علوم القرآن کی تشکیل و ارتقا: تیسری صدی ہجری سے عہدِ جدید تک روایت، درایت اور علمی درجہ بندی کا باہمی تعلق

The Formation and Development of ‘Ulum al-Qur’an: The Interplay of Transmission, Reasoned Analysis, and Scholarly Classification from the Third Century AH to the Modern Period

Abstract

This study examines the formation and development of ‘ulum al-Qur’an as a scholarly field from the third century AH (ninth century CE) to the modern period, and argues that the discipline emerged through the sustained interplay of three epistemic operations: transmission (riwayah), reasoned analysis (dirayah), and scholarly classification (tasnif). Employing a historical-analytical and comparative methodology organised as thesis, evidence, counter-argument, and synthesis, the article first clarifies the expression ‘ulum al-Qur’an and traces its antecedents in the Qur’an’s self-description, the Prophetic practice of recitation and review, the Companions’ collection of the text, and the exegetical circles of the Successors. It then contends that the third century AH constitutes the threshold of codification, when scattered reports were gathered into thematic monographs by scholars such as Abu ‘Ubayd al-Qasim b. Sallam, ‘Ali b. al-Madini, al-Bukhari, and Ibn Qutayba, while philological and polemical pressures introduced the first systematic reasoning about the text. The fourth to seventh centuries are shown to be the age of specialisation, in which qira’at, abrogation, occasions of revelation, and inimitability became independent fields. The eighth to tenth centuries, represented by Ibn Taymiyya, al-Zarkashi, al-Bulqini, and al-Suyuti, are analysed as the period of encyclopaedic classification, in which the number and sequence of the sciences were deliberately theorised. Turning to the modern era, the study evaluates the challenge of historical-critical scholarship, the reformist projects of Shah Waliullah, Muhammad ‘Abduh, Fazlur Rahman, and Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, and the textbook consolidation achieved by al-Zurqani, Subhi al-Salih, and Manna‘ al-Qattan. The article concludes that transmission supplies the material, reasoned analysis supplies the criteria, and classification supplies the architecture of the field, and that its future vitality depends on keeping these three in productive tension rather than allowing any one to dominate. Practical recommendations for curriculum design and research methodology are offered.