Asbab al-nuzul

something i would like to share with you. its about quran and the knowledge of it.

on this entree i start with:-

1. Asbab al-nuzul:

Asbāb al-nuzūl اسباب النزول, an Arabic term meaning "occasions/circumstances of revelation", is a secondary genre of Qur'ānic exegesis (tafsir) directed at establishing the context in which specific verses of the Qur'ān were revealed. Though of some use in reconstructing the Qur'ān's historicity, asbāb is by nature an exegetical rather than a historiographical genre, and as such usually associates the verses it explicates with general situations rather than specific events.

Asbāb is the plural of the Arabic word sabab, which means 'cause', 'reason', or 'occasion', and nuzūl is the verbal noun of the verb root nzl, literally meaning to descend or to send down, and thus (metaphorically) to reveal, referring Allah sending down a revelation to his prophets. Though technical terms within Qur'ānic exegesis often have their origins in the book itself (e.g. naskh), sabab/asbāb does not: Despite the appearance of the stem sbb over 11 times in the Qur'ān (Q.2:166, , Q.18:84, Q.18:85 Q.18:89, Q.22:15, Q.38:10, Q.40:36-37), "none of the verses seem the least bit connected to a statement concerning revelatory procedure".[1]

Within exegetical literature, the use of sabab in a technical sense did not occur until relatively late: the material which would be later culled by asbāb writers used alternate phraseologies to introduce their reports, such as al-āya nazalat fī hādhā- "the verse was revealed about such and such"- or fa-anzala allāh- "so God revealed/sent down". The first sustained use of the word occurs in the tafsir of al-Tabarī and the naskh work of al-Nahhās (d. 950), where it can be seen solidifying into its later technical sense.
No asbāb works from earlier than the 11th Century are known, and it is unlikely that this genre of exegetical literature existed before then. Though there is a section titled Nuzūl al-Qur'ān in Ibn al-Nadīm's 10th Century bibliographical catalog Kitāb al-Fihrist (including one Nuzūl al-Qur'ān attributed to the semi-legendary Ibn 'Abbās as transmitted through 'Ikrima), there is no evidence to believe that most of these works ever existed, or that their ambiguous titles signify texts within the asbāb al-nuzūl genre. In Rippin's detailed examination of pre-18th Century exegetical literature, only the following four works qualify as belonging to the asbāb genre:

* Kitāb asbāb al-nuzūl (Book of occasions of revelation) by al-Wāhidī (d. 1075). The first instance of the asbāb genre and still among the most popular. It examines verses from a total of 83 different suras, with the majority of asbāb as traditional hadith reports with isnad chains of transmission.

* Asbāb al-nuzūl wa qisas al-furqāniyya by Muhammad ibn As'ad al-'Irāqī (d. 1171). Contains sabab reports mixed with qisas al-anbiyā (stories of the prophets) material. The former seem independent of al-Wāhidī's compilation and are isnad-less. Exists in two manuscripts copies, one at the Chester Beatty Library (Manuscript 5199).

* A manuscript (Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Catalog no. 3578). ascribed to al-Ja'barī, probably pseudepigraphicaly. Consists of sabab and naskh material interspersed, with the former containing very abbreviated isnads where only the first authority is listed. According to its final page this manuscript was written in 1309.

* Lubāb al-nuqūl fīq asbāb al-nuzūl by al-Suyūtī (d. 1505). A re-working of al-Wāhidī's Kitāb asbāb al-nuzūl, covering 102 suras in total. Cites a broad range of hadith, Sunnah, and tafsir material, with isnads containing only the last authority. A very popular instance of the genre, having gone through many printings and currently available within Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (Tafsīr of the Two Jalāls) [Suyūtī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Mahallī].

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbab_al-nuzul