The use of narration in al-Māturīdī's Ta'wīlāt al-Qur'ān - the example of Surahs al-İsrā and al-Fatīh

From the first moment the Qur'an began to be revealed, the Prophet, the Companions, the Tâbiûn and the generations that followed them have guided us on how to understand and interpret the revelation. Thanks to their devoted efforts, the interpretation of the Qur'an was established on a certain basis and the interpretation of the Qur'an for negative purposes was prevented. These explanations were shaped around the name of Sunnism or Ahl al-Sunnah in later periods. Our research evaluates the narrations transmitted in Imam al-Māturīdī's al-Ta'wīl al-Qur'ān and the methods of using these narrations. The topics that al-Ta'wīlāt, which is considered among the first direct exegesis, focuses on, the narrations it uses, and the commentaries it conveys are important both for understanding the problems of Māturīdī's time and for being aware of the first interpretations of the verses. The tradition of narrative exegesis, which filled an important gap until the 4th century AH, evolved into direct exegesis with some commentators, including al-Māturīdī. The fact that al-Ta'wīlāt, whose methodology is centered on direct exegesis, also contains many narrations makes it necessary to determine its place in the tradition of narrative exegesis. The aim of our study is to analyze al-Māturīdī's tafsīr in terms of the narrations it contains and to determine to what extent and in what ways this tafsīr includes narrations. At the same time, this study questions the value that al-Māturīdī attributed to narrations in his exegesis in terms of different types of narrations. Knowing the methods of al-Māturīdī, a commentator who left important traces in the history of tafsīr, while making use of the narrations and commentaries that reached him will contribute to the science of tafsīr. Our research includes both the examination of an important work in the history of tafsīr and the discussion of the narrations utilized in this tafsīr with a special focus on Surahs al-Isrā and al-Fatih. Therefore, it was thought that it would be appropriate to use the sampling method first. The reason for this limitation in the study is that the preliminary examination before the beginning of the research revealed that the narrations and the interpretations used in al-Ta'wīlāt were used so intensely that they exceeded the limits of the study. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to reveal how much, how, how and why the narrations in the sampled suras were used. Although the study was limited to these suras, general issues such as the commentator's theory of knowledge, the place of news in this theory, and what he meant by the concepts he used in relation to the sciences of narration were investigated by considering the whole of al-Ta'wīlāt. Māturīdī almost never specified the isnad and sources of the narrations he utilized in his exegesis. In this study, especially the works written in the first four centuries of Hijri were examined to reach the first owner of the narrators, narrations and the interpretations in the narrations he used with unknown sīgas, and to identify the works he benefited from. In Surahs al-Isrā and al-Fatih, al-Māturīdī utilized as much as possible the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah, the opinions of the Companions, and the sayings of the tābiūn and later generations. In this regard, Ibn 'Abbās and Ibn Masʿūd from the Companions, Hasan al-Basrī and Qatāda b. Diāma from the tābiūn, and Muqātil b. Suleimān, Zajjāj, and Ibn Qutayba from the later periods stand out. Although al-Māturīdī had a deep knowledge of the sciences of narration, he was extremely loose in his transmission of narrations. He included either the full text or partial text of the narrations and commentaries, which he mostly utilized without using isnad, or only the aspect that would evoke the meaning of the narration in his commentary. It is noteworthy that he lists several narrations one after the other in matters of provision. It is thought that Imam Māturīdī utilized the books of the authors whose names he mentioned in his tafsīr. However, it is not certain whether he made use of the works of the authors who appear extensively in the sources but whose names are not mentioned in his tafsir, while investigating the unknown narrations. It has been understood that al-Māturīdī used the narration material he received in his Tafsīr al-Ta'wīlāt al-Qur'ān very intensively, and that he had a deep narration background from his comparisons and interpretations of the news and the interpretations he narrated. As a result, it has become clear that al-Ta'wīlāt is a tafsīr that does not neglect narration and even makes effective use of narration.