Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Islamwissenschaft
The study of Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr) has long been primarily considered to be an auxiliary science to the study of the Qur’an. Exegetical works have for a long time been utilized in Islamic stud-ies to understand the Qur’anic text and to study how Muslims at different times understood it. However, the study of the methods and premises of tafsir, its history and changes in the course of time, and its place in the framework of Islamic intellectual history has so far largely been neglected. The conference aims at filling this gap and at establishing the study of Qur’anic exegesis as a discrete and independent field of study. To this end, the conference brings together renowned scholars of Qur’anic exegesis from different countries of the Middle East, Europe and America, and young scholars who have worked on different aspects of tafsīr. The conference wishes to stimulate discussion, debate and research on all aspects of the study of Qur’anic exegesis. It also aims at initiating exchange and cooperation between scholars to outline the framework of this field of study. The conference will include papers on a variety of topics, including, among others, exegetical methods, the study of individual exegetes and their works, the problems of classification of different genres within tafsīr, and the formation and evolution of Qur’anic exegesis from its beginning to modern times. The conference papers will be published in an anthology.
Programme
Opening Ceremony
9.00 h
Opening of the Conference
9.15 h
Presentation of the Corpus Coranicum Project
Unit I: The Genesis of Tafsir
09.45 h
Claude Gilliot (Aix-en-Provence): Mujāhid’s exegesis. Beginnings, ways of transmission and development of a Meccan exegetical tradition in its human, spiritual and theological environment
10.30 h
Roberto Tottoli (Naples): The tafsir of Mālik ibn Anas: Exegesis from the Muwatta’ to Qur’ānic commentaries
11.15 h
Coffee break
11.45 h
Nicolai Sinai (Potsdam): The Qur’anic Commentary of Muqātil b. Sulaimān and the Evolution of Early Tafsīr Literature
12.30 h
Catherine Bronson (Chicago): The Eve of Islamic Exegesis: Imagining the First Woman in Formative Tafsīr
13.15 h
Lunch break
Unit II: Methods and Aims of Tafsir works
14.45 h
Karen Bauer (London): The Means Justify the Ends: Introductions to works of tafsīr in the 10th – 12th centuries
15.30 h
Rebecca Sauer (Köln): The development of the term buġāt (Q 49:9) from Ṭabarī (d. 923) to Ibn Kaṯīr (d.1373) – an analysis of classical Qurʾān commentaries
20.00 h
Dinner
Thursday, Sept 16
Venue:
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Jägerstraße 22/23
10117 Berlin
9.15 h
Bruce Fudge (Columbus, Ohio): Words, Meaning and Method in the Majmaʿ al-bayān of al-Ṭabrisī
10.00 h
Rotraud Wielandt (Bamberg): [A New Rationality in Exegesis? The Qur’anic Commentary of Muḥammad ʿĀbid al-Jābirī]
10.45 h
Coffee break
11.15 h
Kathrin Eith (Halle): Yaşar Nuri Öztürk – a contemporary Turkish tafsīr theorist
Unit III: Localisation and Globalisation of Tafsir
12.00 h
Andreas Görke (Kiel): The Expansion of a Genre: Scholarly exegesis, lay exegesis, and the internet
12.45 h
Lunch break
14.00 h
Andrew Rippin (Victoria/Canada): The translation of tafsīr: Techniques, aims and audience
14.45. h
Andrea Brigaglia (Cape Town): Tafsir Studies and the Intellectual History of Islam in West Africa
15.30 h
Coffee break
Unit IV: Debating Categories and Premises of Tafsir Scholarship I: Mystical Exegesis as a Sub-Genre?
16.00 h
Jamal S. Elias (Philadelphia): Sufi Tafsir and the Qur’an as a Colony Text
16.45 h
Feras Hamza (Dubai): Feras Hamza (Dubai): [Kāshānī, Sufi tafsir and the taxonomy of tafsir]
Friday, Sept 17
Venue:
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Jägerstraße 22/23
10117 Berlin
Unit V: Reflection of Theological and Sectarian Concerns in Qur’anic Commentaries
9.15 h
İsmail Albayrak (Melbourne): The other among us: A general evaluation of Kharijite (and Ibadite) perception in Muslim exegetical tradition
10.00 h
Nader Hammami (Tunis): The Qur’ānic commentary of al-Qummī (d. 919 or later) and the emergence of early Imamite identity
10.45 h
Coffee break
11.15 h
Abdessamad Belhaj (Budapest): Qadi ‘Abd al-Jabbar’s “Great Commentary” (al-Tafsir al-kabir)
12.00 h
Tariq Jaffer (Amherst, MA): Mu‘tazilite aspects of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 1210) Qur’ān commentary
12.45 h
Lunch break
14.15 h
Johanna Pink (Berlin): What constitutes a Salafī tafsīr? Reflections on ideological trajectories and the role of tradition
Unit VI: Debating Categories and Premises of Tafsir Scholarship II
15.00 h
Walid Saleh (Toronto): “The Famous Unknown.” Al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) and his Qur’an Commentary “Ta’wīlāt ahl al-Sunnah”
15.45 h
Coffee break
16.15 h
Final discussion
Contact : Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Islamwissenschaft, PD Dr. Johanna Pink, Altensteinstr. 40, 14195 Berlin, Germany, phone : +49 (0)30-600-57291, fax : +49 (0)30-838- 52830,
(Source : http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/islamwiss/tafsir-conference/Program/index.html)
(Je remercie vivement le Professeur Omar Ali-de-Unzaga de nous avoir signalés cette conférence)