Abstract:

The verification (edition critique) and publications of manuscript copies may include issues such as that a work is published with an attribution to someone other than the actual author. For instance, ‘Abd al-Raz āzq al-Qashānī’s al-Tafsīr was published with the name Tafsīr Ibn ʻArabī with an attribution to Ibn ʻArabī. Likewise, Niʻmat Allāh al-Nakhjawānī's Fawātiḥ al-ilāhiyah was published as Tafsīr al-Jīlānī with an attribution to ʻAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī. It turns out that the work published with the name al-Tafsīr al-kabīr by Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī is actually a tafsīr by Abū Bakr al-Ḥaddād. The manuscript copy of al-Sakhāwī’s tafsīr named Tafsīr al-Qurʼān al-ʻAzīm is found in al-Khizānah al-Taymūrīyah. This book is published as two volumes with attribution to ʻAlam al-Dīn ʻAlam al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī. However, a researcher, who has examined this copy, states that attribution of the work to al-Sakhāwī is incorrect. One of the works with similar mistakes is the tafsīr named ʻAyn al-ḥayāh attributed to Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrá. ʻAyn al-ḥayāh is actually the work titled Baḥr al-ḥaqāʼiq. Baḥr al-ḥaqāʼiq is an Arabic ishārī Qur’ān tafsīr started by Najm al-Dīn al-Dāyah, who is the follower/student of al-Dīn al-Kubrá, and completed by ʻAlāʼ al-Dawla al-Simnānī. al-Dhahabī’s work titled Maʻrifat al-qurrāʼ has three different publications. The first publication is criticized on the grounds that manuscript publication is not made in accordance with the rules. While the first publication of the work contains 721 biographies, and the second one contains 734 biographies, this figure reaches 1241 in the third publication by Tayyar Altıkulaç. This example indicates that, if a mistake is made while determining the copy to be taken as a basis for verification of manuscripts with more than one copies, then it is possible to have other consequent mistakes. In this article, several tafsīr manuscripts will be examined and evaluated in term of the belongingness to the author and verification quality problems.