AN ASSESMENT ON THE STRUCTURE OF MUHMAL TAFSIRS
Abstract
Islamic scholars have tried to understand the Qur’an from the period of the Prophet (PBUH) to the present day. They developed various tafsir methods to understand the Qur’an and created a rich “tafsir / exegetics” literature with their works in the Islamic history. Tafsirs written from the beginning to the present have varied in terms of both their methods and sources of knowledge. The insight of the commentator to life, the period he lived, his cultural accumulation, the environment he grew up in, and his or her expertise/incompetency in these areas, have all reflected on his works.
Each commentator followed different methods and wrote his work on this system. In particular, they reflected the knowledge they have in their fields of expertise on their works. For example, commentators skilled in the science of nahiv such as Zajjaj, Vahidi, and Abu Hayyan, gave importance to transmitting their grammar and syntax knowledge to their works. Some commentators, such as Sa’labi, have prioritized collecting khabar from previous generations with stories. The commentators like al-Qurtubi mostly conveyed the fiqh knowledge, included their evidence about fiqh in their tafsirs and responded to the claims of those who had opposed their views.
One of the different approaches in the tafsir science is “Muhmala Method” that is used in literature by use of dotless letters. As far as we know, the application of muhmala art in the tafsir was made by Fayzi al-Hindi for the first time. The most famous examples of this kind written by using the dotless letters in the Arabic alphabet was Fayzi al-Hindi’s tafsir named Sawatiu’l-İlham and Mahmud Hamza’s tafsir titled Durr al-Asrar.
In our research, it is determined that Fayzi al-Hindi, Mahmud Hamza and Ali b. Qutb al-Din wrote their tafsirs on the whole Qur’an with dotless letters. On the “surah” basis, Zeynulabidin Efendi al-Rumi has prepared tafsirs on Surah al-Kawthar; and Molla Mahmud al-Imadi, Ali b. Muhammad al-Amidi and Abdussalam Mardini on Surah al-Fatiha in dotless letters. We found the works of Fayzi al-Hindi, Mahmud Hamza, and Zeynulabidin Efendi’s works and examined them. However, we could not reach the mentioned works of Muhammad al-Imadi, Ali b. Muhammad al-Amidi and Abdussalam Mardini.
When we think over whether the muhmal tafsirs are the kind of works that will help the Qur’an be better understood and practiced in daily life, it will be seen that there is no such purpose in the main target of these tafsirs for the following reasons listed in the conclusion.
1. The “muhmala method” has the purpose of “art for art’s sake”. The application of such an art on tafsirs paved the way for the understanding of “art for art’s sake” to take place in the science of tafsir.
2. Despite being written in a different style, muhmal tafsirs could not attract the attention of the public and scholars. As a matter of fact, when the tafsir literature of thousands of volumes are examined, it will be seen that the muhmal tafsirs are not more than a few.
3. According to many scholars, the authors who wrote the tafsir using only dotless letters both made the tafsir difficult in terms of style and made the work difficult to be understood. Some scholars have even stated that this type of tafsir is a “bid’ah” and opposed such kind of tafsir considering it as an inapt effort.
As we have tried to explain above, in addition to the negative aspects of the “muhmal tafsirs”, there are also positive responses (even few) considering that muhmal art is a high skill that shows the commentator’s competency in Arabic language.
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MÜHMEL TEFSİRLER ÜZERİNE BİR DEĞERLENDİRME
Abstract
İslâm tarihinin ilk döneminden günümüze kadar tüm İslâm âlimleri Kur’ân-ı Kerim’i anlama gayretine girmişlerdir. Onlar Kur’ân’ı anlamak için çeşitli tefsir yöntemleri geliştirmiş, yazdıkları eserlerle zengin bir tefsir literatürü oluşturmuşlardır. Öte yandan ilk günden günümüze kadar yazılan tefsirler, gerek usul gerekse bilgi kaynakları bakımından çeşitlilik göstermiştir. Her tefsirci, kendi anlama geleneğine uygun yöntemler takip etmiş ve tefsirini bu yöntem üzere kaleme almıştır. Bu süreçte tefsircilerin özellikle uzmanlaştığı alanlardaki bilgileri eserlerine daha çok yansımıştır.
Tefsire uygulanan farklı yazım tekniklerinden biri de edebî metinlerde başvurulan ‘mühmele sanatı’dır. Bu sanat, edebiyatta hazf konusunun bir çeşidi olup sadece noktasız harflerden oluşan kelimeleri kullanarak söz söyleme sanatıdır. Fakat tefsir tarihi incelendiğinde söz konusu sanatın uygulanması ile yazılan tefsirler görülecektir. Arap alfabesindeki noktasız harfler kullanarak yazılan bu tefsirlere ‘mühmel tefsir’ denilmektedir.
Bu çalışmada başlıca mühmel tefsirler, müfessirleriyle beraber incelenmeye çalışılacak, söz konusu tefsirlerin özellikleri tespit edilmeye gayret edilecektir. Daha sonra bu tefsirler hakkında bir değerlendirme yapılacaktır
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