اسبابِ نزول کی روایات کی تاریخی قدر اور تفسیری حدود: منتخب قرآنی مقامات کا حدیثی و اصولی تجزیہ

The Historical Value and Interpretive Limits of Asbab al-Nuzul Reports: A Hadith-Critical and Usul-Based Analysis of Selected Qur’anic Passages

Abstract

This study examines the historical value and interpretive limits of asbab al-nuzul (occasions of revelation) reports through a combined hadith-critical and usul-based methodology. Although the genre occupies a central place in the Qur’anic sciences, its epistemic status remains contested. Classical scholars such as al-Wahidi, al-Zarkashi and al-Suyuti treated these reports as indispensable aids to understanding, whereas modern scholarship, notably Andrew Rippin and John Wansbrough, has argued that many of them function as exegetical devices rather than as neutral historical testimony. The article seeks to adjudicate between these positions by applying the criteria of isnad criticism, including the distinction between explicit (sarih) and probabilistic (muhtamil) formulae, the status of Companion and Successor reports, and the problem of mursal transmission, to representative cases: Qur’an 2:158, 2:223, 9:113, 17:85 and 80:1–10. Each case is evaluated for chain quality, chronological coherence with the surah’s own context, and legal-hermeneutical consequence. The study then turns to the usul principle that the generality of a text’s wording prevails over the specificity of its occasion, drawing on al-Shatibi, Shah Waliullah, the Farahi–Islahi school of thematic coherence (nazm), and Fazlur Rahman’s “double movement.” Following a thesis–evidence–counterargument–synthesis structure, the article argues that asbab al-nuzul reports possess genuine but differentiated historical value. Reports with explicit wording and strong chains from eyewitness Companions deserve high confidence as testimony, yet they cannot, by themselves, restrict a verse’s semantic scope, override the internal coherence of the Qur’anic discourse, or settle questions of chronology. The paper concludes by proposing a five-stage methodological model for the critical use of occasions of revelation in contemporary exegesis, balancing fidelity to the transmitted tradition with the demands of academic rigor. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing debates on the relationship between revelation, history and hermeneutics in Islamic scholarship.