Ethics in the Qur?an and the Tafsir Tradition

This book is about the articulation of ethics in the Qur?an and the tafsir tradition. Based on an examination of several apparently problematic Qur?anic narrative pericopes and how the exegetes grappled with them, the book demonstrates that the moral world of the Qur?an is polyvalent and non-linear, owing, above all, to its intrinsic ethical antinomies and textual ambiguities. That is, the book contends that paradox and uncertainty are both constituents of the Qur?an’s ethical architectonics, and that through these constituents the Qur?an charts a system of ethics that seeks to tread in the midst of a non-ideal world rife with uncertainty.
The book also argues that the tafsir tradition tends to erode the hermeneutical openness of the Qur?an and, thereby, limits the Qur?an’s ethical potential. The book, thus, advances our understanding of Qur?anic ethics and contributes to the field of tafsir studies and to the scholarship on Qur?anic hermeneutics.