Babi-Baha'i Primary Sources
Sayyid `Alī Muhammad Shirazi, the Bab (d. Tabriz 1850 CE).
-
(1) Tafsīr [Ḥurūf al‑] Basmala (Bismillāh al‑raḥman al‑raḥīm),
-
(2 )Tafsīr al‑Hā’ (the letter "H") in two versions (I & II)
-
(3) Tafsīr al‑Ḥamd or al‑Fātiha (The Opening, Qur'ān1)
-
(4) Tafsīr Surat al‑Baqara (`The Cow’, Qur'ān2;; incomplete) dating to
early 1260/1844.
-
Tafsir Surat al-Baqara (Commentary on the Surah of the
Cow). 1843-4 CE. mss.
-
(5) Tafsīr Surat Yūsuf (Qur'ān 12 Joseph), the Qayyūm al‑asmā’ (=
QA). Mid 1844
-
=
Qayyūm al-asmā' ("The Self Subsisting [Deity] of the Divine
Names"). mss. mid 1844 CE
-
URL : ADD
-
URL =
http://www.hurqalya.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/03-THE%20BAB/translations_of_select__surahs_o.htm
-
(6) Tafsīr Ayāt al‑Nūr (Light Qur'ān 24:35), (`the light
Verse’) and a few others verses of Qur'ān 24.
-
(7) Tafsīr / On Qur'ān 50:16 and Qur'ān 112:4 (for Ḥasan Waqā’ī`‑yi‑Nigār).
-
(8) Tafsīr Laylat al‑Qadr (Qur'ān97 `The Night of Destiny’).
-
(9) Tafsīr Surat al‑`Aṣr (Qur'ān 103 The Era [Afternoon])
-
(10) Tafsīr Surat al‑Kawthar (Qur'ān 107, `The [Eschatological]
Abundance’).
-
(00) Nine commentaries upon the whole Qur'an written by
the Bab whilst at Maku (1848) -- so Muhammad Nabil-i Zarandi,
Dawn-breakers, Mss. lost .
-
Mirza Husayn `Ali Nūrī, Bahā'-Allāh (b.
Tehran 1817 CE -- d. Acre 1892 CE)
-
(1) L. Kull al‑ṭa`ām (the Tablet of All Food) on Qur'ān
3:87) ( c. 1853-4).
-
(2) Tafsīr Ḥurūfāt al‑muqaṭṭa`a (The Isolated Letters [of
the Qur'ān] (c.1858) also known as Tafsīr āyāt al‑nūr (Commentary on the
Light Verse).
-
(3) Tafsīr Basmala, on the basmalah and its component
letters, etc.
-
(4) Tafsīr Qur'ān 68:1a including the letters of
the basmala, the isolated letter
ن
nūn) and verse 1a , "By the Pen!"
-
(5) Tafsīr Qur'ān 13:17‑18a & 18:60‑90 contains a
detailed exposition of the story of Moses and Khiḍr and of Dhū’l‑Qarnayn
and Yājūj and Mājūj (Gog and Magog).
-
(6) Tafsīr Sūrat wa’l‑shams (Qur'ān 91)
Acre around 188?.
-
Url =
`Abbās Effendi, `Abd al-Baha' `Abbās ( born Tehran
1844 CE - d. Haifa, Palestine, 1921).
`Abd
al-Baha' wrote various Tafsīr
letters on numerous verses and motifs of the Qur'an in Persian, Arabic and Turkish.
He also wrote several commentaries on passages within the Bāb’s Qayyum
al-asma' expository of the deeply intertextual Qayyum al-asma' or
Tafsir Sūrat Yūsuf (Qur'ān12) of the Bab. His Qur'an Commentary
has yet to be studied in any detail.
-
Tafsir [Basmala] Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim. Makatib-i
hadrat-i `Abd al-Baha' vol. ADD
-
Tafsir Sūrat al-Rum (The Surah of the Greeks) in Makatib-i
hadrat-i `Abd al-Baha' vol. ADD
Vol. X:XXX.
-
Tafsīr Yūsuf, on passages, verses and motifs of
Qur'ān12 in Ma`ida-yi Asmani vol. 4 : ADD.
-
Tafsīr Qayyūm al-asma' - on passages, verses
and motifs the QA of the Bāb. Ma`ida 4: XXX.
-
ADD
-
ADD
Secondary Sources
Alcan, Nejati
Lambden, Stephen.
Lawson,
B. Todd.
-
1987 The Qur`ān Commentary of the Bāb. Ph.D dissertation. McGill
Univ.
-
1988 `Interpretation as Revelation: The Qur'ān Commentary of
Sayyid `Alī Muammad Shīrāzī, the Bāb (1819-1850)', in A. Rippin, ed.,
Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'ān.
-
1992 `The Dawning Places of the Lights of Certainty in the Divine
Secrets Connected with the Commander of the Faithful by Rajab Bursī’ in
Lewisohn, ed. The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism. 261‑276. London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications.
-
1993
`Akhbārī Shī`ī Approaches to Tafsīr.’ In
Approaches to the Qur’ān.
Ed. Hawting and Shareef. 173‑210. London and New York: Routledge
Moojan Momen
EXTRACT FROM THE LAMBDEN Ph.d (2001)
now
under Revision.
The Bible, Isrā’Iīliyyāt and Bābī‑ Bahā’ī Tafsīr .
Bābī‑ Bahā’ī spiritual hermeneutics mostly follow the
aforementioned Shī `ī‑ Sufī‑ Irfānī‑ Shaykhī non‑literal hermeneutical
methods. They accept ẓāhir (outer) and numerous bāṭin
(inner) senses of the Qur'ān as did Shaykh Aḥmad and Sayyid Kāẓim Rashti
(Sh‑Qaṣīda,169‑70). As indicated in the above passage from the Bāb, Bahā'-Allāh
and the Bābī‑ Bahā’ī leaders generally upheld the position that the sacred
word has an infinite number of deep senses, even down to the qabbalistic
level of its letters and beyond. Bābī‑ Bahā’ī primary sources have it that
past sacred texts derive their ultimate meaning in and through the
theophanic person and religion of the latest maẓhar‑i ilāhī (divine
Manifestation’). The existence of ẓāhir (literal) and bāṭin
(inner) senses of sacred writ are affirmed (Bahā'-Allāh, TafsīrShams;
TafsīrTa’wīl) as are innumerable even deeper sometimes eschatologically
meaningful scriptural senses. Such deep levels are often referred to as the
bāṭin al‑bāṭin, the interior of the interior, the most inward of the
esoteric senses (The Bab,Kawthar ; Bahā'-Allāh KI:198/ [SE*]163).
The importance of the Qur'ān to both the Bāb and Bahā'-Allāh
can hardly be overestimated. Both cited it thousands of times and frequently
commented upon portions of it. In his Persian and Arabic Bayāns the Bāb
divided the totality of his writings into five "modes" ("grades",
"categories", shu`ūn), the fourth of them being tafsīr type
revelations, Arabic verses in some sense expository of or comparable to
qur’ānic revelations. For the Bāb the revelation of qur’ānic like Arabic
verses constituted a true miracle, the touchstone of assured prophethood.
From the outset many of the writings of the Bāb were distinctly
neo‑qur’ānic in form; having isolated letters, being divided into sūrahs and
written in rhyming prose. The Bāb associated his revelations with the ta’wīl
(inner sense) or bāṭin (interior dimension) of the Qur'ān The use of
non‑literal ta’wīl in his first major work, the Tafsīr sūrat Yūsuf (=
QA; mid.1844) suggests that he saw this work as unlocking the messianic
ta’wīl or deeper senses of the entire Qur'ān "O people of the earth", the
Bāb writes towards the end of this neo‑Tafsīr, "This Book (= QA) is the
tafsīr of everything (li‑kulli shay’) (QA 111:448; cf. 104:414 41:151;
38:142; 44:164; 61:242).
In an early letter the Bāb refers to his partially extant and
originally 700 sūra Kitāb al‑rūḥ (Book of the Spirit, 1845) as a work
which he "revealed upon the ocean on the return of the Dhikr (to
Shīrāz after the Ḥajj) in seven hundred sūrahs, in definitive, expository
verses (muḥkamat āyāt bayyināt) expressive of the bāṭin of
the Qur’ān..." (INBMC 91:89‑90). This work is thus identified with the
muḥkamat, the established dimension of the (revealed) verses, though it
is also an exposition of the bāṭin of the Qur'ān Here as elsewhere
the Bāb subtly challenges qur’ānic `ijāz (inimitability):
Yea
indeed! We have sent down in the Book [K. Rūḥ, Bāb’s revelations] certain
verses which are the bāṭin (interior meaning) of the Qur’ān" (ibid).
In
another early (pre‑June 1845) work addressed to Muslim clerics, the Kitāb
al‑`ulamā’, the Bāb again associates the bāṭin (interiority) of the
Qur'ān with revelations sent down through himself ("Our servant `Alī") as a
"proof" (ḥujjat) from the eschatological Baqiyyat‑Allāh (Remembrance of
God)" for the faithful (Ar. text, Afnān, 2000:107).
The Bāb authored several tafsīr works only a few
aspects of which have been the subject of academic analysis (see Lawson,
1986+ bib.‑>). Aside from nine lost complete qur’ān commentaries dating
from the time of the Bāb’s imprisonment in Mākū (1848, DB:31), the extant,
major, all Arabic tafsīr works of the Bāb are, according to the
sūra numbers commented upon (cf. McEoin, Sources, index, tafsīr) as follows:
-
(1) Tafsīr [Ḥurūf al‑] Basmala (Bismillāh al‑raḥman al‑raḥīm),
-
(2) Tafsīr al‑Hā’ (the letter "H") in two versions (I & II‑‑>
bib.)
-
(3) Tafsīr [Surat] al‑Ḥamd or al‑Fātiha (The Opening, Qur'ān1)
-
(4) Tafsīr Surat al‑Baqara (`The Cow’, Qur'ān2;; incomplete) dating to
early 1260/1844.
-
(5) Tafsīr Surat Yūsuf (Qur'ān 12 Joseph), the Qayyūm al‑asmā’ (=
QA). Mid 1844
-
(6) Tafsīr Ayāt al‑Nūr (Light Qur'ān 24:35), (`the light
Verse’) and a few others verses of Qur'ān 24.
-
(7) On Qur'ān 50:16 and Qur'ān 112:4 (for Ḥasan Waqā’ī`‑yi‑Nigār).
-
(8) Tafsīr Surat Laylat al‑Qadr (Qur'ān97 `The Night of Destiny’).
-
(9) Tafsīr Surat al‑`Aṣr (Qur'ān 103 The Era [Afternoon])
-
(10) Tafsīr Surat al‑Kawthar (Qur'ān 107, `The [Eschatological]
Abundance’).
Aside to some degree from the 1259‑60/1843‑4 Tafsīr Baqara, most of the
Tafsīr works of the Bāb are not exactly comparable to classical Islamic
tafsīr compositions. In form and content they are often more neo‑qur’ānic
than tafsīr works. Exhibiting rewritten tafsīr characteristics often in
a revelation (waḥy) mode the Bāb’s often eisegetical works challenge the
inimitability (I`jāz) of the Qur'ān Innovative post‑qur’ānic dimensions and
eschatologically suggestive levels of meaning are subtly or boldly in
evidence in many of the Tafsīr works of the Bāb.
Several of the commentaries listed above interpret biblically rooted
qur’ānic narratives. The best example of this is the multi‑faceted story of
Joseph. In the Qayyūm al‑asmā’ (= QA), this aḥsan al‑qaṣaṣ (`best of
stories’) is given a complex, multi‑faceted imamological and gematric level
of eschatologically suggestive senses. Other narratives directly or
allusively interpreted by the Bāb, include verses dealing with episodes in
the lives of Abraham, Dhu’l‑Qarnayn, Moses, David, Jesus and others.
Qur’ānic prophetological motifs and narratives along with occasional
Isrā’īliyyāt traditions are given post‑Islamic senses meaningful within the
new Bābī theophany.
In line with numerous ḥadīth of the prophet and the
Imams and like the Bāb, both Bahā'-Allāh and Abd al‑Bahā’ (= AB*) again
accord multiple meanings to the sacred books of the pasTafsīr Bahā'-Allāh
often expressed this as the following extract from one of his earlier
writings illustrates:
Know that the words of God (kalimāt Allāh) and his
scriptures (sufarā’) have inner sense upon inner sense (ma`ānī ba`du
ma`ānī), allegorical meaning (ta`wīl) after allegorical meaning (ta`wīl
), cryptic senses (rumūzāt) and allusive significances (isharāt) as
well as evident proofs (dalālāt). There are, furthermore, clear
regulative meaning(s) (ḥukm/ḥukum) that are without end. No single
person is aware of even a letter of the inner meanings [of scripture]
save such as your Lord, the All‑Merciful has willed (Bahā'-Allāh,
Tablet for Jawād Tabrīzī, INBMC 73:[179‑186]173).
Bahā'-Allāh as well as `Abd al-Baha' (d. 1921 CE) also wrote
many often non‑literal commentaries on select sūrahs and / or verses of the
Qur'ān Like the Bāb they frequently utilized an allegorical
hermeneutic. The orientation of these tafsīr works is often eschatological
fulfillment and doctrinal renewal through a new Bābī‑ Bahā’ī universe of
discourse. Though less well‑known as a Qur'ān commentator, Bahā'-Allāh
expounded a very large number of qur’ānic verses, though few complete
qur’ānic sūras. Like the Bāb he occasionally gave a detailed atomistic
exegesis‑eisegesis to particular phrases, words and letters of the Qur'ān
A characteristically Bāb‑like qabbalistic, letter by letter, `ilm al‑ḥurūf
exegesis seen in the Bā b’s Tafsīr Basmalah and Tafsīr `Aṣr is evident in
certain early works of Bahā'-Allāh (INBMC 56:24ff). Among the not yet fully
collected and catalogued distinctly tafsīr works of Bahā'-Allāh are,
-
(1) L. Kull al‑ṭa`ām (the Tablet of All Food) on Qur'ān
3:87) ( c. 1853/4?).
-
(2) Tafsīr Ḥurūfāt al‑muqaṭṭa`a (The Isolated Letters [of
the Qur'ān] c.1858) also known as Tafsīr āyāt al‑nūr (Commentary on the
Light Verse).
-
(3) Tafsīr Basmala, on the basmalah and its component
letters, etc.
-
(4) Tafsīr Yūsuf, on passages, verses and motifs of
Qur'ān12 or on the QA of the Bāb.
-
(5) Tafsīr Qur'ān 68:1a including the letters of
the basmala, the isolated letter
ن
nūn) and verse 1a , "By the Pen!"
-
(6) Tafsīr Qur'ān 13:17‑18a & 18:60‑90 contains a
detailed exposition of the story of Moses and Khiḍr and of Dhū’l‑Qarnayn
and Yājūj and Mājūj (Gog and Magog).
-
(7) Tafsīr Sūrat wa’l‑shams (Qur'ān 91)
Certain of Bahā'-Allāh’s tafsīr statements refine,
supplement or develop those of the Bāb. There thus exists in Bābī‑ Bahā’ī
scripture what might be called multiple, progressively expounded texts of
the (Bible‑) Qur'ān This cumulative, multi‑faceted tafsīr of the
Bāb and Bahā'-Allāh is sometimes also further interpreted by AB*
1 and less frequently by Shoghi Effendi (d. 1957 CE) or members of
the Bahā’ī community. A tafsīr notice of the Bāb touching upon
qur’ānic qiṣaṣ al‑anbiyā’, for example, is not infrequently given
further levels of interpretation by Bahā'-Allāh, `Abd al-Baha' and
others. Developed Bābī‑ Bahā’ī Qur'ān commentary expresses several
dimensions of meaning evolving over a period of more than a century
(1844‑1957>). A few examples of this evolving tafsīr are found in
connection with the Bābi‑Bahā’ī exegesis of the Joseph story and that of
Dhū’l‑Qarnayn. It is often in tafsīr contexts that Isrā’īliyyāt
traditions are interpreted or reinterpreted beyond their Judaeo‑Christian,
Abrahamic roots.
1 Bahā'-Allāh
sometimes asked his son `Abd al-Baha' to respond to questions regarding
tafsīr. issues. Among AB*’s tafsīr works is a
commentary on the Basmala, on the Sūrat al‑Rūm
Qur'ān 30:1‑5 (The Byzantines [Romans], probably dating to the late
1880s) and various commentaries on passages within the Bāb’s QA
relating to the Sūrat Yūsuf (Qur'ān12). `Abd al-Baha' wrote various Tafsīr
letters in Persian, Arabic and Turkish.
__________________________________________
