunnite scholarship.
ere is a second strand of tradition, however, and a much more
modern one that permeates many of the other commentaries: a number
of authors clearly rely on a Salaf tradition of understanding the Qurn,
not only with respect to the above-mentioned educational approach,
but also with consequences for the specics of exegesis. is is most
175)
Bayrakl, VI (2007), 60.
obvious in the way Sayyid Qub is amply quoted by several com-

mentators, but it is also apparent from details like the use of the term
wal by some, and of course from the acceptance of takfr by the most
radically Salaf commentators. Al-Khabs commentary seems to belong
in this category, as do awws and al-Jazirs, the Davetinin Tefsiri
and Anwar al-Bzs. Al-Sharw and Bayrakl, in their conservatism, at
least display certain Salaf characteristics. Quraish Shihab does cite
Sayyid Qub, but does not appear to be particularly inclined towards
Salaf views.
On the other hand, there are a few commentaries that clearly disas-
sociate themselves from any attempt at takfr and at severing the ties
between Muslims and non-Muslims. It has already been pointed out
that the Indonesian commentators are rather reluctant to condemn the
Muslims addressed in this verse as unbelievers. e same holds true for
anw, for Ate and for the Diyanet commentary. ose three com-
mentators and Quraish Shihab also strive to explain the verse in a way
that makes it applicable to situations of war only, while Hamka seems
to consider it a prescription tting a colonial situation.
All in all, it seems that the Arab commentators are, in their majority,
much more conservative, show a greater inclination towards Salaf ideas
and are much less accommodating towards non-Muslims than their
Turkish and Indonesian counterparts.

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Die Welt des Islams 50 (2010) 3-59

Tradition and Ideology in Contemporary Sunnite

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/157006010X489801

that are at least remotely up-to-date are scarce.5 e few comparative

hand, little or nothing can be found about the commentary of

and Turkish commentaries will be discussed. Shiite, Ibadite and other

A. Commentaries from the Arab World

(1) Abd al-Karm al-Khab (Egypt)11: Al-tafsr al-qurn li-l-Qurn

any depth, it states what each verse is supposed to mean, sometimes

(2) Muammad Ab Zahra (Egypt): Zahrat al-tafsr (incomplete,

extensive and quotes a large number of inner-Qurnic as well as exter-

(3) Muammad Sayyid anw (Egypt): Al-tafsr al-was li-l-Qurn

paraphrases the verse and then explains it in detail, phrase by phrase,

(4) Muammad al-Mutawall al-Sharw (Egypt): Tafsr al-Sharw

Shaykh al-Sharw was born in a Nile-Delta village in 1911. He

(5) Anwar al-Bz (Egypt): Al-tafsr al-tarbaw li-l-Qurn al-karm

to four. He goes on to explain the educational content in some detail,

(6) Amr Abd al-Azz (Iraq/Egypt/Palestine): Al-tafsr al-shmil

seem to have been re-edited, translated or cited by any of the other

(7) Sad aww (Syria): Al-ass f l-tafsr (11 volumes)35

(8) Wahba al-Zuayl (Syria): Al-tafsr al-munr f l-aqda wa-l-shara

the three.45 Writing three commentariesone of them large, one of

(9) Ab Bakr al-Jazir (Algeria/Saudi Arabia): Aysar al-tafsr li-l-kalm

(10) Abd al-Munim Amad Tuaylab (Egypt/Saudi Arabia): Fat

Faculty of eology (ul al-dn), where he obtained his rst degree.

B. Commentaries from Indonesia

(1) Hamka (Haji Abdulmalik b. Abdulkarim Amrullah): Tafsir al-Azhar

hagiographic character, attesting to his popularity.59 Hamka was born

(2) Departemen Agama (ed.): Al-Quran dan tafsirnya (11 volumes)66

not appear until 1975.67 e original committee that was in charge of

predecessor as head of the Fatw Committee and Hamkas successor as

recent commentary, but usually in a critical manner, in order to explain

(3) Muhammad Quraish Shihab: Tafsir al-Mishbh. Pesan, Kesan dan

Quraish Shihabs endeavour to write a new Indonesian commentary

the Qurnic revelation in its historical context than it does in linguis-

C. Commentaries from Turkey

(1) Sleyman Ate: Yce Kurnn ada Tefsri (12 volumes)86

continued to work as a lecturer, interrupted by his military service

His commentary has received a lot of attention in Turkey and has

(2) Hayrettin Karaman et al./Diyanet leri Bakanl Yaynlar: Kuran

Istanbul.95 Sadrettin Gm, born in 1945 in the district of Erzurum96,

(3) Bayraktar Bayrakl: Yeni Bir Anlayin Inda Kurn Tefsri

(4) Seifuddin El-Muvahhid: Davetinin Tefsiri (incomplete, 8 parts)104

for another, it is radically jihadist in its approach, which is likely to be

very practical sense, conducive to undertaking such a time-consuming

As mentioned above, Q 5:51 is a very suitable starting point for an

Conning ones focus to the interpretation of this particular verse of

A. e Place of the Verse within the Qurn

of specic Jews and Christians, so that Q 5:51 is mainlyor onlyan

B. e Identity of ose One should not Take as Awliy

anw (but by both of them not exclusively), al-Zuayl, Abd al-Azz,

to help you.125 Ab Zahra and anw, however, both interpret the

denoting some form of closeness. What is meant in this verse, accord-

D. e limits of the interdiction

All of the other commentaries express at least some qualications.

Hamka is the only one of the commentators to mention the relation

e second question that arises is this: Is a Muslim allowed to be friends

Ab Zahra then goes on to explain that there are three categories of

Ab Zahra, anw and Karaman et al. all emphasise that it is not

E. ey are friends of each other

It seems to me that the verse points to both meanings: e Christians are

Hamkawho is very much inuenced by the experience of colo-

Even though most commentators do not make reference to contem-