Exordium to Coherence in the Qur’ān
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The Holy Qur’ān shapes and governs all aspects of the life of the Muslim community - individual and collective, religious and social, political and financial, legal and moral, national and international. It gives meaning to their lives. In Muslim perception, those who dedicate their life to understanding the Qur’ān and explaining it to others earn great respect in this world and everlasting reward in the Afterlife. It raises their religious as well as social status in the Muslim ummah. The Book has therefore attracted the best minds over the last fourteen centuries, who immersed themselves in deciphering its text, deriving legal commands from it, highlighting its social implications, ...
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Translator’s Introduction
The Holy Qur’ān shapes and governs all aspects of the life of the Muslim community - individual and collective, religious and social, political and financial, legal and moral, national and international. It gives meaning to their lives. In Muslim perception, those who dedicate their life to understanding the Qur’ān -
Preface
In the present work, I have, with the help of God and His blessings, tried to uncover the naẓm[1] (coherence) in the Holy Qur’ān. I intend to write a simple and self explanatory commentary on the divine book free from the differences that have arisen among the Muslims after the Holy Prophet (sws). I have sought to cla -
Occasion of Revelation
It is commonly held that the shān-i nuzūl (occasion of revelation) is narration of a particular incident or incidents, which spurred the revelation of a verse or a set of verses. I am afraid this is not correct. The shān-i nuzūl of a revelation, in fact, refers to the circumstances encompassing the addressees of the Holy Qur -
Historical Resources of Interpretation
There are two types of historical resources of interpretation, (a) foundational and absolutely authentic and (b) secondary and supportive. The Holy Qur’ān, alone is the basic and foundational resource while the sound aḥādīth (the prophetic traditions), established historical facts and the Scriptures of the earlier n -
Linguistic Resources of Interpretation
Not only did the Almighty guarantee protection and security of the Qur’ān from being lost, He also promised to explain it. Both of these facts have been mentioned in the following verses respectively: إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِ -
Divine Books explain one another
This discussion is confined to the issues of styles of expression and the language of the divine books. The divine laws and rulings and the historical narratives and their use and purpose will be taken up in a separate section. It is known that teachings of Jesus Christ, though recorded in Greek, were originally delivered in H -
Univocity of the Qur’ānic Text
The Holy Qur’ān makes the intended meanings of its text absolutely clear. Every single verse gives a single definitive message. It is only the lack of research and study of a verse on the part of the exegetes that makes it seem subject to various interpretations. The commentators who have ascribed multiple interpretatio -
Correspondence and Sequence
A military commander arranges his army in various orders that reflect wisdom. However, only the expert in the field can understand the strategic wisdom involved in such an ordering. Commoners can only get to know the use of such meaningful ordering when the army set thus eventually emerges successful in a battle. Similarly, th -
Sūrah as a Unit
By this discussion I aim to establish that each sūrah is a well-structured unit. It is only lack of consideration and analysis on our part that the sūrahs seem disjointed and incoherent. Every student of the Holy Qur’ān can notice that the Book contains short as well as long sūrahs. Each sūrah imparts a specific mes -
The Holy Qur’ān and the Previous Scriptures on the Divine Commands and Historical Narratives
A traveler does not need to turn to stars for direction in broad daylight. Similarly after the revelation of the Holy Qur’ān Muslims abandoned seeking guidance from the earlier Scriptures for these mix truth with falsehood. However, the Scriptures equal the Holy Qur’ān, in that the latter is one of God’s re -
Length of Sūrahs
In one of the discussions above, I have mentioned that the shorter sūrahs of the Holy Qur’ān peer the longer ones in their grandeur, wisdom and beautiful structure. This brief point requires elaboration which is offered here. Some of the earlier scholars of the ummah have maintained that some of the shorter sūrahs e -
Fundamental Teachings of the Qur’ān
The Qur’ānic teachings can be divided into two major categories, beliefs and practices. Practices are further divided in three sub-categories: personal, familial and social. Similarly the beliefs can also be divided in three sub-categories: unicity of God, prophethood and accountability in the afterlife along with t -
Ma‘rūf and Munkar: Good and Evil
The Qur’ānic term ma‘rūf refers to what was welcomed as virtuous by the Arabs of the time of the Prophet (sws) and its opposite munkar signifies what they detested as evil. The Arabs of pre-Islamic age were not animals living in a jungle destitute of any sense of good and evil. Their literature outshines the litera -
Naẓm Adds to Meaning of the Text
Arrangement of a discourse creates specific meaning which is over and above the sum total of the whole. If we disregard the arrangement of the text we can never reach to the intended conclusions. For example we see that AbūBakr Siddīq, when he faced the crucial question of dealing with those who had refused to pay the zakāh -
Structure of the Qur’ān
Division of the Qur’ān in rukū‘ and thirty parts is an innovation. A little deliberation shows that the basic purpose of the rukū‘ division is to mark a thematic shift. Those who marked the rukū‘s have indeed intended to highlight the thematic shifts in the text and have tried to mark such thematic -
Names of the Sūrahs and their Central Themes
Though sometimes names reflect the meaning of things they symbolize yet many names do not even give a slightest hint to that effect. Four factors seem to have been considered in naming the sūrahs of the Holy Qur’ān. 1. Some of the sūrahs have been named using incipits. Imām Suyūṭī has recorded that following s -
Determining the Addressees and the Addressors
Muslims unanimously hold that the Holy Qur’ān is the word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (sws). This, however, does not mean that all that has been discussed in the Book has been addressed by God alone. For example, the verse “You alone we worship; You alone we ask for help” (1:4) issues from a beli -
Mode of Revelation
The Holy Qur’ān itself testifies that it was not revealed in a single instance and that it came down piecemeal. وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَوْلَا نُزِّلَ عَلَيْهِ الْقُرْآنُ جُمْلَةً وَاحِدَةً كَذَلِكَ لِنُثَبِّتَ ب -
Interpreting the Qur’ān in the Light of Ḥadīth
In one of the discussions above I have written that in case the Qur’ān and the Ḥadīth contradict each other the Book of God will be regarded as the final judge and the criterion. Now I intend to explain this point in detail. I have been hesitant to write on this issue for fear of attacks from some of my coreligionist
