Tareq Moqbel, Ethics in the Qurʾān and the Tafsīr Tradition: From the Polynoia of Scripture to the Homonoia of Exegesis. Leiden: Brill, 2024, pp. 248.

In recent decades, the study of Qurʾānic narratives has been influenced and transformed by the “literary turn” within scriptural hermeneutics and moral philosophy. For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western scholarship – from Gustav Weil (d. 1889) to Heinrich Speyer (d. 1935) – interrogated these narratives primarily as historical artefacts or “borrowings” from Biblical antecedents. In the latter half of the twentieth century, a paradigm shift emerged with the development of “narrative ethics,” as advanced by, inter alia, Paul Ricoeur (d. 2005), Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947), and Wayne Booth (d. 2005). This approach rests on the premise that storytelling serves not merely as an illustrative device but as a constitutive element of moral inquiry itself. This approach gained recognition in Qurʾānic studies through the seminal literary analyses of scholars such as Angelika Neuwirth (b. 1943), Anthony Johns (b. 1928), and Whitney Bodman (b. 1950), whose research has addressed various aesthetic and ethical elements of the Qurʾānic narratives. Yet, despite this flourishing interest, the intersection of narrative theory and classical tafsīr remains under-explored.

Tareq Moqbel’s Ethics in the Qurʾān and the Tafsīr Tradition enters this intellectual space with a sophisticated thesis: Due to the inherent antinomies and ambiguities within Qurʾānic narratives, Qurʾānic ethics exhibit a fundamentally polyphonic character – one that unsettles the rigidity of abstract moral rules and resists reduction to any single, unified moral theory. A second, correlative claim is that this polyphony stands in tension with the prevailing drive toward determinacy in the tafsīr tradition, which often seeks to delimit or constrain its ethical plurality.

The book is divided into two parts: “Theory” and “Praxis.” The theoretical section (chapters 2–4) establishes the hermeneutical framework. In chapter 2 (“Antinomy”), Moqbel draws on Martha Nussbaum and John Barton (b. 1948) and argues that the Qurʾān, in general, presents moral rules as “idealisations” (akin to Rawlsian ideal theory), while its narratives represent the “non-ideal” complexity of lived reality. These narratives are sites of antinomy, where competing moral imperatives clash (e.g., truth-telling vs. protecting the innocent). Moqbel provides a taxonomy of how the tafsīr tradition manages these antinomies and identifies four primary mechanisms of “conflict resolution” utilised by exegetes to achieve homonoia: (1) exegetical silence; (2) reconciliation; (3) moral justification; and (4) admitting wrong (36–41).

Chapter 3 (“Ambiguity”) moves from thematic conflict to linguistic indeterminacy and argues that ambiguity is intrinsic to the Qurʾān’s language and ethics. Moqbel critically engages with Thomas Bauer’s Die Kultur der Ambiguität (2011), which claims that pre-modern Islam celebrated ambiguity. Moqbel contends that classical exegetes acknowledged ambiguity not as an ethical virtue, but as an epistemological problem that requires resolution (50–54). This argument culminates in chapter 4 (“The Drive towards Homonoia”), where the author challenges Walid Saleh’s characterisation of classical tafsīr – particularly al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) – as inherently polyvalent. He argues that the anthological nature of tafsīr is not an ideological commitment to multivocality, but a record of the exegete’s struggle to find the single, “correct” (ṣawāb) meaning intended by God (75–76).

Part 2, “Praxis,” subjects this thesis to the stress-test of the Qurʾānic narratives and organises the analysis thematically: “The Ethical Nature of God” (chapter 5), “Ethics towards God” (chapter 6), and “Social Ethics” (chapter 7). The cases are well chosen: e.g., Moses on the all-encompassing destruction, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, Abraham’s astronomical declarations, Mary’s “death wish,” Jonah’s protest; then, on the social plane, Joseph’s self-presentation for office, his stratagem with the cup, the Moses–Khiḍr sequence on property and homicide, and Abraham’s “noble lie.” The treatment is systematic: identify the moral conflict and ambiguity, map the exegetical strategies that bring the narrative into equilibrium, and conclude with an ethical analysis.

The work’s strength lies in its philological rigour as demonstrated, for example, in the analysis of Q 12:52–53 (“… and I do not absolve my soul …”). By isolating the pronominal ambiguities – is the speaker Joseph or ʿAzīz’s wife? Is the audience the king or the husband? – Moqbel identifies fourteen distinct interpretive permutations (66–67) and argues convincingly that this semantic instability is functional: it allows the verse to teach humility (if spoken by Joseph) and honesty (if spoken by Zulaykha) simultaneously. Here, Moqbel successfully demonstrates that grammatical obscurity is not a defect of transmission, but a functional engine of ethical “pluriformity.” Similarly, the “ethics toward God” chapter does careful hermeneutic work. The angels’ query in Q 2:30 becomes a seminar on praise, consultation, and pedagogy; Abraham’s “this is my Lord” (Q 6:76) solicits dialectical ethics and graded goods; Mary’s cry in Q 19:23 is read with attention to emotion and social sin-avoidance; Jonah’s case (Q 21:87) elicits a nuanced sorting of divine omnipotence and mercy (chapter 6).

Chapter 7 extends this exercise into “social ethics.” Joseph’s request for office (Q 12:55) is analysed through competing proscriptions on seeking power and self-praise, then adjudicated via consequentialist and deontic rationales; exegetes here either narrow the scope of the ḥadīth, invoke necessity or capacity, or supply narrative ellipses (161–166). Joseph’s stratagem with the cup (Q 12:70) becomes a crucible for deception and lying: some exegetes admit the wrong; others reconcile through interrogative readings; still others justify by maṣlaḥa or divine authorisation; the discussion is candid about the cost of each move (168–171). Abraham’s “No, the big one did it” (Q 21:63) forces the tradition to choose among double entendre, implication, necessity, and ḥīla; even those who accept the ḥadīth of “three lies” often temper it by divine permission toward a didactic end (184–192).

However, the book’s theoretical framework invites scrutiny. A fundamental tension lies at the heart of Moqbel’s methodology: to demonstrate the “polyphonic” nature of the Qurʾānic narrative, he relies almost exclusively on the vast array of interpretations preserved by the very tafsÄ«r tradition he characterises as exhibiting a prevailing drive toward homonoia (see esp. chapter 4). This paradox is more evident in the author’s reliance on Fakhr al-DÄ«n al-RāzÄ« (d. 606/1209) as the exemplar of homonoia. He portrays al-RāzÄ« as the arch-systematiser seeking to close down meaning through tarjīḥ (preponderance). Yet, in nearly every case, it is al-RāzÄ« who provides the most exhaustive listing of alternative interpretations. Moqbel is thus in the awkward position of using the sheer richness of al-Rāzī’s tafsÄ«r to accuse al-RāzÄ« of narrowing the text’s polyphony.¹ Without the tradition’s “basket of interpretations,” the polyphony Moqbel celebrates would remain largely invisible.

I concur with Moqbel that most classical exegetes strive, in theory, to uncover the true meaning of the Qurʾān as intended by God (murād Allāh). But because of the widespread recognition of the inaccessibility of divine intention, homonoia was less the character of tafsīr than its desideratum – an aspiration that largely failed to materialise. In practice, polyvalence was the reality classical exegetes accepted, recorded, and often thematised; adjudication (tarjīḥ) coincides with the chronic recognition of probabilism, the preservation of alternatives, and the refusal to erase dissenting explanations (161–166, 168–171, 184–192). In this sense, I side with Walid Saleh’s account: the very form of classical tafsīr is polyvalent not merely as a byproduct but as a modus operandi. Moqbel’s own counter-evidence – al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) and al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392) on cases where more than one meaning may be intended, and Ibn ʿĀshūr’s (d. 1973) principled polyvalence – suggests a tradition that archived plurality because it regarded it as a legitimate hermeneutic posture under linguistic constraints (see chapter 3 and 4, counterpoints).

Fundamentally, I think that both polynoia and homonoia, understood as statements about the divine intention, are unresolvable theological, meta-textual propositions whose roots go back to the earliest discussions (in theology and uṣūl al-fiqh) about the plurality or singularity of truth (taʿaddud al-ḥaqq).

I concur with the author’s general observation on the inherent antinomies or tensions in the Qurʾānic narratives. But many of the so-called “tensions” look, on inspection, less textual than theological. For example, the Qurʾān frames Abraham’s “noble lie” (Q 21:63) or Joseph’s stratagem (Q 12:76) as rhetorical victories within the divine plan. The tension emerges primarily when viewed through the later exegetes’ theological perspectives of ʿiṣma (prophetic infallibility) or Sufi sensibilities about tawakkul. By contrast, the tensions in Moses’ encounter with Khiḍr (Q 18:60–82) or Abraham’s sacrifice (Q 37:102–107) clearly emerge from the narration itself. This is a reminder that we should separate narrative indeterminacy from theological domestication when we describe where the friction is located. Drawing that line more explicitly would keep the argument’s literary claims from being overrun by dogmatic pressure and clarify where polyvalence actually resides.

Where the study is most compelling, it does not need the weight of its homonoia thesis. The constructive heart of the book is the patient demonstration that Qurʾānic narrative is a workshop for moral reasoning and judgment, and that classical exegetes possessed genuine “moral imagination” in negotiating conflict and ambiguity. The cases in chapters 5–7 show exegetes recalibrating rules, testing teleological, consequentialist, and deontological registers, and, not least, acknowledging when the conflict will not be resolved – precisely the patterns one would expect if polyvalence was the tradition’s lived condition.

Moqbel’s book offers a remarkable example of a comparative scholarship that actively engages with biblical studies and moral philosophy. It incorporates many compelling hermeneutical and philosophical concepts and approaches, such as “moral imagination,” “creative confusion,” “moral middle ground,” and “principled guidance,” which warrant further theoretical elaboration and philosophical justification.

Despite these reservations, Ethics in the Qurʾān and the Tafsīr Tradition has given us a lucid and learned study that equips the field with a vocabulary for mapping how Qurʾānic narrative ethics works and how tafsīr responds. But the historical record assembled in the case studies persuades me that homonoia was a hope more than a habit; the discipline’s centre of gravity has long remained with a disciplined and fertile polyvalence. The project could have succeeded without pressing the contrary so hard and might even have achieved more by amplifying its constructive arc, where the author’s own “moral imagination” stands shoulder to shoulder with that of the tradition he so carefully curates. For scholars of the Qurʾān, Moqbel’s work serves as a necessary reminder that the text’s ambiguity is not merely a philological puzzle to be solved, but an ethical space to be inhabited.

The book will serve well in advanced seminars on Qurʾānic hermeneutics and Islamic ethics, and it sets a useful agenda for future work on the Qurʾānic narrative and tafsīr.

One final note on translation is due: The rendering la-ammāratun bi-l-sūʾ (Q 12:53) as “prone to evil” softens the intensive agency of the Arabic al-nafs al-ammāra (“persistently commanding” self).