Tantawi Jawhari and the Qur'an

Tafsir and Social Concerns in the Twentieth Century

Majid Daneshgar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138052529
• eBook ISBN: 9781351683951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Shaykh ?an??w? Jawhar? was an Egyptian exegete known for having produced a scientific interpretation of the Qur??n. A pioneering scholar in terms of familiarising the people of his time with many previously neglected matters regarding Islam and science, his publications shocked the Cairo educational system and other Muslim places of learning in the early twentieth century.

This book examines the intersection between ?an??w? Jawhar? and Egyptian history and culture, and demonstrates that his approach to science in the Qur??n was intimately connected to his social concerns. Divided into three parts, part one contains three chapters which each introduce different aspects of ?an??w? Jawhar? himself. The second part explores the main aspects of his tafs?r, discussing his approach to science and the Qur??n, and how he presented Europeans in his tafs?r, and then addressing the impact of his tafs?r on wider Muslim and non-Muslim society. The third section draws attention to the themes from all 114 s?ras of the Qur??n that are discussed within his commentary. It then analyses the current status of his views and the post-Jawharism perspective on science and the Qur??n, both today and in an imaginary future, in 2154.

Providing new English translations of ?an??w? Jawhar?'s work, the book delivers a comprehensive assessment of this unique figure, and emphasises the distinctive nature of his reading of the Qur??n. The book will be a valuable resource for anyone studying modern Egypt, the Qur??n, Islam and Science, and scientific interpretation and inimitability.

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Part I

Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī: His life and thoughts

¹أيها المسلمون: أيها المصريون: دينكم يدعو للجمال و فهم الطبيعة

Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī

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1 Introduction

Rational progress and the reception of a modern tafsīr

Curiosity about the nature of things is a trait shared by all human beings; generally speaking, a strong urge to explore is felt by all. For instance, around 6000 bc, people developed one of the oldest applied sciences, now known as metallurgy. Some of the metals discovered since then include gold (c. 6000 bc), copper (c. 4200 bc), silver (c. 4000 bc), lead (c. 3500 bc), tin (c. 1750 bc), iron and smelting (c. 1500 bc), and mercury (750 bc); they were introduced to Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and the Romans.² There have been other geographical movements, or “discoveries,” such as the Asian migration to North America. Along the same lines, the re-discovery of Britain, the discovery of Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa by the Polynesians (c. 1300 bc), Hanno’s voyage to West Africa (c. 490 bc), the Chinese (re-)discovery of the Americas (c. 458 AD), Marco Polo’s visit to China (c. 1280), Ptolemy’s Geography being taken to Italy (c. 1405), and the voyage of Zheng He (c. 1407–33) were some of the most important geographical explorations.³ Following this, it is said that humanity passed through four major periods of discovery, namely: (a) the great age of discovery, from Cape Bojador (1433) to the law of falling bodies (1599); (b) the age of enlightenment, from Pompeii (1549) to the Rosetta Stone (1799); (c) the nineteenth-century world, from the atomic structure of matter (1803) to the cause of yellow fever (1900); and (d) the modern world, from hormones (1903) to the altar of Zeus on Mount Lykaion (2008) and other recent findings.⁴

This classification of humanist discoveries mainly focuses on discoveries made in or by Western and European communities. At the same time, the great achievements of Muslim (Arab and non-Arab), Near Eastern and Levantine-Mesopotamian polymaths like Muḥammad b. Zakariyā al-Rāzī (Rhazes) (c. 865–925), Yūḥannā b. Māsawaih (Mesue) (c. 777–857), Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) (c. 980–1037), Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (c. 1126–1198), and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (c. 1201–1274), among others, are all but ignored. Indeed, the bond between ʿilm, ḥikma, and state in the brief Muʿtazilite period during the Abbasid era created a coherence between thinkers and rulers; this bond not only displayed various types of eternal philosophical-theological schools of thought – many of them a consequence of Greek philosophy – but also, in turn, influenced Western societies (encouraging them to move away from the “dark ages”) through, for example, astronomical, medical, and chemical research. Thus, this transfer of knowledge between the East and the West could be considered one reason why Europeans translated Easterners’ and Muslims’ works into European languages.⁵ Following the triumph of Ashʿarism, however, Muslims pursued de-Hellenised and jurisprudential approaches while, at the same time, the natural-empirical theories and the investigation of scientific hypotheses in Europe continued intellectual progress there and helped bring about two principal periods, those known as the great age of discovery and the age of enlightenment. Relying on literature and history and filled with imperial and colonial urges, Europeans felt validated by their discoveries. These in turn gave them increased power and great wealth, creating some distance between them and the Orient in general, and the Muslim world in particular. The majority of Muslims were almost unable to reach the levels of wealth and power attained by Europeans, as they spent much of their time on non-scientific matters and were controlled by local religious thinkers as well as the colonial powers; the resulting economic and commercial gap was one Alexander Gerschenkron⁶ has termed “backwardness.”⁷ This gap between the two regions (in terms of scientific progress and development) peaked in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries following the appearance of new branches of science in the nineteenth century. Pure sciences and experimental studies in Germany, as well as practical studies in England, were the starting points for these new branches. Likewise, the way the industrial revolution helped create a connection between industry, study, and ideas was very clear in the West. Thus, the pursuit of knowledge in the West was split into scientific-technological discoveries including steel, electricity, railways, etc., on the one hand, and “middle-class” theoretical developments such as gender division and the optimism and growth of individualism, along with an articulation of middle-class values such as punctuality, discipline, and respectability, on the other.⁸

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Significant development in the social sciences also took place as Wundt (1832–1920) and Comte (1798–1875) developed psychology and the theory of scientific positivism, respectively, and contributed scientific data to questions related to social issues. Subsequently, Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) confirmed the authenticity of official documents over historical information that was based on any kind of “tradition.” Intellectual theories that developed in the field of naturalism, originating in Darwinism, encompassing the biological origins of humans as well as human morality, nature and religion, were also important as they overturned previously-held ideas. These included the Freudian theory of psychoanalysis and Einstein’s theory of the physical world, the latter of which partially contradicted the Newtonian world order.⁹ A number of these innovations prompted further scientific discoveries, including those of Maria Mitchell and David Alter in astronomy, John Tyndall in ecology, and Hermann Schaaffhausen in anthropology and archaeology.¹⁰ Such unstinting scientific research by Western scholars yielded yet more wealth for the people of that region; while Muslims still longed for such wealth and power, they continued to cling to the non-scientific, jurisprudential, and comparatively basic matters of sharīʿa.¹¹

However, Western colonial officials’ and scientists’ projects and studies gradually made their way to the Muslim world, and particularly Egypt, whose land had been touched much earlier by the ideas of Europeans such as “Homer, Lycurgus, Solon, and Pythagoras, and conquered by Alexander the Great.” Europeans saw Egypt as the jewel of the Orient, a land which “was the focal point of the relationship between Africa and Asia, between Europe and the East, between memory and actuality.”¹² It has been known as the land of mystery, the Pyramids of Giza, and the Sphinx (called by Abū l-Hawl “the Terrifying One”), whose greatness and importance had been mentioned in ancient folk tales and traditions.¹³ For a long time, Egyptians shared history with the Greek community and inhabitants (Egyptiotes) of Alexandria. Thus, finding out more about Egypt resulted in them learning more about the history of power and knowledge. For example, Jean François Champollion (1790–1832), a French hieroglyph decipherer, and philologist who apparently knew the Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldean, Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic, Sanskrit, and Persian languages, took many Egyptian artefacts to the Louvre in Paris for conservation. In 1828 and 1829 he stayed in Egypt to conduct his initial surveys on Egyptian monuments and history, many of which had not been examined previously from a scientific perspective. Following this, the Chair of Egyptian history and archaeology was established for him at the College de France in Paris. Western scientists’ efforts led French scholars to discover the Rosetta Stone, a famous ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele dating from around 196 bc, and the young Champollion translated the hieroglyphs found on it.¹⁴ Western scientists thus approached Muslims as part of their efforts to delineate scientific boundaries, particularly those in the arts and archaeology. At that time, although European articles, magazines, and periodicals had been introduced to Islamic countries, Muslims in general were still unfamiliar with many of the scientific projects and achievements of Westerners. Moreover, Western dominance of Egypt through their scientific achievements caused Egypt to acquire a global reputation as a Muslim country incapable of competing with the achievements of the West.¹⁵

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Western influence (especially British) in important Muslim countries such as Egypt gradually increased and, as such, “the history of Egypt, especially in the second half of the 19th century, intersects with the historical development of British colonial strategies and policy.”¹⁶

Some European thinkers of the Enlightenment period, such as Immanuel Kant (d. 1804), Adam Smith (d. 1790), and Denis Diderot (d. 1784), “were critical of the barbarity of colonialism and challenged the idea that European had the obligation to ‘civilize’ the rest of the world.”¹⁷ However, opposition to Western schools of thought, European concealment of the significance of the Islamic golden age, and the publication of purely scientific works that challenged the status of religion in society was primarily voiced by Muslim thinkers and reformists such as Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn (1833–1897). This opposition was quickly transmitted throughout Egypt and the Muslim world through his friends, acquaintances, and students, including Muḥammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905). Some of the Muslim reformists who received such messages were acquainted with both Islamic knowledge and the natural sciences, and they attempted to e...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī and the Qurʾān
• Routledge Studies in the Qurʾan
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I ṬAnṭāWī Jawharī: His Life and Thoughts
• Part II Inside and Outside of a TafsīR
• Part III Reading the QurʾāN With ṬAnṭāWī Jawharī
• Final Thought
• Appendix
• Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
• Bibliography
• Index