Cosmic Subjectivity in Ibn ‘Ajība’s Qur’anic Exegesis

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 1, 36 – 53, 02.07.2024

Mariya Golovacheva

Öz

In his autobiography the Moroccan Sufi Aḥmad Ibn ‘Ajība cites an incident in which his saintly grandmother gives a command to a snake and the reptile fulfils the lady’s order. Undoubtedly, the story demonstrates the special powers granted to the saintly woman, but is the snake she interacts with also special? Or do snakes (and other natural entities) in general understand more than we ordinarily think? To answer this question and more broadly, to reflect upon the issue of cosmic subjectivity, this article looks into Ibn ‘Ajība’s Qur’anic commentary Al-Baḥr al-Madīd (The Immense Ocean), which is quite unique in its attempt to blend the exoteric and esoteric approaches to the scripture and which is aimed at general public (rather than the initiates on the Sufi path). Whereas the Sufi master himself clearly perceives everything in creation as an understanding subject, when he comments on various Qur’anic verses repeatedly highlighting the “animated quality of nature”, he succeeds in seamlessly bringing together various interpretations (including purely metaphorical readings), accepting them all while singling out the literal reading as the deepest and most accurate depiction of reality, that is understood, seen, and internalised by the spiritually enlightened.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sufism, Ibn ‘Ajība, tafsīr, subjectivity, consciousness, natural world, majāz

Kaynakça

• Al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn. Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, also known as Al-tafsīr al-kabīr (Vols. 1-32). Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1981.
• Ayad, Omneya. “Ibn ‘Ajība’s ‘Oceanic Exegesis of the Qur’an’: Methodology and Features”. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 23, 3 (2021): 1-35.
• Baqlī, Rūzbihān. ‘Arā’is al-bayān fī ḥaqā’iq al-Qur’ān (Vols. 1-3). Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2008.
• Bauer, Thomas. A Culture of Ambiguity. An Alternative History of Islam. Translated by Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Tricia Tunstall. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.
• Chittick, William C. Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul: The Pertinence of Islamic Cosmology in the Modern World. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007.
• Clarke, Lynda. “The Universe Alive: Nature in the Masnavī of Jalal al-Din Rumi,” in Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust, edited by Richard Foltz, Frederick Denny, and Azizan Baharuddin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003: 39-67.
• Cornell, Vincent. The Way of Abū Madyan: Doctrinal and Poetic Works of Abū Madyan Shuʿayb ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Anṣārī (c.509/1115-594/1198). Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996.
• Dawud, Nadwa. “Muṣṭalaḥāt al-taṣwīr wa-l-tamthīl wa-l-takhyīl ʿinda-l-Zamakhsharī fī-l-Kashshāf” (The terms “taṣwīr” (depiction), “tamthīl” (allegory) and “takhyīl” (visualisation, or imaginative representation) in al-Zamakhsharī’s Al-Kashshāf). Journal of Qur’anic Studies 10, 2 (2008): 142-175.
• De Libera, Alain. “When Did the Modern Subject Emerge?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82, 2 (2008): 181-220.
• Dickman, Nathan Eric. “A Zhuangzian Tangle: Corroborating (Orientalism in?) Posthumanist Approaches to Subjectivities and Flourishings”. Religions 10 (2019): 1-8.
• Elsayed, Mohamed Fadel. “Le Commentaire du Coran par le Soufi Marocain Aḥmad Ibn ‘Ajība (1160-1224 / 1747-1809): Méthodes et Themes”. PhD diss., University of Strasbourg, 2021.
• Faruque, Muhammad U. Sculpting the Self. Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021.
• Ibn ‘Ajība, Aḥmad. al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-majīd (Vols. 1-5). Edited by Aḥmad al-Qurashī al-Raslān. Cairo: self-published, 1999.
• —. al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-majīd. Maktaba Shāmila, 2019.
• Keeler, Annabel. “Ṣufī tafsīr as a Mirror: al-Qushayrī the murshid in his Laṭāif al-ishārāt”. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 8, 1 (2006): 1-21.
• Knysh, Alexander. “Sufi Commentary. Formative and Later Periods”. In The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies, edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem, 746-765. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Louchakova-Schwartz, Olga. “The Self and the World: Vedanta, Sufism, and the Presocratics in a Phenomenological View”. In Phenomenology/Ontopoesis. Retrieving Geo-cosmic Horizons of Antiquity, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, 423-439. New York: Springer, 2011.
• McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019.
• Michon, Jean-Louis. “L’autobiographie du Soufi Marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAǧība (1747-1809) I”. Arabica 15, 3 (1968): 225-269.
• —. “L’autobiographie du Soufi Marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAǧība (1747-1809)”. Arabica 16, 2 (1969): 113-154.
• Miller, James. China’s Green Religion. Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
• Murad, Abdal Hakim. Travelling Home: Essays of Islam in Europe. Cambridge: The Quilliam Press, 2020.
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Man and Nature. The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1968.
• Renard, John. Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment, and Servanthood. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008.
• Sanseverino, Ruggero Vimercati. “Commentaire Coranique, Enseignement Initiatique et Renouveau Soufi dans la Darqāwiyya. Le Baḥr al-Madīd fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Majīd d'Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība (m. 1223/1809)”. Studia Islamica 107 (2012): 209-234.
• Tlili, Sarra. Animals in the Qur’an. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Vílchez, José Miguel Puerta. Aesthetics in Arabic Thought. Translated by Consuelo López-Morillas. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
• Vivaldi, Jordi. “Xenological Subjectivity: Rosi Braidotti and Object-oriented Ontology”. Open Philosophy 4 (2021): 311-334.

İbn ‘Acîbe’nin Kur’ân Tefsirinde Kozmik Öznellik

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 3 Sayı: 1, 36 – 53, 02.07.2024

Mariya Golovacheva

Öz

Faslı sûfî Ahmed İbn ‘Acîbe otobiyografisinde, büyükannesinin bir yılana emir verdiği ve sürüngenin de bu mübarek hanımın emrini yerine getirdiği bir olaydan bahseder. Kuşkusuz bu hikâye bu azîz kadına bahşedilen özel güçleri göstermektedir, ancak burada özel olan sadece o mudur yoksa iletişim kurduğu yılan da özel bir varlık mıdır? Ya da genel olarak doğal varlıklar normalde düşündüğümüzden daha fazlasını anlayıp bilebilir mi? Kur’ân, defaten, “doğanın canlı niteliğini” vurgulayarak onu bilinçli, bilen ve hatta bilge bir kozmos olarak tasvir ederken, tefsir eserleri, bu tür âyetleri genellikle mecâzî olarak yorumlayarak onları, Allah’ın kudretinin ve âlemin O’na zorunlu teslimiyetinin belagatli ifadeleri olarak görür. O halde bu yaygın sembolik okuma anlayışını, canlı, bilen ve anlayan bir kozmosun (İbn ‘Acîbe’nin bahsettiği olaya benzer şekilde) sufilerin hayatlarındaki sayısız tezâhürüyle nasıl uzlaştırabiliriz? Bu makale, bu soruyu cevaplamak ve daha geniş anlamda, tasavvufî tefsirlerde az çalışılmış bir konu olan kozmik öznellik meselesi üzerine düşünmek amacıyla, İbn ‘Acîbe’nin kutsal kitaba zâhirî ve bâtınî yaklaşımları ustalıkla harmanlayan ve (tasavvuf yolundaki sâliklerden ziyade) halkın geneline yönelik telif ettiği el-Bahrü’l-Medîd (Uçsuz Bucaksız Okyanus) adlı Kur’ân tefsirini incelemektedir. Mürşidin kendisi yaratılıştaki her şeyi bilen birer varlık olarak algılarken, aynı zamanda farklı yaklaşımları (tamamen metaforik okumalar da dahil olmak üzere) sorunsuz bir şekilde bir araya getirmeyi, bunların geçerli ve farklı kitleler için farklı uygunluklara sahip olduğunu kabul eder. Bununla birlikte, buradaki en yüksek seviye, Kur’ân’ın âlem tasvirinin sözlük anlamıyla, hakikatin duyulardan gizlenen yönlerini isabetli bir şekilde ele geçirdiğini fark etmektir: Ruhsal olarak aydınlanmış kişi, kozmosun canlı, idrâk sahibi ve bilgili olduğunu ve içindeki her şeyin, nihayetinde İlahi İsimler’i tezâhür ettiren birer mazhar olduğunu basîret gözüyle gerçekten “görür”.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Tasavvuf, tefsir, öznellik, doğal dünya, bilinçlilik, mecâz, İbn 'Acîbe

Kaynakça

• Al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn. Mafātīḥ al-ghayb, also known as Al-tafsīr al-kabīr (Vols. 1-32). Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1981.
• Ayad, Omneya. “Ibn ‘Ajība’s ‘Oceanic Exegesis of the Qur’an’: Methodology and Features”. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 23, 3 (2021): 1-35.
• Baqlī, Rūzbihān. ‘Arā’is al-bayān fī ḥaqā’iq al-Qur’ān (Vols. 1-3). Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2008.
• Bauer, Thomas. A Culture of Ambiguity. An Alternative History of Islam. Translated by Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Tricia Tunstall. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.
• Chittick, William C. Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul: The Pertinence of Islamic Cosmology in the Modern World. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007.
• Clarke, Lynda. “The Universe Alive: Nature in the Masnavī of Jalal al-Din Rumi,” in Islam and Ecology: A Bestowed Trust, edited by Richard Foltz, Frederick Denny, and Azizan Baharuddin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003: 39-67.
• Cornell, Vincent. The Way of Abū Madyan: Doctrinal and Poetic Works of Abū Madyan Shuʿayb ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Anṣārī (c.509/1115-594/1198). Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996.
• Dawud, Nadwa. “Muṣṭalaḥāt al-taṣwīr wa-l-tamthīl wa-l-takhyīl ʿinda-l-Zamakhsharī fī-l-Kashshāf” (The terms “taṣwīr” (depiction), “tamthīl” (allegory) and “takhyīl” (visualisation, or imaginative representation) in al-Zamakhsharī’s Al-Kashshāf). Journal of Qur’anic Studies 10, 2 (2008): 142-175.
• De Libera, Alain. “When Did the Modern Subject Emerge?” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82, 2 (2008): 181-220.
• Dickman, Nathan Eric. “A Zhuangzian Tangle: Corroborating (Orientalism in?) Posthumanist Approaches to Subjectivities and Flourishings”. Religions 10 (2019): 1-8.
• Elsayed, Mohamed Fadel. “Le Commentaire du Coran par le Soufi Marocain Aḥmad Ibn ‘Ajība (1160-1224 / 1747-1809): Méthodes et Themes”. PhD diss., University of Strasbourg, 2021.
• Faruque, Muhammad U. Sculpting the Self. Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021.
• Ibn ‘Ajība, Aḥmad. al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-majīd (Vols. 1-5). Edited by Aḥmad al-Qurashī al-Raslān. Cairo: self-published, 1999.
• —. al-Baḥr al-madīd fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-majīd. Maktaba Shāmila, 2019.
• Keeler, Annabel. “Ṣufī tafsīr as a Mirror: al-Qushayrī the murshid in his Laṭāif al-ishārāt”. Journal of Qur’anic Studies 8, 1 (2006): 1-21.
• Knysh, Alexander. “Sufi Commentary. Formative and Later Periods”. In The Oxford Handbook of Qur’anic Studies, edited by Mustafa Shah and Muhammad Abdel Haleem, 746-765. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Louchakova-Schwartz, Olga. “The Self and the World: Vedanta, Sufism, and the Presocratics in a Phenomenological View”. In Phenomenology/Ontopoesis. Retrieving Geo-cosmic Horizons of Antiquity, edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, 423-439. New York: Springer, 2011.
• McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019.
• Michon, Jean-Louis. “L’autobiographie du Soufi Marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAǧība (1747-1809) I”. Arabica 15, 3 (1968): 225-269.
• —. “L’autobiographie du Soufi Marocain Aḥmad Ibn ʿAǧība (1747-1809)”. Arabica 16, 2 (1969): 113-154.
• Miller, James. China’s Green Religion. Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
• Murad, Abdal Hakim. Travelling Home: Essays of Islam in Europe. Cambridge: The Quilliam Press, 2020.
• Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Man and Nature. The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1968.
• Renard, John. Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment, and Servanthood. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008.
• Sanseverino, Ruggero Vimercati. “Commentaire Coranique, Enseignement Initiatique et Renouveau Soufi dans la Darqāwiyya. Le Baḥr al-Madīd fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Majīd d'Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība (m. 1223/1809)”. Studia Islamica 107 (2012): 209-234.
• Tlili, Sarra. Animals in the Qur’an. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Vílchez, José Miguel Puerta. Aesthetics in Arabic Thought. Translated by Consuelo López-Morillas. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
• Vivaldi, Jordi. “Xenological Subjectivity: Rosi Braidotti and Object-oriented Ontology”. Open Philosophy 4 (2021): 311-334.

Toplam 28 adet kaynakça vardır.

Ayrıntılar

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