Holding The Quran Beheld in Balance
Four Reviews
Introduction • Inspired or Revealed?
• Themes of the suras • Shorter Suras
| Review article: Gibril Fouad Haddad. The Lights of Revelation & the Secrets of Interpretation: Ḥizb 1 of the Commentary on the Qur’ān by al-Bayḍāwī. Arabic edition & English translation with introduction & notes. |
The Lights of Revelation and the Secrets of Interpretation is a 5-in-1 work, presenting a critical edition of ḥizb 1 of al-Bayḍāwī’s Anwār al-Tanzīl wa Asrār al-Ta’wīl, its English translation, English translation of selected comments from one dozen ḥāshiyahs on al-Bayḍawī’s tafsīr, notes and commentary on Anwār and quoted passages from its ḥāshiyahs, and the English rendering of the Qur’ānic verses comprising the first ḥizb (Q. 1, Q. 2:1-74). In addition, Gibril Fouad Haddad provides an Introduction, which places al-Bayḍāwī and his tafsīr in the larger historical and scholarly context, an Arabic-English glossary of technical terms, and a glossary of persons and sects cited by al-Bayḍāwī…
Read the full review (Islamic Studies 62:1 (2023) pp. 143–152…
| Western Academia and the Qur’an: Some Enduring Prejudices | The Qur’an, Orientalism, and the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an | Who Speaks for Whom: Authority, Tradition, and Encyclopedias of Islam |
The Descent of the Qur’an
Two augmented verbal forms of the trilateral root n-z-l are used in the Qurʾān to refer to its own descent, in both spatial and temporal sense…
The Qur’ān and its Disbelievers
According to the majority Muslim opinion, the first revelation of the Qur’ān occurred when the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, was in retreat at the cave of Hirā, some fifteen kilometers from the Kaba, the ancient House of God, built by the Prophets Ibrahim and his son Ismail, upon them peace, approximately twenty five hundred years prior to this event; the last verses of the Qur’ān were revealed in 632, just a few days before the death of the Prophet in Madina, the oasis town to which he had migrated in 622.
Education from the Qurʾānic Worldview
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (543–606/1148–1209) observed in his voluminous exegesis Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (“Keys of the Unseen”) that the Qurʾān has three axial themes: the Unicity of Allah Most High (tawḥīd), Messengership and Prophethood (risāla, nubuwwa), and Resurrection (maʿād) (Tafsīr, sub Q 2:21–22). All other themes emerge from these and can be subsumed under them. All three are constantly present throughout the Qurʾān and are specifically mentioned in numerous verses…