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ḥabs a fī l-buyūt). 26 He bases his exegesis on a multilevel paraphrastic
explanation of smaller or larger segments of the Quranic verses. Ad “Wal-lātī
yaʾtīna l-fāḥishat a min nisāʾ i -kum” (And those of your women who
commit abomination) Muqātil comments: “(1) yaʿnī l-maʿṣiyat a , (2) wahiya
l-zinā, (3) wa-hiya l-marʾat u l-thayyib taznī wa-la-hā zawj” ([1] that
is a disobedience, [2] and it is zinā, [3] and it is zinā committed by a
woman who has a legally consummated marriage and who has a
husband). Behind this series of glosses, it is easy to note the gradual
development of the understanding of fāḥisha (abomination), which is
understood as (1) a disobedience of the divine law; (2) a sexual
transgression in general; and (3) a specific sexual transgression
(adultery). Varying connectives (yaʿnī/wa-hiya/wa-hiya) signal an
interpolation, whereby clause 1, which employs paraphrasis, is glossed
by clauses 2 and 3, which are based on specification (takhṣīṣ), which
effectively narrows the meaning of the terms used in each preceding
clause.
It is the device of takhṣīṣ that allows Muqātil to maintain that the
pronominal subjects in Qurʾān 4:15 and 4:16 refer respectively to
[female] adulterers (al-marʼat u l-thayyib taznī wa-la-hā zawj) and
fornicators [from both sexes] (thumma dhakara l-bikrayni l-ladhayni lam
yuḥṣanā). The application of takhṣīṣ, a characteristically halakhic
device, 27 marks the point whence Muqātil’s commentary departs from
that of Mujāhid. Whereas Mujāhid mentions abrogation only in passing,
Muqātil’s tafsīr ad Qurʾān 4:15–6 ends in a halakhic exposition devoted
to naskh.
Muqātil opens his deliberation with a statement that Qurʾān 24:2 was
revealed about fornicators (thumma anzala l-lāh u fī l-bikrayni). The
commentator makes his point by specifying al-zāniya wa-l-zānī in the
opening section of Qurʾān 24:2 as bikrayni. Due to this semantically
narrowing shift, Qurʾān 24:2 now abrogates specifically Qurʾān 4:16,
whose ordinance Muqātil confines to fornicators. This, however,
contradicts Muqātil’s already mentioned statement that Qurʾān 24:2
abrogates Qurʾān 4:15. Alternatively, Muqātil may have meant that
Qurʾān 24:2 abrogates both Qurʾān 4:15 and 4:16. Such a conclusion,
however, would entail that both categories of offenders are punished by
flogging, thus putting into question the appropriateness of Muqātil’s
differentiation between adulterers and fornicators.
26 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. Aḥmad Farīd, 3 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub
al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003/1424) 1:220 ad Qurʾān 4:15–6.
27 J. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, 191; cf. John Burton, Sources, 138–9.