Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Islam and Modern Science: The Colonial Era • 179QurāĀn. This was to change with the emergence of the new discourseon Islam and science during the post–seventeenth century era, whenbooks started to appear with verses from the QurāĀn purportingto confirm scientific theories. In the end, a new kind of QurāĀnicexegesis appeared in full bloom: al-tafsir al-ilmi, the scientific tafsir.We have already mentioned the incomplete tafsir of AhmadKhan published during 1879–1898. Another work of much greaterimpact was by an Egyptian physician, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Iskandarani, and was published in 1880. His book has a long title:The Unveiling of the Luminous Secrets of the QurāĀn in which are DiscussedCelestial Bodies, the Earth, Animals, Plants, and Minerals. Threeyears after the publication of this work, al-Iskandrani publishedanother book in 1883 on the Divine Secrets in the World of Vegetationand Minerals and in the Characteristics of Animals. In both works, al-Iskandarani explained verses of the QurāĀn to prove the presence ofspecific scientific inventions in the QurāĀn. This trend of writing ascientific commentary on the QurāĀn became so popular that generalsurveys on the QurāĀnic exegeses had to invent a new categoryof tafsir literature to accommodate this genre. Thus, al-Dhahabi(1965) devoted a full chapter in his important survey, Tafsir waMufassirun (Exegesis and Exegetes) to the scientific exegesis. Likewise,J. M. S. Baljon (1961), Muhammad Iffat al-Sharqawi (1972), and J.J. G. Jansen (1974) note this kind of tafsir in their surveys. After thetrend was established by al-Iskandarani, several other works of thiskind appeared in the Arab world (al-Dhahabi 1985, vol. 2, 348). Asthe nineteenth century approached its close, scientific exegesis hadcarved out a place for itself in the tafsir tradition.Gaining a certain degree of sophistication, this kind of tafsirbecame a common feature of Muslim works on the QurāĀn in theearly part of the twentieth century. One of the most influential wasthat of al-Afghani’s student Muhammad Abduh, Tafsir al-Manar.This exegesis was compiled by his student Rashid Rida from a seriesof lectures on the QurāĀn given by Abduh in Cairo. Rida continued(from Q. 4:125) when Abduh died in 1905. Tafsir al-Manar was finallypublished in 12 volumes in 1927. This was one of the most influentialworks during the first half of the twentieth century, as can be judged