Controversy in a tradition of commentary: the academic legacy of Al-Sakkaki's Miftah Al-Ulum.

• Author: Smyth, William

INTRODUCTION

THE SCHOLARSHIP OF THE ISLAMIC Middle Ages presents an imposing edifice of texts and formats of presentation. The basic books of the traditional curriculum are numerous enough, but they are overwhelmed by the works written about them. One need only page through a medieval catalogue, such as Hajji Khalifa's (d. 1057 A.H./1657 A.D.) Kashf al-Zunun or a modern one, such as Carl Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Literatur to realize the prevalence of commentary after the classical period.(1) While there is, to be sure, some formal diversity to this literature, the predominance of commentaries in the medieval bibliography has suggested to many that the Islamic intellectual environment was moribund after 1200. Accordingly, it is generally held that the abundance of commentaries in the later medieval period is a symptom of Islamic decline.

As a number of authors have shown,(2) however, education in the medieval Islamic world was not quite so lifeless. The traditional scholar may have written mostly about other works, but this did not spare his efforts the close and sometimes aggressive scrutiny of his colleagues. Academic rivalries developed in this milieu, and as G. Makdisi has described it, the pedagogical ideals of the madrasa worked to encourage dispute rather than forbid it.(3)

What I would like to consider in this essay is the role that academic commentary played in this environment. I will argue that the format of commentary not only allowed debate, but served to emphasize and "remember" differences of opinion in a way that was particularly characteristic of the Muslim tradition. As my example I will use the tradition of commentaries based on Muhammad al-Sakkaki's (d. 626/1229) Miftah al-Ulum (The Key to the Disciplines).

THE KEY TO THE ISSUE

Al-Sakkaki composed the Miftah as a pandect based ultimately on Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's (d. 471/1078) two works on rhetoric, namely, Dalail al-Ijaz (The Proofs for the Inimitability of Quranic Style) and Asrar al-Balagha (The Secrets of Eloquence). Within his work al-Sakkaki organized al-Jurjani's ideas into the disciplines of ilm al-bayan (figurative usage) and ilm al-maani (syntax) and he located these stylistic concerns within a wider context that included grammar, logic, and prosody. Accordingly, the Miftah represented not only a rhetorical textbook, but a complete handbook on expression in Arabic.(4)

Al-Sakkaki's work proved a popular textbook between 1300 and 1500. It attracted not only two commentaries (sharh, pl. shuruh) on its complete contents, but twenty-five on the third section of the Miftah, where al-Sakkaki considered rhetorical topics. In addition to shuruh we find other "formats" of commentary in which the author's aim was not so much to explicate, as to facilitate in some way the students' acquisition of material. One commentator, for instance, restricted his discussion to the examples from poetry (shawahid) that al-Sakkaki cited. Two addressed specific issues from the Miftah and so composed treatises (risala, pl. rasail) limited to certain topics. The Ottoman polymath Kamal Pasha (d. 940/1533) proposed a rearrangement (taghyir) of the Miftah in much the same way that al-Sakkaki had rearranged al-Jurjani's ideas in the first place. Finally, three authors wrote abridgements (mukhtasarat/talkhisat) of the Miftah.(5)

The subsuming of all these works under the general category of commentary requires some comment. Although the sharh format derives from the Quranic commentary (tafsir), the fact that different terms are used for each reflects an important distinction. The formal and conceptual integrity of the Quran is sacrosanct, and so the Quran commentator's range of response is limited; he may neither challenge his original nor alter its form in any way. Someone who bases his comments on the Quran may only interpret.

For the academic commentator, however, the basic text is an argument of human composition. As such, it is valued but not inviolable, and this increases the scope of the commentator's response. At the same time the fact that the academic text is a pedagogical tool serves to shape the form of his response, and it is this aspect of pedagogical utility that makes all of the formats named above part of the commentary activity. The sharh--and subsequently the hashiya (supercommentary)--mimics the interaction between student and teacher by explaining the original author's argument and anticipating questions on it; the shawahid and rasail works are more particular instances of the same function. The talkhis, mukhtasar and tanzim (versification), on the other hand, recall another purpose of class time, namely, memorization, insofar as they shorten or rearrange the text in order to make it easier to learn by heart. All of these activities are appropriate to the transmission of human knowledge. All are commentary, and this process differs substantially from explicating the sacred text, where only the most faithful efforts to interpret are appropriate.

SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM

It was about one hundred years after al-Sakkaki that a Syrian scholar, Khatib Dimashq al-Qazwini (d. 724/1338), wrote an abridgement of Miftah al-Ulum and named it, quite humbly, Talkhis al-Miftah (The Summary of the Miftah). In his introduction to the work al-Qazwini offers general praise for al-Sakkaki, but criticizes some aspects of his presentation.

The third section of Miftah al-Ulum, composed by the consummate scholar (al-fadl al-alamah), Abu Yaqub Yusuf al-Sakkaki, is the most useful of the famous works |on rhetoric~ because it is the best arranged, the most completely organized (atammaha tahriran) and brings together the greatest number of basic principles (usul). But |the Miftah~ is not free (masun) from extraneous comments (hashw), prolixity (tatwil) and obscurity (taqid); it admits abridgement and requires clarification and editing (tajrid). I have |therefore~ composed an abridgement (mukhtasar) which includes the |necessary~ rules (qawaid) |of the subject~ and is comprised of the requisite examples and citations from poetry.(6)

Al-Qazwini is particularly critical of what he considers to be prolixity in al-Sakkaki's presentation, and on this basis he makes the Talkhis extremely brief. Al-Qazwini's concision, however, demands its own explication, and to this end the author follows the Talkhis with a commentary on his own work, entitled al-Idah (The Clarification). In the introduction to this latter work al-Qazwini explains again the way in which he will approach al-Sakkaki's ideas from the Miftah.

I have arranged |al-Idah~ according to my abridgement which I called Talkhis al-Miftah, and have elaborated in it (basattu fihi al-qawl) so that it (i.e., al-Idah) would be like a commentary on the |Talkhis~. Accordingly, I made the problematic topics clear and I put topics that had been placed together into separate chapters (fassaltu al-maani al-mujmala). I relied on |topics~ which the Miftah includes, |while~ the Talkhis does not, as well as |elements of~ al-Shaykh al-Imam Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's discussion--may God have mercy on him--in his two works, Dalail al-Ijaz and Asrar al-Balagha, which the Miftah does not have.(7)

Many of the comments in these two passages are commonplaces of composition in the medieval milieu. It was quite standard, for instance, to cite the obscurity or prolixity of an earlier work as a motivation for writing.(8) The reference to al-Jurjani in the foreword to al-Idah seems, however, to be particularly significant because al-Qazwini announces thereby that his basic text, the Miftah, is itself the restatement of earlier ideas. Al-Qazwini specifies here that his own works--although commentaries--will hold al-Sakkaki accountable for representing al-Jurjani's ideas correctly. Accordingly, there is the clear message that al-Qazwini is not simply summarizing or abridging the Miftah, but evaluating it at the same time. In this way he signals at the outset a potential conflict between text and commentary.

The Talkhis goes far beyond the editing process that al-Qazwini described when introducing the work. The author ignores al-Sakkaki's effort to frame the rhetorical arts within grammar and logic. Accordingly, he reduces the scope of the Talkhis to the relatively specialized usage normally associated with rhetoric. In addition, al-Qazwini rearranges his topics in such a way as to bring the focus of his presentation closer to literature (adab) than the more grammatical focus of the Miftah. He gives the figures of speech (badi), which were closely associated with poetry, a more prominent place than al-Sakkaki and introduces topics like plagiarism (sariqa), which had more to do with poetic composition than hermeneutics.(9)

It is not surprising on this...