Lahore University of Management Sciences

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SS 101 Islamic Studies

Mid-term Exams Fall 2021
(2 November 2021)

(Time: Two hours; Marks: 80) Instructor: Asif Iftikhar

PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!

(THIS EXAM IS OPEN BOOK/OPEN NOTES; ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE
ALLOWED; THE EXAM HAS TWO PARTS: PART I & PART II)

PART I

Please write short notes on ANY TEN (10) of the following (two marks for each part;
suggested time: three minutes for each note)

1. Ibn Ishāq (d. 761)

2. al-Zamakhsharī (d. 1143)
3. Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 923)
4. Mawḍū‘(khabar)
5. Gharīb (kahbar)
6. Istiḥsān
7. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1210)
8. Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111)
9. Muḥammad Amīn Astarabādī (d. 1626)
10. Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064)
11. Ibn Ṣalāḥ (d. 1245)
12. Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d.1071)
13. Ḥasan (khabar)
14. Bahā’ al-Dīn al-‘Āmilī (d. 1621)
15. Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī (d. 1449)

PART II

Please respond to ANY TWO (2); respond to all sub-parts (marked a) b), c), etc)
within the chosen question/requirement. You will not be marked for sub-parts of an
additional response.

1. Give a brief response to each of the following five [5] parts. (Six [6] marks for
each part; suggested time: 45 minutes for the entire section).

a) Briefly explain two major views on definition of khabar mutawātir in

Muslim scholarship.
SS 101 Islamic Studies, LUMS Mid-term Exams Fall 2021
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b) Briefly explain the major difference between khabar wāḥid and khabar
mutawātir
c) Is pure qiyās the only form of legal reasoning acceptable to Muslim jurists?
If not, why? Would considering inebriety through wine as ratio legis for
prohibition of beer be a form of pure qiyās? Why or why not?
d) What are key features of a khabar termed as Ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihī?
e) What are the key features of a khabar termed as Gharīb? Could a Ṣaḥīḥ be
Gharīb as well? If yes, how?

2. Please write short notes on each of the following five parts. (Six [6] marks for
each part; suggested time: 45 minutes for entire question):

a) What was the mission of Cluniac scholarship of the 12th Century as Peter the
Venerable (c. 1094-1156) made clear to leaders of the First Crusade?
b) What was the “Apology of al-Kindī” about and why did it gain circulation and
popularity among Christian scholars in the Middle ages?
c) How did Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) present the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬in his The Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire?
d) According to Edward Said (d. 2003) in his work Orientalism (1978, 1994), how did
European, and later American, scholars and artists represent the “Orient”?
e) Give two main reasons that Shiblī Nu‘mānī (d. 1914) had to write his Sīrat al-Nabī?

3. Give a brief response to each of the following parts. (6 marks for each part;
suggested time: 45 minutes for entire question)

a) Give two examples of juristic type of tafsīr? Do typologies in exegeses have strict
boundaries? Why or why not?
b) Which two sources other the Qur’ān itself does Mustansir Mir mention to develop a
required level of appreciation of its Arabic and why does he mention them?
c) Which historical construction does Mir adduce for his thesis that specific
prescriptive material forms only a small part of the Qur’ān?
d) What is John Burton’s argument for the veracity of Uthmānic codex of the Qur’ān?
e) Briefly comment on Ibn Taymīyah’s (d.1328 CE) approach to Tafsīr?