Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

THE MUSLIM SCRIPTURE t 125
Shiite Tafsir
If the philosophers imagined they had a privileged understanding
of the Quran, they were not the only Muslims to make such
claims. As already noted, the Quran makes quite explicit that
Muhammad is but one of a line of prophets that stretches back to
Adam. But that line closes with Muhammad, and however hard
some sectarians like the Bahais and Ahmadis attempted to pry it
open once again, the main body of Muslims has resisted: Muhammad
was indeed the “seal of the prophets” (Quran 33:40). But if
prophethood was a closed way, there was another route that led,
almost as effectively, through exegesis. The Shiite Muslims believe
that Muhammad was followed by a series of divinely appointed
Imams who are God’s vicars and infallibly guide the community.
One of their powers is understanding the “hidden” sense of the
Quran.
Note: Imam is a generic Arabic term for leader. Besides its technical
use by Shiites, the word is also often employed, generally uncapitalized,
for either the leader at mosque prayer or the head of a Muslim
congregation.
All the varieties of Shiites share a belief in the Imam as the head
of the umma, but the group called the Ismailis, who possessed actual
Imams longer than any of the other groups, (see chapter 6)
developed an elaborate theory of prophecy and of exegesis. According
to them, each of the prophets—or “speakers,” as the Ismailis
preferred to call the traditional prophets of the Quran—was
entrusted with the “outer” or “obvious” (zahir) sense of the sacred
texts. But each was followed in turn by a “deputy” (wasi)—Aaron
for Moses, for example, Peter for Jesus, and, of course Ali for
Muhammad—who was privy to the inner (batin) and so more profound
meaning of revelation. Ordinary Muslims practice their tafsir
on the literal sense of the Quran, which produces the standard
practices and beliefs of what we call Islam. But Ismaili exegesis is
not reading but interpretation (tawil). It fits within the broad cate-