Keys to the Arcana: Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar]'s Esoteric Commentary on the Qur'an: A Translation of the Commentary of S[u.bar]rat al-F[a.bar]tiha from Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Kar[i.bar]m Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar]'s Maf[a.bar]t[i.bar]h al-asr[a.bar]r wa mas[a.bar]b[i.bar]h al-abr[a.bar]r.

• Author: Lawson, Todd
• Position: Book review

Keys to the Arcana: Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar]'s Esoteric Commentary on the Qur'an: A Translation of the Commentary of S[u.bar]rat al-F[a.bar]tiha from Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Kar[i.bar]m Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar]'s Maf[a.bar]t[i.bar]h al-asr[a.bar]r wa mas[a.bar]b[i.bar]h al-abr[a.bar]r. Translated by TOBY MAYER. Qur'anic Studies Series, vol. 6. New York: OxEoRn UNIVERSITY PRu.ss, in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies (London), 2009. Pp. xvi + 267 + 123 (Arabic text). $99.

Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Kar[i.bar]m al-Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar] (d. 548/1153) was an Ism[a.bar]'[i.bar]l[i.bar] who was also known as an Ash'arite theologian and as a philosopher: a man of religious parts, as it were. His descriptive catalogue of the various religious groups known to his time and place (what used to be called a heresiography) has long been valued not only for the information it provides but for the spirit in which it was composed. The K. al-Milal is one of the proof texts for those who would claim that the study of comparative religion was born during. the heyday of Islamicate cosmopolitanism in the early and later medieval periods (from the 'Abbasids. to the Mongols). al-Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar] was also a professor at the famous Nizamiyya of Baghdad for three years.

The book at hand is a careful, learned, and deeply considered presentation of al-Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar]'s tafs[i.bar]r, a work that began attracting scholarly attention in "the West" about twenty-five years ago in Guy Mon-not's courses at the Sorbonne and in an article he later published in a collected volume dedicated to Henry Corbin. This research on the tafs[i.bar]r had been stimulated to life by the pioneering scholarship on al-Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar] by M. R. Jal[a.bar]l[i.bar]-N[a.bar]'[i.bar]n[i.bar] which appeared in 1964. There is no question that these earlier studies have been surpassed by the present work. Given the nature of the original composition, this book is not only a most welcome addition to the general tafs[i.bar]r and Qur'anic studies library but also to the broader held of Islamic thought: theology, philosophy, and mysticism. The importance of the tafs[i.bar]r, correctly postulated in the earlier French scholarship, is now clearly illustrated. The extant unicum of the original work consists of al-Shahrast[a.bar]n[i.bar]'s twelve-part introduction and commentary on the first two sums. al-[a.bar]tiha (here referred to throughout as the Exordium) and al-Bagara. The book...