Reading the Qur݇n as homily

The relationship between the Qur’an and tafsCr might be compared, mutatis mutandis, to the relationship between the Iliad and the Aeneid. When Virgil has Aeneas recount the story of the fall of Troy in Dido’s court ( Books 2 – 3), he is not revealing faithfully preserved details of events that took place centuries earlier, details that will allow the student to understand the true meaning of the Iliad. Instead Virgil is developing a new interpretation of the story of Troy, an interpretation motivated by his particular partisan agenda (above all the glorication of Augustan Rome). In the same way the details that the mufassirEn relate about the Qur’an are a product of their intellectual and literary creativity, a creativity often, although not always, motivated by a sectarian agenda. Their accomplishment would seem to be much less if tafsCr were reduced to a sort of confused record of events and speeches that really took place.