ARABIC-THE METHODOLOGIES OF ISHĀRĪ TAʾWĪL IN AL-ʿALĀWĪ’S QUR’ANIC COMMENTARY AL-BAḤR AL-MASJŪR

منهجيات التأويل الإشاري في تفسير البحر المسجور للعلاوي

Abstract

This study explores the ishārī method in al-Baḥr al-Masjūr fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi-Maḥḍ al-Nūr by Aḥmad b. Muṣṭafā al-ʿAlāwī  presenting it as a significant model of Maghribi ishārī exegesis in the fourteenth century AH. Emerging from early ascetic and Sufi milieus, this interpretive orientation developed into a structured approach linking spiritual purification with Qur’anic understanding and activating the text’s spiritual dimension in shaping faith consciousness. The study aims to reassess ishārī exegesis by uncovering its methodological foundations and scholarly parameters through an inductive analysis of al-ʿAlāwī’s tafsīr. It examines his symbolic tools and semantic structures, drawing particularly on his introduction as the framework of his interpretive vision. Using an analytical method, the research clarifies the relationship between the outward and inward dimensions of the text and the dynamics of meaning production between revelation and Sufi experience. The basmalah serves as an applied model to analyze linguistic indicators, spiritual stations, and the “language of the spirit.” The study concludes that al-ʿAlāwī’s ishārī exegesis rests on an integrated methodological structure with educational and reformative aims, harmonizing outward and inward sciences, affirming multilayered Qur’anic meanings, and conditioning ishārī insight upon spiritual purification, while treating spiritual indications as disciplined, non-exclusive interpretations.