A Critical Review of the Interpretive Rules in Ibn ‘Uthaymīn’s Interpretive Method

Ibn ‘Uthaymīn is a prominent Wahhabi interpreter and a student of bin Nāṣir al-Sa‘adī and bin Bāz, whose exegetical writings, entitled “Al-Kanz al-Thamīn fī Tafsīr Ibn-i ‘Uthaymīn,” have been published in fourteen volumes. He has a high standing among the contemporary Wahhabi interpreters because of his interpretation on most of the works of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim and he is at the forefront of the Saudi exegetical movement. His exegesis is organized on the basis of some foundations, principles, and rules. The main purpose of this article is to criticize Ibn ‘Uthaymīn's interpretive rules. Seven rules were obtained from searching into Ibn ‘Uthaymīn's works on interpretation studies and interpretive views. The resultant of the criticisms indicates the impact of his formalistic perspective, the denial of allegory in the semantic rules of interpretation, a linear view instead of a relational view on the interpretive rules, simplistic view and simplification of the interpretive rules, and most importantly, the limitations of his interpretive rules.