Qirā’āt Variations and Theological Reasoning: An Analysis of Fakhr Al-Dīn Al-Rāzī’s Methodology of Qur’anic Interpretation in Sūrah Al-Baqarah, Verses 9–10

Abstract

Variant readings (qirāʼāt) of the Qurʼan are conventionally studied within the disciplines of grammar, recitation science, and jurisprudence, while their theological dimension remains comparatively understudied. This article examines how Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606H/1210 CE) deploys divergent qirāʼāt as a site of theological reasoning in his exegesis of Sūrat al-Baqara 9–10. Focusing on the disputed reading yukhādiʿūna (they mutually deceive), read by three of the seven canonical readers (Nāfiʿ, Ibn Kathīr and Abū ʿAmr), against yakhdaʿūna (they deceive), read by the remaining four, together with the non-canonical (shādhdhah) reading of Abū Ḥaywah, the study traces how al-Rāzī moves from a linguistic dispute to a properly theological question: whether mutual deception can be predicated of God without compromising divine transcendence (tanzīh). Using close textual analysis of Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, the article further shows how this reading dispute connects, within the same passage, to the Muʿtazilī–Ashʿarī debate on divine agency (afʿāl Allāh) triggered by the following verse, fa-zādahum Allāhu maraḍā. The analysis demonstrates that, for al-Rāzī, qirāʼāt function as an active hermeneutical resource within theological argumentation. The article contributes to Qurʼānic and kalām studies by offering a case study of the qirāʼāt–theology nexus and proposes that a systematic re-reading of Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb along these lines may recover an underexplored dimension of al-Rāzī’s exegetical method.