#618: How are the Isrā`iliyyāt Identified?

QUESTION

” Assalamu Alikun, may Allah increase you in beneficial knowledge and incraese your istiqama Aameem. how can we identity the Qur’anic vases that are Israeliyat.”

ANSWER

Wa alaykum Salām Warahmatullāh Wabarakātuh

Alhamdulillāh

Beloved One, may Allāh reward you abundantly and answer your du’ā favourably, āmīn.

As for the Isrā’iliyyāt, they are the collection of stories and exegesis (tafsīr) narrated on account of some verses in the Qur’ān or stories related in the Qur’ān.

It is known that there are many verses in the Qur’ān that are stories narrated of things that happened in the Jewish or Christian Traditions and because the Christians and the Jews are the People of the Book, the same stories narrated from their Historians and their explanations of certain verses that relate to them or similar to what was found in their sound books were narrated by way of commentary on these verses in the Qur’ān.

The Ulamā have explained that the first sources of Isrā’īlī traditions been used for Tafsīr of the Qur’ān came from the earliest Jewish and Christian converts to Islām such as ‘Abdullah bn As-Salām, Ka’ab Al-Ahbār and Wahb Ibn Munabbih.

And then unfortunately this trend continued where some undiscerning attempt to make Tafsīr of the Qur’ān use some of the books of the People of the Book to make interpretations of the Qur’ān. To date there are many of such unfounded and wrong interpretations found in *some* books of Tafsīr that are of this calibre.

Know, may Allāh be merciful to us and to you, that the issue of narrations narrated from the People of the Book is divided into three.

One, that which concurs with what is found in our Books: the Qur’ān and/or the Hadīth.
As for this, we are permitted to narrate them but to attribute them to their sources without deception.

Two, that which is belied or goes contrary to our texts. For this, it is obligatory to reject and decline from quoting or authoritatively confirming them. They must be belied.

Three, those that are neither corroborated nor contradicted by our texts. As for these, we are not permitted to either confirm or to deny.

The proof for all this is the Hadīth recorded by Imām Al-Bukhāri from Abū Hurayrah – radiyallāhu ‘anhu – that he said:

“The Jews used to read the Tawrah with Hebrew and make interpretations into the Arabic Language to the People of Islām. Then the Rasūl – salallāhu alayhi wasallam – said:
“Do not betruth the People of the Book and do not belie them. But say:
(آمَنَّا بِاللهِ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْنَا وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكُم)
“We believe in Allah and in that which was sent down to us, and in that which was sent down to you”

This that we have mentioned was what was established by Ibn Khaldun in the Muqaddimah, Ibn Taymiyyah in the Usūl At-Tafsīr and Ash-Shawkānī in his Al-Fat’h

That said, it becomes apparent to you therefore that a talk of the Isrā’iliyyāt is not a talk about the verses of the Qur’an but a talk on the Commentaries that have been made by different scholars of verses in the Qur’ān. Some of them even without referencing them.

Our advice is that in this regard, you should seek to study the book “Muqaddimatun Fī Usūl At-Tafsīr” from a Shaykh that you trust.

Bārakallāhu fīkum
Jazākumullāhu Khayran

24th Shawwal, 1439 AH.

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