The Qur’an and its Interpretive Tradition. By Andrew Rippin.

The Qur’an and its Interpretive Tradition. By Andrew Rippin. (Variorum
Collected Studies Series). Pp. 356. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2001. £62.50.
Each volume of the Variorum Collected Studies Series musters long term writings by
some noteworthy scholar (in this case, one of the biggest names in Qur’anic studies
in the West); by grouping articles on sundry fields, perhaps written over decades, it
allows a clear glimpse of the scholar’s development, their deeper presuppositions, the
methodological patterns and mental habits which undergird their work. Rippin’s cor­
pus is avowedly built on groundwork laid by John Wansbrough. Two whole chapters
(II and IV) of the book at hand are indeed given over to aspects of Wansbrough’s
work. The tell-tale framework of haggadic, halakhic, massoretic, rhetorical and alle­
gorical genres/phases in the elaboration of the Muslim scriptures is assumed through­
out the book, which brims with references to Quranic Studies and praise for its late………