Change Through Continuity: A Case Study of Q. 4:34 in Ibn ʿĀshūr'sal-Taḥrīr wa'l-tanwīr

Abstract

In the context of ruptures and continuities in modern Qur'anic exegesis, this article brings attention to a modern tafsīr that has received scant attention in western scholarship, Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir b. ʿĀshūr's al-Taḥrīr wa'l-tanwīr. The significance of his tafsīr lies in its employment of premodern, philological hermeneutics to reach new interpretations, representing a unique approach in modern typologies of tafsīr, in that it seeks change through continuity with the tradition. As a case example, this article explores Ibn ʿĀshūr's ability to leverage premodern hermeneutics to reach an unprecedented interpretation of wa’ḍribūhunna, the last of three disciplinary measures prescribed for women who are guilty of nushūz in Q. 4:34. My findings dispel the common assumption that modern exegetes who utilise ‘innovative’ methods bring forth new interpretations, whereas those who do not employ such methods do not. Al-Taḥrīr wa'l-tanwīr counters intellectual currents within modern tafsīr that bypass the exegetical tradition by reviving the genre's classical, philological methods and employing them to reach new opinions for changed realities.