The Issue of Qur’anic Context and its Role in Accepting Narrations of Reasons of Revelation with Reference to al- Mzainī’s Book al-Muḥarrar – An Analytical Critical Study

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss one of the issues of Qur’anic sciences highlighted by some modern scholars, which is the Qur’anic context and its role in accepting narrations of Reasons of Revelation. The problem of the study is that this concept of contextuality is not mentioned clearly by previous scholars as an important condition for accepting the narrations of reasons, let alone to consider it the main and most important condition as some modern scholars maintain. Khālid al-Mzainī, who is one of the modern scholars and very well known for his valuable contribution to the science of asbāb al-nuzūl, namely his book: al-Muḥarrar, tries in this book to prove that the condition of Qur’anic context is theorized and practiced by old scholars. To investigate this claim, the current paper adopts the analytical approach to show and examine the statements of previous scholars brought by al-Mzainī. And then the study adopts the critical approach to assess the validity of these statements in supporting al-Mzainī’s claim. The Study concludes that al-Mzainī exaggerates the issue of Qur’anic context and he presents it in a way that is not really intended by previous scholars. The most important matter in the science of asbāb al-nuzūl is the narrations themselves and their authenticity and their clarity of wordings, though it might be referred to the Qur’anic context as a secondary indication to support the weakness of a narration. Furthermore, it is concluded that the issue of context can be subjected to debate and different perspectives, and therefore, it cannot be a decisive criterion in deciding the accepted and unaccepted narrations of Reasons of Revelation.