Handbook of Qurʾānic Hermeneutics. Vol.4

Reviewed by: Sajjad Rizvi, University of Exeter, UK

Published by: Berlin: de Gruyter, 2024, 448pp. ISBN: 978-3110581652.

Edited by: Georges Tamer

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Handbooks seem to be rather fashionable these days – or at least, there is a growing consensus that they can be useful media for introducing key topics, concepts, and snippets of information for the student and the elusive general reader. A handbook that covers the history of Qurʾānic hermeneutics and exegesis is clearly desirable; after all, most of the existing handbooks on Qurʾānic studies devote a few studies to exegesis and hermeneutics but the major concern remains more the canonisation and recension of the text and its usages. This particular project convened by Georges Tamer covers the history of commentaries on the Qurʾān and its hermeneutics from the earliest period to the contemporary. This fourth volume is the first to appear covering the period from the onset of colonialism in the 19th century to the late 20th century. More recently, volume 3 has also appeared that covers the period from Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) to Thanāʾullāh Pānipatī (d. 1810) and mainly includes exegeses in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish with a final chapter on ‘Ottoman hermeneutics’. Volume 5 forthcoming in spring covers contemporary hermeneutics. So here is the issue – most of the chapters are about exegesis and the practice of exegesis and not hermeneutics as such. This is the case in volume 4 under review with most chapters concerned with exegetes and then some on hermeneutics of famous figures like Muḥammad Iqbāl, Saʿīd Nūrsī, or Amīn al-Khūlī. The linguistic coverage ranges from Arabic to Persian, Urdu, Indonesian, Bosnian and Turkish.