Mahmûd Muhammed Şâkir'in Geleneğin İhyasına Dönük Okuma Felsefesi ve Metodolojisi
Authors: Araz İsmail 
Published: September 2023

In the centuries following the revelation of the Divine Word, many studies were carried out in Islamic sciences simultaneously with the narrative and literary activities. On the one hand, in order to interpret the content of the Qur'an and, on the other hand, to determine the distinctive features of the language of revelation, a substantial amount and quality of works were written in different disciplines. These works, which were written in the early period, which constitute the first ring of the tradition, contain short and concise expressions that need to be explained in most places, with the influence of the conjuncture. Although there have been studies on understanding and interpretation in the later periods, the conciseness of the works in question compels today's researchers. Reading, interpreting, understanding, and making sense of literary works written in the early period to understand the language of revelation and Arabic more accurately is one of the problems faced by today's researchers. Where and how to start reading these works, how to interpret the explanations of the theologian, and how to follow a path while reading are just some of the problems that put the researcher in a difficult situation. In addition, many questions such as the following arise during the research: "Are there general principles in interpreting poems and texts? Is it possible to reach the author's mind based on the content of the work? Is there a background to the word?". Egyptian literary scholar Mahmoud Mohamed Shakir (d. 1997), observing the difficulties faced by researchers in examining classical texts in the 20th century, when studies on the early period of Islamic Civilization increased, opposed the adoption of Western-based methods in re-reading tradition to make original intellectual production functional in terms of quality and quantity. According to Shakir, who stated that the Western-oriented methods based on the commentary and analysis of the texts did not make a significant contribution to finding answers to the above questions, the only way to interpret the texts is to savor them, in other words, to taste them. Shakir, who applies the method he calls “tazawwuq to the texts”, emphasizes that the secret of revising the tradition by interpreting it correctly is the taste of language. Based on these explanations, Shakir's method of interpreting the texts and his reading philosophy were examined in this study. Before going into the nature of the method, the motives that pushed Shakir to apply such a method were emphasized. The structure, elements, and functioning of the method were discussed based on the theoretical and practical works on the subject. In this regard, the works of Shakir named al-Mutanabi and Namat Sha‘b ve Namat Muhīf, which contain the original version of the method, were especially emphasized. In addition to these, in accordance with the purpose of the study, the benefits of the method applied to many classical texts to the researcher and the reader were explained through examples. In the study, which emphasized the positive and negative aspects of the method, the sources that Shakir was fed were tried to be determined, and what kind of contributions they could provide to today's researchers in interpreting the tradition was also questioned. Thus, the findings obtained as a result of the questioning in the study were evaluated within the framework of the following question: "Is there a need for such a method?" and some suggestions were made after the evaluations related to this question.