The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qur'an (al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an).

• Author: Rippin, Andrew
• Position: Book review

The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qur'an (al-Itgan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an), by Imam Jalal-al-Din 'Abd (al-Rahman al-Suyuri, vol. 1. Translated by HAMID ALGAR, MICHAEL SCHUB, and AYMAN ABDEL HALEEM; reviewed by Osman S. A. Ismail A. al-Bill. The Great Books of Islamic Civilization. Reading, UK: GARNETT PUBLISHING, 2011. Pp. xxxiii + 301. [pounds sterling]60.

Al-Itqan fi'culum al-Qur'an by Jalal al-Din al-Suyati (d. 911/1505) provides a detailed reference summary of the subject commonly known as "the sciences of the Qur'an," which stands at the foundation of Muslim understanding of scripture; it is undoubtedly the most famous work of its type. The material ranges through eighty categories/chapters (sg. naw') that include the chronology of the Qur'an's revelation, the modes of revelation, the collection and transmission of the text, prosody, lexicology, syntax, semantics, style, exegesis, and the merits of the Qur'an. Each "category" is a scholastic subject in itself and often did result in an additional stand-alone work in the hands of al-Suyuti. Mohammed Arkoun's classic article, "Introduction: Bilan et perspectives des etudes coraniques," in his Lectures du Coran (Paris, 1982; Eng. tr. in The Qur'an: Style and Contents, ed. A. Rippin [Aldershot, 2001]), summarizes al-Suyuti's accomplishment: "The appearance of being exhaustive, the care for detail, the casuistry, and the taxonomy give the feeling of a confident erudition that is complete, convenient of access, and couched in contemporary usage" (trans., p. 302). In sum, says Arkoun, the work is "the orthodoxy and orthopraxy in connection with the Qur'an" (p. 303) as it had evolved by that point in history. As well, in al-Itqan we have a record of a fifteenth-century library of Qur'anic sciences; al-Suyuti's bibliographical records are of immense importance in understanding the scholastic world and the educational system of the time. Further, we see the impact of hadith modes of transmission and the valorizing of the epistemology that came to the fore with Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1327) and Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373). Finally, al-Suyuti's system of analysis as represented by the categories of information he provides underpins much of nineteenth--and twentieth-century scholarship on the Qur'an, a point to which Arkoun also draws attention.

All this is to say that in al-Suyfuti's work we have a monument that is foundational and well deserving of translation. This particular translation of...