Main sources and originality in Abussuud's tafsir: An analysis on the topic of qasr in ma'ani

The Holy Qur'an, beyond being a religious text, is an unparalleled divine word in its balaghat i.e. rhetoric. This divine word has influenced not only believers but also linguists, literary scholars, and thinkers with its richness of language and expression. Indeed, the rhetorical aspect of the Qur'an has been the subject of many writings from different perspectives for generations, and these works have represented the effort to understand the miraculous eloquence of the Qur'an. In this context, Abussuûd Efendi's (ö. 982/1574) tafsir Irshâd al-'aql al-salîm, which benefited a lot from Zamakhsharî (ö. 538/1144) and Baydawî (ö. 685/1286) is one of the prominent works on Quranic rhetoric. As it was for every work written in the classical period, the question of whether the work is original was raised for Irshâd, too. Based on this question, our study evaluates the originality of Irshâd al-'aql al-salîm's by comparing its approach to the subject of kasr, which is a subject of the science of Ma'ani, with the tafsirs of Zamakhsharî and Baydawî which are Abussuûd's two primary sources in writing his work. In the Islamic scholarly tradition, originality is considered the output of individual's inner discovery process and the composition of a unique meaning by blending the acquired information with a personal interpretation. From this perspective, we concluded that Abussuûd Efendi created his own tafsir style with his approach to qasr and his explanations with in this context, and that he differs from other mufassirs in this respect.