جهود المستشرق أندرو ريبين في دراسة علوم القرآن: أسباب النزول أنموذجًا

Andrew Rippin and the Study of ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān: A Critical Appraisal of His Approach to Asbāb al-Nuzūl

Abstract

This research studies the work of Andrew Rippin as a contemporary orientalist who studied the interpretation of the Qur’an and its sciences. The nature of the research required the use of inductive and deductive approaches in investigating the efforts of Rippin and his efforts in studying the narrations of the causes of revelation and their impact on interpretation. The study found that Rippin had done exceptional work in studying the causes of revelation compared to the orientalists who preceded him. It appeared through the research that he tried to derive a meaning for the term “Sabab” from its use in the Qur’an without referring to major dictionaries, but he did not reach a conclusive result. He tried to trace the use of the word in early Islamic works and noticed that its use in its current meaning began with al-Zajjaj (d. 311 AH), so he concluded that the idea of the causes of revelation did not exist in the beginnings. The study revealed that Rippin attempted to draw upon the Islamic scholarly tradition, yet his findings were ultimately limited by the sources available to him. While his characterization of the origins of the causes of revelations (Asbāb al-nuzūl) was predominantly descriptive—relying on specific texts from the Islamic heritage—his work exhibited a degree of conflation between the emergence of the Quranic sciences as an independent field of study and the rise of the concept of causes of revelation itself. Furthermore, the study found that in defining the function of this discipline, Rippin drew parallels with concepts used in Torah studies, concluding that the role of causes of revelation is primarily characterized by narrative-homiletic (Haggadic) exegesis rather than a legislative (Halakhic) exegesis.