Intellectual rigour and piety al-qurtubi's approach to qur’anic commentary

Abstract

For the past two centuries, and under the influence of Protestant scholarship, Biblical exegetical method has been strictly bound to scientific analysis and historical criticism. This approach may have given the wrong impression that the exegete is merely concerned with a purely literary interpretation of a text in utter disregard of its divine authorship. On the contrary, most Biblical scholars are also people of profound faith and prayer and seek not only Anselm of Canterbury's method of fides quaerens intellectum, but also Pope (now Saint) John Paul II's response, intellectus quaerens fidem. Such an approach is not alien to classical Muslim commentary on the Qur' an, and the mediaeval commentator al-Qurtubi’s one fine example. The purpose of this article is to explore al-Qurtubi's position on this matter in the Introduction to his monumental tafsir (commentary) Al-Gami ' Ii Ahkam al-Qur'an al-Karim wa 'l-mubayyin Ii ma tadammana min al-Sunna wa 'ayat al-Furqan (The Compendium of [Legal) Rulings of the Qur 'an and the Clarification of the Contents of the Tradition and the Verses of the Criterion).