Mehmet Akif Koç
Isn?ds and Rij?l Expertise in the Exegesis of Ibn Ab? ??tim (327/939)
Like the commentary of al-?abar? (311/923), that of Ibn Ab? ??tim, of which an important part has survived, contains the exegetical reports of the first three centuries of Islam. The extant commentary covers from S?ra 1 to the end of S?ra 13 and from S?ra 23 to the end of S?ra 29. Ibn Ab? ??tim’s commentary has been edited and published in ten volumes by As?ad Mu?ammad al-?ayyib, but for several reasons this edition cannot be considered a successful work of scholarship. In al-?ayyib’s edition the isn?ds are numbered, but the editor prefers to use a naive and misleading method of numbering: on the one hand, he numbers the isn?ds contained in the existing manuscripts of this exegesis; on the other he has tried to complete the isn?ds of the missing part of Ibn Ab? ??tim’s commentary by using those later works that have benefited from Ibn Ab? ??tim’s work. Thus the original part of this exegesis is combined with its later compilations. Further, according to this edition, the latest isn?ds is given as number 19541. Although this figure is supposed to indicate the total number of isn?ds in the commentary, we find that there is a fundamental mistake in the numbering, especially after isn?d no. 9061, where this isn?d is followed by no. 8328, and the sequence continues 8329, 8330 ? and so on. Nor is this the only error. We find that the order is frequently disrupted. Because of these discrepancies in the numbering of the isn?ds we will give the page number in the footnotes concerning our own findings rather than referring to the editor’s numbering system. In addition, the large number of misreadings of text and misquoted names bears witness to the insufficiency of this edition. Despite these mistakes the publisher made no corrections in its second printing (1999), although this did include four-volume indices and takhr?j prepared by K?mil ?Uway?a. There thus remains an urgent need for a critical edition.
Der Islam, Walter de Gruyter
Print ISSN: 0021-1818
Volume: 82, 04/2005
Pages: 146 - 168
Show full article (external site)
Show all available items of this journal
Search
