Zawaid Ibn al-Jawzi ala Muqatil fi al-Wujuh wa al-Nazair
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- Zawaid Ibn al-Jawzi ala Muqatil fi al-Wujuh wa al-Nazair
Zawaid Ibn al-Jawzi ala Muqatil fi al-Wujuh wa al-Nazair (The Additions of Ibn al-Jawzi over Muqatil in Quranic Polysemy and Synonyms) is a contemporary scholarly study in Quranic sciences by Fahd bin Ibrahim al-Dali . The work investigates the specialized field of al-wujuh wa-l-naza'ir (Quranic vocabulary bearing multiple contextual meanings), focusing specifically on the terms compiled by Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH) that were not present in the earlier compilation of Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 150 AH) .
Background and Scope
The genre of al-wujuh wa-l-naza'ir analyzes shared Quranic terms (al-wujuh denotes the different meanings of a word across various contexts, whereas al-naza'ir refers to recurring verbal occurrences sharing the same meaning) . In early scholarship, Muqatil ibn Sulayman compiled 177 terms in his work al-Ashbah wa-l-naza'ir, a corpus that was later examined in a doctoral dissertation by Salman bin Salih al-Qar'awi .
Later, Ibn al-Jawzi authored Nuzhat al-A'yun al-Nawazir fi Ilm al-Wujuh wa al-Nazair, encompassing 324 terms arranged alphabetically . Fahd al-Dali identified that after accounting for the 177 terms shared with Muqatil's work, Ibn al-Jawzi had introduced an additional 154 terms that remained unexamined in contemporary research, making them the primary scope of his book .
Structure and Method
The work begins with an introductory overview covering the biographies of Muqatil ibn Sulayman and Ibn al-Jawzi, descriptions of their respective treatises, and a summary of scholarly contributions to the study of al-wujuh wa-l-naza'ir .
The applied core of the book systematically investigates each of the 154 supplementary terms according to specific methodological steps:
- Attributing each recorded semantic facet (wajh) and its textual parallels to early and later commentators (mufassirun) .
- Linking each validated facet to its linguistic derivation, whether based on the root meaning in Arabic, conventional usage, or Quranic context and intertextual explanation .
- Evaluating, authenticating, or critiquing each interpretation, addressing cases where an assigned meaning clashes with authentic Prophetic traditions, relies on weak exegesis, or stems from variant Quranic readings (qira'at) without explicit attribution .
The study concludes with critical observations, noting that several interpretations attributed vaguely by Ibn al-Jawzi to "the exegetes" trace directly to Muqatil or Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi . It highlights theological issues and textual corruptions within the printed transmission of Ibn al-Jawzi's Nuzhat al-a'yun al-nawazir, recommending a critical re-edition of the text alongside specialized technical indexes .
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