Reflections of Islamizim thought on tafsir (Al-Manar example)

After centuries of political and cultural dominance, the Islamic world has been confronted with the reality that, as a result of its encounters with Western culture, it has fallen behind in many respects and has failed to keep pace with the requirements of the modern age while preserving its own values. During this period, Muslim intellectuals, statesmen, and scholars focused on the causes of decline vis-à-vis the West and put forward various ideas. One of the prominent intellectual movements that emerged within the framework of rescuing the Islamic world from fragmentation and dissolution was Islamism, which emphasized that the revival of the state and society could only be achieved by returning to the fundamental sources of Islam. Islamist thinkers examined the political, social, religious, and moral problems that became evident in Muslim societies and sought solutions to these issues. The reflection of Islamist thought in a Qur'anic exegetical work was first realized through the Tafsīr al-Manār. Many religious, political, and social issues—such as Westernization and modernization, the view that religion does not hinder progress, solutions to social problems related to family and women, the establishment of Islamic unity, the importance of consultation (shūrā) in state governance, overcoming the problems caused by traditionalist and imitative religious understandings, updating Islamic jurisprudence through ijtihād, and identifying and abandoning superstitions embedded in customs and traditions—found expression within Tafsīr al-Manār. Influencing many later exegetical works, Tafsīr al-Manār represents a new genre that was unfamiliar to the classical tradition of Qur'anic exegesis. It stands as one of the most prominent examples of the socio-political (ijtimaʿī-siyāsī) tafsīr school. This work vividly demonstrates the extent to which the prevailing conditions shaped the exegete's perspective, as Qur'anic verses are interpreted in an engaging manner, accompanied by themes that twentieth-century readers of the Qur'an were expected to recognize beyond traditional religious conceptions. Nevertheless, the tafsīr at times explains verses by detaching them from their original contexts and foregrounding the intended messages of the exegete. This study evaluates the methodological approach adopted in representing Islamist thought in Tafsīr al-Manār and draws attention to instances where explanations are presented in a contextually disconnected manner. Consequently, alongside examples regarded as successful from the perspective of tafsīr studies, it is identified that Tafsīr al-Manār also contains interpretations in which establishing a clear connection with the apparent meaning of the verse becomes difficult, suggesting that the exegete articulated his intended ideas in the form of Qur'anic exegesis. Keywords: Islamism, Tafsīr, Muhammad ʿAbduh, Rashīd Riḍā, Tafsīr al-Manār.