Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016): 194-196

Book Review

Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209) has been the subject of much recent schol-arship that has affirmed his impor-
tance as an innovative thinker, who had 
a hand in advancing the many disciplines 
in which he wrote. Tariq Jaffer’s new book 
stands on the shoulders of long-standing 
work by the likes of Ignaz Goldziher and 
Josef van Ess, as well as scholars who 
have recently written on al-Rāzī including 
Ayman Shihadeh and Michel Lagarde. 
J a ff e r  a d d s  v a l u a b l e  i n s i g h t s  t o  t h e 
available work on this towering figure in 
Islamic intellectual history. This book is 
not meant to be a comprehensive account 
of al-Rāzī’s thought but rather a focused 
examination of his methodology, particu-
larly in his famous commentary on the 
Qurʾān, the Mafātīh al-ghayb. Jaffer shows 
how tafsīr, in al-Rāzī’s hands, becomes 
more complex and comprehensive than 
simply an exegesis in the narrow sense; 
it provides, rather, “a context in which  
philosophical questions can be examined,”  
 

by using critical reasoning to arrive  
at truth (173-4).

J a ff e r  e x p l o r e s  s e v e r a l  r e l a t e d 
dimensions of al-Rāzī’s thought in the 
service of demonstrating the scholar’s 
i n n o v a t i v e  a d a p t a t i o n  o f  d i s p a r a t e 
methodologies to the genre of tafsīr. 
In his opening chapter, he briefly takes 
account of the history of doubt in Islamic 
t h o u g h t  a s  a  m e t h o d  o f  a r r i v i n g  a t 
personal understanding, highlighting 
al-Rāzī’s effort to escape from taqlīd, the 
uncritical acceptance of authority, in both 
his philosophy and exegesis. In order to 
eschew taqlīd, al-Rāzī implemented a 
dialectical method, raising questions and 
formulating arguments so to achieve a 
critical investigation of the philosophical 
a n d  t h e o l o g i c a l  i s s u e s  t h a t  t h e  t e x t 
raises in the reader’s mind. Al-Rāzī was 
not the only thinker to apply this type 
of method in his writings around this 
time in history, Jaffer writes, but he was 
unique in pioneering its use in tafsīr. 

Tariq Jaffer, Rāzī: Master of Qurʾānic Interpretation and Theological 
Reasoning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), viii+244 pages. 
ISBN: 9780199947997, Price: $78.00.

Rachel Anne Friedman

Program in Comparative Literature, 
Williams College

(raf2@williams.edu)



Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016)

195  •  Rachel anne FRiedMan

T h e  i n d i v i d u a l  e ff o r t  t o  a r r i v e  a t 
u n d e r s t a n d i n g  r a t h e r  t h a n  b l i n d l y 
accepting authorities’ conclusions goes 
hand in hand with privileging the intellect, 
ʿaql, as a tool for approaching Islamic 
thought. The championing of ʿaql, over 
and above the authority of transmitted 
sources (manqūlāt), is conventionally 
seen as central to Muʿtazilite thought. 
Jaffer, in his second chapter, demonstrates 
al-Rāzī’s elevating of the status of ʿaql in 
tafsīr, thus challenging his identity as a 
wholehearted Ashʿarite and positioning 
h i m  i n s t e a d  a s  h a v i n g  a  “ s t r o n g l y 
Muʿtazilite” methodology (55). In so doing, 
Jaffer demonstrates the way in which 
al-Rāzī assigns the intellect priority over 
revelation, placing limits on the authority 
of the Qurʾān and hadīth. 

J a ff e r  d r a w s  c o n n e c t i o n s  b e t w e e n 
this hierarchy and particular facets of 
al-Rāzī’s commentary. Applying ʿaql to 
Qurʾānic exegesis, for al-Rāzī, meant, most 
prominently, using reason to determine 
when non-literal interpretation of a verse 
is in order. The reader’s ʿaql determines 
when the plain meaning of a verse is in 
conflict with rational evidence, providing 
the cue to read the verse figuratively. ʿAql 
also plays a central role in establishing 
the credibility of the Qurʾān. It is logically 
i m p o s s i b l e ,  i n  a l - R ā z ī ’ s  t h o u g h t ,  f o r 
scripture to confirm itself: it requires 
a  w i t n e s s .  T h u s ,  t h e  c r e d i b i l i t y  o f 
Muḥammad himself, and not simply the 
attestation of miracles, must be subject 
to rational confirmation (Chapter Three). 
Ultimately, it is reason that tells us God 
would not send a false prophet. These 
fascinating explorations of the results of 
al-Rāzī’s privileging of ʿaql are a strength 
of Jaffer’s book.

The final two chapters of the book 

consist of case studies of al-Rāzī’s tafsīr, 
carefully chosen to highlight al-Rāzī’s 
adaptation of non-traditional sources and 
methods in his commentary. Jaffer, in 
Chapter Four, provides a detailed analysis 
of al-Rāzī’s interpretation of the Light 
Verse (Q 24:35) as a means of showing that 
al-Rāzī employed Avicennian thought as 
well as the paradoxical logic of al-Ghazali’s 
interpretation in his commentary on 
the particular āya, ultimately staging a 
developed theory of knowledge through 
this exegesis. The methods of Avicenna’s 
allegorical falsafa and al-Ghazali’s Sufi 
principles were adopted into Sunni tafsīr 
in this way.

Jaffer turns, in Chapter Five, to al-Rāzī’s 
doctrine of the soul in Mafātīh al-ghayb. 
His comments showcase the adoption of 
Muʿtazilite thought on the soul as well as 
al-Rāzī’s mediation between falāsifa and 
theologians’ disagreements on the topic 
of the soul. These later chapters of Jaffer’s 
book are very detailed and replete with 
lengthy quotations. A thorough reading 
will nonetheless reward the reader who 
is interested in the fine points of al-Rāzī’s 
exegesis and its relationship to other 
thinkers’ explanations of the Light Verse 
and the soul.

Though Jaffer’s book is a focused study 
of al-Rāzī’s methodology, particularly in 
his tafsīr, the book does strive to place 
al-Rāzī into the context of his position 
in the history of Islamic thought. Al-Rāzī  
was not the first thinker to make many 
of the important intellectual moves that 
Jaffer examines, and the book provides 
some background on earlier thinkers such 
as al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), accounting 
for the ways in which al-Rāzī responded 
to and incorporated his predecessors’ 
insights into his thought. Jaffer considers 



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Tariq Jaffer’s Rāzī: Master of Qurʾānic Interpretation  •  196

the influence that al-Rāzī’s methodology 
had on later Islamic thought, referencing 
research that has shown its adoption 
among Sunni scholars, such as al-Ījī (d. 
c. 756/1355), al-Taftazānī (d. 793/1390), 
and al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413), who drew on 
al-Rāzī’s taʾwīl methodology (117). He also 
looks closely at the Traditionalist rejection 
of the ʿaqlī method, as represented by Ibn 
Taymiyya (d. 728/1328). 

Jaffer’s book is a solid contribution 
to scholarship on al-Rāzī as well as the 
broader development of Islamic disciplines 
in the “postclassical” period. Over and 
above academic work on individual fields 
of thought such as exegesis, philosophy, 
and theology, Jaffer offers a perspective 
into the cross-pollination of thought 
across disciplines. By showing the ways in 
which al-Rāzī applies a method used in one 
discipline to his writing in another, Jaffer 
describes and analyzes those methods that 
were characteristic of al-Rāzī as a thinker, 
as opposed more narrowly as an exegete or 
theologian. The book provides an account, 
illustrated through adeptly translated 
excerpts of al-Rāzī’s writings, of al-Rāzī’s 
commitment to integrating ʿaql into tafsīr. 
In fact, as Jaffer shows, al-Rāzī saw the 
Qurʾān itself as being organized according 
to rational logic and containing answers 
t o  t h e  q u e s t i o n s  i t  p o s e s ,  w i t h  “ t h e 
solutions to difficulties… already worked 
out by divine reasoning and… embedded 
in Qurʾānic verses for human reasoning to 
discover” (170).

Jaffer depicts al-Rāzī as a scholar who 
applied a consistent logic across his 
oeuvre, one who was concerned with 
importing the methods of philosophy and 
theology into tafsīr and applying them 
critically. The result, Jaffer shows, is an 
eclectic compound method of reading the 

Qurʾān in which elements of disparate 
origins coexist and together produce 
insightful interpretation. In light of this 
methodological exploration, it is especially 
intriguing to read that al-Rāzī in fact 
developed divergent interpretations of 
the Light Verse in different books that 
he authored. This section raises some 
thought-provoking questions about the 
coherence of al-Rāzī’s oeuvre.

Jaffer attributes these differences, 
especially between the Mafātīh al-ghayb 
and the more Sufi-like Asrār al-tanzīl, 
to generic conventions (166) and the 
“ u n p r e c e d e n t e d ”  fl e x i b i l i t y  o f  h i s 
methodology (168) rather than concluding 
that there are inconsistencies in al-Rāzī’s 
work. Considering Jaffer’s thesis that 
al-Rāzī freely adopted a variety of schools’ 
ways of thinking in his tafsīr and yet still 
differed in his explanations of key āyāt 
across his commentaries, such divergences 
seems worthy of further exploration. One 
wonders what the significance of generic 
boundaries was for a scholar like al-Rāzī 
who, as Jaffer so aptly demonstrates, 
worked to apply the methods of many 
schools of thought to tafsīr. 

Jaffer’s writing is admirably clear. He 
carefully leads his readers through each 
chapter with explicit explanation of 
what each section seeks to demonstrate 
and the way each topic fits into Jaffer’s 
larger project. This book will be useful 
for students and specialists in Islamic 
Studies, especially those interested in 
understanding the so-called postclassical 
developments in Islamic thought across 
disciplines. Jaffer adds his voice to those 
of scholars who have helped advance 
u n d e r s t a n d i n g  o f  o n e  o f  t h e  m o s t 
influential figures in Islamic intellectual 
history.