Hafiz Ali Korcha’s Approach to Tafsir

Abstract

Abstract At the beginning of the XX century one of the people who contributed the most to Albania’s religious issues was Hafiz Ali Korcha. He wrote various works in different fields, including the Tafsir science in which he clearly expressed his contemporary and progressive approach. He wrote a non-systematic interpretation of the meaning of the Qur'an, a commentary on the short suras, on the completeness of the prophethood of Prophet Muhammad, and an independent interpretation of the allegory of the Surah Yusuf. This article analyses Hafiz Ali Korcha’s approach to the science of tafsir based on the main topics of tafsir methodology. The article consists of two parts. The first part provides a description of his work in the science of tafsir. The second part addresses main themes of the methodology of tafsir. The article concludes that Hafiz Ali Korcha was a very good connoisseur of methodological issues. In his work, the author followed certain principles, especially leaning towards the modernist school leaded by Muhammad Abduh. Keywords: Tafsir, Ali Korcha, interpretive tafsir, israiliyât, modernist approach.