A critique and Analysis of Criterion of Ignorance Poetry in Tafsir

Quran's Tafsir has been regarded be of utmost importance among numerous fields of Islamic studies, as the subject of this field is Quran, which all other fields of Islamic studies such as Fiqh, Hadith, and ethics rely on. Islamic scholars have long used the "Reference Literature" or the Ancient poems of Arabs to interpret the words and verses of Quran and any interpretation of Quran's statements have been benchmarked against this literature. A group of scholars, however, disagree with this approach and believe that the Ancient poems do not merit such attention. In this paper, we first study the roots and causes of this tendency among Tafsir scholar and then examine the two competing views - one relying on Ancient poems and the other dismissing it as a reliable source of interpretation for Quran. We then provide an analysis which can serve as a first step in deciphering the pros and cons of each approach.