ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the Qur’an project of the Deoband luminary, Ashraf ʿAlī Thānawī (d. 1943) within the historical context of British India. His Qur’anic hermeneutics was influenced by social and intellectual issues faced by both Muslim scholars and lay Muslims. He was both creative and conservative in his outlook on the Qur’an. On the one hand, he developed his particular creative approach to the naẓm (“coherence”) of the Qur’an. On the other hand, he remained committed to the interpretive tools like asbāb al-nuzūl (“occasions of revelation”) as passed on to him by the tradition of ‘ulum al-Qur’ān (“traditional disciplines of the Qur’an”). Given his overall Qur’an project, it is difficult to characterize him as a “traditionalist” scholar from an epistemological standpoint.
