The Shāhīn Affair and the Evolution of uṣūl al-tafsīr

Abstract

In 1997, the distinguished linguistics professor ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr Shāhīn of Cairo University published his re-reading of the story of creation, entitled Abī Ādam (‘My Father Adam’). Although the book created a storm of refutations, televised debates, and a blasphemy charge against the author, the Islamic Research Council of al-Azhar University concluded that the book was flawed but not blasphemous. This paper sheds light on Shāhīn's key strategies in arguing for an evolutionary reading of the Qur'an, in which Adam was the first full human (insān) endowed with divine spirit, but born on earth to hominid parents (bashar). Responses by two other linguist scholars, ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm Ibrāhīm al-Maṭʿanī of al-Azhar and Ḥamza b. Qublān al-Muzaynī of King Saud University, illustrate the contemporary underdevelopment of Qur'anic hermeneutics (uṣūl al-tafsīr) as a discipline. The paper draws attention to current scholarly developments in the Muslim world and the move from refutations to constructive accounts based on tradition.