Ikhfāʾ

There are two relevant Qurʾānic occurrences of scriptural concealment using the verb akhfā in Q5:15 and 6:91; both cases seem to clearly refer to the Book as the object of concealment. As is the case with asarra, here too we note that the surrounding verses deal with the accusation of taḥrīf in verse Q5:13 and the accusation of fabricating lies about God in Q6:93 studied in 4.1.8 above.

O People of the Scripture, there has come to you Our Messenger making clear to you much of what you used to conceal (tukhfūna) of the Scripture and overlooking much. Q5:15

Fadlallah considers this verse “a kind call” to the People of the Book, and “a peaceful reproach.” This verse attempts to “calmly state” some remarks about the Jews’ behavior as well as teaching present-day believers the Prophet’s style in criticizing the Jews and facing their deviation.¹⁰⁴⁵

The Jews used to conceal some scriptural facts revealed in the Torah and the Gospel, especially the facts related to the prophethood of Muhammad. The Prophet used to warn the Muslims about that and used to demonstrate to them that he was knowledgeable about the distortive and deceptive (tajhīliyya)¹⁰⁴⁶ game of some of the People of the Book by exposing their malicious tactics...¹⁰⁴⁷

Fadlallah does not find a problem in accusing the Jews of concealing facts in both the Torah and the Gospel although he repeatedly argues that the Jews did not believe in the Gospel, hence, one raises the question of how did the Jews not only have access to Christian Scriptures but also the opportunity and authority to conceal portions of them.¹⁰⁴⁸ This peculiar statement is not explained to the reader at any stage but is repeated in some other contexts outside the commentary such as his Fatwa about the trueness of the Gospel.¹⁰⁴⁹

1045 MWQ8:93.

1046 Fadlallah has invented this word which I translate here as “deceptive” but it can also be rendered “causing to be ignorant.”

1047 MWQ8:93.

1048 MWQ8:93.

1049 See 4.2.1 below for more on the content of this Fatwa.

The Ayatollah continues enumerating the negative features of the Jews in two full pages before he turns to the interpretation of the first part of the verse. The concealers in this verse are identified as both Jews and Christians and the object of concealment as the prophecy concerning Muhammad’s coming once again. It seems that the only object of concealment both Jews and Christians share is hiding the parts of the Scriptures which speak of Muhammad. Otherwise, the description of the concealers mainly seems to suit only the Jews, as the following quotation demonstrates:

{Making clear to you much of what you used to conceal} which you kept for yourself, did not bring it on for the people to read it and get acquainted with it. Hence, people knew only the parts of it that you allowed them to know. You concealed some of its facts which did not serve your positions and your interests […] The Prophet’s description was written in your Torah and your Gospel;

thus, you know him as well as you know your own children but you rejected his message and you fought his mission. The Scriptures contained [matters] about the purity of the prophets, about the prohibition of wine and usury but you made them lawful.¹⁰⁵⁰

Fadlallah does not accuse all Jews and Christians of concealing the Word of God here either but only their scholars or leaders; although he does not use these terms, this is rather obvious from the context.¹⁰⁵¹ Concealment seems to take different forms. Sometimes one concludes from Fadlallah’s reasoning that what is concealed is not part of the Scriptures but rather the whole Scripture.¹⁰⁵² This happened when religious scholars held Scripture so that laypeople did not have access to it and could not read it or get to know it except for what their scholars told them. The latter told them what suited them and concealed what did not. Amongst these concealed facts, Fadlallah mentions the prophethood of Muhammad which was mentioned in both the Torah and the Gospel and which these scholars knew well but intentionally concealed. Another way of concealing was making the unlawful lawful: they made drinking wine and usury lawful although God forbade them in His Revealed Scriptures.¹⁰⁵³ Nowhere in Fadlallah’s interpretation of this verse does one find a word about concealing as a form of scriptural misrepresentation per se. The matter is more about leaving out laymen and preventing them from having access to their holy books as well as some kind of misinterpretation of some scriptural verses. In his interpretation of verse Q6:91, Fadlallah explains how these scholars managed to show of

1050 MWQ8:95.

1051 The Jewish leaders, rather than all the Jews, are accused in several places in MWQ such as in MWQ2:100–102, MWQ2:110, MWQ3:134–135, MWQ5:8, and MWQ8:95, for example.

1052 MWQ8:95.

1053 MWQ8:95.

the Scriptures what they pleased and conceal what they pleased in practice: They wrote them in separate “qarāṭīs.”

Say, ‛Who revealed the Scripture that Moses brought as light and guidance to the people? You make it into scrolls (qarāṭīsa), disclosing [some of] them and concealing (tukhfūna) much. And you were taught that which you knew not—neither you nor your fathers.’ Q6:91

The gloss Fadlallah offers us of qarāṭīs is “what one uses to write on such as paper or leather and the like.”¹⁰⁵⁴ This definition seems to be copied verbatim from Mughniyya’s (d. 1979) Tafsīr al-Kāshif but without a reference.¹⁰⁵⁵ Here too, Fadlallah does not hide his skepticism towards the occasions of revelation suggested for this verse because he finds some of them illogical and because they are too different from each other. Some of these narratives identify those who denied that God ever revealed anything with the Jews while the other identify them with the polytheists, thus, Fadlallah rejects all of them on the grounds that they must stem from the exegetes’ personal assessments.¹⁰⁵⁶ Here, Fadlallah seems to stand out from some other exegetes such as al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī and Mughniyya who tried to find a way to make some sense of this Qurʾānic claim of scriptural denial. Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s solution was that only some of the People of the Book, not all of them, said so while Mughniyya’s way out is attributing the denial to the obstinacy of the Jews, for even if they knew well that Muhammad’s message was true, they tenaciously denied the possibility of divine revelation to humans altogether.¹⁰⁵⁷

However, although Fadlallah rejects the narratives offered in the above-mentioned occasions of revelation, he still identifies the object of the discussion in the verse as the Jews but specifies that they might not be true believing Jews but rather a group who falsely claim to be so.¹⁰⁵⁸ He then seizes the occasion to differentiate between the Qurʾānic position towards the Torah and its position towards the Gospel:

This might be the reason why the verse emphasizes this book [i.e., the Torah] here but not the Gospel in which the Jews do not believe.

Alternatively, the reason might be that Christianity which adheres to the Gospel did not affect the Arab mentality in the land of Daʿwa.

1054 MWQ9:214.

1055 MWQ9:214. Cf. Mughniyya’s Tafsīr al-Kāshif 3:222. I have noted elsewhere that Fadlallah tends to copy liberally or verbatim from different sources without reference. See 2.4.1 on Fadlallah’s use of sources.

1056 MWQ9:216–217. For more on Fadlallah’s use of the exegetical device of the occasions of revelation (Asbāb al-Nuzūl), see Chapter II.

1057 Tafsīr al-Mīzān 7:280 and Tafsīr al-Kāshif 3:223–224.

1058 MWQ9:221.

The Qurʾān wanted to break through this land in order to change its way of thinking.¹⁰⁵⁹

Fadlallah then once again repeats that the Torah of Moses was a source of light and guidance but the Jews adhere to it (yantasibūna ilayhā) in name only.¹⁰⁶⁰ This merely cultural adherence is not enough as it does not affect the Jewish personality; for the Jews, the Scriptures are merely a means to advance their personal interests.¹⁰⁶¹ This utilitarian approach to their Scriptures made them write them on separate scrolls (qarāṭīs) so that they could conveniently disclose whatever serves their interests and conceal what proves the trueness of Muhammad’s prophethood or whatever hampered their interests.¹⁰⁶² The Ayatollah explains that the Qurʾān does not blame the Jews for writing the Scriptures on scrolls but for keeping them separated instead of making them into a single book. What the Qurʾān reproaches here is that they resorted to this type of distribution in order to be able to conceal whatever they wished to conceal, especially the matters people ask them to show—here, once again, Fadlallah seems to be hinting at the prophecy of Muhammad’s advent.¹⁰⁶³

In addition to the explicit accusations of scriptural concealment discussed above, this accusation is sometimes implied in the Qurʾān or understood as being so in the tafsīr. For example, verse Q3:93 challenges the Jews to “bring the Torah and recite it” implying that the Jews are concealing some of it.¹⁰⁶⁴ Fadlallah does not go deeper into discussing whether this request is realistic or sarcastic, as the Torah would be in Hebrew and the Qurʾān is in an Arabic-speaking milieu. Fadlallah, as we noted earlier, argues, among other reasons, that the fact that the Torah was not available in Arabic prevented lay Jews from reading it, so this raises the question of how the Arabs of Medina were supposed to read this Torah even if the Jews did bring it forth.¹⁰⁶⁵ It is not uncommon for Fadlallah to remain on a shallow level of the discussion. His style also remains vague when he says that most of the gospel is the Word of God or when he says that the main corruption that occurred in the Gospel concerns the prophecy about the advent of Muhammad.¹⁰⁶⁶

1059 MWQ9:221.

1060 See 4.1.1 above for more on Fadlallah’s use of “yantasibūna” to differentiate between true Kitābīs on the one hand and Kitābīs in name only on the other.

1061 MWQ9:221.

1062 MWQ9:221–222.

1063 MWQ9:222.

1064 MWQ6:155–156 and HQ:156–157.

1065 Fadlallah refers to the unavailability of the Torah in Arabic in MWQ5:212.

1066 FAHIM, 285 and 378.

I think that we can safely conclude that concealment in Fadlallah’s perception is associated mainly with the prophecy about Muhammad which is supposed to be in both the Torah and the Gospel had Jews and Christians not concealed it from their Scriptures. This accusation is leveled against the Jews in the first place—their scholars and leaders in particular—

although the Christians are not totally spared from it, especially when the broader meaning of the verses is sought and Christian mission work is taken into consideration.¹⁰⁶⁷ The exegetical treatment of the three different Qurʾānic terms of concealment is the same linguistically speaking. Fadlallah, like al-Ṭabarī for instance, does not seem to differentiate between katama, asarra and akhfā.¹⁰⁶⁸ They are all taken to mean an act of deliberate concealing of the truth about the advent of Muhammad. This aspect of deliberateness is also present in the case of the Qurʾānic accusation of forgetting or neglecting (nisyān) the Scriptures as we shall discuss in the following subsection.