The author achieves something extraordinary with this book: for the first time in the history of Western tafsīr studies, she manages to compare and contrast modern Quran commentaries from three linguistically different parts of the Muslim World and analyse these in their original languages (Arabic, Turkish and Bahasa Indonesian). Since Baljon's seminal 1968 study, which included Egyptian and South Asian commentaries, no other author has had either the linguistic ability or the contextual knowledge to combine two languages in their studies, let alone three. In addition, Pink has chosen several commentaries from each language (six in Arabic, three in Indonesian, and two in Turkish), on half of which nothing has been written before (e.g. the tafsīr of Abū Zaḥrā, Ṭanṭāwī al-Zuhaylī and Saʿīd Ḥawwā). All of the commentaries examined here were published (even if written earlier) between 1967 and 2004, thereby updating Baljon's and Jansen's (1974) accounts by several decades.
After a short introduction (chapter 1), in chapter 2 Pink provides a brief survey of the historical development of modern tafsīr since the nineteenth century, including an account of that earlier and pre-modern tafsīr which served as a point of reference (Referenzkommentare, e.g. al-Ṭabarī, al-Rāzī) for the authors she has studied. In chapter 3, Pink suggests a typology into which she wants to group her eleven commentaries: first, scholarly tafsīr (Gelehrtenkommentare); second, institutional tafsīr (Institutenkommentare); third, homiletic tafsīr (Predigerkommentare), and fourth, a hybrid of all three (Hybride Formate). The first category is represented by the four authors Ṭanṭāwī, al-Zuḥaylī, Süleyman Ateş and M. Quraish Shihab; the second by the Azhar Committee of the Islamic Research Academy and the Research Committees of the Indonesian and Turkish Ministries of Religion; the third by Hamka and M. Mutawallī al-Shaʿrāwī, and the fourth by M. Abū Zaḥrā and Saʿīd Hawwā. This is certainly a novel typology and goes beyond conventional labels such as modernist, traditionalist, Islamist and revivalist, and yet, since the criteria of this typology are so heterogeneous, e.g. status (scholar), multiplicity of authorship (institution), and purpose (homily/sermon), I wonder where its epistemological value lies. If Pink had intended to show that, for example, institutional tafsīr interprets verses of the Quran differently due to the fact that it is institutional tafsīr, things would be different, but she does not. Instead, what comes through time and again in her analysis is the fact that commentaries differ not because of their status, number of authors or purpose, but because they were written in either Egypt, Syria, Turkey or Indonesia, or because their authors adhere to conservative or liberal religious norms (which, almost en passant, Pink admits in her conclusion). However, what should be taken from Pink's typology is the possibility of classifying tafsīr work not exclusively on the basis of its content or ideological purpose (Wielandt, EQ, 2, 126–39), but on the basis of its form, structure and methodology, thus developing formal criteria for the study of tafsīr as a specific and independent literary-religious genre.
Chapter 4 contains the bulk of Pink's tafsīr analysis, covering 175 pages, in which she examines commentaries on five Quranic passages (Q23: 1–11; Q2: 2–5; Q33: 35; Q9: 111–2; Q2: 62), all of which, in one way or another, discuss the question of who is and who is not a believing Muslim, and what legal and eschatological consequences this has. Given that Pink's interest is structural and not content-based, one would expect her to state her reasons for choosing this theme (I suspect it is because it is content-wise very topical) and to talk about the relevance of this theme within the context of the infamous takfīr debates of recent years. But in spite of the book's subtitle, which suggests lots of extra- and intertextual references to the intellectual and socio-political context in which Egyptian, Syrian, Turkish and Indonesian commentaries on these passages operate, one hears in fact very little about this (and if one does, then with a rather speculative tone, e.g. pp. 131, 136, 164, 171). In fact, the strength of this chapter lies elsewhere: Pink manages to analyse these contemporary Quran commentaries as part of a wider and longer tafsīr tradition that stipulates that its members – whether modernist, traditionalist or Islamist – manoeuvre their way through a whole arsenal of exegetical tools and strategies (e.g. use of ḥadīth, Isrā'īliyāt, tafsīr authorities, non-exegetical sciences, ijtihād). It is compelling to read her assessment about which author(s) use(s) which textual and exegetical method in order to promote their favourite interpretation of a passage. Her comparative perspective, using all eleven commentaries for each lemma, allows her to judge to what extent, for example, the omission of one exegetical tool (e.g. quoting a ḥadīth for a sabab al-nuzūl, the cause of a revelation) leads to a different interpretation and why.
Pink's conclusion, stated in her last chapter, stresses that in spite of individual and regional differences in tone and emphasis, no real radical break, either in terms of content or methodology, has occurred between the modern and pre-modern tafsīr tradition. Arabic tafsīr is more conservative, more exclusivist and less philosophical, mystical and historical than its Turkish and Indonesian counterparts. But none of the authors seem to dare to confront the reader with novel hermeneutical “turns”, nor does anyone follow extreme examples of commentaries that are predominantly ḥadīth-based, monovalent and that ignore the exegetical tradition (like Ibn Kathīr or al-Shawkānī). This certainly raises the question of whether one can still adhere to the hitherto prevalent view (from Goldziher to Calder) according to which modern tafsīr represents a kind of departure from the classical tradition. The other important observation refers to what Pink calls Referenzkommentare and her observation that almost all authors frequently use earlier reformist tafsīr in their exegesis. This shows how increasingly important it is for any student of tafsīr to be aware of the commentaries of reformist mufassirs, such as al-Qāsimī, Rashīd Riḍā, al-Maghārī, Ibn ʿAshūr, ʿIzzat Darwasa, Sayyid Quṭb and al-Mawdudi, in order fully to understand current writings on the Quran.
The book contains three appendixes, one of which provides long passages in German translation from each examined tafsīr regarding Q2: 62, enabling readers not only to read the primary material for themselves, but also to appreciate the solid and sophisticated nature of Pink's analysis in chapter 4.
This is a finely produced work with very few misspellings, virtually no mistakes in transliteration, and very few omissions (e.g. Āʿisha ʿAbd al-Raḥmān – Bint al-Shāṭī within the account of Egyptian tafsīr). For all these reasons the book is highly commended.
