Origin
Modern scholarship has long posited an origin for the sabab al-nuzūl based largely on its function within exegesis. Watt, for example, stressed the narratological significance of these types of reports: "The Quranic allusions had to be elaborated into complete stories and the background filled in if the main ideas were to be impressed on the minds of simple men.". Wansbrough, on the other hand, noted their juridical function, particularly with regard to establishing a chronology of revelation for the purposes of such mechanisms as naskh. Rippin in turn rejected this, arguing that the sabab's primary function is in haggadic/qissaic exegesis, and that this in turn hints at its origin:
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The primary (i.e., predominant) function of the sabab in the exegetical texts is not halakhic ... the essential role of the material is in haggadic exegesis... I would tentatively trace the origins of this material to the context of the qussās, the wandering story-tellers, and pious preachers and to a basically popular religious worship situation where such stories would prove both enjoyable and edifying. |
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One thing common to all these theories is the assumption that the sabab is built around the Qur'ānic verse(s) embedded in it. In his extensive survey of early Muslim traditions regarding Muhammad, Rubin upends this consensus (while preserving Rippin's speculation about the ultimately qassaic/story-teller origins of these reports) by arguing that most asbāb originally started as prophetic biographical material into which Qur'anic verses were only later inserted:
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To begin with, one should bear in mind that although the traditions known as asbāb al-nuzūl occur in the collections of tafsīr- for example, al-Tabarī's- their birthplace is in the sīra, where they do not yet function as asbāb. These traditions only became asbāb when the Quran exegetes gleaned them from the sīra and recorded them in the tafsīr of the Quran. Within the realm of the sīra, these traditions are still without an exegetic function, because none of them is built around the Quranic verses which occur in it... The basic narrative framework is always independent of Quranic verses and ideas; the Quranic data seem to have been incorporated into the sīra story secondarily, for the sake of embellishment and authorization. In other words, no process of spinning a narrative around a Quranic verse seems to have taken place... Quranic materials only began to be applied to the non-Quranic basic narrative framework when the sacred scripture became a standard source of guidance. At this stage, the story-tellers could promote the Islamic status of their traditions (originally suspect of biblical influence) by extending to them the divine authority of the Quran. This was achieved by dragging various passages from the scriptures into the narrative. The same Quranic extract could actually be installed in different scenes of Muhammad's life... Some of the asbāb, but not necessarily all of them, were later gleaned from the sīra and later incorporated into the specialized tafsīr and asbāb al-nuzūl compilations. |
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Rubin bases this conclusion partly upon the very stereotyped way in which "linking words" are used to introduce Qur'anic verse into a report. Mostly, though, he relies upon the existence of multiple, parallel non-Qur'anic forms of the narrative for most asbāb. Assuming that a report's link to scripture would not be removed once established, the non-Qur'anic (and thus non-exegetic) version of the report is in fact the original one. Rippin takes issue with this last assumption, though, arguing that the evidence does not preclude the creation of parallel sīra narratives even after the circulation of a supposedly "authoritative" Qur'anic one.
Read more about this topic: Asbab Al-nuzul
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