The ‘Four Aspects of the Qur'an’ ḥadīth and the Evolution of Ṣūfī Exegesis until Shams al-Dīn al-Fanārī (d. 834/1431)

Abstract

‘The Qur'an was sent down in seven readings. Each letter of the Qur'an has an exterior and an interior. Each letter has a limit and each limit has an observation point’. This statement, attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad, has drawn the attention of both classical and modern scholars. Medieval Muslim scholars presented a variety of understandings regarding this ḥadīth in accordance with their different approaches to Qur'anic exegesis. Ṣūfī commentators on the Qur'an used the ḥadīth to justify their idea that Qur'anic verses had multiple meanings, including levels of esoteric meaning. This study traces selected important interpretations of the ḥadīth proposed by medieval Ṣūfī and non-Ṣūfī Muslim scholars, in order to show how Ṣūfī exegesis of the Qur'an passed through several transformational phases. Whereas the early Ṣūfī commentators differentiated only between literal and esoteric meanings in their interpretive practice, and their understanding of the ḥadīth did not extend beyond the scope of Qur'anic exegesis, later Ṣūfīs, such as the Akbarī School, employed the ḥadīth when building their ontological, exegetical, and even epistemological, theories, and they developed a fourfold exegetical system based on the notions of the ḥadīth. This system reached its climax in Shams al-Dīn al-Fanārī (d. 834/1431), the first Ottoman shaykh al-Islām. In his commentary, he draws parallels among ontological levels of existence, ontological levels of the divine speech, multiple Qur'anic meanings, and a hierarchy of spiritualities. As a result, his exegesis of the Qur'an functions as an epistemological medium that connects spirituality to ontology in his scriptural hermeneutics.