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Prıncıples of Hamîduddîn al-Farâhî’s Exegesıs of the Qur’an and Interpretatıon of Surah al-Fil
  
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PRINCIPLES OF HAMÎDUDDÎN AL-FARÂHÎ’S EXEGESIS OF THE 
QUR’AN AND INTERPRETATION OF SURAH AL-FİL 
 
Ass. Prof. Hayrettin Öztürk  
 
 
 
 
 
Unıversty Of Samsun 
 
 
Key words: Farâhî, Elephant, Companions of Elephant, Chapter of Elephant, al-
Farâhî’s method of commentary, al-Farâhî’s Commentary on Chapter “The 
Elephant,” the incident of al-Fil according to Qur’an, birds of prey.  
Ключевые  слова:  Фарахи,  Асхаб  аль-Филь,  Сура  аль-Филь,  Принципы 
тафсира Фарахи, Коментарии Фарахи к суре аль-Филь, Тема «Асхаб аль-Филь» 
в Коране, Птицы Охотники 
 
Introduction  
 
The works of Hamîd al-Dîn al-Farâhî (1862-1930)
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who is one of the great 
scholars and intellectuals in Indian sub-continent, drew attention of researchers 
interested in Quranic studies in Indian sub-continent and Europe and numerous 
articles were written about him. Al-Farâhî has many works in the field of Quranic 
exegesis and came up with novel interpretations on verses. The reason for me to write 
this article was Farâhî’s different interpretation of surah al-Fil. During my research 
stay in England, the studies about Farâhî had drawn my attention. One of these studies 
was Mustansir Mir’s comments regarding Farâhî’s reflections of surah al-Fil
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 Mir 
summarizes Farâhî’s arguments on surah al-Fil and the method Farâhî used in his 
exegesis. Mir comments on the answers given by Farâhî on the questions regarding 
the interlocutor in surah al-Fil, the focal point of the surah, the motivation behind 
                                                 
* Yrd. Doç. Dr., OMU İlahiyat Fakültesi, Kur’ân-ı Kerîm Okuma ve Kıraat  İlmi Anabilim Dalı, 
[e-mail] 
1
 Farâhî was born in 18 November 1863 in the Northern part of India, namely Azam Garh. He took lesson 
from  Şibli Nu’mani, the prominent scholar of İndia (1914). He took fiqh lesson from Abdülhay el-
Leknevi, Arabic Philology lesson from Fayzu’l Hasan Saharanpuri, Hebrew course from Joseph Horovitz 
(1874-1931) and philosophy and the Bible course from Thomas Arnold. Learning traditional and modern 
disciplines, He gave several courses in colleges and madrasahs through İndia. He founded Madrasatu’l 
Islah and trained many students there. He spoke Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hebrew and English. He died in 
11th October 1930 in Mathura, in in İndia. See. al-Farâhî, Hamîd al-Dîn Ebû Ahmad al-Ansârî, 
Macmû’âyi Tafâsîr-i Farâhî, trc: Amîn Ahsan al-Islâhî, Encümen-i Huddâmi’l-Kur’ân, Lahor 
1393/1973, pp. 9-14; İshtiyq Ali Zilli, “Hamîd al-Dîn al-Farâhî”, DİA, İstanbul 1997, XV, pp. 477-478. 
2
 Mir, Mustansir, Elephants, Birds of Prey and Heaps of Pebbles: Farâhî’s İnterpretation of Sûrat al-
Fîl, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, 1998, p.1-16 

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Ass. Prof. Hayrettin Öztürk
  
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Abraha’s assault and the army of elephants’ exposure to the rain of stones. But Mir 
didn’t bring strong criticism against Farâhî’s views and only argued that the examples 
Farâhî chose from Arabic poems were not sufficient and does not constitute evidence 
for an interpretative work regarding surah al-Fil. However, Farâhî’s claims and 
arguments should have been put through more criticism. In order to address this 
deficiency, this article was written.  
Farâhî made very different comments on al-Fil 
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 His claims are as follows: the 
surah addressed Quraysh; Abraha’s soldiers were killed by the stones hurled by Arabs 
but not by the birds
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; a sand storm engulfed Abraha’s troops after the stoning and the 
birds referred in the surah in fact came from Mecca Valley to feed on the corpses and 
prevented contagion of diseases in the valley. Farâhî’s student Islahi made similar 
comments in Tedabbur-i Qur’an, Sulaiman Nadvi touched on the issue in Arzu’l 
Qur’an
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 but Mevlana Hıfzu’r-Rahman Siyoharavi
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 and Abu’l-A’la el-Maududi
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opposed to these views and brought criticism to Farâhî by offering evidence. All these 
debate hovers around Farâhî’s exegesis of al-Fil. In this work, Farâhî develops a 
wholly distinct perspective in the mainstream exegesis approach. Furthermore, I 
consider that this topic is worth a deeper assessment as it probes the surah’s text in 
detail, classifies hearsays about the surah and comes up with original interpretations 
regarding “The Elephant incident” from religious, historic and literal perspectives.  
 
I.
 
Tafsir Principles of Farâhî  
Tafsir Principles of Farâhî are categorized into two groups.
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First one is the verifiable and indisputable sources. These sources are viewed as 
guide during the writing of exegesis.  
The second one is invalidated sources category. These are secondary sources in 
Quranic exegesis and needs to be used under Qur’an’s light 
.  
A)
  Indisputable Principles 
According to Farâhî, besides the Mutawatir Sunnah, the other two external 
principles are definite and assumptive principles. The internal principles are the basis. 
The external principles on the other hand, are of secondary importance, not a must in 
terms of theoretical perspective and can be used in harmony or at least not in 
contradiction with the first one.
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3
 al-Farâhî, Hamîd al-Dîn Ebû Ahmad al-Ansârî, Tafsir of al-Fil Azam Garh, Matba‘a 
Ma‘ârif,1354/1935; al-Farâhî, Macmû’âyi Tafâsîr-i Farâhî, pp. 365-410. 
4
 Islâhî, Amîn Ahsan, Tadabbur-i Qur’ân, Lahor-Pakistan, 1430/2009, IX, Tafsir of al-Fil, pp.365-410. 
5
 an-Nadvî, Seyid Suleiman, Arzu’l-Qur’ân, Dâru’l-Musannifîn, 4.edition, Azam Garh, 1955, I, p.315. 
6
 Siyoharavi, Hıfzu’r-Rahmân, “Ashâbu’l-Fil”, Qısasu’l-Qur’ân,  3.edition, Nadvatü’l-Musannifîn, 
Delhi, nd. p.25. 
7
 al-Mavdûdî, Ebu’l-‘Â’lâ, Tafhîmu’l-Qur’ân, İnsan Press, İstanbul 1996, VII, Tafsir of al-Fil, pp. 245. 
8
 al-Farâhî, Hamîd al-Dîn Ebû Ahmed Abd al-Hamîd al-Ansârî, Tafsir-i Nizâmi’l-Qur’ân and Ta’vîli’l-
Furkân bi’l-Furkân, ed-Dâiretü’l-Hamîdiye, Azam Garh, nd., p. 28 
9
 al-Farâhî, Mecmû’âyi Tafâsîr-i Farâhî, pp. 35-39. 

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