Scholarly authority and the reception of a “well-known problem” of Quranic philology

Abstract This study shows how authority can affect the reception of texts and ideas in Islamic history by tracing responses Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ṣafaḍī (d. 764/1363) received to a letter he had sent his contemporaries about a philological problem in the Quran. The response of the most well-regarded scholar, Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 756/1355), gained renown, despite later scholars often disagreeing with its content. Al-Subkī’s answer went through a process of canonization: it was promoted by various scholars and in diverse genres of literature, alongside the concomitant sidelining of the contributions of other, lesser-known, correspondents, despite the recognized merit of their responses. The attention paid to al-Subkī’s answer is also contrasted with the lack of attention paid to exchanges al-Ṣafaḍī had with other scholars on similar philological problems. This study shows how al-Subkī came to be associated with a “well-known problem” to demonstrate how scholarly authority can shape the transmission of the past.