Sufi Commentaries on the Qur’an in Classical Islam – Kristin Zahra Sands

Abstract:

“The Quran, for Muslims, represents the word of God revealed to Muhammad. Its interpretation, then, requires a certain audacity. How can one begin to say what God “meant” by His revelation? How does one balance the praiseworthy desire to understand the meanings of the Qur1an with the realistic fear of reducing it to the merely human and individualistic? Is interpretation an art, a science, an inspired act, or all of the these? Sufi commentators living in the classical time period of Islam from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries answered these questions in their own unique way, based on their assumptions regarding the nature of the Qur1anic text, the sources of knowledge considered necessary for its interpretation, and the”